by Len Levinson
He saw the five officers standing around him, gazing at him with intense disapproval. One of the officers had the insignia of a bird colonel on his lapel. Butsko blinked, because he was sure it was all a bad dream. He pinched himself to make sure that he was dreaming, but something told him this was no dream. It was a full-fledged nightmare.
“On your feet!” the colonel said.
Butsko tried to raise his head, but it felt like lead. His stomach writhed like ten angry snakes. He told his feet to move to the floor but they wouldn’t budge.
“I’m sick,” Butsko moaned. “I’ve got to go on sick call.”
At that moment a head appeared underneath the bunk. It was the head of Pfc. Shaw, the former heavyweight prizefighter. He had a black eye and his features were puffy.
“Where am I?” he asked.
The colonel cleared his throat and looked at his junior officers. They didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Nothing like this ever happened to them before.
The colonel returned his gaze to Butsko. “I think you’d better sit up,” he said.
“I can’t,” Butsko said.
“Can you hear me?” the colonel asked.
“Just barely,” Butsko replied.
“How’d you like to go to the stockade this afternoon?”
“I wouldn’t like that very much.”
“Then you’d better get on your goddamned feet!” The colonel kicked Shaw in the shoulder. “You too!”
Butsko groaned as he swung his feet around to the floor, stepping on Shaw’s hand, but Shaw was so numb he didn’t even feel it. Butsko stood up and wavered from side to side. Then he fell back onto the bed again. Shaw crawled out from underneath the bed and tried to stand, but he collapsed on top of Butsko, who rolled over, causing Shaw to fall to the floor.
A tousled blond head appeared underneath the bunk. “Where am I?” it asked in a female tone of voice.
The colonel raised his eyebrows. Bobbie looked up at him. “Is this the Royal Hawaiian Hotel?”
“No,” replied the colonel.
“I knew these two bums wouldn’t take me to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. I knew they was too cheap. What hotel is this?”
“This isn’t any hotel,” the colonel said. “This is an Army post.”
“An Army post!”
“Yes ma’am. Are you dressed?”
There was a pause. “Nearly.”
“I think you’d better come out from underneath there.”
“I can’t.”
“Would you like some help?”
“I think so.”
The colonel looked at a young lieutenant. The young lieutenant bent over and grabbed Bobbie’s arm.
“Easy now,” she said. “I’ve had a rough night.”
The lieutenant pulled her from underneath the bed. She got to her hands and knees and shook her head. Her skirt was on backwards and the front of her blouse was unbuttoned. One of her shoes was missing. “Oh!” she said when she realized her blouse was unbuttoned. “Could you guys look the other way for a minute?”
The officers turned around. Bobbie raised herself up and buttoned her blouse. She straightened her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair. Shaw pushed himself up from the floor and glared through bloodshot eyes at the backs of the officers. He wondered if maybe he should jump out the window and run for it.
“Okay,” Bobbie said.
The officers turned around. Butsko tried to get up from the bed and succeeded in attaining a sitting position.
“Could one of you guys call me a cab?” Bobbie asked.
The colonel turned to the young lieutenant once more. “See that the young lady gets transportation to wherever she’s going.”
“Yes sir.”
“And don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”
“Yes sir. I mean no sir. I mean yes sir.” The young lieutenant’s eyes crossed because he didn’t know what he meant.
“Move,” said the colonel, impatience and barely concealed rage in his voice.
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant looked at Bobbie. “This way ma’am.”
Bobbie bent over, reached underneath the bunk, and pulled out her purse. She waved good-bye to Butsko and Shaw.
“So long fellers,” she said. “It’s been fun.”
Shaw grunted. Butsko burped. The lieutenant and Bobbie left the room, closing the door behind them.
“I think,” said the colonel, “that both of these birds ought to go into the stockade.”
“But sir,” said a major, “Sergeant Butsko has won the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“Not yet he hasn’t,” the colonel said darkly. “We can give the goddamned thing to somebody else.”
Shaw managed to get to his feet. He held out his hand and staggered toward the colonel. “It’s all my fault, sir. Blame it all on me, but don’t take Sergeant Butsko’s medal away!”
Butsko’s ass was on the bed and his feet were on the floor. He raised himself, lost his balance, and fell against the wall, sliding down it, sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out.
“I don’t give a fuck,” Butsko said. “Shove the medal up your ass.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows.
Shaw stumbled from side to side at the foot of the bed. He held up his left hand and then his right hand.
“You got to make allowances, sir,” he said. “Butsko went home to see his wife and she was gone. Sold the goddamn house and disappeared. Old Butsko couldn’t handle it. He went psycho. It’s not his fault.”
The colonel turned to Butsko. “You’re a disgrace to your uniform.”
Butsko snorted, blowing snot all over his shirt. “Yesterday somebody told me I was a hero. Now I’m a disgrace to my uniform. What am I gonna be tomorrow?”
“In the stockade,” the colonel said.
“Now sir,” said the major, “if this ever gets out to the papers—”
The colonel interrupted him. “It isn’t going to get out to the papers.”
“You can’t keep a thing like this quiet, sir. When Sergeant Butsko’s commanding officer finds out, there’ll be a helluva scandal. He’ll want to know why Sergeant Butsko is in the stockade instead of the White House, getting his decoration.”
The colonel rubbed his fingers against his chin. He was a disciplinarian from the old school, but he knew that Butsko’s division commander was a general, and a general wore more brass on his lapel than a mere bird colonel.
“You’re right,” the colonel said. “The man’s a hero even though he’s also a drunk and a bum and a discredit to his uniform. It wouldn’t be right for us to take his medal away from him. All we can do is keep him here under guard until it’s time for him to leave for the States.” He pointed to the major. “I want you to insure that this doesn’t happen again. He’s your responsibility from now on. Call the provost marshal and see that he puts Sergeant Butsko under a twenty-four-hour guard.”
The major looked at Shaw, who clawed the wall in an effort to prevent himself from falling down again. “What should I do about him?” the major asked.
“I don’t care. Just get him the hell out of the BOQ. Any questions?”
“No sir.”
“Carry on.”
The colonel slapped his swagger stick against the side of his leg and marched out of the room. The major looked at the two officers, one a captain and the other a lieutenant. Then he fixed his gaze on Butsko sitting on the floor, a silly grin on his face.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get court-martialed,” the major said to Butsko.
“I need a drink,” Butsko said.
“No more drinking for you,” the major replied. “You’ve got to dry out and clean up.”
“Fuck that.”
The major turned to the lieutenant. “Go downstairs and call the provost marshal. Tell him to send two guards over here immediately.”
“Yes sir.”
The lieutenant dashed out of the room. Shaw lost his balance and fell to his knees on
the floor. Butsko made a horrendous sound and puked all over himself.
The major frowned and turned to the captain. “They just don’t make heroes the way they used to,” he said.
TEN . . .
It was the evening of July 18, 1944. The recon platoon was digging in and preparing new fortifications near the Afua-Palauru trail approximately six hundred yards west of the Driniumor River.
This activity was part of General Hawkins’s redeployment of his division. He couldn’t retreat and shorten his lines, so his only alternative was to bend his right flank around, presenting a solid wall to the Japs if they tried to hit the division in flank.
The soldiers had been working for two days, and they still weren’t finished. They dug holes and chopped down trees, laid concertina wire and built bunkers. It was heavy-duty construction work and they didn’t have heavy equipment to help them out.
Victor Yabalonka held a pickax in his hands, and he raised it over his head as he steadied his feet on the ground. He swung it down with all his strength, and the blade of the pickax buried itself into the ground. He worked the pickax from side to side, loosening the earth, and then pulled it out of the ground, poising it over his head for another blow.
Nearby, the Reverend Billie Jones shoveled away the dirt Yabalonka had loosened. He was stripped to the waist and sweat glistened on his tanned skin. An o.d. green handkerchief was tied around his head to prevent drops of sweat from getting into his eyes.
The sun was a molten ball sinking toward the treetops. Bannon swung a big broadax at a tree, whacking off chunks of wood. He swung again and the ax drove halfway into the tree, which would be sawed into logs for a machine-gun bunker. Frankie La Barbara and Private Worthington carried out a log that had been trimmed by Private Donahue and Private Wyatt. It was a thick heavy log and they staggered underneath its weight. Frankie tripped on a vine but caught himself in time and walked like Groucho Marx the rest of the way to the machine-gun nest.
“Ready?” asked Frankie.
“Ready,” said Worthington.
They let the log roll off their shoulders, and it crashed to the ground beside a .30-caliber air-cooled machine gun. Another crew already had built walls around the machine gun, and now the roof was being constructed. It would consist of logs covered by layers of rocks and sandbags.
The sound of axes and shovels resounded throughout the jungle, covering the sounds of Japanese soldiers moving into the area. The Japanese soldiers crawled through bushes and crept over puddles, winking to each other, because they knew they’d be taking the Americans by surprise.
The Americans had no idea that Japanese troops were drawing closer to them. They never dreamed the Japanese would attack without an artillery bombardment. They dug holes and chopped down trees, thinking they were safe.
McGurk worked with a small hatchet, trimming branches off fallen trees. He was happy because this reminded him of his lumberjack work in the state of Maine, except that in Maine they had horses to haul the logs out of the forest.
McGurk chopped off a branch, and then stopped suddenly. He thought he heard something in the jungle ahead of him, but then shrugged and went back to work. It must’ve been the echo of work being done by the recon platoon, he figured.
Lieutenant Breckenridge walked by, smoking a cigarette. He glanced at his watch and it was six o’clock in the evening. He thought he’d let the men work for another fifteen minutes and then break for chow.
He blew smoke out the side of his mouth and looked around his platoon area. So much work had to be done. He didn’t want to spend the night without being completely dug in, and decided to double the guard in case the Japs tried to infiltrate his position after the sun went down.
Bannon swung his big broadax at the tree, and it connected with a thwack that he could feel all the way down to his toes. The axe sliced through the last remaining fibers of the tree, and he looked up, seeing it topple to the side.
“Timberrrrr!” he yelled.
The tree smashed past the leaves and branches of other trees as it fell to the ground. Soldiers scattered out of the way and the tree hit the ground with a mighty bang. It shook and wiggled for a few moments, then lay still.
McGurk jumped on top of it and knocked off a branch with his hatchet. He turned to his other side and cut off another branch. A drop of sweat crept into his eye, making it smart, and he paused to rub it with the back of his hand.
The burning sensation went away. McGurk planted his feet for another swing at a branch, when he saw something move in the jungle ahead of him. He narrowed his eyes and bent forward, trying to get a clearer look, when soldiers leapt out of the foliage.
“Banzai!” they shouted. “Banzai!”
The Japanese soldiers charged through the jungle and the American soldiers were horrified. The GIs froze up for a few moments; the Japanese soldiers were only twenty yards away. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers stampeded through the jungle, brandishing rifles, bayonets, samurai swords, and pistols. General Yokozowa’s flank attack was underway!
A rifle was fired, and the bullet passed so close to McGurk’s cheek he could feel its heat. McGurk looked around for his Thompson submachine gun, but didn’t have time to go for it. The Japs already were on top of him. He reared back his hatchet and snarled.
The Japanese soldiers rushed toward him and he swung the hatchet. Its blade struck the top of a Japanese rifle, knocking it down, and McGurk elbowed the Japanese soldier in the face. He kicked the next Japanese soldier in the balls and then swung the hatchet again, connecting with the top of a Japanese soldier’s head. The head split apart, blood and brains spattering McGurk, who took a step forward and swung the hatchet from the side. The blade struck a Japanese soldier on his bicep, cracking the bone underneath, and the Japanese soldier howled like a banshee, dropping his rifle and bayonet.
McGurk bent down to pick it up, and a Japanese rifle butt hit him on the back of his head. He was dazed and fell to his hands and knees on the ground, shaking his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs. A Japanese soldier behind him poised his rifle for a harpoon job, and McGurk spun out in the nick of time. The Japanese soldier’s rifle and bayonet rammed into the ground and McGurk jumped to his feet. He kicked the Japanese soldier in the face, flattening his nose, and snatched the rifle and bayonet out of the Japanese soldier’s hands.
The Japanese soldier fell to the ground and McGurk jumped over him, slamming the butt of the rifle against the jaw of another Japanese soldier. The blow knocked the Japanese soldier’s jaw loose and he spun through the air, colliding with another Japanese soldier. Both of them fell to the ground and McGurk stomped on the face of the first Japanese soldier, then stuck his bayonet into the stomach of the next one. Blood oozed out around the bayonet, and McGurk pulled back, disengaging from the Japanese soldier’s stomach.
The sun sank behind the trees and cast long shadows over the jungle. American and Japanese soldiers were locked nose to nose in close combat, grunting and hollaring, trying to kill each other. Bullets were fired and samurai swords clashed against rifle stocks. The GIs had been caught offguard and fought with whatever they had in their hands.
Frankie La Barbara didn’t have anything in his hands. He and Private Worthington were carrying a big log on their shoulders when the Japanese soldiers attacked, and they pushed it away, letting it fall to the ground.
Japanese soldiers swarmed all over them. Frankie saw a Japanese officer carrying a samurai sword running toward him, and Frankie glanced around frantically for a weapon of some kind—it could be anything—but he couldn’t find one.
“Banzai!” shrieked the Japanese officer, swinging down with the samurai sword.
Frankie danced out of the way, and the blade of the sword whistled past his shoulder. The officer swung from the side and Frankie dropped to his belly on the ground. The sword sliced the air where his waist had been. Frankie lurched forward and tackled the Japanese officer, hugging the Japanese officer’s calves and twisting to the side. The
Japanese officer lost his balance and toppled to the jungle floor. Frankie leaped up and grabbed the officer around the neck with both his hands. The officer dug his fingernails deeply into Frankie’s wrists, and Frankie screamed, letting go of the officer’s throat.
The officer bucked Frankie off him and jumped to his feet. Frankie sprang up also and saw the Japanese officer bending over to pick up his samurai sword. Frankie rushed toward him and knocked him in the face. The blow straightened up the Japanese officer and sent him reeling backwards. He fell on his ass and Frankie snatched the samurai sword off the ground. He took it in both his hands and raised it in the air, charging toward the Japanese officer.
A Japanese rifle fired nearby, and Frankie’s hands went numb. He looked up and saw the blade of the samurai sword shattered by the wild shot. All he had left was the handle and a few inches of jagged steel. The Japanese officer jumped up off the ground and charged Frankie La Barbara, who threw an uppercut with his sword hand. The Japanese officer was stunned, but managed to wrap his arms around Frankie’s back. Frankie jabbed the broken sword into the Japanese officer’s stomach.
The Japanese officer loosened his grip around Frankie’s back as his blood flowed out onto Frankie’s hand. Frankie pulled the broken sword back and twisted away from the Japanese officer’s grasp. The Japanese officer collapsed onto the ground.
Frankie looked up and saw six Japanese soldiers running toward him. He turned around and ran like a son of a bitch. He heard rifle shots and bullets whistling over his head. Before him was the half-built machine-gun nest with the .30-caliber machine gun inside. Frankie vaulted over one of the sandbag walls and landed behind the machine gun. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the grips, and saw to his horrible dismay that the gun wasn’t even loaded.
The Japanese soldiers charged him. He huddled behind the gun and pulled the bolt, making believe he was loading it, hoping to fake them out, and it worked! They all dropped onto their stomachs and Frankie turned away from the gun, leaping over the rear wall of the machine-gun nest, and running like a maniac.
