Hit the Beach

by Len Levinson

  Butsko led them toward the American fortifications. It had been prearranged for them to return to this particular point in the line, and the sentries were supposed to be expecting them, but Butsko never took anything for granted. He crouched low and bent his knees as he moved closer to the fortifications.

  Halfway across the field, he heard a faint whistle sound above him. He froze, then yelled, "Hit it!”

  Bannon heard the whistle, too, and was already on his way down before Butsko spit the words out of his mouth. Bannon landed in the mud and tucked his arms underneath him, waiting for the shell to hit.

  A dozen of the mammoth shells landed all at once, and Bannon thought it was the end of the world. The ground heaved and churned, and a huge section of the American line was blown into the air. The sound was louder than any sound Bannon had heard in his life, and he felt as if it were crushing his brain. Shrapnel, rocks, and mud flew over his head and sliced into the trees in the jungle. The screams of men were drowned out by the landing of more shells and then more. After a few minutes of incessant shelling, Bannon thought he was losing his mind. Never in his life could he imagine such horror. The night was filled with cataclysmic roaring explosions and the whistle of incoming shells. Somewhere in the distance a gasoline dump was hit, and a huge blossom of orange flame rose into the sky. The shelling was so intense, Bannon thought for sure that he was going to die.

  A shell landed nearby in the free-fire zone, and it was so loud and convulsive that Bannon thought he had been killed. The explosion deafened him temporarily, and the flash blinded him. The ground heaved so wildly that he was thrown onto his back, and huge clods of mud fell on his face and body. His face was wet and he thought he was bleeding. Another shell landed even closer, and his teeth chattered so badly that he couldn't stop them. Why did I join this fucking Army? he asked himself. Why didn't I run for the hills and hide? Even jail would be better than this.

  Men howled in pain and officers barked orders. Hellfire and brimstone rained down from the heavens, flattening buildings and blowing huge artillery emplacements into the air. It was as if the world were being torn apart. The sheer violence and destruction was almost beyond Bannon's comprehension. More shells exploded in the free-fire zone, and the shrapnel whizzed by just a few inches above Bannon's head. I'm completely exposed out here, he thought, trying to batter down his mounting panic. I've got to find some cover.

  He tried to think but couldn't. The savage explosions truncated his thoughts and made his brain feel as if it were bouncing around inside his skull. He was certain he'd be deaf for the rest of his life if he survived this bombardment. The world was on fire and night became day. He clawed at the ground, trying to hide. He shrieked at the heavens; the noise and havoc had pushed him to the point of madness.

  Then suddenly he had a clear vision of a hole in the ground. He realized that the shells were making deep holes in the ground, and maybe he should jump into the nearest one. He raised his head from the mud, and his eyeballs were seared by white-hot explosions in the distance. He saw the tops of coconut palms crashing to the ground and men with their arms and legs outstretched being blown into the air.

  He saw a hole about twenty yards away. It still was smoking and was surrounded by piles of earth. Can I make it? Bannon wondered. I'll have to try. Cradling his carbine in his hands, he crawled toward the big hole as vast numbers of artillery shells smashed incessantly on the American positions. Rats squeaked wildly and ran about in a panic, their homes having been unearthed. One of them ran over Bannon, but he had more important things to worry about. He oozed along the ground like a giant snake, his nose dragging in the mud. At any moment he expected one of those huge shells to land on his back and blow him to Kingdom Come. There wouldn't be enough of him left afterward to put inside an ice-cream cone.

  The ground shuddered underneath him, and columns of fire shot into the sky. His ears arched fiercely, and he was certain his eardrums had been broken. His head was numb, and his hands trembled uncontrollably. Finally he came to the edge of the hole. He pushed the mounds of earth out of his way and dug his fingernails into the walls of the hole. He looked down and saw Sergeant Butsko sitting in the bottom of the hole, leisurely smoking a cigarette.

  “Come on down!” said Butsko. “There's plenty of room.”

  Bannon slid down the muddy wall of the hole and landed at Butsko's feet. He raised himself up and stared in amazement at Butsko, who appeared calm and comfortable, as if he were sitting in the mess hall, having a cigarette after dinner. The hole was six feet deep and six feet wide at the top. If a shell landed inside the hole, it would be all over for him and Butsko. Bannon looked up at the mouth of the hole.

  “I know what you're thinking,” Butsko said. “But the odds are against a shell landing in here with us. And if one does, you won't know about it anyway. They say you never hear the one that lands on you.”

  Bannon felt dizzy and sick. He sat on the soggy mud and tried to rub some feeling into his hands. Butsko's voice had sounded as though it came through a brick wall.

  Butsko held out his pack of Lucky Strikes. “Cigarette?”

  “I got my own,” Bannon replied in a voice that sounded like it belonged to somebody else. He took out his pack of Chesterfields and lit one with his trusty Zippo. He inhaled the smoke into his lungs and it revived him a little. “Do my ears look like they're bleeding, Sarge?”

  “Nan, but you look like you're scared shitless.” Butsko laughed.

  Bannon realized he'd never seen Butsko in such a good mood. All Butsko's cruelty and brutality had vanished, and he appeared to be having fun. A vague smile was on Butsko's face as he looked up at the sky rent with explosions and flame.

  “I love war!” Butsko said. He raised his arms as if in supplication. “War makes everything else look like nothing! It makes you see things like you never seen them before! It separates the men from the boys!”

  Bannon looked at Butsko and realized that he didn't have all his marbles. Butsko's eyes glittered with excitement as he watched the flashes and heard the explosions.

  Butsko laughed. “You should see yourself, cowboy. You look white as a glass of milk. Don't be scared. Everybody dies sooner or later, but wouldn't it be better to die in a big wild explosion than to keel over in the toilet someday?”

  “I'm too young to die,” Bannon replied.

  “No, you're not,” Butsko said. “I've seen men younger than you die. Even babies die sometimes. Nobody's too young to die, Bannon. Nobody.”

  “I don't want to die.”

  “Neither do I, but if it comes, it comes. What the fuck, huh?”

  Bannon shrugged and puffed his cigarette. He looked at his watch and figured that the bombardment had been going on for about a half hour. It couldn't last much longer.

  Butsko laughed again, leaned forward, and slapped Bannon on the shoulder. “You know something, cowboy? I don't think you like this war.”

  “I sure as fuck don't.”

  “That's because you don't appreciate it. You don't realize that war brings out the best in men. I know you don't believe me, but it's true. Look at you. War has brought out the best in you. Before the war you were just a fucking cowboy, and now look at you: You're a soldier. You've just made corporal because you're such hot shit. And you're not afraid to kill, are you?”

  “I don't know,” Bannon said. He didn't like the way the conversation was going, and the ground was shaking as if an earthquake were taking place. Choruses of explosions rolled over the hole, and bits of dirt fell down the sides and rolled into the puddle at the bottom. “You see Frankie and Longtree up there?” he asked Butsko.

  “No. Longtree'll be all right, though. But I don't know about your friend. He's a fucking wise guy, and I don't like wise guys.”

  “He's not so bad,” Bannon replied.

  “He's not so good either.”

  “He's a fighting son of a bitch when his back is to the wall.”

  “Well, if he's in my platoon, his back
is gonna be steady to the wall, because I'm gonna be the wall. I'll make a soldier out of him yet.”

  “If he's still alive.”

  “If he's not, it won't be no big thing.”

  At the same moment they heard the whistle of an incoming shell.

  "Hit it!” Butsko screamed.

  They both dived into the bottom of the hole, crashing into each other's helmets. The whistle grew louder and Bannon's spine resonated with it. Then the monster shell slammed into the ground several yards from the hole and exploded violently. The shock waves caved in the walls of the hole and buried Bannon and Butsko alive. Screaming underneath the dirt, they clawed and kicked their way toward the surface of the ground, elbowing and kneeing each other unintentionally in their wild panic. They were strong men and they didn't have far to go. Bannon's head pushed through the dirt first, and the sky looked like an immense fireworks display. The universe was on fire, and light rippled across the horizon.

  A moment later Butsko's head appeared, snorting and coughing, his face caked with dirt and muck. Five yards away was the big hole that the shell had made. Bannon and Butsko worked their way loose from the dirt, crawled toward the hole, and tumbled into it.

  At the bottom they brushed off their uniforms and took out their cigarettes.

  “That one was a little too close for comfort,” Butsko said, and he wasn't smiling anymore.

  Bannon was amazed that his trusty old Zippo was still working even after what he'd just been through. “I thought you said you liked this shit, Sarge.”

  Butsko frowned. “Sometimes it can be a pain in the ass, just like anything else.”

  Less than twenty miles away, General Hyakutake stood with Colonel Tsuji on a hill near his field headquarters. They held binoculars to their eyes and watched the spectacular conflagration on the horizon. Behind them were aides and staff officers, also gazing with awe at the bombardment. The sky over the American lines was bright as day, pulsating with explosions. General Hyakutake estimated it was the most intense bombardment he'd ever seen in such a small concentrated area.

  He smiled, his face alight with the light of the bombardment. “Excellent,” he said. “Superior.”

  Colonel Hodaka led his regiment through the jungle toward the American positions aflame in the distance. He carried his samurai sword in his hand and waved it through the air every several paces, urging his men on. Soon the bombardment would stop and his attack would begin. Soon he'd have the honor of leading his regiment in the first assault against the Americans. American blood would drench his sword and his regimental flag would be raised victoriously over Guadalcanal.

  The regimental flag was being carried a few feet to his right by Sergeant Kazu, the most decorated enlisted man in his regiment. The flag had red, green, and purple stripes running horizontally across the cloth. In the center was a circle showing crossed swords. That very flag had preceded the Hodaka Regiment into battle in the Philippines and had flown over fields strewn with American corpses. Tonight it would do the same. The Americans were afraid of the dark. Everybody knew that. They'd break and run as soon as the Hodaka Regiment appeared at their barricades.

  Hodaka looked at his watch. He would reach his jump-off point in fifteen minutes, and the bombardment was scheduled to stop in forty-five minutes. Everything was proceeding magnificently. He raised his sword in the air and screamed, "Banzai!”

  "Banzai!” echoed the men of his regiment behind him.

  NINE . . .

  Suddenly the shelling stopped, and for a few seconds Bannon and Butsko didn't realize it because they were half deaf. The shelling had gone on for seventy minutes and the two battleships had fired over nine hundred rounds. In addition the seven destroyers and two cruisers poured their own ammunition into the American positions. Bannon and Butsko raised their heads and peered toward their lines. Everything was smoke and flames.

  They climbed out of the hole, their ears numb from the bombardment. They were vertiginous and stumbled around the mud and holes.

  “Frankie!” Bannon shouted. “Longtree!”

  A helmet appeared in one of the holes, and underneath the helmet were the slanted booodshot eyes of Private Longtree. Cautiously another helmet rose from the hole, and the pale twitching face of Frankie La Barbara came into view.

  Butsko squared his shoulders and started playing platoon sergeant again. “You guys all right?”

  Frankie and Longtree nodded solemnly.

  “Let's go!” Butsko said. “Whataya think this is, a vacation?”

  Frankie and Longtree climbed out of the hole. Bannon walked up to Frankie, whose eyes were blank and staring.

  “You okay, Frankie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How about you, Longtree?”

  “I'm okay.” Longtree's face was expressionless, as always.

  They followed Butsko across the free-fire zone toward the American line. The ground was pitted with huge craters and reminded Bannon of drawings he'd seen of the surface of the moon. They drew close to the lines, and Butsko waved his arms to signal that they were coming, but nobody paid any attention. Fires burned everywhere, and huge billows of black smoke floated into the sky. They reached the first trench and jumped in. A soldier lay trembling and sobbing at its bottom.

  Butsko kicked the soldier in the ass. “On your goddamn feet, young warrior! What the hell you think this is!”

  The soldier didn't respond; he just lay there in a state of shock. Nearby was a huge crater with disjointed arms and legs lying around its perimeter. It once had been part of the trench and soldiers had taken cover in it, but it hadn't been as safe as they'd thought.

  They climbed up the rear section of the trench and saw men running in all directions, trying to put out fires with buckets of water. Some worked frantically in an effort to save ammunition and gasoline from the spreading flames. Buildings and tents blazed and crackled. Dead men lay everywhere, along with portions of dead men. Their faces flickered in the light of the fires, and sirens whined as ambulances careened around corners, carrying bloody cargo to field hospitals.

  Bannon walked behind Butsko as if he were in a dream. Never in his life had he dreamed that so much destruction could happen in so short a period of time. When he'd left the American positions a few hours ago, it had appeared that they would stand forever, and now everything was blown away, burnt down, or mangled. Butsko led the others through the chaos and holocaust to Captain Gwynne's command-post bunker, but when they arrived, they found only a huge hole in the ground, surrounded by debris.

  “Direct hit,” Butsko said, firelight flickering on his face. “I wonder if they got him.”

  Butsko looked around for someone to ask about Captain Gwynne's whereabouts when a jeep drove through a wall of flames on the road in front of them. The jeep screeched to a halt, and a tall lean ramrod figure jumped out of the passenger seat. Bannon could recognize that upright posture anywhere. It was Colonel Stockton.

  “Hey there, you men!” he shouted at Bannon and the others. “Help put out these fires! What the hell are you waiting for!”

  Butsko took long strides toward him and saluted. “Sir,” he said, “we've just returned from patrol. We ran into about two battalions of Japs, maybe more, over there.” Butsko pointed to the jungle.

  “When was that?”

  “About an hour before the bombardment started, sir.”

  Colonel Stockton felt a contraction in the pit of his stomach. Japs probably were moving toward the American lines at that very moment.

  “What's your name, sergeant?”

  “Butsko, sir.”

  Colonel Stockton recalled hearing about him: This was the sergeant who'd killed a civilian in Australia. “Sergeant, gather together all the men you can find in this area and put them up on the line! If there are any machine guns still standing, have them manned! If anybody gives you any back talk, just tell them the order came from me!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Colonel Stockton marched back to the je
ep, his back stiff as a board, and told his aide, Lieutenant Harper, to raise the battalion commanders on the radio. He told Harper to hurry, because he wanted to organize the semblance of a defense by the time the Japs attacked.

  Butsko walked back to Bannon, Frankie La Barbara, and Pfc. Longtree. “All right you guys, go back up there on the line and find yourselves a machine gun. Set it up and start firing at the first Japs you see. If you run into any other GIs, tell them to take positions on the line. Get going!”

  The three soldiers ran toward the main defensive line, and Butsko watched them disappear into the smoke and darkness of the night. Then Butsko lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, looked around, and spotted two soldiers frantically shoveling dirt onto a burning shed. He ran toward the soldiers and grabbed them by their collars with such force that he almost knocked them unconscious.

  “Get up on the fucking line!” Butsko screamed, throwing them in that direction.

  The men went flying through the air, stumbled, and fell. They turned around and saw Butsko like a giant prehistoric monster behind them, flames shooting from his eyes. They weren't sure of who he was, but they knew he meant business. Gathering up their rifles, they ran toward the front lines.

  Butsko shouted orders to everyone in the vicinity. Those who hesitated were charged by the burly sergeant, who grabbed them by their shirts and threw them toward the trenches. Butsko's booming voice became the dominant sound in the area, overpowering the wail of sirens and the roar of the fires. He ran about like a madman, kicking and punching and pushing soldiers toward the front lines. No one dared resist him. A steady stream of half-dead and dazed soldiers began to fill up the trenches and foxholes. The defense in that sector was taking shape.

  Bannon, Frankie La Barbara, and Pfc. Longtree found themselves a machine-gun nest. The sandbags on the side of it had been blown away by the shelling, and the machine gun lay on its side, but it appeared undamaged. Frankie La Barbara threw a dead body out of the fortification, and Sam Longtree went to work with an entrenching tool, repairing the gap in the sandbags, while Bannon lifted the machine gun and set it down on its three legs. He worked the bolt and heard the grinding of sand in the grooves, so he took out his handkerchief and wiped out the chamber as best he could.