Go for Broke

by Len Levinson

  A Japanese officer had to set a good example, but the pain was so brutal that Captain Sato passed out.

  “Is he dead?” asked one of the doctors.

  The other doctor stopped probing and felt Captain Sato’s pulse. “Not yet,” he replied, then resumed his grisly exploration.

  “Here comes the Reverend,” said Craig Delane.

  Everybody turned in the direction of the crashing smashing sound. Then Private First Class Billie Jones appeared, carrying on his shoulder a .30-caliber machine gun attached to a metal bipod. He steadied the weapon with his right hand; in his left hand was a box of ammunition.

  “Look what I got,” he said happily.

  “Set it down right here,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said, “and see if you can find more ammo for it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Reverend Billie Jones dropped the box of ammunition and lowered the machine gun to the ground. His face was red and sweaty from exertion, and he took out his canteen and sipped some water. Removing his helmet, he wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, then returned his helmet to his head, squared his shoulders, and left the little sanctuary, trudging back to the battlefield.

  A few minutes later, from another direction, Morris Shilansky returned, carrying M 1 rifles slung over both shoulders. Countless bandoliers of ammunition hung from his neck, and his pockets were stuffed with hand grenades, which also hung from his lapels.

  “Good work,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge. “Go get more and be on the lookout for Japs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Not far away, in a jungle clearing carpeted with bodies of dead Japanese and American soldiers, Sergeant Cameron found another .30-caliber machine, which he thought would be a real prize. It appeared to be in excellent working condition, and when he worked the bolt, it was smooth and slick. Nearby were crates of .30-caliber ammunition. Evidently the jungle clearing had been the site of a machine-gun nest.

  Sergeant Cameron breathed through his mouth, because no air could pass through his blood-clotted nostrils. He bent over the machine gun to pick it up, when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. Turning in that direction, his hair stood on end when he saw a bloody Japanese soldier lying on his stomach and holding a pistol in both shaking hands, trying to take aim at Sergeant Cameron.

  Blam!

  The bullet whistled past Sergeant Cameron’s ear, and he dived toward the ground. He wished he had a hand grenade to throw at the Jap, but he didn’t have one. On top of that, the Jap was too close anyway; Sergeant Cameron would be killed by his own hand grenade.

  Blam! The Japanese soldier fired again, and the bullet passed over Sergeant Cameron’s head. Sergeant Cameron realized he was in a troublesome predicament. The Jap was less than ten feet away, and at any moment he might fire the lucky shot that would transform Sergeant Cameron into another casualty of the war.

  Sergeant Cameron knew he had to do something, and all he could do was try to shoot the Jap before the Jap shot him. He unslung his M 1 rifle while trying to stay low to the ground, rammed a round into the chamber, and clicked off the safety. Then he took aim, but he couldn’t see the Japanese soldier. There were too many bodies lying in the way, and they were starting to stink. If Sergeant Cameron rose up for a better view, the Jap would shoot him.

  Sergeant Cameron ground his teeth together. How did I get into this mess? he asked himself. Then he saw the top of the Japanese soldier’s head emerge from the melange of bodies on the ground. The Japanese soldier was trying to elevate himself so he could shoot Sergeant Cameron more easily, but Sergeant Cameron stayed where he was, lined up the sights of his M 1 on the Japanese soldier’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger.

  Blam! The bullet struck the spot where it was aimed, and its force blew the top of the Japanese soldier’s head off. The Japanese soldier collapsed onto the ground, and Sergeant Cameron lay still, looking to his right and left and then behind him to see if any other Japs were sneaking up on him. He couldn’t spot any, so he slowly rose to his knees, swiveling his head around as he searched for Japs, then stood.

  He slung his rifle and bent over to pick up the machine gun. Balancing it on his shoulders, he headed back toward the place where the rest of the recon platoon was hiding out.

  When Morris Shilansky heard the first shot, he dived to the ground. He had his pliers in his right hand and had been pulling a gold tooth from the mouth of a Japanese officer. Lying low, he heard more shots, but none seemed to be headed his way. Raising his head slightly, he couldn’t see anything except demolished jungle, broken trees, and uprooted bushes everywhere. An eerie silence pervaded the area, because birds and monkeys had fled long ago. There were no more shots. Shilansky wondered what the commotion was all about.

  He raised himself up on his knees and held the Japanese officer’s hair with his left hand while working the pliers with his right. He tightened the jaws of the pliers around the Japanese officer’s gold tooth and worked it loose. If Lieutenant Breckenridge saw what he was doing, Breckenridge would kick him in the ass, but Lieutenant Breckenridge was nowhere around, and fuck him anyway.

  Finally the tooth came loose. Shilansky held it up; it was covered with blood. Just then a drop of rain pinged on the top of Shilansky’s helmet. He looked up. The sky was dark and oily: A rainstorm was on the way. He dropped the tooth into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap. It would be a nice little souvenir that he could sell someday, but now it was time to do something for his buddies in the recon platoon.

  He looked around and saw a BAR lying a few feet from a dead American soldier who had a belt of BAR ammunition around his waist and more BAR ammunition in bandoliers around his neck. Shilansky figured an automatic weapon was better than a semiautomatic weapon, like an M 1, so he picked up the BAR and slung it over his shoulder.

  Reaching for the belt of ammunition, his hands froze at the sound of an engine. Silently he dropped to the ground and lay flat, wondering if it was an airplane coming to strafe his ass. Thunder rolled across the mountains to the south, and then he heard the engine again. It sounded like a vehicle engine, and it was headed in his direction. He twitched his nose and sniffed, gradually becoming aware of the direction of the sound. Turning in its direction, he lay still and peered ahead under the brim of his helmet.

  Then he saw it coming through the jungle. It was a weird, spindly truck with spoke wheels and a maroon meatball painted on the door. It was a Japanese truck, and a Japanese soldier sat behind the wheel, bouncing up and down, wearing a soft cap with a visor. Shilansky couldn’t see a Japanese soldier sitting next to the driver, but assumed one was there. The truck looked like something that had been manufactured in America thirty years earlier by a company that had gone out of business because it was fucked up, but evidently the Japanese truck had been manufactured recently.

  Fucking Japs can’t even make a truck right, Shilansky thought. He waited until the truck passed out of sight, then stood and picked up the BAR again. He slung it over his shoulder, gathered up the ammunition, and headed back toward Lieutenant Breckenridge and the others.

  •••

  The rain began as a mild shower, but soon became a torrential downpour. Raindrops large as a man’s thumb lashed trees and bushes, forming into brooks and streams where the ground had been dry before the storm. Roads became impassable, and the Driniumor overflowed its banks after only an hour.

  But war doesn’t stop just because of a rainstorm. Japanese soldiers dug fortifications into the mud, although the walls kept collapsing and they had to start all over again. Weapons were covered with canvas to help keep them dry. The Japanese soldiers sat in puddles of water up to their waists, stoically tolerating the discomfort. Some ate canned fish and rice out of the little metal canisters they carried around them. Their recently dug latrines overflowed, and turds floated everywhere, creating a colossal stink.

  The Japanese really weren’t in that good shape. The rain made it difficult to resupply their front, and they were worn ou
t. They’d won a minor victory but were in a vulnerable position.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the line, the US Army restructured its deployment. Reserve battalions slogged through the mud to the positions of the Fifteenth Regiment along the Torricelli Mountains to the south, and the Fifteenth Regiment pulled back and shifted direction, moving in behind the shattered and bleeding Twenty-third Regiment.

  This front-line shuffle was messy and confused. Companies got lost and fell out of radio contact. Roads became rivers, and trees bowed under the weight of the rainstorm. Leeches and ticks bit the skin of GIs and drank their blood, and clouds of insects surrounded every man, sucking their blood constantly.

  Morale plunged to zero on both sides of the line. Everybody wanted to be under a dry roof and wearing dry socks. Nobody wanted to fight, but a battle was looming and they had to get ready.

  Throughout the day, in the face of the howling thunderstorm, the recon platoon survivors, plus the stragglers from Headquarters Company, built up their little bastion. Weapons, ammunition, food, and cigarettes were brought back by teams of “volunteers.” The jungle clearing became stacked with crates and piles of stuff. By midafternoon they had two .30-caliber machine guns, three BARs, and countless rifles, pistols, and bazookas. Defensive walls had been constructed from fallen trees, and bushes were used for camouflage. Lieutenant Breckenridge left the position to examine it from a distance; it looked like just another portion of the blasted, twisted jungle.

  He returned to the position and knelt in the midst of his men, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Okay,” he said, “we’re all set, or at least as set as we’re likely to get. The Japs won’t be able to see us, but we’ll be able to see them. But that doesn’t mean we’re gonna start shooting at them when we see them, because if we shoot at them, that’ll give our position away. The main thing is that we don’t want to give our position away. We don’t want the fucking Nips to know we’re here. Does everybody understand why?”

  They all nodded or grunted in the affirmative.

  “Good,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “If we spot any Japs, we’re going to be still and not give any indication whatever that we’re here. Our fire discipline must be flawless. We don’t fire until they’re right on top of us and we can’t avoid the bastards. Does everybody understand that?”

  Again they nodded or made sounds that they understood.

  “Okay,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge. “We’ve got plenty of ammo and enough chow for a few days. If the Japs don’t stumble onto us, we’ve got a good chance of surviving. Sooner or later our people are going to attack the Japs and push them back to where they were before they attacked us. When that happens, we’ll be behind our own lines again. Everything will be hunky-dory if we just stay calm and don’t fuck up while we’re out here. Does everybody still know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Cameron, and the rest appeared as though they knew.

  “Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” said Shilansky. “When the Japs retreat, they’ll retreat right over us at some point. What’ll we do then?”

  “Just what I said before,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. “We’re gonna keep quiet and maintain strict fire discipline when the Japs retreat through this area.”

  Pfc. Craig Delane raised his forefinger in the air. “What if they don’t retreat back through this area?”

  “They will,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “But what if they don’t?”

  “Where else can they retreat through, Delane?”

  “My point, sir, is, what if they don’t retreat?”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge puffed his cigarette and looked Delane in the eye. “I know General Hawkins and Colonel Hutchins personally, and I know General Hall by his reputation. All three of them were thrown for a loss last night, and they’ll counterattack the Japs as soon as they can, with whatever is necessary to push them back. The Japs on New Guinea are cut off and cannot be resupplied from the outside, but we can be. The Japs are going to be wiped on New Guinea sooner or later. The only question is when. Do you get the picture?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Craig Delane, but he perceived a flaw in Lieutenant Breckenridge’s presentation. It was probably true that the US Army would defeat the Imperial Army of Japan on New Guinea sooner or later, but there was a very real and horrible possibility that Delane and the others caught behind enemy lines might be detected by the Japs and wiped out before that happened.

  Delane didn’t give voice to his thoughts, though. He didn’t want to demoralize the other men, and besides, Lieutenant Breckenridge would probably kick his ass if he opened his mouth again.

  The rain continued into the afternoon, and the jungle became a mess. Many units were bivouacked in areas that had become swamps, and a rumor spread across the American lines that a GI had been attacked and killed by a crocodile. This rumor made all the GIs jumpy, and many fired at shadows and floating logs, thinking they were crocodiles looking for a meal.

  Colonel Hutchins returned to the Twenty-third Regiment, his chest bandaged and his mind in a whirl, due to the various drugs and medicines that had been administered to him. He located his headquarters and marched into the tent. Sergeant Koch was studying morning reports, trying to get an accurate fix on the casualties the regiment had suffered, but some companies hadn’t even sent in their morning reports yet because they’d lost typewriters, records, and forms in the retreat that had taken place that morning.

  Sergeant Koch noticed Colonel Hutchins and jumped to his feet. “Ten-hut!” he shouted.

  On the other side of the tent, Pfc. Levinson, the regimental clerk, scrambled to attention and stood with his arms stiff at his sides.

  “At ease!” said Colonel Hutchins. “As you were! Where can I find Major Cobb?”

  “He’s in your office, sir.”

  “Carry on.”

  Colonel Hutchins entered his office and saw Major Cobb seated behind the desk. Major Cobb was a dumpy man in his forties, with sloping shoulders and glasses perched on the end of a tiny pug nose set in a round meaty face. He looked up from the correspondence he’d been reading, then jumped to his feet.

  “At ease,” said Colonel Hutchins. “Get out of my chair.”

  Major Cobb stood and walked to the front of the desk, dropping into one of the folding wooden chairs. Colonel Hutchins sat behind the desk and opened a drawer. “Where’s my goddamn orange juice!” he screamed, referring to his Old Forester bourbon.

  “It’s been left behind, sir.”

  “It has?”

  “Yes, sir. Your whole headquarters has been left behind. We’ve obtained this tent from division supply.”

  Colonel Hutchins opened the drawers to the desk and saw that his personal papers and various pens and things were gone. He’d been fooled because the tent, desk, and chairs were exactly the same as his tent, desk, and chairs that had been left behind. Everything in the Army looked the same.

  Colonel Hutchins was out of whiskey. Even his pocket flask had been drained of every drop. Colonel Hutchins was a full-blown alcoholic, and he knew he’d start undergoing withdrawal discomfort very soon. Somehow he had to get some booze, and he directed his thinking toward that end, letting his alcoholism eclipse the huge offensive that was to take place in the morning.

  “Where’s Sergeant Snider?” he asked, referring to the Headquarters Company mess sergeant, who in civilian life, had been a moonshiner in the South someplace.

  “I don’t know where he is, sir.”

  “Find out.”

  “But, sir, don’t we have more important matters to discuss?”

  “No.”

  “Very well, sir. I’ll see if I can find him.”

  “Make it fast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Major Cobb walked toward the door and put his helmet on, disturbed that an officer of his stature had to track down an ex-moonshiner in a rainstorm because Colonel Hutchins
needed a drink. “Fucking Army,” he muttered.

  “You say something, Cobb?”

  “No, sir.”

  Major Cobb left the office, and Colonel Hutchins lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. His mind felt weird, as if he were going nuts, and he felt sick to his stomach. The medicines and drugs he’d been taking were messing up his mind. He felt certain he’d be okay if he could just have a drink.

  Then suddenly he remembered something, and his eyes lit up with delight. “Sergeant Koch!” he yelled.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Get in here!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  A second later Sergeant Koch ran into the office and saluted.

  “As you were,” Colonel Hutchins said. “Tell me something: Is Lieutenant Rabinowitz around anyplace?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, find out and tell him I need a big bottle of GI gin right away. You bring it back to me right away, got it?”

  “Do you have a cold, sir?” Sergeant Koch asked, because GI gin was the nickname given a cough syrup made primarily of alcohol and codeine.

  “What’s that to you?”

  Sergeant Koch was flustered. “Well, sir, GI gin is for colds, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t try to be Dr. Kildare. Just get me the medicine. Get going.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sergeant Koch turned and ran out of the office. Colonel Hutchins rubbed his hands together. His nose tingled and his teeth chattered. He looked down at the maps on his desk, but his vision was blurry. Maybe a cup of coffee will straighten me out. “Who’s out there?” he yelled.

  “Pfc. Levinson!” a voice replied.

  “Get your ass in here!”

  “Yes, sir!”