Go for Broke

by Len Levinson

  On top of that, Frankie didn’t want to do something rash that might imperil his own life. Although he hated Lieutenant Breckenridge, he thought Lieutenant Breckenridge was a smart officer. Lieutenant Breckenridge might be able to get them all out of the mess they were in. If Lieutenant Breckenridge was killed, Frankie didn’t know how they’d get back to their lines in one piece. A brawl would break out over who would command them, and they’d probably kill each other off.

  Frankie felt nauseous and exhausted as he put one foot in front of the other and made his way over the trail. He hated the war, hated the Japs, hated Lieutenant Breckenridge. He even hated Butsko, although Butsko wasn’t even around. Butsko had kicked Frankie’s ass many times, and Frankie had wanted to kill Butsko, but he’d never been able to do it.

  A bug flew toward Frankie out of the night and bit Frankie on the neck. Frankie slapped the bug, but it got away. Frankie’s feet hurt and his boots were rotting apart. He had a case of crotch itch and was constipated. His stomach felt as though a ball of concrete the size of a grapefruit were lying in it, weighing him down. The bug bit him on the ear and Frankie slapped himself, but the bug got away again.

  Frankie was frustrated and angry, and when he got that way he wanted to kill somebody or beat somebody up. He felt like punching somebody in the mouth, but that would be inappropriate then. Somehow he’d have to keep going and stay under control. He cursed the day he’d been drafted into the Army. He should have hid in somebody’s cellar until the war was over.

  At the rear of the formation Sergeant Snider reached for his canteen so he could drink the last of his white lightning. He had only a few swallows left, and there was no reason to save it. He unsnapped the canvas case and withdrew his canteen, gulping the remaining liquid down. It just took a few seconds, and then his canteen was empty.

  But he felt better. He put his canteen back into its case and shrugged his shoulders, following the others into the jungle. Occasionally he staggered to one side or the other, but he always managed to right himself and stay on the path. He’d been a cook throughout most of his military career, and didn’t know much about soldiering in the jungle, behind enemy lines. He didn’t think they’d get out alive, but that didn’t particularly bother him. When he had a snootful of white lightning, nothing bothered him much.

  Midway in the formation, Craig Delane carried an M 1 rifle slung over his shoulder and followed Victor Yabalonka. Craig Delane was a pessimistic, cynical young man, and he was sure he and the others would never make it back to safety. The odds were too much against them. He could understand why lieutenant Breckenridge wanted to try to return to their lines, because Lieutenant Breckenridge was an officer and officers had to keep up appearances. Craig Delane was laboring under no such delusion. He felt like falling out at the side of the road and finding a place to sleep. He’d probably get killed anyway, so what was the difference? They’d probably have a better chance if they all split up anyway. Individually, on their own, they’d be less conspicuous than moving through the jungle together.

  Delane wished he’d proposed that idea to Lieutenant Breckenridge, but he hadn’t thought of it. Maybe he’d mention it at the next break. It annoyed Craig Delane that he always had his best brainstorms after it was too late to put them into effect. He thought he had a slow mind and that he wasn’t as intelligent as he’d been before he’d been drafted into the Army.

  The fucking Army’s ruined me, he thought. I can’t even think straight anymore, and I’ll probably get killed out here in the jungle before the sun comes up in the morning.

  The three Japanese soldiers who’d made it to shore sat cross-legged in a circle and tried to figure out what to do. They were in a tiny clearing surrounded by bushes, and their uniforms were soaking wet. They’d lost their hats, but each still had his Arisaka rifle.

  “To begin with,” said Pfc. Muguruma, “I think we must determine which one of us is in charge so that we can operate efficiently here.” He turned to Pfc. Goto. “How long have you been a private first class?”

  “Since March of 1942,” Pfc. Goto replied.

  “Ah. Then I am the senior man here, since we are the only two pfcs. I became a pfc. in 1940.”

  The others nodded. They accepted what he said because it was inconceivable that he would lie, and in fact he wasn’t lying. He actually had been a private first class since September of 1940, but the other two men thought Muguruma couldn’t be much of a soldier if he hadn’t made corporal in the nearly three years since he’d become a pfc.

  They were right. Pfc. Muguruma was a dimwit with delusions of grandeur. He’d always wanted to be in charge of something, and now he had his big chance.

  “Well,” Pfc. Muguruma said proudly, a skinny little man with a long flimsy black mustache, “I think the only thing for us to do now is find out where those Americans have gone, and follow them.”

  “What for?” asked Private Kawasaki, only eighteen years old, who had graduated from high school at the top of his class only a bit more than a year earlier. “We don’t know how many Americans are there. Perhaps there are a great many of them.”

  “He’s right,” said Pfc. Goto, a former fanner. “We might find ourselves in a fight that we will not be prepared for.”

  Pfc. Muguruma flared out his nostrils in anger. “Japanese soldiers are always prepared for battle,” he said. “The mission of Japanese soldiers is to kill American soldiers. It does not matter if they outnumber us, because we have Japanese spirit and they don’t. We will win in the end.”

  “I think,” said Private Goto, “that we should try to find our way to one of our units and forget about the Americans.”

  Pfc. Muguruma scowled. “What a cowardly thing to say! What kind of soldier are you? Forget about the Americans? How can we forget about the Americans, when it is our duty to kill Americans?”

  “I don’t think we should undertake this mission by ourselves. I think we should find one of our units and take orders from whoever is in charge there.”

  “And let these Americans roam around behind our lines? You can’t be serious, Goto.”

  “I am serious, Muguruma.”

  “Well, I am in charge here and I have made my final decision. We are going after the Americans.” Pfc. Muguruma looked at his watch. “You have five minutes to get ready.”

  Private Kawasaki got up and walked behind a tree, where he took a piss. He’d been drafted and wasn’t very enthusiastic about being a soldier. Moreover he was tired of taking orders either from men he considered crazy, like most officers and noncoms, or from men who were stupid, like Pfc. Muguruma. But there was nothing he could do about it. He was fatalistic and believed he’d be killed before long anyway.

  He finished and returned to the little clearing. Pfc. Muguruma and Pfc. Goto watched him approach. They appeared ready to go. None of them had any food, because it had been thought that they’d eat with their units when they returned from the boat patrol.

  “Are we all ready?” asked Pfc. Muguruma, puffing out his chest.

  Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki muttured that they were ready.

  “Follow me.”

  Pfc. Muguruma pushed into the jungle. A branch snapped back, striking him on the cheek, nearly putting out his eye, but he didn’t cry out because he was a leader now and couldn’t show pain or fear. He continued to bull his way through the thick foliage as branches scratched his face and arms. He was headed toward the last known positions of the Americans. He and the others had heard the Americans leave the area, so they didn’t have to crawl on their bellies and be quiet. Pfc. Muguruma stepped over a log and steered around a big puddle. He ducked under a thick, low-hanging branch and then stepped on the head of a gigantic crocodile.

  The crocodile had been asleep and now suddenly awoke. It was angry at having its rest disturbed, and saw figures above it in the darkness. Opening its mouth wide, it heard screams and confusion. It chomped its mouth shut on Pfc. Muguruma’s leg and bit it off.

  Pfc. Mugur
uma shrieked at the top of his lungs and hopped up and down on his one good leg while the stump of his other leg gushed blood. Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki fled in two different directions, and the crocodile whipped out its tail, lunging toward Pfc. Muguruma, opening its mouth and clamping it shut again on Pfc. Muguruma’s other leg, severing it below the knee.

  Pfc. Muguruma blacked out and fell into the bushes. A shot rang out, and blood spouted out of a hole in the crocodile’s back. The crocodile hooted in pain and swished its tail and turning around, looking for somebody else to bite. Another shot was fired, and a bullet pierced the crocodile’s neck. A third bullet hit it in the tail, and a fourth bullet put a hole in its head.

  The crocodile moaned and stopped moving. It was still alive, but not by much. Pfc. Goto approached the crocodile cautiously, a wisp of smoke trailing up from the barrel of his rifle. He aimed the rifle carefully and pulled the trigger, blowing off the top of the crocodile’s cranium. The crocodile sighed, and that was the end of it.

  “I think it’s dead now,” Pfc. Goto said.

  “Are you sure?” asked Private Kawasaki.

  “It’s not moving.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s dead. Maybe you should fire another shot.”

  “I’m not going to fire another shot. We shouldn’t waste ammunition.”

  He turned toward the last known position of Pfc. Muguruma and moved in that direction. Pfc. Muguruma, minus both legs, lay in the bushes, a pool of blood underneath him. Pfc. Goto knelt and felt Pfc. Muguruma’s pulse. There was none.

  “I think he’s dead,” Pfc. Goto said.

  “Nobody could live without two legs like that.”

  Pfc. Goto shook his head. “It’s too bad.”

  “What’ll we do now?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I think we ought to try to find one of our units and report.”

  “That makes sense. Which way should we go?”

  “I think we ought to cross the river,” Private Kawasaki explained, “because Americans are on this side of the river, but there are no Americans on the other side of the river.”

  “I’m not crossing that river,” Pfc. Goto said. “The current’s too strong, and for all we know, there are crocodiles out there.”

  “That’s right too.”

  “I think the best plan of action would be to find a trail and follow it until we come to one of our units. We hold this part of the jungle, I think.”

  “Maybe we should wait here and let one of our units find us.”

  “That might take too long. We don’t have any food, and there are crocodiles in the area. I don’t want to stay here.”

  Private Kawasaki recalled the horror of the crocodile biting off Pfc. Muguruma’s legs. “Actually I do not wish to stay here either.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Pfc. Goto ducked low and walked into the bushes, pulling the branches away from his eyes with his hands. He examined the ground carefully because he didn’t want to be crippled by a crocodile. The foliage was thick and he waded through, using the breaststroke. Private Kawasaki followed at a safe distance so that none of the branches would smack him in the mouth. Both soldiers were cautious, because they remembered what had happened to Pfc. Muguruma. Every log on the ground became a crocodile in their imaginations, and they circled them to make sure. Every branch appeared to be a snake. The river roared behind them, and visibility was poor. But no crocodiles or snakes attacked them, and after a while they came to a trail. Pfc. Goto looked both ways and they stepped out onto it, half expecting an American to shoot him.

  No American shot him. Private Kawasaki joined him on the trail.

  “This way,” said Pfc. Goto pointing to the east.

  “Are you sure our soldiers are in this direction?” Private Kawasaki asked.

  “All this territory was taken in the attack this morning.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Pfc. Goto turned around and walked east on the trail, crouching over and holding his Arisaka rifle. Private Kawasaki followed him. Neither was much of a soldier, and they didn’t bother to get down on their hands and knees to see if there were any footprints on the trail. If they had looked, they would have found many footprints, because this was the trail Lieutenant Breckenridge and his men were using.

  Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki proceeded cautiously on the winding trail. They were only about a quarter of a mile behind Lieutenant Breckenridge and his men.

  Sergeant Snider’s legs were tired and his heart chugged in his chest. He was in terrible physical condition because he spent most of his time in mess tents, cooking and eating food and brewing and drinking white lightning. His chest heaved and his lungs were on fire. He couldn’t keep up with the fast pace lieutenant Breckenridge was setting, and fell behind the others. Mild alcohol withdrawal was afflicting him, and the morphine made him groggy. He didn’t think he could go on.

  He didn’t even see the point of going on. What was the big rush? He wondered if maybe he could bug out. All he’d have to do was lag back and hide in the woods. Lieutenant Breckenridge and the others wouldn’t even miss him. He’d find a comfy little spot in the jungle and lay low until the American army moved into the area in force. Then he’d come out and say “Hi, fellers, I was missing in action but you just found me.”

  Sergeant Snider slowed his pace even more and let the distance increase between him and the others. There was a bend in the road, and the others swung around it. Now they were out of sight completely. Sergeant Snider was all alone. With the silly grin of a drugged fool, he pushed his shoulder into the bushes, took a few steps, and sat down on the muck. A mosquito landed on his forehead and he slapped it away. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he took out a small bottle of citronella, poured some into the palms of his hands, and rubbed the foul-smelling stuff onto his face and neck.

  Then he lay down in the muck and closed his eyes. It felt so good to rest. Let the others knock themselves out, he thought. I’m just going to take it easy for a while. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

  He was thirsty, but his canteen was empty. He decided to take a short nap and then look for some water. He had halazone tablets in his cartridge belt, and they’d purify any water he found. Then he’d look for a place to hide.

  He went limp on the ground. It wasn’t long before he was sound asleep.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty in the evening. He heard an explosion in the distance; it sounded like a hand grenade. Then rifle shots reverberated across the jungle, followed by a machine gun. A fight had broken out someplace. Probably a patrol had been ambushed. The machine gun had the unmistakable chatter of a Japanese weapon, so evidently it was an American patrol that was receiving the fire.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge turned around to see how his men were doing. They were behind him in close formation, dragging their asses. It occurred to him mat somebody was missing. He counted the men: There were only eight of them. Pfc. Jimmy O’Rouike, on the point, was number nine and he was ten. He’d left the riverbank with a total of eleven men, including himself. He raised his hand in the air.

  “Hold it right here,” he said. “Shilansky, run up ahead and get O’Rourke.”

  Shilansky raised his M 1 rifle and moved out on the double. Lieutenant Breckenridge looked the other men over.

  “Sergeant Snider’s missing,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “Where the hell did he go?”

  Nobody had an answer. Shilansky returned with Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke.

  “Whatsa matter?” asked Jimmy O’Rourke.

  “Sergeant Snider’s missing.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered what to do. He didn’t think he had time to go back and look for Sergeant Snider, but didn’t want to leave him behind either. What had happened to Sergeant Snider? Lieutenant Breckenridge knew that Japs hadn’t got him, otherwise there would have been noise. The o
nly possibility was that Sergeant Snider had fallen out by himself. He must have got tired. He was an older man with a big fat belly, and he couldn’t keep up the pace.

  He reached his decision. He couldn’t jeopardize the safety of nine men for one. He’d let his men take a short break, and then they’d get moving again.

  “Okay, take ten,” he said to his men.

  “What’re we gonna do about Sergeant Snider?” asked Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke.

  “We’re going to forget about him,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. “We don’t have time to go back. From here on in, any man who can’t keep up with the rest of us will be left behind. Is that clear?”

  The men nodded and grunted as they sprawled around on the jungle. They closed their eyes, some fell asleep immediately. Lieutenant Breckenridge sat with his back against a tree and took a drink from his canteen. He would have liked to bivouac all night in the area, but didn’t dare take the chance. He thought it very possible that Japanese soldiers would be dispatched to follow him and his men, once the Japs found out that their patrol boat had been demolished.

  Not far behind Lieutenant Breckenridge and his men, Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki moved through the jungle, peering from side to side, very unsure of themselves. They’d never been alone in a combat zone without officers and NCOs around, and their training had never emphasized personal initiative.

  “It seems to me,” Private Kawasaki said, “that we should have found one of our units by now. Do you think we may be lost?”

  Pfc. Goto slowed down. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  Private Kawasaki stopped. “Maybe.”

  Pfc. Goto stopped and faced Private Kawasaki. “Perhaps we should retrace our steps.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “We could go back to the river and work our way along the shore until we reach our positions there.”

  “That would be awfully difficult to do,” Private Kawasaki pointed out. “There is a tremendous growth of foliage along the riverbank, which would impede our movement.”