Go for Broke

by Len Levinson

  “What the hell you doing in there, Schrank?”

  “I guess I was sleeping, sir!”

  “Haven’t you heard about the big attack!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Well, if you keep sleeping down in there, you’re liable to miss it! You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Get your gear in order and have breakfast. When I come by this way again, you’d better be up and at ‘em.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Colonel Hutchins wandered through the J Company area, shouting orders and making certain the men were ready for the attack, but most of all he wanted them to see him, so they’d know he was interested in what they were doing and was sharing the dangers of the front lines with them. The CO of J Company, Captain Dixon, heard the colonel was in the area and went to see him. Colonel Hutchins gave him a pep talk and then returned to his jeep, followed by his entourage, so he could move on to another company. He wanted to visit all the companies in his regiment before the bombardment began.

  Checking his watch as he approached the jeep, he saw that it was four o’clock in the morning. The bombardment would begin in just thirty minutes.

  The cave was a bloody mess. Dead Japanese soldiers lay everywhere and were stacked up three high in places. Froelich and Wilkie were dead, and Craig Delane and Jimmy O’Rourke were unconscious, shot full of morphine and covered with bandages. The four nurses huddled around them, glancing apprehensively toward the front of the cave.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge, Pfc. Frankie La Barbara, Pfc. Morris Shilansky, Pfc. Billie Jones, and Private Victor Yabalonka crouched behind the barricade as the front of the cave was peppered with machine-gun bullets, and mortar rounds exploded near the opening. Every mortar explosion reverberated inside the small cave, and everybody’s ears were ringing. The explosions loosened rocks and clods of earth from the top of the cave, and the air was rank with the smell of gunpowder.

  Everybody knew that the Japanese soldiers would attack again as soon as the machine gun stopped firing and the mortar rounds stopped falling. Lieutenant Breckenridge’s submachine gun and Private Yabalonka’s BAR were out of ammo, and they’d armed themselves with Arisaka rifles and bayonets. There was no more M 1 ammunition, either, and the other GIs held Arisaka rifles also. A samurai sword lay on the floor beside the Reverend Billie Jones. They all believed that the end was in sight, but no one suggested surrender. They all knew what Japs did to their prisoners, and they preferred to die clean, fighting for their lives.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge felt somebody tap his shoulder and turned around. Captain Stearns was on her knees behind him, and with her were the other three nurses. All carried Arisaka rifles in their hands.

  “We thought we’d join you,” Captain Steams said, her face dirty and streaked with sweat.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge shrugged. “Do whatever you want.”

  The nurses took their places with the men as bullets zipped over their heads and chunks of shrapnel flailed the rock wall in front of them. Lieutenant McCaffrey positioned herself next to Lieutenant Breckenridge and smiled bravely at him. He winked back. There was nothing to say. Both figured they’d be dead within an hour. Lieutenant McCaffrey’s lips trembled as she rested her shoulder against the wall and closed her eyes. Lieutenant Breckenridge placed his big hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, leaning toward her.

  “Make sure you save one bullet for yourself,” he said.

  She nodded, trying to come to terms with the fact that she was going to die. She was only twenty-five years old and had so much to live for, but it wasn’t going to happen. It was difficult for her to believe that her life could end, and she wondered what would happen to her when she died. Was there a heaven and a hell, or would she just go out like a light bulb?

  On the other end of the wall, Lieutenant Jones knelt beside Frankie La Barbara. She was the skinny one with the pinched face and long, pointed nose, and Frankie La Barbara smiled ruefully, because he’d chased beautiful women all his life, and now he was going to die next to an unattractive one.

  She raised her arm and wiped her grimy forehead with the back of her hand. Her complexion was blotchy and she looked scared shitless, but she was trying to tough it out. Frankie La Barbara couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. He figured a woman that ugly was probably still a virgin, and he wondered if there was a way that he could throw a good fuck into her before she died, because he thought everybody should have at least one good fuck in his or her life, and he always believed he was the best there was.

  He leaned toward her and spoke out the side of his mouth. “Hey, why don’t you and me go back in the cave there and screw?”

  She stared at him, her eyes bugging out of her head. Frankie thought she was admiring his incredible good looks, when in fact she thought he must have gone totally stark raving insane due to the pressures of combat. He had a five-day growth of beard, his nose was covered with a white bandage, and he had a silly look in his eyes.

  “Just relax, there, soldier,” she said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Frankie raised his eyebrows. “What d’ya mean, everything’s gonna be all right? Everything’s not gonna be all right! We’re gonna get fucking wiped out here, so why don’t we go back in the cave and screw one last time?”

  She shook her head. “Soldier, this is no time for that.”

  “This is the best time for that!” Frankie said. “I always wanted to die in the saddle, if you know what I mean, and I think it’s about time you had a good one!”

  “Calm down, soldier” was all she could say.

  “Listen,” Frankie implored, “you know you’ve been wanting to have a good one all your life, because let’s face it, you’re not exactly Betty Grable, so why don’t we go back there and screw?”

  She was so angry, she wanted to spit. All her life men had treated her like dirt because she was ugly, and now, on the hour of her death, she had to tolerate more of it. “We can’t go back there,” she said wearily. “A ricochet is liable to bit us.”

  Frankie fumbled for his fly. “But you can gimme a blowjob right here!”

  She closed her eyes. “Oh, God!”

  “C’mon.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled it toward his fly. She drew back her other hand, balled it into a fist, and punched him right on his broken, mangled nose.

  “Yaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” he screamed, holding both his hands to his face, but he didn’t dare touch his nose.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge leaned back and looked at Frankie. “Are you hit?” he asked.

  Lieutenant Jones leaned into his line of vision. “Yeah, he’s hit, and I’m the one who hit him!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered what she was talking about. He got down on his hands and knees to crawl over and find out what had happened, when suddenly the Japanese machine guns stopped firing. He snapped back to his position at the barricade just as a mortar shell exploded on the ridge to the side of the cave entrance. A few seconds passed, and no more mortar shells fell. The machine guns weren’t firing anymore. An eerie silence settled over the top of the hill.

  “Get ready!” Lieutenant Breckenridge shouted.

  He raised his Arisaka rifle, looked over the barricades, and saw Japanese soldiers in the jungle below, rushing in waves toward the base of the hill. Leaning over the barricades, he glanced left and right and saw Japanese soldiers advancing along the ridgelines. He spotted hand grenades in the hands of the Japanese soldiers in front.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge leaned over the barricade, aimed his Arisaka rifle at the Japanese soldiers on the right, and pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked in his hands, and a Japanese soldier crumpled to the ground. The Reverend Billie Jones reached over the barricade and threw his last American-made hand grenade toward the Japanese soldiers advancing to the right of the cave entrance. He and Lieutenant Breckenridge ducked behind the barricade, and a few seconds later all the grenades exploded, blowing apart Japane
se soldiers, stalling the advance for a few seconds; but then more Japanese soldiers charged through the smoke, and they were ten yards from the front entrance of the cave. One Japanese soldier threw a grenade, but he was too far away and at a bad angle. The grenade bounced off the rock near the right side of the entrance to the cave and landed at the feet of the Japanese soldiers on the left side. Some of them dived on the grenade to throw it away, but they fumbled and stumbled, and the grenade blew up in their faces.

  Japanese soldiers continued to attack on the right. The Japanese soldiers on the left jumped over their dead comrades and continued to charge. They swarmed toward the front of the cave, and the GIs and nurses fired their weapons at them as quickly as they could. Japanese soldiers fell to the ground, their bodies spurting blood, and other Japanese soldiers pressed forward, screaming and hollering, shaking their rifles and bayonets, anxious to get into the cave and impale the Americans on the ends of their bayonets.

  The Japanese soldiers surged forward, and Lieutenant Breckenridge pulled the trigger of the Arisaka rifle as fast as he could, working the bolt like a maniac, but he knew he and the others didn’t have a chance. There were so many of the enemy, and so few Americans. It was almost the end.

  Japanese soldiers leapt over the barricade, shrieking “Banzai!” Lieutenant Breckenridge aimed the tip of the bayonet at a Japanese soldier’s chest, and the Japanese soldier kicked the air with his feet as he tried to get away, but the force of gravity was inexorable and he landed on the bayonet, which pierced him from breastbone to spine.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge threw the Japanese soldier on the ground, placed his foot on the Japanese soldier’s chest, and pulled his rifle and bayonet loose. He turned to the front, slashing with the bayonet, and it caught another Japanese soldier on the face, peeling his skin away from his cheekbone, and before his feet touched the ground, Lieutenant Breckenridge smacked him in the nose with his rifle butt. The Japanese soldier collapsed and Lieutenant Breckenridge raised his rifle and bayonet again, pulling the trigger and shooting a Japanese soldier in the gut. He pulled the trigger again and shot another Japanese soldier in the balls. Next to him, the other GIs shot and clubbed Japs, or stuck them with their bayonets, while the nurses fired their carbines as quickly as they could.

  But it wasn’t enough. The Japanese soldiers continued to rush forward, jumping into the cave. The GIs and nurses managed to kill some of them, but most got through. The GIs and nurses retreated back from the barricade, to fight the Japanese soldiers hand to hand. Captain Steams was put down instantly with the thrust of a Japanese bayonet into her stomach. The Reverend Billie Jones had saved his captured samurai sword for the hand-to-hand fighting, and he chopped off the head of the Japanese soldier who’d killed Captain Stearns. Then Billie Jones spun around and swung the samurai sword, hacking off the arm of a Japanese soldier. He raised the samurai sword and swung down, cutting the head of the Japanese soldier in half. He swung sideways and buried the blade of the samurai sword in the rib cage of a Japanese soldier, but the blade wouldn’t come loose. Billie Jones tugged, and just then a bayonet zoomed through the air, heading toward his massive chest. He turned to the side and the bayonet plunged five inches into his shoulder.

  Billie Jones screamed and lunged forward, grabbing the Japanese soldier by the throat. A Japanese rifle butt slammed Billie Jones on the head, and he dropped to his knees, trying to clear the cobwebs out of his mind. A Japanese soldier kicked Billie Jones in the face, and Billie Jones dropped onto his back. He blinked and saw a Japanese bayonet on the end of a rifle coming at him; he reached up, catching the blade of the bayonet in his hands, slicing his palms like salami.

  The Japanese soldier holding the rifle and bayonet closed his eyes and fell on top of Billie Jones, and there was a bullet hole in his back. It had been fired from the rifle of Lieutenant Beverly McCaffrey, who gritted her teeth, moved the rifle a few inches to the left, and shot another Japanese soldier in the back.

  Out of the tangle of soldiers fighting hand to hand, grunting and cursing, a Japanese soldier charged toward her, readying his rifle and bayonet for a thrust toward her heart. She fired her rifle from the waist and the bullet struck the Japanese soldier on his chest. He tripped over his own feet and fell down in front of her. She kicked him in the face, stomped on his head, and stepped over him, firing her rifle, blowing down another Japanese soldier who’d emerged to confront her.

  Japanese soldiers crowded around the front of the cave, elbowing each other, trying to get inside to kill the Americans, when suddenly they heard the roar of engines above them. They looked up and saw the sky filled with airplanes, and tiny objects fell out of the bellies of the airplanes. Then they heard the whistles of incoming shells. The Japanese soldiers dived to the ground as the area became blanketed with the explosions of artillery shells. Some of the shells landed on top of the hill, blowing apart the solid rock, filling the air with shrapnel and splinters.

  The ground shook from the violence of the explosions. The American artillery barrage had begun, blasting the Japanese positions inside their salient on the west side of the Driniumor. Gigantic trees were sheared in half by incredible explosions. Bombs and artillery shells landed on Japanese troop concentrations, gasoline dumps, roads, ammunition dumps, and the bridge crossing the Driniumor. Japanese soldiers cowered in their holes as bombs and shells showered to earth all around them. The explosions tore up the jungle, blowing the Japanese soldiers to bits.

  The US Army artillery and Air Corps really laid it on. Five minutes passed, and the bombardment became even more intense. Japanese soldiers went insane from the sound of the explosions. Others had busted eardrums from the concussion of the blasts, but they were the lucky ones. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers were blown limb from limb, killed instantly by the bombardment, while others were wounded horribly. Not enough medical supplies were available to save their lives.

  Japanese soldiers retreated down the hill in front of the cave, so they could take shelter in the jungle, but the jungle was only marginally safer than the hill. American bombs and artillery shells convulsed the jungle and lacerated the Japanese soldiers. A few managed to take cover in the massive shell craters, and prayed to their gods that the bombardment would stop, but it didn’t.

  It just kept going on and on, and the Japanese soldiers thought the world was coming to an end.

  •••

  A few miles away, Captain Yuichi Sato, the former decathlon athlete, lay on a cot inside the hospital tent and listened to the sound of the bombardment. The ground trembled as though an earthquake were taking place, and he was delirious with pain and fever. Gangrene spread throughout his bloodstream from the wound in his shoulder, and his magnificent athlete’s body was wasting away.

  There was a shortage of nurses, doctors, and medics. The wounded soldiers in the tent groaned in pain as American explosives devastated the jungle nearby. Captain Sato was dizzy and feverish. He knew the Americans would attack as soon as the bombardment ended, and he had to rally his men.

  He sat up and looked around at wounded soldiers lying on cots or on the ground, but in his feverish eyes they weren’t wounded at all. They were his men, waiting for him to give the order to charge.

  “The Americans are coming!” he hollered hoarsely. “Follow me, men! Attack!”

  He stood beside his cot, and everything spun around him, but he had to keep going. He reached for his samurai sword, but it wasn’t there. Touching the spot where his Nambu pistol was supposed to be, he found that his holster was empty. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to his weapons as he staggered toward the tent flap fluttering in the breeze. He went outside, and the jungle burst and churned all around him. Looking to the ground, he saw a branch that had been split in half by an artillery explosion. Captain Sato thought it was his samurai sword, and he picked it up. He looked at the branch and imagined he saw on the blade the trademark of the famous sword-maker in Kobe who’d fashioned it.

  He raised the sword in the air
and stumbled into the jungle. “Forward!” he said. “Attack!” He glanced behind him and hallucinated his company of soldiers holding their rifles and bayonets in their hands, following him, charging hard.

  He ran into the jungle, jumped over a fallen log, and fell on his ass. Breathing heavily, his head spinning, he got to his feet and waved his sword over his head. “Onward!” he hollered. “Follow me!”

  He charged forward again, and ahead, in the smoke and flames of the jungle, he imagined he saw American soldiers running toward him.

  “There they are!” he screamed. “Attack!”

  He pointed his samurai sword at the American soldiers in front of him and shuffled forward. Bombs and shells crashed to earth all around them, but you never hear the one that lands on you. Captain Sato’s eyes were glassy as he wobbled onward. His heart beat quickly and he licked his lips in anticipation of the hand-to-hand fight that he thought was about to begin.

  A big bomb landed three feet away, and its explosion blew apart the gallant, once-great Olympic athlete. When the dust cleared it was as though he had been wiped off the face of the earth, except for a drop of blood here and there on the green foliage, or a length of bone or chunk of gristle lying on the ground.

  FOURTEEN . . .

  The bombardment lasted for an hour, and then its intensity slackened. One by one the big howitzers stopped firing, and the bombers in the sky closed the doors in their bellies. Silence came to the battlefield, and in the distance Colonel Hutchins saw a world of smoke and flames.

  He was with Baker Company of his First Battalion, and he unslung his Thompson submachine gun from his shoulder. Checking the clip, and ramming a round into the chamber, he raised the submachine gun high in the air!

  “Forward, Twenty-third!” he yelled. “Charge!”

  Colonel Hutchins ran forward, aiming his submachine gun straight ahead at the vortex of smoke and flames. His belly bounced up and down over his cartridge belt, and his steel pot was low over his eyes. Behind him the men from Baker Company came out of their holes to follow their regimental commander into battle.