The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  Yet all of Wylie’s senses were keenly tuned to his immediate surroundings. When he heard the faint clink of metal against ice, followed by a soft thump muffled by snow, he froze instantly. A second later an enemy grenade tumbled past him, rolling down the slope.

  “Grenade!” He shouted the warning to those below and pressed himself flat against the slope, hugging the cold, wet ground.

  A deafening explosion rent the air. The snow-covered tundra shuddered beneath him as pieces of snow, mud, and ice pelted his back. He waited a moment, then started climbing again. He heard someone scrambling up the slope behind him. When he reached the jog in the shallow ravine, he glanced down and saw Big Jim. Wylie smiled faintly, then pushed on.

  It took the better part of an hour for them to work their way, unseen, to the curling snowdrift where the enemy machine gun chattered at the company of soldiers below. Wylie inched as close as he dared, then plucked a grenade from his string and grabbed the pin. He signaled to Big Jim that he’d go first. In perfectly synchronized rhythm, they rose, one after the other, and lobbed their grenades at the nest, then ducked back to cover. The screams and explosions sounded as one as chunks of flesh, equipment, and snow hurtled through the air. When the debris stopped falling, Wylie and Big Jim scrambled onto the drift.

  Four Japs had been in the nest. There wasn’t much left of two of them. Two more were sprawled on the high side of the drift surrounded by blood-splattered snow and charred mud. The hand of one twitched. Wylie fired four rounds into him.

  Suddenly bullets whined around their heads. They dived into the debris-littered trench that led to the enemy nest as the GI’s started scrambling up the slope to join them. They waited until several soldiers had slithered into the wet trench, then crept forward to locate the next Jap position.

  The trench ran fairly straight for twenty yards, then took a sharp turn along the jagged ridge. Wylie inched up to the corner and cautiously peeked around it. He looked straight at the muzzle of a Jap rifle ten yards away and jerked back as a hot flame stung his cheek. He reached up. When he took his hand away, there was blood on his glove. The bullet had cut a furrow through his beard and scratched his cheek. Wylie ignored it. In this cold, blood coagulated quickly or froze over.

  They made a few attempts to bounce grenades down the trench, but the enemy soldier was untouched. Finally Big Jim took two soldiers and climbed out of the trench in an attempt to slip around behind the Jap while Wylie and the other soldiers kept him occupied.

  Minutes later, Big Jim sent one of the soldiers back with word that the Japs had two separate machine-gun emplacements ahead. There was no way to take one without being exposed to the fire of the other. They’d have to attack both simultaneously. To do that, they had to dislodge the sniper in the trench, and Big Jim couldn’t get behind him because of the machine guns.

  “All right.” Wylie leaned his back against the trench wall and studied the three shivering soldiers, all with hands tucked under armpits trying to keep them warm. “We’re gonna throw our grenades around the corner, then follow them. Just be damned sure you get them well around the corner or they’ll blow up in our faces.”

  They tossed the grenades around the corner in rapid succession. As the first one exploded, Wylie sprinted after them and sprang toward the far side of the trench, slamming his shoulder against and firing into the exploding dirt, snow, and mud as he hit. The others followed him, taking whatever was left of the narrow space, one flopping down on his belly in the icy slop and firing blindly into the erupting shower. As the air cleared, there was no answering fire. They crept cautiously forward in a crouch until they could see the first machine-gun emplacement. Wylie sent the soldier back to Big Jim with the message that they were in position and would wait for his signal.

  The hoot of an owl was the most bizarre sound Wylie had ever heard on a battlefield. He was chuckling as they launched their attack on the Jap position, crossing the open stretch that was exposed to the machine guns in the next several yards ahead and above them. But those guns were busy with Big Jim.

  Within minutes, they had silenced the machine guns and Wylie had plunged his bayonet into the spine of the last Jap who looked like he might be still breathing. He turned and looked to see if Big Jim needed any help, but all appeared quiet there. He recognized Big Jim’s snowy beard and parka as a figure waved to him, signaling his success. Wylie started to wave back. As he raised his hand, the ground behind Big Jim exploded. For a split second, Big Jim seemed frozen in position, then he pitched forward, falling across the bunkered rim of the machine-gun nest.

  “No!” Wylie shouted, then recklessly scrambled and clawed his way across and up the rough ridge.

  The other soldiers reached Big Jim before Wylie did. He pushed them out of the way and crouched beside his friend. With difficulty, Big Jim focused his eyes on him and smiled faintly.

  “I … thought he was … dead.” The death rattle in his throat was unmistakable.

  “You stupid son of a bitch, why didn’t you stick him?” Wylie bawled angrily, tears running down his cheeks and into his ice-crusted beard. Blindly, he looked up and yelled, “Medic!”

  “Anita. Will … you …” A loud sigh cut off the request. Big Jim never got the rest of it out.

  “Hell, yes, I’ll look after her, but you’re not going to die, Jim. You can’t die.” Wylie sobbed. “Damn it, I told you nothing’s going to happen to us!”

  “I think he’s dead, sir,” one of the soldiers ventured.

  “Shut up!” He looked wildly around. “Medic! Where’s the fuckin’ medics?”

  The soldiers pulled back and left him kneeling there alone in the snow with the body of his buddy. They’d willingly tangle with the Japs, but none of them wanted to lock horns with one of Castner’s Cutthroats. They pushed on to continue their attacks on the Japanese positions along Fish Hook Ridge.

  Unable to sleep, Wylie lay awake staring at the dark ceiling of the tent. He listened to the snores of the other men, like himself scheduled for evacuation. They were all frostbite victims. With Wylie, the diagnosis was battle fatigue.

  He had no idea how long he’d sat and talked to Big Jim, but it was dark when they’d hauled him down off that ridge. After that, he’d just sat. These last sixteen days he’d seen so much misery and death—guys with their feet frozen black and their knees all bloody from crawling, bodies blown apart by enemy grenades, or men with their guts hanging out. Most were strangers; some he’d known by name; some he’d fought beside; but with Jim, it was different. Maybe they hadn’t been as close as brothers, but Wylie had thought of him like a brother.

  Why did Jim have to die? Why was he still alive? Jim had someone waiting for him to come home. He had no one except his parents. It wasn’t fair.

  Wylie closed his eyes, trying to shut out the guilt and grief. It was becoming painfully clear to him that he could escape from the world, but he couldn’t escape from the thoughts in his head. He sat up, fully dressed, and pulled on his parka. The sleeves and front were crusted with dried blood from holding Jim’s body in his arms. Now they felt useless and empty.

  He slipped out of the tent, moving with quiet stealth, and wandered into the fog, missing the familiar weight of his rifle slung across his shoulder. The smell of coffee and breakfast cooking drifted on the cold night air. He stared in the direction of the fog-wrapped mess tent, knowing the troops were being rotated back from the front lines to have a hot meal before going into battle at dawn. He’d heard them talk about the morning’s planned offensive to finish off the Japanese, although he’d given no sign he was listening. It wasn’t his battle. He’d done his share of fighting. Like Big Jim had said, he was tired of it.

  A shrill wailing cry floated out of the night. At first Wylie thought it was the wind howling down a ravine, but it sounded more like voices, a whole chorus of voices. He turned to face the crest of Engineer Hill, wondering if he was going crazy. Suddenly soldiers—American soldiers—started pouring over the top, running as
if the devil were after them.

  “The Japs!” a panicked soldier yelled at him. “They’re coming! They’re right behind us! A whole damned army of Japs!” He threw a frightened look over his shoulder and continued to run, stumbling forward as if he couldn’t make his legs move fast enough. “Run! It’s the Japs! Run!”

  More streamed over the hill with the same cry. With a strange feeling of detachment, Wylie walked to the top of the hill and looked down through the wispy fog. In the faint light of predawn, he could see Japanese soldiers massing below. With the calmness of a disinterested observer, Wylie estimated there were at least several hundred of them.

  Farther along the ridge of the hill, an American officer started shouting orders. Wylie couldn’t make out his rank, but he guessed he was from the command post erected on the hilltop to direct the morning’s artillery fire. Soldiers, responding to the shouted orders, scattered along the rim. As Wylie stared at them, he realized they were all noncombatants, support personnel—cooks and kitchen staff from the mess tents, medics and stretcher bearers from the evac center, road builders and heavy-equipment operators from the Engineer units, staff officers and radio operators from the command posts. He couldn’t identify one combat soldier among them.

  Slowly it hit him that the Japanese army had broken through the front lines. There were no fighting units to stop them. It had taken sixteen days of brutal, bloody fighting to corner them in that valley. Now they’d broken out of the trap. There was nothing standing between them and the tons of supplies and ammunition behind him except this motley collection of service personnel who’d probably never been in combat in their lives. Those sixteen days of hell had been for nothing. He refused to accept that Big Jim had died for nothing. He couldn’t let that happen.

  “Somebody give me a rifle, grenades—anything!” he shouted.

  Someone shoved an M-1 rifle in his hands along with a bunch of ammunition. Quickly he wedged himself between two soldiers hunkered down along the brow of the hill, and assumed the prone firing position. The soldier on his left pushed a small pile of grenades to him.

  “Have some,” he urged nervously. “I haven’t handled any since I got out of basic.”

  Screaming like banshees, the massed Japanese charged up the hill, their war cry of “Banzai!” echoing eerily in Wylie’s ears. The officer Wylie had seen earlier on the hill turned out to be the artillery commander. From his vantage point, he called out targets for the grenades as calmly as if he were directing an artillery barrage. Wylie pulled the pins and threw his grenades at the onrushing Japs until his supply was exhausted. But the holes blown in the massed front were quickly filled. The fanatical charge didn’t break.

  Wylie picked up the M-1 and began squeezing off round after round at the massed targets. Still they came on. Even those who were hit staggered forward. Sweat poured down his forehead. He’d never seen anything like this. The fire from the hilltop was mowing them down like rows of cornstalks, yet nothing seemed to stop them. They were so close now he could see their faces, their mouths open with the cry of “Banzai!”

  He used up his clip and shoved another one in, hurrying frantically. As he took aim again, he saw the front line falter. It was point-blank range now. He added his rifle’s voice to the thunderous report of the other small-arms fire from the shoulder-to-shoulder men on the ridge. For a brief moment, it appeared that they were turning back the Jap charge.

  But as the Japs fell back, they seemed to gather the needed momentum and hurtled themselves forward again in a maniacal rush. Wylie kept firing, his body vibrating with the constant recoil of his weapon as he pushed to his feet, realizing they couldn’t stop the Japs now. Their momentum was going to carry them over the top.

  As the Japs crested the hill, some Engineers rushed up from the rear to meet them. Wylie was firing into their slant-eyed faces. Four fell at his feet before he ran out of ammunition. There wasn’t time to reload. He cursed the lack of a bayonet and used the rifle as a club, desperately swinging at them as they swept over the rim. Suddenly he was facing a Jap with a scar on his left cheek, his mouth twisted in a sneer. Wylie saw the bayonet coming at his stomach, but he couldn’t seem to get his rifle-club around fast enough. At the last second, he managed to knock the point of the bayonet down. It stabbed into his thigh like a hot iron. As the Jap soldier yanked it out, his leg collapsed under him and he fell, waiting for the killing thrust in his back that never came.

  The Engineers behind Wylie broke the enemy’s charge. The remnants of the Japanese Army fell back and regrouped on the lower slopes, then tried again to gain the summit without success. Faced with the dishonor of defeat at the hands of the Americans, some five hundred Japanese held grenades to their chests and pulled the pins, choosing death. As the Japanese proverb proclaimed, “It is simpler to die than to live.”

  CHAPTER LX

  Anchorage

  September 1943

  As Wylie gazed at the walls of his old bedroom, they looked familiar yet different somehow—like something out of the distant past that didn’t seem quite real to him any more. He’d been back only two days. The Army had let him come home on leave now that his leg had sufficiently healed. It had been a long, slow process. He still didn’t have the full use of it and needed a cane to get around. In time, he’d be able to dispense with it, too.

  The injury had kept him out of the Kiska invasion, but that had turned out to be little more than an exercise. The Japs had abandoned their Aleutian stronghold and withdrawn their troops, somehow managing to sneak out through the Navy blockade of the island. Most of the casualties had come from soldiers shooting each other by mistake, although he’d heard that Japanese mines and booby traps had taken their toll, too. Wylie wasn’t sorry he’d missed it.

  There was a knock at his bedroom door. He guessed his mother had come to tell him they were ready to leave for church. He wished he could tell her to go away. Grudgingly, he answered it without budging from the bed. “Yes?”

  “It’s your grandmother. May I come in?”

  The bed creaked under his weight as he pushed higher on the pillows, wincing at the pull on his stiff leg muscles. “Sure.”

  The door opened and she walked in, then hesitated a moment before closing the door behind her. Idly, Wylie wondered how it was that his grandmother never seemed to age. Except for her blue-gray hair and the few lines in her face, she didn’t really look old. He glanced at the royal blue dress with white polka dots and mentally added that she didn’t dress old either, although her shoes were slightly more sensible than what she might have worn in her youth.

  “I’m glad to see you’re all ready for church.” Her glance skimmed his sharply creased uniform and smoothly shaved face. She was struck by how thin and pale he looked—and how much he’d aged. The ordeal had stolen his youth, Glory realized. He would never be young again. She walked over to the straight chair and moved it closer to the bed. “I was hoping we’d have a chance to talk before it was time to leave.”

  “Grandmother Cole, I really don’t feel like talking about the war just now.”

  “I know.” She sat down. “You’ve had to answer more than your share of questions about it since you’ve been back, haven’t you? But you mustn’t mind all the questions your parents have been asking you. They mean no harm. It’s just that the reports we received about the fighting were so sketchy.” She opened her pocketbook and took out a poem that she’d cut from a paper someone had sent her. “Have you seen this, Wylie?”

  She handed it to him and watched him read the short poem written by Warrant Officer Boswell Boomhower this past summer. Glory already had it memorized by heart.

  A soldier stood at the Pearly Gate;

  His face was wan and old.

  He gently asked the man of fate

  Admission to the fold.

  “What have you done,” St. Peter asked,

  “To gain admission here?”

  “I’ve been in the Aleutians

  For nigh unto a ye
ar.”

  Then the gates swung open sharply

  As St. Peter tolled the bell.

  “Come in,” said he, “and take a harp.

  You’ve had your share of hell.”

  When Wylie said nothing, Glory began to speak again. “I had a boarder staying with us recently who’d fought in Europe during the First World War. When the Depression came, he moved to Alaska and trapped for a while on some of the islands in the Aleutians. He talked a lot about the war and his experiences on the islands—enough for me to know that only those who have been through it can appreciate what it was like. Even then, it can affect each one differently.”

  He gave her back the poem and frowned as he shook his head. “I don’t understand how you could know.”

  “I may be a woman, Wylie Cole, but I’ve seen a lot and done a lot in my time,” she chided gently. “Besides, you’re supposed to be wiser as you get older.”

  “I suppose.” However faint, it was the first genuine smile she’d seen from him since he’d been home.

  “Wylie, all of us have endured things in our lives. When we try to talk about it, we can’t seem to express the agony, fear, and grief of those moments—yet they live in our minds.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “They do.”

  “The past will always be with us, Wylie. We’ll never forget the things that happen in our lives, and I don’t think we should, no matter how painful some of the memories might be. But there comes a time when we must start over, when we must pick up the pieces of our lives and go on.”

  “I know, but there’s still a war on.”

  “And your job isn’t done.”

  “I guess it isn’t.”

  His mother tapped on the door. “It’s time to leave for church.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Glory answered, then smiled at Wylie. “Well, you’ve already heard one sermon this morning. Are you ready for another?”