by Dean Hughes
Yuki dug in with Shig that evening, and then early in the morning, Sergeant Koba awakened them. At 0600, Fox Company led the attack on the Germans’ new defensive position. First Platoon made the initial charge while Second Platoon—Yuki’s unit—laid down heavy cover fire to keep the enemy as off balance as possible. Yuki could see muzzle fire from three machine guns, all guarded by a low rock wall that ran the length of an open field. Sergeant Oshira instructed his squad to zero in on the gun to the right, and the five men blasted the area with their M1 rifles. American mortar teams were also firing at will, the thumps continuous, and automatic weapons from both sides filled the air with streaking tracer bullets.
First Platoon dropped down after their charge and laid down their own barrage of fire. As soon as that happened, Second Platoon, on Lieutenant Freeman’s command, jumped to their feet and attacked. They stayed spread out, fired from the hip as they charged, and ran past First Platoon’s position. But the German machine-gun fire was heavier now, more accurate. A man to Yuki’s left took a hit and went down. And then a mortar shell struck close and Yuki saw men fall, scream. With every step Yuki expected that a bullet would take him down, but he kept going, and when Sergeant Koba dropped to the ground and aimed his rifle, so did the rest of the platoon.
Now First Platoon was up and moving again. Second Platoon could fire with better effect on the machine guns now, and the center gun suddenly went silent. But German mortars were striking constantly.
The two platoons leapfrogged again. A lot of men had gone down, and two machine guns were still pumping out bullets, the sound of them like electricity sizzling in the air. When the machine gun straight ahead of Yuki suddenly stopped, he hoped the German gunners had been knocked out, but it was just as likely that they had stopped only to reload. Still, he knew the break in the fire was an opportunity to make a move.
Yuki jumped up and bolted to his right. He covered about thirty yards before the machine gun started to fire again, the bullets zinging past him. He dove down behind some brush, and the men of his platoon continued to direct heavy fire at the emplacement. The Germans, in response, swung their aim back toward the main body of the platoon.
Yuki knew that men were getting hit. He couldn’t let this go on much longer. He pulled a grenade from his belt, jumped up, and ran back to the left, directly toward the emplacement. He made it to within thirty yards or so, when he saw tracer bullets flying past him again. He dove to the ground, pulled the pin on the grenade, and then lofted it toward the machine gun. His breath held as he waited, and then the explosion sent debris flying. Yuki jumped up immediately and charged again. He leaped over the little rock fence and into the emplacement, his weapon ready. Four men were down, two of them alive, staring at him.
For a moment everything held. The men didn’t move, only watched to see what Yuki might do.
“Hände hoch!” Yuki yelled, almost the only words he had learned in German. “Hands high.”
One of the men held up one hand, and Yuki saw that his other arm was lying limp at his side. “Don’t shoot,” he said in English.
The other soldier made an effort and raised both hands slightly above his shoulders, but he looked stunned, hardly aware of what was going on. Yuki watched both men who were alive and at the same time glanced at the other two. He knew he couldn’t assume for certain that they were dead.
By then American soldiers were streaming toward the emplacement, jumping the little wall, aiming their weapons at the two Germans holding up their hands. Yuki realized that the other machine gun had stopped and the mortar fire had also stopped.
“They’re retreating!” someone yelled. “Keep ’em running.”
A lot of men moved on past the wall and the ridge behind it. Yuki heard firing again, but he could tell that the bullets were aimed at the fleeing Germans.
Sergeant Koba soon stepped over the wall. “Good job, Nakahara,” he said.
Yuki liked the praise, but he realized he was quivering now and his pulse was racing.
“You deal with these men,” Sergeant Koba said. “Take them back to the CP for interrogation.” He walked over and used his foot to roll one of the apparently dead men on his side, and then stared down at the other one, who was lying on his back. “These two are finished.” He took a better look at Yuki. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I think so. I’m not hit or anything like that.”
“Maybe not. But you don’t look good.”
Yuki tried to laugh. “I always thought I was pretty good looking,” he said.
Sergeant Koba didn’t smile. He continued to watch Yuki. “You did what you had to do,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
Koba was older than any of the men in the platoon, and Yuki always knew that he cared about the “kids” he was leading. It meant a lot to know that the sergeant was pleased with him. Emotion was still pounding through his body—fear and exhilaration at the same time—but it was Koba’s gentle praise that affected Yuki most. He realized that he was on the verge of breaking down, and he couldn’t let that happen. So he straightened, and tried to sound stern when he told the two Germans, “Stand up. Now.”
The soldier who had spoken English used his good arm to help himself stand, and then he helped the other man get up. “Can he walk?” Yuki asked.
“I help him. Don’t shoot.”
“I won’t shoot you unless you try something. Help him over that wall.” He pointed back across the field of battle. “We’re going that way.”
The soldier nodded, but he took a long look, as though realizing that Yuki wasn’t what he had expected. The German had handsome eyes, dark blue, but they were tired, lifeless. “Thank you,” he said. “Please not shoot us.”
“Just step over that wall,” he said. “Help your friend.”
The soldier nodded again, but he still didn’t move. “You make us in prison?”
“Yes.”
“Gut. No more war for us. You give us food?”
“Yes.”
“Das ist auch gut.” And still he continued to stare at Yuki. “You Chinese?”
“No. Japanese.”
“Why you go war for America?”
“Because I’m an American,” he said.
“But you—”
“Step over that wall. Right now. Don’t ask me any more questions.”
The man nodded, accepted. He helped his friend over the wall, and then he held him up as they walked, while Yuki walked behind them. “I’m an American,” he muttered again. He told himself he didn’t have to prove that from now on—to himself or to anyone else. He had taken out a machine-gun nest. That was the kind of stuff heroes did. But then, he wondered, why were his hands still shaking? Why did he feel on the edge of falling apart?
Still, he delivered the Germans to the intelligence officer at the CP, and then he turned back to find his platoon. There were still a number of bodies lying on the ground. Some had been marked and would be carried away later. The ones whose faces he could see were almost all people he knew, some of them friends. A man named Aiso, who had joined the army with him at Topaz, was lying on his back, a bullet hole in his chest and blood staining the front of his uniform. Yuki and Shig had worked with Aiso back in the sugar beet fields of Utah. Yuki knew the guy’s family, knew he had a girlfriend who had promised to wait for him.
In the middle of the meadow, he saw a medic working on a man who was bigger than most of the Nisei. Yuki walked closer, hoping he was wrong but gradually recognizing that it was Oki. He hurried over, ran the last few steps.
The medic was working on Oki’s legs. It looked like he’d been shot in both thighs. One leg was bandaged. The medic had cut the pant leg away on the other and was wrapping the wound.
“Oki, are you okay?” Yuki asked.
“Not too bad.”
“I gave him a shot of morphine,” the medic told Yuki.
“How bad is he hurt?”
“I don’t know for sure. I think the femur is broken in this l
eg. I don’t think he’ll be back on the line.”
“That’s good, Oki,” Yuki said. “You’re going to get out of here. You got yourself a million-dollar wound.”
“Guess so.”
But Yuki could see what the war, after only a month, had done to Oki. He saw none of the old lightness. “I’ll look you up when I get home,” Yuki said. “I’ll come to Hawaii. We’ll have a good time.”
“Yeh. Sho thing. You good man, Yuki.”
“But you betta,” Yuki said. He tried to laugh, but he couldn’t manage it.
Oki was reaching out by then. Yuki grasped his hand, held it for a moment. He thought of the two Germans who just wanted to eat, to survive, to get home. Oki was not so different from them. It struck Yuki as almost comic that humans drew lines on the globe, and on both sides of those lines raised up armies. Then they fought and died to take possession of . . . what? Hills. Yuki knew he had to fight, and had to win, but that didn’t make war anything to be proud of.
CHAPTER 11
For an entire week the Germans continued to retreat. Yuki’s battalion chased them across hills and vineyards and through villages. Lieutenant Freeman informed his men that the battalion officers believed the Germans were falling back to the Arno River, near Florence. That may have been true, but along the way, they were attempting to inflict as much damage on the Allied troops as they could. There were plenty of tough fights for the Nisei soldiers as the Germans set up ambushes or left behind snipers to pick off Americans one at a time.
As the troops continued to move ahead, pockets of enemy soldiers had to be engaged and forced to retreat northward or captured. After a skirmish in a little town one day, members of Fox Company were moving through the streets, checking houses in search of German soldiers who might be hiding in attics or wine cellars. After Yuki and Shig inspected one house, an older couple, clearly relieved that their town had been liberated, thanked Yuki and Shig profusely and offered them each a glass of wine. They drank the wine, accepted the embraces of the man and woman, and started down the street. But just then they heard the whoosh of an incoming shell.
Yuki and Shig automatically dove toward the street, but the shell struck the cobblestones in front of them before they were down. Yuki felt the blast hit his eyes. He curled up in the street and held his hands over his face, but after a few seconds, when he took his hands away and tried to see, everything was a blur. Still, he knew he had to get out of the street. He raised himself up on his knees, felt for Shig and got hold of his jacket. “Are you okay?” Yuki asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We gotta move. Can you see?”
“No.”
They managed to stand up, clung to each other, and stumbled off the street to a house, and then Yuki felt his way into a little alley that he remembered was on the south side. By then, his vision was clearing a little. Tears were flowing, washing the grit from his eyes. He and Shig sat down, their backs to the wall, and Shig said, “I can see a little now. But I’m bleeding. Pretty bad.”
Yuki was feeling stinging pain, and he looked at his hands to see the dirt and blood that had come off his face. “The splintered stones from the street got us,” he said. “I don’t think we took any shrapnel.”
Shig was looking at Yuki by then. “You’re all cut up,” he said.
“You too.” But the good news was, he could now see quite well. “We need to doctor each other up as much as we can.”
But as usual, a medic showed up rather quickly. He had obviously heard the shell hit and had come looking to see whether there were casualties. Shig saw him hurry past the alley and yelled out to him, “Hey, in here!”
The man was back in seconds. He dropped to his knees between Yuki and Shig. “Where are you hit?” he asked.
“We took some debris on our faces, that’s all,” Yuki said. “We’re not hurt bad.”
The medic had water with him. He used it to wash away the dirt, and then he bandaged the cuts. He worked quickly and then said, “Okay. I want you two to fall back. There’s an aid station just south of town. They’ll patch you up a little better, and then you need a few days to rest and heal. All right?”
“Sure,” Yuki said.
“Are you okay to find your way back on your own? I heard rifle fire up the street. I’ve got to see who else might be hit.”
“We’re fine. Go ahead.”
The medic assembled his materials and stood up.
“Thanks for getting here so fast,” Yuki said. “What’s your name?”
“Jones.” He smiled. “I’m only half Japanese.”
“Where are you from?”
“Tacoma, Washington.”
“Are you a doctor or—”
“No. But I want to be. Do you think I can get into medical school after serving over here?”
“Why not?” Yuki said. “Being named Jones should help.”
They all laughed, and Jones ran back to the street.
Yuki and Shig were still sitting on the ground, their backs against the rock wall of the house. Neither moved for a time. Finally Shig said, “Are you going back to the aid station?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you’re going to do.” But Yuki did know. He wasn’t going back just because he had a few cuts on his face—not unless Shig felt he needed to get fixed up. “Are you going back?”
“No. Too many guys are down already. We need everyone up front.”
That was the answer. He wasn’t at all surprised that Shig felt the same way. “But we need a couple of minutes,” Yuki said.
“Yeah.”
And so they sat a little longer, and Yuki told himself that it wasn’t wrong to have a breather. There were men taking fire not far away, and he and Shig needed to get there, but his face was hurting, his ears were ringing, and he still couldn’t see as well as he wanted to. He needed this peace, this chance to feel safe behind a rock house for just a few minutes.
Yuki looked down the alley. It ended with a rock wall; one could get trapped here. He tested to see how his eyes were adjusting, took a look out to where the alley opened onto the street. What he saw was a stucco house with a red tile roof, dark moss growing over everything. On the main level of the house was a little shop with barrels lined up in front, and on top of the tallest barrel was a tortoiseshell cat, napping in the sun. Either the cat had not been run off by the artillery shell, or it had already returned and wasn’t worried about soldiers in the streets.
Yuki had seen pictures of Europe all his life—on calendars and travel posters. He had never expected to see a village as picturesque as this. But he hadn’t really looked at the town, didn’t even know the name of it. He had only watched doors, listened for movement, feared the possibility of a tank hidden on some side street. He longed to have time to really see what he had been seeing, but he could only look from this alley. Once he was back on the street, he would have to think as a soldier again.
Shig was saying, “We better get going.”
“Yeah.” But they didn’t move.
Shig was sitting back, apparently thinking, not gazing about as Yuki had been doing. He surprised Yuki by saying, “There’s something I’ve been wondering about lately.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you still thinking you want to marry my sister?”
Yuki looked over at Shig. He had sounded serious, but he was smiling a little. “What about you? Are you still worried that I will?”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth. I hope you two do get married. We’d be brothers-in-law, so we’d stay in touch all our lives.”
“Yeah. That’d be good. Of course, we might not . . .”
“What?”
“You know what.”
“You don’t think we’ll make it home, do you?”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know. Everyone’s getting hit. It seems like the only way out of here is the way Oki did it.”
“Even getting shot doesn’t always work. They patch
up a lot of guys and send them back to the line. The only hope for getting home, as far as I can see, is if we get shot up pretty bad. Keiko won’t want me if I come home all messed up.”
Shig seemed to consider that. Finally he said, “She likes you a lot. She told me that in the last letter I got from her. I think she wanted me to tell you.” Suddenly Shig smiled again. “But I gotta admit, she might not feel that way if she could get a look at you right now.”
Yuki looked at Shig, saw the tape and bandages crisscrossing his face. “I think you’re right—if I look like you.”
“What’s she telling you, Yuki? Does she say she wants to wait for you?”
“Nah. She’s never said anything like that. She talks about the dances at camp, and a soda fountain they’ve built there now. She’s still a kid, Shig. She’s not thinking about getting married.”
“I’m not so sure about that. She’s almost eighteen now. She said that we’re heroes back at the camp. And you know how girls are. They like that kind of stuff.” He gave Yuki a little slug on the shoulder. “Especially if the guy is also a good dancer.”
“I’ll tell you what. You marry May, and then we’ll be double brothers-in-law. How would that be?”
But Shig didn’t smile about this. “I’d like that, but May would never be interested in me.”
“Why not?”
“Girls don’t pay attention to me. That’s not going to change whether I’m a hero or not.”
“Come on, Shig. You’re the best guy I’ve ever known. Girls are going to know that. It’s not just . . . you know . . .”
“What? Not just that I’m so lanky?”
“Hey, we’re all short. That doesn’t matter.” Yuki wanted to tell Shig how mild and good he was, but he couldn’t say something like that. He only said, “You’re the best friend anyone could have. You’ll find someone who sees that.”
Shig shrugged, as though he weren’t really convinced. “First, we gotta figure out a way to keep ourselves alive,” he said.
