by Dean Hughes
Fujioka stared at Yuki. Men were streaming around them, but Yuki didn’t move on. “I didn’t say I know everything, Sergeant. I just—”
“You just think you have to sound tough. But I’m telling you, if you want to live, follow what I do. I’ll try to keep you alive.”
Fujioka nodded. “Okay.”
“I was just as sure of myself as you are when I left home. I told my friends I was going to come home with my chest covered in medals. But I panicked my first day out. I forgot everything I’d been taught. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes.”
Yuki turned and fell back into stride with the other men in the company. His feet were hurting even more. Fujioka walked next to him, now quiet.
The men kept marching, and that night, in spite of their exhaustion, they dug foxholes again. Once Yuki and Shig were finished, Yuki checked with the other men in his squad. Fujioka and his partner, a replacement named Endo, were still digging, as though they wanted to show that they were trying to do things right.
“I didn’t mean to be so tough on you,” Yuki said.
“No, it’s all right. I deserved everything you said.”
“Well, most of it. But mainly, I wanted to get your attention.”
“You did.”
“All right. That hole is deep enough. Try to get some sleep.”
Yoshi Higa was a corporal now and was the other fire team leader along with Shig. Yoshi and Ted Tanna had finished their foxhole and were already bundling up for the night as best they could. Two more replacements, Private Hamada and a half-Japanese boy named Cutler, were still digging. Yuki offered them the same advice: They should watch what the others did and take no wild chances. He then walked back to Shig, and when they got into their hole, they huddled together.
“This one is going to be bad,” Shig said.
“The night? Or the battle tomorrow?”
“I was thinking about the night ahead of us. But tomorrow’s going to be worse.”
Yuki lay quiet for a time, tried to find a position that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. His feet were throbbing. “How long have we been over here, Shig?” he asked. “Ten years?”
“It seems like it, doesn’t it? It’s hard to remember any other life.”
“Am I the same guy I was when we came over?”
“Yeah, you’re still the same guy on the inside. You’ve just dropped some of the attitude you carried around. What about me?”
“You’ve always been steadier than I am, Shig. But you’re a soldier now. As good as anyone in the whole regiment.”
“That’s not true. I just try to stay alive.”
“But you look out for everybody else, too.”
“That’s what we all do.”
“Well . . . let’s keep each other alive again tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
But Yuki couldn’t fight off the feeling that his time was running out.
CHAPTER 16
Before Fox Company joined the assault on Hill 617, Sergeant Oshira offered Yuki some final instructions and then handed him a Thompson submachine gun with four drums of ammo. “I thought you might want to carry this today,” he said.
“Where’d you get it?”
“It doesn’t matter. We need all the firepower we can get. I figure you’re the best guy to handle it.” Yuki was pleased. He had fired Thompsons—“Tommy guns,” as they were called—and he knew what they could do. He was also pretty sure it was the same gun Sergeant Koba had once used. He liked the idea of carrying forward what the sergeant had done for the platoon, being the kind of leader he had been. But Sergeant Oshira added, “Don’t think you’re Superman just because you’ve got a machine gun. You still need to watch yourself.”
“Sure. I will.” Yuki liked the way the weapon felt in his hands, and he did feel powerful. But he was nervous—more than usual. He had more to be concerned about these days, with men to lead—and men to keep alive.
It was early, still dark. Fog was hanging in the trees, reducing what little visibility Yuki had. It seemed a morning to curl up somewhere warm and sleep as long as possible, not to shatter the peace of the forest.
“Forget what I said yesterday, all right?” Sergeant Oshira said.
“Everything you said was true.”
“But it doesn’t help us. Let’s just do the job. No matter what else is going on, we do have to win this war. We might as well be proud we’re the right guys to do it.”
“See, Sarge, you do believe in honor.”
“What I believe is that we have to drive the Krauts off that hill in front of us. I’m not going to worry about anything else.”
The troops set off into the dark and then began their climb up the mountain. Yuki’s feet were still burning with pain, but there were too many other things on his mind to allow him to fret about that. Second Platoon—Oshira’s men—had the company’s lead position, straight up the middle, with the other platoons spread across the base of the mountain. The first light was not penetrating through the tree cover yet, and movement in the dense forest was tricky, but the regimental officers had wanted to get troops up the hill as far as possible before daylight.
Yuki had talked to the men in his squad before they set out. He whispered to them to be as quiet as they could and to keep their equipment from clanking. But that soon became impossible. Yuki heard whispers as the soldiers tried to keep track of one another, and somewhere in the dark a soldier fell and apparently banged his rifle against a tree. Soon after that a mortar shell crashed into the forest, and then more followed. Yuki knew it would be hard for his new men not to panic in the dark when explosions were flashing around them.
“Fujioka,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
“I’m right behind you, Sergeant.”
“Good. Stay with me.”
Then a voice stabbed through the woods. “Stay down until we get some light.” It was Sergeant Oshira, who had told Yuki from the beginning that moving through the forest in the dark was never going to work. “One more stupid idea from headquarters,” he had called it.
Yuki told his men to hunker down and wait, and he asked each member of his squad to call back to him, but he didn’t bring them in any closer. They needed to remain spread out.
It wasn’t long before big artillery guns began to fire and trees began to burst. The explosions flung splintered limbs in all directions. Shrapnel cracked through the trees and pounded into the ground. Yuki didn’t like anything about this. There was no time to dig in, and it was suicide to sit tight much longer. But after only a few minutes, the barrage stopped. Yuki wasn’t sure why. Maybe the Germans were conserving ammunition until they had a target they could clearly identify.
The light was gradually coming, and when the misty air around Yuki turned silver, he knew it was time to push forward, before the shelling started again. Sergeant Oshira was obviously thinking the same thing. He called out, “Second Platoon, move out.”
Yuki looked at Shig, who was nearby, on his right.
Shig nodded.
“Let’s go,” Yuki whispered to his men. Instantly, everyone was up and moving. They worked their way carefully through the trees, walked hard, and for twenty minutes or so met no resistance. But the terrain soon changed. The Germans had chosen a position at the top of a steep, rocky incline. Trees were thinner on the slope, which would make cover harder to find. Yuki had no doubt that the Germans were ready and waiting for the Nisei to attempt that dangerous ascent. The trouble was, there was no other way to get to the line of resistance. The platoon had to make it up the mountain as fast as possible, and the entire company had to find angles to shoot through the trees and lay down a shield of suppressing fire on the German weapons.
As soon as the men began the uphill push, overlapping fire from German automatic weapons scattered bullets down through the trees onto the platoon. Yuki found it difficult to make the climb and fire the Thompson at the same time, so he worked his way forward in short burs
ts, found what cover he could behind a tree or boulder, and then, holding the machine gun waist high, fired in the direction of the gun directly above him. As he fired, his men rushed forward and found cover, then fired their own weapons. Mortar teams were also firing at the German emplacements, and that was slowing their machine guns a little.
Yuki made another run ahead, tried to take cover behind a spindly young tree, but knew he was in a bad spot. He fired his Tommy gun and realized the angle was too steep. All the while, he was hearing bullets batter the rocky slope around him. He made a quick run at a more substantial tree to his left, but now he was trapped. He had outrun his men, and they were taking heavy fire in spite of all the bullets and mortars directed at the German emplacements.
The squad had to either make a dash up the steep face of the mountain or fall back. There were no other options. But Shig made a decision before Yuki could wave him away. He jumped up and ran to Yuki, and the other men followed, all of them angling toward a little copse of trees near Yuki. Shig dropped down next to Yuki, rolled onto his side, and clicked a grenade into place on his launcher.
“No! You can’t hit them from here,” Yuki said, but Shig was already jumping up. He aimed and fired, but the grenade struck a tree limb and fell far short.
Yuki grabbed at Shig, tried to pull him down. But just as the grenade exploded, Yuki heard two quick thumps, and Shig collapsed to the ground. Yuki grabbed Shig, pulled him behind the tree. “Where are you hit?”
Shig didn’t answer. He moaned, sort of whimpered. Yuki rolled Shig onto his back and pulled his jacket open, but as he did, he saw that the two bullets had ripped a wide hole in his gut. Blood was pumping, bubbling through his shirt. Yuki slapped his hand against the wound, tried to hold the blood in. “You’re okay, Shig,” he pleaded. “We’ll get you through this.”
But it wasn’t true and Yuki knew it.
“Talk to me, Shig. Can you hear me?”
No answer. Shig’s eyes were open but he was seeing nothing.
Blood was running between Yuki’s fingers and spreading across Shig’s shirt. Yuki couldn’t think what else to do. “Medic!” he called out, but that was futile. Medics couldn’t run into this much fire.
Shig gave a deep gasp, and then all the air seeped out of him. His muscles went limp, his face sagged. “Shig! Don’t do this,” Yuki was begging. “You can’t do this.” He slammed his fist against his chest, tried to yell into his face, “Shig, come back to me right now!” but he choked on a sob. He dropped his chin to his chest, said what might have been a prayer: “Please, don’t let him die.”
But even as he was saying the words, he knew he had seven more men out there taking fire. He had to lead them, had to cover for them.
Yuki took a big breath, fought to control his emotions, and then grabbed the Thompson submachine gun in his bloody hands. He jumped up and charged ahead, then stopped and fired, but he didn’t wait for his men this time. He jerked an ammo drum from his weapon and slammed another one in, all the while standing in the open. He had to get up that hill and toss a grenade into that emplacement. He charged off to his right, dropped down, blasted the machine-gun nest with another burst of fire. Then he broke to his left, with bullets popping past his ears. He stopped long enough to fire another burst, and then he ran to his right one more time and dropped behind a tree. He heard the enemy fire let up a little, so he made one more run to his left and one more to his right, found cover once again, and then pulled a grenade from his belt. He took another breath, gathered himself, and then ran straight at the machine gun, climbing frantically over the rocky ground, ripping his fingers, bashing his knees against the rocks.
He stopped, pulled the pin from the grenade, and set his feet. He was still far from his target, so he didn’t lob the grenade, but threw it like a baseball. As it left his hand, he felt something strike his chest. It was like a punch, and it sent him spinning backward. A second slam hit him in the shoulder, knocked him off his feet.
After he crashed against the rocky ground, he tried to breathe but couldn’t. The tree limbs above him seemed to be spinning. He sucked for air, tried to keep himself alive, but his thought was, My time has come. He lay on the ground on his back, and he tried to see the sky, see something. But everything was fading.
“Shig,” he said. He stretched his arm out, reached for him, but couldn’t find him. He let his eyes go shut, wondered why he didn’t feel any more pain than he did, wondered what would come next.
But then someone was there, pulling his jacket open, asking questions. Yuki only heard the voice like a buzzing, couldn’t grasp the words. But he knew that time had passed, that he had been on the ground for a while. He wondered what had happened to his men.
Yuki was losing the light again, and that didn’t frighten him the way he had always thought it would. But he did think of his mother. She hadn’t wanted him to join the army. She hadn’t wanted to lose him. He was sorry for that. And Keiko—he had wanted to see her again.
• • •
Yuki woke up slowly, his thoughts confused. He was in a tent. At first, he could see the canvas, knew it wasn’t sky, and then he realized there were two men—medics—leaning over him, one on each side. They were doing something to his chest. He felt no pain, felt disconnected. He had accepted death, and that acceptance had relieved him. Now he didn’t know what would happen to him.
“Sergeant Nakahara, can you hear me?”
Yuki wanted to answer but couldn’t. He thought maybe he nodded his head.
“You are not going to die. Don’t let yourself think that. You’ve got a collapsed lung, but that won’t kill you. You got hit twice and we’re not sure what the bullets did to you inside, but we’re pumping plasma into you and you’re stabilizing. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
There were times after that when Yuki slept, and times when he was partly awake. Sometimes people talked to him, and he thought he understood some of what they said. But he wasn’t certain of anything. He only knew that a kind of haziness—a cloud, it seemed—was filling his head, and it made him want more than anything to sleep.
Yuki awoke once long enough to recognize that he was in the back of some sort of vehicle, and eventually he understood that he had been transported to a hospital in Belmont, not far from Bruyères, and that he had had surgery. But as his mind became clearer, he felt more pain in his chest and shoulder and back. A nurse who spoke little English and who seemed rather oblivious to his pain was in and out of the room where his bed was—a room full of beds and men. He heard talking at times. For a couple more days, Yuki slept most of the time and fought hard to understand his situation whenever he awoke.
But one morning he woke to more clarity than he had known since all this had started, and it was then that he began to remember.
Shig was dead.
Yuki had tried many times to prepare himself for whatever might happen, for the fact that he himself might die, but he had always hoped that Shig would get through. Yuki had pushed forward after Mat had died, mainly by refusing to think about him, but this loss was like a chasm opening up before him. There was no going around it, no plunging through it.
And Yuki knew the worst: He had talked Shig into joining the army. He was responsible for everything his friend had suffered in Italy and France, and now, for his death. He would face Shig’s parents someday, and Keiko. He had no idea what he could say to them.
Tears began to seep from the corners of Yuki’s eyes. He knew he would never be as close to anyone again. He feared his life now more than he had feared his death. Maybe the army would repair him and send him back to the battle and he could lose himself in the war all over again. But what if the doctors sent him home? He would always know: He hadn’t kept Shig alive the way he had vowed to do.
It was all too much. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself with other men around, so he pulled his pillow over his face to muffle the sounds, and he let himself cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he kept saying, but he didn
’t know whether Shig could hear him. The two of them had talked about life after death, but Yuki wasn’t sure about it. Now he wanted to believe. He wanted to see Shig at least one more time, find a way to thank him and tell him face-to-face how sorry he was.
All Yuki could think to do was to pray for Shig to whatever god there might be. He simply asked that Shig would be all right. He repeated the prayer over and over, never stopped, even when he slipped back into the half sleep that overtook him again.
Later in the morning the nurse was there, the Frenchwoman with her black hair tied up behind her head. “You awake?”
Yuki nodded.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
“That is good. Someone here to see you.”
Yuki raised his head enough to see the man standing behind the nurse. Sergeant Oshira.
“Sarge,” he tried to say, but his voice was hoarse and it pinched off.
Sergeant Oshira walked to his bed. Yuki could see that he had a bathrobe on, not a uniform. One arm was inside his robe, making a bulge. “I got hit on the same hill,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Better than you. My elbow is a mess, probably always will be, but I haven’t gone through all the stuff you have.”
“Did we . . .” Yuki had to stop to breathe. “Did we take that hill?”
“Yeah. It took us two days, and we lost a lot of men, but we made it. I got hit on the second day. Machine-gun fire, same as you. Guys say it’s a million-dollar wound, but that’s not what I’m feeling right now. I’d rather finish the job we started.”
Yuki felt some of that, but the sergeant sounded as though he still had energy, and the thought of going back to the battle seemed beyond Yuki’s strength.
“Shig’s dead,” Yuki said.
Sarge nodded, then looked down. After a time, he said, “I’m sorry, Yuki.”
“War,” Yuki said. He didn’t know how to say what he was thinking.
“It isn’t what we thought it would be, is it?” the sergeant said. He stood for a long time, now looking across the room, but not at the other beds, the other men. He seemed to be seeing through the walls. Finally he added, “We all grow up wanting to be war heroes. What a joke that is.”
