Down and Dirty

by Len Levinson

  “No shoot!” she said.

  “We no shoot,” Bannon replied.

  The girl crawled out from underneath the bed; she was stark naked. Bannon and Jimmy O'Rourke caught a glimpse of her breasts and bush before she pulled a sheet off the bed and covered herself with it. She was still crying.

  “He want me do fickety-fick!” she said in a loud, hysterical voice. “I no want to but he hit me!”

  “Bullshit,” said O'Rourke. “She ain't got a mark on her. She's lying.”

  “I not lying!” she yelled. “I tell the truth!”

  “Yeah, sure,” said O'Rourke, who considered himself a clever guy. Nobody was going to put anything on him.

  Bannon heard gunfire and grenade blasts down the hall. “I'll watch her,” he said. “You'd better give the other guys a hand with your BAR.”

  “Why don't you give them a hand?”

  “Because you got the BAR.”

  “I'll trade with you.”

  “I don't want that fucking thing.”

  “Well, neither do I.”

  “But it's yours. You were issued it, not me.”

  “Stop giving me orders,” O'Rourke said, raising his chin in the air. “You're not the squad leader anymore.”

  Bannon looked him in the eye. “O'Rourke, after this is over I'm going to kick your fucking ass.”

  “I'd like to see you try it.”

  Both men glowered at each other, and the girl looked at them fearfully.

  Bannon spat at the floor. “You're even dumber than I thought you were,” he said to O'Rourke.

  “Fuck you, cowboy.”

  “The others are gonna need that BAR out there.”

  “You just want me to go out there so you can be alone with the cunt here.”

  “Boy, am I gonna whip your ass.”

  “We'll see about that.”

  The sound of fighting diminished in the building. Butsko shouted orders in one of the wings. A hand grenade exploded in a far section of the building. Bannon looked at the girl. “What's your name?”

  “Mary,” she replied, trembling underneath the sheet wrapped around her. She looked at the dead body of the Japanese officer, walked over to him, and spat on his corpse. “He bad man,” she said. “I glad he dead.”

  O'Rourke snorted and then said, “Yeah, sure.”

  “Shaddup, stupid,” Bannon told him.

  “Shaddup yourself, cowboy.”

  Bannon looked at the girl again. “How long you been here?”

  “A few days.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “A village that way.” She pointed south. “The Japanese mens brought me here.”

  O'Rourke continued to look distrustful. “Anybody who'd believe that would believe anything.”

  Bannon turned to O'Rourke. “I thought I told you to shut up.”

  “Who cares what you say? You ain't shit around here anymore.”

  Bannon looked at the girl. “You got clothes here?”

  “Over there.” She pointed to her sarong, lying over a chair.

  “Get dressed.”

  “Look the other way,” she said.

  “Shit,” said O'Rourke. “I ain't turning my back on that broad.”

  Bannon pointed his M-l at her. “Get dressed.”

  She walked smoothly and gracefully toward the chair, turned her back to them, and took off her sheet, and revealing her naked rear end.

  “What an ass,” O'Rourke said. “If I had an ass like that, I'd make a million dollars.”

  Bannon had to agree it was a great ass. She was a petite girl with nice curves and healthy legs. Her fanny was perfectly rounded, and Bannon felt an erection coming on. He flashed on his girl friend, Ginger, back in Texas, and felt a dull ache of longing. She put on her sarong, which was made of white cotton and had dark-blue flowers printed on it.

  “Let's go,” Bannon said.

  They left the room and walked down the corridor. Men's voices could be heard, but no more shooting. Bleeding Japanese bodies lay on the floor, twisted into grotesque positions. They looked in a room and saw Blum treating a wound in the chest of Private Hilliard, who was only seventeen years old, the youngest man in the platoon. Hilliard had enlisted when he was sixteen. He was tall for his age.

  Farther down the hall they found Butsko and the others in a room that had a radio on a bench and some dead Japs lying on the floor. Screeches and howls came from the loudspeaker as Pfc. Dunbar twisted the dials.

  “I can't get through,” said Dunbar.

  “Maybe they broke it,” Butsko said.

  Suddenly the voice of a Japanese man came through the loudspeakers.

  “Your mother's pussy!” said Dunbar into the mike.

  “Nani?” said the Jap.

  “Fuck you where you breathe!”’

  A clunk sound came from the loudspeaker and the connection was broken off. Butsko was aware that somebody had entered the room and turned around to see Bannon and O'Rourke with the native girl. Butsko stared for a few moments.

  “Where she come from?”

  “She was fucking a Jap officer,” O'Rourke said. “I think we ought to shoot her.”

  Butsko looked at the girl, wondering what to do with her. Most natives on Guadalcanal hated the Japanese, but was she a traitor? Anyway, he had more important things to worry about. The Japs in the mansion probably had radioed back that they were under attack, and maybe Jap reinforcements were on the way. It would probably be a good idea to get out of that mansion, which was a great target for artillery. Maybe the best thing to do was advance through the plantation, set up a defense, and try to make contact with the rest of the battalion.

  “Let's get out of here,” Butsko said. “Bannon, you watch the girl.”

  “What about me?” O'Rourke asked.

  Butsko gave him a backhand fist across the mouth, and O'Rourke's legs went wobbly.

  “I just told you how it's going to be,” Butsko said. “Let's go!”

  Butsko stayed in the room as the others ran out into the corridor. He raised his rifle and slammed the butt into the radio, smashing it apart. He whacked the radio until it was nothing more than broken tubes, smashed wires, and a mangled chassis. Then he turned and left the room, following the others out of the mansion.

  The GI's ran through the rooms, looking for food and sake, but there was nothing worth stealing. The Japs who'd been defending the mansion all looked skinny and undernourished as they lay sprawled dead on the floor. The GIs didn't take the Japs’ weapons and ammunition because they had their own. They formed up on the front lawn of the mansion and Butsko told them to move west.

  The drizzle had stopped, but the thick ominous dark clouds were still overhead. The GIs trudged through the coconut grove in a column of twos, with the First Squad in front and Corporal Gomez on the point. Bannon walked behind the First Squad with the girl.

  “Why I have go with you?” the girl asked. “Why not I can go back to my village?”

  Bannon pointed with his thumb back to Butsko. “Ask him.”

  The girl moved to go back to Butsko, but Bannon grabbed her shoulder. “Wait until we stop.”

  The girl made a face that indicated disagreement, but she kept on going. Bannon walked behind her, watching her fanny swing from side to side underneath her sarong. He knew she wasn't wearing anything underneath the sarong, and lust boiled up inside him. He wished he were alone with her so he could grab her. It had been so long since he had had a woman. He thought of holding her in his arms and screwing her for hours, doing all the weird things he liked to do in bed, gorging himself on her.

  Meanwhile, on the point, Corporal Gomez thought he heard something. It was a faint hum that faded away and then came back again. He continued to walk, wondering if fatigue and hunger were making his ears play tricks on him, but after twenty more yards the hum became steady and didn't go away. Something was out there and he held up his hand.

  The column stopped. Butsko ran forward to see what was the ma
tter, and on the way he became aware of the sound too. So did the other men. Butsko joined Gomez and listened.

  “Sounds like a tank,” Gomez said.

  Butsko nodded grimly. He knew there might be more than one tank, and it probably would be accompanied by infantry. He wracked his brain for a plan of action. He didn't know how many Japs were coming and how many tanks. Maybe the best move would be to retreat and try to link up with the rest of the regiment, which shouldn't be too far away. He could report that a Japanese force was on the way and it could be dealt with by Colonel Stockton as he saw fit.

  “Retreat!” he shouted. “Hurry Up!”

  The recon platoon turned around and moved back toward the mansion. Gomez double-timed to take the point again, and they all retraced the path they'd made to the mansion. Behind them the sound of the tank became louder.

  “Double-time!” Butsko shouted.

  The men jogged back, their packs bouncing up and down on their backs. They came to the mansion sitting stolidly on the lawn, passed it, and plunged into the coconut grove behind. It sounded as if the tank were gaining on them.

  Beeaaannnggggg!

  A bullet whizzed past Gomez and hit Pfc. Propopescu in the chest. Pfc. Propopescu collapsed onto the ground and the rest of the recon platoon flopped onto their stomachs. The bullet had been fired from their front and was followed by a fusillade of bullets from the same direction.

  Their retreat was cut off. Butsko thought quickly and decided their best cover would be in the mansion.

  “Back to the building!” he yelled. “Let's go!”

  The men got to their feet and ran hunched over toward the mansion. Bullets whistled all around them, slamming into trees, kicking up the dirt at their feet. They came to the mansion, vaulted up the steps, and poured through the door. Some dived through the windows facing the veranda, and Private Hitzig from Baltimore, Ohio, caught a bullet in his back. He fell on the steps of the veranda and broke his nose on a wooden plank, but he was dead and it didn't matter.

  Inside the mansion the men didn't need anyone to give them orders. They took positions by the windows and fired at the figures moving through the coconut grove.

  Barrooooom! The mansion shook from an artillery shell, and a wall on its west wing was blown away. Plaster fell down from the ceiling in the main living room and filled the air with dust.

  Barrooooom! Another shell hit the west wall and blew another massive chunk of it away. Butsko ran to the west wing and looked through the smoke and splintered wall. He saw a Japanese light tank at the edge of the coconut grove, and a second later a puff of smoke issued from its cannon as the vehicle rocked back on its treads.

  “Get down!” Butsko shouted.

  The shell whizzed through one of the openings in the wall and flew into the room, crashing into a far wall and exploding ferociously. Butsko was lifted off the floor, thrown ten feet, and landed on his ass. The ceiling collapsed on top of him and he was covered by plaster and splintered timbers. Smothering, choking on dust, he struggled frantically and burst out of the debris. Glancing through the opening in the wall, he saw the tank turning on its treads. Evidently it was heading for the front of the building.

  Covered with white dust, Butsko looked like a ghost when he returned to the main living room. “Gafooley!”

  “Yo!”

  “Bring that bazooka over here!”

  “Yo!”

  Butsko ran to a front window, pushed Homer Gladley out of the way, and saw the tank rolling across the lawn near the edge of the coconut grove.

  Beeeooooowwww! A bullet ricocheted off the windowsill and made him duck. Behind him Nutsy Gafooley attached the halves of the bazooka together, pulled out the sighting mechanism, and handed the weapon to Butsko, who was crouching behind the window sill.

  “Load me up!”

  Nutsy opened the haversack and pulled out a bazooka rocket. He inserted it into the rear end of the bazooka, tied the wires around the terminal posts, and tapped Butsko's helmet.

  Butsko gritted his teeth and set the sight for fifty yards. Then he raised his head and trained the crosshairs on the tank, which was turning around to face him.

  Beeooowwww! Another bullet hit the ledge, making Butsko flinch, and he aimed again. The gun turret of the tank was swinging around toward him. He pulled the trigger of the bazooka and heard the faint whir of the magneto. The rocket shot forth and he ducked down. Moments later he heard an explosion. Raising his head, he saw a cloud of smoke and a shell crater beside the tank.

  Barrroooommmm! The tank fired its cannon again and a shell hit the wall of the main living room, blowing it to smith ereens, filling the room with smoke. The men coughed and wiped dust from their eyes as Japanese bullets flew through the windows. Butsko raised his head again, aimed, and pulled the trigger, then ducked quickly. He heard the explosion and raised his head, hoping to see the wreckage of the tank, but it was still there, big and nasty; his aim had been wide again.

  “Load me up!”

  Nutsy Gafooley fitted a rocket into the tube again and tied up the wires. He tapped Butsko's helmet, and this time Butsko decided to aim to the right of the tank, because evidently the sighting mechanism had been knocked out of line.

  Barooooooommmmmm! Another shell hit the wall, this time in front of Butsko. It exploded and Butsko felt himself being thrown back. He went sprawling across the floor, and a big splinter plunged into his left forearm. He landed on Nutsy Gafooley and a pile of debris covered them up. A group of GIs ran toward them to dig them out.

  “Banzai!”

  They heard footsteps on the veranda. Bannon knelt behind one of the windows and saw Japs rushing the door. One of them had a hand grenade poised to throw and Bannon shot him, knocking him backward. The grenade exploded on the floor of the veranda, tearing the Jap apart and a few Japs near him, but the rest kept charging.

  Jimmy O'Rourke dropped down in the middle of the living-room floor, got set behind his BAR, and fired at the Japs as they converged on the door. The burst of fire hurled them back, but more kept coming. Two Japs vaulted through an unmanned window. Shaw was closest to them. He fired his M 1 from the waist and hit one in the stomach, but the other one landed, looked around, and ran at Shaw with his rifle and bayonet.

  “Yaaaahhhh!” screamed the Jap, lunging at Shaw.

  Shaw parried the thrust and slammed the Jap in the face with his rifle butt, knocking him backward. The Jap fell and Shaw shot him through the chest, then-turned and was smacked in the face by a Japanese rifle butt. Shaw lost consciousness and dropped to his knees. The Jap pulled back his rifle and bayonet to run him through, and Bannon aimed at the Jap's head, pulling the trigger of his M 1. He was only a few feet from the Jap and couldn't miss. The bullet hit the Jap in the head and blew it apart like a rotten watermelon.

  The other GIs in the room swarmed over the Japs who'd broken through and sliced them up with their bayonets. Then the GIs returned to their posts at the windows to fire at the Japs on the veranda and lawn. The Japs fell back before the fusillade.

  Barrroooooom! Another shell from the tank's cannon hit the wall, and this time it collapsed entirely. The stunned GIs looked up to see nothing between them and the Japs on the front lawn. Butsko threw a jagged length of two-by-four off him and got to his feet.

  “Follow me!” he screamed.

  The GIs ran out of the living room to the corridor on its right as Japanese machine guns filled the air with bullets. Private Kennealy was hit in the mouth and Corporal Farina caught a bullet in his groin, but the rest of them evacuated the room.

  Butsko leaned against the wall in the corridor and looked down at the big splinter sticking into his arm like a spike. He grabbed it with his fist, took a deep breath, and yanked it out. Blood gushed after it. Private Blum was there to slap a bandage on.

  “You okay, Sarge?”

  Butsko ignored him. “Did anybody get the bazooka?”

  Nutsy Gafooley raised it into the air. “Here it is, Sarge!”

 
“Bannon, take the bazooka and get that fucking tank!”

  “Hup, Sarge!” Bannon looked at Gafooley. “Come with me!”

  Bannon ran to the stairs and Nutsy Gafooley followed him, carrying the bazooka. Bannon wanted to shoot at the tank from an unexpected window and he'd have to be fast. A door burst open at the foot of the stairs and two Japs rushed in, one after another. Bannon and Gafooley were murky targets in the shadows and the Japs were outlined by the light. Bannon, on the run, shot the first one in the chest and the second in the gut.

  “Somebody watch the back door!” Bannon shouted as he leaped up the stairs.

  Gafooley followed him and they ran down the corridor, jumping over the bodies of dead Japs. They came to the room that had been occupied by the Jap officer and the native girl, and Bannon went inside. He crouched low and approached the window. Kneeling behind it, he took the bazooka from Gafooley and placed it on his shoulder. Gafooley loaded him up. Bannon got ready, then raised himself suddenly and looked out the window, seeing the tank below. Aiming quickly, he steadied the bazooka and pulled the trigger.

  Swooooossshh! The rocket sped out of the tube, and the back blast blew apart the chair that was behind it. Bannon watched with a sinking heart as the bazooka shell landed to the left of the tank and exploded. He was surprised, because he'd had the crosshairs directly on the center of the tank's turret.

  A Japanese bullet shattered the windowsill and Bannon ducked down. “We gotta go to another room!” he said. Duck-walking backward, he reached the door and ran down the corridor again with Gafooley a few steps behind him. They came to the radio room and went inside. Getting low, they made their way to the window.

  “Load me up!”

  Gafooley pushed in the rocket and Bannon reached the same conclusion that Butsko had earlier: The bazooka was firing too far to the left. Gafooley tapped his helmet and Bannon rose up, aimed to the right of the tank, and pulled the trigger. The rocket shot out and headed directly for the tank. Bannon's heart soared as the rocket hit the tank slightly below the turret and exploded. The turret was blown to bits and the tank rocked onto its side.