Down and Dirty

by Len Levinson

  “But I've got to go. I'm a soldier.”

  “Stay just another day.”

  “You know I can't.”

  She hung her head. “I know.”

  Bannon crawled out from underneath the blanket and got dressed while the girl watched him, tears dripping down her cheeks. Bannon lit a cigarette and was afraid he'd start crying too. He didn't want to leave her, but the war was still going on.

  “C'mon, now,” he said to her as he pulled on his boots. “Knock it off.”

  “I can't help it,” she said, sniffling.

  “I'll be back someday.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Soon?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  He tied up his bootlaces and put his pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. His helmet and other gear were with the guys in their huts on the other side of the village. There was nothing to do now except say good-bye, and he'd rather face the whole Jap Army.

  He knelt beside her and held her shoulders in his hands, looking into her big, wet eyes. “I gotta go,” he said.

  “Go,” she said petulantly, like a child.

  “Now, don't be mad.”

  “I not mad.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I not.”

  He kissed the tears on her cheeks. “I'll come back to you again as soon as I can. I swear it.”

  “I be an old lady then.”

  “But you knew I couldn't stay here.”

  She nodded sadly. “Yes, I knew.”

  “You know I'd stay if I could.”

  She nodded again.

  “I'll love you forever.”

  “Me too.”

  Bannon kissed her lips, which tasted of salt tears. He smelled the tropical fragrance of her hair, and her smooth shoulders were quaking. He knew he had to get out of there before he broke down completely, so he turned suddenly and dived out the front door of the hut.

  He was in the drenching, ferocious rain, and it lashed his face and body as he ran toward the huts where the recon platoon was staying. His feet splashing through puddles and mud, he felt as though his heart were torn apart. The girl was so lovely, so innocent, the exact opposite of the war. Now he had to go back to the war, the killing and misery, the fear that he'd be dead in an hour.

  He came to Butsko's hut, pushed the hanging door aside, and ducked inside. The soldiers were stuffing their belongings into their packs or checking the carbines the natives had given them. Everybody looked up at him, their hearts filled with envy.

  “Your stuff's over there,” Butsko said, pointing.

  Bannon knelt next to his pack and picked up his carbine. It would be his wife from now on. He worked the bolt and heard its harsh metallic sound. The metal was cold and the stock hard. What a wife.

  “How're you doing, Bannon?” Frankie La Barbara asked.

  “Okay.”

  Frankie opened his mouth to say something lewd, but thought better of it. Even Frankie La Barbara could sense that a lewd remark would be inappropriate just then.

  “Fall out,” Butsko growled.

  The men frowned and grumbled as they crowded around the door and went outside into the rain one by one. They looked around at the wet gloomy day and became even more disheartened.

  “Gimme a column of twos right here,” Butsko said.

  The men lined up and Butsko went into the next hut to get the others. They, too, came outside and got into the formation. Homer Gladley and the Reverend Billie Jones carried young Private Hilliard on a makeshift stretcher. The men were bandaged and some limped from wounds sustained in the fight with the Japs.

  “Right face!” said Butsko. “Forward march!

  The recon platoon plodded through the mud as the rain soaked through their uniforms. They passed rows of huts and saw murky faces in the doorways, looking at them. Bannon inclined his head toward the ground and watched the mud pass underneath his feet. He was afraid if he looked up and saw Mary he'd break formation and run to her arms.

  “Platoon—halt! Left Face!”

  The platoon turned around. Butsko entered the chief's tent and saw him still sitting with his elders. Butsko took off his helmet. “So long,” he said, “Thanks for everything.”

  The chief and some of his men came outside. The chief was shorter than the men, with brown wrinkled skin and graying hair. Silently and with great dignity he walked up to each man, placed his hands on the man's shoulders, looked into his eyes for a few seconds, and then passed to the next man. When he came to Bannon he did the same thing and touched his cheek to Bannon's. After finishing with the last man, he shook But-sko's hand, then turned to face the men.

  “Be brave soldiers!” he said. “Win great battles!”

  The old weird-looking medicine man came out of the hut, the strand of crocodile teeth hanging around his neck. He stood still as a statue, looking up at the heavens, as the rain washed his face. Then he let out a shriek, jumped into the air, and began to dance, hopping twice on one foot and then the other. He danced in a circle in front of the men, danced around them, and touched each of them on the head with a stick wrapped with leather. Stopping in front of them again, he looked at the sky, let out another shriek, then retreated back into the hut.

  The chief and his elders followed him inside, leaving the

  recon platoon outside all alone.

  “Left face!” said Butsko. “Forward march!”

  The recon platoon turned and marched out of the village.

  In minutes they were swallowed up by the jungle.

  ELEVEN . . .

  Advance units of the Sixty-sixth Regiment of the Imperial Army reached the top of Hill Eighty-three at ten o'clock that morning. They saw the abandoned American foxholes and reported back to Colonel Shibata that the Americans had fled. Colonel Shibata ordered a pursuit of the Americans, and the Japanese soldiers descended the eastern side of the hill, their scouts having no difficulty following the American trail.

  The Japanese soldiers were angry about the suffering they'd seen among the cadaverous troops of General Hyakutake's Seventeenth Army and thirsted for revenge. They could see the American footprints in the mud and knew the Americans weren't far away. Although the rain caused their wet garments and boots to chafe their skin, they pressed forward, anxious to engage the Americans. They shouted encouragement to each other and brandished their weapons in the air. They were well equipped, had plenty of ammunition, and were confident of inflicting heavy losses on the Americans. Their officers had told them the Americans were exhausted and wouldn't be able to stand up to them.

  The Japanese soldiers streamed through the jungle at a rapid pace, certain they'd find the Americans soon.

  A mile ahead of them, George Company was in the middle of an especially thick patch of jungle. Soldiers at the front of the column hacked through the jungle with machetes, but their progress was slow. Captain Orr pushed them hard, replacing machete bearers as soon as they got tired. His worst fear was that somehow the Japs would work around him and cut off his retreat.

  Nutsy Gafooley slipped on a patch of mud and fell on his ass. Somebody grabbed his pack and helped him to his feet. He saw that his rifle was covered with mud, and took his handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiping it clean as he trudged along. He felt strange being with so many soldiers he didn't know. If there was a fight, he wanted to be with the recon platoon, not with strangers.

  “Gafooley!” shouted Sergeant Kemp. “Go up there and relieve Shroeder!”

  Nutsy moved to the side of the trail and double-timed past the column to get to its head. Private Shroeder, a blond young man with a baby face, was in front with a machete, and he looked like he didn't have any strength left in his body. Nutsy drew close to him and held out his hand. Schroeder passed him the machete handle first. Schroeder's eyes were bloodshot and at half-mast. The young soldier looked like he was ill.

  Paw!

  Shroeder's shirt exploded, and an expression of shock came
onto his face. Another shot was fired, and it whistled past Nutsy's ear, but he was already on his way down to the mud. He landed and the mud covered his wrists. A volley of gunfire opened up in front of George Company and all its men dived for shelter.

  Farther back, Captain Orr believed that his worst fears had been realized; he had been cut off. He had no idea of how many laps were in front of him, and there was only one way to find out. He had to try and break through.

  “Skirmish line!”’ he yelled.

  George Company spread out through the jungle, forming a ragged line. The soldiers slithered through the mud and looked ahead through the rain and thick foliage for signs of the Japs, but they couldn't see anything. Leeches dropped from branches onto their skin and sucked their blood, but there was no time to burn them off. Captain Orr cocked his ears and tried to discern from the gunfire how many Japs were in front of him. It didn't sound as if there were many.

  “Advance!” he shouted.

  George Company crawled forward through the mud. The Japanese fire, which hadn't been very intense to begin with, slackened off to an occasional shot. Nutsy pushed with his feet and elbows as low-hanging branches scraped across his back and down his legs. His eyes searched the jungle ahead for Japs, but the rainfall made all the leaves and branches dance around, and he didn't know which of those motions had Japs behind them.

  A bullet zipped into the mud a few inches from his face, and he knew that a Jap had spotted him. Rolling to the side, he got behind the trunk of a tree and peered around it. Another bullet slammed into the tree, and bits of wet wood flew past his face.

  “There's a Jap up there!” he screamed.

  “Where?” asked Sergeant Kemp, who was to his right.

  “Somewheres in front of me! I can't see him, but the fucker can see me!”

  “Where's my BAR?” shouted Sergeant Kemp.

  “Over here!” replied a voice in the jungle.

  “Gimme some fire over this way! Everybody else move out!”

  Nutsy didn't feel like moving out, but an order was an order. He flattened himself on the ground and inched with little motions of his toes and fingers. He heard sporadic shots up and down the line and couldn't be sure whether they were coming from the Japs or George Company. Out in the open again, he could hear the rattle of a BAR close by, and in front of him the spray of bullets ripped up the leaves and vines. Then a bullet landed a few feet away and he realized that the Jap hadn't forgotten about him.

  “The son of a bitch is still after me!” shouted Nutsy.

  “Keep your head down!”

  Nutsy imagined the lap zeroing in on him and felt paranoid Out of all the men in George Company, the Jap was trying to kill him. “You fucking cocksucker!” Nutsy muttered. “If I ever find you, I'm gonna cut you up into little pieces.”

  Pow!

  A bullet whistled over his left shoulder, but this time Nutsy was looking straight ahead and saw the faint puff of smoke in the foliage.

  “There he is!” Nutsy cried.

  “Where?”

  “Over there!” Nutsy pointed with his rifle.

  “Throw a fuckin’ grenade at him!”

  Nutsy pulled a grenade out of the big side pocket on his pants. It was cool and heavy in his hand, and he yanked out the pin. Drawing his arm back, he let it fly; it landed in the midst of the puff of smoke he'd seen. The grenade exploded, brightening the dark jungle for an instant, blowing leaves and vines everywhere, leaving a cloud of smoke behind.

  “Forward!” yelled Sergeant Kemp.

  Kemp's squad crawled toward the spot where the grenade had exploded, and Nutsy lagged behind because he knew he'd been the Jap's main target. He pasted his eyes on the spot and strained his eyes, trying to see movement that would indicate whether the Jap still was alive, but nothing happened. Bodies in Army green appeared in his field of vision, and he recognized Sergeant Kemp leading the way. Kemp disappeared into the grenade crater and poked up his head a few seconds later.

  “You got him!”

  Nutsy felt grim satisfaction as he crawled forward. That'll teach you to fuck with old Nutsy Gafooley, he thought. Sergeant Kemp was crouching in the grenade crater, which had caved in the side of a foxhole. Inside the foxhole was a skinny Jap minus his head. The Jap's arms looked like toothpicks and he had nothing in the foxhole except his rifle and a few clips of ammo. His skin was covered with sores and he had no shoes.

  “Let's move it out,” said Kemp. “Keep your fucking heads down.”

  Gradually George Company moved through the jungle and overwhelmod solitary foxholes manned by looked nearly starved to death. Captain Orr realized that no major Jap unit had worked its way around him, and the resistance consisted only of scattered foxholes containing sick Japs who'd been left behind to slow down the American advance. But although there weren't many Japs, you couldn't stand up and walk through them. Each foxhole had to be knocked out and it was time-consuming. Captain Orr sat in one of the captured foxholes next to a Jap who'd been riddled with BAR bullets. He took out his map to see if he could circumvent the Japs in front of him, wondering whether to head for the sea or go through the jungle to the south. He figured there'd probably be more Japs toward the sea, so he decided to veer toward the jungle to the south.

  As he was folding his map to put it away a fusillade of rifle fire erupted behind him, and he dropped low in the foxhole. A thick hail of bullets ripped through the jungle, and he heard the shouts of Japanese soldiers. A sizable Jap unit had snuck up to his rear!

  “Lieutenant Holt!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Get over here!”

  Lieutenant Holt was ten yards away, crouching behind the tree, and he dropped to the ground, crawling toward Captain Orr. Lieutenant Holt believed George Company had been surrounded and was scared shitless. He rolled down into the foxhole with Captain Orr, blanched at the sight of the Japanese corpse, and said, “Yes, sir?”

  Captain Orr had drawn three curved lines on the mud in the bottom of the hole; they formed a semicircle. Behind the three lines was a small circle. “Holt, deploy the company like this, with platoons One, Two, and Three in front and the weapons platoon in back here. Station machine guns between each of the platoons. Got it?”

  “What about the Japs in back of us?”

  “Forget about ‘em. They're not going anywhere. The problem is that way.” He pointed west. “Get going.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lieutenant Holt crawled away to get the company organized, and Captain Orr called for Pfc. Nordell, who was lying on the ground a few feet away. “Gimme the walkie-talkie!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Nordell handed it over and Captain Orr held it against his face. “Mission Bell calling Cathedral Ace! Mission Bell calling Cathedral Ace! Over!”

  He let the button go and heard crackling and hissing sounds. He spoke the call letters again, but there was still no response. He tried a third time but still couldn't get through. He was in a poor transmission zone.

  He handed the radio back to Pfc. Nordell. Machine-gun bullets ripped across the ground a few feet in front of his foxhole, and Captain Orr ducked his head.

  Nearby, the soldiers from G Company moved into position to meet the Japanese threat from the west. The Japs were firing steadily as they probed for the Americans. It was only a matter of time before they found what they were looking for.

  A few miles away, on the beach facing Ironbottom Sound, the Second Battalion was marching west toward Cape Esper-ance. The lead units heard firing in the distance and passed the word back to Lieutenant Colonel Joseph William Smith, the commanding officer of the battalion.

  Smith was a potbellied no-nonsense officer with a flask of jungle juice in his back pocket. His drinking was a scandal in the twenty-third Infantry Regiment, but he was a solid, aggressive frontline commander and happy only when he was moving forward. He was riding behind the main column in his jeep, watching the waves crashing on the beach, when Captain Watford approached, holdi
ng his hand in the air. The driver braked and the jeep coasted to a stop.

  Captain Watford approached the side of the jeep. “Sir,” he said, “Easy Company is hearing a battle going on to the south-west of its position.”

  Major Cobb realized it must be George Company because they were the only unit in that direction. “Okay,” he said, “send Easy Company directly in to the sound of the fighting, and have Fox Company try to get behind it if they can. The rest of the battalion will go in behind Easy Company. George Company might be in trouble, so have everybody make the best time that they can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Watford ran forward to his jeep to pass the orders to all the companies, and Colonel Smith reached for his radio so he could report to Colonel Stockton what he was doing.

  His radio transmission went through, but he found out that Colonel Stockton was at a meeting with General Patch back at Henderson Field. He had to speak with Major Cobb and told him the information.

  “As soon as you can assess the situation there,” Major Cobb said, “let us know. You might need some help.”

  “If I do, you can be sure I'll ask for it,” Colonel Smith said.

  Colonel Smith handed the headset back to Sergeant Shirley, who was perched in the backseat of the jeep. Colonel Smith tapped his driver on the shoulder. “Move it out,” he said.

  The driver shifted into gear and the jeep rolled over the wet sand on the beach. Colonel Smith pulled the collar of his poncho tighter and wondered what Captain Orr had run into in the jungle up ahead.

  The recon platoon was moving along past a swollen stream when the shots began in the distance. Butsko held up his hand and listened as the GIs stopped behind him.

  “Sounds like fighting,” said Bannon, standing nearby.

  Butsko knew that if there was fighting in that direction, there would have to be Americans in the vicinity. It was tempting for him to continue in that direction and try to link up with them, because they didn't sound very far away, but he was afraid he might stumble into Japs, and his platoon was in no condition for a fight. He decided to continue in a southeasterly direction and avoid the fight. It might take longer to make contact with Americans, but it'd be safer. He looked at his watch; it was ten-thirty in the morning.