Go Down Fighting

by Len Levinson

  When he reached the first bush he ducked into it and took out his canteen. Unscrewing the lid he raised the canteen to his mouth and took a swig of white lightning. It went down like drops of fire, and he sucked in air through his teeth. He returned the canteen to his back pocket and looked at his watch. Only approximately one hour before jump-off. The shit was about to hit the fan.

  He sidestepped out of the bush and continued walking until he came to his field command post, set up just behind headquarters . It was closer to the front than many of his staff officers wanted, but Colonel Hutchins was the boss and Colonel Hutchins always got his way.

  His command post was a bunker dug into the ground. The roof was made of logs covered with a layer of rocks over a layer of sandbags. Colonel Hutchins lowered his head and entered the bunker from the rear.

  “Ten-hut!” said Major Cobb, his operations officer, who saw him first.

  The other officers snapped to attention.

  “As you were!” Colonel Hutchins said, taking off his steel pot and hanging it on a peg. “Anything happen while I was gone?”

  “General Hawkins called, sir,” Major Cobb said. “He was most anxious to speak with you.”

  “Get him for me.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Colonel Hutchins walked to the map table and looked down. Illumination was provided by a kerosene lamp suspended over the map table. The windows of the bunker that faced south were covered with fabric, so the Japs couldn't see the light of the lamp.

  Colonel Hutchins glanced at the troop dispositions. His regiment was part of the Eighty-first Division, commanded by Major General Clyde Hawkins, and it had been reinforced during the night by the 114th Regimental Combat Team. The division had been thrown for a minor loss last night, but the Japs were on their last legs. The division would attack the tired hungry Japs and wipe them out. That was the plan, anyway.

  “The call is going through, sir,” said Major Cobb, a stout man who wore wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his tiny pug nose.

  Colonel Hutchins stepped back from the map table and made his way to the telephone switchboard, lifting the receiver from the hand of the operator and holding it against his ear.

  He heard mild static but nothing compared to what he'd hear if he was communicating by radio transmission. Several seconds later he heard the voice of General Hawkins.

  “Where the hell have you been?” General Hawkins asked.

  “Inspecting my front lines.”

  “You should always stay close to communications.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No sir.”

  “Hit them Japs hard, Hutchins. Don't take any shit from them.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I expect you to be in Afua by ten hundred hours.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Any questions?”

  “No sir.”

  “Over and out.”

  The connection went dead in Colonel Hutchins's ear. Colonel Hutchins handed the receiver to the telephone operator, then turned to Major Cobb.

  “I want you to stay in touch with the general throughout the attack, got it?”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  Colonel Hutchins pointed south. “Thataway.”

  “You're going to lead the attack personally?”

  “That's right.”

  “But sir . . .”

  Colonel Hutchins interrupted him. “Don't but me. Just do as I say. Got it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. I'll take you, Lieutenant Harper, and Pfc. Bombasino with me.”

  Lieutenant Harper swallowed hard. The last place he wanted to be was at the front with Colonel Hutchins.

  Colonel Hutchins looked at Lieutenant Harper. “You look like you just swallowed a dead rat, son. Are you all right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Round up Bombasino and tell him to put my field radio on his back.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Lieutenant Harper dashed out of the bunker. Colonel Hutchins reached behind him and pulled his canteen out of its case. He raised it to his lips and gulped down some white lightning. Slipping the canteen back into his case, he noticed everybody staring at him.

  “What the hell are you people looking at!” he hollered. “If you-all don't have any work to do, I'll give you some!”

  The officers scurried around the bunker, trying to appear as though they were busy. Colonel Hutchins walked to the peg and lifted his helmet off it, dropping it onto his head. He didn't tie the strap because if a bomb landed near him, the concussion wave could tear his head off along with the helmet. He raised his submachine gun and opened the bolt to make sure a round was in the chamber.

  “I'm ready to roll!” he declared, heading toward the exit. “Everybody out of my way!”

  General Yokozowa arrived at the front just as the first faint glow of dawn appeared on the horizon. The morning sun still was out of sight, and untrained eyes probably couldn't detect that glow, but General Yokozowa had been living in the outdoors for more than two years, and he knew the first glimmer of dawn when he saw it.

  He glanced at his watch, and it was four forty-three. His attack was scheduled to begin at five-fifteen. Surrounded by his staff and aides, he proceeded toward the front row of foxholes. Soldiers poked their heads over the rims of the foxholes and saw the strange procession pass through their midst. It was seldom that they saw generals this close to no-man's-land. They stood at attention and saluted, and General Yokozowa saluted them back.

  “Soon the attack will begin!” he declared. “Fight hard for your Emperor, and remember that your ancestors will be watching you!”

  He looked at his men as he passed them by, and was sickened by what he saw. Their clothes were rags, and some wore fragments of American Army uniforms. Many were ill, their eyes sunken deep into their faces. They were bearded and filthy, and General Yokozowa could feel their fatigue.

  The men had slept little for weeks. They'd been fighting and climbing mountains, carrying heavy equipment through thick jungles, and staging commando raids at night. Prior to the attack of July 9, these frontline units had been subsisting solely on a diet of sago palm starch. Since then they'd been eating captured American food, but it had made many of them ill. American food was greasy, and the Japanese soldiers weren't used to it.

  General Yokozowa had faith in his men despite all that had happened to them, because they were Japanese and they carried within them that ineffable but precious substance known as Japanese Spirit. They may have been weak and tired, but they were still the best soldiers in the world, General Yokozowa believed. They would fight fiercely and the gods would smile on them. They would not fail, General Yokozowa thought, even though he knew very well that they'd failed in the past.

  General Yokozowa didn't want to dwell on the negative. He only wanted to think about the positive. It didn't make sense to him to be a defeatist before the battle had even begun.

  He stood between two foxholes and placed his fists on his hips, moving one foot ahead of the other, staring into the jungle ahead. That's where the Americans were, and in that direction lay the Tadji airstrips and the port of Aitape, the principal military objectives in the area.

  “I think you'd better get down, sir,” said Lieutenant Higashi, his aide-de-camp.

  “That won't be necessary,” General Yokozowa said.

  “But the Americans are just over there.”

  “They can't see me,” General Yokozowa replied. “The Americans are very poor night fighters.”

  Ka-pow!

  A bullet zapped over General Yokozowa's head, and General Yokozowa dived toward the ground. So did all his staff officers and aides, and embarrassment fell like a truckload of dirt over them. No one knew what to say, because General Yokozowa had been proven wrong. He had lost face. It was a most awkward situation for General Yokozowa and his staff officers.

  General Yokozowa's face smarted with humiliation. He believed th
at the American portion of his being had caused him to make that remark just before the bullet was fired. Now he had to think of something to say to sweep the embarrassment away.

  “It was just a wild shot,” he said finally. “Nothing to worry about.”

  To prove his point, he stood up boldly.

  Ka-pow!

  General Yokozowa dived to the ground again. Now the embarrassment and humiliation were even worse. General Yokozowa realized that the only thing to do was come clean and admit everything.

  “I was wrong,” he said. “It is much too dangerous to stand up here. Let's move back a short distance.”

  He scratched around on the muck and turned around, crawling toward the next treeline. His staff officers and aides crept behind him, and all the soldiers in the vicinity were spooked, because they thought a terrible bad omen had just been revealed to their horrified eyes. Their commanding general had fucked up, and commanding generals weren't supposed to fuck up, at least not in view of their troops.

  Bannon looked down into the foxhole. “What the hell were you firing at!” he demanded.

  “A Jap,” McGurk replied, unable to look Bannon in the eye.

  “What Jap!”

  McGurk pointed south. “A Jap out there.”

  “You saw a Jap out there?”

  “Yes Sergeant.”

  “I think you're pulling your prick too much, McGurk. You didn't see anything out there.”

  “Yes I did, Sergeant.”

  “All you did was tell the Japs that we're here.”

  “You think they don't know we're here, Sergeant?”

  “Don't fire that rifle of yours anymore unless you see a Jap coming right at you, got it?”

  “I did see a Jap, but he wasn't coming at me.”

  “Well I just told you not to fire at one unless he was coming right at you.”

  “Okay.”

  Bannon looked at Private Worthington. “You didn't see anything, did you?”

  “No, but I wasn't looking, either.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “I was cleaning my rifle.”

  “Was it dirty?”

  “No.”

  “Then what were you cleaning your rifle for?”

  “Because I didn't have anything else to do.”

  “Well I'm gonna give you something to do right now. Keep your fucking eyes open and make sure McGurk doesn't fire at any more Japs that aren't there.”

  McGurk scowled. “I saw a Jap out there,” he said.

  “Yeah sure.”

  “I did!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Bannon said. “Well tell me something, McGurk. If you could see a Jap from here, why is it that no Jap can see me from there?”

  “I dunno,” McGurk replied.

  “You want me to tell you why?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Because the Japs can't see us at this distance at night, just like we can't see them.”

  “I saw one,” McGurk said.

  “Bullshit!”

  Ka-pow!

  A bullet zipped over Bannon's head, and he dived into the foxhole with McGurk and Private Worthington. He landed at their feet, and they dropped beneath the rim of the foxhole. It was tight in there for two big men, but now three were in there and they jostled each other as they tried to get up.

  Bannon was embarrassed. He also was shaken up. “I guess some people can see better than others,” he said.

  “Guess so,” McGurk replied.

  Worthington didn't say anything. He didn't want to make matters worse. Bannon wondered how old Sergeant Butsko would've handled the situation. He thought about that as he put his helmet back on and realized Butsko would've toughed it out, without any apologies. Old Butsko would say only assholes made apologies.

  “Stay awake in here,” Bannon said. “Keep your eyes open. If you shoot at something, you'd damn well better make sure something's there.”

  “There was something there,” McGurk replied.

  Bannon was going to tough it out. He scowled as he climbed out of the foxhole, and kept his head low as he walked back to his hole, using bushes for cover and concealment, moving quickly across open clearings. Somehow he felt that he wasn't being a very effective platoon sergeant. He thought he was nothing compared to Butsko, who ran the platoon with an iron grip and punched out anybody who defied him.

  But Butsko was gone now. He'd been wounded during the night of July 9 and they'd put him in for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Last thing Bannon heard was that Butsko was on his way back to the States to be awarded the medal. Bannon couldn't imagine what Butsko would be like back in the States. He figured Butsko would wind up in jail before long. He'd killed an Australian in a bar in Brisbane before shipping out for Guadalcanal and always tended to get in trouble in civilian situations, but he was one hell of a soldier.

  Bannon wished he could be more like Butsko. He wished he had that same inner strength and that same gut intelligence. Butsko knew more about small unit tactics than most officers, and kept the lunatics and criminals in the recon platoon in line through sheer physical intimidation. Butsko had been Bannon's idol.

  Bannon arrived at his foxhole and saw Frankie pointing his M 1 rifle at him.

  “It's only me,” he said, jumping into the foxhole.

  “What was all the shooting about?”

  “McGurk shot at a Jap, and then a Jap shot at me.”

  “Too bad the Jap missed.”

  Bannon gave Frankie a dirty look. “I'm getting sick of your bullshit. I think I need another runner. Go down to that next foxhole and tell Worthington that he's gonna be my runner from now on. You buddy up with McGurk. Get going.”

  “I don't wanna stay in that foxhole with McGurk. He's practically a moron.”

  “So are you.”

  “Fuck you, Bannon.”

  “Get going, La Barbara.”

  “Make me.”

  “What do you mean—make you?”

  “Just what I said—make me.”

  Bannon groaned. He was in no mood to duke it out with Frankie La Barbara, but what else could he do?

  “Okay,” he said. “Let's go.”

  “I'm gonna kick your ass,” Frankie replied.

  Bannon climbed out of the trench. So did Frankie La Barbara. They laid down their weapons and took off their helmets. Raising their fists, they advanced toward each other. Frankie had a wicked gleam in his eyes. Bannon wanted to beat the shit out of Frankie quickly and then get back in that foxhole.

  Suddenly they heard the rattle of a machine gun. Bullets whistled all around them and they dived back into the foxhole, bumping heads on the way down.

  “You dumb fuck!” Bannon said. “You almost got me killed!”

  “Your mother's pussy!” Frankie replied.

  Bannon was so tired of Frankie's backtalk that he thought his brains would explode out of his ears. There wasn't much room inside the trench but Bannon found space for a short uppercut to the point of Frankie's chin, snapping Frankie's head back. Frankie fell against the wall of the trench and Bannon delivered a short chopping right to Frankie's left temple. Bannon followed up with a left hook, but Frankie blocked it and elbowed Bannon in the nose. Bannon dug a jab to Frankie's kidney and Frankie punched Bannon in the mouth with a right cross.

  Bannon fell against the far wall of the foxhole and Frankie dived on him, taking Bannon's throat in his hands and squeezing his thumbs against Bannon's Adam's apple. Bannon coughed and sputtered and tried to kick Frankie in the balls, but Frankie dodged out of the way. Bannon joined his hands together and shot them straight up in the air, breaking Frankie's hold on his throat. He slammed Frankie in the gut, hooked up to his head, whacked him on the side, and jabbed him on the nose.

  Frankie's nose was the most sensitive part of his body because it'd been broken recently and the stitches still were in. Frankie howled in pain and Bannon brought one up from the bottom of the foxhole, smashing Frankie on the nose again.

  Frankie's nos
e shattered and he fell on his back, his knees sticking up in the air. He was out cold. Bannon took a deep breath and felt like stomping on Frankie's face, but held himself back because he figured he'd need Frankie in the attack that was soon to begin.

  Bannon crawled out of the foxhole and gathered together the two M 1 rifles and helmets that he and Frankie had left there. He dragged them back into the foxhole and looked at Frankie, who was still out cold at the bottom, blood streaming from his nostrils, irrigating his five-day-old beard.

  The shit you gotta do to keep these lunatics in line, Bannon thought, shaking his head. I can't stand this son of a bitch anymore, and I don't care what we went through together.

  Bannon cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Worthington!”

  “Yo!”

  “Get your ass over here!”

  Bannon took his o.d. green handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his face with it. Then he pulled his canteen out of its case and took a drink. He needed a cigarette badly, but couldn't smoke. Glancing toward the horizon, he saw the faint pink color of dawn. He could see the stars fading in the sky.

  Worthington crawled to the rim of the foxhole. “You wanted me for something, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah. You're my new runner. Drag this son of a bitch here to McGurk's foxhole and throw him in.”

  Worthington's eyes widened as he looked at Frankie out cold at the bottom of the trench. “What happened to him?”

  “He talks too much—that's what happened to him. Get him the fuck out of here.”

  Worthington slid into the foxhole, picked Frankie up, and threw him out. The jolt of landing woke Frankie up. He opened his eyes to half-mast and saw the trees dancing around in the darkness.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Bannon tossed Frankie's helmet and rifle out of the foxhole. “I just assigned you to McGurk's foxhole. Get going.”

  “Huh?” Frankie said.

  “Do I have to draw you a picture?”

  Frankie touched his nose and said: “Ouch!” Then he remembered what had happened. “You son of a bitch!” he said to Bannon, and then jumped back into the foxhole.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Bannon said. “I'm sick of looking at you.”