by Len Levinson
Bannon was fighting with a Japanese soldier, and tripped over a firepit, falling on his face. The Japanese soldier reared back his rifle and bayonet and plunged it down toward Bannon’s back, but Bannon spun out in the nick of time, and the Japanese bayonet drank only the muddy water that had collected in the firepit.
Bannon bounded to his feet with his captured samurai sword in his right hand. The Japanese soldier raised his rifle and bayonet and feinted a lunge at Bannon’s gut. Bannon jumped backwards, swinging down his sword to block the blow that didn’t come, and he was wide open. The Japanese soldier grinned fiendishly as he propelled his rifle and bayonet toward Bannon’s stomach, and Bannon sucked in his gut and dodged toward the side. The bayonet ripped his shirt, and he swung upwards with his sword, but his blow didn’t have much steam on it. The blade of his sword hit the Japanese soldier on his wrist, and blood flowed out.
The Japanese soldier was so hyped he barely felt the pain. He stepped back to measure Bannon for another stab, and Bannon stalked after him, because he wanted to kill the son of a bitch.
The Japanese soldier feinted again, but this time Bannon didn’t fall for it. He swung down with the samurai sword, and chopped off the Japanese soldier’s left arm.
The Japanese soldier watched his arm drop to the ground, and blood poured out after it. The Japanese soldier suddenly felt dizzy, but he still was game. “Banzai!” he cried, shoving the rifle and bayonet forward with his right hand, and bam!—Bannon hit him on the head with a downward sweep of the samurai sword.
The blade split the Japanese soldier’s skull wide open, and for an instant Bannon saw a perfect view of the inner workings of the human head, but then the Japanese soldier’s brains tumbled out of their casings, and blood splattered in the rain. The Japanese soldier was thrown to the ground by the force of the blow, and a rat crawled out of a hole to take a bite of the Japanese soldier’s brains.
Bannon breathed deeply as he looked around. Soldiers were everywhere in the little village, in and out of the huts, trying to stab, strangle, and bash each other, even trying to drown each other in the puddles being formed by the torrential rain.
Bannon caught his breath. Not many Japanese soldiers still were on their feet. The Japanese attack had run out of steam evidently but the last remaining Japanese soldiers weren’t going to retreat or surrender. They appeared willing to fight to the death in Afua.
What a fucking place to die, Bannon thought. He didn’t see any Japs nearby, and didn’t feel like looking for trouble. He stood in the middle of a bunch of huts and stared at dead Japanese soldiers littering the ground. A few American soldiers lay on the ground too, and Bannon recognized a few familiar faces from Headquarters Company.
One of the American soldiers groaned, and Bannon turned toward him. The American soldier lay on his back, and had a thick black mustache. Bannon didn’t know his name, but had seen him around before. The soldier’s shirt was soaked with blood and his lap was full of guts.
The soldier turned his head and looked at Bannon through glazed eyes. Bannon dragged his feet toward the soldier and dropped to one knee in front of him.
“I’m dying,” the soldier said.
“No you’re not,” Bannon replied. “I’ll get a medic.” Bannon cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered: “Medic!” Glancing to his left and right, he couldn’t see any medics answering his call. “Let’s have a medic over here!” he shouted again.
“Lemme have a drink of water,” the soldier whispered.
“Sure thing.”
Bannon pulled out his canteen and unscrewed the top, holding the mouth to the soldier’s lips. The soldier let the water flow into his mouth, gurgling it down with great effort.
“Not too much, now,” Bannon said, pulling the canteen back.
“It hurts,” the soldier said.
Bannon wished he had a syrette of morphine on him, but he didn’t. He called again for a medic, but none came forth. Bannon looked around and saw American soldiers staggering among the huts. A few still were fighting Japs, and others dropped to the ground to get some rest and drink water out of their canteens.
“Let’s have a medic over here!” Bannon yelled.
But no soldier with a red cross on his arm stepped forward to help out.
“Got a cigarette?” the soldier asked, his voice little more than a series of gasps.
“Sure,” replied Bannon.
Bannon took two cigarettes from his pack. He placed one between the lips of the wounded soldier, and the other between his own lips. He lit both cigarettes with his trusty old Zippo and the wounded soldier puffed faintly.
“I’m gonna die,” the soldier mumbled, the cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“No you’re not,” Bannon replied. “Just hang on. A medic’ll be here in a little while.”
“Bullshit. You’re just saying that.”
“No I’m not. There’s got to be a medic around here.”
“There don’t have to be no medic around here,” the soldier whispered. “I’m dying and you fucking well know it. Look at me.”
Bannon looked at the soldier’s sweat-streaked face.
“I want you to do something for me,” the soldier said.
“Name it,” Bannon replied.
“I wantcha to write to my wife and tell her I died like a man.”
“If you die, I promise I’ll do it.”
“Her address is in my wallet.”
“Right.”
‘Take my wallet now.”
“I don’t wanna take your fucking wallet, because you’re gonna live.”
“I ain’t gonna live and you know it.”
“Don’t give up, soldier. Your wife wouldn’t want you to give up.”
The soldier looked over Bannon’s shoulder, and his eyes widened. “Watch out!”
Bannon jumped up and turned around. A Japanese officer wearing shabby boots tiptoed toward him, his samurai sword in his hand. This Japanese officer was none other man Acting Colonel Sakakibara, his uniform torn and bloody, blood oozing out of a bayonet cut on his left pectoral muscle.
“You sneaky son of a bitch,” Bannon said, raising his captured samurai sword.
Colonel Sakakibara’s eyes narrowed to slits. The battle was lost, and he knew he didn’t have long to live. Americans were everywhere and sooner or later one of them would kill him, but he wanted to take as many of them as possible with him into the land of the dead.
Colonel Sakakibara looked at the tall lanky American soldier with sand-colored hair. The American soldier was bloody and ragged too. He looked tired, just as Colonel Sakakibara was tired.
“I’m going to kill you,” Colonel Sakakibara muttered in Japanese.
Bannon couldn’t speak Japanese, but he caught his drift. “You’re as good as dead,” he replied.
Both men advanced toward each other. Bannon had greater reach but Colonel Sakakibara was the more experienced swordsman. Colonel Sakakibara held the handle of his sword in both his hands and raised the sword over his head. Bannon also held his sword in both hands, but laid it back for a side-swing, like a batter at the plate in Wrigley Field.
They stopped in front of each other and looked at each other’s eyes. Colonel Sakakibara’s eyes were so slitted they appeared to be closed, while Bannon had a mean determined expression on his face. Bannon thought about the wounded American soldier lying behind him. He remembered all his friends and buddies who’d been killed by Japanese soldiers, and he wanted to make the one in front of him pay for every drop of American blood that had ever been spilled in the southwest Pacific.
Bannon and Colonel Sakakibara glowered at each other, and electricity crackled in the air between them. Both took a deep breath, and suddenly both of them swung at the same time. Their samurai swords whistled through the air and clanged . against each other with such force that sparks flew and the sound could be heard all across the village of Afua.
Bannon’s hands stung from the violent clash, and he took a
step backwards. So did Colonel Sakakibara. They stared at each other again, and Colonel Sakakibara pawed the ground with his left foot as he raised his samurai sword over his head again. Bannon held his sword over his shoulder like a baseball player at bat and circled to his right. Colonel Sakakibara followed him with his slitted eyes, pivoting on the balls of his feet. Other American soldiers in the area came closer to see what was going on, and one of them was Pfc. Frankie La Barbara.
“Step back,” Frankie said to Bannon. ‘'I'll shoot the son of a bitch.”
“I can handle him,” Bannon said. “He’s mine.”
Bannon felt personally challenged by the defiance and hatred in Colonel Sakakibara’s eyes, and he wanted to show him who was boss. Colonel Sakakibara knew that his number had come up, and if the American soldier in front of him didn’t kill him, the others in the gathering circle would. All he could do now was kill the lanky American soldier with the strange hair, and then Colonel Sakakibara would be off to heaven to drink tea with his ancestors.
“Yyyaaaaaahhhhhh!” screamed Colonel Sakakibara as he charged Bannon and swung his samurai sword down. Bannon leaned to the side and the sword whistled past his left shoulder. He swung sideways with all his strength, and his sword slammed into Colonel Sakakibara’s rib cage, busting through bones and cartilage.
Colonel Sakakibara felt as if an airplane had flown into him. The force of the blow threw him to the ground, blood bubbling out of his mouth. He smiled and looked into the sky, seeing his ancestors beckoning to him. Bannon raised his sword straight into the air and brought it down hard, chopping off Colonel Sakakibara’s head.
Colonel Sakakibara’s head rolled away from his body and lay on its side. Bannon took a step backwards and let his hands fall to his sides. Frankie La Barbara swooped down toward Colonel Sakakibara’s body and grabbed his sword.
“Lemme have this one,” Frankie said to Bannon. “You already got one of your own.”
‘Take it,” Bannon said. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Bannon looked at the headless Japanese officer for a few moments, then turned around and trudged toward the soldier to whom he’d given a cigarette. He saw the wounded soldier sprawled out on his back, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed over. His chest wasn’t moving and Bannon was sure he was dead. He kneeled wearily beside the soldier and felt his pulse, but there was nothing. A few flies buzzed around inside the soldier’s mouth. Bannon pulled open the soldier’s shirt and pressed his ear against his heart, but heard nothing. The soldier was dead, and Bannon had promised to write a letter to his wife, whoever she was.
Bannon rolled the soldier over and pulled out his wallet. Opening it up, he looked through the soldier’s i.d. and found the address of his wife; she lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Bannon dropped the wallet into his shirt pocket, turned around, and walked away.
ELEVEN . . .
Colonel Hutchins spoke into the mouthpiece of the backpack radio carried by Pfc. Nick Bombasino from South Philly. “We stopped ‘em!” he shouted.
“Good work,” replied General Hawkins on the other end of the radio transmission. “How were your casualties?”
“Could’ve been worse. It was a banzai attack and the Japs went all out, but there weren’t that many of them. I figger I’ve got maybe a hundred casualties.”
“Where’d you stop them?”
“The lines are pretty jagged. Their deepest penetration was to Afua. Their commanding officer was killed there.”
“Well,” said General Hawkins, “I think the Japs are pretty well finished on New Guinea now. It’ll be mainly a mopping-up operation from now on.”
“My men need a rest, sir.”
“I’ll pull them off the line tomorrow and put them in reserve. They’ve done a great job, and I intend to come out there myself and tell them so.”
“That’d be a fine idea, sir.”
“How’d you make out, Hutch?”
“I managed to kill a few Japs of my own, sir.”
“Good work. That’s all for now. Carry on. Over and out.”
Colonel Hutchins returned the mouthpiece to the waiting hand of Pfc. Bombasino. Colonel Hutchins turned around and looked at his staff officers. “Let’s get back to headquarters,” he said. “There’s nothing more for us to do out here.”
General Hawkins called General Hall on the telephone. It took a while for the call to go through, but finally General Hall’s voice came through the long wire strung out through the sodden jungle.
“What’s on your mind, Hawkins?” General Hall asked.
“Just thought I’d tell you, sir, that my Twenty-third Regiment just stopped a major Jap banzai attack on your south flank.”
“How many Japs were involved in the attack?”
“A few hundred.”
“I didn’t hear any artillery activity down there, but I don’t suppose the Japs have any artillery anymore.”
“They don’t have much of anything left, sir. It was just a straight-on banzai attack and it posed no great threat to anything, but it took its toll in casualties. Colonel Hutchins reported approximately one hundred casualties, sir.”
“Colonel Hutchins? That name rings a bell.”
“He’s the one you wanted to relieve of command a week ago, sir.”
“Oh yes, the alcoholic.”
“He’s not an alcoholic anymore, sir, and he’s the one who stopped the Japs.”
General Hall snorted. “Well I’m sure he didn’t do it alone.”
“He led the defense, and he won.”
“Well, as you pointed out, the Japs didn’t have much left.”
“A breakthrough could’ve occurred under a less experienced commander. I can’t help wondering how your Colonel MacKenzie would have fared.”
“I guess we’ll never know that, will we?”
“Guess not, sir.”
“Anything else?”
“No sir.”
“Please convey my congratulations to Colonel Hutchins.”
“Yes sir.”
“Over and out.”
The deuce-and-a-half truck took the corner on two wheels and screeched to a halt in front of the Eighty-fust Division Medical Headquarters. Orderlies rushed forward to let down the tailgate, and then the unloading of wounded began.
The rain had tapered off to a drizzle, and Lieutenant Breckenridge watched from underneath a tree. He saw orderlies carrying wounded men on stretchers into the tents, the more seriously wounded going directly into the operating tent.
News had traveled along the grapevine back to the rear that a fierce battle had broken out in the segment of the line held by the Twenty-third Regiment. Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered how his platoon was faring. Word had not been received yet that the battle had been won, and for all Lieutenant Breckenridge knew, the Japs might break through and get back as far as the hospital. They’d done it before and Lieutenant Breckenridge had no reason to believe that they couldn’t do it again.
Lieutenant Beverly McCaffrey, a nurse at the hospital, stepped out of a tent and looked around, finally spotting Lieutenant Breckenridge underneath the tree. Lieutenant McCaffrey was a blonde and she wore baggy army fatigues that disguised her voluptuous figure. She and Lieutenant Breckenridge had been conducting a part-time romance ever since they’d met approximately six weeks ago during an earlier Japanese attack.
“Dale!” she said, running toward him.
He turned to her and watched her boobies flop up and down underneath her fatigue shirt. “What’s going on?” he asked.
She stopped in front of him and looked up into his eyes. “I just found out that one of your men has been here for a few days!”
“Which one?”
“Private Victor Yabalonka.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge was surprised. “He’s been here for a few days?”
“You haven’t seen him around because he’s flat on his back. He’s been shot in the chest and he might not pull through.”
“M
y God,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge. “Which tent is he in?”
“That one there.”
“Wouldja take me to him?”
“Sure.”
Lieutenant McCaffrey walked toward a tent, as the rain fell lightly on her hair and made it stringy. Lieutenant Breckenridge followed, dragging his feet slightly because he still wasn’t completely cured from his own wounds.
They entered the tent and the walls were rolled up to let the light and breeze come through, but not much breeze was evident and the interior of the tent was like a steambath. Lieutenant McCaffrey made her way among the wounded soldiers lying on the ground, and finally stopped next to Private Victor Yabalonka.
Lieutenant McCaffrey kneeled down, and Lieutenant Breckenridge kneeled next to her. Yabalonka lay on his back and with his eyes closed and his face ashen. The bandages on his stomach showed dots of blood.
“I’ve got to go,” Lieutenant McCaffrey said. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Can’t you get somebody to change his bandage?”
“Everybody’s busy right now, but I’ll try. See you later.”
“Yo.”
Lieutenant McCaffrey stood and walked away. Lieutenant Breckenridge stared down at Yabalonka’s pale sweaty face. Yabalonka had been strong and sturdy before, but now he looked as though he was ready to croak. Lieutenant Breckenridge wondered what had happened to him.
Lieutenant Breckenridge knew that his old recon platoon was gradually being whittled away. Only five or six of the old bunch were still fit for duty, and even he and Butsko, who’d commanded the platoon for so long, were out of action.
This fucking war, Lieutenant Breckenridge thought. He hated the war and thought it stupid, but it had to be fought. The Japanese, Germans, and Italians were trying to take over the world, and someone had to stop them. It was a big mess, with young men dying every day in Europe and the South Pacific, and still there was no end in sight.
