The sergeant cupped his hands and shouted at the distant treeline, “Is that all you got, you yellow sons of bitches?”
“That’ll show ’em, Sarge,” Cook said.
“The name’s Vaughn,” the sergeant told Cotten. “Doug Vaughn.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sergeant.”
“Welcome to hell. Our amtrac got bogged down 150 yards off the beach. The Japs had these little flags set up for ranged artillery. Amtracs and tanks knocked out left and right. We waded ashore and ran into barbed wire, trenches, MG emplacements. We lost a lot of guys on that fucking beach.”
“Next thing you know, we’re walking through a village out of a storybook,” Cook said. “Flower beds and bougainvillea trees.”
“Yeah, well, it’s gone now. Blown to hell. You say you’re Alamo Scouts? How’d you get here?”
Cotten jerked his thumb at Charlie. “He gave me a ride on his submarine.”
“Now I know you’re not Jap spies. Nobody would make up as crazy a story as this.” He squinted at Charlie. “Submarine, huh? So you’re a sailor?”
“I’m the XO of the Sandtiger, Sergeant,” Charlie said.
Vaughn laughed. “Boy, you are out of your element now.”
Charlie scanned the ground out front past the still-smoking cane field. Sparse jungle, a pig farm. “The captain seems pretty sure the Japs will attack.”
“Because they will. If our planes spot their guns so our big ships can take them out, we’ll advance. If not, we stay dug in while the rest of our men get ashore. Either way, the Japs are gonna try to throw us off their shithole island.”
Charlie glanced at Cotten, worried he would see a job opportunity in finding the enemy spotters. The Scout nodded but otherwise said nothing.
“So we sit here and get pounded until they attack,” Charlie said.
“That’s right,” Vaughn said.
“Tonight,” Cotten said. “That’s when they’ll come.”
“Yeah. That’s when they’ll do it.”
A mortar round thudded into the earth and showered earth on the foxhole. Charlie flinched and spat dirt crumbs. This was too much like being depth-charged. He felt safer surrounded by hundreds of Marines, though he was hardly safe.
Actually, this was the fire after the frying pan.
A Marine brought two helmets for him and Cotten before scurrying off. Charlie took off his cap and put it on. Again, he found himself wearing a piece of uniform donated by a dead man.
The sergeant pulled a wilted pack of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket and offered it. “Cigarette?”
Charlie didn’t smoke. He’d always seen it as a dirty habit. “Yeah.” He took one and bent so Vaughn could light it. Took a puff and coughed. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. I made sure to bring a lot of smokes. There’s no telling how long it’ll take for the PX to get set up.”
Another mortar round fell. Braddock howled from the next foxhole, “Fuck you, Japs!”
The Marines let up a ragged cheer. The sailor turned to Charlie and winked.
Vaughn shook his head. “So what’s up with that guy? The big guy who was yelling his head off?”
“That’s Braddock,” Cotten said. “He’s Navy too. Don’t pay any attention to him. He went off his nut.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me,” the sergeant said. “He was starting to make sense.”
“He did his duty.” Charlie blinked at the nicotine head rush. “But like you said, we’re out of our element here. He’s an engine snipe.”
“What’s that?”
“He keeps the boat’s engines running. Damn good at it too.”
“I’ll be damned. Is this how you guys normally do things?”
“My team was wiped out,” Cotten said. “These boys chipped in.”
Vaughn caught the look on his face and turned away. “Well, I’ll bet you got some stories to tell.”
“Some,” the Scout said. “But none worth reliving.”
Charlie remembered his first patrol aboard the S-55 in the Solomons. Envying Rusty for surviving the bombing of Cavite. Listening to the crew talk about how they’d survived the horror. Wanting to confront and survive that horror himself. Wishing he had his own stories to tell. Eager to earn them.
He’d never imagined some stories became a burden. That some stories could never be told and would have to be forever buried.
The shelling lasted through the day. Four dead, nine wounded. After sundown, it went on and on. Charlie slept fitfully in short stretches, jerked awake by explosions. As the night stretched on, the barrage trickled off.
Replaced by an ominous, deafening silence.
Vaughn said, “They’re coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ALAMO
Rifle fire erupted at the sugar mill. Dozens of muzzle flashes in the dark. The popping ramped up to become a single rolling roar.
“Pull back the OPs!” Lt. White bellowed.
Marines manning the observation posts sprang to their feet and dashed pell-mell back to the foxholes dotting the jagged front line. Charlie ran over to Braddock’s foxhole and jumped in.
“You all right, Braddock?”
“It’s touching how you worry about me, sir. My arm is stiff as hell.”
“I’m more worried about your head right now.”
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man isn’t king,” the sailor said. “The blind all call him crazy.”
“What about the land of the assholes? Where do you fit in?”
Braddock laughed. “There’s hope for you yet, sir.”
“We made it this far. We’ll get through this.”
“Very comforting to hear from the guy who put me here. Thank you, sir.”
Charlie shook his head. He gave up.
Braddock was one of the bravest men he knew. They had one trait in common, which was they kept their head under fire. But the sailor thought the war was crazy. They were all playing war with very real bullets.
“You can always count on me to fight like the devil,” the sailor said. “It’s the only way I can survive the shit you get me into.”
“You’re one of us now,” the bazooka man next to Braddock said. “The way you bitch, we’re gonna make you an honorary Marine.”
Destroyers boomed out at sea. Star shells burst in the night sky, illuminating the area in stark contrast of light and shadow. The gunfire at the sugar mill intensified.
Figures moving in the trees.
“Wait for it,” Vaughn called from his foxhole.
Whistles shrilled in the jungle, officers signaling the attack.
“Here they come!”
Japanese infantry ran from cover in their khaki uniforms, waves of men bristling with bayonets.
“BANZAI!”
Their tactics favored bayonet charges, which proved effective in China. The idea was to accept huge losses for a decisive win against disorganized defenders. In this case, drive the Americans back into the sea and destroy them. Sometimes, when all hope was lost, they launched a banzai charge. The same thing, only the objective was to inflict as much damage as possible before dying.
Right now, the difference didn’t matter. Either way, they were coming.
The Japanese fired and reloaded as they charged, flashes winking across the front. A man screamed for a medic. Confident of his shot, a Marine fired his Garand from the foxhole on the right, dropping a distant figure. Then the entire front opened up. Another salvo of star shell burst overhead.
Palm trees crashed to the ground as a big vehicle growled out of the jungle. The Type 95 Ha-Gō light tank opened fire with its 37mm main gun. Tracers streamed from its MG. The captain stood proud in the turret. Infantry clung to the handrails. A bugler called the charge.
Dozens of figures dropped as the charge rolled across the cane field toward the American positions. Braddock opened fire with his BAR, knocking men over like bowling pins. Charlie shouldered his Thompson and emptied his magazine, tak
ing out two. The bazooka team fired at the approaching tank. The missile streaked through the air and missed, bursting in the jungle beyond.
“You jarheads shoot like my XO,” Braddock said.
“Shut up, pipe rat,” the bazooka man growled.
An antitank shell burst through the Ha-Gō’s light armor and flew out the other side. The tank twisted and staggered on its tracks then kept coming.
The antitank gun’s crew switched to HE rounds. The next shell blew the turret off. Flaming figures spilled out as the tank continued to roll forward at an angle, pumping thick black smoke into the air.
The engine exploded in a leaping fireball. The tank’s lifeless hulk ground to a halt. The flames illuminated another tank rumbling from the trees behind it.
The bazooka man fired and yelled, “Got that bastard!” Then his helmet pinged as a bullet punctured it. The Marine toppled over like a marionette with its strings cut. His partner snatched up the bazooka only to be shot through the throat.
Grenades burst along the line as the armies closed to contact. Japanese soldiers ran screaming from the dust. Charlie stood and fired his Thompson into their chests as they closed. He fired until the weapon grew hot in his hands.
Braddock finished reloading. “We’re about to be overrun, sir.”
“Fall back.”
They climbed out of the foxhole and retreated, Braddock shooting from the hip as he ran. The entire front line was either fighting hand to hand or dashing toward the next line of foxholes, the Japanese on their heels shouting their battle cries.
The battle became a chaotic slaughter lit by fires and muzzle flashes and star shells. Hundreds of men shot at each other point blank or grappled in foxholes. Vaughn beat a soldier to death with a shovel. A Japanese officer cut a Marine in half with his samurai sword. A soldier waving a flag bearing the Rising Sun toppled under fire from Cotten’s grease gun. Braddock roared as he fired into the charging Japanese with his BAR. Two Marines cartwheeled in a blast of mud and shrapnel. The wounded screamed in the mud.
Then the world shrank to a small circle as Charlie focused on his own survival, his hands steady as he pumped rounds into one snarling face at a time. Shooting, then falling back to reload, then shooting again until he had nothing left.
He dropped the gun, unholstered his .45, and kept shooting. Bullets hummed and snapped in the air around him. Half blinded by smoke and dust, he had no sense of the front anymore. When he ran out of ammo, he picked up a Japanese bolt-action rifle and stood ready with his bayonet.
Next to him, Braddock stopped firing.
The smoke cleared to reveal dead and writhing bodies covering the ground. Three burning tanks. In the distance, khaki-clad figures retreated into the trees from which they had come.
The sun was coming up. The attack was over. The Marines had held.
“Cease fire!” Lt. White shouted.
A scattering of last shots from Marines voicing their defiance, then silence. As the survivors moved forward, they called out for medics to attend to their fallen comrades.
Cotten approached from the smoke, his uniform splashed with blood. “You guys all right?”
“I’m alive,” Braddock said.
“Charlie?”
Charlie gazed at the dead carpeting the fields. “Jesus Christ.”
“The blind leading the blind,” said Braddock. “Straight to the slaughter.”
Mortars thumped in the distance.
“INCOMING!”
The men dove into the nearest foxhole as the Japanese barrage began again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE PRICE OF VICTORY
While Marines dashed across the field to rescue wounded comrades under continuous artillery fire, Charlie drank tepid water from his canteen and smoked Vaughn’s cigarettes.
“And here we sit,” the sergeant said. “Goddamnit.”
Planes roared overhead, looking for the enemy guns that kept the Marines pinned down.
“The way they charged,” Charlie said. “I still can’t believe it.”
“The idea is to scare the shit out of the enemy. Seeing hundreds of screaming Japs running at you wanting to stick you with a bayonet.”
“Yeah, it worked on me.”
“From what I heard, it worked on the Chinese too. But the Chinese have bolt-action rifles. We have automatic weapons. We lost a lot of guys last night, but the Japs lost far more. Arrogant yellow bastards.”
“Still,” Charlie said. “It almost worked. You got to give them credit.”
“They don’t mind throwing their lives away. They can keep doing it.”
Navy ships boomed out on the sea. The massive shells flamed across the sky toward inland targets.
“Any country in its right mind would have surrendered by now,” Braddock said. He looked pale and exhausted. “This whole war is pointless.”
“Listen,” Cotten said. “You hear that?”
Startled, Charlie cocked his head. The shelling had stopped. “We’ll be out of here soon. Get a surgeon to patch up Braddock and then get off this island.”
“Not me,” the Scout said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple, Charlie. I’m gonna stay and fight with these Marines.”
“We’ll be glad to have you,” Vaughn said. “Most of these guys are green. The lieutenant’s all right, but he’s green too. Nobody on this island knows jungle fighting like you do.”
“Jonas, don’t do this,” Charlie said.
“It’s a done deal,” Cotten said. “I can do some good here.”
“If you want to do good, go back to your unit. Keep doing missions.”
“The battle is here. I’m gonna see it through to the end. I have to find Moretti.”
The Marines stirred from their foxholes. Covered by their pickets, they began to collect the dead. Another company moved into the area and prepared for their next big push that would take them into the interior jungles and farmland. The immediate objective being to advance to Fina Susu and link up with Second Division, which was on the other side of Lake Susupe and its surrounding marshes.
Cotten was obviously looking for redemption. He’d crossed Saipan, destroyed a major coastal gun that threatened the landings, and spotted for artillery. He’d helped repel a Japanese counterattack. But it wasn’t enough for him.
He believed he could go home, but he had to earn it.
Otherwise, he might bring home ghosts.
“You can’t escape war without regrets,” Cotten said as if reading his thoughts. “Even when you win. You got to pay the price for victory. You got to kill. You got to kill enough that you save far more. That’s how it works.”
Only in war could killing another human be as selfless as dying.
Charlie held out his hand. “You got your second chance, and you did it right. Thanks for getting us through this.”
Cotten smiled and shook it. “Thanks for coming along.”
“Good luck, Jonas. I hope you find your man.”
“You too, Charlie.” The Scout shifted to Braddock. “And you, John. Take care of him. He’s an asshole, but he’s your tribe of assholes. Remember that.”
“Good luck to you,” Braddock croaked and glared at Charlie. “Now let’s get out of here, sir, before they volunteer us for something.”
Charlie hoisted the heavy radio onto his shoulders and took up his and Braddock’s weapons. He helped the sailor out of the foxhole.
“Any idea where there’s an aid station?” he asked Vaughn.
“Keep walking south,” the man said. “You’ll find something.”
“Good luck to you too, Sergeant.”
Charlie led the way, Braddock lurching after him and wincing at each step. Gunfire crackled in the distance as Fourth Division pressed the Japanese.
A plan formed in his foggy brain. Get Braddock some medical attention, radio the boat, catch some sleep until they could be picked up.
At last, he caught sight of hospital tents set
up next to a bombed-out building. Jeeps and ambulance trucks drove up to discharge wounded before speeding off.
Charlie went inside and instantly regretted it.
Screaming men lay on cots and stretchers. Gaping chest wounds, shattered limbs, horrifying burns. Doctors, nurses, and medics roamed among them, triaging them for care. Charlie reeled at the stench of blood, shit, and death.
He found Braddock a spot to sit and dumped their gear. A nurse hurried past; he touched her arm and asked for help.
The woman turned and stared at him, her mouth a wide O. He stared back.
“You,” he said.
Her pretty face warmed into a smile. “Come to buy me another drink, sailor?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AN OLD FRIEND
Exhausted and filthy, he could only gape at her dumbly.
Jane cupped his stubbled cheeks in her hands. “Oh, Charlie Harrison. Look at you. What are you doing here?”
“Special mission,” he managed.
“Are you all right? Are you wounded?”
Charlie pointed to Braddock slumped on the ground. “He’s one of mine.”
“Sabertooth still?”
“No, the Sandtiger. I’m XO.”
“Very impressive.” Jane crouched next to Braddock and examined his wounds. “No major damage to blood vessels. No infection. I’ll patch him up myself. Let me get my equipment. I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks,” Braddock said.
She returned with a tray and handed it to Charlie. “You’re my assistant now.”
He watched her while she worked. “What you doing here?”
This was a Marine operation, Jane an Army nurse. He expected her to be following MacArthur as he hammered his way across the Solomons.
“I’m a war hero, Charlie,” she said. “I found that out when I got back. I’m a nurse who survived the Philippines and came back on a submarine that sank an aircraft carrier. They had me and the girls tour around to help sell war bonds.”
“Ow!” Braddock snarled.
“That’s just the anesthetic, you big baby. Anyway, Charlie, when that was over, they asked me where I wanted to go.”
Contact!: a novel of the Pacific War Page 13
