by Jeff Shaara
The others in the crew pulled the man into someplace Adams couldn’t see, and he pressed himself back into the craggy gap, closed his eyes. I can’t just watch this. That man was shot. Dead maybe. What the hell do I do? He felt like crying, the fear draining everything away, and he tried to keep the shivering away, furious at himself. Coward! Do something! His best view was straight up, the rock, the Japanese voices, and the Nambu gun began to fire again, the woodpecker chatter close above him. He stared at the rock, black, thick, ugly, caught movement at his feet just below the ledge, and he jerked the M-1 that way, terrified surprise. He saw the helmet, the poncho, a hand on the ledge, gripping rocks, one leg swinging up on the ledge, the man rolling close to Adams’s wedge in the rocks. The man was on his knees, low on the narrow strip of flat rock, and the face turned up toward Adams, a shock for both of them. He saw white circles around the man’s eyes, his face blackened with mud and ash and a smear of blood. It was Ferucci.
“Sarge!”
Ferucci stared at him with pure frozen hate, said nothing at all, seemed confused, but then came clarity, recognition, and the sergeant nodded toward him, still silent. Behind him, below the ledge, a mortar shell suddenly erupted, showering both men with muddy ash, Ferucci down flat on the narrow slab of rock. Adams blew the dust away, blinked through the smoke.
“Sarge!”
Ferucci rose to his knees again, didn’t seem to be hit, and Adams was crying now, didn’t know what else to do. Ferucci stood suddenly, fell hard against Adams, pushing himself into the narrow crack, jamming Adams back even harder in the rock, hissed sharply into Adams’s ear.
“Shut up! Japs everywhere! Everybody’s scared! Get over it, you piece of shit!”
Adams said nothing, fought for control, the wind crushed out of him from Ferucci’s pressure. The sergeant was breathing heavily, a low growl, “Sons of bitches. They’re everywhere! Nobody’s getting off this hill until nightfall. Anybody moves out into the open, they’re chopped into meat! I’m not ready to be wrapped in this damn poncho!”
“Sarge, where’s the looey?”
“Why? You think he knows what the hell we’re supposed to do?”
“I just thought …”
“Shut up. Your job is to kill Japs, not think.”
The words made an odd kind of sense, and Adams cleared his brain, focused on the sergeant’s rifle, the grenades Adams could feel pressing against him. He whispered close to Ferucci’s ear, “Right above us. That rock ledge. There’s Japs right there. Nambu.”
Ferucci turned his face, inches from Adams’s.
“I know that, you idiot. What the hell are you doing about it? You got grenades?”
The question required no answer, and Ferucci pushed himself off Adams, backed away, into the open, the ledge, crouched low, looked up at the rocky spit above them. He yanked a grenade from his shirt, pulled the pin, backed up another step, Adams wanting to pull him back, new cracks of fire striking the rocks beside his feet. But Ferucci held his ground, reached one arm out, tossed the grenade up high, then collapsed back into Adams. The blast was muffled by so many others, but the burst of smoke came now, blowing out above them.
“That’s how it’s done, you jackass! Now let’s get up this damn hill!”
Ferucci backed off him again, stared up, frantic eyes searching for a way to reach the larger rocks above. He crouched low, moved to one side, looked up again, and Adams saw the ball of steel, the grenade coming down, bouncing once, rolling right between Ferucci’s feet. The sergeant saw it as well, reached down low, but the grenade exploded, blew against Adams as a punch of mud and splinters of rock. He cried out, animal sound, pain and terror, waited for the smoke to clear, felt nothing, no wounds, no pain. He pried himself out of the rocks, saw what remained of Ferucci, the man’s legs gone completely, his crotch split open, a river of blood flowing down the rocks below. The man’s face showed shock, his mouth open, and slowly the sergeant’s torso rolled over, tumbled down the hill, disappeared, hidden suddenly by another blast, a mortar shell, that drove Adams back against the rocks. He covered his eyes, wiped at the dust, felt sick, tears, deafened, blinded by more smoke, shoved himself harder into the tight crack in the rocks. Another grenade suddenly appeared, dropping off the rock ledge, bouncing down, but away, below, into the burnt brush, and he lowered his head, the explosion adding to the dust and smoke. His chest was heaving, pain in his throat, a desperate need to cry out, the horror searing through him, changing now to anger. They killed the sarge! They killed him! The fury grew, exploding in his chest, raw red hatred, and he felt a sudden desperate need, an urgency to kill them, to kill anyone, to grab the enemy and tear the man in half. His brain froze for a brief second, a strange image in his mind, the ship, the lieutenant, ripping the steak into pieces, throwing it hard against the bulkhead. Adams stared into the smoke, new blasts around him, and he sobbed for a long minute, helpless again, yelled out, “Porter!”
It was stupid, and he knew it, no way the lieutenant should respond, if he was there at all. Adams fought to control the panic, the fury, heard a sound, right above him, like some twisted echo.
“Porter! Porter … come out!”
He wasn’t fooled, knew it was the Japanese. The voice made him focus, the enemy suddenly real, close, a target. The horror had turned into a sick game now, and he called back.
“You first!”
From below the BAR suddenly erupted, splattering the rock he lay against, the far side, and he was frozen, paralyzed, wanted to scream out, it’s me, you damn idiot … but then the body fell, straight across in front of him, rolled down, through the pool of slop that was Ferucci’s legs. The man was Japanese.
“Got him!”
The voice belonged to Gridley, and now a new voice came, from somewhere below.
“Let’s go! We don’t move up, they’re coming down!”
It was Welty.
The Marines below Adams responded, a surge of motion, another burst of fire from the BAR, a Japanese soldier tumbling down out of the rocks just above him. The M-1s began to fire, upward, far above him, and he saw the men emerging from their cover. The rifle fire continued, answered by the Nambu gun, others, farther along the hill, and Adams pulled himself free from the tight squeeze, frustrated and furious, knelt low, some of the fire from the others striking the rocks dangerously close to him. He crawled forward, to the edge of the drop-off, saw the Japanese body, the smoke blending with a sour, rotten smell, the sergeant’s blood on Adams’s boot. He spun around, aiming his rifle at the craggy rock. But he was still too close, underneath it, remembered Ferucci’s toss of the grenade, tried to reach a clumsy hand into his baggy pocket. But there was movement close beside him, from beyond his hiding place, and he jumped, surprised, saw a Japanese soldier, wide eyes staring into his. The man seemed not to know what to do, too close for his own weapon, too close for the M-1. A shot burst out from below Adams’s feet, a crack against the rock close to the man’s head. The man seemed confused, a brief second, the fatal pause Adams had seen before. He did as he had always done, the right hand coming hard in a flash of lightning against the man’s jaw. The man fell backward, his helmet knocked away, tumbled upright into the crack where Adams had hidden. Adams’s fists were still clenched, and he stepped toward the Japanese soldier, saw nothing in the man’s eyes, out cold. Adams relaxed the fist, reached low, pulled out the K-bar knife from its sheath, waited. He wanted the man awake, wanted him to see, to feel it, but there was no time, the rifle fire growing, coming closer, the Marines below him rising up to the narrow ledge and beyond, voices. Adams ignored them, put the knife point against the man’s throat, shoved it in hard, then made a twist, a slice, now jammed the knife harder, severing the man’s spine, his head flopping forward, down, across Adams’s chest, blood flowing out on Adams’s hand.
19. PORTER
SUGAR LOAF HILL, OKINAWA
MAY 14, 1945
The Japanese grenades rolled past him, most of them tossed from high above, b
eyond the crest of the hill. His own perch was a dangerous basket for any kind of projectile, a muddy bowl set back close to the rocks, hemmed in by burnt brush. He gasped for air, had reached the spot pursued by the cracking fire of a Nambu gun, somehow found the energy to climb what seemed to be a sheer cliff. His legs ached, a rip in one side of his boots, but there were no wounds, nothing to stop him from continuing the climb. But that thought had been erased quickly, the ground out to both sides wide open, flat rock, and just above him the Japanese seemed to target every open space with perfect precision. You’re not fighting a one-man war, he thought. You’ve got to get the rest of those boys up here, find a way to move higher still, silence as many of the enemy up there as we can. His breath was calming, and he glanced out, saw just below him, to one side, a crew working a thirty-caliber machine gun, firing almost straight up, the men straining to hold the gun in an awkward position so the gunner could draw some kind of bead on the enemy caves, which dotted the hillside close above. He watched them with pure admiration, knew that no one had been trained to fire a tripod-mounted piece anywhere but forward, but his admiration had been tempered by fear, the men and the precious gun constantly targeted by Japanese mortars. The blasts shook the rocks around him, the machine gunners still trying to make their weapon work, the same kind of desperation he could see from the others, some of the men in his own command, scampering from shallow cover across exposed rock where there was no cover at all. The Japanese grenades had come from no more than a few feet above him, men who probably had no idea exactly where he was. For now he had kept silent, no orders called out, no voice of authority, knew that if any Japanese soldier suspected he was an officer, someone would find a way to drop one right in his lap. He had used the carbine instead, the shots blending easily with the torrents of fire rolling up across the hill. An entire magazine had been emptied at the opening of the cave, far more from his own frustration than marksmanship. There had been hints of movement there, a brief glimpse of the barrel of the Nambu gun, but the angle was too severe, the cave facing out away from him. Even if his fire struck the rocks around the mouth of the cave, it did little to keep the Japanese from doing their job, taking aim at the men, his men, as they tried desperately to push up the hill. Not even the thirty caliber was effective from their position farther down, no one able to shove the Japanese back into their holes for more than seconds at a time. All along the hillside Japanese troops fired from what seemed to be every angle, heads popping up from narrow holes, rifle barrels appearing in shrubs. He had watched for that, frustrated and furious, as though playing a deadly carnival game, trying to aim his carbine with a quick jerk, seeking a single shot at a head, an arm, motion in the brush where the Nambu guns fired. But the longer he remained in his hiding place, the less fire he could offer. The belt around his chest held only three magazines, and he knew that with at least two more hours of daylight, there could be no more ammo, no supplies at all sent anywhere close to where he huddled with his men. He had a clear view of the beleaguered tanks out in the flat plain, watched as they withdrew, no choice but to abandon the Marines they had tried to support. Streaks of fire had poured out of the hill from a dozen Nambu guns, some of that coming out of rock faces and brush piles a few yards above him. He knew that there were others like him, higher up, scattered among the Japanese, had picked up the telltale pop of their M-1s or the distinct fire of a Thompson. There was another thirty caliber off to the left, and like him the Marines who had reached more than halfway up the hill were spread out in shallow cover, pressed into small gorges, all along the face of the hill. But there was one great difference between most of those men and him. The men closest below him were his to command, to gather and organize and complete the mission. He was supposed to lead. There were other officers across the hill, of course, most of them frontline lieutenants. But he knew that some of those men had gone down, had seen one in particular, Dawes, ripped apart by heavy fire from a machine gun as he led his platoon into a thicket just above the base of the hill. Porter had been stunned by the sight of that, had known Dawes since officer training, but there could be no stopping, no help, Dawes’s own men continuing to scramble up, braving the Japanese guns to retrieve their commander. As Porter reached higher ground, he had been amazed that runners had found him, desperately scared men who had been sent from below, whose single mission was to find any officer. They brought urgent word that command was desperately needed in other places, to expand their commands to include men who had become leaderless. Word came that at least two captains were dead, and Porter thought of Bennett, had last seen him down close to the base of the hill, directing fire with a radio, calling back to gunners and observers for the larger guns that were supposed to be helping them out. So far those guns had been no help at all, no artillery officer wanting to risk killing Marines who struggled too close to the Japanese targets.
The Nambu guns closest to him were aimed in a downward slant, ripping through the pockets of brush that still remained on the hill, or chipping away at the rocky crags that hid the Marines still trying to find their way to the top. He had tried to move out next to one of the hidden craggy spaces, the mouth of what seemed to be a cave, had seen too much firing there for a single gun crew. The men close below him had taken a full hour of fire from that one opening in the rocks, and he knew what that meant, that the cave had to be part of a larger network, where carriers could move unimpeded, Japanese troops back in the hill supplying all the guns with ammo and replacement barrels, or maybe switching out the guns with fresh ones. Down below, some of his men had fired back, but those men who dared to reveal their position, to fire even a single round had been struck down in a shower of lead. He had watched with sickening helplessness as the wounded Marines were retrieved by men who seemed to ignore the danger. He knew that some of those were corpsmen, but others were simply doing the job, obeying their own conscience. But those men were not always lucky, and they had gone down as well. Some of the dead had been pulled back into cover, others still laid out on open rock, bloody wounds from mortar shells and the Nambu guns that ripped open bodies, took away limbs. After dark, he thought. We’ll get those men back down when it’s safe. Somebody will. Somebody has to.
The training had been driven hard into all of them, no man left behind, no man, and he had seen the extraordinary effort even his own men had made to pull the casualties back down the hill. To the officers, the emotional lesson had come from a textbook, that the officers would inspire their men on their own if necessary, retrieving any man who went down. But there was nothing inspirational in watching his own men get shot to pieces. He had felt useless, angry, building a hate for the Japanese and for himself, the lieutenant who was supposed to take care of his boys. From his perch, he could monitor their progress, one of those duties spelled out in another textbook, but the Nambu gun in the cave was too close to him, too utterly infuriating, too dangerous and deadly, and was killing his men with casual ease.
The perch also gave him a perfect view of the fighting out to the side, someone else’s men, more of the bare rocky places peppered with the bodies of Marines, mixed alongside dead Japanese, black bloated corpses that might have been there for days. The Marines would certainly retrieve their own, but he could see clearly now that the Japanese had no such priority. All up through the ragged hillside, bodies were laid out in grotesque shapes, some disguised by the mud so that a man wouldn’t know what was there until he crawled across it. The rain had washed some of that away, but not in the low pits, the shell holes and flat places like the one that held him now. Beneath him the mud seemed to be more like stinking black oil, what was left of three Japanese machine gunners, the rags of their uniforms holding shattered bones close by in a cluster of burnt brushy stubble. He had tried to ignore them, knew that whatever artillery shell made the hole that gave him protection had probably been the same shell that killed the three men, and so they might have been there for a week or more. He pulled himself to the farthest corner of the muddy pool
, but beyond was flat open rock. He had tried moving that way already, to escape the small piece of hell, only to draw fire from another Nambu gun that seemed suspended in the rocks no more than twenty feet above him. From the mud hole he was just back at an angle the gun couldn’t reach, and the enemy seemed to know that, and so, for now anyway, ignored him.
The Nambu in the cave sprayed out fire again, and he thought of the nickname someone had come up with to describe the sound, the chatter of a woodpecker. Doesn’t sound anything like that from here, he thought. Sounds like something I need to blow to hell. He had kept his attention mostly on that one place, expected that the Japanese who occupied the cave might still try to erase him with a grenade. Until more of his men could make their way closer, there was nothing else he could do but wait, and so, with his ammo running low, he had made that one Nambu his single purpose. The carbine rested on one knee, its muzzle barely above the stubble, waiting for anyone at the cave mouth to show himself. Instead they kept their fire on the men down the hill, who still struggled to push upward inches at a time.
He rose up slightly, looked below, Marines in every corner of every gap, some firing upward, some just hunkered down. Dammit, he thought, sure as hell some of ’em are waiting for me. They need something, someone to get them moving. The longer they sit, the worse it’s going to get. The mortars will find them, even after dark. He raised his head a few inches higher, saw farther below, more men along the base of the hill. They were just reaching the incline, the Japanese greeting them with waves of fire, the first scattering of rocks seeming to burst into pieces around them, mortar blasts dropping down in random patterns, men going down, some just … gone, obliterated by Japanese artillery fire that rolled across from distant positions. Farther out, on the wide-open ground, more men were moving up toward the hill, the scampering march into what had become, pure and simple, a meat grinder. He clenched his jaw, watched them falling, no cover at all. More dead lieutenants, he thought. The Japs know that, and those poor bastards are the first target. He had seen too much of that in every fight. So often, in the wide-open spaces, the Japanese had an uncanny knack for dropping the officers first.