Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

by Robert Leckie

  Now the day was dying amid hoarse cries for water or help for the wounded. An empty amtrack from another unit had strayed into our sector, and Lieutenant Racehorse, seeing it, bounded alongside, sprang aboard and ordered the driver to our front. Racehorse wanted to bring back the wounded.

  But the driver was not eager to obey. He was from another outfit, he was tired, he saw no reason in risking his flesh for a strange officer. He said he could not obey. Racehorse told him he had better. The driver refused openly.

  Racehorse drew his pistol and laid it against the driver’s head and said, “Get youah ass moving,” and the driver quickly shifted gears and drove frontward with a roar. Racehorse had won a Navy Cross for his bravery on Guadalcanal. He won another on Peleliu, but it was awarded posthumously. He perished attacking a pillbox, may he rest in peace.

  Now it was growing dark but it was still the first day of battle. We had drawn back to consolidate, and I, with Filthy Fred, lay inside the big crater again. I had tried to eat another mouthful of beans but I could not. Tension made my stomach a vibrating intestinal harp. Finding the water in the crater exhausted, I scrambled out and headed toward the beach, hoping to find some there. Perhaps they had gotten rid of the gasoline-filthy stuff—which had already sickened many men—and had brought clean water ashore. I made my way cautiously through the brush. Runner came out of the brush.

  “Chicken got it,” he said. “Damn fool kept pulling out the plasma needle the corpsman stuck in his arm. You know how Chicken was. Stubborn. I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head gloomily, “I don’t know. Maybe he would have died anyway. It was a nasty wound. But he didn’t help himself any, poor kid.” Runner peered at me through the dusk. I got the feeling that he had distinguished himself that day and was struggling with his modesty to tell me. “Boy, it was rough!” he burst out. “Ask Chuckler—he’ll tell you Guadalcanal was a pink tea compared to today. I mean for the fighting. And this one was supposed to be easy! You should’ve seen it when they threw those tanks at us! We knocked them out with machine guns and hand grenades!” he proclaimed triumphantly.

  “How’s everybody else?”

  “Okay. Chuck and Hoosier are all right. The Gentleman got hit, though—but he’s okay. Lucky bastard—he’s had it.” He peered at me again. “How about you? How’d you guys make out?” I told him about Liberal and the others, and he shook his head. “There won’t be too many left after this one. And did you notice who’s getting it?” I nodded. “All the veterans.”

  I asked him if he had found any water, but he turned his canteen upside down in reply. We walked back together, sadly, each to himself alone, wondering if this were to be the end.

  “Remember the guys who got it back on Guadalcanal?” Runner asked. “We used to think they were poor slobs—getting it so soon. Maybe they were the lucky ones. They didn’t have to go through all of this crap and wind up getting it anyway.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But they never got to Melbourne, either.”

  “That’s true. But right now I’m thinking about anything but Melbourne. I’ve been doing plenty of praying. And it isn’t any of that no-atheists-in-a-foxhole crap, either.”

  Runner’s dark oval face had never been so serious. I remembered that he had been baptized by Father Straight on Pavuvu. How different he was! How different everything was! Gone the camaraderie. Gone Guadalcanal. Gone the pagan naïveté of the first battle. How much easier to be a pagan again and to refuse to take the thing seriously.

  We parted at the lip of the shell crater. I had never missed him and Chuckler and Hoosier more.

  It was dark now but the noises of battle were resuming. Mortars were crashing again. From point to point on our lines rose the angry chatter of machine guns and rifles, sometimes sounding indignant, as though the marines resented these nocturnal intrusions in the manner of a farmer chasing poachers. Even the dark retreated, for we began to use flares. They were of the kind that had illuminated our second night of warfare, when they were dropped above the jungle roof on Guadalcanal: persistent, greenish, eerie.

  Then our rockets roared overhead in a dreadful hissing barrage that must have been terrible to receive. Someone within the crater muttered that the Japs had carved a gap in our lines and that the rockets were being used to plug the hole with steel. I tried to snatch moments of sleep, lying against the crater rim with my helmet over my eyes. But it was impossible. The night passed like an interminable waking nightmare.

  We met the heat of morning with dried mouths, and lips that were beginning to crack, and stomachs grumbling with unrequited hunger. The heat began to rise again refracted off the coral surface of Peleliu, baking the atmosphere, encompassing us in an oven.

  “Let’s go,” said Lieutenant Deepchest. “Right,” I said, and told Filthy Fred and the Twin to get their gear on. We left the hole and made for an opening in the scrub to the left, through which the airfield was visible. It was early morning.

  We passed two marines lying in their foxholes, asleep. I bent to wake them. “Hey,” I said, shaking one of them. “Wake up. We’re moving out.” He did not answer. He lay inert. I rolled him over. There was a bullet hole in his head. He was dead. So was his comrade.

  Through the gap in the scrub I could see F Company attacking again. The Artist was standing there, watching them.

  The mortars had stopped. The first F Company wave was advancing across the airstrip, running low with ranks scattered, breasting a withering machine gun fire that had begun to rake the runway. They were falling. It seemed unreal, it seemed a tableau, phantasmagorical, like a scene from a motion picture. It required an effort of mind to recall that these were flesh-and-blood marines, men whom I knew, whose lives were linked with mine. Still more was required in facing up to the fact that my turn was next. And here is the point in battle where one needs the rallying cry. Here where the banner must be unfurled or the song sung or the name of the cause flung at the enemy like a challenge. Here is mounted the charge, the thing as old as warfare itself, that either overwhelms the defense and wins the battle, or is broken and brings on defeat. How much less forbidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross had there been some wholly irrational shout—like “Vive l’Empereur,” or “The Marine Corps Forever!”—rather than that educated voice which said in a sangfroid that was all at odds with the event, “Well, it’s our turn, now.”

  I bade good-by to the Artist. He looked at me sadly from beneath his helmet, his face made darker and more angular by its shadow. He cast a rueful glance in the direction of the airstrip and the still-falling men. “Good luck, kid,” he said, and turned away.

  I began to run. … The heat rose in stifling waves. … The bullets whispered at times, at other times they were not audible…. I ran with my head low, my helmet bumping crazily to obscure my view, like waves rising around a small ship…. In a moment I could not see Lieutenant Deepchest or Filthy Fred…. I was alone and running…. There were men to my left, still falling…. I ran and threw myself down, caught my breath, rose, and ran again.… Suddenly I ran into a shell crater full of men and I stopped running.

  The crater was like an oasis. I had imagined there was no cover available on the airport, and suddenly, this. It was not nearly as large as the one in the scrub where I had spent the night. But it was large enough to contain about ten men.

  Four of these were men from the Fifth Marines, among whom was a wounded lieutenant, and the rest were men from my battalion, including the commander of F Company—Captain Dreadnought! They made room for me without a word, and suddenly, with the sound of enemy shells crashing around the hole, I realized that I had found cover indeed, but also the only feature on that entire airport which enemy gunners could see and shoot at.

  A heavy machine gun mounted at the lip of our crater, facing toward what we called the enemy “built-up” area—a cement-and-steel blockhouse and some barracks, the only above-ground structures on the island—had also drawn those red and roaring missiles dow
n on us.

  So far, one thing seemed to have saved us from destruction. The Japanese gunners (it was a land-mounted naval rifle, as I discovered later) could not get their shells into our pit. They could neither lower nor raise, nor shift their sights to the exact point which would land a missile among us.

  Regularly, with stomach-squeezing accuracy, those shells landed before, behind and to the sides of our hole. Sometimes the shell came closer—whereupon we cringed while the fragments hummed nastily overhead—or sometimes they drew further away.

  “That one was close,” someone murmured, when an especially loud crash rocked us.

  “Yeah,” another whispered. “I sure hope they don’t come up with any short shells. That might do it, y’know.”

  “Shut up!” Captain Dreadnought commanded fiercely. “Here,” he said to his walkie-talkie man, “see if you can get that thing going. I want to talk to Battalion.”

  Walkie-Talkie sat below me on the crater floor. He hunched his shoulders toward me and asked me to twirl certain dials. I did, but he could not seem to get through. There came the screech of a shell. I braced my back for it, even though I knew that the ones you hear are not to be feared. But how fear the one that gets you, the one you do not hear?

  Another voice was audible now. The Fifth Marines lieutenant who was wounded—who was, in fact, dying, as I learned later—was speaking by his walkie-talkie to his regimental commander.

  “The glorious Fifth Marines have gone through, suh,” he was saying, “and have achieved theah objective. We ah now in contact with the First Regiment.”

  I looked at the lieutenant. He was young and possessed of those clean-cut athletic good looks characteristic of West Point or Annapolis men. He was in pain, now, and the ordeal was beginning to wear upon the discipline of his facial muscles.

  A shell screamed in and we ducked. It exploded with a shattering squeezing roar. It was the closest yet. Captain Dreadnought shouted, “Where is that fire coming from?” The men looked dumbly at one another, shrugged, and contemplated the atmosphere, through which a fine dust was falling. “Here, there—let me up there,” Captain Dreadnought shouted at the man on the machine gun. He crawled up to the crater lip and raised his head. He studied the built-up area and Bloody Nose Ridge rising to the left of it. Then he crawled back to his former position, drew forth his map, examined it, and made a random mark with his pencil.

  “Try Battalion again.” This time contact was made. “Hello, Battalion, this is Fox Company. Enemy artillery fire sighted at 128 George. Request fire mission on same. Over.”

  Incredible! Captain Dreadnought had no more idea of the location of that enemy gun than he had of the shape of the enemy commander’s nose! When he raised his head and took this hurried glance he saw only the blasted face of Bloody Nose Ridge. Had he seen so much as a puff of smoke, which he did not, it would have been impossible still to gauge its exact position, still more to relate it to a map. The coordinates he gave Battalion were based on hope and the law of averages. But he could expect more from the former, for the chances of his having hit upon the right spot were as great as his having called for fire upon the tip of the Japanese general’s nose.

  In a moment I heard the sound of our own shells roaring out toward “128 George.” I looked at his tense sunburned face and wondered if he was not too disturbed by the enemy shells still falling around the pit. But then he spoke and I realized that his stupidity was matched at least by his courage.

  “How many men here from the First Marines?” he asked.

  We raised our hands.

  “Six, eh? That ought to be enough. We’d better take that blockhouse over there. That’s where all that machine gun fire seems to be coming from. As soon as this shellfire stops, we’ll move out against it.”

  Just like that. The blockhouse had resisted even naval gunfire. It had taken bombs point-blank, and remained standing. It was obviously covered by a maze of pillboxes. We—six of us—were to take it.

  Captain Dreadnought might be stupid, but no one could say that he was not gallant. I felt disgusted and resigned myself to an unprofitable death. I looked at the men from the Fifth, who were regarding us with wonder, and envied them for having retained diplomatic relations with the state of sanity. Their commander was hardly conscious, now, but he had heard. He waved a hand weakly in our direction and grinned, as though to say: “You’ll never make it, but there’s no harm trying.” And, of course, to a dying man, I suppose there was no harm.

  It had been quiet for some minutes. The enemy bombardment had stopped, as though to confirm Captain Dreadnought in his miraculous powers. From behind came a rumbling noise, and peering out, I saw one of our Sherman tanks approaching, firing at the blockhouse. Captain Dreadnought was overjoyed. A tank! With a tank to aid us, we hardly needed anybody! Six was overwhelming. Captain Dreadnought might almost do it alone!

  We scrambled out of the crater and deployed behind the tank, which lumbered in the direction of the blockhouse. But the tank was now the object of the enemy gunners, and shells began to land around us again. The air buzzed and hummed again with vicious and invisible fragments of steel. It was not wise to stay close to this clanking behemoth. At that moment, the tank commander decided that it was not wise to remain such an obvious target, and shied his metal mount farther off to our right flank.

  The shells drove us back to the crater. Once again Walkie-Talkie had difficulty with his apparatus. He could receive, but not send. Battalion was asking for positions. “You’d better report back to the Command Post,” Captain Dreadnought said to me. “But come back out.”

  I scrambled out and darted back to the scrub. As I reached the C.P., the artillery fire increased. It grew furious for a minute or so, then ceased. I found Major Major-Share leaning against his pack with an expression of extreme disgust on his heavy-jowled features. A few feet away were his walkie-talkie man and Eloquent, who had inherited my old job of keeping the battalion diary. I gave him our position and sat down to smoke. I was terribly thirsty but still I smoked.

  “How is it out there, Lucky?” the Major asked.

  “Bad, sir,” I said, adding nothing, for my notion of this battle was still a confused jumble of men and movement and explosions, in which a blistering hot airfield was somehow involved. I sat and smoked, enjoying the small shade of the scrubs. Then I arose, and said, “I’d better get back out.” The Major nodded and waved “Good luck.”

  I struck out more to our right flank, because the artillery had begun again. As I walked, I came upon a Japanese rifle which had been thrust into the ground by its bayonet. Odd. I approached it to examine it. Perhaps it was booby-trapped. I came up to it and looked it over curiously, and there came the sharp crack of a rifle and the ping of a bullet passing me.

  Another report! A puff of dust behind me. Get out of here, you fool! It’s a sniper’s trap. The rifle is his aiming stake! The cool brass of him—operating right inside our C.P.

  I came to an ammunition dump, which had been set up on the edge of the airstrip. Stretcher-bearers were bringing in a wounded man. A bullet had pierced his shoulder and blood oozed thickly from a ragged hole. He was in a gay mood, laughing, looking up at the men who had brought him back, as though to say: “I’ve got mine, boys, how’d you make out?”

  I took firm hold of my Tommy gun and adjusted my pack, secured my map case, and circled the pile of shell casings to return to the shell crater. It was my last warlike act. For the last time, I set my face toward the enemy.

  About a hundred yards out, a shell exploded in front of me.

  I veered to the right.

  Another shell exploded in front of me.

  I veered more.

  Another shell. Another. But closer. Four more. Another, closer still. I halted. A horrifying fact became clear. I had inserted myself between the enemy artillery and their target! They were hunting something, perhaps the ammunition dump behind me, and were “walking” their fire in its direction.

  There was no
cover. To go forward was to die. I could only run away from this approaching death, hoping to get out of the target area before it caught me.

  I turned and ran.

  I ran with the heat shimmering in waves from the coral, with the sweat oiling my joints and the fear drying my mouth, with the shells exploding behind me, closer, ever closer—and the air filled with the angry voices of the shrapnel demanding my life. I ran with an image in my mind of the Japanese gunner atop his ridge, bringing each burst carefully closer to my flying rear, chasing me across that baking table in a monstrous game of cat-and-mouse, gleeful at each greater burst of speed called forth by a closer explosion—and then, tiring of the sport, lifting the gun and dropping one before me.

  A shell landed alongside me, perhaps five feet away, but it did not explode, or at least I do not think it did. One cannot be certain at such times: there is a different space and time with fear. But there was the shell—a two-foot blob of burning red which struck the coral with a thunderclap and then seemed to glance off into the air to go wailing away into the bay.

  With that, I called upon my remaining strength, and also then, the Japanese gunner hit his target. The ammunition dump was hit.

  The war ended for me. I had been shattered. No good, a dry husk. Modern war had had me. A giant lemon squeezer had crushed me dry. Concussion, heat, thirst, tension—all had had their way with me. I must have stumbled about, unable to speak, until at last I sank to my knees beside two men scratching a foxhole in the sand. They were startled. As though from afar, I could hear them discussing me.

  “He can’t talk. What d’ya think’s the matter with him?”