by Jeff Shaara
“Let’s go!”
He rose up with the others, the Japanese opening up again from hidden machine guns, the firing from the tanks continuing, their own machine guns answering. The Marines flowed back away from the hill, into the undulating ground, thick deep mud, some men seeking cover around the tanks, but the tanks did not stay, were already in motion, pulling away, their machine guns continuing to fire, offering cover to the retreating Marines. Adams scrambled to keep up, searing pain in his chest, legs bogging down in the mud, saw some men jumping up on the tanks, grabbing on, some sliding back off, the bouncing motion of the tanks too unsteady. He followed the men on foot, no faces now, just backs, helmets, rifles and carbines and BARs, a mad scramble away from the hill, the hill they couldn’t take.
18. ADAMS
NORTHEAST OF NAHA, OKINAWA
MAY 11, 1945
The brief respite from the rains had ended, a new storm washing over them with a fury that felt like the clouds were making up for lost time. The winds were blustery, sweeping away the shelter halves, no kind of cover for the muddy holes strong enough to keep the storm off the men who kept low in their foxholes. From hills and hidden places in what seemed every direction, the Japanese continued to choose their targets, anyone leaving his hole likely to draw attention from a dozen machine guns, a hail of rifle fire. And so the men stayed put. They were getting used to the oily water, but only because they had no choice.
In the foxholes themselves, the misery of the mud was made worse for another more personal reason. Those, like Adams, whose guts were twisted into sickening turmoil, had no place to go to relieve themselves, no latrine, no slit trench. But their pants came down, brief seconds of embarrassing hell, the new stink adding to the mud and water in the only place they could stay, the only place there was cover from the Japanese guns, the only kind of comfort there could be.
The stink had come from other sources as well, and no one had to ask why. The answers lay all around them, shreds of clothing, uniforms of the soldiers from both sides who had fought over this same ground for weeks now. Worse were the bones, and what was still hanging from them, some identifiable, an arm, hand, leg, some just blobs of black filth. The shovels had done quick work, the foxholes easier to dig in the mud, gaps in the coral. But the shovels continued to chop through the remains of the men who had died there. The sickening crunch of bone was never ignored, even by the men who had done this before, who seemed immune to almost any other horror. With every hour the smells had grown worse, had become a part of them, their soggy uniforms, their food, infesting every brain, driving some of the men into nightmares of what … and who … they sat in. The nightmares were brief, most of the men not able to sleep at all, and if they found themselves nodding off for blessed moments in the foot-deep water, the Japanese flares would come, shattering the darkness with harsh green light. The flares usually meant a mortar barrage, the blasts sudden and unpredictable, since the telltale sounds of the knee mortars were disguised by the storm. The Marines had withdrawn as far as the brass considered necessary, but no matter their distance from Naha, or the hills they still had to assault, the Japanese were there. In the dark they came as they had before, but in far greater numbers. The rain disguised any sound, no shadows caught by starlight. The grenades and satchel charges were their weapons of choice, stunning blasts of blinding light, enough to terrorize the men in their foxholes, but enough as well to silhouette the enemy who was often so close, some of the Marines claimed they could smell them. When the individual attacks came, it was rare that the Japanese soldier did any more than sacrifice himself, falling straight into a foxhole with an armed grenade, taking away his enemy and himself, fulfilling his glorious mission. With the American tanks moving up in a vain effort to support the Marines, the infiltrators would go after those much more valuable targets, the men on the ground ordered to keep watch for any hint of Japanese soldiers whose sole mission was to throw themselves and their satchel charges beneath the belly of the tank. Already the armor officers had pulled many of the Shermans farther back, conceding that the Japanese suicide assaults were infuriatingly effective. In the rainy darkness it didn’t matter how many Marines kept watch, some sheltered by the tank itself. When the Japanese came, those men were just as likely to become casualties themselves.
Along the muddy front, the orders from the lieutenants were direct and harsh. At least two men per hole, and as before one had to remain alert, keeping watch, whether there was anything to be seen or not. The ponchos that still held together were all they had for protection, and with no way to dry out clothes or skin, sickness had begun to spread through the men, made far worse by the filth they could not escape. The enemy was suffering as well, but no Marine gave that much thought, knew only that any attempt to leave the foxhole would likely draw fire. The Japanese seemed to wait in every low place, rising up from some invisible nook, seeking out the vulnerable, the careless, the unwary, and if any of the sickest men had the desperate need to find a corpsman, or make it to an aid station, it was just as likely he would run headlong into a band of infiltrators. And with the driving rain muffling the passwords, the danger was more intense than ever that he might be shot down by a jittery hand from his own unit.
NORTH OF NAHA, OKINAWA
MAY 11, 1945, MIDNIGHT
Adams knew the rot had crept down from his groin, a stinging agony, sore and raw, all the way into his boots. He had tried to ignore it, as much as he could ignore anything around him. But he could not ignore Welty. The redhead sat down slowly, settled into the wetness, his two-hour watch complete. Adams began to pull himself upright, the M-1 a crutch, and he saw the shadows of Welty with his backpack, heard the muffled sound of the man rifling through, searching. Adams straightened his legs, the sharp pain in his groin grabbing him, and he made himself stand straight, ignored the M-1 he couldn’t see, had given up on whether it was clean or not. But it was his turn to take the watch, two hours of rain flowing down his neck, splattering his helmet, blowing into his eyes. Welty pulled something from the pack, and Adams heard the rip of soggy cardboard.
“Oh God, are you kidding?”
Welty completed the task, the sound of the tin can opening, replied in a whisper.
“Gotta eat.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t. Can’t even think about it. What the hell is that?”
“Stew I think. Don’t much matter. The rain fills up the can fast as I can eat it. It’s like … seconds.”
Adams had grown used to Welty’s amazing ability to ignore his surroundings, but this was pushing him too far. He felt the twist in his stomach, bent low, a convulsive surge driving hard up through his throat, the sharp groan. But there was nothing inside of him, just the painful grip of his stomach muscles.
“Hey, you got the dry heaves again? Oh crap. You want me to take your watch? Sit back down.”
Adams tried to relax his insides, stood slowly, knew he was exposed from the chest up, ignored that, nothing at all to be seen in the thick wet darkness. He tried to take a deep breath, find some way to cleanse the air in his lungs. The smells were a part of him, had filled his brain and his insides to capacity, but the thought of Welty’s stew and rainwater had been the last dismal straw.
“I’m okay. You enjoy your dinner. You twisted bastard.”
Welty ignored the insults, had heard them before.
“You’ll get used to it. You’re not a newbie anymore. And no matter what you feel like now … you gotta eat. At least drink some water. Got a full canteen here. What you don’t drink, you can lube your piece. Or hell, rub it all over your skin. You’re the one who thought gun oil would keep the damn fleas off you. The stuff in this damn canteen’s gotta be pretty close.”
Adams stared into the rain, water dripping from the brim of his helmet. He had done all he could to ignore Welty’s strange behavior, had kept the thoughts away that Welty seemed to like this, or that maybe he was just going nuts. It had happened to others, men suddenly crawling up out of their
holes, calling out to someone, a girl, their mothers, the brutal conditions so complete that their brains had just abandoned them, gone off somewhere else. Most of those men did not survive long, and the ones who had were back in some place Adams didn’t want to think of. He had known a few of those in the hospital in San Diego, the ones who had gone Asian, who simply fell apart. It was a fear he still held on to, that it might be him, that the paralyzing panic would eat away at what sense he had left. But now, in the driving rain, with his buddy chomping down rain-filled stew, Adams could not escape the fear that he might be the only sane man left in the platoon.
With the gray light came the same amazing scene, rolling muddy hills, blasted clean of brush, the rain revealing even more bones, scraps of cloth, pieces of bodies. Adams kept his helmet low, peered up every minute or so, nothing changing but the slow drift of dense fog. Close to either side of him, the tops of helmets were just visible, some men moving inside the sanctuary of their foxholes. He examined the M-1, dripping water, mud on the stock, on the barrel, thought of the drill sergeant, nameless now, some huge monster of a man who tormented the recruits in San Diego, who would find the slightest smudge on a rifle barrel and punish you by making a man lick a dirty rifle clean. But saliva wasn’t clean, of course, so the recruit would then use his own toothbrush, soaked in gun oil, then, when the rifle was thoroughly brushed, the DI would make the man brush his teeth. It was obscenely idiotic, and Adams remembered every detail now, stared at the mud and rain on his rifle, wanted to laugh. Hey, asshole, what about this? You want me to lick this son of a bitch clean? Fine, but you gotta come out here and show me how. Where the hell are you, anyway? Warm bed, or sitting on the beach, watching the girls? Toughest bastard in the Corps, that’s what you wanted us to believe. If I ever find you, I’ll ram this piece right up your cocoa hole. He focused, the daydream shattered by a flash of light, far to the front. More came now, a splattering of blasts in the mud that seemed to come in a line, straight toward him.
“Mortar!”
He splashed into the bottom of the hole, Welty shrinking himself against the far end, shoulders hunched, nothing else to do. The ground shuddered with each blast, mud tossed in on them, a half-dozen thumps coming in close to the network of foxholes. And then, silence. Adams rose up from the thick goo, Welty beside him, listened for the inevitable, and now it came.
“Corpsman! Doc! Doc!”
One man was screaming, a high thick whine, another voice, trying to calm him. But the scream continued, and Adams searched through the mist, saw a fresh heap of smoking mud, dug up by the mortar shell. From behind a man moved up, crawling quickly, closer to the churned earth.
“Coming!”
“Doc! Oh hell!”
The corpsman reached the smoking hole, lay flat, peered down, seemed suddenly headless, an unnerving sight, Adams blinking it away. The screaming came again, the corpsman working furiously, still lying flat outside the blasted hole, and within a minute the screaming seemed to drift away, then stopped. The corpsman rose up, rolled over to one side, motionless for a long second, black mud on his arms, his face. Adams saw a glimpse of the man’s eyes, empty, staring at nothing, then a slow shake of his head. He began to crawl away, back to his own safe place, and in a thick low voice, Welty said, “Nothing he could do. I bet.”
“How do you know? Maybe he gave him some morphine, shut him up.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Doc! Doc!”
The voice came from the distance, somewhere in the fog, beyond a short rise. Adams saw the corpsman stop, turn, still on his knees, the man’s head hanging low, resignation to the awful task. He moved that way, and now another man crawled out of a hole, moving with him, keeping his distance a few paces behind.
“Doc!”
The corpsman didn’t speak, just crawled toward the voice, climbed slowly up the incline, the second man moving up faster, sliding in beside him, a carbine in the man’s hand. The corpsman peered over, trying to see, to find the foxhole of the wounded man, and now the shot punched the air, the corpsman collapsing in a heap, flat, motionless. The second man ducked low in the mud, then fired the carbine, emptied the magazine, stayed low, reloaded, fired again. Adams watched in horror, saw no movement from the corpsman, the other man still reloading, spraying fire from the carbine out beyond the muddy rise. The man slid back, reached out for the boot of the corpsman, dragging him, and now another man rose up, scampering close, another hand on the corpsman’s boots. They slid him through the mud, plowing a shallow furrow back through the foxholes. More men climbed up, but there was a harsh voice from the man with the carbine, sending the men back into their holes. Adams could see now. It was Porter.
The two men pulled the corpsman back past Adams, who stared, frozen, a new sickness, felt a hand on his shoulder, Welty, pulling him down.
“They’re right out there, sport. Keep your damn head down.”
“They shot the doc!”
“Japs know some English, Clay. Doc’s an easy one. Don’t ever call out a name, the Japs will call ’em right back to you.” Adams looked at him, Welty’s eyes cold, the same grim stare. “The doc shoulda known better.”
Adams looked back, the men already gone behind another low rise, the corpsman’s body hauled somewhere off the line.
“Known better? How?”
Throughout the day the positions were shifted, units sliding to one side or another, pulled into position for new attacks on the hills the Japanese still controlled. The fire from the Japanese positions had come in waves and spurts, whenever targets had appeared. Their aim had been mostly ineffective, but not always, and all through the muddy fields, the men who dared to show themselves for more than a second or two were sprayed with a barrage from machine guns that no one could see. The mortars would come next, no aim at all, their destructiveness by pure chance. If a shell came down directly into a foxhole, even the corpsmen knew not to take chances examining the victims.
By midday the fog had mostly cleared, but the rains still came, and with no hope of moving supply trucks forward, the men had to make do with the food and ammunition they carried. No runner could hope to survive by hauling anything across the open ground in daylight, and when the order came for a new attack, each platoon had been sorted out by their lieutenants, who made sure each man had grenades, and enough clips for his rifle to be effective. Then more orders came, and Adams had seen Porter sitting upright on the edge of his foxhole, wiping down his carbine, as though the danger had passed, that anything they had gone through so far was only a taste. The Marines all along the lines were pulled up into position for the assault again and again, striking at the low rocky hills that served as the strong points along the main Japanese defensive line. Porter had told his own men only what had come across his radio, that the brass was growing more impatient watching casualties hauled back to the command posts, that dead men wrapped in ponchos meant that something more had to be done. It was an easy conclusion to draw by men who stayed dry under their camouflaged tents. But Porter spread the word to his men, who, for once, agreed with their commanders. There was no victory to be had as long as the Marines were sitting still. For two long days they had absorbed a horrific toll trying to take hills that the Japanese seemed expert at protecting. Adams had seen the corpsman die because the man was doing his job. Others had watched friends close by ripped apart by shrapnel, cut down by the fire of the Nambu guns, helmets cracked by the deadly fire of a sniper. They knew with perfect certainty that they were facing a very capable enemy who had only one goal: to die by killing as many Americans as he could. The Marines understood what had to happen well before their officers made it official. No matter that they had been driven off the hills, they had no choice but to try again.
NORTHWEST OF “HILL TWO”
MAY 12, 1945
Around them the entire battalion had gathered, brought closer together for an assault someone far behind them seemed to think would end their problems. Charlie Hill now lay to their east,
the place assaulted repeatedly, but this time, when the men of Bennett’s company had been marched through the muddy fields, it was more to the west, away from the familiar ground they had expected to climb. In the darkness there were no features to the ground at all, beyond the dips in the terrain, and the familiar mud. The only light came from the strange storm of flares, mostly in the distance, silhouetting the distant hills, or star shells, American, sent aloft to aid the artillery and tank fire. The rumble from the big guns had been almost continuous, and as Adams plodded along, keeping his boots in the sloppy tracks of the men before him, he had stopped hearing the peculiar differences between all the varieties of shells. He had still not been able to eat much of anything, had munched down a brick-hard cracker from a K ration box. The oily water had become a part of the routine, the nauseating taste just another piece of the torturous test of endurance that to most of the Marines had become normal. But the crack-up cases were increasing, Adams watching as one man from Porter’s platoon suddenly leapt out into the rain, running in wide circles, shouting at the nonexistent sun, outraged that there hadn’t been any sign of a sunset. It was a ridiculous show of utter insanity, the man attracting a storm of machine gun fire, standing perfectly upright in the wide open, arms raised, fists shaking, curses directed at no one else but the man’s own decaying version of God. He had been tackled finally, completely unharmed, but the corpsmen had sedated the man, and in minutes the strange rant was now just one more nightmarish memory to the men who still had their job to do.
The column in front of Adams slowed, halted, the men dropping down, no instructions necessary. Adams did as the others did, knees in the mud, the poncho serving as a small makeshift tent. He tried to see anything at all, caught only shadows in the rain, realized that a man was moving up close to him, hard whispers.