Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

  Lydia Kent-Taylor took photographs of the recon platoon lining up as Leo Stern approached her. “Listen,” he said, “do you think you can take a picture of Butsko for me?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I'm building a story around him and I'd like some pictures.”

  Lydia was still thrilled by the great pictures she'd got of Colonel Stockton standing up to a Zero. “Sure,” she said.

  Leo Stern walked toward Butsko, who was shouting orders to the recon platoon and pointing to where he wanted the men to stand.

  “Hello, Sergeant,” Leo Stern said.

  Butsko spun around and gazed at Stern malevolently.

  “What are your thoughts before going into battle, Sergeant?”

  “I don't have time to think. Cameron, move your men twenty paces to your left!”

  “Yo!”

  Leo Stern wrote on his pad. “Are you afraid?”

  Butsko ignored him. “Fix bayonets! Longtree, who told you to go over there! Get back where in the fuck you belong!”

  “How do you think the battle will turn out?”

  “How should I know?”

  Click!

  Butsko turned and saw Lydia Kent-Taylor pointing her camera at him. He stared at it in disbelief. Are these people crazy? he wondered.

  Click!

  Butsko wanted to scream a horrible obscenity at her, because he thought she was a total idiot, but instead he unslung his M 1 and affixed his bayonet to the end.

  She took his picture again. The platoon sergeant adjusts his bayonet in the moments before the attack. Then she lowered her camera and looked at him, her head angled to one side. He was all business and absolutely fierce, and she'd put him on film forever. He turned away from her, and she looked at his broad shoulders and big, meaty ass. She wondered what it would be like to grab a handful of it.

  Leo Stern grabbed her epaulette and pulled her away. “C'mon,” he said, “you've been around the great warrior long enough.”

  Colonel Stockton looked at his watch. It was nearly time to start moving forward. “All right,” he said to Major Cobb, Lieutenant Harper, and the others, “you all know what you have to do. Good luck.”

  He turned and walked out of the jungle to the edge of the airstrip. Looking around, he saw soldiers standing to his left and right, holding their rifles and bayonets ready, waiting for the order to advance on Kokengolo Hill. Colonel Stockton looked at his watch. It was only a few minutes until six o'clock, when the attack would begin. He drew his Colt .45 from his holster, checked the bolt, ejected the clip, and rapped it back in. Behind him Major Cobb, Lieutenant Harper, and Private Levinson got ready.

  Colonel Stockton raised the pistol high in the air, then waved it forward in the direction of Kokengolo Hill.

  “Move it out!” he yelled.

  He stepped out toward Kokengolo Hill, aiming his pistol at it from the waist, and Lydia Kent-Taylor took the picture. Colonel Stockton leads his regiment in the attack. She looked from left to right, excited to be part of such a huge military effort, and here she was in the middle of it, right up front with the real soldiers.

  The Japs in Kokengolo Hill hadn't fired a shot yet, because bombs and artillery shells rained down upon them and made it impossible to man the parapets. The Zeros had been either shot down or chased back to Rabaul. There was no enemy resistance yet.

  Lydia wondered whether to stay with the colonel and perhaps take a picture if he was wounded. Robert Capa had taken a famous picture of a soldier getting shot in the Spanish Civil War, and if she could take a picture of Colonel Stockton stopping a bullet, it'd really be spectacular.

  She realized it was unlikely that the colonel would get shot while the bombardment was going on, so she moved down the line to take pictures of the men. Her steel helmet on the back of her head, she dashed about lithely, taking pictures of the serious young soldiers walking along with their eyes focused on Kokengolo Hill.

  The light was perfect and the long, curving skirmish line picturesque. She forgot who and where she was as she became lost in aiming, focusing, and clicking off the pictures. She screwed in the 135-millimeter lens so she could get some good head-and-shoulder shots. Focusing on Sam Longtree, she could see the concentration in his face as he narrowed his eyes and moved toward Kokengolo Hill. Gundy, the medic, had downcast eyes, and she thought he looked sad. She moved the camera to the right and flinched when Butsko filled the frame, his lips moving, talking to his men. She clicked off the picture and then looked at him, admiring his strong, decisive manner.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge walked toward her. “Nice day to take pictures, huh?”

  He sounded hostile, and she wasn't sure what he was getting at. “Yes, the light is very nice.”

  “You know what you are?” Lieutenant Breckenridge asked. “You're a war profiteer, just like the ones who own the factories that make the bombs.”

  “No I'm not,” she replied. “I'm just trying to show the people at home what it's really like.”

  “Yeah, but do you know what it's really like?”

  “The camera doesn't lie,” she said.

  “Bullshit.”

  He walked by her, heading toward Kokengolo Hill, and she looked at his back. She was surprised by the vehemence of his remarks, because he was only a young first lieutenant and she could get him into a lot of trouble.

  But then she moved her head to the side and looked at Kokengolo Hill. The Japs weren't firing back yet, but when they did, the battlefield would become hazardous for young lieutenants. Facing that danger, how could he be worried about what a woman photographer might do to him?

  Leo approached her. “We'd better lag back a little bit. The Japs will start firing soon.”

  “When they do, I'll get down,” she said, “but first I want to get as many pictures as I can.”

  The American regiments advanced toward Kokengolo Hill. American airplanes dive-bombed the mission fortress, and artillery shells howled as they fell through the air toward it. The noise was painful to the GIs’ ears, and the ground shook beneath their feet. Lydia Kent-Taylor dashed about, her helmet tipping from side to side on her head, snapping pictures, feeling the mounting excitement. Leo Stern was several yards behind the recon platoon line, scribbling in his notebook as he walked along, recording his impressions and feelings and trying to imagine what the GIs were thinking about.

  Gradually the ring tightened around Kokengolo Hill. The huge pulsating cloud of smoke and flame drew closer. Colonel Stockton checked his watch and noted that the shelling would stop soon. His ears ached from the sound of the bombardment, and his mouth was dry with anticipation. It wouldn't be long now. The last act in the battle for New Georgia was about to begin.

  ELEVEN . . .

  In the hospital tent Frankie La Barbara lay on his cot and listened to the bombardment in the distance. He knew that the big attack was under way—he'd heard it on the grapevine—and he knew that the recon platoon was out there someplace: Butsko, Lieutenant Breckenridge, Bannon and all the rest, their bayonets fixed and their M 1s locked and loaded, waiting for the order to charge.

  Frankie had been on many big attacks with the the recon platoon, and all the feelings came back, the fear and anxiety, the rage and determination to win and survive somehow against the odds and the possibility that a stray Jap bullet or chunk of shrapnel could end a GI's life.

  His stomach ached, and never in his life had he experienced such a deep, horrible, never-ending pain. Whenever he moved, it hurt more, and he was afraid to cough, because he'd done that once and it had been nearly as painful as the initial wound.

  He'd been in the hospital on New Caledonia with malaria once, but that hadn't been painful. This was much worse; he felt weak and helpless. He couldn't even get up to piss: He had to do it in a bottle. He'd watched while the nurse had changed his bandage the morning before, and the sight of the gash in his stomach, all stitched up, almost made him faint.

  Suddenly in the distance the bombardment stopped. Fra
nkie perked up his ears and his eyes darted around wildly. He knew that the attack was beginning just then. All his buddies were rushing forward toward the barrels of the Japanese guns, and it would be hell. Every GI would think he'd be cut down in a minute or two, and he'd be able to see other GIs getting shot. And somehow you just kept going, because there was nothing else to do. You had to charge and lay your head on the chopping block, because that's what everybody else was doing.

  Frankie gripped the sides of his cot and stared at the top of the tent. He thought about his buddies in the recon platoon galloping toward Kokengolo Hill.

  “On your feet!” shouted Sergeant Suzuki. “Hurry!” In the dark, narrow corridor the Japanese jumped up and ran in two single files toward the incline that led to the top of the fortress. They held their rifles at port arms and their faces were grim, because they knew they were hugely outnumbered. The battle for which they were waiting had begun. Now it would be vicious and bloody until the bitter end.

  The soldiers ran toward the uppermost section of the mission fortress. The Mosquito saw smoking rubble everywhere. Artillery soldiers hauled their cannons to the parapets, and machine-gun crews set up their weapons. The top of the fortress had been devastated, but the piles of debris would provide all the cover that the defenders needed.

  The Mosquito choked on the smoke and strong odor of cordite. Visibility was poor, the sun making a gray haze in the smoke.

  “Move quickly!” Sergeant Suzuki shouted. “Open fire!” The Mosquito dropped down behind a pile of boulders that had once been a wall of the mission. He pulled his rifle butt to his shoulder and lined up the sights. The wind was blowing away the smoke, and he could see the long green line of American infantrymen running toward the base of Kokengolo Hill. A cannon fired nearby, and for a moment the Mosquito thought his head had collapsed from the shock waves. The shell exploded at the base of the hill, blowing GIs into the air. Rifle fire crackled around the Mosquito, and then another artillery shell was fired.

  The Mosquito aimed at a GI, held his breath, and pulled the trigger of his bolt-action Arisaka rifle. Its butt kicked into his shoulder and the barrel rose several inches into the air. The Mosquito worked the bolt, ejecting the spent shell, and pushed a fresh one into the firing chamber while looking down at his target.

  The GI had fallen and his comrades jumped over him or swarmed around him as they charged Kokengolo Hill. The Mosquito took aim at one of them and squeezed his trigger again. When the smoke cleared he saw that he'd shot that soldier too. It was hard to miss at that range.

  The bullet hit Longtree in the center of his chest and he blacked out while still on the run. His legs lost coordination and he fell to the ground, rolling over and flattening out on his back.

  “Medic!” shouted Bannon, who had been beside Longtree. “Medic!”

  Bannon knelt beside Longtree and saw the big bloody chest wound. Oh, my God, he's dead, Bannon thought. Longtree's chest was covered with blood, and he lay so slack on the ground Bannon thought there couldn't possibly be any life in him.

  “Medic!” he yelled again, looking around, but he couldn't see Gundy. Maybe he's been shot too.

  Ka-pow—a Japanese artillery shell landed fifty yards away, shaking the ground and sending clods of earth flying through the air. Bannon wanted to feel Longtree's pulse, but there wasn't time. He had to get up there with his squad again. He turned to see where they were and found himself looking into the camera of Lydia Kent-Taylor.

  Click!

  She took the picture. A GI weeps over his fallen buddy. As she wound the film, Bannon jumped up and ran past her to join his squad. She looked around for another good shot; they were everywhere: She had to make up her mind which was best. Her thirty-five-millimeter wide-angle lens was screwed into the camera so she wouldn't have to worry about focusing, and the light was constant. All she had to do was wind, aim, and shoot.

  She snapped the shutter, then sped forward to keep up with the main line of attack. Her fear of being shot or blown up was overwhelmed by all the great pictures she saw. She shot one of Lieutenant Breckenridge running forward, holding his carbine in his right hand over his head, leading the recon platoon toward Kokengolo Hill. She filled the frame with a long rank of GIs running toward the hill, and just as her finger came down on the shutter button, one of them was stopped by a bullet.

  Click!

  She caught him as he was halfway down. What a picture! she thought, feverishly winding the knob. Getting to her feet, she ran toward the fallen GI and saw him squirming on the ground, his face wrenched with pain.

  Click!

  Gundy, the medic, dropped to his knees beside the fallen soldier, who was Pfc. Solomon Mayer from Atlanta, Georgia. Mayer had a bullet through his left shoulder, and Gundy cut away his shirt with his razor-sharp Ka-bar knife.

  Click!

  The GIs raced up the sides of Kokengolo Hill as the Japanese fired everything they had at them. GIs were raked with machine-gun and rifle fire and blown to bits by Japanese artillery. But still they attacked, their officers and noncoms urging them on.

  “Move it out!” yelled Colonel Stockton.

  He ran up the hill, holding his Colt .45 in his right hand, firing wildly at the mission station.

  “Keep going!”

  He saw soldiers falling all around him, and he expected to be shot at any moment, but he wasn't afraid. He wanted to get inside that fort, where the artillery would no longer be a problem and where the GIs would be able to kill Japs face-to-face.

  “We're almost there! Charge!”

  Bannon's heart chugged in his chest as he ran up the side of the hill. Private Bollings dropped to the ground beside him, a bullet in his head, but Bannon didn't stop to take a look at him. Close to the Japs now, he was a big target and didn't dare let himself become stationary. Nearby he heard the voices of Lieutenant Breckenridge and Sergeant Butsko shouting orders. He thought of Frankie La Barbara in the field hospital and Longtree lying motionless on the ground. Bannon pumped his legs and raced up the side of the hill. They had only about fifty yards to go and then they'd be inside the fortress.

  Barrrooooommmmmm!

  Bannon felt himself being lifted into the air, tumbling, spinning, twisting. He blacked out, saw flashes of light, came to, and went out again. A Japanese artillery shell had blown him twenty feet in the air, and he had landed on his left shoulder, rolling over and coming to a stop on his stomach.

  He wasn't unconscious but he wasn't fully awake, either. His head ached fiercely, and he couldn't figure out what had happened. He was just a tiny glimmer of consciousness without any moorings, floating in a black sea.

  “Holy shit!” said Butsko.

  Bannon opened his eyes and saw Butsko's face spinning above him. Bannon was aware that his face was wet, and his vision was tinged with red.

  “You okay?” Butsko asked above the din of battle.

  Bannon opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was dizzy and felt weird. His head felt as if somebody had buried the head of an ax in it. “Ooooohhhh,” he said.

  “Medic!” screamed Butsko.

  Lydia Kent-Taylor heard Butsko's voice and turned toward it, thinking he'd been hit. She saw him on his knees beside a soldier with a terrible head wound. She raised her camera and pressed the button.

  Click!

  The composition and lighting were perfect. The wounded soldier's blood soaked into the ground, and Butsko's face was contorted with concern.

  “Medic!”

  Lydia moved closer for a tighter shot and then recognized the man on the ground, Corporal Charles Bannon from somewhere in Texas. Lydia recalled speaking with Bannon once, and he'd made a nice impression on her.

  Then she realized that this wasn't just another picture for a magazine back home: It was a man with a bleeding head wound, and Butsko leaned over him, worry on his face. Butsko pulled out Bannon's first-aid pack, ripped off the wrapping, and applied it to the wound on Bannon's head. The gauze quickly became soaked
with blood.

  “Medic!”

  Lydia moved her camera to the side and dropped down beside Bannon, whose eyes were wide open and staring.

  “You'll be okay, kid,” Butsko said. “Just take it easy.”

  “I can't see anything, Sarge,” Bannon said through quivering lips. “I'm scared.”

  “Medic!”

  “Am I gonna die, Sarge?”

  “They say if a head wound doesn't kill you right away, it's probably not too bad.”

  “Butsko, where are you!” shouted Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “Over here!”

  “Get the fuck up here!”

  Butsko looked at Lydia. “Can you stay with him till the medic gets here?”

  “All right.”

  Butsko took one last look at Bannon, then turned around and jumped to his feet, running up the hill. Lydia looked down at Bannon, who was moaning softly, his eyes closed. She felt his pulse. It was beating, but she didn't know whether it was strong or weak; she was no nurse.

  “Just take it easy, soldier,” she said. “You'll be all right.”

  Bannon shuddered and Lydia thought he was going to die. She gazed at his face and saw the pain and confusion. A tear rolled out the corner of his eye.

  “I'm gonna die,” he whispered.

  “You're not going to die.”

  She felt weird saying that, because she didn't know for sure that he wouldn't die. Gazing at his face, the reality of war came through to her. She'd seen Bannon roaming around the bivouac for two days, full of life, strong and healthy, and now he was dying on the ground. Bullets whizzed over her head and one kicked up dirt nearby. She was no longer a photographer snapping shots of the war: She was in it and a bullet could hit her too.

  She dropped lower, looking up the hill. The GIs were close to the fortress, too close for the Japanese artillery to fire. They were just about ready to go inside.

  “I can't see,” Bannon muttered, as if in a dream.

  She held his limp hand and squeezed it. He's so young and he's probably going to die, she thought. She felt sick inside, because she didn't want to watch him die. She didn't think she could handle it, but she couldn't leave him alone, either.