Hot Lead and Cold Steel

by Len Levinson

“Hup, Sarge.”

  Delane handed the walkie-talkie to Butsko, turned, and walked up the incline toward the opening to the outside. Butsko looked around and gave the walkie-talkie to Private Briscoe.

  “Hang on to this.”

  Briscoe nodded. Butsko took out his pack of Camels.

  “Smoke break,” he said, dropping down to a sitting position at the bottom of the cave. “Have your weapons ready in case the Japs counterattack.”

  Topside, in the rubble of the former mission station, the Mosquito lay amid dead Japanese and American soldiers, breathing as shallowly as he could so that he wouldn't show any movement. Blood from the others had flowed over him, making it appear that he'd been shot, too, and the hot sun baked his back. Swarms of flies buzzed around him, landing on his face and eyelids, tickling him and driving him nuts, but he stayed still and tried not to be too aware of the physical sensations.

  He heard American soldiers walking back and forth all around him. Sometimes he opened his eyelids a tiny bit and saw the Americans soldiers carrying away their wounded or bringing supplies into the passageways that led below. He also saw American officers and their staffs looking at maps and issuing orders. Soldiers with radios spoke earnestly into their mouthpieces.

  The Mosquito thought that if he was a good loyal Japanese soldier he'd jump up and kill one of those high-ranking American officers. It would be suicidal, but Japanese soldiers weren't supposed to worry about death, and indeed had been taught to look forward to it.

  The Mosquito didn't look forward to dying, and he didn't want to do anything that might get himself killed. He was even afraid to get up and surrender to the Americans because they might shoot him on the spot. He'd heard rumors that sometimes Americans shot their prisoners, just as the Japanese sometimes shot theirs, and he didn't want to take any chances. He'd surrender if he had to, but if he didn't, he'd wait until nightfall and try to sneak away, hiding in the jungle and living on coconuts until the war was over and it was safe to come out.

  Flies buzzed around his eyelids as he opened them to slits and saw a young American soldier emerge from the entrance to a tunnel, puffing a cigarette. He took off his helmet, wiped the perspiration off his brow with the back of his arm, and walked away.

  The Mosquito closed his eyes and wondered how many hours it would be until night. He guessed it wasn't even noon yet, so he had a long way to go. Somehow he had to make it, so that one day he could return to his whores in the Shimbashi district of Tokyo, and he could be a pimp again, rolling in money, wearing the finest suits and eating the best food.

  I'll do it, the Mosquito thought. Somehow I'll survive even this.

  The soldier who'd emerged from the tunnel was Craig Delane, and he'd spotted Colonel Stockton and his staff not far away. Lieutenant Harper was there, and Delane was fairly friendly with him, although Harper was an officer and Delane an enlisted man. Both had graduated from prestigious colleges and had a certain commonality.

  Delane saluted Lieutenant Harper as he approached. “Sir,” he said, “do you know where I can get a flamethrower?”

  Colonel Stockton heard the question and turned toward the voice. He recognized Craig Delane as a member of the recon platoon. “What happened to your platoon's flamethrower, soldier?”

  “Private Hansen was carrying it, sir, and somehow we lost him. We think he was killed or wounded during the attack.”

  “Well, maybe you'd better go look for him if you want a flamethrower. I'd say that would be your best bet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Delane turned and walked away, looking for the route the recon platoon had taken when it stormed the outer defenses of the mission. He saw soldiers from both armies lying on the ground everywhere, grim testimony of the fierce hand-to-hand struggle. Medics had taken away most of the American wounded, and now the graves registration squads were moving through the area, removing dog tags from the dead and preparing the bodies for burial.

  Delane's roving eyes fell on a slim figure with a camera and short light-brown hair: Lydia Kent-Taylor photographing a dead American whose face was covered with blood. She'd lost her helmet and looked unusually pale. Walking toward her, he saw that her uniform was torn and filthy, just like a GI's. He wondered why she was photographing such a grisly corpse.

  “Hi,” said Craig. “How's it going?”

  She lowered her camera and looked at him as though she didn't recognize him. Then she smiled faintly. “Hello, Craig— so you made it.”

  “So far.” He noticed that she looked different, as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “Are you okay?”

  “I'm fine.”

  “Why are you taking a picture of a dead soldier? No paper or magazine back home would print a picture like that.”

  “I want to show what this damn war is really like,” she said, moving toward the next American soldier.

  Craig snorted. “The people back home don't care what this war really looks like.”

  “I don't care what they think. I just care about what I think.” She saw a graves registration soldier pulling off the dog tags of a dead corporal. Raising her camera, she snapped the picture of the soldier jamming one of the dog tags into the corporal's mouth, so it wouldn't get lost while he was being transported to his grave.

  Craig thought she looked a little weird. “You sure you're all right, Lydia?”

  “I'm fine.”

  “I've got to do something for Sergeant Butsko. I'll see you later.”

  “He still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  Delane walked away, and Lydia aimed her camera down at an American soldier who'd been bayoneted through the heart. Blood was caked on his shirt, and his eyes were wide open and staring. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, frozen there forever, and a fly walked across his teeth. Lydia aimed her camera, pressed the button, and took the picture. Then she turned the knob, but it stopped halfway. She'd come to the end of the roll.

  Sitting on the ground next to the dead soldier, she rewound the film and took it out of the camera. The air smelled sweet with the odor of dead bodies in their first stage of decomposition; soon they'd stink terribly, but that wouldn't be for a few hours. She put the used roll into her camera bag and took a fresh roll.

  Leo Stern knelt next to her. “Are you all right, Lydia?”

  “I'm fine.”

  “You look distraught.”

  “I told you, I'm fine.”

  “Are you still taking pictures of dead soldiers?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you'd better start taking pictures of live ones—of the victors.”

  “What victors?” She sniffed disdainfully. “There are no victors.”

  Leo looked at her more closely. “Listen to me, Lydia. You've got to get hold of yourself. This was a battle that American soldiers won and Japanese soldiers lost. That means the American soldiers are the victors. The American people have a right to see their soldiers as victors. Show them ordinary GIs as victors. The home front can use some morale-boosting.”

  “I don't know Leo,” she said, shaking her head, “I just don't know anymore.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her slim female biceps and squeezed. “We've got to be journalists. We've got to give the American people the real story.”

  “But what the hell's the real story?” she yelled.

  Her vehemence startled him and he let her go, moving back a few inches, furrowing his brow. “The real story is that the US Army has won the battle for New Georgia and now is engaged in mopping-up operations. Now, take your camera out and show that.”

  She indicated with a wave of her arm the heaps of dead soldiers all around her. “What about them?”

  “They're dead. They died bravely, for their country.”

  “Did they really?”

  “Lydia, you know they did. The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, remember? They'd bomb San Francisco, too, if they could get close enough.”

  She nodded slowly. “That's true.”

 
Leo stood and held out his hand. “Then get to your feet and go to work. We have to do our part to help win this war too.”

  Lydia reached out and let Leo pull her up. He patted her shoulder and smiled. “I'm going to interview Colonel Stockton. You might want to take some photographs of him and his staff, now that the big battle is over.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Leo took his notepad and pencil from his shirt pocket as he walked toward Colonel Stockton and his staff. Lydia followed a few steps behind him, trying to pull herself together, trying to convince herself that there was more to the war than the dead American soldiers lying all around her.

  Craig Delane found Private Hansen lying dead on the side of Kokengolo Hill, a dog tag jammed between his teeth. The flamethrower was on his back, the tube and nozzle stretched on the ground like a dead snake. Delane rolled Hansen over onto his stomach. Hansen was stiffening from the initial stages of rigor mortis. Hansen, a big Swede from South Dakota who went beserk whenever he got drunk but was docile the rest of the time, had been fairly new to the recon platoon. He'll never drink again, Delane thought as he unstrapped the flamethrower. It weighed over seventy pounds, and he lifted it up with some difficulty, pushing his arms through the straps. He pulled the nozzle to him and twisted the knob, and a jet of flaming jellied gasoline shot out. It was still in good working condition.

  He trudged up the hill toward the mission, recalling how he'd gone that way not much more than an hour before and how scared he'd been with all the bullets flying past and the artillery shells exploding everywhere. He'd just stayed close to Butsko and kept working his legs. The only thing he could do was keep moving, and somehow he'd stayed alive.

  He passed through an opening in the wall and entered the top of the fortress again, thinking that the battle wasn't over for him and that there'd be a lot of dirty work below; killing fanatical Japs making their last stand in the dark tunnels. I might wind up like Hansen, he thought.

  Craig Delane made himself numb whenever he got scared. He stopped thinking about whatever was scaring him and focused on narrow immediate concerns, such as carrying the flamethrower to Butsko. More officers were on top of the mission station now, and trucks dragged artillery pieces into position in case the Japs staged a major bombing run from the air. He entered the dark tunnel where Butsko was and made his way through the dark shadows.

  “It took you long enough,” Butsko said, getting to his feet, his second cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  “I had to look for Hansen. He's dead.”

  “You think you can handle that flamethrower?”

  “It's awfully heavy.”

  Butsko looked him up and down and figured that Delane wasn't very sturdy or aggressive. He always did only what he had to do, and Butsko needed somebody better than that now.

  He looked around and saw that most of his best men weren't with him anymore. Ten men were left out of the original forty, and the best of those, except for himself, was Sergeant Cameron.

  “Put on the flamethrower, would you, Larry?”

  Sergeant Cameron nodded, pulled the apparatus off Craig Delane's back, and put it on his own. “You check this out before you brung it here?” he asked Delane.

  Sergeant Cameron tightened the straps and held the nozzle in his right hand. “I'm ready.”

  “Spray some around the corner, and when you turn it off, the rest of us'll charge out there and take whatever cover we can.”

  “Now?” asked Cameron.

  “Now,” replied Butsko.

  Sergeant Cameron pressed his back against the dirt wall and eased toward the bend in the tunnel. He poked the nozzle around the corner and turned the knob. Gelatinous flame leapt out of the nozzle and crackled as it flew through the air. The cave lit up and shadows shook erratically.

  Butsko pulled his next to last hand grenade from a lapel. “That's enough!” he shouted. “Let's go!”

  He charged around the corner, saw flaming jelly on the floor and walls of the tunnel, and leaped past, heading down a length of straight tunnel twenty yards long.

  Beeaannnggggg—a bullet ricocheted near him and another zipped over his head. He ran three more steps and dived toward the ground, rolling to the side and pulling the pin on the hand grenade. Muzzle blasts of Japanese rifles flashed ahead of him, and he let go of the lever; it popped into the air, arming the hand grenade. Butsko counted to three and hurled the grenade with all his strength. It sailed down the tunnel and hit the wall where the tunnel veered to the right, landing on the ground. A Jap dashed into the open to pick it up and throw it back, but Pfc. Fischer, a survivor of the Third Squad, shot him in the kidney, and the Jap screamed as he went flying toward the same wall that the grenade had hit.

  Butsko heard a garbled hysterical Japanese conversation and then the hand grenade blew, rocking the tunnel and filling it with billows of smoke.

  “Follow me!” yelled Butsko, jumping to his feet.

  He ran toward the bend in the tunnel, pulling the last hand grenade from his shirt. He pulled the pin, released the lever, counted, and dropped to his stomach.

  “Hit it!”

  His men flopped onto the ground behind him, and Butsko hurled the hand grenade at an angle, so it'd bounce off the far wall and land around the bend. The Japanese conversation became even more hysterical, and one of the Japanese soldiers screamed in horror.

  The grenade thundered and roared, and Butsko was on his feet again, charging after the hand grenade.

  “Follow me!”

  He rounded the bend, held his M 1 steady at his waist, and fired at the figures in the smoke. Visibility was poor, and he didn't know whether he'd hit any or not, but then he tripped over a dead Jap on the floor and fell on his hands and knees while the others from the recon platoon shot the fleeing Japanese soldiers.

  Butsko got to his feet. The smoke was lifting and he saw dismembered Japanese soldiers lying on the floor. A few of them were splattered against the walls. He kicked one out of his way and proceeded down the tunnel, holding his M 1 ready to fire.

  He saw a door straight ahead to his left. It was closed and framed by logs, and a bulletin board was next to it. Butsko held his hand out behind him, signaling that the others should slow down and be quiet. Butsko tiptoed to the door, pressed his back against the wall beside it, reached out, and knocked three times.

  A machine gun opened fire on the other side of the door, filling it with holes.

  “Temple,” said Butsko, “shoot out the lock!”

  Pfc. Temple was from the Second Squad and been a high school football star in Akron, Ohio, before the war. He carried a BAR slung over his right shoulder and held level with the ground, waist-high. Butsko got out of the way and Pfc. Temple took his place, aiming the BAR at the doorlatch. He pulled the trigger and the automatic weapon kicked in his hands, but he held it steady and the lock was blown apart, along with the latch and splinters of wood, while the Japanese soldiers inside the room fired their machine gun through the door, their bullets banging harmlessly into the opposite wall. Letting go the trigger, the latch and part of the door gone, Temple lashed out with his foot and kicked the door open. Butsko pulled a hand grenade from the lapel of Private Morgan Chambers, yanking the pin, releasing the lever.

  He counted to three, tossed the hand grenade into the room, and heard the excited voices of Japanese soldiers as they rustled for cover. The grenade blasted, sending a flash of orange-yellow flame into the tunnel. Butsko got out of the way, and Sergeant Cameron moved into position, thrusting the nozzle of the flamethrower into the room.

  He turned the nozzle and fire spurted out. Japanese soldiers in the room screamed and moaned. Butsko leaped past Cameron and charged into the room, holding his M 1 ready to fire. The room was full of burning bodies, some still on the floor, others running around or jumping up and down. Butsko raised his M 1 to his shoulder and plugged one of them, while Pfc. Temple fired his BAR from the waist, chopping down two. The other recon platoon members shot
the rest of the Japs, putrid fumes swirling everywhere.

  Butsko covered his nose with the back of his hand. “Let's get out of here,” he muttered.

  He led the recon platoon into the hallway. Coming at them from the right was a platoon of American soldiers, a lieutenant in front of them.

  “What's going on here?” asked the lieutenant.

  “We just cleaned out that room,” Butsko said.

  The lieutenant poked his head into the room, took a sniff, and pulled back, his nose wrinkled. “What a mess. Okay, you men fall in with us. Let's move it out.”

  The platoon passed by and the recon platoon tagged along at its rear. Butsko took out a cigarette and lit it up, taking deep breaths, feeling tired. Let that other platoon do the work for a change, Butsko thought. The crowd of men proceeded through the tunnel, approaching the next bend, when suddenly a Japanese soldier jumped into the open, holding a machine gun in his hands.

  “Banzai!” screamed the Jap, pulling the trigger.

  His first burst caught the lieutenant and hit a few men in the front rank. Everybody else hit the dirt, and one soldier from the other platoon managed to get off a shot that came close enough to the Jap to make him flinch. Then Private Verderosa from Butsko's First Squad fired a bullet that hit the Jap in the guts. The Jap keeled over and fell on his face, the machine gun underneath him. The GIs got to their feet stealthily, and Butsko moved forward to see if the lieutenant still was alive, when something shiny and small flashed through the air in front of him.

  “Hit it!” he bellowed.

  It was a Japanese hand grenade, and it landed several feet in front of the GIs, bounced once, and exploded. The sound was deafening and the top of the tunnel collapsed; earth dropped to the floor.

  The GIs rushed toward the piles of dirt. Butsko knelt over the dead lieutenant, whose chest was mangled by direct hits from two bullets.

  “Who's next in charge of this platoon?” Butsko asked.

  “I am,” said a soldier whose rolled-up sleeves covered whatever rank he had. “I'm Tech Sergeant Clancy.”

  “I'm Master Sergeant Butsko, and I guess I'm your boss now.”