by Len Levinson
Holding his sword straight up and down in front of him, he marched into the jungle, and the men filed in behind him. The thick foliage enclosed them and bugs attacked from all directions. Everything became silent, and Sergeant Kikusaki was happy to be away from Captain Shimoyama.
Sergeant Kikusaki motioned to his men, and they got down onto their stomachs. He signaled again, and they formed a tight skirmish line. Crawling to their center, he waved them forward and led the way, heading toward the sounds of the submachine-gun fire he'd heard.
“A lot of them are headed this way,” Longtree whispered.
“Get ready,” Butsko said.
They crouched in the hole and heard rustling in the jungle ahead of them. Longtree determined that it was a skirmish line and drew it in the muck. Butsko looked at it and nodded.
“Don't fire until they get on top of us,” he said quietly.
The GIs waited, holding their weapons tightly. Nutsy squatted on the balls of his feet, ready to catch and throw hand grenades. Longtree peeked over the bodies in front of him and saw the skirmish line of Japs crawling through the underbrush with another Jap in front of them, carrying a samurai sword in his right hand. Longtree nodded to Butsko. Butsko winked at the other men, trying to instill confidence in them.
Sergeant Kikusaki saw the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers ahead of him and held up his hand. The skirmish line stopped. He narrowed his eyes and examined the area in front of him, counting bodies. It appeared that all the men who'd been reported missing were ahead. That meant the Americans were in the immediate area. Sergeant Kikusaki decided that the best thing to do was report what he'd seen to Captain Shimoyama, who could concentrate all the energies of the company on this small area. “Stay here,” he whispered to his men. “Keep an eye on things. I must confer with the captain.”
Sergeant Kikusaki turned to crawl back to Captain Shimoyama.
“One of them's trying to get away,” Longtree said.
“Stop him,” Butsko replied.
The Jap was crawling low to the ground and moving quickly. Longtree wasn't sure he could stop him with bullets, so he yanked a hand grenade from his lapel, pulled the pin, and let it fly.
The gray metal ball crashed through the leaves and bounced on the ground, stopping beside one of the Japanese soldiers. "Grenade!” he screamed, staring at it, frozen with fear.
Sergeant Kikusaki crawled away feverishly. The Japanese soldier overcame his fear and rolled to the side in an effort to get away from the grenade. He stood to run away, and Longtree raised himself a few inches, shooting him in the back. The Japanese soldier reached behind him to plug up the holes in his back, then passed out and collapsed.
The grenade exploded, causing the ground to shake, filling the jungle with thunder. Japanese soldiers nearby were blown to bits, and Sergeant Kikusaki felt a sharp pain in his left foot. The pain traveled up his leg to his hip, and he shouted involuntarily, then bit his lip. He crawled as quickly as he could away from the scene, and when he felt safe, he stood up and walked, but his left foot wouldn't support him and he fell down.
Tumbling over, he perched on his knees and looked at his foot. The top of his foot was all right, but blood oozed out of a ragged hole in the sole. Those damned Americans, he thought. They got me. He spotted a thick stick and used it as a cane, to help himself rise. Limping and leaning on the stick, he made his way back to Captain Shimoyama.
“What happened to you?” asked Captain Shimoyama, an incredulous expression on his haughty face. Near him, sprinkled through the jungle, were twenty-five more men than were there before.
“The Americans threw a grenade, and shrapnel hit my foot.”
“A curious place to be hit by shrapnel. Were you holding your foot up in the air?”
“I was crawling back to notify you, sir, of the location of the Americans, when the grenade was thrown.”
Captain Shimoyama chortled. “A bizarre wound for my bizarre sergeant. Where are the Americans?”
Sergeant Kikusaki pointed. “Back in there.”
“Did you see their position exactly?”
“Not exactly, but we can assume it was within grenadethrowing distance from where I was wounded.” Sergeant Kiku-saki gritted his teeth in pain. “By the way, is the medical corporal in the vicinity?”
“You need him?”
Sergeant Kikusaki looked down at the pool of blood forming around his boot. “I believe I do.”
“It doesn't look like such a serious wound to me, Sergeant. I'm sure a strong, brave noncommissioned officer such as yourself can keep going without immediate medical attention. Show us where the Americans are and then the medical corporal can attend to your little wound.”
Sergeant Kikusaki's leg was numb with pain, and his lips quivered as he replied: “I don't think the wound's so little.”
“Who told you that you know how to think, Sergeant? Come, now, and show us where the Americans are. Don't be a cry-baby. We expect more from you than that.”
Sergeant Kikusaki glanced around and saw all the men looking at him. It would be humiliating if he refused to do as Captain Shimoyama requested. Japanese sergeants were supposed to be tough guys.
“As you wish, sir,” Sergeant Kikusaki said elegantly, with a slight bow. “This way, please.”
“I can see them,” Longtree said, “and they can see us.”
Butsko took a cigarette out of his pack and noticed that he only had three left. Now the situation was really getting desperate. Not only did the Japs know where they were, but he was running out of cigarettes.
“Fill your clips,” Butsko said. “If we can stop their first charge, it might take them awhile to regroup.”
Shaw spit over the top of the hole. “They're gonna get us anyway.”
“Whataya wanna do, Shaw? Surrender?”
“No.”
“You wanna commit chop suey-cide, like the Japs do?”
“No.”
“Then whataya wanna do?”
“I dunno.”
“If you don't know, keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Butsko lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. He believed it wasn't over until it was over. When he'd been buried alive in the Jap tunnels underneath Kokengolo Hill on the island of New Georgia, he'd never thought he'd get out, but the Corps of Engineers found him and Sergeant Cameron and dug them up. Since then he believed there was always hope no matter how bad things got.
Longtree raised his nose in the air and sniffed. “I smell more Japs coming.”
“Get ready,” Butsko muttered.
Sergeant Kikusaki and Captain Shimoyama crawled forward, with twenty-five men to their sides and rear. Sergeant Kikusaki saw the boot soles of the men he'd left behind to keep watch on the Americans. He also saw blood dripping from leaves and branches, the blood of the Japanese soldier who'd been too close to the last hand grenade.
“This is the place,” Sergeant Kikusaki said to Captain Shimoyama. “We're within grenade distance of the Americans.”
Captain Shimoyama was horrified. “Right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They could throw a hand grenade in our midst at this very second?”
“That's right, sir.”
“I didn't want to get this close! I just wanted to get close enough to see!”
“You have to get this close to see.”
“All right, I've seen. Spread the men out and sweep them through this area. I'll go back and send for the others.”
“But my foot, sir—”
“Stop worrying about your foot. Carry out your orders. You can worry about your foot later.”
Captain Shimoyama turned around and crawled away. Sergeant Kikusaki examined the jungle around him and concluded that the Americans had to be in front of him or slightly to his left and right. He had enough men to cover the whole area if they spread out a little.
“Skirmish line!” he shouted. “Move forward on my signal!”
The new soldiers lined up with the on
es already there. Sergeant Kikusaki was impatient, because the pain was becoming worse.
"Hurry!”
“Do you see which one is hollering his ass off?” Butsko asked.
Longtree nodded. “I can see approximately where he is.”
“Throw a hand grenade at him.”
“Hup, sarge.”
Longtree pulled the next to last hand grenade from his lapel and plucked out the pin. He looked in the direction of the Japanese voice, extended his arm behind him, and hurled the grenade. It sailed lazily through the air and disappeared behind the leaves in the trees.
The grenade bounced off a branch, rolled across a thick profusion of leaves, and fell to the ground directly in front of Sergeant Kikusaki's face.
Sergeant Kikusaki blinked his eyes. One moment the space was brown crusty leaves, and the next moment an armed American hand grenade was lying there. His eyes bulging out of his head, Sergeant Kikusaki scooped up the grenade and threw it forward, then pressed his fingers into his ears and lowered his head.
Just before he closed his eyes, he saw something move in the jungle ahead.
It was the butt of Longtree's submachine gun. Longtree saw Sergeant Kikusaki throw the grenade back, and Longtree turned his submachine run around, holding it like a baseball bat, while Nutsy Gafooley crouched behind him, ready to catch and throw it if Longtree swung and missed.
But Longtree didn't miss. The butt of his submachine gun connected solidly with the hand grenade, and it went flying straightaway like a line drive from the bat of Jolting Joe DiMaggio. The grenade shot through the jungle, swished through the leaves, and wasn't deflected by any branches. It landed fifteen yards behind Captain Shimoyama, who was returning to Corporal Teramoto and his radio.
Captain Shimoyama heard the grenade plop onto the ground, but his ears weren't attuned to the sound of the front lines, and he didn't think twice about it. It was just another jungle sound to him—nothing to worry about.
Barrrrooooooommmmmm! The grenade detonated with such ferocious intensity that Captain Shimoyama jumped into the air. He was a fair distance from the explosion, but a piece of shrapnel the size of a quarter hit him on the left shoulder and spun him around.
"I'm hit!” he screamed as he toppled to the ground. “Save me, somebody!”
Corporal Teramoto and several other men were nearby, and they ran to him. “Axe you all right, sir?” Corporal Teramoto asked, kneeling down.
Captain Shimoyama was assailed by horrible waves of pain, and the jungle spun around him. "Get me the medical corporal at once!”
“Yes, sir!”
Captain Shimoyama heard the sound of people running. He wondered if he was seriously wounded. The pain was all over his upper body. Perhaps he was going to die. He saw his life flash before his eyes: his childhood in Kobe, the military academy, his work on General Hyakutake's staff. What an end to a brilliant military career, he thought.
He closed his eyes and fainted from the pain.
The jungle was crawling with Japs. Butsko looked at his watch: It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The sun wouldn't go down for another two hours. It was going to be a tough two hours.
He and his men gripped their submachine guns tightly and were ready for the next onslaught of the Japs, who crawled closer with every passing moment. They were converging on the hole and Butsko realized that he and his men had been spotted. Now it would be bloody and gruesome until the last shot was fired.
Butsko picked up a grenade from the stack that lay beside him. Next to his American grenades were Japanese ones taken from the bodies of deed Japanese soldiers.
“First we'll grenade them,” Butsko said, “and then open fire. That ought to make them stop and think for a while. Ready?”
Everyone except Nutsy took out a hand grenade each and pulled the pin. They looked at Butsko, who nodded. He let go the lever of the hand grenade, arming it before he threw it, so that the Japs wouldn't have time to throw it back. Bannon, Longtree, and Shaw did the same. They drew their arms back and tossed the grenades at the Japanese soldiers, who saw the gray orbs of death flying toward them. They scrambled to catch the grenades and throw them back, and the grenades exploded in their faces, blowing off their arms and heads, driving chunks of metal into their chests. Horribly mutilated, they collapsed onto the ground, and the soldiers from the recon platoon rose up and opened fire with their submachine guns.
Like cobras the GIs swung back and forth, spraying the Japs with hot lead. The attack was so sudden that the Japs were taken by surprise. They were peppered with bullets, but some had the presence of mind to fire back. The jungle was filled with flying lead. One Japanese soldier threw a hand grenade, but Nutsy Gafooley was crouching in the back of the hole, waiting for it. He caught it and threw it back, and the grenade exploded in the air over the Japanese soldiers, shrapnel raining down on them.
“Get back!” Sergeant Kikusaki hollered. “Take cover!”
The Japanese soldiers crawled backward trying to get away from the fearsome hail. Although they outnumbered Butsko and his men, the GIs had more firepower because they all had automatic weapons. The Japanese soldiers retreated into the jungle, leaving their casualties behind.
"Hold your fire!” Butsko said.
The GIs ducked and brought their smoking submachine guns into the hole with them.
“Conserve your ammo,” Butsko told them. “How much we got left?”
“Two clips,” said Longtree. .
“One clip,” said Bannon.
“About a clip and a half,” said Shaw.
Butsko looked at Nutsy. “What about you?”
“I thought you told me just to throw back hand grenades.”
“That is what I told you. Now I'm asking you how many clips you got left.”
Nutsy looked in his ammo pouch. “Five, and about a half of one in my gun.”
“Give ‘em here.”
Nutsy handed over the clips and Butsko passed them out. Now everybody had at least three clips, which wasn't much, because a clip could be fired off in less than a minute.
The jungle was quiet. Butsko wondered what the Japs would do next. He knew what he'd do if he were they. He'd try to blow his enemy out of their hole. He hoped the Japs didn't have any artillery with them, but he knew they had hand grenades. They'd probably try to lob some hand grenades pretty soon,
“Watch out for hand grenades,” he told his men. “I think that's what the little slanty-eyed buggers'll try next.”
Sergeant Kikusaki was thinking along the same lines as Butsko. The Americans had good cover and could not be struck by bullets, and the thick foliage would not permit the use of mortars. That left hand grenades. His body throbbed with pain as he pulled a hand grenade out of the pouch that hung from his belt. He raised the grenade in the air so his men could see it. They got the message, taking out their own hand grenades. They pulled the rings at the bottoms of the grenades, pulled back their arms, and threw them toward the hole where the Americans were.
Sergeant Kikusaki squealed in pain as he tossed his hand grenade, because the motion aggravated the pain in his leg. The hand grenades floated through the air and dropped into the hole where the Americans were hiding.
"Get rid of them!” Butsko yelled, diving toward one of the grenades.
He picked it up and threw it away in one swift move. The other men did the same, chucking grenades as quickly as they could, sometimes two at a time. The hole was showered with grenades, and the men scrambled to get rid of them, hurling them in all directions; the grenades exploded powerfully, lifting dirt and trees into the air, devastating the jungle and making the ground shake as if an earthquake were taking place. Shaw picked up the last grenade and threw it with all his strength, then dived into the bottom of the hole, banging heads with Longtree on the way down. The collision opened a cut on Shaw's forehead.
Sergeant Kikusaki pressed his face to the ground and tried to make himself as flat as a pancake so that no shrapnel would hit him. Shrapnel, chu
nks of trees, and entire bushes flew over his head, and clods of earth dropped down on him. He cursed the Americans in the ditch up ahead, because they were being very difficult. They couldn't be hit with bullets, and they threw back hand grenades. More sophisticated tactics would be called for. Sergeant Kikusaki's leg hurt fiercely, but he didn't want to go back for medical attention yet. The Americans in the ditch had become a personal challenge to him. He had to wipe them out, and he would if it was the last thing he did.
"Withdraw!” he shouted.
The jungle was full of smoke, and a few fallen logs were on fire. Sergeant Kikusaki turned around and crawled away from the scene of devastation. His soldiers followed him, leaving behind those blown apart by hand grenades manufactured in their own country.
“They're leaving,” said Longtree, peering over the dead bodies in front of him.
“They'll be back,” Butsko muttered. He knew the Japs would continue attacking, in increasing numbers, until they won. “Maybe it's time we got out of here. Pick up your ammo and let's hit the fucking road.”
“Where to?” Bannon asked.
“Anywhere but here.”
“But, Sarge, don't you think we'll be safer here than out on open ground?”
“No, because they know where we are here, and will keep attacking until they wipe us out. If we go someplace else, they'll have to find us again, and maybe we can squeeze out enough time so that it'll get dark before they figure out where we are.”
Bannon nodded his head slowly. “Makes sense.”
“There's just one little problem,” Butsko said, glancing at Homer Gladley and Frankie La Barbara, lying unconscious on the ground. “We're gonna have to leave them behind.”
“Leave them behind?” Bannon asked.
Butsko stuck his little finger into his right ear and twisted it. “I think there's an echo in this fucking hole.”
“We can't leave ‘em behind,” Bannon said.
“Who says we can't?
“I say we can't.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Bannon didn't flinch or back down. “Who the fuck are you?”