Go for Broke

by Len Levinson

  Frankie lunged again before the Japanese soldier could get set, and the Japanese soldier raised his rifle and bayonet to protect himself. The Japanese soldier hit Frankie’s bayonet with the top of his rifle barrel, parrying it upward. An expression of horror came over the Japanese soldier’s face when he realized that Frankie’s bayonet was zooming directly at his throat. A split second later Frankie’s bayonet pierced the Japanese soldier’s jugular vein, cut his windpipe, and proceeded onward, brushing past the juncture between the Japanese soldier’s skull and spine and finally protruding out the back of the Japanese soldier’s neck.

  “Gotcha!” screamed Frankie La Barbara in triumph as blood gushed out of the Japanese soldier’s jugular, splashing onto Frankie’s face.

  Frankie La Barbara pulled his rifle and bayonet backward, and the Japanese soldier collapsed onto the ground, blood still spurting from his neck. Frankie spun around, and his flesh crawled at the sight of a Japanese officer standing there, aiming a pistol at him calmly, one eye closed and one eye open.

  “Yikes!” cried Frankie as he dived to the ground.

  Blam! The pistol fired and kicked up into the air. The bullet whistled over Frankie La Barbara’s head, and then Frankie leaped forward to tackle the Japanese officer, who swung down with the pistol, clobbering Frankie on the back of his head as he was coming in.

  Frankie felt pain for an instant, and then the lights went out, but his forward motion continued and he crashed into the Japanese officer, hitting him at waist level, knocking him down.

  The Japanese officer fell onto his back, and Frankie landed on top of him. The Japanese officer was a short man with a mosquitolike build, and Frankie weighed 193 pounds. The Japanese officer struggled to push Frankie off him. That didn’t work, so he tried to crawl out from underneath Frankie; while he was doing that, Frankie came to consciousness.

  Frankie reached out with both his hands and grabbed the wrist of the Japanese officer who was holding the pistol. The Japanese officer punched Frankie on the side of his head with his free hand, but Frankie had a thick head and could take a good punch. Still holding the Japanese officer’s wrist, he elbowed the Japanese officer in the mouth, shaking loose a few teeth and causing the Japanese officer to become dazed.

  Frankie plucked the pistol out of the Japanese officer’s hand and leaped to his feet. “Yeah!” shouted Frankie La Barbara as he aimed the pistol down at the Japanese officer’s head and pulled the trigger.

  Blam! The Japanese officer’s head exploded like a rotten cantaloupe. Frankie turned around and saw directly in front of him the back of a Japanese soldier fighting hand to hand with an American soldier. Frankie aimed and pulled the trigger of the Japanese pistol, and blam!—a black hole appeared on the back of the Japanese soldier’s shirt, and then it became a red splotch. The Japanese soldier dropped to his knees; standing in front of him was Lieutenant Dale Breckenridge, his hands empty, blood dripping from a cut on his chin.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge didn’t know who had shot his Japanese opponent and didn’t care. He’d lost his own carbine somewhere in the fighting, and now bent down to pick up the rifle and bayonet of the Japanese soldier who’d just been shot, when he saw something flash in the corner of his eye and turned in time to see a bayonet zooming toward his throat. He spun around and raised his hands reflexively, and the blade of the bayonet cut across both his forearms.

  The pain was so sudden and intense, it made Lieutenant Breckenridge’s eyes bulge out. He saw standing in front of him a Japanese soldier carrying a bayonet in each of his hands, with both of the blades pointing upward. The Japanese soldier was hatless and rangy, with a weird gleam in his eyes and a fiendish smile on his face.

  He looks like a fucking homicidal maniac, Lieutenant Breckenridge thought as he took a step backward, wondering how he was going to deal with this new threat. He wished he had a weapon to fight with, but all he had were his bare hands. The Japanese soldier giggled as he lunged forward, slashing at Lieutenant Breckenridge’s belly with the bayonet in his right hand, and at his throat with the bayonet in his left hand.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped backward and avoided both blows, but the Japanese soldier giggled again and lunged forward, slashing wildly with both bayonets. Lieutenant Breckenridge twisted, ducked, and jumped backward once more, but he wasn’t quite fast enough, and the Japanese soldier sliced a thin piece of flesh the size of a silver dollar off Lieutenant Breckenridge’s left shoulder.

  The Japanese soldier paused a moment to assess the damage he’d done, and that was the last mistake he’d ever make in his life. Lieutenant Breckenridge kicked out with his long right leg, and his big foot buried itself in the Japanese soldier’s groin. The force of the blow slammed the Japanese soldier’s testicles into his intestines, mashing them like two soft plums. The Japanese soldier shrieked in terrible, excruciating pain, dropping both his bayonets and clutching his devastated crotch. The force of the blow also lifted him a few inches into the air, and when he landed he didn’t have the strength or will to stand, so he crumpled onto the ground.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge bent over and picked up one of the bayonets. He looked up and saw a Japanese soldier charging him, rifle and bayonet zooming toward Lieutenant Breckenridge’s chest. Lieutenant Breckenridge timed the thrust and batted the barrel of the Japanese rifle to the side with his left forearm while punching upward with the bayonet in his right hand, sticking the bayonet into the stomach of the Japanese soldier.

  The Japanese soldier’s tongue stuck out, and Lieutenant Breckenridge’s right hand became covered with blood pouring from the Japanese soldier’s stomach. Lieutenant Breckenridge wanted to take away the Japanese soldier’s rifle and bayonet, but before he could do that, he became aware that two Japanese soldiers were charging him from his left side.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge grabbed the Japanese soldier collapsing in front of him and spun him to the side. The two charging Japanese soldiers lunged toward Lieutenant Breckenridge with their rifles and bayonets, and suddenly the dead Japanese soldier was between him and them.

  Both bayonets stuck into the dead Japanese soldier, who fell to the ground, dragging the bayonets with him. The two Japanese soldiers glanced upward and were horrified to see the big American officer coming at them, bayonet in hand. Lieutenant Breckenridge snarled viciously as he swung the bayonet at close range, ripping open the windpipe of the Japanese soldier on the right, then following up and dragging the blade of the bayonet across the face of the Japanese soldier on the left.

  The cut opened the mouth of the Japanese soldier on the left a few inches wider, and Lieutenant Breckenridge raised his knee, crushing the Japanese soldier’s balls. Both Japanese soldiers sagged to the ground, and Lieutenant Breckenridge dropped the bayonet in his hand, preferring to grab a rifle and bayonet on the ground. His fingers closed around it and he picked it up, but it was embedded in the back of the Japanese soldier whom Lieutenant Breckenridge had previously stabbed in the stomach.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge pulled the stock of the rifle, but the bayonet was wedged securely in the back of the Japanese soldier. He pulled again, lifting the dead Japanese soldier off the ground, but still the bayonet wouldn’t come loose.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelled.

  His curse caught the attention of a short Japanese soldier with bowed legs, advancing nearby. The short Japanese soldier carried an Arisaka rifle and bayonet and charged toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, thrusting his rifle and bayonet forward, and then realized at the last moment that Lieutenant Breckenridge was a giant compared to him.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge growled as he reached out and grabbed the bowlegged Japanese soldier’s rifle, but the bowlegged Japanese soldier wouldn’t let go. Lieutenant Breckenridge tugged, lifting the bowlegged Japanese soldier off his feet, but still the Japanese soldier wouldn’t let go. Lieutenant Breckenridge swung around and slammed the bowlegged Japanese soldier into the bayonet of another attacking Japanese soldier, impaling the bowlegged Japanese sold
ier, who finally had to let go his rifle because he was damn near dead at that point.

  Meanwhile the attacking Japanese soldier’s rifle and bayonet were dragged toward the ground by the weight of the dying bowlegged Japanese soldier, and Lieutenant Breckenridge stepped forward, delivering a vertical butt stroke to the jaw of the attacking Japanese soldier, snapping his head back and putting out his lights.

  The attacking Japanese soldier fell to the ground, and Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped onto his face with both combat boots, flattening the Japanese soldier’s nose, cracking facial bones and cartilage.

  Clang! Lieutenant Breckenridge’s rifle and bayonet were whacked out of his hands in a sudden gleaming flash. Lieutenant Breckenridge looked up and saw a Japanese sergeant carrying a samurai sword, and the Japanese sergeant raised it for another go at Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped on the Japanese sergeant and grabbed his wrist in both his hands, at the same time kneeing the Japanese sergeant in the balls, but the Japanese sergeant twisted to the side at the last moment and received the blow on his hip. The Japanese sergeant raised his hand toward Lieutenant Breckenridge’s face in an effort to claw out his eyes, and Lieutenant Breckenridge elbowed the Japanese sergeant in the chops.

  The Japanese sergeant was momentarily dazed. He dropped his samurai sword and took a step backward. Lieutenant Breckenridge dived toward the sword, and the Japanese sergeant leaped on top of Lieutenant Breckenridge, wrapping his arms around Lieutenant Breckenridge’s neck and torso and pulling him backward.

  The Japanese sergeant fell onto his ass, still clutching Lieutenant Breckenridge, who landed on top of him. Lieutenant Breckenridge shot back his elbow into the Japanese sergeant’s breadbasket. The Japanese sergeant said “Oof!” and scratched his fingernails across Lieutenant Breckenridge’s face, hoping to gouge out an eye in the process.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge rolled over and jumped to his feet, drawing back his left leg, kicking out at the Japanese sergeant’s head; but the Japanese sergeant leaned to the side, avoiding the blow, and then he scrambled to his feet, too.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge and the Japanese sergeant faced each other. Both were unarmed, but Lieutenant Breckenridge was several inches taller and approximately eighty pounds heavier than the Japanese sergeant, plus he had a much greater reach. All that should have given Lieutenant Breckenridge a clear-cut advantage, but it didn’t. The Japanese sergeant was an expert in jiujitsu, judo, and karate, and he was quick as lightning. The Japanese sergeant spread his feet apart and bent his knees, raising the blades of his hands in the air. Then he proceeded to crab-walk sideways toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, with the intention of breaking up Lieutenant Breckenridge’s body with judicious kicks to weak points and blows with the blades of his hands.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge stepped backward, realizing the Japanese sergeant knew something about the Oriental martial arts. But Lieutenant Breckenridge had the confidence of a big, powerful man. He thought he could handle just about anybody hand to hand. He also knew that the Oriental martial arts were based on counterattacking off an opponent’s lunges, using the opponent’s strength against him. Lieutenant Breckenridge figured he could kill the Jap if he, Lieutenant Breckenridge, didn’t make any mistakes.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge raised his fists in the classic western boxer’s defense and watched the Japanese sergeant crab-walk closer. Lieutenant Breckenridge feinted a left jab, and the Japanese sergeant swung the blade of his hand to block the blow that never came. But the Japanese sergeant saw his mistake immediately and pulled back, covering quickly, leaving Lieutenant Breckenridge no opening.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge feinted a left jab again, and that time the Japanese sergeant didn’t fall for it. Lieutenant Breckenridge stepped forward quickly in a fake attack, then stepped back. The Japanese sergeant let loose with a sudden ferocious roundhouse kick, slamming Lieutenant Breckenridge upside his head with the top of his foot, and Lieutenant Breckenridge saw stars.

  The Japanese sergeant lunged forward with a punch toward Lieutenant Breckenridge’s solar plexus, and it connected, sending waves of pain radiating out all over Lieutenant Breckenridge’s body, paralyzing him momentarily.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge was dizzy and racked with pain. He could barely move, had no offense and little defense. The Japanese sergeant drew back the blade of his hand, preparing to split Lieutenant Breckenridge’s skull in half, when suddenly, out of the press of battle, the butt of a Browning Automatic Rifle crashed down on the top of the Japanese sergeant’s head, caving in his skull, the violence of the blow causing the Japanese sergeant’s brains to explode out of his ears, nose, and mouth.

  The barrel of the BAR was in the mighty powerful hands of the Reverend Billie Jones, who had picked it up off the ground somewhere along the way. He was swinging it around like a baseball bat, lambasting Japanese soldiers all around him.

  The Reverend Billie Jones had gone totally berserk, as he usually did in situations of hand-to-hand combat. Moreover a BAR was several inches longer than an ordinary M 1 rifle and weighed twice as much, making it a much more deadly weapon.

  “Yaaaahhhhhhhhh!” screamed the Reverend Billie Jones, swinging the BAR to the side and slamming a Japanese soldier in the head, busting it apart, sending a shower of blood and brains flying into the air. On the backswing the Reverend Billie Jones smacked the butt of the BAR into the skull of another Japanese soldier, flattening that side of the Japanese soldier’s head, forcing blood and brains through the Japanese soldier’s nose.

  “Yaaaaaaahhhhhh!” bellowed the Reverend Billie Jones, like a wild raging bull, swinging downward and burying the butt of the BAR in the skull cavity of another Japanese soldier, splattering blood and brains everywhere. A considerable amount of the cranial materials flew onto the face of the Reverend Billie Jones. Because his mouth was open, some of the salty stuff covered his teeth and tongue, but he only spit it out and swung again.

  This time he connected with the shoulder of a Japanese soldier, and the force of the blow broke the Japanese soldier’s arm and flung him to the ground. The Japanese soldier tried to get up, but the Reverend Billie Jones clobbered him on the head, destroying it utterly.

  “I am the scourge of God!” shouted the Reverend Billie Jones, slamming one Japanese soldier on the shoulder, another Japanese soldier on the head, and a third also on the head. Rampaging forward, the Reverend Billie Jones whacked a Japanese soldier in the face, kicked the next Japanese soldier in the balls, and slammed a third Japanese soldier in the neck, demolishing tendons and bursting blood vessels and nearly separating the Japanese soldier’s head from his body.

  The Reverend Billie Jones spun around and raised the BAR in the air.

  “It’s me!” screamed Sergeant Cameron, standing there horrified.

  The Reverend Billie Jones was so insane at that moment that he didn’t even recognize Sergeant Cameron. The Reverend Billie Jones swung down the BAR and Sergeant Cameron jumped backward.

  “It’s me!” he hollered again.

  The Reverend Billie Jones still didn’t know who he was and raised his BAR again. Sergeant Cameron turned tail and ran away. The Reverend Billie Jones lunged after him, when suddenly a foot came out of nowhere and tripped him up. The Reverend Billie Jones lost his balance and fell, like a big old elephant, to the ground.

  The Reverend Billie Jones got to his knees and then leaped to his feet, looking around. He saw Pfc. Morris Shilansky pointing an M 1 rifle at him.

  “Calm the fuck down!” shouted Shilansky.

  “Yaaaahhhhhh!” screamed the Reverend Billie Jones, charging toward Morris Shilansky, who backpedaled as quickly as he could, because he didn’t want to shoot the Reverend Billie Jones.

  “It’s me!” yelled Shilansky.

  “I am the scourge of God!” replied the Reverend Billie Jones, and then suddenly he realized that he was attacking Pfc. Morris Shilansky, one of his buddies from the recon platoon.

  The Reverend Billie Jon
es blinked and came to a stop just as Pfc. Morris Shilansky was about to blow him away. The Reverend Billie Jones realized he’d almost clobbered Pfc. Morris Shilansky and felt ashamed. His heart thundered in his chest, which heaved like that of a horse that just had run nine furlongs at the Santa Anita racetrack.

  The Reverend Billie Jones looked around. In the distance he saw a few GIs fighting hand to hand with Japanese soldiers, but that was all. The ground was covered with dead and wounded soldiers from both sides. Lieutenant Breckenridge, hatless and covered with blood, staggered toward Pfc. Shilansky and the Reverend Billie Jones.

  “Take cover,” he said hoarsely. “Most of the Japs passed us by. They’re on their way to our rear now, but sooner or later more of them’ll be by to finish us off.”

  “Finish us off?” asked Shilansky, beginning to see the light. “Does that mean we’re cut off out here?”

  “That’s what it means,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. He reached for his package of cigarettes and walked away to gather up the other survivors of the attack.

  THREE . . .

  Colonel Hutchins, cursing and swearing to himself, sat behind the wheel of a jeep and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The stub of a cigar hung out of the corner of his mouth, and the jeep bounced over holes and boulders as it sped toward the headquarters of the Eighty-first Division. Colonel Hutchins was covered with blood, and much of it was his own. He’d lost his helmet, and his hair was matted with dried blood. His only weapon was the machete that he’d been fighting with, and it, too, was covered with dried blood.