by Len Levinson
Frankie crossed himself and kissed his thumb. “I’ll go to church first chance I get,” he muttered. “This time I really mean it.”
•••
The steady roar of rain filled the air. Wind lashed the wide leaves of palm trees and made the trees bow before the storm. A jeep rumbled through the jungle behind the American lines; it had no canvas cover to protect its occupants from the rain. The driver was Pfc. Nick Bombasino from Philadelphia, and beside him was Colonel Hutchins, soaking wet, his chest thickly bandaged. Colonel Hutchins was heavily medicated. His canteen was full of GI gin.
The jeep stopped in front of division headquarters, and Colonel Hutchins jumped out of the jeep, slipped in the mud, and fell on his ass. Major Cobb climbed down more cautiously from the jeep and helped Colonel Hutchins to his feet.
“Easy, there,” Major Cobb said.
“Ground’s as slick as rat shit,” Colonel Hutchins replied.
They entered the tent, shook themselves off like dogs in the vestibule, and entered the war room of General Hawkins. Most of the top officers from the division were already there, and they fell silent when Colonel Hutchins answered. Many of them had been present when Colonel Hutchins had cursed and insulted General Hawkins earlier that day and then passed out. Colonel Hutchins had a reputation for being a drunk, a reputation that he’d done much to earn. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was the most notorious officer in the division.
Hutchins was aware of his reputation, and walked across the office itching for a fight. Approaching the map table, he looked down at the red line that described the current frontline situation. The Japanese attack had made a long salient into the American line. The salient was where the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment had been. Many of the officers in the room blamed Colonel Hutchins for the loss of ground. They thought the Japanese had kicked his ass because he was a worthless drunk, and he knew how they felt. That’s why he was anxious to redeem himself.
Finally, General Hawkins entered the office, followed by a retinue of aides, staff officers, and flunkies. He approached the map table and called the meeting to order. Using a captured Japanese samurai sword as a pointer, he touched various segments of the line as he explained the attack that would begin in the morning.
Two battalions from the Eighteenth Regiment would hit the Japs on their left flank. Two battalions from the Fifteenth Regiment would attack on the right. The Twenty-third would go right up the middle. The objective of the attack would be to pinch off the Japanese salient and annihilate the enemy soldiers inside it. A heavy artillery bombardment would precede the attack, beginning at four o’clock in the morning. General Hawkins ordered the commanders to move their troops into attack positions overnight. He added that they’d be resupplied during the night, so they’d lack nothing.
A lengthy question-and-answer period followed General Hawkins’s talk. Numerous details were discussed. Time allowances were made to compensate for the difficulty of movement in the rain. The problem of rusting weapons was discussed, along with that of rotting combat boots. Finally there were no more questions.
“Meeting dismissed,” General Hawkins said. “I’d like Colonel Hutchins to stay behind for a few minutes, please.”
“Uh-oh,” mumbled Colonel Hutchins, and then he burped. The sweet odor of alcohol and codeine infused the air around him. “Wait for me outside, Cobb.”
“Yes, sir.”
The officers filed out of the office. It took a while because there were a lot of them. They all were wet and filthy, in need of shaves, and their bodies stank of sweat. Finally Colonel Hutchins and General Hawkins were alone, facing each other across the map table, a kerosene lamp flickering overhead.
General Hawkins spoke first. “Are you sure you’re well enough to lead your regiment, Colonel Hutchins?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you drunk right now, Colonel Hutchins?”
“No, sir.”
“Will you be drunk tomorrow when the attack begins?”
Colonel Hutchins scowled. “Your questions are an insult, you bastard.”
General Hawkins’s eyes glittered with rage. “What was that?”
“You heard me, you bastard.”
“How dare you call me a bastard!”
“How dare you call me a drunk!”
“But you are a drunk!”
“And you’re a goddamn bastard!”
The war room became silent. In the vestibule Sergeant Somerall and his clerk, the bespectacled Corporal Howard Bamberger, glanced at each other in alarm. They could hear every word. So could the officers outside. The walls of a canvas tent are awfully thin.
General Hawkins still held the samurai sword in his right hand as he stared with unconcealed malevolence at Colonel Hutchins, whose hand was near the handle of the Army-issue Colt .45 in the holster attached to his cartridge belt.
“You’re a disgrace to the Army,” General Hawkins said, trying to keep his voice under control.
“You don’t have the brains of a piss ant,” Colonel Hutchins countered.
“You give me more trouble than anybody else in the division, and I’m transferring you out of here first chance I get.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Me too.”
“You can go now,” General Hawkins said.
“I’m not going until I’m ready to go. I got a few things to say to you, you pompous, fancy-pants, son of a bitch!”
General Hawkins’s eyes bulged and his face turned a deep shade of purple. “I ought to have you shot!” he said.
“You’re the one who should be shot!” Colonel Hutchins replied, pointing at him with his forefinger. “Half my regiment got wiped out because you didn’t have the sense to back us up this morning! I may be a drunk, but you got blood on your hands, you prick! I just want you to know that!”
Colonel Hutchins turned and walked toward the exit.
“Now you wait a minute!” General Hawkins screamed.
“Fuck you!” Colonel Hutchins replied.
“I just gave you an order!”
That stopped Colonel Hutchins. He may have been a drunk and a madman, but he was still a soldier underneath it all. He turned around and faced General Hawkins, who was practically foaming at the mouth. General Hawkins stomped around the map table and approached Colonel Hutchins, stopped a foot in front of him and bending forward so that their noses almost touched.
“I hate you,” General Hawkins said in a sinister, menacing tone, “and I know that you hate me, but I’ve got two stars on my collar, and you’d better respect them. This is still the Army, you know.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Any more insubordination from you and I’ll have you court-martialed on the spot!”
“Yes, sir!”
“And don’t give me any more shit about who’ll command your regiment if you’re relieved of command, because there are plenty of officers in this division who could take over and do a better job than you!”
“Bullshit!” said Colonel Hutchins.
Sparks shot out of General Hawkins’s eyes. “I dare you to say that again!”
“Bullshit!”
General Hawkins was so pissed off, he thought he’d have a heart attack. “I’m losing my patience with you!”
Spit from General Hawkins’s mouth flew all over Colonel Hutchins’s face, but Colonel Hutchins didn’t flinch
“Your problem isn’t patience,” Colonel Hutchins said. “Your problem is that you don’t have any guts!”
General Hawkins’s jaw dropped open as Colonel Hutchins did a smart left-face and marched out of the war room, through the vestibule, and out of the tent. General Hawkins stood alone next to the map table, shaking all over, wanting to run after Colonel Hutchins and chop him up with his samurai sword.
The survivors from the recon platoon, plus several other assorted survivors from Headquarters Company, lay quietly in their camouflag
ed jungle hideout and watched sullenly as the Japanese soldiers roved closer, clearing the area of dead and wounded. The Japanese soldiers pushed wheelbarrows full of dead soldiers back and forth to a rickety old truck, while other Japanese soldiers loaded dead men onto the wheelbarrows that had returned.
A sergeant was in charge of the detail, and he strutted around giving orders, his hand resting on his samurai sword. The Japanese soldiers were lazy as the soldiers from any other country, and they tended to gather the dead that were easy to reach. The sergeant continually had to order them into the thickest, most thorny part of the jungle to look for more dead. The sergeant knew that dead bodies lying around in a tropical climate can cause disease, and his job was to make sure that didn’t happen.
The Japanese soldiers moved closer to the thicket where the American soldiers lay. The rain had slackened off, but mud and muck was everywhere. The GIs sweated in the heavy humidity and brushed away mosquitoes and flies. Each GI had his weapon in hand, ready to go to war as soon as the Japs spotted them.
The Japanese soldiers surrounded the thicket, clearing the area of dead men, while the truck waited fifty yards away, its driver napping behind the wheel. The Japanese soldiers avoided the thick, tangled vegetation, but the sergeant didn’t. He hollered at a Japanese soldier and pointed to the spot where the GIs were hiding. The Japanese soldier headed for the thicket, and all the GIs inside the little stronghold tensed up. They knew that the sergeant had ordered the soldier to look for bodies inside.
“I’ll take care of him,” Lieutenant Breckenridge whispered, silently drawing his bayonet out of its scabbard.
The Japanese soldier happened to be a fuck-up, otherwise he wouldn’t have been on the corpse detail. His name was Koike, and before the war he’d been an actor in pornographic films. He was a lowlife and a scumbag and wouldn’t do a good job unless watched carefully. His uniform fit him poorly and he had a stomachache, because the steady parade of dead men was making him sick.
He cut through the dense vegetation with his machete, stopped to look around, and saw nothing. He shouted a few sentences back to the sergeant, who replied with a harsh guttural remark. Koike frowned and proceeded to cut his way into the wall of bushes. He climbed over a tree trunk and looked around, seeing nothing. Then he heard something that sounded like a twig snapping in front of him. He paused and leaned forward, narrowing his slanted eyes, trying to see, but the foliage was so thick his vision only penetrated a few feet. He figured the noise must have been made by a rat or some other jungle creature, and raised his machete for another swing.
Slicing through the bushes, he stepped forward, then noticed a blur out of the corner of his right eye. It was the last thing he ever saw. Lieutenant Breckenridge rose up and slashed Koike’s throat with his bayonet. Blood spewed out, and Lieutenant Breckenridge’s big hand closed around Koike’s mouth, muffling the death rattle. Lieutenant Breckenridge held on to Koike and gently eased him toward the ground, then slowly dragged him the few feet to where the other GIs were hiding.
They all looked at the dead Japanese soldier. He was skinny and reminded them of a rodent. Lieutenant Breckenridge raised his forefinger to his lips, to indicate they should all be quiet. He knelt down and then lay on his stomach, watching the Japanese soldiers, wondering when they’d realize the dead one was missing.
At first the Japanese soldiers didn’t seem to notice. They continued to clear the area of dead bodies. The Japanese sergeant swaggered around, giving orders. Then suddenly he turned toward the thicket and wrinkled his nose. He shouted something, waited a few seconds, then shouted again. His forehead became creased. He walked toward the thicket and stopped at its edge, leaning forward, trying to peer within. Then he shouted something again. Evidently he was calling out to the Japanese soldier he’d ordered inside the thicket, and of course he received no answer. The Japanese sergeant didn’t know it, but fourteen American gun barrels were pointed at him. The Japanese sergeant took off his soft cap and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He spat into the mud, took out a cigarette, and lighted it up. A light rain fell on him as he turned around and shouted an order to his men.
Three of his men stopped gathering corpses and picked up their rifles. They held the rifles in both hands and entered the thicket where Koike had gone. The Japanese sergeant continued talking to them in a loud voice as they penetrated more deeply into the thicket.
The three Japanese soldiers didn’t know how close to death they were, but they were aware that something had gone wrong somewhere. Slowly and cautiously they pushed their way through the bushes and branches, looking to their left and right, searching for their friend, not realizing that he was now with his ancestors.
The rain continued to slacken. Bugs buzzed around their heads. The sergeant asked if they saw anything suspicious yet, and they replied that they didn’t. The path they were treading upon came to a halt. Ahead was a solid wall of bushes. The lead Japanese soldier pulled his machete out of his scabbard while the second Japanese soldier happened to look down. The latter Japanese saw a drop of ruby red blood on a dark green leaf.
“Look!” he said, pointing to it.
“Look at what?” asked another Japanese soldier.
“I see blood!”
“Where?”
“There!”
The three Japanese soldiers knelt down to look at the blood. One touched it with his finger and wondered whose blood it was. Then he heard a rustling sound next to him. He turned around and saw the legs of American soldiers. He opened his mouth to scream, but a big hand clamped over his lips and nose. A second later he felt a terrible rip in his stomach, followed by the severance of his windpipe.
Lieutenant Breckenridge let the soldier fall to the ground. Pfc. Morris Shilansky and Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke had dispatched their men with ease and speed also. Lieutenant Breckenridge nodded his head sideways, indicating that they should return where they had come from, then got down on his belly and crawled away from the gruesome scene.
The Japanese sergeant standing outside the thicket heard movement in the bushes and looked in the direction of the sound. “What’s going on in there?” he yelled.
There was no answer.
“I said what’s going on in there?”
Again there was no answer. He called out the names of the three Japanese soldiers, but they’d never respond to his questions again. The Japanese sergeant knitted his eyebrows together. A chill passed over him. He got down low and shouted for his men to take shelter. He crawled away from the thicket, and when he was at a safe distance he sat behind a tree to think things over.
His name was Takayuki, and he was a veteran of numerous battles on the Huon Peninsula, as well as other battles in China. Despite all his experience, he was confused about the current situation. Something in those bushes over there was silencing his men. Was it a jungle animal of some grotesque proportions, or American soldiers? And why hadn’t his men sounded an alarm?
It was a very perplexing situation, and he had no radio with which to call his headquarters for guidance. Neither could he walk away as if nothing had happened, because four of his men were missing. He’d have to investigate.
He bent to the side and gazed around the tree. The thicket didn’t appear to be too big. If he had artillery, he’d blow it to shit, but he had no artillery or even mortars. He could order his men to charge it, but the foliage appeared impregnable. The charge would bog down. He’d have to be more subtle.
Finally he decided on a plan that seemed sound from a military point of view. He’d gather his men together and circle the thicket, then move inward toward its center and probe for whatever was in there.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted the orders. All his men would participate in the attack, even the truck driver. He told his men to circle the thicket and move in toward its center when he gave the command. He also told them to be careful, but that was an unnecessary order. His men already knew that something dangerous was inside the thicket, bec
ause it had done something terrible to four of their comrades.
The Japanese soldiers hunched low to the ground as they moved through the jungle and formed a ring around the thicket.
“Uh-oh,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge.
“They know we’re in here,” replied Sergeant Cameron.
“No they don’t. All they know is their buddies have been disappearing. You stay here and face front. I’ll deploy the rest of the men. When I give the order, we throw grenades and then open fire. Get it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge crawled through the foliage, passing along the same orders to each of his men. As he did so he heard the Japanese sergeant order his men to move out. Seconds later Lieutenant Breckenridge heard the Japanese soldiers coming through the bushes, talking among themselves. Lieutenant Breckenridge finished his rounds and returned to a spot near Sergeant Cameron, who had his grenade in his hand with the pin loosened so that it could be pulled out easily. Lieutenant Breckenridge tore a grenade off his lapel and also loosed the pin. Now he was ready. He glanced around at his men: They all had grenades ready to throw.
The Japanese soldiers advanced slowly and cautiously through the jungle. They hacked branches with their machetes, paused, looked around, and hacked more branches. Other Japanese soldiers held fingers on the triggers of their rifles and followed the ones with the machetes. All were apprehensive. They didn’t know what to expect in the gnarled, uprooted thicket. What had silenced their comrades? Who was in there?
One of the lead machete men saw blood on the ground. “Sergeant Takayuki!”
“What is it?” replied Sergeant Takuyaki, who was in another part of the thicket.
“I see a lot of blood!”
“I’ll be right there!”
Sergeant Takayuki, his Nambu pistol in his hand, crashed through the foliage, sounding like an elephant on a rampage. He reached the machete bearer who’d called him and looked down at the blood. Kneeling, he touched it; it was sticky and warm. The foliage in the area was matted down. He could see trails leading from where he was, and there were streaks of blood on the trails. Perhaps the bodies of his men had been dragged down those trails. But by what?