by Len Levinson
Pfc. Goto wrinkled his brow. He knew Private Kawasaki was right and wondered which way to go. So did Private Kawasaki. They both stood in the middle of the trail, trying to think, when suddenly they heard a noise that startled them.
It sounded like a snarl of a ferocious wild animal, and the two Japanese soldiers were frozen with fear. They held their rifles tightly and turned in the direction of the sound, afraid of what they might see.
The sound came to them again, and this time it didn’t seem so frightening. Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki turned to each other in amazement, because the sound was a snore! Someone was sleeping nearby!
Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki didn’t know whether the person snoring was Japanese or American. If the person was Japanese, all their problems would be over; but if he was American, there might be other Americans in the area as well.
“Let’s get out of here!” Private Kawasaki whispered.
“But it might be one of our units in the vicinity.”
“One of our units would have a guard!”
“So would the Americans.”
“I’m leaving,” said Private Kawasaki.
“Coward!” replied Pfc. Goto.
“Who are you calling a coward!”
“You!”
Japanese soldiers didn’t like to be called cowards, because to them nothing in the world was lower than a coward. Even a relatively nonaggressive person like Private Kawasaki didn’t want to be called a coward, and as the two Japanese soldiers quarreled they didn’t realize the snoring had stopped.
The person who had been snoring was Sergeant Snider, and he’d just been awakened by the voices of the Japanese soldiers and the shuffling of their feet on the gravel of the path. Sergeant Snider’s instincts were dull, but not that dull. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the Japanese soldiers only a few feet away from him.
Sergeant Snider didn’t know two important facts. The first was that he’d been snoring, and the second was that the Japanese soldiers had heard him snoring. He’d just awakened suddenly to find two Japanese soldiers nearby, having an argument.
If I just lie here quietly, Sergeant Snider thought, they won’t even know I’m here.
Meanwhile the two Japanese soldiers continued their discussion. “I’m going to see who’s there,” Pfc. Goto said. “I am senior in rank here, and I am ordering you to come with me.”
“But he’s not even snoring anymore!”
Pfc. Goto wrinkled his brow as he realized that Private Kawasaki was right. He wondered if the person who’d been snoring had awakened. If so, the person was probably watching Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki at that very moment!
“Get down!” said Pfc. Goto.
Both Japanese soldiers dropped to their bellies on the path, turning and pointing their rifles in the direction of Sergeant Snider, whose hair stood on end. Now at last he knew the Japs were aware of his presence in the bushes nearby. His hands shaking, he reached for a grenade on his lapel.
“Something’s moving in there!” Private Kawasaki shouted.
“Who’s there?” demanded Pfc. Goto.
Sergeant Snider didn’t understand Japanese, but he knew he was in trouble. He pulled the pin of the grenade, but it wouldn’t come loose. He hadn’t thrown a hand grenade since basic training at Fort Campbell ten years ago, and forgot that pins don’t come out easily. Pfc. Goto raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot in Sergeant Snider’s direction. The flash, the muzzle blast, and the bullet slapping into the muck next to Sergeant Snider’s elbow scared the shit out of him, and he dropped the grenade.
Then Private Kawasaki fired his rifle, and Pfc. Goto pulled his trigger again. One bullet whistled over Sergeant Snider’s head and the other hit the ground a few inches in front of his face. He scrambled to pick up the hand grenade.
“I can hear him moving in there!” Private Kawasaki shouted.
“Charge!” screamed Pfc. Goto.
The Japanese soldiers jumped to their feet. Sergeant Snider scooped up the hand grenade, grabbed the ring fastened to the pin, and pulled with all his strength. The pin came loose.
“Banzai!” hollered Pfc. Goto.
The two Japanese soldiers charged into the bushes beside the road. Sergeant Snider’s hands shook violently as he chucked the hand grenade at the two Japanese soldiers, but it was a bad move. Sergeant Snider wasn’t a combat soldier and didn’t know what the right move would have been.
The hand grenade bounced off Pfc. Goto’s stomach and fell to the ground. Pfc. Goto was so excited, he barely felt the grenade touch his stomach and ran right over it. Private Kawasaki was beside Pfc. Goto and fired his rifle into the bushes, squinting his eyes, looking for whatever was there.
“I see him!” Pfc. Kawasaki yelled as he aimed his rifle from the waist and shot down at Sergeant Snider.
The bullet hit Sergeant Snider in the shoulder. Pfc. Goto saw Sergeant Snider and pulled the trigger of his rifle. That bullet smashed into Sergeant Snider’s big buttock.
The hand grenade exploded five feet behind Pfc. Goto and Private Kawasaki, flinging them into the air like rag dolls. Shrapnel tore into their bodies, and they were dead before they hit the ground. They landed on either side of Sergeant Snider, who was unconscious and hadn’t even heard the grenade go off.
Although he was unconscious, Sergeant Snider was not quite dead. Blood oozed out of his bullet wounds, and bugs landed on the blood to drink it up. Crickets chirped, and a rat poked its head out of a hole to see what all the excitement had been about. That part of the jungle returned to normal, as if no human beings had been fighting each other to the death only a few moments before.
Lieutenant Breckenridge jerked his head around when he heard the first shot. He looked backward on the trail as the next shots were fired, and then came the grenade explosion.
“What the hell was that?” said Frankie La Barbara.
“I think we’d better get out of here,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. “O’Rourke, take the point!”
Nobody argued, because the shots and explosion hadn’t been very far away. The GIs didn’t want any trouble. O’Rourke ran forward to take the point and the other men got to their feet, slinging their rifles, adjusting their cartridge belts. All were bareheaded, having lost their hats and helmets when the truck plunged into the Driniumor. Lieutenant Breckenridge looked back along the trail. There were no more shots or explosions. He wondered what had happened back there. It occurred to him that maybe Sergeant Snider had been involved in it, but he had more important things to worry about.
Lieutenant Breckenridge faced front again. Jimmy O’Rourke should be where he was supposed to be. “Move it out!” Lieutenant Breckenridge said to the others.
They hooked their thumbs under the slings of their rifles and shuffled down the trail, wondering if they’d ever get out of the mess they were in.
NINE . . .
“Sir?” said Major Cobb in the darkness.
Colonel Hutchins opened his eyes. “What is it?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid. Maybe I’d better put the light on.”
Major Cobb flicked his Ronson lighter and set aflame the wick of the kerosene lamp on Colonel Hutchins’s desk. Colonel Hutchins sat up on his cot and swung his feet around to the ground. The interior of the tent became bathed in soft yellow light. Colonel Hutchins reached for the package of Chesterfield cigarettes on the little ammo box beside his cot. He wore only khaki skivvie shorts, and the skin on his belly and legs was as pale as the belly of a fish. Major Cobb flicked his Ronson again and lit Colonel Hutchins’ cigarette, and Colonel Hutchins took a drag, filling up his lungs, and then he exhaled.
“Well?” he asked.
Major Cobb sat on one of the folding chairs in front of the desk and moved the chair around so he’d face Colonel Hutchins. “It’s about that patrol you sent out earlier in the night. Evidently the Japs got them.”
“How do you know that?” Colonel Hutchins asked.
“Well, it seems that
a listening post from M Company heard something going on near the barbed wire. A few soldiers went out to see what it was, and they found four heads. One of them was the head of Lieutenant Porter, and the others were the men he took with him.”
“Shit,” said Colonel Hutchins.
“The Japs cut off their heads and threw them over the barbed wire. It was a pretty gruesome sight, I’m told.”
“Them fucking Japs. They’re lower than savages.”
“At least we know that no-man’s-land is crawling with Japs.”
“Nah, we don’t know that,” Colonel Hutchins said. “A more experienced patrol might’ve gone out and come back without any trouble.” He looked up at Major Cobb. “You always criticized my recon platoon. You used to say they were a bunch of criminals and troublemakers and that I should disband them, but they always came back from patrols with good, hard information. Of course, some of them didn’t make it back sometimes, but in general their patrols were successful. I wish I still had them.”
“Lieutenant Porter was a very fine officer,” Major Cobb said. “He had a very good record.”
“Maybe his record was too good. Maybe that’s why he’s dead. I tell you, Cobb, the kind of people you want for a good reconnaissance platoon aren’t necessarily the kind of people who are good soldiers in other ways, and soldiers like Lieutenant Porter, who are good in ordinary situations, aren’t worth a shit in the dark in no-man’s-land. I wish Butsko was here.”
There was silence in the tent. Colonel Hutchins smoked his cigarette and thought of Lieutenant Porter, the nice, upstanding Mormon who’d won a battlefield commission. One hour you’re alive and the next hour you’re dead. That’s war.
“Well,” said Colonel Hutchins, “I’m gonna need me a recon platoon. When things settle down, I want you to meet with Major Stevens, the personnel officer, and comb military records for the most ornery, stubborn, rotten sons of bitches in the regiment. They’ll be the new recon platoon.”
“But, sir, we already pulled all those men for the old recon platoon. I don’t think there are any left.”
“Then I’ll go to the nearest stockade to get them.”
“I don’t know,” Major Cobb said shaking his head in dismay. “I think you could build a good recon platoon out of men who aren’t criminals. Lieutenant Porter and his men might have run into an unusual situation that even Butsko couldn’t have handled. We shouldn’t shoot all the dogs just because a few of them have fleas. We have a lot of good soldiers in this regiment. Why don’t you let me send out another patrol?”
Colonel Hutchins inhaled his cigarette and thought about what Major Cobb was saying. Colonel Hutchins decided that maybe he was being unreasonable and that Major Cobb was right. Just because one patrol of good, ordinary soldiers didn’t come back, it didn’t mean all of them would fail.
“All right,” Colonel Hutchins said, “you’ve convinced me. Send out another patrol, just like the last one: twenty men split up into groups of five. We’ll see what happens, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Major Cobb stood and headed toward the exit. He pushed aside the tent flap and was gone. Colonel Hutchins sat on the edge of the cot and puffed his cigarette. Fatigued and still heavily medicated, his mind fell into macabre thoughts. He found himself wondering about Lieutenant Porter’s head. What happens to a head that doesn’t have a body attached? Do the Graves Registry people send the head back to the soldier’s family in the States? Or do they just list the soldier as missing in action?
Colonel Hutchins shook his head. War is a flicking nightmare, he thought as he stood and stumbled across the ground toward the kerosene lantern so. he could snuff it out and go back to bed.
Lieutenant Breckenridge looked up at the sky and saw patches of stars. That meant the weather was clearing. The sun might even shine tomorrow. But the sky still wasn’t clear enough for him to see any important stars that would enable him to determine whether he was headed in the right direction.
He looked around. The jungle was a shade lighter. Behind him he heard the boots of his men as they slogged through puddles and patches of mud. Crickets chirped and fireflies danced among the branches. Clouds of insects surrounded the men, peeling off like fighter planes on a strafing run, coming in close to bite the men and suck up delicious red blood.
Lieutenant Breckenridge smacked bugs on his arms and neck. He looked at his watch: It was nearly midnight. His men had been on the move for an hour and a half. Maybe it was time to give them a break.
He raised his hand. “All right, take ten! La Barbara, go up ahead and tell O’Rourke to get his ass back here.”
Frankie La Barbara opened his mouth to say “Fuck you,” but his vocal cords wouldn’t warble and the words didn’t come out. He knew that if he said “Fuck you,” Lieutenant Breckenridge would charge him and there’d be another brutal, bloody fight. Frankie La Barbara didn’t feel up to another brutal, bloody fight. His nose was extremely tender, and he didn’t even want to touch it, never mind punch it.
However, he just couldn’t follow the order without at least a minimum show of defiance. So he looked at Lieutenant Breckenridge and hesitated for a moment, to show Lieutenant Breckenridge that Frankie La Barbara wasn’t a pushover. Frankie La Barbara wanted everybody to know that he didn’t take any shit from anybody and that he’d just decided to cooperate with Lieutenant Breckenridge because he wanted to, not because he felt that he had to.
He unslung his rifle and jogged over the trail, feeling pain in his ribs where Lieutenant Breckenridge had slammed him. The air was humid and smelted of rotting vegetation. Mosquitoes buzzed past his ear. In the darkness the forest looked eerie and foreboding, like a bad dream. He turned the bend in the road and saw O’Rourke up ahead. O’Rourke stopped and turned around when he heard Frankie approach.
“What’s going on?” O’Rourke asked.
“Lieutenant Asshole wants you back there.”
“What for?”
“How should I know?”
Jimmy O’Rourke walked back on the trail, but Frankie didn’t move.
“Aren’t you coming?” O’Rourke asked.
“I gotta take a piss. I’ll be back in a few moments.”
Jimmy O’Rourke disappeared around the bend. Frankie La Barbara stepped into the jungle to take a piss. Nobody had to tell him not to piss beside the road, because he knew some smart Jap might come along, smell the piss, and start thinking that maybe GIs had been in the area recently. Frankie had been on many patrols and understood the basic precautions.
He raised his hands and pushed branches away from his face as he plodded into the jungle. The foliage was extremely thick, and he had to duck to get underneath a stretch of it. Then he straightened up and took a few more steps. This is far enough from the road, he figured. No Jap would ever come here.
He took out his dork and let the liquid flow, thinking of how nice and peaceful it was in the jungle. It was as if he’d walked away from the war. It occurred to him that a man could get lost in the jungle of New Guinea and no one would ever find him. All he’d have to do was find an inaccessible spot that no one would ever want to explore, similar to the spot he was in just then.
At that moment the moon came out, bathing the jungle in a warm yellow glow. Frankie looked up at the sky and saw a half-moon through a break in the clouds. It made the jungle appear enchanted, like an illustration in a book of fairy tales.
Jesus, Frankie thought, maybe I shouldn’t go back. Maybe I should just stay here in the jungle and hide. I’ll live off the land, and when the Army takes over this part of New Guinea, I’ll come out and say “Hi, guys, it’s me—Frankie La Barbara.” What're they gonna do, court-martial me? I’ll just say I got lost.
Frankie buttoned his fatigue pants and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He wished he had a cigarette to smoke. He also wished he had something to eat, like a nice Coney Island hot dog with french fries. Should I do it? he asked himself.
He looked around at th
e jungle. A bug bit him on the neck. Clouds passed in front of the moon, plunging the jungle into darkness. Frankie’s visibility became greatly reduced. A whole battalion of Japanese soldiers might be three feet away and he’d never see them. Frankie began to wonder if going AWOL in the jungle was such a good idea. Maybe it would be better to stay with the other guys. There was safety in numbers. Suddenly, Frankie didn’t feel so confident about being alone in the jungle. What if he fell asleep and woke up next to a snake?
Frankie returned to the road and walked back toward the others. He was glad to be out of the jungle, because it had been scary in there when it suddenly got dark. He walked stealthily along the road, and when he rounded the bend he stopped, because he saw Lieutenant Breckenridge’s back in front of him.
Lieutenant Breckenridge was sitting on the ground, not more than ten yards away, and evidently he hadn’t heard Frankie La Barbara’s approach. Frankie thought that all he had to do was raise his rifle and shoot Lieutenant Breckenridge in the back, but a moment later he rejected the idea. He’d have to put a round into the chamber of his M 1, and Lieutenant Breckenridge would hear that. Maybe some other time.
Frankie walked back among the other men and sat down. Lieutenant Breckenridge looked at his watch. “Saddle up,” he said.
“But I just got here,” Frankie complained.
“I said take ten and I meant take ten,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied. “Nobody told you to take a vacation in the jungle.”
“But I had to take a piss.”
“Too fucking bad. On your feet, gentlemen. O’Rourke, take the point.”
The GIs got up, and some of them stretched. They milled around and waited for O’Rourke to reach his position.
“Let’s go,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said.
He stepped out with his left foot, and the other men followed him over the narrow trail that wound its way through the hot, smelly jungle.
Twenty yards in front of the others, Pfc. Jimmy O’Rourke felt like a star. Every time Lieutenant Breckenridge said “O’Rourke, take the point,” his chest filled with pride. He felt important, needed, necessary. The whole bunch of them were depending on him. He felt that at last he’d won a leading role in a major production.