Do or Die

by Len Levinson

  Lieutenant Breckenridge sat in one of the forward foxholes, peering down the hill, his Colt .45 in his right hand. His men had been mortared and bombed, but they'd stayed put. The air was redolent with the smell of cordite, and shell craters were everywhere. Many bunkers had been destroyed. He had eight casualties already.

  The Japanese soldiers came closer, shrieking, brandishing their weapons. American machine guns cut them down like wheat before a scythe, but other Japanese soldiers jumped over the dead and wounded bodies of their comrades and maintained their wild banzai charge.

  Japanese officers and sergeants urged their men on. Lieutenant Breckenridge knew it would be hand-to-hand and gruesome as hell in just a few seconds. He'd already given the order to fix bayonets. Now it was time to see whether he and his men still were fighters.

  There was no sense in letting the Japs have all the momen-turn. It would be better to smack into them and fight them on the go. Lieutenant Breckenridge climbed out of his foxhole and raised his pistol hand high in the air.

  “Up and at ‘em, recon platoon! Follow me!”

  He jumped forward and ran down the hill toward the Japanese soldiers. Behind him the men from the recon platoon scrambled out of their holes and emerged from their bunkers. They saw Lieutenant Breckenridge on his way down the hill and fell in behind him, stretching out into a long skirmish line, howling and bellowing, knowing it would be do or die in just a few moments.

  “Forward!” yelled Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “Banzai!” shrieked the Japanese officer leading his men up the hill.

  The two sides came together and clashed near the summit of Hill 700. Men grunted as they tried to stab each other with bayonets. Shots rang out from the rifles and pistols of those who had time to take aim. Soldiers howled as their guts were torn out of their stomachs. GIs swung machetes, and Japanese officers and sergeants wielded samurai swords. Soldiers tried to kick each other's balls and gouge out each other's eyes. Bodies fell to the ground, dripping blood.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge fired his Colt .45 point-blank at a squat, round-faced Japanese soldier. The bullet made a little hole going through the Japanese soldier's chest, but when it blew out his back it took the Japanese soldier's lungs and heart with it. Lieutenant Breckenridge fired at another Japanese sol-dier at close range and the big bullet tore most of the Japanese soldier's head off his shoulders.

  Crouching, gritting his teeth, Lieutenant Breckenridge fired at a Japanese sergeant holding a samurai sword over his head with both hands, and the Japanese sergeant caught the bullet in his lower abdomen, scattering his shit all over the landscape. Swinging to the side, Lieutenant Breckenridge shot down a Japanese soldier charging with rifle and bayonet. The Japanese soldier tripped over his feet and tumbled to the ground, his intestines hanging out of his back.

  Blam!

  A Japanese bullet zipped through the fleshy part of Lieu-tenant Breckenridge's upper leg; it felt as if a flaming shaft had been thrust into him. So sudden and terrible was the pain that he hollered and dropped to his knees on the ground. He looked up and saw a Japanese officer holding a Nambu pistol in both hands, aiming at him for another shot.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge raised his Colt .45 quickly and pulled the trigger. His bullet went over the Japanese officer's head but it made him flinch, and at that moment Longtree came out of nowhere, thrusting the bayonet on the end of his rifle into the Japanese officer's left kidney.

  The Japanese officer shrieked and reached back to cover the hole with the back of his hand. Longtree yanked out his bayonet and thrust forward again, burying it to the hilt into a Japanese private who'd run within range to help his wounded commanding officer. Blood gushed out of the Japanese private's chest and Longtree pulled back, freeing the bayonet for more fighting.

  Two Japanese soldiers attacked him from his blind side. Longtree heard them coming and spun around. He parried aside the rifle and bayonet of the Japanese soldier on the left, dodged the bayonet of the one on the right and kicked him in the balls, then dodged a thrust from the Japanese soldier on the left and bashed him in the face with his rifle butt.

  The Japanese soldier sagged to the ground, unconscious but not dead, and Longtree turned his attention to the one he'd kicked in the balls, because he wanted to run him through. He angled his rifle to accomplish this, and suddenly a shot rang out. The bullet came so close, Longtree could feel its heat as it passed his cheek. Longtree looked up and saw a Japanese soldier aiming a rifle at him, its butt tucked into his shoulder. Longtree stretched his legs and charged the Japanese soldier. He expected the Japanese soldier to shoot him down, and Longtree let out an Apache war whoop. The Japanese soldier pulled the trigger on his Arisaka rifle.

  Click!

  The clip was empty. The Japanese soldier's eyes opened wide with horror, because the tables had suddenly turned. Longtree, still war-whooping, spitting, and sweating, rammed his bayonet into the chest of the Japanese soldier with such force that the tip of the bayonet protruded from the Japanese soldier's back.

  The Japanese soldier hung, gasping, from the end of Longtree's bayonet. The Japanese raised his hands and tried to pull the bayonet out of his chest as Longtree held him in the air and watched with fascination. Blood dripped like ribbons around the Japanese soldier's fingers as he struggled with the blade of the bayonet. Blood flowed out his mouth and suddenly he went limp, his hands dropping to his sides. Longtree let out a victorious shout and heaved the dead Jap over his shoulder like hay on the end of a pitchfork.

  The ground was covered with the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers. The men still standing stumbled around on limbs and torsos in the press of the struggle as they tried to kill each other. Private Jimmy O'Rourke lost his footing when he put his fist into the armpit of a dead Japanese soldier and fell on his ass just as he was about to bash a live Japanese soldier in the face.

  The Japanese soldier couldn't believe his good fortune. A moment ago he had been sure he was about to die; the next moment his attacker lay at his feet.

  “Banzai!” screamed the Japanese soldier, raising the butt of his rifle in the air, about to harpoon Jimmy O'Rourke.

  The ex-movie stuntman rolled to the side and the bayonet sank into the chest of a dead Japanese soldier who had been lying underneath O'Rourke. The Japanese soldier attacking O'Rourke tried to pull his bayonet loose, but it was stuck in the ribs of the dead Japanese. O'Rourke saw a Ka-bar jungle knife lying on the ground nearby. He picked it up and jumped to his feet, taking a swipe at the Japanese soldier.

  The blade of the Ka-bar knife ripped open the Japanese soldier's biceps. He turned around to grab O'Rourke's wrist, but O'Rourke was too fast for him, punching upward with the knife, burying it into the Japanese soldier's breakfast. The Japanese soldier's eyes rolled into his head, and O'Rourke pulled his knife out, letting the Japanese soldier crumple onto the ground.

  “Banzai!”

  O'Rourke dodged to the side and narrowly missed being stabbed by a Japanese bayonet on the end of an Arisaka rifle. The Japanese soldier who'd made this play was off-balance, and O'Rourke pounced on him from behind, wrapping his left arm around the Japanese soldier's throat, stabbing the knife into his bladder. Blood and piss spewed out and Jimmy O'Rourke darted backward to get out of the way.

  Wildly excited, O'Rourke danced around on the balls of his feet like a prizefighter. He saw a Japanese officer lying on the ground, blood dripping from his mouth and chest, holding a Nambu pistol with both his shaky hands, trying to draw a bead on him as he bobbed and weaved.

  Blam!

  The bullet struck the dirt at Jimmy O'Rourke's feet and O'Rourke jumped into the air, landing with both feet on the Japanese officer's head, mashing the Japanese's face into the muck. Dropping to his knees on the Japanese officer's back, Jimmy jabbed the knife into his neck. Then Jimmy hopped to his feet and looked around for someone else to kill.

  To his astonishment, he could see no more Japanese soldiers.

  Blood poured down Lieutenant
Breckenridge's leg as he limped over the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers. He carried his Colt .45 in his right hand and a Nambu pistol in his left hand; both of them were smoking. He was woozy from loss of blood as he tried to focus his blurred vision on what was going on. It appeared as if the Japs were running away.

  Then he blacked out from loss of blood.

  “Medic!” cried Craig Delane, who was Lieutenant Breckenridge's runner and always near him.

  Private Gundy jumped over a stack of dead Japanese soldiers and landed beside Lieutenant Breckenridge. He dropped to his knees and saw the wound in Lieutenant Breckenridge's leg. He didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere else. His pulse was weak but steady.

  Gundy cut open Lieutenant Breckenridge's pants and examined the ugly, bloody gash. Nearby, Sergeant Cameron realized he was senior man in the recon platoon.

  “Everybody, back to the ditches!” he shouted. “Take the wounded with you!”

  The GIs grabbed their wounded buddies and dragged them up the hill. Craig Delane helped Private Gundy with Lieutenant Breckenridge, who moaned softly as his head lolled from side to side. They dumped him into the first empty foxhole and dived in with him. Gundy opened his haversack, realizing the Japs would counterattack at any moment. He took out blood coagulant and poured it on the wound. The flowing blood washed much of it away, but Gundy kept sprinkling and the blood slowed down.

  “He looks terribly pale,” said Craig Delane, who had been a rich playboy before the war.

  “He'll be okay,” Gundy replied.

  Sergeant Cameron ran around the recon platoon positions like a wild man. “Load your weapons! The Japs are coming back! Get ready!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge opened his eyes to halfway. “What's going on?”

  Gundy was tying on a big bandage. “You'll be okay, sir.”

  “Where am I?”

  “On Hill 700, sir.”

  “Where are the Japs?”

  “They retreated, sir, but we expect them to come back.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge blinked as he recalled recent events. He looked around and focused on the recon platoon, which was getting ready for the next Jap attack.

  “Delane, call Colonel Hutchins!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Delane pushed the button of the walkie-talkie, spoke some code words, waited, and heard some static. Finally Lieutenant Harper came on. Lieutenant Harper had been one of Colonel Stockton's aides, then Colonel Hutchins had inherited him. Craig Delane passed the walkie-talkie to Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “Harper,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge, “you'd better tell Colonel Hutchins that we need reinforcements. We've repulsed one Jap attack, but I don't think we can hold them again.”

  “T'll tell the colonel!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge listened to static and whistles. Suddenly Colonel Hutchins's voice boomed inside his head.

  “What the hell do you mean, you don't think you can hold your position?”

  “Sir, we pushed the Japs back once, but only barely. I've lost a lot of men. I'm wounded myself. You've got to send us reinforcements, because if the Japs come up here again, they'll wipe us out.”

  “They'll wipe you out only if you let them wipe you out! I've got no reinforcements to send you! You're gonna hold that line, young Lieutenant, I'm dependin’ on you to hold that line. Over and out!”

  The connection went dead. Lieutenant Breckenridge handed the walkie-talkie back to Craig Delane, thinking of how much Colonel Hutchins sounded like his old coach at the University of Virginia. “Hold that line!” This is just like a football game, Lieutenant Breckenridge thought, bending and raising himself unsteadily. The main difference is that you don't get killed if you lose a football game.

  “I don't think you should stand up, sir,” cautioned Gundy.

  “Take care of the other wounded! That's an order!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge limped across his line and looked down the hill. The free-fire zone was littered with dead Japanese soldiers and some corpses from the recon platoon. Beyond the free-fire zone was the jungle, and Lieutenant Breckenridge suspected it was full of Japs.

  “Sergeant Cameron!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Lay a mortar barrage on that jungle down there!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge took out a cigarette and lit it up, but it only made him woozier. He held the cigarette between his fingers and examined his line. Foxholes that had held two soldiers were now empty or held just one. Sandbagged bunkers that had sheltered four men now sheltered two or three. Much ammunition had been exploded. The men were tired.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge drew his Colt .45 and waved it over his head. “We're gonna hold this line! The Japs are not passing this line! We stopped them before and we'll stop them again!”

  The bloody, battered men of the recon platoon watched Lieutenant Breckenridge rant and rave and wave his service pistol around. They saw the big bandage on his leg and knew he was half out of his mind, but so were they. Angered by pain, their hearts pumping wildly, they swore to stay put and fight until they couldn't fight any more.

  “Here they come!”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge squinted and saw bunches of Japs debouching from the jungle below.

  “Open fire!”

  American machine guns chattered and M 1 rifles rapid-fired. Japs in the front wave dropped to the ground, but more Japs poured out of the woods. Lieutenant Breckenridge realized the Japs were serious about taking the hill, because they were sending in a great number of troops.

  “Mow ‘em down!” screamed Lieutenant Breckenridge.

  “I think you'd better take cover, sir,” said Craig Delane, lying a few feet away.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge dropped into the foxhole with Delane and peered over the rim. A horde of Japanese soldiers advanced on the run, shaking their rifles and screaming fanatically. Japanese soldiers were shot down and their comrades jumped over their bodies, scrambling toward the top of the hill. Tommy Shaw from the First Squad manned one of the .30-caliber machine guns and swung it from side to side on its transverse mechanism, mowing down Japanese soldiers, but still they came. The other machine gunners in the platoon raked the charging Japanese soldiers while GIs with M 1s killed them one at a time, but they couldn't stop the seething mass of soldiers.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge loaded .45-caliber bullets into the clip of his Colt. He tapped the clip into the butt of the pistol and pulled back the top to ram a round into the chamber. Looking up, he saw that the Japs were only a few yards away.

  “Up and at ‘em!” Lieutenant Breckenridge screamed.

  He jumped out of the foxhole and collapsed on his wounded leg, falling to his side. A Japanese soldier appeared over him, holding his rifle and bayonet like a lance. Lieutenant Breckenridge fired up at him. The bullet pierced the soft meat under the Jap's chin, burrowed through his brain, and blew out the back of his skull, carrying just about everything inside with it.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge tried to stand, but his wounded leg gave no support. He perched himself on one knee and shot at a Jap running toward him. The Jap was killed instantly by Lieutenant Breckenridge's bullet, because the bullet made a hole through the Japanese soldier's heart. The Japanese soldier tumbled to the ground and slid to a stop in front of Lieutenant Breckenridge, who looked up to see three Japanese soldiers charging him shoulder to shoulder. He aimed at the one on the left and squeezed the trigger.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  The three Japanese soldiers collapsed onto the ground and made a small human wall of flesh in front of Lieutenant Breckenridge, who held his Colt .45 steady and pulled the trigger again.

  Blam! Blam!

  Two more Japanese soldiers tripped over their feet and landed asshole over teakettle on the ground.

  Blam!

  Lieutenant Breckenridge fired another shot and sent a Japanese soldier on the journey to meet his ancestors, but Lieutenant Breckenridge realiz
ed that Japanese soldiers were passing him on the left and right. Glancing around, he saw his men fighting hand-to-hand with the Japanese soldiers, but most of the enemy was getting through! The position was overrun! He had not held the line!

  A stout Japanese sergeant ran toward Lieutenant Breckenridge, and the lieutenant took aim. The Japanese soldier had a mustache and a bandage wrapped around his head. He didn't see Lieutenant Breckenridge kneeling there until it was too late. Lieutenant Breckenridge squeezed the trigger of his Army-issue regulation Colt .45.

  Click!

  It was empty. “Son of a bitch!”

  The Japanese soldier aimed his rifle and bayonet at Lieutenant Breckenridge and pushed forward. Lieutenant Breckenridge dropped his pistol and grabbed the barrel of the Japanese soldier's rifle. The barrel was hot, because the Jap had been firing it, but Lieutenant Breckenridge hung on.

  The Japanese soldier tried to yank his rifle loose. Lieutenant Breckenridge pulled the other way. The two struggled to gain control of the rifle, grunting and gritting their teeth. Lieutenant Breckenridge was the stronger man, but he was lying on the ground in a position that didn't give him much leverage, and loss of blood was making him weaker.

  The Japanese soldier could see that Lieutenant Breckenridge was having trouble. With a murderous gleam in his eye, the Japanese soldier pushed his rifle and bayonet forward, leaning on it with all his weight.

  Lieutenant Breckenridge pushed back, sweating running in rivulets down his face, but the bayonet came closer to his heart. He tried to deflect it but he couldn't do that, either. Slowly, gradually, the distance diminished between the tip of the bayonet and Lieutenant Breckenridge's chest, and Lieutenant Breckenridge realized he was a goner. He pushed harder, trying to save his life, but he didn't have the leverage or strength. The tip of the bayonet came to within two inches of Lieutenant Breckenridge's chest.