Down and Dirty

by Len Levinson

  Bannon dodged to the side and the bayonet streaked past him. He swung the M 1 and the butt smashed into the Jap's head. Blood squirted out of the Jap's ears, nose, and mouth, and he was thrown violently toward the ground.

  An order was shouted in Japanese, and Bannon looked up to see Japs turning back toward the jungle. They retreated, leaving behind heaps of bodies in the moonlight, twisted into grotesque postures of death. The GIs still alive dropped down on their stomachs and fired their rifles at the retreating Japs, shooting them in their backs, but the jungle was thick and soon swallowed up the Japs.

  Bannon was breathing like a racehorse, and his muscles were strained by fatigue. He sat down heavily on the ground next to a dead American soldier wearing a complete jungle uniform and helmet; he must have been one of the guards who'd gotten it first. The soldier lay on his back and had a big gaping bayonet hole in his chest. Bannon pulled a bandolier of ammunition off the dead soldier's shoulder, took out a clip, and loaded it into his M 1 in case the Japs came back. Then he patted the soldier's shirt, found a pack of Luckies, and placed one of them between his lips. He probed through the dead soldier's pockets and found a Ronson lighter, which he pulled out, lighting the cigarette. He inhaled and felt the smoke stimulate his lungs and enliven his mind.

  The jungle was carpeted with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Medics arrived, applying bandages and jamming morphine Syrettes into arms. Bannon was bleeding from a cut on his cheek and some nicks on his arms and he was splattered with Japanese blood. Insects buzzed around him and he thought he'd better go back to his tent and put some clothes on before they ate him up alive.

  As he was summoning the strength to stand, he saw a huge hulk appear before him out of the darkness. “You okay?” asked Sergeant Butsko.

  “Yeah.”

  “I want a report on the number of casualties in your squad.”

  “Right.”

  Butsko walked away. Bannon stood up, puffed his cigarette, and headed for his tent, glancing at the ground so he wouldn't step on anybody.

  TWO . . .

  At dawn Mayor General Alexander McCarrell Patch rolled out of bed. He was fifty-three years old, a West Point graduate, and commander of all American troops on Guadalcanal. He burped, lit a cigarette, and reached for his pants.

  “Lieutenant Todd!” he shouted.

  “Yes, sir!”

  The door opened and young Lieutenant Todd entered, throwing a snappy salute.

  “Good morning, sir!”

  “Anything happen last night?” General Patch asked as he pulled on his pants.

  “One of the battalions in the twenty-third Infantry Regiment was attacked by Japs, but it wasn't very serious. No Japs broke through. We didn't think the situation warranted waking you up.”

  “Bring me some black coffee, Todd.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Todd dashed out of the room, and General Patch sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his combat boots. It was January of 1943 and the Japs on Guadalcanal were licked, but they didn't seem to know it. The American soldiers and Marines had them on the retreat and were pressing them hard, but the Japs were fighting back savagely and making General Patch's troops pay heavily for every foot of ground they got.

  General Patch buttoned up his shirt and left his bedroom. He walked down the hall and entered his office, sitting behind the desk and looking at the map spread out on it. He located the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment, which had been attacked the night before. It was in the hilly jungle country west of the Matanikau River, not far from Ironbottom Sound.

  There was a knock on his door.

  “Come in!”

  Lieutenant Todd entered, carrying a pot of coffee and a cup. “Shall I pour for you, sir?”

  “Go ahead,” said General Patch, still looking at the map.

  Todd poured the coffee and placed the mug in front of General Patch. “The usual for breakfast, sir?”

  “I think I'd like my eggs scrambled hard today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant Todd turned and marched out of the office. General Patch sipped the hot coffee, and the steaming liquid cleared out his head. He looked at the position of his front line; it was several miles west of Henderson Field, the prime military objective on Guadalcanal. General Patch was afraid the Japs would land a large force on Lunga Point and retake Henderson Field before he could shift his troops back from the front lines west of the Matanikau. Henderson Field was being protected by only a token force of soldiers—the sick, lame, and lazy—while his first-class troops were in the field west of the Matanikau. Once again he wondered whether he should bring some of them back to protect Henderson Field—just in case—but if he did that, it would weaken his front line.

  It was an agonizing problem, because if he guessed wrong it could mean death for many of his soldiers. He thought of how nice it must be to be a civilian, because if you guessed wrong you only inconvenienced yourself for a while, or maybe you would lose a lot of money, but what was money compared to the lives of young men?

  General Patch lit a cigarette and smoked it while sipping his coffee. He was the commander on Guadalcanal and Tulagi and the buck stopped with him. He had to make the decision and he'd have to make it soon. After a while Lieutenant Todd brought him breakfast, and General Patch dined while continuing to consider the problem.

  He finally decided that if the Japs tried to invade Henderson Field, their troopships almost would certainly be spotted by the American Navy and Air Corps long before they came close to Guadalcanal. That would give him plenty of warning, or so he hoped. He should be able to return his troops to Henderson Field in time to protect it if all went well.

  But what if all didn't go well? What if Japanese troopships sneaked past the US Navy and Air Corps? What then?

  The recon platoon was still traveling with George Company in the Second Battalion of the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment. The dead and wounded from the tussle of the previous night had been cleared away, and the men were breakfasting on K rations, consisting mainly of crackers and canned paste made from either meat or cheese. Everybody hated K rations even worse than C rations, but there was nothing else to eat.

  Bannon, wearing a bandage on his cheek, chewed on a cracker and listened to Frankie La Barbara talk about the nurses on New Caledonia, where he had been a patient for a few weeks.

  “There was this nurse called Grimsby, who was a skinny, nervous bitch,” Frankie said, “and I knew what she needed: about eight inches of hot pepperoni. So one night I waited in a doorway while she was making rounds, and when she passed by I just grabbed. You shoulda seen the look on her face. I thought she'd shit a brick. She says, ‘Whatta you think you're doing here, Private La Barbara?’ and I told her, ‘I'm gonna fuck the jelly out of your beans, Nurse Grimsby, that's what I'm doing here.’” Frankie laughed, his big shoulders heaving up and down.

  “And then what happened?” asked Hotshot Stevenson, who had been a pool shark in civilian life.

  “I pulled her into one of them rooms where doctors examine you and fucked her on the table.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, she put up a little bit of a struggle at first, just to make it look like she wasn't easy, because women don't like you to think they're easy. But they're all easy. They're all dying to get fucked. You just have to know how to go about it.”

  “I don't know about that, Frankie,” said Homer Gladley, the big farmboy from Nebraska. “Sounds to me like you damn near raped her.”

  “That's what some women like. You'd be surprised. I used to have a girlfriend back in New York City who liked me to pretend that I was raping her. I used to get pretty rough with her at times, but the rougher I treated her, the better she liked it. You never know what women are really like until you fuck them, Homer. It's always the sweetest, nicest girls who become the worst sex degenerates once you get them going.”

  “Well, maybe that's the way girls are back in New York,” Homer said, “bu
t they're not like that back where I'm from. You've got too used to being around women who are psycho cases, Frankie.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Frankie replied. “Well, I'll make a deal with you. After the war's over, I'll come and visit you and I'll fuck a few of those women you're talking about who you say are so sane and normal. I'll find out what they're really like.”

  “Shit, they wouldn't let you touch them, Frankie.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because they're nice girls. They wouldn't let a guy like you get near them.”

  “Oh, no? You give me fifty dollars for every one of those girls back there that I fuck?”

  “You give me fifty for every one you don't?”

  Frankie extended his hand. “It's a deal.”

  Bannon watched them shake hands. He lit a cigarette and wondered if both of them would get through the war alive to follow up on their bet. The recon platoon had lost a lot of men already. Butsko, the platoon sergeant, had nearly been killed and had spent a long time in the hospital. So had Craig Delane, the rich guy from New York City, and Jimmy O'Rourke, the former movie stuntman from Hollywood. Corporal Sam Long-tree, a genuine Apache Indian from Arizona, had been the platoon's point man until three weeks before, when he'd been shot down. He, too, had been sent back to the hospital, and nobody knew if he was alive or dead.

  When's it gonna happen to me? Bannon thought. I'm long overdue.

  Bannon hadn't been seriously wounded since he came to Guadalcanal back in October. Every day he expected to get it, but he'd only suffered minor nicks and cuts. His worst, from a Japanese bayonet that pierced his side, hadn't even been enough for a trip back to the battalion aid station. The medic just bandaged him up and sent him back to the front.‘

  “All right, you fucking guys!” Butsko shouted. “Strike those tents and get ready to move out!”

  Bannon looked up at Butsko, who was built massively, like a gorilla. His shirt was off and his torso was covered with wide slabs of muscle. The thick black hair on his chest covered the scar of the shrapnel wound that had nearly killed him.

  The men from the recon platoon grumbled and headed for their tents, pulling down the poles and unbuttoning the shelter halves. They rolled up the shelter halves with their blankets and tied them to their packs, checked their weapons, and then sat around again, smoking cigarettes, waiting for the order to move out.

  “Hurry up and wait,” said Frankie La Barbara. “This fucking Army is a pain in the ass. I'm getting so sick of this fucking Army, I'm about ready to explode. I wish I was back in that hospital on New Caledonia. I remember there was this little brunette—forget her name now—she was from Michigan or one of them other fucking states out there—don't remember which one—and anyway, one night we went swimming naked together in the bay. Any of you guys ever fuck a girl in the water? It's terrific, the best way to fuck, and she had a cunt like a little machine. If only I could get another nice little wound, nothing too serious, just enough to get me back there with all them nurses.”

  Private Morris Shilansky, the former bank robber from Boston, was getting tired of hearing Frankie talk about screwing nurses. It made him nervous and horny, and he had enough to worry about without being nervous and homy.

  “Hey, Frankie,” he said, “were there any nurses back there you didn't fuck?”

  “Yeah, there was some that I didn't fuck. Why?” “I think you been fucking your fist too much.” “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “I'm sick and tired of listening to your mouth. Give it rest for a while, willya?”

  Frankie laid his rifle against his pack and stood up, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “You want me to shut up, you make me shut up.”

  “Okay,” said Shilansky, taking off his helmet and getting up off the ground.

  Shilansky walked toward Frankie, who stood with his thumbs in his belt and a sneer on his face. Bannon knew he should stop them, since he was their squad leader, but he was curious to see what would happen. Shilansky and Frankie were evenly matched in height and weight; they were both big boys with broad shoulders and tapered waists. Both had dark hair and swarthy complexions, but Shilansky had the nose of an eagle and thick lips, whereas Frankie's lips were thinner and his nose straight and handsomely formed.

  When Shilansky got close to Frankie, both men raised their hands. Shilansky didn't stop; he just kept walking, and when he was within punching range he threw a straight right at Frankie's head, but Frankie ducked underneath it and shot a left to Shilansky's midsection, which Shilansky blocked with his forearm.

  Both men stepped back a few paces, glaring at each other, as the recon platoon crowded around in a big circle, shouting advice and encouragement. Shilansky lunged in, feinted toward Frankie's gut with his left fist, then raised it up and smacked Frankie on the cheek. Frankie took the punch well and ducked to avoid Shilansky's right fist rocketing toward his nose, then slugged Shilansky in the gut, but Shilansky's arm rose in the nick of time and blocked it. Frankie danced back, dodged to the left, dodged to the right, and charged, shooting a left cross at Shilansky's head. Shilansky raised his guard to block the punch, and Frankie drove his right fist into Shilansky's stomach.

  Shilansky said “Oof and doubled over, and Frankie hit him with an uppercut that landed on Shilansky's chin, straightening Shilansky out and sending him flying backward. Frankie rushed after him, throwing punches from all directions, but Shilansky-blocked most of them, got his wits together, saw an opening, and threw in a left jab that rocked Frankie's head back. Frankie was more surprised than hurt and lowered his hands; Shilansky hit him with a long overhand right.

  The punched crashed on Frankie's face and Frankie's lights went out. Frankie dropped to his knees, and Shilansky was tempted to kick his head off, but he didn't want to fight dirty in front of all the guys, so he held himself back and waited for Frankie to get up.

  “C'mon, you bigmouth cocksucker!” Shilansky said. “On your feet!”

  Frankie cleared the cobwebs out of his head and dived at Shilansky, tackling him around the waist and bringing him down. The two soldiers rolled over and around on the jungle floor, punching each other, trying to gouge out each other's eyes and kick each other in the balls, while the rest of the recon platoon watched avidly and Hotshot Stevenson took bets.

  “What the fuck's going on here?”

  Everybody turned around at the sound of Butsko's bull-like voice and saw their big burly platoon sergeant pushing soldiers out of the way as he broke through the ring around Shilansky and Frankie La Barbara. He looked down at the two of them grunting and struggling on the ground, snorted angrily, and grabbed Shilansky by the back of his collar, pulled him off Frankie, and sent him flying through the air.

  “You guys wanna fight?” Butsko snarled. “Fight with me!”

  He gripped Frankie's shirt, pulled him to his feet, and punched him in the nose. Bone and cartilage cracked underneath his knuckles, and blood spurted into the air. Frankie went reeling backward and collapsed onto the ground, blood pouring out of his nose.

  Shilansky got to his feet, holding out the palms of his hands. “Now, Sarge,” he said, “I got no beef with you. Let's not get carried away.”

  “I got a beef with you, you fucking scumbag,” Butsko

  replied, rearing back his big fist and hurling it forward.

  Pow!

  His fist connected with Shilansky's face, and Shilansky's brain bounced around inside his skull. Out cold, Shilansky dropped to the ground.

  Butsko raised his fists and spun around, looking into the eyes of his men. “Anybody else feel like a fight?” he asked.

  Nobody said anything.

  “Now get this straight, you fuck-ups,” Butsko said, prowling around the center of the circle like a beast in a cage. “I'm tired of all the fights in this platoon. Next time there's a fight, everybody's who's fighting'11 have to fight me next, all at once or one at a time; it don't matter a fuck either way to me. Got it?”

  There was terr
ified silence all around him.

  “I said got it?”

  The men muttered that they got it. Some nodded their heads.

  “I can't hear you!”

  “We got it, Sarge!”

  “That's better.” Butsko wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Frankie La Barbara, who had drawn himself to a sitting position on the ground, touching his nose gingerly with his fingers.

  “I think it's broken,” he said.

  “You're lucky that's all that's broken,” Butsko replied.

  Shilansky spit out a few teeth and a big gob of blood. Butsko looked around and spotted Bannon. “I wanna talk to you right now.”

  “Hup, Sarge.”

  Butsko walked away from the group and Bannon followed him. They stopped twenty yards away and Butsko took out a Chesterfield cigarette, lighting it up with his trusty old Zippo.

  “Why didn't you stop that fight?” Butsko asked.

  Bannon shrugged. “I thought I might as well let them kick the shit out of each other, since that's what they wanted to do.”

  “You're their squad leader. You should've stopped it the way I did. Since you don't want to act like a squad leader, you ain't a squad leader no more. And I'm taking away your stripes, too, as of right now. You're a private again. Now get the fuck away from me before I do to you what I did to them.”

  Bannon was stunned. He'd worked so hard to get those three stripes, and now Butsko was taking them away. “Hey, Sarge, you can't do that without a court-martial!”

  Butsko brought his face close to Bannon's. “Who says I. can't?”

  Bannon took a step backward and said weakly, “I dunno.”

  “You're goddamn right. Send Shaw over here. He's gonna be the new squad leader.’-’

  “Hup, Sarge.”

  Bannon double-timed toward Shaw, who was a former professional heavyweight boxer, and Butsko puffed his cigarette. If I don't get some discipline in this platoon pretty soon, I'll bust everybody down to private E-nothing, he thought.

  The First Squad sat around the thick of the jungle while Butsko was talking with Shaw. Private Joel Blum, the recon platoon medic, was examining Frankie's nose.