Down and Dirty

by Len Levinson

  The First Squad appeared behind him and stopped. He waved them forward and they advanced, seeing the plantation behind him.

  “Jesus, looka there,” said Frankie La Barbara. “I'm gonna get me one of them coconuts.”

  “Stay where you are!” Shaw said. “You don't go out there, until you're told to go out there.”

  “Aw, stop breaking my hump, Shaw.”

  Shaw charged toward him. “What you say?”

  Frankie didn't feel like getting into a hassle with Shaw, because Shaw's fighting prowess was well known, but he couldn't back down either. Shaw stopped in front of Frankie and brought his face to within six inches of Frankie's.

  “I asked what you said!”

  “I ain't said nothin’.”

  “I thought I heard one of your shitty fucking remarks. You-got anything to say to me, you say it to my face, got it?”

  “How can I do that, now that you got rank over me?”

  “We can go off behind those bushes there and forget about the rank. I'll kick your fucking ass.”

  At that moment Butsko arrived with the Second Squad. “Now what's going on here?”

  “Nothing I can't handle,” Shaw said.

  Butsko looked at Frankie La Barbara. “You up to your old tricks, scumhead?”

  “Who, me?”

  Butsko pointed at Frankie's bandaged nose. “You keep it up and one of these days I'm gonna put a bullet in your head. Get the picture?”

  “Hup, Sarge.”

  Butsko took three steps toward the edge of the jungle and stopped, gazing from left to right at the coconut trees. It evidently was an enormous plantation, because there were coconut trees as far as he could see in all directions. He took out his map and Nutsy Gafooley held up his poncho to keep the rain off it. Butsko saw the plantation on the map and didn't know whether to go around it or through it. He decided he'd better call Captain Orr and ask what to do.

  “Gimme the walkie-talkie,” he said to Nutsy, who was his runner. “The rest of you guys take a break.”

  “Can we get some coconuts?” asked Frankie La Barbara.

  “Yeah,” said Butsko. “But be careful. There might be some Japs out there.”

  The men moved cautiously into the coconut grove and Butsko called Captain Orr on the radio, but he couldn't get through. The hilly terrain and thick jungle often blocked radio transmission. He'd been ordered to move in the direction that cut through the plantation and he thought he should just keep going. It would be easier than hacking through the jungle.

  “Nutsy, get me one of them green cocounts.”

  “Hup, Sarge.”

  The men foraged for coconuts, hacking them open with their machetes, drinking the sweet milk, and scooping out the meat. The green coconuts were best because their meat was soft, almost like pudding, whereas the old coconut meat was as hard as wood. Before becoming soldiers, most of the men in the recon platoon never had seen a coconut in their lives. Now they ate one after another, and when their stomachs were filled, they sat underneath the trees and smoked cigarettes. The rain diminished to a light drizzle and the day became brighter. It looked like they'd have an easy time going through the plantation. Their morale improved.

  Butsko stood up. “Okay, let's get going! Make diamond formations and keep your fucking eyes open!”

  The recon platoon coalesced into four diamonds with squad leaders in the centers. The First Squad led the rest, with Gomez at the front of the formation and a BAR man on each extreme flank. The next three squads followed side by side, with Butsko in the middle of the Second Squad.

  They advanced across the vast coconut grove, and mists rose eerily from the ground. The drizzle and fog made visibility poor, and the landscape reminded Bannon of a bad dream he'd once had. The GIs searched the trees and ground for signs of Japs but saw nothing. They expected Japs to start shooting at any moment, but that didn't happen either. In the distance they heard the beginning of an artillery barrage. The GIs felt wide open and vulnerable in the coconut grove.

  Blam!

  Everybody hit the dirt and looked around. The shot had been fired from somewhere within their midst.

  “Who the fuck did that?” Butsko demanded.

  “I did!” replied Pfc. Cunningham in the Third Squad. “I saw something move in the tree over there!” he pointed.

  Butsko looked up at the tree but didn't see anything suspicious.

  “Hazleton!” Butsko said to the leader of the Third Squad. ‘Take somebody with you and see if anything's up there! And watch your step!”

  Hazleton called out Cunningham's name and together they raised themselves from the ground, walking in a crouch toward the tree that Cunningham had fired at. When they got close they saw blood dripping down the trunk of a tree. High up on one of the branches lay a dead monkey.

  “It's a monkey!” Hazleton shouted back.

  Frankie La Barbara laughed.

  “Shaddup, La Barbara!” Butsko said. “All right, let's move it out again!”

  The men got up, brushed themselves off, and got into formation again. They resumed their trek through the coconut grove, still tense, looking in all directions.

  Butsko was furious, but he didn't say anything. If there were any Japs around, they knew the recon platoon was in the vicinity, thanks to Cunningham's shot. But Cunningham couldn't help it. He had sharp eyes and that was good. If he could kill a monkey, he could kill a man.

  Out on the point, Gomez peered ahead through the mist and drizzle. The rows of coconut trees seemed to go on forever. If there were any Japs ahead, they'd see him before they saw any of the others and they'd put a bullet through his head, so he wanted to be sure he spotted them first. He crouched low, narrowed his eyes, and scanned the tree tops, the ground, and the trunks of trees from left to right, his finger on his trigger and the safety off, ready to plug anything that moved.

  He became aware of a white mass behind the rows of coconut trees and blinked his eyes, because sometimes when he was looking too hard for something he saw things that weren't there. He stepped forward carefully, looking at the white mass, and then saw a roof and windows and the outline of a huge white mansion straight ahead. He stopped cold, unable to believe his eyes. It was like a mirage appearing suddenly out of the mist, and he'd never imagined such a lavish mansionlike edifice could exist on Guadalcanal. He'd never seen anything like it since he'd been on the island.

  When he realized he wasn't hallucinating, he pointed toward the ground and then got down himself. The rest of the recon platoon dropped down too. Gomez turned around and placed his forefinger in front of his mouth, indicating that they should be quiet. Butsko crawled forward to see what the problem was, and as the big white mansion came into view, he too was amazed. He stared at it for a few moments; it looked deserted. Many of the windows were broken and the wall on one of the wings had a hole blown in it. Part of the roof on another wing was caved in, probably from a bomb. There were shell craters in the overgrown lawn surrounding the mansion. It had a wide veranda in front and long white columns holding up the roof, like photographs he'd seen in magazines of the great old mansions of the South.

  “Stay here and keep your eye on the place,” Butsko said. “There might be Japs inside, so don't make any funny moves.”

  “The joint looks empty to me,” Gomez replied.

  “Maybe and maybe not.”

  Butsko crawled back and called a meeting of his squad leaders. “There's a big white house over there,” Butsko said. “It looks deserted, but maybe it ain't. We'll rush it from the front and rear. Squads One and Two will hit the front and Three and Four will hit the

  back. The signal to attack will be a shot from my gun. Set up your BARs so they can support the attack. Any questions?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Get rolling,” Butsko said.

  The squad leaders crept away and moved their squads out. The first two squads formed a skirmish line in front of the mansion, lying on their stomachs, with the BAR men o
n the flanks. Butsko attached a grenade launcher to the barrel of his M 1 and affixed a hand grenade to it. Meanwhile the Third and Fourth squads worked around to the rear of the mansion. Not a sound came from the stately white structure. It reminded Bannon of a wealthy old lady who'd fallen on hard times

  Butsko looked at his watch. He thought he'd give the Third and Fourth squads another five minutes. Then he glanced up at the mansion, scanning its facade, trying to find movement behind the windows. He wondered what kind of people had lived there before the war. Craig Delane told him once that Lever Brothers owned most of the coconut plantations on Guadalcanal. There was something in coconuts that they used for soap and stuff.

  The five minutes were up. “Okay, let's hit it,” Butsko said. “Move fast and shoot at anything that moves, but be sure you don't shoot any of our own people.”

  The GIs stood up. Butsko waved his arm forward. The long skirmish line moved through the coconut grove toward the mansion. They came to the edge of the grove and stepped out onto the wide lawn. The BAR men lay down with their weapons and the rest of the GIs moved forward.

  “Double-time!” Butsko yelled.

  The men ran forward, sweeping across the lawn to the front of the mansion. Butsko fired his rifle in the air, his signal to the Third and Fourth squads on the other side. Then suddenly the barrel of a machine gun appeared in one of the windows, but none of the GIs saw it until it started firing. The machine gun belched death at the charging skirmish line and shot down two GIs before the rest of them hit the dirt.

  The BAR men saw the machine gun and directed streams of lead at it. Then another machine gun inside the house started firing, and the BARs split their fire between the two. Japanese soldiers with rifles appeared in the other windows, and Butsko realized his men were in a whole world of trouble. They couldn't go back and they couldn't stay where they were. They had to go forward.

  His men returned the fire, but they were out in the open and the Japs were hidden behind windowsills. Still, the fusillades from the BARs and the GIs on the ground prevented the Japs from firing accurately. Butsko aimed his grenade launcher at the door of the mansion and pulled the trigger.

  Ka-pow!

  The grenade sailed into the air, flew over the wide veranda, and landed in front of the door, where it exploded, splintering wood and leaving a big smoking hole where the door had been before.

  “Charge!” shouted Butsko. “Follow me!”

  The First and Second squads rushed the veranda as bullets whizzed all around them. Private Becker was hit in the shoulder, and Pfc. Doyle took a bullet in the gut. The GIs leaped up the stairs of the veranda, kicked wicker furniture out of their way, and ran toward the door.

  Butsko was in front of all of them; he'd removed the grenade launcher from the end of his M 1 on the way in. As he neared the door he pulled a grenade from his lapel, yanked out the pin, and hurled it through the door. His men scrambled to the wall of the mansion and pressed their backs against it. They heard garbled Japanese spoken in a panic inside the mansion, and then the grenade blew, making the floor of the veranda tremble.

  Butsko charged through the door and saw billows of smoke. He saw movement and fired his M 1 from the waist. GIs poured through the door behind him and spread out through the large living room, shooting the Japs who'd been shooting at them from behind the windowsills. Some Japs in the room fought back, but they were quickly outnumbered, and the rest fled through other doors. Butsko heard footsteps behind him and spun around. A door was kicked open and Sergeant Kelsey from the Third Squad charged into the room. Bannon saw something move behind a sofa and leaped over it, landing on the other side and seeing a Jap lying there, bleeding from the stomach and trying to aim a pistol at him. Bannon kicked the pistol out of his hand and stomped his face. He shot the Jap in the chest to make sure he wouldn't bother anyone again.

  Butsko looked up at the ceiling and heard running footsteps. “This joint's fulla Japs. They're all over the fucking place. We'll split up again into two sections. The First and Second squads will take that side of the house—he pointed—and the Third and Fourth squads will take this side. Any questions?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Move it out,” Butsko said.

  The platoon split up again and the men ran toward doors at opposite ends of the living room, kicking dirty torn pieces of overstuffed furniture out of the way. Broken china and ripped curtains lay on the floor, and on the wall above the fireplace was a portrait of an eighteenth-century gentleman; it was riddled with bullet holes.

  Bannon stuck his head around a doorway and beeannnggg— a bullet creased the top of his helmet, knocking him cold. He fell to the floor as Shaw lobbed a hand grenade around the corner. It exploded and a crystal chandelier in the- middle of the living room came crashing to the floor. Private Blum, the medic, slapped Bannon's cheeks and Bannon opened his eyes.

  Bannon saw GIs charge through the doorway. He picked up his helmet and looked at the crease down the middle. “Those fucking Japs,” he said.

  Bannon put his helmet on his head, grabbed his rifle, reeled groggily, and jumped over the threshold into the other room. GIs were firing their rifles in all directions, and the room echoed with the blasts from their rifles. Shaw ran across the room toward another doorway, pulled a grenade from his lapel, and pressed his back against the wall next to the doorjamb. He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the room; two seconds later it came flying back! Homer Gladley caught it in midair and threw it into the room again.

  Barroooommmmmm!

  The GIs charged through the door. Frankie La Barbara was the first one in the room, firing his BAR from the waist, raking the room from side to side and top to bottom with hot lead. The other GIs spilled into the room behind him. Japs were shouting in the corridor. A Japanese grenade came flying into the room and Shilansky caught it, throwing it out the window, where it exploded in midair and blew a hole in the wall of the mansion.

  Bannon could see that the only way to stay alive was to move fast and keep the Japs on the run.

  “Put some fire into that room!” he yelled.

  The GIs fired into the doorway and Bannon took out a grenade, pulled the pin, let the lever fly away, waited two seconds, and hurled it into the corridor with all his strength. He ducked out of the way and the grenade detonated, deafening everybody.

  “Let's go!” Bannon said.

  He charged through the doorway and saw a Jap on his knees on the floor. The Jap fired his rifle wildly, for he had a bullet in his stomach. Bannon shot him in the head and ran past him toward the stairs at the end of the corridor. He looked up the stairs and saw a grenade flying down at him.

  “Hit it!”

  The GIs dived to the floorboards and the grenade exploded, sending deadly shrapnel flying in all directions, tearing into the plaster of the walls. Bannon rose to one knee and heard an ominous metal clunk on the stairs—another grenade.

  “Stay down!”

  He flopped to the floor again, took out a hand grenade, and pulled the pin while holding the arming lever down. The Japanese grenade exploded on the stairs and the whole house trembled again. With the sound of the grenade still ringing in his ears, Bannon jumped up, let the lever on his hand grenade pop off, ran to the foot of the stairs, and threw the hand grenade up to the next landing.

  Barrrooooommmm!

  “Follow me!” Bannon yelled.

  He ran up the stairs three at a time, holding his rifle ready to fire, and behind him, like a herd of cattle, came the rest of the men. Bannon reached the landing, saw a Jap face in a doorway, and fired wildly, but the Jap pulled back in time.

  Behind Bannon was Shaw, who hurled a grenade into the room. The GIs dropped to the floor and hugged the walls.

  Barrooooommmm!

  Bannon charged into the room, which was filled with smoke, and a chunk of plaster fell down from the ceiling, shattering on his helmet. It startled him so much that he fired his rifle at nothing. Then Shaw came into the room, h
is rifle blazing, and next was Frankie La Barbara, spraying bullets everywhere.

  The GIs piled into the room, firing in all directions, and when the smoke cleared they saw dead Japs lying everywhere, blown to bits by the hand grenade. Bannon heard movement down the hall and turned around. Homer Gladley heard it, too; he was standing closest to the door. He threw a hand grenade into the hallway. The grenade exploded thunderously, and Gladley led the charge out of the little room, firing down the hallway, which was lined with doors. Bannon saw a door closing, ran toward it, and threw his shoulder against it.

  The door was knocked wide open and Bannon flew into the room. He saw a Jap wearing pants and no shirt, aiming a pistol at him. Bannon froze and then heard the rat-a-tat of a BAR. Three red holes appeared on the torso of the Jap, who went sprawling backward and crashed against a wall. Bannon looked behind him and saw Jimmy O'Rourke holding his smoking BAR in his hands.

  “Cover me!” he said to O'Rourke.

  Bannon flung open the door to a closet. A pile of clothes were on the floor. He shot a bullet into the pile, then kicked it, but it was only clothes. Spinning around, he looked at the bed, which was unmade; evidently the Jap with the pistol had been taking a nap. Across the room was another closet.

  “Cover me!”

  Bannon dashed across the room and opened the closet door. Inside were some Japanese uniforms with officers’ insignia on the collars. A mirror was on the back of the door, and as Bannon looked at it, he saw a reflection of the bed: Something was moving underneath it!

  He spun around and saw a small hand waving something white underneath the bed. Bannon and O'Rourke aimed their weapons at the hand and crouched down.

  “Come on out of there!” Bannon said.

  He heard a sob that could only come from a woman's throat, and then a long, slim arm appeared. After the arm came a dusky shoulder, followed by a head of long black hair. The head turned to show the face of a young native girl.

  Jimmy O'Rourke nearly dropped his BAR. Bannon stared in amazement. The girl couldn't have been older than eighteen, and she might even have been thirteen, because you couldn't pinpoint the age of a native girl very well.