The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  The Japanese assault arrived that night led by Major General Kiyotaki Kamaguchi. The first attack seemed tentative and I quickly picked up on their radio that elements of their force had been delayed; they were having trouble getting troops into position for a coordinated attack. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the Japanese general screaming abuse at his officers directly, without using code. This inability to mass his troops would clearly prevent a major assault that night.

  However, this didn’t mean the Japs were a pushover, far from it. My first taste of combat, even if only as a witness from the relative safety of our dugout, was horrendous, beyond anything I’d imagined. All night the Japs attacked the perimeter of our positions in small groups. The noise was unbelievable and reporting back to base during the night was almost impossible. I took to jotting down notes within a time frame for later use. Any commentary I would make would have to be done by using recall. The almost continuous cracking of rifles and streams of tracer bullets from our machine-guns, together with the ‘crump-crump’ of grenades exploding, seemed to make the air fizz with sound. But most of all, the concussion of shells landing left us virtually deaf. Yet through all this hellish cacophony, amazingly, you could hear the screams of dying and wounded men.

  Some Japs managed to penetrate in between our foxholes where desperate hand-to-hand fighting took place. But by dawn the marines had held firm and the enemy had all but withdrawn. I handed Beljo his grenade belt. ‘Go on, mate, throw one so you can say you fought at Guadalcanal.’

  ‘Jesus, thanks, Nick,’ he said, taking the grenade, pulling the pin and hastily hurling the grenade into the battlefield. ‘Take dat, ya dirty yellow slant-eyed sonofabitches! Banzai and fuck ya too!’ he yelled.

  As none of the enemy had come within fifty yards of the radio dugout the grenade landed harmlessly. Belgiovani had just boosted his eventual grandpa-to-grandchildren ‘How I won the war in the Pacific’ bullshit factor by 100 per cent.

  The slopes of the ridge back to the edge of the jungle two hundred yards away were strewn with bodies, many more Japanese than ours, but we’d copped more than our fair share and several of the officers I’d got to know and like lay dead. One of them was Brutus Brokenhorse, an American Indian who’d jumped the colour divide and been made lieutenant:‘Hey, buddy, I’m coming over to ride a big old kangaroo in your mesa desert when this goddamn war is finished!’ He was the only bloke who’d managed to stay with me on a morning run and we’d become good buddies. I was pretty choked but was about to learn that grief has to be reserved for a private moment.

  All morning a stream of the wounded left the ridge for the forward hospital at Henderson Field. Burial details removed the bodies of the dead marines from the ridge and placed them in white cotton shrouds, loading them carefully into trucks, then the bodies of the Japs were manhandled and piled in heaps at the bottom of the slope to discourage the enemy if they thought to come back for another go at us — as we expected they would. By early afternoon they had begun to smell in the heat. Dog tired, I spent the morning and half the afternoon collating and translating documents taken from dead Japanese officers for our tactical intelligence report.

  Despite the fact that I’d managed almost no on-the-spot commentary, Colonel Woon — who’d come to our dugout in the mid-morning and had a bit of a listen to the wire recording — reckoned the experiment to get radio commentary recorded on the battlefield into the homes of America had the potential to be a big success.

  Our early report that Major General Kiyotaki Kamaguchi wasn’t able to mount a full-scale attack was, as Colonel Woon put it, ‘A fucking triumph, Nick!’ This accolade was delivered despite the fact that we could probably have picked up the broadcast by the Japanese field radio and made the same report while remaining at the base. He probably knew this, but it was possible Colonel Edson didn’t. On the ridge we were technically under the same orders as the marines, who were told to clean their weapons and remain in position for the night to come. While I would have given anything for a shower and a clean uniform, Beljo and I were obliged to do the same.

  We spent the late afternoon checking our equipment and went through the usual routines. I’d taken the precaution of again forbidding Belgiovani to touch his grenades. ‘Stick to your Springfield if we need to go into action,’ I advised, ‘but for fuck’s sake, Beljo, remember why we’re here: commentary, not combat.’

  We were both pretty whacked. Between us we’d edited the sounds of the previous night’s battle and dubbed in my voice, using the time-frame notes I’d made, and the results seemed plausible. Anyway, with Greg Woon top-and-tailing it, I reckoned we probably had a goer. After this, I’d managed about an hour’s sleep in the dugout.

  Although we’d kept the faith and (except for Beljo’s bullshit-factor early-morning hand grenade) we hadn’t personally been involved in the fighting, nevertheless, I felt, despite a night with only an hour’s sleep, a huge sense of relief that I’d survived. I can tell you for a start, Nicholas Duncan was beginning to seriously modify his previous gung-ho, let me at ’em, Boys’ Own Annual attitude. War was shit and I’d already had a gutful without having fired a shot.

  The marines were looking pretty tattered around the edges; they too had had almost no sleep, a great many of their officers were dead, there were no reinforcements and they were outnumbered by Japanese on a ratio of at least two or three to one. If anyone ever decries the Yanks’ ability in battle in front of me they’re likely to get an unexplained punch on the nose. The American marines, after I’d observed just one night of fighting, would always have my utmost admiration. These blokes were as good as you can get on a battlefield.

  However, the battle was far from over. With a depleted force and many of the foxholes on the ridge unmanned, the shit really hit the fan on this night, the 13th of September 1942, in a battle that would become known as ‘Bloody Ridge’.

  There is a half-light in the tropics, a short period between dusk and dark, when the eyes have to adjust, and it was precisely at this time that the Japanese attack began. Screaming, blowing whistles and banging gongs, they came out of the jungle into the small valley beyond it and started to climb the ridge. The first part of the battle was much the same as we’d recorded on the first night so I let it pass, but by ten o’clock with no moon, the tempo started to change. Wave after wave of Japs came screaming across the open valley and storming up the ridge, and in a matter of minutes they were all over our front positions. The hellish noise accompanied by the horrific sight of men locked in battle seen in the white glow of flares and star-shells, of men dying, the glint of bayonets seen in the flash of the heavy shells being fired from Henderson Field and landing in amongst the Japs, was like looking through the gates to hell.

  There were more Japanese than ever there’d been in the previous attack and they just kept coming, like ants around an ant heap before a storm. While the previous fighting was perhaps one hundred and fifty yards away from our dugout, it was now much closer and coming towards us. Then, illuminated by a burst of star-shells, a group of six, led by an officer who was brandishing a sword, broke through into our perimeter and came directly towards us. ‘Sorry about this, Colonel,’ I said into the noise, tapping Belgiovani on the shoulder and pointing to his Springfield. In moments he was crouched over his rifle firing blindly into the air with his eyes closed. In my mind I heard the little bloke’s voice: ‘I want yer ta unnerstan’, I ain’t no fuckin’ hero.’

  A single blue–white parachute flare hung in the sky and amongst the flashes of shells landing I saw that the six Japs and the bloke with the sword were still coming at us. I stepped out of the dugout to get a clear shot. I could hear Wainwright saying, ‘Now listen, boyo, this may be a submachine-gun, but it’s best used as a semi-automatic, one shot at a time. It’s an extension of your arm, laddie. Wait until the enemy is at around twenty-five yards, then it’s one in the chest and one just above the bridge of the nose — accuracy is
life. We don’t want the enemy to suffer, do we? Don’t think, just let your body and your eyes do the work.’

  I guess I fell into some sort of neutral trance. I felt nothing and seemed unaware of what I was doing. Twenty to thirty or so yards in front of me each Jap in turn seemed to be acting as if they were puppets in slow motion with the strings suddenly loosened above them — there’d be a slight check as the first Owen bullet hit them in the chest, then almost instantly a sharp snapping back of the head as the nine-millimetre slug tore into their brain, whereupon they simply collapsed. In twenty seconds all seven were dead, the whole violent few seconds punctuated by the bucking of the Owen. Some popgun!

  ‘Holy shit! Did I see that?’ I heard Belgiovani shout.

  Our position was at the base of the last knoll. Quite how the battle had skewed toward us I can’t say, but now the marines fell back and took up new positions, jumping into empty foxholes around us. I don’t know how you know these things, you simply do; perhaps it’s because you sense you have only moments to live, but I instinctively knew that this was close to being the last stand. There were no officers amongst the marines — they were probably all dead — and with one lousy pip I held the senior rank in that part of the battlefield.

  I emptied my magazine at a group of Japs, breaking up their charge. One of them got through and I didn’t see him coming at me in a furious bayonet charge until almost too late. My magazine being empty, I dropped the Owen in great haste and reached down to my ankle and slid my dagger out of its sheath. What happened next was a story that was to grow out of all proportion in the next few days. But Wainwright had been correct — the way the Jap was charging at me, he was as good as ‘fookin’ dead’. The whetstone had done its work. Pivoting sideways and using my left hand, I grabbed his Arisaka rifle behind the long bayonet and pulled him off balance and towards me. The commando dagger sliced into him just above the belt, a rounded lightning slash, and then I pushed slightly upwards so that his entrails would spill onto the ground; using his momentum as he started to pivot over my hip, I withdrew the blade a fraction and then ripped it up under his sternum to shred his heart. The only sound from the Jap was a small surprised gasp. He was dead before he hit the ground. Jumping back into the dugout I realised that I was shaking. At the time I couldn’t have explained how I felt precisely, but I later realised it was a mixture of adrenalin, fear and disgust. But I have to be honest and confess that I also felt a fierce exhilaration. There is something very personal about killing a man with a knife and I was to learn that one never quite gets over it — those four seconds would haunt me all my life. I would also always remember the peculiar coppery smell, mixed with cordite, where the Japanese soldier’s blood had soaked my jungle greens.

  ‘Jesus, Harry H. Truman! Did I also see that?’ Belgiovani cried. Later several marines claimed to have witnessed the incident and swore they hadn’t seen a knife and that I’d ripped out the Jap’s entrails with my bare hands.

  But there was no time to dwell on anything except the battle. The next group of what was to seem like a never-ending wave of Japanese was coming at us, illuminated by the flares that festooned the ridge. Changing magazines on the Owen, I joined the stygian chorus of deafening small-arms fire that was cutting down the Japs. But still they came. During the remainder of the night I fired nearly all of the three hundred rounds I’d lugged into our dugout. As the pale light of dawn (a hackneyed phrase, I know!) finally arrived we realised that the Japs were retreating, although by no means in an orderly manner. They’d turned their backs on us and were running down the slope, many dropping their weapons on the way. The marines surged out of their foxholes and chased after them. I’m ashamed to say I was amongst them. What followed was a frenzy of killing, but we were halted short of the valley fronting the jungle by the snarl, the roar, of aero engines as our fighters swept low over the ridge, strafing the frantically retreating enemy. They were closely followed by bombers who dropped high explosives on the periphery of the jungle and beyond. We would later learn that a further six hundred enemy had been killed as they attempted to flee and hide in the jungle.

  It was sunrise on the 14th of September and the ridge was still ours and so was Henderson Field. Belgiovani had declined to join us in the mayhem and slaughter that ensued, but I was later to learn that he had instead grabbed the microphone and yelled into the wire recorder his own version of my personal battle with the ‘popgun’ and a knife.

  All around me marines lay dead, slumped over their Springfield rifles. I couldn’t help wondering how many of them might be alive if they’d been trained by Sergeant Major Wainwright in the use of the Owen submachine-gun together with ‘the right extra, your own personal addition’ resting snug within a canvas sheath inside a high-top boot.

  We were young. We had survived. We had held our ground. We were warriors. The Battle of Bloody Ridge was over. It would take its place in the code of valour, be writ large in the annals of the mighty American marines: ‘Semper Fidelis — Always Faithful’.

  I was filthy, drop-dead weary, but unscathed and, better still, alive. The enemy had finally been broken; those who hadn’t been killed by the air attack died of their wounds or starvation in the jungle. The Japanese were only able to land on the beaches by night and had barely sufficient food for the healthy and the courageous, and they weren’t going to waste it on the wounded or cowardly.

  Bloody Ridge had been a near thing — sometimes only a handful of yards and a few minutes of hand-to-hand fighting around the last knoll and several other points along the ridge separated defeat from victory. Once they’d got over the ridge it would have been virtually impossible to stop the Japs reaching and regaining Henderson Field. No force can adequately mount an offensive running backwards. If Henderson had fallen and returned to Japanese control, it would have had disastrous results for the Americans and their allies in the Pacific. With this airfield and the others they’d built, the Japanese could effectively block supplies coming by ship from the west coast of America and Australia. Henderson was the key to the master lock. They had to have it under their control.

  I was frantically writing. I’d done zero commentary notes and I was trying to catch up and make sense of the night while enjoying a brew-up, in this instance a cup of java, when Belgiovani, who’d barely had his helmet above ground level throughout both nights, suddenly stood and snapped to attention. ‘Brass, Nick,’ he called out of the corner of his mouth. I looked up to see Colonel Edson and a group of officers about ten yards in front of the dugout with a marine captain pointing to one of the dead Japs who littered the slope in front of us and then at another and a third until they all began inspecting the corpses. I slung my Owen in the required fashion over my shoulder and stood beside Humpy Dumpty and saluted. Time passed, maybe a minute or so, with the two of us standing to rigid attention saluting and not being noticed. It must have been a funny sight, Belgiovani no more than five feet five inches and almost as wide as he was high, the walls of the dugout coming to the middle of his chest, and me at six foot three. Both of us were filthy, my face black from cordite and the mud and shit the shells had thrown up at us. Edson finally looked up and replied to our salute. ‘Easy,’ he said, then gestured for us to come closer.

  The same captain who’d originally pointed at a dead Jap came up to Colonel Edson. ‘Twenty-eight, sir. There may be more, all have a third eye.’

  Edson looked up at me. ‘Lieutenant, how do you explain that all the dead Japanese have a bullet hole in the forehead just above the nose?’

  Before I could open my mouth to answer, the battle-hardened midget from Brooklyn blurted out, ‘Nick here, sir — I mean, Lieutenant Duncan, sir, he just stood outside the dugout and hit ’em wid his popgun — Owen, sir. He bagged seven in unner twenty seconds.’ Still not letting up, he pointed to the Jap who’d lost his guts. ‘He done dat wid a knife, right up close. Jes’ before I was about to be bayoneted, sir,’ he announced, giving me the gratu
itous credit for saving his fat little life.

  Colonel Edson eyed my Owen gun. ‘Give me a look at that, son.’ I unslung the Owen, handing it to him. He opened the breech, then looked up. ‘You’ve cleaned this already this morning,’ he noted.

  ‘Yes, sir, they’d have my guts for garters if I hadn’t — er, I mean, that’s the way we’re trained, sir.’

  The officers all laughed. ‘Guts for garters, eh? Nice way of putting it, Lieutenant,’ Edson said. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Duncan, sir.’

  ‘That’s not a marine uniform you’re wearing?’

  ‘No, sir — Australian.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Intelligence radio, you’re with Colonel Woon.’ He indicated the Owen. ‘Does he know about this? Did you have his authority to use it?’

  I was in the deep do-do. ‘Sir, your marines regrouped around us; they had no officer, sir.’ I gave an almost imperceptible shrug.