Part 7 (2/2)

”Got him! By G.o.d, I got him!”

Ferucci pursued him, others as well, a ma.s.s of men moving out from their positions. Adams was drawn with them, Welty following, a quick dash across to the plane. Officers were there now, calling the men back, one older man stepping forward, kneeling at the body.

”I'll be a son of a b.i.t.c.h.”

The officer stood, moved to the plane, said aloud, ”Well, we didn't shoot it down, but I'd say you boys nailed your first j.a.p Zero.”

Lieutenant Porter moved out close to the older man, said, ”Sir, what the h.e.l.l was he doing?”

The older officer glanced at Porter, and he shrugged, laughed, looked out to the sea of faces who gathered in a tight circle around the plane and its desperately unfortunate pilot.

”Lieutenant, it's happened in every army that's ever fought. There's always some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d who doesn't get the word.”

They had tried to sleep, Adams unnerved by the intermittent rattling from distant machine gun fire, the occasional thump of artillery. But sleep did come, both men in their foxhole finally unwinding from the amphibious landing. Welty had been fidgety, and just before dawn, when the low growling call came from Ferucci, Adams was jolted awake to see Welty digging through his own backpack, as though he had not slept at all.

Their breakfasts had been quick and awful, the K rations a poor subst.i.tute for the relative luxury of the chow on board the transport s.h.i.+p. As Adams checked his M-1, the routine from the training, Welty had gone out to fill the canteens. Ferucci had called them up out of the foxholes with a sharp curse, and there had been no time for anything but a brief latrine call, men lining up impatiently at a shallow slit trench. The slower men had to handle nature's call out on the march.

They moved out at the first hint of daylight, the various companies flowing northward on the network of roads that led through the smaller villages and farmlands, every piece of ground offering some kind of cover that could disguise a j.a.panese machine gun nest. The navy recon planes had provided information on a scattering of j.a.panese positions, the carrier pilots spotting gun emplacements in the hills, most of them tucked into hiding places that no one might find until the guns had done their job. The experienced pilots had come to expect what they saw now, that the j.a.panese had positioned the larger artillery pieces on railway tracks, or flattened roadbeds, which allowed the guns to fire, then be withdrawn back into caves. The spotters might note the position, but before a Corsair or a naval gunner could zero in, the gun would disappear straight back into the mountain.

It was the same with the j.a.panese troop positions. All along the low mountain ridges that ran to the northern tip of the island, recon showed troops in motion, but only glimpses. There were no large-scale troop movements, no great ma.s.ses of trenches where the j.a.panese seemed prepared to make a stand. The senior commanders could only vent their frustration at the intelligence officers, since no one could accurately count just how many enemy troops were on the northern half of the island. And even when people were located, there was never complete certainty that they weren't just Okinawan civilians, working their fields, tending to what remained of the normalcy of their everyday lives. As had happened around the airbases inland from the landing beaches, it appeared that most of the carefully constructed defensive works had been blasted to rubble and splinters by naval and air force bombardment. Driving northward, some of the Marines stumbled into pockets of resistance, a carefully hidden enemy who could emerge from uncountable holes in the brush and rocky hillsides. The fights were often brief, but the j.a.panese had every advantage. All the Marines could do was what their commanders insisted: keep going, shoving the j.a.panese back until the enemy had no choice but to give up that part of the island.

They spent their second day expanding their beachhead, and then expanding it again. Every road became a line of march, the Marines making dusty treks through scrub brush and rocky fields. The fears had begun to subside, the attacks from j.a.panese snipers or the occasional machine gun nest surprisingly rare. There had been casualties, of course, Adams hearing the manic call for a corpsman from up in front of them, two men wounded as they slipped through a gap in the cover. Others had found enemy soldiers in the small villages, the j.a.panese troops scampering away at the approach of the men in the green uniforms. Shots were exchanged, outbursts of fire that accomplished little for either side. As the second day drew to a close, Adams began to wonder if the j.a.panese were looking for a fight at all. The fatigue of the daylong march brought weary, dreamlike exhaustion, Adams fighting the sweat in his eyes, the canteens emptying more quickly than anyone wanted. They stayed mostly on the roads, keeping to the ditches, hundreds of men who followed the lines on a map that someone else had drawn. They were far ahead of the schedule for the a.s.sault, and if the Marines didn't know much about that, the men back on the s.h.i.+ps did. On the beaches where the men had come ash.o.r.e, the heavy equipment had followed, continued to follow. The tanks and artillery pieces were already lining the roadways away from the beaches, jeeps and amphtracs ferrying officers inland to their newly established field headquarters. Radio tents had gone up, kitchens and mess stations created, while the heavy equipment of the Seabees was already at work repairing and lengthening the runways on the abandoned airfields that would soon serve the fleets of B-29s and their fighter escorts.

With the second night approaching, the Marines knew the routine, and the shovels had come out once more, the holes dug in the brutal rockiness. While the j.a.panese had not shown their intentions, the officers who led the Marines had grown more itchy by the hour. There had been too much intel, too much recon, and too many reports of just how valuable this island was to the j.a.panese and their military. As Adams worked his shovel into the cracking coral, he had questions of his own. It had come to him on the march, aching legs supporting tired bodies, dreamy gazes where the hillsides opened up toward the strands of beaches to the west, soft surf, dotted only by the vast armada of American s.h.i.+ps that lay offsh.o.r.e. The hills had been mostly quiet, as though the occasional j.a.panese soldier was just an angry tourist, annoyed that these Marines had trespa.s.sed into his private piece of solitude. The weariness in Adams's steps had gone from painful drudgery to annoyance. As the shovel bounced painfully against the coral, the foxhole inching deeper far too slowly, his curiosity had become anger. He thought of the maps he had studied in San Diego, the enormity of the Pacific, so many islands, some of them so terribly vital, some of them completely ignored. Who figures that out, he thought. Which j.a.p general decided which ones he needed, and which ones he didn't? And back in Guam and Hawaii ... all of those men in their offices, with their plans and committees and secretaries, the men who never dirtied their hands. What if this is one of those incredibly stupid mistakes, another one of those screw-ups that made me a clerk? He wanted to ask Ferucci, but he knew the sergeant wouldn't know any more than the rest of them. But still the question burned, the same question he had asked on the roadway. So d.a.m.n much ocean ... so d.a.m.n many islands. Is anybody sure if this is really Okinawa?

By the third day, American Marines and infantry had divided Okinawa in half and had easily captured the two primary airfields in the island's center. The invasion continued ahead of schedule, the First and Sixth Marine divisions moving northward, the army's Seventh and Ninety-sixth divisions moving south. On Kerama Retto, the cl.u.s.ter of islands off Okinawa's southwestern sh.o.r.e, the Seventy-seventh Division held its position securely while the airfield there was made usable for American aircraft. As the invasion had begun, the Second Marine Division had made a feint on the island's east side, an attempt to draw j.a.panese attention away from the primary a.s.sault. Now the Second was back on the transport s.h.i.+ps, a floating reserve. The army had its own reserve, the Twenty-seventh Infantry Division, waiting as well. No one in the American command had any precise idea when or if those reserves would be sent ash.o.r.e. None of the intel reports had given General Buckner any specific idea how many j.a.panese troops were still dug into the caves and man-made tunnels beneath Okinawa's hills.

The Marines began to focus on j.a.panese positions on the Motobu Peninsula, which jutted seaward to the west, reports coming in from the recon patrols that the j.a.panese had dug in a considerable garrison there. While some of the Marines would attack the peninsula, others would continue to press northward, driving whatever resistance they found straight up toward the island's northern edge. In the south the army would press against resistance there, with a goal of capturing the island's capital city, Naha, as well as what General Buckner's intelligence officers a.s.sumed to be a strong defensive line that ran from the capital across the island to the historic Shuri Castle. The castle sat on a prominent knoll, geographically perfect for a stout j.a.panese defense. Despite the ease of landing sixty thousand troops on the first day of the invasion, and tens of thousands in the days that followed, not even the most confident American commander believed the j.a.panese would simply hand the island to the Americans with a courteous bow.

9. ADAMS.

WESTERN Sh.o.r.e, OKINAWA.

APRIL 5, 1945.

”We're missing all the d.a.m.n fun, you know. I didn't sign up to be a house inspector. This is just another d.a.m.n ghost town.”

”Shut up! Go around to the side. There's a window.”

Yablonski obeyed, and Ferucci looked back at Adams, said with a hard whisper, ”Get ready!”

Adams had done this too many times to be nervous, hoisted his rifle up to his waist, pointed at the rough wooden door. The others scattered out to one side, Gridley dropping to his knees, Gorman beside him, the BAR aimed at the door. Ferucci raised one foot, pushed slightly against the door, testing, then glanced back again, nodded, and shoved hard. The door opened, Ferucci shouldering his rifle, a quick scan inside, then he backed away, said, ”Go!”

Adams moved past him, Welty close behind. They saw Yablonski at the window, a smirk on the man's face, no whisper now.

”Well? You see any treasure? A j.a.p division maybe hiding under that bamboo thing?”

Adams ignored him, knew the routine, poked his rifle into a pile of some kind of clothing, saw a small cloth sack in one corner of what seemed to be a primitive kitchen. He opened the sack with the muzzle of the M-1, saw sweet potatoes, scanned the kitchen for anything of interest, nothing but crude utensils, one copper pot.

”Nothing here.”

Welty moved quickly into the other room of the two-room house, a quick shout, ”Ah! Hey! Stop! Don't move! Sarge!”

Adams jumped toward the doorway, saw Welty pointing his M-1 downward, aimed at two old women, seated together in a corner, wedged against the crude wall by the side of a straw-covered cot. The sergeant was there quickly, pushed Adams aside.

”Well, somebody lives here. Howdy do, ladies. Sorry to bother you, but we're supposed to be looking for j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You got any around here?”

Adams could see stark terror on the women's faces, one holding feeble hands up over her head, a pathetic show of self-protection, both women shaking, a mumble of words Adams thought to be a prayer. But there was more, the smell rising over him, thick and sour, and he backed away, said, ”Come on, Sarge. Just old ladies.”

Ferucci shook his head.

”Phew-ee. Ain't had a bath in a while, that's for sure. Well, hey there, ladies, we'll be going now. You see any j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, you be sure to let us know.” He came back past Adams, said, ”Let's go. Welty, you go tell the looey we found some Okies. Didn't look like much of a threat to me. The aid boys will wanna check 'em out though. I'm not touching them. G.o.d knows what kind of d.a.m.n tropical crud they're carrying.”

They moved back outside, and Adams glanced skyward, the clouds low and black, the wind picking up, raising the dust from the sandy ground. Welty moved away, a short walk through the cl.u.s.ter of houses, to where the lieutenant waited, sitting on an arch-shaped wall of concrete. The other squads were moving among the houses, rifles aimed into windows, more doors kicked in, no one calling out, no hint of alarm. They had been doing this for two days now, each of the small villages perched near cultivated fields, the farmers only occasionally appearing, old men mostly, primitive plows, tending to rows of short green plants.

Adams could hear the sharp rumbles to the south, the first sounds of fighting on the peninsula. The sounds had been inconsistent, nothing like anyone's idea of a pitched battle. There was mostly artillery, any rifle fire hidden by the lay of the hilly land, and now the rising winds. Adams had watched a swarm of fighter planes, twisting, banking, seeking targets along the higher hills, but even those were gone now, chased back to their s.h.i.+ps by the change in the weather. Ferucci was beside him now, said, ”Yablonski may be right. All the action's down that way. I like the looey, but this job is stupid as h.e.l.l. We ain't gonna find any j.a.ps hiding out in these places. They see us coming, they're long gone.”

Adams thought of the sack of sweet potatoes, could see out past the small houses, a patch of open ground, rows of thick green plants.

”Hey, Sarge, you sure we can't eat the crops? We could cook up some of those sweet potatoes, and I saw a bean field back a ways. If we boiled h.e.l.l out of the stuff, dumped in a handful of halazone tablets, might make a good soup.”

He knew what the order had been, the captain pa.s.sing word through the company that the vegetables were off-limits. But Adams had suspected it was just some protocol for being nice to the farmers. Ferucci was watching the others, turned to Adams, said, ”You know what night fertilizer is?”

”Well, I hadn't heard that before the captain said it.”

”People s.h.i.+t. That make it any clearer? That's what the Okies use to fertilize these fields. You still interested?”

Adams thought a moment, had seen Indians do the same thing near his home.

”Well, if we boil the vegetables ...”

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