Part 11 (1/2)

”Why?”

”Head.”

”Make it quick.”

Adams pulled himself up out of the foxhole, one hand already on the buckle of his belt. He waited for the silence to return, knew there were eyes in the dark, that he was probably a dull shadow to the men close by, every one of them nervous, their weapons ready for any kind of deception.

He crawled to the hole, knew it wasn't deep, but the urgency was getting worse, and he pulled at the belt, was startled by m.u.f.fled footsteps, saw a shadow in front of him, moving quickly. What the h.e.l.l? Somebody using this hole? Wait a d.a.m.n minute! The shadow had moved away from him, but then came the sound of a stumble, a startled cry in one of the foxholes. The shouts were loud, a scream cutting through the darkness. Adams stayed frozen, low on his knees, strained to see, heard a shot, a flash of fire coming from the next foxhole. He was blinded, but he knew that the shot would bring more, a lot more, and made a fast crawl, tumbled down onto Welty, who cried out as well.

”What? What's going on?”

The struggle continued nearby, and now another cry, shouts again, another shot from farther across the field, and then the chaos began, flashes of fire from every direction. Adams pulled hard on Welty's s.h.i.+rt, tried to right himself, Welty fighting him off, and then a hard whisper, ”Pull your K-bar!”

The shooting stopped, shouts from the lieutenant, others, and Adams felt for the knife, unsheathed it, his heart exploding, held the knife close to his chest, stared up into the darkness, waiting for whatever was coming. Welty was crouched low, motionless, and Adams wanted to get to his own knees, but there was no room, and there could be no sound. After a long moment, a voice broke the silence, Porter.

”Whose foxhole?”

”Yablonski here! Son of a b.i.t.c.h fell in on us! We got him! Gridley's hurt!”

Adams heard a low curse from Porter, and the lieutenant said, ”Bad?”

”No! Stuck me. I stuck him back!”

Adams knew Gridley's voice, deep, thunderous. Yablonski said, ”Got a cloth on it. Shoulder! Can't see!”

”No lights. I'm coming up! Corpsman!”

”Here! Lollygag!”

Adams eased his head up, heard the scamper of boots, a shadow rus.h.i.+ng toward Yablonski's foxhole. There were low voices now, another shadow from behind them, and Adams thought, the corpsman. Around Gridley's foxhole the men lay flat, no profile. Adams heard a hard groan from the big man, the talk around them low, intense. There were whispers in every direction, every man up, focused, searching the dark. One man crawled away from Yablonski's hole, disappeared into the dark, and now the other man, a low slither to the front, and Adams knew it had to be Porter. The pa.s.swords came now, each man making his way back to his own place, no other sounds. Ferucci called out, several yards to Adams's right.

”How bad?”

The voice that responded was deep and furious, Gridley.

”Bayonet in my shoulder! Son of a b.i.t.c.h just dropped on us. He's lying out here, next to the hole! We stuck him good, both of us. Got his stinking blood all over me.”

”Shut up! If there's one, there's more!”

”Quiet! Stay sharp!”

The streaks of fire came now, white tracers, scattered, a flurry high above, some lower, ripping into the ground. Adams had rolled to his knees, kept his head below ground level, saw a line of blue-white light directly overhead, fading quickly, and Welty said, ”j.a.p tracers!”

No one spoke, the machine gun fire coming from far away, different from the woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping. Adams knew from the briefings it had to be the heavier pieces, something close to the fifty caliber. Welty whispered, ”This is good! No infiltrators now. They wouldn't fire if they had a squad of guys out here crawling around. As long as they keep this up, we can get some sleep.”

Adams stared at him in the dark, saw faint reflections from the tracers, Welty pulling himself down into the corner of the foxhole. And then the firing stopped. There was no sound at all for a long minute, every man waiting for what might happen next. Adams had forgotten the problems in his gut, the cramped misery replaced by the sudden reality. That j.a.p was ... right here. He could have come into our hole ... probably would have. Stay alert, dammit! Welty was sitting again, a low whisper.

”d.a.m.n them anyway. I need some sleep.”

Adams eased his head up, trained his eyes on the terrain, tried to recall the familiar lumps and bulges of the low brush. Out in front of the foxhole, something seemed to move, a larger bulge, something new, and he reached for Welty's arm, missed, and out front came a sharp thump. He brought the rifle up, and now the darkness was blasted by a flash of fire, a thunderous explosion. All around them M-1s responded, and Adams closed his eyes, blinded, fired once, Welty doing the same, then Welty's hand on his arm, pulling him down again.

”j.a.p grenade! Stay down.”

The streaks of fire came all across the field, more shouts, farther away.

”Got him! Got him!”

”Shut up! Cease fire!”

Again the firing died down, the panic pa.s.sing. Ferucci shouted, ”Grenade! Anybody hit?”

”Just missed us here!”

Adams knew now what the thump had been, the one part of the briefings that the veterans had repeated often. j.a.panese grenades were primed by a hard knock straight against the fuse, j.a.panese soldiers usually knocking them against a rock, or their own helmets. He leaned close to Welty, said, ”I heard it!”

Welty said nothing, and Adams felt the familiar s.h.i.+vering, spreading out from inside his gut, his hands gripping the M-1. He rose up again with Welty, stared hard into the darkness, his night vision coming back, could smell the explosives, the dust. Welty tugged on his arm again, startling him.

”I can hear your teeth chattering. Sit. Keep the K-bar out. There could be more of them. They jump in here, cut 'em hard and fast!”

Adams obeyed, felt a strange calm from Welty, the mild-mannered man now taking charge. He s.h.i.+fted himself against the bottom of the foxhole, heard voices, the sergeant, the lieutenant, communicating in single words.

”Hurt?”

”None.”

”Morning.”

Adams translated, thought, we'll see what the h.e.l.l happened in the morning. G.o.d, Gridley's hurt. We need his BAR. Somebody else will have to carry it. Maybe he's not too bad.

He gripped the K-bar knife hard in his left hand, kept it pointing upward, his right hand resting on the trigger guard of the M-1. The questions rolled through his brain. How many more? They gonna do this all night? Maybe we should shoot every now and then. What happens if they get the lieutenant? He stared ahead into black dark, glanced down toward Welty, could barely make out the shape of the man curled up beside him. He stared out again into the darkness, his brain working, feverish, every man in the platoon asking the same questions.

APRIL 13, 1945.

DAWN.

There had been no sleep for Adams, the night creeping past in an agonizing torrent of images, waking nightmares that skipped through his mind, scenes of blood and death, questions of what they would see in the light. The darkness had been alive with motion, his imagination playing terrifying games, dancing figures in the dark, small brush suddenly running away, then there again, unmoving. With the first hint of gray, he had cursed anxiously at the darkness to go away, felt desperate relief as the ground revealed itself. His vision increased by the minute and by the foot, finally to where Yablonski and Gridley lay, then farther, a dull shadow taking shape, more, until the images were no longer just in his mind. Beside Yablonski's foxhole lay the dead soldier, blood all through his uniform, Yablonski's manic work with the knife more efficient than it needed to be. In front of Adams lay another j.a.panese body, no more than twenty yards away. With more daylight the man's dark form took shape, and Adams could see that the man had no head, everything above his shoulders a b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s of shredded cloth and skin. On both sides helmets were rising up, the rest of the platoon taking it in, the daylight erasing the nightmares. To the left, out in front of the next squad, he saw a third body, bareheaded, lying faceup, his arms twisted in some bizarre contortion, as though the man had tried to tie himself in a knot.

”n.o.body move. Stay down in your d.a.m.n holes! Remember those machine guns!”

The men to that side obeyed their sergeant's command, even the most curious settling back into the ground. The talk began now.

”We got 'em!”