Part 21 (2/2)

”We don't have shotguns, sir. The army is blessed with the best weapons, and my boys are fighting it out with knives. I'm hoping you'll allow us this one luxury, sir.”

The officer appraised Mortensen, seemed to appreciate his age.

”Your company get pretty chewed up, then?”

Mortensen didn't miss a beat.

”Lost most of the company, sir. Trying to do what we can with replacements. You know how that goes. Pretty tough sledding with these new kids they're sending over.”

The older man nodded, still appraising.

”All right, Captain. Tell Lieutenant Moseby to give you what you need. Won't be any paperwork problems on this end.”

”Thank you, sir.”

”You get your new company together, well, give 'em h.e.l.l up there. Just ... next time, stick to your own depot. You're drawing flies.”

”Absolutely, sir.”

The lieutenant returned, a clipboard in his hand, three shotguns slung on his shoulder, several belts of sh.e.l.ls. He saw the older officer, said, ”Major, I was going to get this requisition signed ...”

”Sign it yourself, Lieutenant. Just get these stinking b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of here.”

”That major thought you were a captain? h.e.l.l, Sarge, you can go to the stockade for impersonating an officer!”

”I didn't impersonate anybody. He just a.s.sumed. Sometimes a little gray hair is an a.s.set.”

Adams sat back, s.h.i.+fted on the hard seat, tried to find some angle that didn't hurt. They had hitched a ride with a truck carrying army and civilian aid workers, the kind of people who wouldn't have any idea where three Marines were actually supposed to be. Adams examined the shotgun in between his knees, saw concern on the faces across from him, tried not to appear too menacing. Beside him Mortensen fingered his own shotgun, said to a man straight across, ”Blows h.e.l.l out of anything in close range. Kills j.a.ps by the dozen. Best d.a.m.n weapon man ever invented. You oughta see the guts.”

Adams tried to avoid the horror on those who stared at them, wondered just what aid workers were hoping to do, thought, the best aid we can give the Okies is if we kill every d.a.m.n j.a.p on this island. Okies oughta appreciate that, for sure. He slid open the breech of the pump shotgun, had watched the sergeant load his, a great show of expertise, obviously impressing the aid workers, if not injecting them with a bit more fear. Adams did the same, sliding the fat sh.e.l.ls into the magazine, then one into the chamber, thought, five. That's not too many. I kinda like eight better.

He had no idea why Mortensen had wanted shotguns at all, and even now with the heavy piece in his hand, he wasn't sure why it was any better than the M-1, or Mortensen's Thompson. But the sergeant showed perfect certainty, and Adams had accepted Mortensen's authority, as much as he had respected Ferucci. Just like Welty, Mortensen was a longtime veteran, and from the grim efficiency in the man's authority, Adams a.s.sumed the sergeant had seen and done more than anyone in the platoon, maybe the company. He didn't actually know that, of course, but he understood what that supply officer had seen, why the major had a.s.sumed Mortensen to be a company commander. Yep, a little gray hair goes a long way. There's a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of us that ain't making it that far. Mortensen was a graphic contrast to the replacements, the men who came forward with what seemed to be utter brainlessness, an affliction apparent even in the new lieutenants. In the same truck, four of those men sat in the rear, two across, crisp new army uniforms, the faces of panicked children. They wore the insignia of their units, something any veteran sergeant would immediately rip away when they reached their destination. Their boots were even s.h.i.+nier than Adams's, one man a sergeant, his stripes newly sewn onto a jacket that had never seen the outdoors. Beside Adams, Mortensen seemed to share his thoughts, leaned forward, said, ”Any of you boys shave yet?”

They tried to respond by haughty silence, as though their training made them seasoned, too grizzled for such abuse. But one of them broke ranks, stared at the filthy uniforms of Mortensen and Welty, said, ”Marines, huh? I hear you boys had it kinda rough. How many j.a.ps you kill?”

The voice betrayed the man's age, and Adams guessed, seventeen, if that old. Mortensen sat back, ignored the man, Welty keeping silent as well.

”Maybe you haven't killed any? That it? Might explain why you're riding up to the line. They grab you for running away? Heard Marines don't like it when their own s.h.a.g a.s.s.”

Adams stared at the sneer on the chalky face, the sound of snottiness in his voice. Something cold and nasty suddenly rolled over in Adams's brain, the man not even looking at him, focused more on the men with the dirty uniforms. He thinks I'm just like him, Adams thought. Clean uniform, so I'm one of them, another man who thinks he knows everything, who thinks he knows ... the thoughts were overrun by his anger, and he slammed the shotgun down between his knees, said, ”Listen, you little t.u.r.d. We've all killed j.a.ps. We're not done killing j.a.ps. If I can, I'll kill every d.a.m.n j.a.p on this island, and when I'm done, I'll go to j.a.pan and kill every d.a.m.n one there. Those sons of b.i.t.c.hes killed my sergeant, they killed my lieutenant, and they killed half my company. I killed one with my knife. I blew one up with a grenade, and they nearly did the same to me. They dumped mortar sh.e.l.ls on me until I couldn't take it anymore, but I'm taking it anyway! I'm going back up there because my buddies need me, they need every d.a.m.n one of us who knows what it takes to kill j.a.ps! You hear me?”

He was shouting now, ignored the hand pulling on his arm, tried to stand in the rolling truck, fought the grip from Mortensen, the sergeant silent, pulling him back to the seat. But the words wouldn't stop, the four replacements leaning back away from him, obvious fear. Adams pulled free of Mortensen's grip, leaned closer to the man with the att.i.tude, the att.i.tude erased completely.

”I've seen them kill people I've known since training, and I've seen them kill corpsmen and stretcher bearers ... I've seen them kill an Okie girl ...”

He began to stammer, and Mortensen grabbed his arm again, yanked him down hard, and Welty was in front of him, kneeling, shouted into his face.

”Shut up! You hear me? Shut up! You wanna go back to that d.a.m.n white-sheet place? You crack up on me again and I'll take you there myself. You see that shotgun?”

Welty waited for the answer, and Adams tried to hold back the shaking in his chest, his hands, nodded.

”Look at it!”

Adams obeyed, stared at the cold steel, the fat barrel pointing skyward, the belt of ammo across his chest. Welty grabbed the shotgun, shoved it hard into Adams's chest.

”You know why we wanted these things? 'Cause they work! We got a job to do, and you already know that those j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.ds wanna make it easy for us, they wanna walk right up to us and stick a grenade down our throats. We have to kill every one of these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, every one! Right?”

”Yeah.”

”I said, right?”

Adams felt the hard grip on his arm, Mortensen still holding him, hard fingers digging into the barely healed wound on his arm. Adams felt the pain, wouldn't flinch, saw Welty still staring at him, hard and cold, the same hint of madness he had seen in the others. Adams understood now, they've gotta know. Am I gonna crack up again? I've gotta know. His hands gripped hard to the shotgun, and he realized that what Mortensen said was true, that Welty was right. The shotgun had one purpose. At close range it could blow a man to pieces and take out a half-dozen j.a.ps behind him.

Welty's voice rose, closer to Adams's face.

”You talk like a tough guy, but I'm telling you, I want more than talk outta you! We're gonna kill every one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Right?”

Adams saw the fury in Welty's red eyes, his friend searching him, a frightening urgency. He felt it now, that they needed to hear they could count on him, that Adams was still ready for the fight. He jerked the shotgun from Welty's hands, knew that Welty shared the memories, the death and the stink, but one memory was Adams's alone, and he embraced it now, that one dismal day, vivid and pure, digging his knife into the throat of the j.a.panese soldier, the head rolling away, the fountain of blood. He could smell the man's blood still, would always smell it, and for the first time he knew he had to have more, that the hate and the pain were part of the men beside him, part of everything he had become. It was why he had to leave the hospital, why the doctors had allowed him back on the line. If he was nuts at all it was because that kind of nuts was what they needed from him. He had to go back, he had to fight. He returned Welty's stare, no emotion, no fear, the words coming out as perfect truth.

”I wanna kill every d.a.m.n one.”

On June 4, the Sixth Division's commanding general, Lemuel Shepherd, was finally allowed to embark on the kind of mission his men were suited for. Coming in from the sea, the Fourth and Twenty-ninth regiments struck the Oroku Peninsula and tore into the defenses that the j.a.panese naval troops had thought were invincible. Inland, the Twenty-second Regiment served both as reserve and as the cutoff force, moving into what was left of the city of Naha, sealing off the base of the peninsula against any escape for the j.a.panese forces who now faced seaward. After four days of slogging through intermittent rain and stifling heat, the two regiments succeeded in driving through the j.a.panese and secured the vital airfield west of the city. But the fight had been difficult, the naval troops putting up a more solid defense than even Us.h.i.+jima had expected. But the end had been inevitable, even if the Marines'casualties were, once again, brutally high. As a fitting conclusion to the battle, with the Oroku Peninsula securely in Marine hands, Admiral Ota did what he was expected to do. With Marine gunners zeroing in on his headquarters, Ota denied the Marines the privilege of capturing the senior naval officer on Okinawa. The admiral committed suicide.

To the south, what remained of Us.h.i.+jima's army had mostly dug into the heights of the Kiyan Peninsula, and the delay from General Buckner in driving the American forces southward had been brief, much briefer than Us.h.i.+jima had antic.i.p.ated. The two army divisions now in the line, the Seventh and the Ninety-sixth, pressed from the east, allowing the battered Seventy-seventh to pull back for a rest and refit. In the center and right, the Marine First Division drove straight at the defensive positions, and with a more narrow front to contend with, the more compact Americans rolled into yet another slogging fight against high ground, a frontal a.s.sault that drove the casualty counts high on both sides. Once Oroku was secure, the Sixth Marines moved down the western coast, moving into position on the right flank of the First Division. But the losses on the Oroku Peninsula meant that all three of the Sixth's regiments were so badly chewed up, they could not a.s.sist their brethren with the force everyone hoped for. Thus for the Sixth, the front for the last great a.s.sault was narrowed even more, the Marines once more shoving southward along the coast.

”Well, whatya know? Things must be worse than they're telling us. They're sending crack-ups back out here.”

Yablonski spoke from inside a foxhole, rose up, Adams staring at him with a weary fatigue, thought, some things never change.

”Yeah. They figure the guys up here ain't pulling the load, so they're sc.r.a.ping the barrel to find guys like me. You rather have a bunch of moron replacements?”

Mortensen had moved up behind him, said, ”Speaking of ... replacements. Over there, our new lieutenant, Gibson. Go report to him, let him know who you are, that you're with me. You wanna fight so d.a.m.n bad, show off the shotgun. Once we move out, you'll be put right up front.”

Yablonski perked up, climbed from the foxhole, his mouth stuffed with a chocolate bar.

”You got a shotgun?” He caught the weapon in Mortensen's hand as well, said, ”Dammit! You didn't bring more? Come on, Sarge, that's the best d.a.m.n weapon out here.”

Mortensen ignored him, and Yablonski saw Welty now, eyed the third piece.

”Oh, for G.o.d's sake. That's all it takes, haul your a.s.ses back to some cushy hospital and they give you a reward? h.e.l.l, I'm going AWOL first chance I get. You girls know how to use that thing? The sucker kicks, might hurt your shoulder, you know. You need a man to handle it for you?”

Mortensen turned, moved closer to Yablonski, towered over the man, said, ”This girl knows exactly what to do with it, and if you get in my way, I'll give you a lesson you won't like. You hear me? Now shut the h.e.l.l up! All of you! Let's move out. We got a job to do.”

Adams followed the others, had no idea what the orders had been, where they were going. Down at the far end of a bare field a pair of jeeps were parked end to end, a half-dozen men gathered, the familiar scene, a map spread on one jeep's hood. Captain Bennett was speaking to several other men, and Adams noticed one man with his hands on his hips, staring out at the Marines as they moved past. Beyond the jeeps were four big trucks, s.h.i.+rtless men unloading crates. Adams had seen those crates before, thought, grenades. I guess it's time to load up. He looked again at the cl.u.s.ter of men around the jeep, the one man still watching the procession, the att.i.tude of the man in charge. Adams slid closer to Welty, said, ”Who's that? You know?”

Welty whispered, ”h.e.l.l, I guess you ain't heard. Sometime during the fight over Sugar Loaf, Colonel Schneider got relieved by General Shepherd. Word came back that Schneider had kinda fallen apart up there, wasn't doing the job. Scuttleb.u.t.t said that the big bra.s.s had to find somebody to blame for us taking so long to capture the place, and I guess Schneider didn't have too many friends. That guy over there's Colonel Roberts. He's the regimental CO now. I hear he's a pretty good joe.” Welty paused, both men joining the flow toward the trucks. ”You saw a bunch of it, Clay, but sure as h.e.l.l, it didn't get much better after we pulled you out. A bunch of the bra.s.s never made it off the hill. The other units got busted up as bad as we did. Lots of new lieutenants now. And I heard that a bunch of ninety-day wonders got busted up on Oroku, hadn't been on the line for more than a couple days. The Twenty-ninth and the Fourth both took a lot of damage. We lost more guys than I want to know about. Be happy we got gathered up by the sarge. Mortensen's a good guy, even if he tries too hard to be a bada.s.s. Right now I wouldn't trust anybody in clean boots.” He glanced at Adams. ”Well, h.e.l.l, you know what I mean.”

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