The Final Storm (24 page)

“Lollygag.”

The sound burst through the silence, another voice responding, Ferucci.

“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 muffled footsteps, saw a shadow in front of him, moving quickly. What the hell? Somebody using this hole? Wait a damn 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 shirt, 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 bitch 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 rushing 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 passwords 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 bitch 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, “Jap tracers!”

No one spoke, the machine gun fire coming from far away, different
from the woodpecker 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 Jap was … right here. He could have come into our hole … probably would have. Stay alert, dammit! Welty was sitting again, a low whisper.

“Damn 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.

“Jap 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 passing. 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. Japanese grenades were primed by a hard knock straight against the fuse, Japanese 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 shivering, 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 shifted 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 hell happened in the morning. God, 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.

A
PRIL
13, 1945
D
AWN

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 Japanese 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 bloody mass 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.

“Nobody move. Stay down in your damn 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!”

“Hell, I got him! He was right in front of me!”

“One got himself!”

Adams settled back into the hole, sat, saw Welty doing the same, the redhead now digging into his backpack.

“Chocolate bar? I got plenty.”

“No thanks. God, did you see the one right out front? What do you think happened?”

Welty looked at him, and Adams could see the man’s face, just enough light to show the reflection of his glasses. Welty said, “Seen it before. Jap goes to throw his grenade and the fuse goes off too soon. Blew his damn head off. Their grenades must be crap.”

“Wonder where he was throwing it?”

“Don’t. Doesn’t matter.”

“I saw three dead ones. Think there were more?”

“Yep.”

Welty ripped open the cardboard of the K ration box, scattered the contents beside him. He poked, appraising, said, “God, I could use some coffee.”

Adams felt grit in his mouth, his tongue like cotton.

“I need water. My canteens are empty.”

Welty said nothing, and Adams thought, if he could spare some, he would say so. There’s gotta be a water truck or some barrels around here somewhere close.

Welty put a thick cracker in his mouth, said, “The CP’s not too far behind us. Captain will make sure we get some water.”

To one side, a voice called out.

“Holy God! Would you look at that!”

Adams heard a hoot, another man, “I’ll be! Take a look at that! She come for breakfast?”

Adams peeked up, saw the woman now, walking across the open ground, a slow march closer to the foxholes. He could see her short black hair, could tell she was young, small and thin. But he could see clearly that she was not a child. She was naked.

Other hoots came now, her audience appreciative, curious, some of the comments vulgar, and now, one man was up, moving toward her, took off his helmet, made a mock bow. The girl kept walking, closer, and Adams could see more details, her face showing nothing, staring straight ahead, doing her best to ignore the calls of the stunned men around her. Another man rose, then his buddy, crawling up from their hole, and the man waved the others back, said with authority, “Back off. We’ll wrap her up in something.”

And now one more voice above the clamor, the lieutenant.

“Get the hell away from her! Get back in your—”

The shots came now, slow and precise, single pops in the distance, the dull crack of lead as the carefully aimed shots impacted each of the men. They dropped in perfect rhythm, one by one, tumbling clumsily, helmets rolling away, motionless, the voices gone, the vulgar hoots replaced by the sounds of horror in the men who watched, surprise and fury. The girl was still there, paralyzed, standing with her eyes closed, and then there was one more shot, and Adams saw the girl collapse. He felt a hand on his arm, a hard tug, Welty yanking him into the hole.

“Get down!”

He felt queasy shock, wanted to see, and Welty rose up, kept his hand on Adams’s shoulder, holding him down.

“Snipers! Nobody’s moving.”

The order came in a manic high pitch, the voice of the lieutenant.

“Goddammit, stay put! It came from those far trees!”

Adams heard Porter’s voice again, this time low in his foxhole, and Welty said, “He’s on the walkie-talkie. We need some help. Maybe some 75s, or some tin cans. Somebody needs to blow hell out of that tree line.” Welty paused. “God bless those damn fools.”

T
he tanks rolled close, a half-dozen machines, rising up off the road, spreading into formation. Adams could smell the exhaust fumes, smoke trailing each of the Shermans, and around him the men responded, the lieutenant pulling them up from their cover, advancing them toward the distant tree lines. The men were pulled into packs close behind the tanks, natural instinct, no one objecting. Behind them the officers had gathered briefly in a shallow gully, kneeling low. Adams was close to Welty, Ferucci guiding them into line, the sergeant staring back where the officers spoke, and Adams ignored that, looked across the open ground to the cluster of bodies, the four Marines now wrapped in ponchos, only their boots protruding. The girl was there too, a piece of cloth tossed across her, someone’s gesture of decency that seemed to contradict the obscenity of what she had been made to do. Adams had stepped past her, had seen the thin legs, the prettiness of her face only partly covered. He had focused more on the stain of blood on the cloth, thought, no one volunteers for that. She’s got to be an Okie. Behind him a man moved up to the bodies, stopped, and Adams hesitated, saw his face, older, sad eyes, the man making a brief sign of the cross. Adams knew him, the chaplain, nodded toward the man, got no response, the chaplain’s attention on the bodies.

“Get moving!”

Adams turned, saw Ferucci waving at him, moved away, thought, nothing I can say … the chappy knows his job. Didn’t even know he was out here.

The services had been conducted somewhere every Sunday, even on the Sunday two weeks before when they began the invasion. Then, the chaplain had been on the ship, administering a ritual to anyone who cared for it. There had been many that day, many more than usual, and Adams had assumed that a chaplain shouldn’t cross the beach until it was secure. But the man was there now, doing his job. Adams had a curiosity about the girl, wondered if the chaplain would say something for her. Well, yeah, we’re all God’s children, all of that. She ended up as bait. Wonder what God thinks of that?

Adams saw Welty waiting for him, the tanks slowly moving away, and Adams pushed himself forward, realized the lieutenant was up beside him, moving fast, taking himself to the front of his platoon. Adams was swallowed by the exhaust, the agony in his stomach only worse, worse still by what had happened to the four Marines. He fought through the sights and
sounds, the girl, the utter shock of that, felt more angry at the men who died than the enemy. We did just what the Japs thought we’d do. We’d either ogle her and be jackasses, or we’d try to help her. Either way, we’d let down, for just a second. Who can just pretend there’s not a naked girl walking by? Smart sons of bitches. And then they were done with her. She was just … another weapon.