The Final Storm (47 page)

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 Japs 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 shag ass.”

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
turd. We’ve all killed Japs. We’re not done killing Japs. If I can, I’ll kill every damn Jap on this island, and when I’m done, I’ll go to Japan and kill every damn one there. Those sons of bitches 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 shells 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 damn one of us who knows what it takes to kill Japs! 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 attitude, the attitude 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 damn 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 Jap bastards 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 bastards, 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 Japs 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 bastards!
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 Japanese 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 damn one.”

O
n 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 Japanese 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 Japanese forces who now faced seaward. After four days of slogging through intermittent rain and stifling heat, the two regiments succeeded in driving through the Japanese 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 Ushijima 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 Ushijima’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 Ushijima had anticipated. 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 assault 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 assist their brethren with the force everyone hoped for. Thus for the Sixth, the front for the last great assault was narrowed even more, the Marines once more shoving southward along the coast.

“W
ell, 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 scraping 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 damn 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 damn weapon out here.”

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

“Oh, for God’s sake. That’s all it takes, haul your asses back to some cushy hospital and they give you a reward? Hell, 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 hell 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, shirtless men unloading crates. Adams had seen those crates before, thought, grenades. I guess it’s time to load up. He looked again at the cluster of men around the jeep, the one man still watching the procession, the attitude of the man
in charge
. Adams slid closer to Welty, said, “Who’s that? You know?”

Welty whispered, “Hell, 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. Scuttlebutt said that the big brass 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 hell, it didn’t get much better after we pulled you out. A bunch of the brass 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 badass. Right now I wouldn’t trust anybody in clean boots.” He glanced at Adams. “Well, hell, you know what I mean.”

Adams looked for a convenient mud puddle, thought, I can fix that part right away. But the land had dried out, more heat than wetness now, the sun already up over the far hills. Adams lowered his voice, said, “What do you know about ours? The new looey.”

“Gibson? Damnedest southern drawl you ever heard. Someone said he’s a VMI man, talks a lot about Stonewall Jackson. I guess we’ll find out what kind of
stone wall
he is.”

Gibson stood to one side, motioning his men toward the trucks, and Adams moved away from Welty, approached the lieutenant, knew better than to stand at attention, and though no one had heard a sniper in the area at all, Adams erased the word
sir
from his mind.

“Begging your pardon. I’m Private Adams. Sergeant Mortensen’s squad. Just got back up from the field hospital. I’m happy to be back.”

Gibson nodded, didn’t seem to really see him, said, “Fall in, Private. You do your job, I’ll do mine. Right now you need to load up on phosphorus grenades. We’ll be mopping up for the boys up front, cleaning out some caves. I want to see some dead Japs.”

Gibson was matter-of-fact, no smile, no real energy behind the words. Adams digested the word
Japs
, rolling out of Gibson’s mouth with two syllables.
Jayaps
.

“I’ll agree with that, uh …”

“Git on back to your squad. I want everybody loaded up with plenty of ordnance.”

The conversation was clearly over, and Adams slipped away, no salute, Gibson not seeming to expect one. Adams mulled over the man’s slow drawl, thought, God, if we’re under fire, I hope like hell I can understand his orders. He tried to guess Gibson’s age, thought, not as old as the sarge, that’s for sure. Hope he’s up to snuff. He searched for Welty, moved out next to him, said, “Phosphorus grenades. They’re giving us something new.”

“Not new. But nasty as hell. Best way to nail the Japs right in their hidey holes. Just don’t get any of that stuff on you. Burns right through skin, bone, everything else. Hey, we got company.”

Adams saw where Welty was pointing, a squad of men dropping down from an amphtrac, all with large tanks on their backs. Adams had seen
plenty of those before, thought, flamethrowers, and a whole bunch of them. Damn, this is gonna be fun.

N
ORTH OF
M
EZADO
R
IDGE
, S
OUTHERN
O
KINAWA
J
UNE
17, 1945