Authors: Leon Uris
“I do not now, and never will agree with your psychology of fighting this war. By using this Marine regiment, I will save more men, both yours and mine. We are going to drive to Esperance and we’re going to do it slowly and surely. We’ll not use men where we can use artillery, if we have to wait a month for the artillery to get there. No blood-hungry Marine is going to tell me how to run my campaign. I’ve warned you, Major, and I warn you again, that I don’t want the Marines running a horse race down that coast. You are going to keep your flank intact and you are going to move with us. Now get back to your outfit!”
Sam Huxley arose, trembling with white anger as Pritchard returned to his desk. He glanced up. “You look as if you might blow a gasket, Major. Go on, say it.”
“I am thinking, General Pritchard, that you can take the whole goddam Army and shove it you know where.” He stormed from the tent.
The General’s aide, who had remained silent in the wake of Huxley’s anger, rushed to the General. “Surely, sir,” he said, “you aren’t going to let that man keep his command?”
For several moments Pritchard seemed steeped in thought. Finally he spoke. “If I fire or courtmartial that Marine, there’ll be hell to pay. Any co-operation we have or expect to get from the Navy will blow sky high. Thank God, we’ve only got a regiment of them. There’s going to be a real donnybrook before this war is over. Our thinking is too far apart.”
“My sympathy certainly rests with the men,” the aide said, “having people like that for officers.”
“I don’t know,” Prtichard answered, “I don’t know. They’re a queer breed. You and I will really never know what makes them tick. But if I was on the lines fighting for my life and I had my choice of whom I wanted on my right and my left, I’d call for a couple of Marines. I suppose they’re like women…you can’t live with ’em and God knows you can’t live without ’em.”
Major Wellman, the battalion’s quiet and efficient executive officer, who usually remained in the background, peered out of the tent anxiously as Huxley’s jeep screamed to a stop.
“How did it go, Sam?” Wellman asked.
“We open the drive on the tenth,” he answered, attempting to conceal the effect of his clash with the Army. “The Second and Eighth Marines will hold the right flank along the coast while the Army gets into position in the interior. The Army will wheel in against the mountains to cut off retreat.”
Wellman quickly opened a map, lit his pipe, and followed Huxley’s verbal movements.
“They figure three days before the Army gets into position,” Huxley continued.
“Three days?” Wellman shrugged. “What are they using, a regiment?”
“A division.”
“A division?”
“Yes, a division.” Wellman scratched his head. “They will get to the mountain base. On the thirteenth we will relieve the Second and Eighth Regiments and start driving until we hit the Kokumbona River about ten miles away.”
“How about the Japs?”
“Dug in, caves and bunkers…battle-happy expendables. Going to be slow.”
“Lovely. Any heavy stuff?”
“Some 108 mms. Pistol Pete, they call them. Area is loaded with snipers and machine gun nests.”
“Lead on.”
“Our left flank will alternate with elements of the Americal Division. Pritchard cooked up a lulu. He calls it a ‘combined Marine and Army Division.’”
“Oh, Jesus. I guess we’ll have to keep bayonets in their asses to keep them up with us.”
“No,” Huxley corrected, “we walk, not run to Esperance.”
“Wait till the boys hear they are soldiers.”
“From Kokumbona we hit for Tassafaronga Point and that’s about the ball game. They figure some Army to mop up the rest.”
“What does Intelligence say?”
“Anywhere from two to ten thousand, they don’t know. Most of them are concentrated along our sector, on the coast.”
“How bad are they going to try to hold?”
“They might try a landing on us from farther up in the Solomons. We don’t know.”
“Navy?”
“Might try some of that too. Depends on whether they’ve marked the island off as lost or not.”
“Air?”
“We can expect a lot of action. But our stuff on Henderson Field is good now. We’ve got F4Us and Army P-38s.”
“How long, Sam?”
“Don’t know. Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe more. Call a meeting for all officers fourteen hundred hours. Get Gunner Keats here now. I want to go over the communications setup—issue extra rations and order combat packs in ready.”
“How about shaving gear?” Wellman asked, knowing Huxley’s insistence on the well-groomed troop.
“We won’t have enough water. We’ll have to hold a whiskerino contest after it’s over.”
Huxley lit a cigarette thoughtfully. “The Sixth is a spearhead, Wellman. I hope to God it doesn’t get blunted too damned much in that jungle.”
We had thrown away our gas masks and used the cases for carrying an extra change of socks and rations. We moved from Kokum at Lunga Point along the road which ran parallel to the never ending coconut plantation. Although the day was hot and the hike would be long, there was a cocky running chatter along the line of march. Huxley, as usual, was at the head of Headquarters Company, overstriding his little orderly, Ziltch. As we passed Army encampments, and the doggies came to the roadside to gawk, we stiffened and cast belittling glares at them. Thanks to the loosely guarded ordnance sheds, the Army had supplied us with all the latest fighting equipment. An Army jeep roared to the head of the column. We halted and the Army colonel went into a conference with Major Huxley.
Gunner Keats moved from the conference area to us. “Somebody stole that colonel’s pearl-handled forty-five pistol and they aren’t letting us up to the lines till it is returned. Now, I’m not accusing any of you boys but we have been given ten minutes to ‘find’ it or there is going to be a shakedown. Now the guy that borrowed it please return it and nothing will be said.” We all looked at Spanish Joe. He grinned and turned the pistol over, explaining he had found it, just laying there on the deck. We resumed the march, except for Lieutenant Bryce who had somehow gotten himself into one of the transport jeeps.
Anxiety and growing tenseness mingled with sweat of the hot tropic sun as we neared the lines. Then we saw them—the Second and Eighth Marines coming back. They were kids, most of them, just like our kids…but now they were old men. Hungry, skinny, tired old men. As the trucks whisked by we looked into their gaunt bloodshot eyes and at their matted greasy beards. They spoke little. Only a feeble wave or a managed wisecrack.
“So the Pogey Bait Sixth finally came.”
“Yeah, you guys can go home now, a fighting outfit is moving up.”
“Hope you boys don’t mind sleeping on the nasty old deck?”
“How’s things up on the lines, got a USO up there?”
“You’ll find out, Pogey Bait.”
“Hey, what town is this? We must be nearing Hollywood; the Eighth Marines still playing movie actors?”
“I never thought I’d be glad to see the Sixth, but you’re sure a fine sight. Hey, look at all them nice clean-cut American boys.”
The trucks kept passing. The sallow-faced men with the expressionless look of terror—and a look of nothing. Then we became tired, tired and sweaty. We wanted to go to the beach and wash—but we wouldn’t get a bath now for a long time.
It cooled off and the rain came down. The last mile…don’t look behind or you’ll see what you will look like a month from now. Look forward at the grassy slopes, the jungle, the caves. Look forward—there is nothing behind.
January 19, 1943
HOW LONG
had we been in mud? Only six days? We were up to our asses in mud. It was turning evening and the rain would be coming soon to make more mud. It was nearly knee deep in this ravine. The hills were slick and slimy, the air was heavy and putrid with the smell of dead Japs. You could smell one a mile away. The whiskerino contest was off to a good start, only you couldn’t see the whiskers for the mud. Mud caked in so thick on the face and body and the fast-rotting dungarees that it not only seemed the uniform of the day but our very flesh covering.
The drive had been slow, radio operation almost nil. We only used one set, a TBX, to Regiment. Regiment’s code was Topeka; we were Topeka White. Due to the snail’s pace and the terrain, telephone squad carried most of the load in keeping communications. My boys were used as pack mules. They assisted the telephone men when needed. Mostly, they made several trips a day to the beach supply dump, over glassy ridges, two miles to the coast. Back again in blistering sun, carrying five-gallon cans of water, dragged with curses back to the CP. It was a lifeline. They packed heavy boxes of ammunition, C-ration, D-ration, the chocolate candy bars that tasted like Ex-Lax but held enough vitamins to sustain a man for a day. They walked, limped, and crawled the tortuous miles back and forth to the dump like a line of ants, worn and beaten but coming back again for another load.
At darkness they’d crawl in holes in the mud to sleep until their round of guard duty—attempt to sleep with swarms of bugs all around, and the hated anopheles zinging down and biting into the flesh. And even as the mosquitoes bit and sucked blood, the Marines couldn’t raise a dead-tired arm to slap them off.
We hadn’t seen a Jap, not a live one. Only the dead with their terrible stench. The riflemen left them there for us to bunk with. But live ones were there. You could feel them all about, peeking at you from the treetops…from the brush…watching your every move.
In the hole at night you’d huddle next to your mate to stop the shakes. Getting malaria? Hell no, just shaking wet and the mud sliding around in your boondockers. Too beat out to think, even about home. Hard to sleep…the jungle was alive with silence. It took time before you could tell a land crab from a Jap. Doc Kyser emptied a whole drum from his tommy gun into a bush one night, and it was a land crab. After a while you didn’t mind them crawling over you. You reached automatically for your knife and stabbed it and put it outside the foxhole. If you piled up more land crabs than the next foxhole, you might win a couple cigarettes on a bet.
Thirst…always the hunger for water. Our water was salted and made your stomach rebel. Once in a while you got that vision of a long cool beer floating by. Nothing to do but lick your lips with your thick dry tongue and try to forget it.
How long had we been in the mud? Only six days.
We pulled into the new CP and waited for the rain to sink us deeper.
“O.K., you guys, dig in.”
“Where the hell we going to dig? We’re already in.”
“On the slopes where it is dry, asshole.”
Lieutenant Bryce approached the Feathermerchant, who was on his knees hacking the earth with a pick as Danny shoveled.
“Ski,” Bryce said.
“Yes.”
“After you finish your hole, dig me in.” He unfolded a stretcher he was carrying. “Fix my hole so this fits in.”
Zvonski threw down the trenching tool and arose. “Dig your own goddam hole, Lieutenant. I been lugging water cans for eleven hours.”
“Don’t address me by rank,” Bryce hissed nervously. “There is no rank up here. You want a sniper to hear you?”
“I sure do.”
“I’ll have you courtmartialed for this!”
“Like hell you will. Sam says we all dig our own holes. So start digging—and don’t dig too close around here.”
Bryce turned and left. Ski went over to Gunner Keats. “Bryce got a stretcher from sick bay to sleep on, Jack,” he said.
“The dirty…mind your own business, Ski,” he answered and took off after Bryce.
There was a swish overhead of an artillery shell. It landed and exploded on our reverse slope.
“Say, ain’t the Tenth firing kind of late in the day?”
“Probably just lining up for effect.”
Another shell landed, hitting the top of the ridge some two hundred yards away.
“Crazy bastards, don’t they know we’re down here?”
Huxley rushed to the switchboard. “Contact the firing officer at once. They’re coming too close.” Another shell crashed, sending us all flopping into the mud. It hit on our side of the hill.
“Hello,” Huxley roared as another dropped almost in us, “this is Topeka White. You men are coming in right on our CP.”
“But sir,” the voice at the other end of the line answered, “we haven’t fired since morning.”
“Holy Christ!” the Major yelled. “Hit the deck, it’s Pistol Pete!”
We scattered but the Jap 108s found us in their sights. We crawled deep in the mire, behind trees and rocks. Our foxholes hadn’t been dug yet.
Swish…Whom! Whom!
W
HOM
! They roared in and the deck bounced and mud and hot shrapnel splattered everywhere.
Andy and Ski spotted a small cave on the hillside and dashed for it. They hung onto their helmets and braced their backs against the wall. There, opposite them, sat a Jap soldier. He was dead. His eyes had been eaten out by the swarms of maggots which crawled through his body. The stink was excruciating. “I’m getting out of here,” Ski said.
Andy jerked him back in. “Hang on, Ski. They’re blasting the hell outa us. Go on, put your head down and puke.” A concussion wave caused the Jap to buckle over. He dropped, broken in half by rot. Ski put his head down and vomited.
Spanish Joe crawled through the muck to Sister Mary. He put his arm about Marion and held him.
“Why didn’t you stay where you were? You’re safer there.”
“I…I…want somebody to look at,” he whined.
Highpockets was on his feet scanning the sky. He was the only man standing. He waded through the mire as though his feet were a pair of plungers. “Move over to the other slope, you people,” he shouted to one group. He made his way to the switchboard, shouting commands as he went. “Give me the Tenth…firing officer…LeForce, go to the ridge and see if you can spot them. Hello, this is Topeka White…Pete is right on us…can you give us some help? I’ll have a spotter up there in a minute.”
“Hit the deck, Sam!” WHOM!
“Hello, this is Huxley, Topeka White…about two thousand yards to your left. Hello, this is Topeka…”