The Final Storm (41 page)

Welty obeyed, the grenade flying past Yablonski, bouncing, tumbling away, all three men collapsing again against the rocks. The blast came, much farther back, and now Yablonski threw another one, slow seconds, one more blast. Porter grabbed his leg, “Enough!”

Yablonski didn’t turn, kept his stare into the billowing smoke, slapped a clip into his M-1.

“Let’s go!”

The command came from Yablonski, and Porter blew through the stink of the explosives, the smell of something horribly rotten, said, “No! Stay here!”

Yablonski turned now, animal fury, said, “This cave might go right into the center of this hill. We can take out the whole damn thing, wipe out a flock of these bastards!”

Yablonski turned away, seemed ready to carry out his own idea, and Porter kept his grip on the man’s leg.

“With what? There’s three of us, Private! As narrow as this cave is … we’re easy pickings for one Jap back there with a pop gun. We’re backing out of here! Let’s keep moving. The idea is to get to the top, remember? Both of you … you get out into the open, start climbing, find cover anywhere you can. The boys down below see us, they’ll cover us, and I’ll try to signal them to come up too.”

Yablonski seemed to calm from Porter’s unyielding grip on his leg. He turned again and Porter saw the disgust, knew Yablonski had only one way
of thinking, that this cave might go all the way to Tokyo. Behind the lieutenant, Welty said, “We need to get more men up here. Those Japs above us know we’re here. Right now we’re just stuck in a hole.”

Yablonski seemed resigned to his lost opportunity to end the war, slid backward, knelt in the narrow gap.

“Okay, boss, what now?”

Porter moved back close to the mouth of the cave, desperate for fresh air. He waved the carbine outside, hoped it would attract the right kind of attention.

“Saddle up. We’re climbing.”

He stepped out of the cave, navigated the sharp drop immediately in front of the opening, slipped quickly to one side, making room for the other two. Below, the men were responding as he had hoped, rapidly making their way up through the morass of uneven hillside. Yes, dammit! Let’s go! He crouched, spun toward the crest of the hill, scanned quickly, searching for the Japanese, saw nothing but the jagged ridgeline. Where are you, you bastards? He kept the carbine at his shoulder, ready to put out any covering fire his men might need, felt Yablonski beside him, doing the same. Yablonski had the same questions, said, “They’re up there! I saw them!”

“Stay on ’em. Anything moves, blow hell out of it.”

Welty was there as well, a third muzzle aimed upward, and Porter could hear the sound of the men coming up from behind, said, “Time to climb. Let’s get to that ridge.”

He rose from his knees, still in a crouch, the carbine pointed forward from his waist. He stepped up past a muddy hole, a lump of rock, the footing slippery, uncertain, kept his eyes sharp on the ridgeline. The sounds of the fight still rolled over the hill, an echo he had grown used to. The roar seemed to grow, closer, machine guns, rifle fire, men screaming, but he tried to ignore that, kept his eyes on one place, where the Japanese had been, where they would certainly be again. Behind him the others were gathering quickly, following him, a surge of two dozen men, led by the man in charge, the man who knew what to do. The ridgeline was less than ten feet above him, the flatter ground now rising in a sharp incline, and he dropped his eyes, searched for a foothold, his boots kicking into soft rock. There was a flicker of movement to one side and he glanced that way, a cut in the rocks, a narrow crevice he hadn’t seen before. He started to turn that way, the carbine swinging around, caught the glimpse of a rifle, saw the muzzle, a small black eye pointing toward him. The shot struck him in the
chest, tearing through him, a punch knocking him back. He staggered, fell to one knee, and now new sounds came, a sudden burst of rifle fire, close by, the response from the men beside him. His eyes tried to stay on the crack in the rocks, the rifle barrel gone, and he tried to stand, but there was nothing there, no strength, no feeling at all. He took a breath, choked away, reached down with his hands, steadying himself, but his face came down hard on the rocks, no pain, just the hard choking twist in his throat. The shots were growing dull, the roar in his ears fading, a soft silence, and he struggled to breathe, to move, thought of the men, the orders, the crest of the hill. There was no feeling at all now, a glimmer of sight, a last frantic search, a glimpse of blood, flowing away, adding to the pool of black mud.

H
e tried to catch his breath, stared up in perfect horror, saw Welty squatting down, close to the body of the lieutenant. Others had stopped, too many men trying to help, nothing anyone could do. Adams moved closer, up the rocky hill, stared at the lieutenant’s face, the eyes still open, empty stare, the skin already a pasty white.

“What happened?”

The question went beyond the idiotic, but no one responded, Welty upright again, a hard shout.

“Up the hill! Move it!”

More men were coming up through the defiles and muddy gaps, few stopping to see the body, who it might be. But Adams stood frozen, a long desperate moment, wanted to pull Porter up to his feet, to help the man, do
something
. The voice came from in front of him, the ugly sneer from Yablonski.

“He’s meat. I got the Jap. Let’s go.”

Welty was close to him now, pulling his sleeve.

“Clay! We gotta go. We’re in the open. Let’s make the ridgeline. The Japs are in every damn hole! Come on!”

Adams saw the men moving by him, heard the grunts, the scuffing of the boots. He looked at Porter once again, but there was nothing else to
see, the oozing blood coming from the man’s chest, staining the rocks beneath him. Porter was gone.

“A corpsman. We need to find …”

“There ain’t any corpsmen, Clay! They’re all gone! Get your ass up the hill!”

Welty jerked him hard, and Adams began to move, following, the flow of men rising up and over the jagged coral. He had no strength in his legs, but somehow he kept up, a slow plod. Welty was still in front of him, and Adams forced the words out, “They got the sarge too. Right in front of me. A grenade.”

His harsh breathing stopped the words, and he heard a grunting response from Welty.

“Saw it.”

They climbed the sharper incline now, a ridge of coral, thick with mud and broken shards of rock that made any climb difficult. He tried to focus, to wipe the image of Porter from his mind, saw that some men were holding grenades, arms cocked, and Adams felt for his, stumbled on the coral, lost his grip on the M-1. The rifle clattered against the rock, and he grabbed it quickly, urgent fear. The ridgeline was close above him, and he realized it was where the Japanese had been, where they had dropped their grenades down on him, the grenade that killed Ferucci. The others were going up and over the sharp ridge, and he followed, pulled himself up with one hand, noticed the thick crust on his skin, his sleeve soaked with the blood of the Japanese soldier. He swung his legs over, saw a narrow ditch, hand-tooled, not just the craters from American shellfire. The trench extended in a snaking curve, following the terrain, dipping lower far to the right, where the hill opened up with shallow ravines, narrow cuts. The trench was a perfectly constructed hiding place for sharpshooters, a perfect place to toss grenades down on men who struggled to reach the position. They pulled back, he thought. Where the hell did they go? He looked up, beyond the trench, saw the rolling crest of the hill, the top, the place they were supposed to go. His mind focused on that, but there was too much activity around him, a dozen more Marines making their way into the narrow slit, as surprised as he was, every man grateful for the halt to their climb. They continued to come, some by themselves, staggering up to the trench, panting, exhausted, the shirtless glistening with sweat, others soaked in their clothes, some still in their ponchos. The faces searched the men already there, seeking a friend, or some authority, someone to tell
them what to do. Up past the trench the hill was cut with crevices, shell holes, and blasted rock. But no one was moving up that far, the men close to him dropping to one knee or lying flat, all of them seeming to know that, for the moment, on this one small piece of Sugar Loaf Hill, the Japanese had abandoned the fight.

Adams knelt, tried to catch his breath. The rains had not come all day, and he glanced up, a gray shroud of clouds, thankful. He realized now the fighting all along the higher part of the hill had become more sporadic, brief bursts, single shots and mortar blasts, small firefights. Some of the sounds came far out beyond the hill, the flat muddy ground where the roads led to the city, Naha. But here, on this part of the ridge, the firing had stopped altogether, the thick wet air strangely quiet. Adams heard voices around him, Welty coming up close to him, saying aloud, “We need to spread out, keep tight in this trench, hold our position here until someone tells us what to do.”

Several men seemed to hang on Welty’s words, one man responding, “Ain’t that you?”

Welty shook his head.

“I’m just a private.”

“Well, hell, Private, you seem to have more brains than anybody else on this hill. What you think we oughta do?”

Adams saw more faces turning toward Welty, knew the redhead was sensitive about the glasses, all the old insults from training,
hey, Four Eyes
. But Adams knew something about Welty’s calm, his experience, thought, that man is probably right. Welty searched the faces, another cluster of men rolling up and over the craggy ridge, grateful for the shallow trench. Welty focused on one man, said, “You! We need you!”

The face was familiar to Adams, the man moving closer, past the others, staring at Welty.

“For what?”

Welty lowered his voice.

“You’re a damn sergeant, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, until somebody says they outrank you, I guess you’re in charge.”

Adams recognized the man now, another of the platoon’s squad leaders, Sergeant Ballard. Ballard glanced around, said, “Where’s the looey?”

Welty seemed frustrated, made no effort to hide it.

“He’s dead! He’s on those rocks down there.”

Ballard nodded slowly, said, “Wow. Who’s your sergeant? He here?”

“Ferucci. He’s dead too. Dammit, this ain’t any time to take roll call.”

Ballard seemed to gather himself, still scanned the men in the trench. Adams felt a new burst of gloom, thought, he doesn’t have the first idea what to do. He moved closer to Welty, perfect earshot of Ballard, said, “Maybe
you
should take charge, Jack.”

Ballard looked at Welty, seemed to agree with Adams’s suggestion. Welty seemed ready to explode, said to Ballard, “Look, you’re in charge. We should spread out, down both flanks of this trench. There’s two thirties that have made it up so far, we should put one on each flank.” He scanned the others, and Adams saw Gridley, huffing over the rocks, still carrying the BAR. Behind him came Gorman, the older man helmetless, sweating, breathing heavily. Welty pointed, said, “BAR! Right here! Watch that ridgeline! Everybody, pass the word. Stay down along this line. Good cover. Watch for snipers, nobody get careless! They could still be down behind us!”

Gridley seemed puzzled, glanced at the others, said, “If you say so, Redhead. Where’s the Japs at?”

Welty looked again at Ballard, who had clearly abdicated any authority. Welty wiped his glasses with a filthy sleeve, hooked them back over his ears, said, “They skedaddled out of here. But it’ll be dark soon, and they’ll be coming, sure as hell. For now they gave us this cover, so we oughta use it. Keep low, but keep ready. This is a hell of a good place for somebody to toss a grenade. You see one, try to toss it back.”

Adams stared at Ballard, who nodded, said, “Yeah. Good idea.”

Welty was ignoring the sergeant now, said, “I’m going up there, take a peek at the ridge, maybe get a look at the other side. Somebody come with me.” He turned to Adams, then looked past him. “Clay … and you two.”

Welty climbed up past the trench, stayed on his knees, then slipped to his belly. Adams moved out with him, the other two Welty had chosen, and Adams saw the exhausted fear in both of them, mixed with curiosity. Good question, he thought. What’s on the other side? Welty pushed himself farther up what seemed to be the last bit of incline. The mud was deeper, shell holes full of thick brown water, rocks tumbled about, the remnants from a handful of artillery barrages. Welty stopped, motionless, and Adams eased up close, could see far beyond the hill, a vast sea of mud, and in the distance, less than a quarter mile away, the other two hills in the
arrowhead. Their shape was far from distinct, and he realized now that the other two were less of a single hill than Sugar Loaf, more spread out, far more uneven, dips and creases and rough remains of timber. But both hills were alive with activity, men in motion, some scampering away from Sugar Loaf, Japanese troops out in the open spaces, some emerging from hidden places Adams couldn’t hope to see. Beside him, Welty whispered, “The brass wants us to take those hills too? This is the stupidest attack I’ve ever seen. Some damn general drew this up without having any idea what this place …”

He froze, no words, and Adams probed the silence, heard voices, Japanese, straight down the hill, distant, out of the line of sight. Welty slid backward, the others doing the same, no need for orders. It was only a few yards back to the trench, but Welty stayed on his belly, the others mimicking him. In the trench again, more men gathered, and Adams saw a new wave of men coming up into the trench, saw another of the sergeants, Mortensen, men speaking to him with low urgency, hands pointing toward Welty. Mortensen was a lean, lanky man, older, a touch of gray hair, rough face and sharp blue eyes. He was breathing heavily, carried a Thompson on his shoulder, one of the few men in the company who preferred the weapon that was only practical at close range. Welty moved close to him, seemed dwarfed by the man, said quietly, “Lots of Japs down below. Looks like we drove them back.”