Battle Cry (69 page)

“Lighttower!”

“Yo!”

“Get back to the CP and get our exact position.”

“Roger.” He dashed off.

Wellman sighted us and dashed over the road. “Any word from the alligator? We’ve got the Japs disorganized but we can’t follow through, we’re almost out of ammo.”

“They’ll be in in less than an hour.”

“No sooner?”

“I’ll have to have those medical supplies before that….”

“I’ll have to ask you men to leave the area,” I barked to Wellman and Kyser. “We are having radio troubles as it is and we can’t do a goddam thing with you poking us in the ass.” The two officers, stupefied at first by the terse order, meekly retreated from where Levin labored on the earphones.

“Look! There’s the alligator!”

I snatched Burnside’s field glasses and focused them on the lagoon. Bogged almost under the water, I caught a faint glimpse of a square gray object moving in slow motion through the water. I judged she was making three knots an hour and was two miles away.

“Runner!” Wellman shouted across the road, “get Major Pagan and have all remaining men in How Company stand by for a working party. I want half of them to unload and the other half to rush ammo up to the front. Have men stand ready to evacuate the wounded to the landing craft waiting at the reef. Kyser, prepare the critical cases for transfer to the destroyer…Mac!”

“Yes.”

“Contact the destroyer and have them prepare to receive the wounded. Have the landing craft get as close to shore as they can.”

“Aye aye, sir.” I scratched the message out and Levin transmitted it as Speedy and Marion whirled the generator for all they were worth.

“Quiet,” Levin demanded. He wrote a message and shouted up to me, “The alligator requests our position again.”

“Dammit, where is that Injun?”

In the haste to transfer from the CP and contact the alligator, I hadn’t surveyed the new position too well. The radio was set up on the beach near a small clump of brush. I had assumed that they were two hundred yards behind George Company and that the area was clear. I was wrong.

I was electrified by a cracking from the clump of brush. The radio transmitter case split in half and toppled over, then the generator crashed from its anchor on a tree. The Japs were blasting at the group with an automatic weapon, point-blank. We all fell flat and pumped slugs wildly and blindly into the thicket.

“Levin, get the hell out of there!” He sprinted back to cover. The radio was wrecked. I looked over the water. The alligator loomed closer and was making better speed than I had reckoned. Maybe the unpredictable tide was helping. Marion and me crouched behind cover and exchanged fire. I could see nothing…the Japs were completely hidden. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jake Levin up and running away.
Yellow son of a bitch!
Too busy to chase him now.

“Chief!
Hit the deck!
” Danny screamed as the Injun dashed toward us from the CP. He dropped in his tracks behind a fallen log.

“Don’t call me chief,” he yelled.

Burnside crawled over by me, reloading his carbine.

“They got the radio. The others are no good.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said.

“What we gonna do?”

“Maybe I should stick a tank up your ass and float you over them.”

“It’s not funny. We’re up the creek…I crap you not.”

“There can’t be more than a half dozen of them in there. We’ll just have to stand fast and keep them from breaking through to the wounded.”

Speedy Gray dived on top of us between bursts of Jap fire.

“What the hell is this, Grand Central Station?” I snapped.

“Had to see you, Mac. The alligator is going too far north. It’s heading right for the Jap lines.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Burnside, what are we going to do?”

“Close one eye and fart.”

“Heads down….”

“We’ve got to steer them in back of us.”

“I can see her now. She’s just a couple hundred yards out.”

“Quick, where are the semaphore flags?”

“Back in the CP.”

“Cover me. I’m going to make a run for the water,” I said peeling off my shirt. “I’ll try to wave at them.”

“It won’t work.”

“We’ve got to stop them! They’re heading right into Jap territory!”

“Cover me!” a voice screamed behind me. It was Levin. He had gone back to the CP for a blinker gun when the radio was wrecked. He had foreseen the trouble. I closed my eyes, terribly ashamed of what I had thought.

“Levin’s coming over the road!”

“Cover him.”

Levin hurdled the smashed radio and ducked low under the barrage we lay down for him. He knelt on the beach, pointed the blinker toward the alligator. His finger pulled dots and dashes desperately. He waved the gun back and forth to catch their attention and screamed to them as he did so.

Smoke arose from the brush as the Japs sighted him.

“Levin!”

He doubled over, still pulling the trigger of the light. He lay on his stomach with blood squirting from his face, but he kept signaling. Gunfire ripped his body.

The alligator veered!
It cut around sharply. Seabags had the message.

Burnside, Speedy and me sprang up and raced toward the prostrate boy who was lying half in the water. Speedy and me grabbed him as Burnside stood erect and hurled grenades into the brush. We dragged him to cover. I bent down and ripped his shirt off.

“God!” Speedy screamed, turning his face from the sight.

“Corpsman! Corpsman! Corpsman!”

Speedy stopped vomiting. “I’ll take him back…” He lifted Levin in his arms, keeping his eyes raised from the sight of the stomach, horribly torn.

“After them!” I shrieked. The squad was behind me, wading madly into the brush to kill.

The Texan wandered to the place where the long line of wounded lay. A working party unloaded the precious plasma from the alligator nearby. A hundred makeshift transfusions were being administered. Other men raced to the lines bogged under bandoleers of ammunition and cases of mortars and grenades. A blood-spattered nun assisted Speedy, laying a poncho on the deck.

“Get the doctor here at once,” the Nun said.

When Speedy had returned with Kyser, the Sister was kneeling over Levin’s gory body, praying. Kyser took one look and nodded his head slowly and was gone at the beckoning of another nun.

“I’m sorry, my son,” the Sister consoled.

“Is he still…”

“Yes, but only for a very few moments,” she said.

“Look, lady…he’s…he’s my buddy…could I stay?”

“Yes, my son.”

Speedy took off his helmet and sat beside Levin. He emptied his canteen on a ragged handkerchief and wiped the sweat from Levin’s forehead. At the touch of the cool rag Jake’s eyes opened slowly.

“Hi, Speedy,” he whispered weakly.

“How you feel?”

“Don’t feel nuttin’. What happened…did the alligator get in?”

“Yeah.”

“Good…that’s damned good.”

“They’ll be evacuating you to the tin can in a couple minutes,” Speedy lied.

Levin smiled. He reached out feebly and the Texan took his hand. “Hold my hand…will you, Speedy?”

“Sure.”

“Speedy…”

“Yeah?”

He tugged Speedy close until his mouth nearly touched the Texan’s ear. “Don’t…don’t let them guys…I want a Star of David…My old man would have a fit if they put a cross over me….”

I walked over to Speedy. He was sitting there holding Levin’s hand although Levin’s face was already covered with the poncho. “We broke through,” I whispered. I tried to offer Speedy a cigarette. He looked up at me and tried to speak. His face was grief-stricken. “He wasn’t sore at you, Speedy, he never was…you were buddies.”

Speedy was trembling all over. “Go on, kid. Take off, you’ll feel better later.” He ran from me toward an abandoned hut.

I looked down the road. Another stretcher was coming in. Burnside lay on it. His eyes were open and glassy.

“Burny,” I whispered.

“He dead,” the native bearer said, puffing past me.

Less than twenty-four hours after the first shot had been fired on Cora Island, the battle for Tarawa had come to a close.

I slumped down to the deck, too exhausted to think. The battalion sat around me and there were only muffled whispers, like the whispers of the guys who had sat on Betio a week ago. Seemed to me I was on a cloud, hanging on in midair. I heard everything but it was like hearing it through a fog. There was the clanking against the coral of the gravedigging party.
Clank,
then the whisper of sand falling from a shovel to fill a hole…and another…and another. The sound of the alligator rumbled back and forth on the way to the barrier reef where the landing craft waited to transfer the wounded to the destroyer.

I saw Sam Huxley and Kyser through the haze, haggard, talking to one of the nuns.

“I don’t know how we can thank you people enough.”

“We are glad to have been able to help, Colonel.”

“I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“The natives will build a fine cemetery for your brave men and we shall see that it is well kept. I promise you that. And we shall pray for their souls.”

“Thank you, Sister Joan. What can we do for you? What do you need here? We will be happy to send anything.”

“Don’t you worry yourself about that, my son. You are very tired.”

“You shall hear from us, I promise.”

“Colonel Huxley.”

“Yes, Sister?”

“About the Japanese dead…would your men…?”

“I’m afraid not. I understand your feelings, but this is war, you know.”

“Very well. The natives shall dig their graves.”

I looked down the road and saw the remains of Fox Company limping back. Shapiro was at their head, a cigar clenched in his teeth and a look of triumph on his face as he went to Huxley to report the end of resistance. McQuade walked by him, his dungaree shirt in shreds and his huge belly hanging over his pistol belt.

“Where is that candy-ass Burnside?” McQuade roared. “He can come out of his hole now, the fighting’s over.” Gunner Keats went to him and put his arm on his shoulder, led him over the road, and whispered to him. McQuade stopped short and spun about. He stood dazed for a moment. Keats patted his back slowly and then took the helmet from his balding head and walked slowly toward the gravediggers to the long line of bodies awaiting their final sack.

“Mac.”

I scrambled to my feet. “Yes, sir?”

“Are any radios working?” Huxley asked.

“The one in the alligator.”

“The next time it comes in, send this message.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

E
NEMY CONTACTED AND DESTROYED ON
C
ORA
I
SLAND THIS DATE.
J
APANESE CASUALTIES: FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE DEAD.
W
OUNDED NONE.
C
APTURED NONE.
O
UR CASUALTIES: NINETY-EIGHT DEAD.
T
WO HUNDRED THIRTEEN WOUNDED.
T
ARAWA ATOLL IS SECURED.
S
IGNED,
S
AMUEL
H
UXLEY,
L
T.
C
OLONEL,
C
OMMANDER,
S
ECOND
B
ATTALION,
S
IXTH
M
ARINES.

CHAPTER 8

AGAIN
Huxley’s Whores were a garrison force. We had no sooner set foot on Bairiki Island, once known as Sarah, than Huxley reminded us that we were Marines. In a matter of a few days we had set up an immaculate camp. Every cigarette butt was up, the slit trenches were dug squarely, we lined up for roll call, working parties, chow, and inspection. All hands shaved, bathed and slowly returned to the human race. When our packs arrived from Helen it was like meeting old friends. We were the only Marine troops on the atoll and no provision had been made to survey our ragged clothing. We hung our stuff together with sewing kits. The order went out that we were to stay fully clothed at all times as the flies carried a new brand of poison, dengue fever.

We dug a deep shelter for a new radio, organized ball teams, L.Q. put out a daily newspaper made up of armed forces newscasts, and generally we steadied ourselves for the dryrot boredom of inaction.

I was amazed at the speed with which Tarawa was built into a major striking base. The airstrip at Betio was going full blast and installations sprang up daily along the chain of islands.

A lesser man than Highpockets would have had a job on his hands to keep us under control. However, on Sarah we were isolated and left alone to bitch our heads off over the lousy chow, ragged uniforms, and solid coral beds.

This wasn’t the case with Fox Company. Shapiro’s outfit was dispatched several islands up near a defense battery and very close to the new airstrip and the center of activity. What Shapiro’s Foxes did to the Army and Seabees in the next six weeks more than avenged the rest of us on Bairiki.

No sooner was the Fox campsite chosen than the men were over on the Seabees by the airstrip on Lulu. The first things they took were sufficient cots and pads for themselves. In order to escape detection, they cut the legs off and fixed their cots in the deck so that when covered by a poncho it appeared to be nothing more than a hole in the ground. This didn’t aggravate the Seabees, they were fond of the Marines, showed them respect and made no effort to locate the missing cots. In fact, they anticipated and encouraged the boys of Fox Company to frequent their mess hall. Their chow call was never held without half of Shapiro’s men in line for the fresh juices, vegetables, ice cream, and a variety of meats.

Away from Huxley’s watchful eye the Fox Company camp resembled a rest home or sportsmen’s club more than a Marine bivouac. Only on rare occasion was the word
Captain
heard; it was always an affectionate Skipper, or just plain Max. A maximum of leisure and a bare minimum of work was the rule. Just enough work to keep the place going and enough play to rejuvenate the weary minds and bodies of his men.

Shapiro had a strange weakness for radio operators and welcomed part of the squad with open arms. He stole cots from the Seabees, a tent from the Army, and made them a splendid radio shack by the lagoon. A routine check call was made on the network each hour and there was little else to do. Once Shapiro learned that the radio was capable of receiving short wave programs from the States he sent out a squad of his best men to round up an amplifier system and attach it to the radio so that the programs could be enjoyed by all hands.