Battle Cry (75 page)

Marion broke rank and came over to him. “See Rae for me, Mac,” he said.

I stared at him. I’ll never know why I answered what I did. Maybe it was because Marion had the same strange expression the Feathermerchant had when he jumped down that hill on Guadalcanal. “I’ll see her,” I said.

“Command post, over the side,” the Gunner ordered.

The Japs sat on top of Mount Topotchau and had Red Beach One zeroed in. The battalion was snowed under by an avalanche of flying shrapnel. The rest of the battalions were hung up on the reefs and were far off location as the hailstorm fell and kept them cut off. Huxley’s Whores were gaining quick admission to the glory club. The blood ran deep under a murderous staccato of careening bomb bursts and geysers of hot metal mixed with spurting sand and flesh. They dug in as the beach heaved and danced in a macabre rhythm.

Marion crouched in a shallow hole and labored over his radio. F
OX FROM
T
ULSA
W
HITE
: H
AVE YOU REACHED YOUR INITIAL OBJECTIVE
? O
VER
.

A screaming shell swished its way down, twisting into the open beach.

The earphones of Marion’s set clattered.

T
ULSA
W
HITE FROM
F
OX
: I
ONLY RECEIVE YOU TWO AND ONE
. R
EPEAT THAT LAST MESSAGE
. O
VER
. T
ULSA
W
HITE FROM
F
OX
. I
DON’T READ YOU AT ALL
…T
ULSA
W
HITE FROM
F
OX
: C
AN YOU READ ME
…

“Hey, Marion, knock off the skylarking.”

Marion felt himself spinning like a man caught in a whirlpool, then was bashed to the sand, his left leg dangling, held only by a stubborn muscle.

Spanish Joe lay on the beach fifty yards away. He heard an agonized voice crying out between the shell bursts. He rose from his cover. An earsplitting scream, a burst. Joe fell flat.

“Joe, it’s me—Marion.”

F
OX TO
E
ASY
: W
E NEED CORPSMEN UP HERE
…
HAVE YOU ONE TO SPARE
? O
VER
. The message came through Marion’s earphones.

The crescendo rose, jarring men loose from their holes. Spanish Joe crawled back to cover, sweat gushing from his every pore. He clutched the rocks about him so tightly his hands cracked and bled.

“God…help…help me, Joe.”

Spanish Joe pulled his body in closer to the rocks, he shook violently. His eyes were pasted to the spot where Marion lay. The violence of the bombardment grew.

E
ASY TO
F
OX
: C
AN’T GET
G
EORGE NOW, OVER
.

“Oh God…I’m dying…Joe…Joe!” The voice was weaker. Gomez buried his face in his hands and lay cowering and frozen.

Divito gunned the radio jeep into a clump of bushes near the message center. “Mac,” he yelled, “I’m going to the beach to help with the wounded.”

“Shove off,” I said.

“Hey, Mac!”

“What?”

“This TBX is out,” Danny said. “Where is Spanish Joe with the spare parts?”

“Sonofabitch, I don’t know.”

“Mac!” message center called over.

“What!”

“We can’t contact any rifle companies.”

“Keep runners going to the rifle companies till them phones get in. Barry!” I shouted.

The telephone chief ran up. “Barry, the radio to regiment is out. You’re going to have to run a wire down the beach to them.”

“Jesus, Mac. They are a mile away and it’s exposed beach. The Japs are blasting the piss out of the area to prevent consolidation.”

“Hit the deck!”

SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH

“I haven’t enough men, Mac. They are all out with wires to the rifle companies,” Barry continued.

“Message center! Send a runner to How Company and tell them to send two telephone men here right away…Speedy!”

“Yo,” the Texan drawled.

“Have you seen Marion or Spanish Joe?”

“I ain’t seen Mary, and I heard that Joe went berserk and stole a machine gun and headed for the Fox Company area.”

“All right, Speedy…the walkie-talkie network is busted up. I want you to make a round of the rifle companies and get all the squad back into the CP.”

“Roger…see you,” Speedy said, grabbing his carbine and dashing toward the front.

“Danny!”

“Yes, Mac.”

“Get in the jeep and stand watch to Kingpin.”

“What about this busted radio to regiment?”

“We’ll have to look at it later. I’m going to find Huxley. Barry, as soon as any of your men return shoot them down that beach to regiment. Tell them there’s a Silver Star in it if they get that line in.”

Barry laughed and slapped me on the back as I ran to the water’s edge to try to find the skipper. The deck was still rocked from the steady stream of shells being poured from Mount Topotchau.

I couldn’t spot Huxley at first. Then I saw the skipper sitting holding something in his arms. He was crying like a baby. It was his little orderly, Ziltch. He was dead, covered with blood and horribly mangled. Huxley was rocking the body back and forth. He had put over the dead boy’s face the faded red handkerchief with the embroidered
Sam Huxley, Ohio State.

“Skipper, get for cover!” I yelled. He was mute. I dragged him to shelter.

Huxley began screaming. “He threw himself on a grenade! Mac, they’re killing my boys! They’re killing my boys!”

He was berserk. I straightened him up and belted him in the mouth. The punch knocked him down. He struggled up to a sitting position and sat there shaking his head and blinking. A Jap screaming-meemie whistled down. I threw myself over him and pinned him flat till it passed over.

“Thanks, Mac.”

“I didn’t want to slug you, skipper.”

“I guess…I lost my—what’s the picture?” he snapped quickly.

“Bad. The rest of the combat team is a mile down the beach and we’re out of contact. The network to the rifle companies is busted. All we are in contact with is the flagship.”

“Where is Gunner Keats? Have him report here immediately.”

“I’m in charge now,” I said. “He didn’t even get out of the buffalo.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Telephones to the riflemen should be in soon. I’ve called all radiomen back to the CP. We’ll try to run a wire down the beach to regiment. But they’re really pouring it in on the gap between us.”

“You’re moving right, Mac. You’re a lieutenant now.”

“We’ll argue about that later.”

“Whatever you do, keep the radio in to Kingpin. If we lose them, we’re in for it. We’ll need naval support when the Japs counterattack from Garapan. Get back to the command post. I’m going to the aid tent to check casualties. I’ll be right in.”

“Roger.” I sprang from cover and sprinted over the sand. Something hissed and arched above and sent me flat. The earth rumbled and then I felt numb as something struck me in the small of my back. I rolled over. It was a man’s leg!

“Skipper!”

Huxley was already tying a tourniquet about the stump when I got back to him. “Get back to the CP, Mac. You know your assignment! If I’m not there in ten minutes tell Wellman he’s got himself a battalion.”

“Skipper, I can’t leave you!” I bent over him. The sand was slippery with his blood. Next thing I knew I was looking down the barrel of a .45 automatic.

“Get back to your post, Marine,” Huxley snarled as he pulled back the cocking pin.

Up front with Fox Company, L.Q. slammed his earphones to the deck and cursed.

“Hey, L.Q. Max wants to know if you are in with the command post?”

“Tell Shapiro that all I can get is How Company and I can’t even get them now.”

“Never mind—the telephone line just came in.”

“Thank Christ,” L.Q. said and dropped back against a tree exhausted.

Out in front a clatter of small arms fire rattled as the company contacted an enemy patrol. “Got a cigarette? I dropped mine jumping out of the buffalo this morning.”

“Here, L.Q.”

“Thanks.” He put the cigarette between his lips. A runner dashed in. A sudden burst of gunfire sent everyone sprawling.

“Come on,” the runner panted, “we’re moving up to hook on with Easy Company…hey, L.Q…. hey, what the hell…Jesus!”

“Get a corpsman up here. The radio operator has been hit.”

“He won’t need no corpsman. He got it right in the head….”

“Come on, move up!”

Speedy Gray dropped to his knees at How Company and fought for breath for a moment.

“Runner!” a man at the telephone shouted. “Get Major Pagan and tell him to get to the CP and assume command of the battalion. Highpockets is dead and Major Wellman has been wounded.”

“The skipper! God…where is that radio operator?” Speedy asked.

“Over there behind those boulders with the rest of the wounded.”

“Hi cousin,” Seabags whispered weakly as Speedy knelt beside him. “What’s doing…goofing off?”

“Why shore…you ain’t got a chaw on you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Look, Seabags, maybe I can help pack you back to the beach and let Doc Kyser….”

“Shucks, Speedy, don’t be giving me no snow job. I got a hole in my belly big enough to put my fist through.”

“Jesus, Seabags…Jesus.”

“Hey….”

“What?”

“Did you get the old guitar ashore all right?”

“Yes.”

Seabags laughed and then began coughing. Speedy put a canteen to Seabags’ lips and laid him back. “This here sounds like that crappy old picture we saw back in Hawaii…look, cousin, would you sing ‘Red River Valley’ over my grave if you can…you sing that right pretty….”

The shelling had died to sporadic bursts. I turned up the loudspeaker on the jeep radio so I could catch a signal and walked to message center. Major Pagan paced up and down nervously.

“Well?” he snapped to me.

“Kingpin will call us about naval support against a counterattack as soon as they get unfouled out there.”

A message center man came up to them. “All rifle companies consolidated and digging in.”

“Good. What about that telephone line to regiment?”

“We’ve lost four men trying to get it down the beach, Major. Intelligence reports that Japs have infiltrated the gap.”

“Can you get that other radio in with them, Mac?”

“We found a piece of shrapnel in it. We’ll never get it fixed.”

“I guess we’re going to have to stand alone,” Pagan whispered.

I went back to the jeep and sat down and waited and wondered where Speedy was with the squad. Danny walked up, then fell flat on his face. He dragged himself to the front wheel and leaned against it and took a swig from his canteen. There were deep haggard circles of exhaustion beneath his eyes. He took off his helmet and dropped his head to his chest.

“Did you find Mary and Joe?” I asked.

“Marion’s dead,” he said. “Spanish Joe is somewhere up around Fox Company…they say he’s going crazy with a machine gun. They’re trying to get the wounded off the beach. There must be half the battalion there.”

Several moments passed. Pagan ordered everyone to stand by to move the command post to a safer spot.

Speedy staggered in, glassy eyed. He got into the jeep and laid an arm across the steering wheel and dropped his head on it. I was afraid to talk to him. I was afraid to ask…it couldn’t be possible…it couldn’t be!

“Speedy, where’s the rest of the squad?” I finally asked.

Speedy did not answer.

“Andy…where is Andy?”

“I don’t know,” Speedy sobbed.

“The Injun?”

“Don’t know.”

“Seabags?”

“Dead.”

“L.Q…. did you find L.Q.?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“Doctor Kyser, four more on stretchers.”

“Hold them for a second till we make room.”

The long tent was filled with walking wounded who sat about quietly awaiting their turn. Those on the stretchers must come first. Some sat there on the brink of unconsciousness, some agonized with burning pain, but each insisted his wound was small. A long row of the near dead lay on litters on the gory floor.

Kyser took a cup of cold coffee and gulped it down. “Bring in the four new ones…lay ’em down here.” He walked quickly from stretcher to stretcher. “Those two are dead. Tag them and move them outside.” He took the poncho from the body on the third stretcher. “Good Lord, what happened to this boy?”

“It’s Spanish Joe, Doctor. He tried to stop a tank. Jumped on it and threw a grenade down the hatch and spun off. It ran over him.”

He examined the crushed form and nodded slowly. “Bleeding internally…impossible to save him. Move him outside.”

Kyser moved to the last stretcher. “He got it in the face and the leg,” the corpsman said.

“Give me a sponge.” The doctor wiped the caked gore and dirt away. “The big Swede…I was at his wedding.” He opened Andy’s eye and turned a flashlight on it. “Dilated…pulse thready. Rip those dungarees off, I want to take a look at that leg.”

He studied the mangled bone and flesh and felt the pulse once more. “Morphine.” He flipped the boy’s dogtag over and wiped it clean to read. “Pedro, get a thousand cc’s of type O ready. We’re going to have to cut above the knee. Pedro, dammit, answer up…where is he? I sent him out a half hour ago.”

“He hit a land mine, Doc.”

“Get…get…this boy ready. Plasma…amputation…”

“Hit the deck!”

Divito dashed into the tent.

“Another buffalo on the beach, Doctor.”

“You walking wounded help with the stretchers there. The rest of you get tagged and get aboard the buffalo.”

“Doc, let me stay and help you.”

“Your arm is in bad shape, son. You’d better evacuate.”

“I’ll stay on too, Doc. You need help.”

“Dammit! You people get out of here! You’re just cluttering up the place.”

“I’m going back to the front.”

“Get to the beach and in that buffalo. That’s an order, Marine!”