The Purple Heart (40 page)

He whistled over to Akira
who carefully poked his head out. Hiroshi signaled his plan to Akira, which
garnered a look of resistance. But he finally acquiesced with a nod. Hiroshi
turned to Kenji and the two other men and asked, “How many grenades do you guys
have?”

They each had their full
count of four grenades. Hiroshi asked that each of them give him two. They
quickly handed over the grenades so that he had a total of ten. He told them of
his plan as they stared back in disbelief in what he had hatched in his mind.
But like Akira, they nodded and took their positions at the corner of the
building.

Hiroshi rushed to an iron
downspout against the wall, strapped his rifle behind his back, and tucked the
grenades inside his shirt. He then effortlessly began to climb the downspout.
When he reached the top, he carefully peered over to make sure there were no
Nazis lurking on the roof. Silently, he heaved his body over the wall and stealthily
made his way over to the roof of the third building. He stopped just short of
it so as to not let any creaks from his footsteps give away his position.

Hiroshi ducked low along
the edge of the roof overlooking the street and peered out. The faint outline
of at least two Nazi soldiers, who were cloaked in the darkness of the upper
corner window, could be seen. Directly below, he saw the outer ridges of the
two sandbag bunkers on the ground floor. He peeled away from the roof’s edge
and looked at the chimneystack. At the roof’s far edge, Hiroshi had to assume
from the intelligence of the other two soldiers, that there was another corner
window and at least one other sandbag bunker on the other side on the ground
floor.

Hiroshi slowly and
carefully grouped the grenades into one group of three, two separate pairs, and
the remaining three, he left clipped to his uniform. He laid them out
strategically in preparation for his next move. He turned his head back in the
direction of his fellow soldier with hope that they were ready for his signal.
Hiroshi laid his rifle aside but close by. Twenty-five feet separated him and
the chimneystack.

He gave out a deliberate
low sigh as he felt the sun’s rays on him. Hiroshi picked up the three grenades
and silently crept over to the chimneystack. He rose up along the chimneystack
and placed his ear to the opening and heard nothing. The three pins were
plucked and he dropped them down the chimneystack as the sound of metal bounced
off the inner bricks. The noise should have caught the attention of the snipers
on the second floor, forcing them to at least turn their heads around. Hiroshi
only had seconds.

He grabbed a pair of
grenades, pulled their pins, and dropped them down directly over the first
sandbag bunker in the doorway of the building that he was on. As they fell
toward their intended target, an explosion erupted from the room below, and
smoke billowed out from the chimneystack. This was followed by another
explosion from below. Hiroshi didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed the last pair of
grenades, yanked their pins, and ran to the second sandbag bunker amidst shouts
in German from below as he counted to himself. He dropped the second pair of
grenades onto the second sandbag bunker and they exploded in mid-drop directly
above the sandbags. Hiroshi ran to the corner of the building and leaned over
to see the face of a Nazi soldier looking straight up at him.

His face was covered in
white dust and ash as his blue eyes looked into Hiroshi’s brown eyes. For a
moment, their eyes locked until Hiroshi’s arm, bearing a grenade came into
sweeping view. A look of terror came over the Nazi’s face as he watched the
grenade fly through his window. Hiroshi pulled back quickly, having no interest
in seeing what the Nazi soldier would do. He had already ran to the other
corner when he heard the explosion of the grenade he had just tossed into the
second floor window.

As he ran, he pulled the
pins from the last two grenades. He could hear rifle shots in the streets and
knew that his fellow troops had come to attack the Nazi position. He reached
the other corner of the building and leaned over just in time to see two Nazi
soldiers stumbling out from the sandbag bunker. He dropped the grenades
directly on top of them. Hiroshi then reeled back, dove flat onto his belly and
covered his ears with his hands as the grenades exploded, sending up a billow
of white smoke streaked with red.

There were more rifle shots
and he heard another explosion from below on the far side. Then he felt another
explosion directly below. The vibration shook through the roof and rumbled
weakly across his stomach. Someone must have tossed a grenade into the
second-floor window from the street. There were additional, muffled rifle
shots, and then there was silence.

Hiroshi straightened up and
took out his side arm and crept carefully back to his rifle.

“Home Run!” shouted Kenji
as his voice traveled aimlessly in the aftermath of the situation.

“Yeah, who’s that?” asked
Hiroshi as he shouted toward the edge of the roof. Hiroshi made his way to the
edge, as his ears pulsated. He peered over and saw the back of one of his
fellow troops’ helmets leaning out of the second floor window. The helmet turned
upward and Hiroshi caught Kenji’s smiling face.

“Hey Home Run! Damn! Looks
like you almost took them all out all by yourself!” said Kenji in admiration.

“Trust me, Kenji, I’m still
glad to see you guys,” said Hiroshi appreciatively.

Another head peered out and
it was Akira’s. There was a stern look on his face but he shouted out, “Shit, I
have to admit, you’re a
blast
to be with. Hey, one of them is still
alive!” Akira’s head then pulled away followed by Kenji’s.

Hiroshi holstered his
sidearm and strapped on his rifle. He slung himself over the roof and slid down
the closest downspout and landed with a light thud. He brought the rifle back
into his hands and advanced to the sandbag bunker furthest away. As sand slowly
oozed out of the sandbags of the first bunker, Hiroshi saw the bodies of two
Nazi soldiers sprawled out on the floor. The mangled machine gun and ammunition
boxes were lying in disarray, blown apart by the grenades. The second bunker
was actually set up in a large hole of the building created from some earlier
blast. The sandbags were blown apart, along with the bodies of the three Nazi
soldiers. One soldier’s head was missing as if something had ripped it off and
a sizeable portion of his torso was torn away. The second soldier had his face shredded
by the blast. His upper torso suffered a direct blast revealing a bloodied
chest cavity that was moist with blood and blackened elsewhere, cauterized by
the blast’s heat. A third Nazi soldier lay on his back and was riddled with
bullet holes. He hadn’t suffered much damage from the blast. Two of the other Japanese
American soldiers were surveying the position from the outside. Peter was at
the bottom of the staircase and walked toward Hiroshi with a sullen look on his
face.

“Thanks Hiroshi, you saved
my life,” said Peter.

“No I didn’t. You were just
pinned down. You were relatively safe,” said Hiroshi as he placed his firm hand
on Peter’s left shoulder when a heavy thud came from above.

“Well, thanks nonetheless,”
said Peter.

“Don’t mention it, we’re
all here to watch each other’s backs,” said Hiroshi as he made his way up the
staircase to investigate the noise. Peter followed close behind.

When Hiroshi reached the
second floor, he entered the room where the snipers had been holed up. He saw
the fireplace on the left. The grenade blast had widened the opening. He could
only imagine the explosion sending shrapnel and bricks outward toward the Nazi snipers.
Two of the snipers, including the one he saw from the window, were sprawled out
on their backs, motionless. He then turned to Akira, who had propped the third
sniper up against the wall. The sniper was still alive, but barely, judging
from the guttural and heavy breathing from his throat. Blood was dripping down
from the side of his mouth, and there was a silent wild look in his eyes.

Akira turned to look at
Hiroshi and smiled at him as Kenji and the other soldier looked on from behind.

“I think this is the fuck
that shot and killed Fujimori,” Akira said accusingly.

Akira turned back to stare
into the Nazi soldier’s blue eyes. He was undoubtedly in pain. Akira held him
by the collars of his grey uniform as his arms hung limp by his sides. The
soldier no longer had any noticeable control over them.

“Maybe I should just let
him die slowly in my hands instead of being merciful,” taunted Akira. The Nazi stared
back into Akira’s dark brown eyes that reflected his own eventual and painful
mortality. Every breath was painful, as if a heavy weight was being wedged down
his throat. He no longer had any control over his body. It looked as though
unthinkable pain was searing through his body and mind like molten lead being
poured into his very head. But he could barely even make the facial expressions
to express his pain. He was dying with excruciating slowness.

“No, dying is too good for
this son of a bitch. If he’s going to die anyways, he should feel every ounce
of pain possible before he goes,” said Akira menacingly.

A glint of fear shone in
the Nazi’s eyes as Akira pulled out his bayonet. Akira showed the soldier the
shiny metal blade and moved it menacingly in front of him. Akira drew the blade
down and out of the soldier’s view. Akira then stared into the trembling eyes
of the soldier and smiled reassuringly. Suddenly the soldier’s eyes bulged
outward as his face tensed up. For a moment his arms went rigid as Akira thrust
the bayonet deeper into the soldier’s lower abdomen with the blade facing
upward. With unseen strength, Akira forced the knife upward, cutting through
fabric, skin, muscle, and organs until it finally reached the bony sternum.
Akira watched the beads of sweat form on the soldier’s temples. The soldier’s
eyes shuddered in pain until finally, the pupils went still and the guttural
sounds from his throat were no more. Akira angled the blade to his right and
cracked through the soldier’s ribs and forcefully sliced his heart apart. Akira
pulled out the bloodied bayonet and wiped the blade along the sleeve of the
dead soldier’s uniform. The gutted body slumped to the floor as his torso split
open yielding its purplish, yellowish and bloodied organs.

Kenji immediately ran to
the window and threw up over the side. The other soldier simply turned his head
away in disgust. Hiroshi looked up at Akira, studied him and saw that he was
smiling.

“Was that really
necessary?” asked Hiroshi in a stern manner.

Akira looked up annoyingly
at Hiroshi. He quickly switched to a friendly tone. “Hey, I helped him. He
didn’t even deserve to die so quickly, but why let him suffer needlessly?
Besides, that’s for all the Jews that they’re murdering in Germany.”

Hiroshi simply looked at
Akira in disgust. “I didn’t think you would be like this.”

“Hey, he killed Fujimori,
if you don’t fucking remember. And need I remind you, we’re at war! Besides,
what I did wasn’t any different than gutting a cow.”

Hiroshi ignored Akira. This
dark side of his was an inevitable part of him. He had suspected this back at
Camp Shelby. Hiroshi turned away and simply said, “Whatever. Let’s secure this
area and then meet up with the rest of the company. Kenji, are you okay?”

Kenji leaned away from the
window, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and nodded.

“He’ll be fine. Kenji will
be a fine soldier yet,” said Akira as he sheathed his bayonet.

“Fine, let’s meet
downstairs and get out of here,” said Hiroshi. He wanted to get out of there as
quickly as possible and forget what had just happened. He turned and saw Peter
staring down at the gutted body of the Nazi soldier, who was slumped in a dark
pool of his own blood.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,”
said Hiroshi solemnly and Peter looked up and nodded. But Hiroshi saw a
troubled look on his friend’s face and he wasn’t exactly sure what it was.
Perhaps Peter was coming to terms with nearly escaping his own mortality. Or
perhaps, it was from watching Akira disembowel the dying Nazi soldier. It was a
lot for any man to endure and absorb in one day. The harshness of war was a
lesson in itself, revealing just how much pain man could inflict. It no doubt
challenged the very fabric of Peter’s naïve belief in a compassionate humanity.
Or maybe it was simply that Peter started to have doubts about his own
confidence as a soldier.

Physically, Peter was a
fine soldier. The training at Camp Shelby did him a world of good, and his
heart was in the right place. But Peter was having some doubts about his own
resolve to perform what was expected of a soldier. In his day-by-day duties, he
was still learning that. Military training couldn’t teach death or how to face
the possibility of one’s own death. It could come close, but it couldn’t
duplicate the actual brutality of an enemy who would employ any means to kill.

When Peter had landed in
Italy, he and the 442
^nd
marched toward the town of Belvedere and met
light Nazi resistance. Their objective was to push the Nazi positions north in
the Arno River campaign. The 442
^nd
dug in and with the assistance of
artillery that bombarded the Nazi positions, the 442
^nd
surrounded
the enemy and secured their surrender. Then came Hill 140, which was heavily
fortified. This tested the soldiers: The 442
^nd
was initially held at
bay. Many of them were newly minted troops and not yet battle tested. It was
the first time that many of them sensed the possibility of their own mortality
as artillery shells landed just feet away from them, followed by showers of
bullets chasing soft human flesh to rip apart. It took the battle-tested 100
^th
Battalion to move the fight forward. With their brazen charge leading the way,
the combined 2
^nd
and 3
^rd
companies of the 442
^nd
fought together as they remembered why they had joined the army in the first
place: To fight for their families’ freedom.