Battleground Pacific Read online

  There was only the beauty of being young and all the freedom that comes along with it.

  Sy and I broke ranks. Nobody called us back. For just a few winks in the eye of forever, Sy says to me, “Truckin’!” So the two of us began truckin’—dancing—right in front of the camera, arms waving in the air, just like we had done back in the boroughs, showing off to the girls, laughing, sipping soda from candy-striped straws …

  The smile on Sy’s face was unbelievable. Never to be replicated. Captured on celluloid for as long as film may last; yet forever etched in my mind for as long as I may live. A charm of friendship. A wonder of youth, immortal.

  Hurriedly, Sy and I trotted back to our ranks, a spring still in our step, giggling the whole time as the aftereffects of our folly still lingered, despite being back among the Corps. Nothing on this earth or beyond could claim that moment from Seymour and me.

  7

  THE REAL PACIFIC WAR

  THE GREATEST TRUTH ABOUT LIES is that there’s a little bit of truth in every one of them.

  The truth is, there is no truth. Because the greatest lie in every truth is that the truth will set you free.

  Ammunition will set you free. Grenades will set you free. Death will set you free.

  It doesn’t take a bleak outlook or a hardening of the heart to realize this. Fifteen days since invading Peleliu, attacking Ngesebus, and then back again, it is easy to see that we’re not getting away with anything. Like the getaway driver in a bank heist; it’s guilt by association. We’re not going back to Pavuvu, either.

  “So did you hear that crap about Pavuvu?”

  “What crap is that?”

  “Yeah, you really think we’d still be sittin’ in the middle of this friggin’ island if they were plannin’ on sendin’ us back?”

  “The hell you say, Magginello!”

  “The hell is right. You … me … all of us here. We ain’t gettin’ outta this fuckin’ place unless all the Nips are dead, or all of us. Look around you and tell me I’m not right.”

  The truth is …

  … this marine isn’t lying.

  *

  Now there’s blood coming down Sergeant Spiece’s cheek and he’s crying. I’m squatting right in front of Spiece, rifle leaning against my chest, reaching out for him, trying to calm him down.

  At least Spiece had the presence of mind to remove his helmet after the piece of shrapnel zipped through its inner liner and out the back somewhere.

  His eyes are begging and his whole face is a knot of a frown, tears rich with anxiety.

  “How bad is it, Mace? Mace, how bad?” The sergeant appears too shocked to believe this could be happening to him.

  I lean over and look at the wound in his head. Even if I were able to see his brains pulsing beneath his skull (which I’m not), I would tell him what he wants to hear.

  “Hey, hey … it’s alright, okay?” I say. “It looks like a kid skipped a rock off the side of your head. C’mon, buddy … you’ll be fine, alright?”

  I don’t know if what I tell him registers in his mind; nevertheless, I’m not lying to him. That’s exactly how the wound appears: like a neighborhood brat beaned him in the head with a stone, putting a groove in Spiece’s scalp, a poorly dug trench, jagged and slick with a thin layer of red.

  Christ, some neighborhood, this place, I think, as I take my eyes off of Spiece and look up at my surroundings.

  Mere moments before Spiece got hit, we had moved up and were standing at the bottom of a cliff getting ready to climb.

  “Remember, guys,” McEnery said. “This is strictly a defensive move. So keep your heads down during the day and we’ll all be fine.”

  The cliff itself, just off the West Road, is at a 20-degree incline; the same dirty white coral rock and mash of crappy vegetation we’ve been bouncing all over since the invasion began. The same all-invasive heat, weighty and sharp. The same putrid dungarees, sagging off the body. The only difference now is that it’s our job and not somebody else’s.

  Our job.

  The day before, after we came off of Ngesebus, they moved us into the bivouac area, close to the old makeshift aid station we had passed on our way to Sniper Alley and the Lobster Claw. In fact, in order to get back to the bivouac area, we had to run the gauntlet of Sniper Alley one more time, just to grab our much-needed break.

  We grabbed it in a big tent they had erected, much like the one we barracked in on Pavuvu. A place we could lie beneath, attempting to escape the barbed blades of the sun. It didn’t matter, however. No matter where we went, in the shade or not, heat waves laid into us so it was like sticking your head into a preheated oven. Suicidal.

  As it turned out, the Pavuvu-like tent was the closest we were going to get to Pavuvu.

  Magginello was right. We’re not going anywhere.

  Phil was the same marine who, in our early fight for the island—when we still thought it was three innings and the ball game would be over—pointed out the various ridges of the mountains and laid out the whole plan of how we were going to take this place in just a few days. Now, however, the strategic genius of Magginello & Co. had given way to a bleaker air of surrender and acceptance.

  Although I didn’t subscribe to their fatalistic way of thinking, I could see where ideas like that came from and how some marines were justified in their thinking. To their credit, those Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester vets were pretty sharp—though even the sharpest knife becomes dull after gnawing against the coral of a place like Peleliu, day in and day out. Dull in the mind. Dull in speech. Just plain weary in every cell of our bodies.

  Even the familiar surroundings—the aid station, the busy roads, the marines marching and working—which merely a few days ago seemed teeming with life and clamor, now appeared flat and two-dimensional, as if they were only sketches on a piece of paper, half erased and ready for the garbage.

  Under the tent, I raised my hand to rub my face, and as my hand slid down my slow growth of beard, the grime on my cheeks collected into small balls of dirt, mudslides rolling downhill. The same slime was on my neck, my chest, under my arms. Filthy. I could only imagine what our dungaree pants must’ve reeked like, too, after fifteen days. If we took a piss in a hurry, and anything splashed on the front of our dungarees, it stayed there. There was a constant sweat in the crotch—a pasty feeling down there.

  There is nothing more certain than that if you want to make an animal out of a man, you merely have to treat him like one and the beast will follow suit—baring his canines all the way.

  As for my teeth, I ran my tongue over the top of them, and where they normally felt sleek, now their surface was filmy. Where the bone met the gums I clearly detected deposits of bumpy mulch that had collected there after some long-forgotten meal I had attempted to eat.

  The groan in my stomach told me I was hungry, yet the thought of Marine Corps food killed the sensation to eat just as soon as it had risen.

  There were salt tablets, meant to rehydrate a marine. I rarely took any of those. Then there was one kind of food bar that looked like crushed raisins and ant corpses. It made me ill. There was another kind of bar that appeared to be made of smashed antacids. I didn’t eat that either. The chocolate that came with our rations was a brick of shit. Old shit, too—because the chocolate was no longer the color of cocoa; instead, it was white, like a sun-bleached animal turd. As advertised, at least, the chocolate didn’t melt in the heat. Of course, all it did do was sit there. It was debated by marines, if a guy tried his luck on one, what would come first, a chipped tooth or chipped chocolate.

  On the other hand, lucky for us, being in the bivouac area, they eventually told us to line up for chow. There was a mess tent down the road, and we hadn’t seen a tented chow line since … well, nobody wanted to say it …

  … since Pavuvu.

  Our spirits were immediately lifted. Hurriedly, marines took out their mess kits and prepared to line up. If mess kits were not available, as was the case for myself a
nd a few others, we simply took the inner liner out of our helmets, swabbing the inside of the metal bowl with the elbows of our dungaree jackets. I was ready for my first real meal since Sy and I put one over on the navy boys on Purple Beach.

  Plop!

  “What the fuck is this?” I glared at the stuff the cook slopped into the bottom of my helmet. It seemed like something to eat (maybe), with bits of meat and beans floating in a greasy sauce … but I wasn’t quite sure.

  “It’s chili,” the cook said in an emotionless tone. His eyes were already looking toward the next person to serve, as the other cook in line handed me some white bread.

  Chili? I thought. What the hell is chili?

  “Ah, to hell with it!” In disgust I poured the chili on the ground, leaving me with only white bread and a greasy helmet.

  If only I had known chili was good.

  Being from Queens, I didn’t have a clue. Therefore, I merely sat there, alone, picking the sand fleas out of the white bread and drinking the metallic-tasting water from my canteen.

  If the bread didn’t cure my hunger, well, at least I had cigarettes. The perfect Marine Corps food. Cigarettes. Camels. Chesterfields. Lucky Strikes. The nutritional value of cigarettes could carry a marine a long way. Have some. Bum one. Crinkled or broken. This foodstuff didn’t spoil.

  Goddamn, chili. They expect me to eat that crap?

  Stupid. If chili had been on the Mace family menu in Queens, the sand fleas could’ve had all the white bread they wanted on Peleliu.

  *

  October 1, 1944.

  We’ve taken over from the 7th Marines, preparing to climb a cliff they had occupied for the last few days. Facing east—the West Road and the ocean are to our backs, and in front of us, about fifty feet up, is our destination.

  There is light conversation. Marines here and there adjust their gear for the climb up. I sling my BAR over my back and begin looking for Levy, since he has my smokes.

  Suddenly we hear a rapid fluttering noise, very similar to the way a thrown baseball sounds when its flaps have come loose from its stitching. There’s very little time to react. The brain registers what the sound is just a fraction before the muscles record the same.

  Boom! There’s an explosion—shrapnel and hunks of coral whip through the air as marines scatter …

  All but one marine.

  Only a few feet away, Sergeant Spiece falls flat on his ass, his eyes the size of pie plates. My own eyes vibrate in my head for a moment, like the last frames of a roll of film, flashing out their final scene on-screen. The scene in this case is Spiece taking off his helmet, and he gawks at it as if he’s never seen a helmet before in his life.

  “Hey!” My ears are ringing too loud for me to hear my own voice—and before I know it, I’m right there by Spiece, in the middle of the dust-congested air.

  “Corpsman!” I shout.

  I look at Spiece and then at the helmet in his hands. There’s not a dent or ding in the helmet. Whatever hit him must’ve gone up and through the underside of his steel pot, cutting a groove in his head in the process.

  I can’t stop thinking of the fistfight Spiece and I nearly got into on Pavuvu. I can’t even recall what it was about—just that Spiece isn’t the same man now as he was with his fists up.

  Jesus Christ, that was close!

  They whisk Spiece away.

  We’ve grown accustomed to crap like this happening to marines, so nobody even mentions Spiece or the other couple of guys who were hit by the same knee mortar. We simply begin to climb, hands grabbing for branches, mangrove, and any rock that looks strong enough to hold us up. It’s not that tough a climb, but it’s difficult not to think about where that Jap mortar came from. It surely came from the same direction we’re climbing. Into the claws of another creature. Feeding the war effort with spoonfuls of blood.

  A silent place.

  When we reach the top there is only silence … and a little trail leading to some of the most ghastly scenery I have seen thus far.

  On our left, to my astonishment, is what looks like a field of snow. Of course, it’s not snow. Instead, what appears to be powder is really long streamers of toilet paper, about forty yards in length, stretching out and showing how far the 7th Marine riflemen could crawl from their protected areas to relieve themselves. There are hundreds of pieces of toilet paper—and at the edge of the paper are the corpses of Japanese in various stages of decomposition, some mixed in with the paper, all mixed in with the feces of marines. Excrement sticks to the coral surface; flies congregate for church in mass sheets of worship; the smell of shit and liquefying flesh floats as a palpable thing, suspended in the air, as if I can reach out and touch the melancholy—as if I can hold a conversation with the sadness that lives here. The horror blanks out all other thoughts and tells a story of how life used to be okay.

  Silence, as each marine is left to digest this charnel house in his own way. Besides, we don’t know if the Nips are two feet or twenty feet away from us; therefore, silence is the best policy. It’s goddamn golden.

  We spread out, north to south, every marine seeking any protection he can find: coral outcroppings, spines of rock along the trail, and any little divot against the face of the smaller ridge to our right. With our backs still oceanside, the other ridge—the one right in front of us, looking east—that’s where the demons dwell. Beyond the eight-foot-high ledge, the Nips are surely sharpening their bayonets, angry at having to suffer under the same green stench of their decaying brethren, just as we are. Beyond the Nip camp is another ridge. Beyond that is another ridge … and another, and another … all of them infested with Japs to the very brim. If you can see it from an aerial view, the lay of the land is what’s killing us. The whole surface of the mountains is merely a series of ridges that resembles the shallows of a waffle iron. Soft marines keep pouring into the crests and valleys, and when the Nips get ready, they merely press the handle down and Americans come out crispy and charred. Mostly dead and undone in the middle.

  I pass Levy and Frank Ocepek and some kid named Matheny (who I really don’t know from Adam), moving north on the winding trail until Allmann and I find a tight hollow against the east ridge.

  Keeping our heads down, we slide against the wall at a crouch.

  We’re in defensive position, yes. I suppose to keep the Nips from spilling out onto the West Road and cutting open our vein of travel on this side of the island. Yet I’m not a general or a chess player, so what do I know? I do know, however, from my vantage, if the Nips decide to come over the ridge in force, we’ll only be able to defend our ground for a few minutes and then we, too, will be dead among the crap paper, the bloated bodies, and the waste of whatever made the 7th Marines shit so much.

  Nonetheless, up here, tactics are not the point of the lecture.

  The minutes that creak by are rungs of the ladder I descend. For every moment that passes without a bullet in my head is another moment of triumph I hold over the power of death.

  The minutes … The hours … The everlasting moment between the seconds …

  We haven’t been up here ten minutes when I hear the pop of something very akin to a firecracker, somewhere south of me. That’s easy; I know that sound. The small-arms snap of a Japanese rifle. My body tenses for a second, waiting for someone to shout for a corpsman. I listen, nerves as tight as piano wire. Yet it’s only when the call doesn’t come that am I able to relax again. Jap must have missed, I guess.

  Feeling around for my cigarettes, I don’t find them. That’s when it dawns on me that Levy has my smokes. Dammit, I need one. I gave them to Sy this morning, at the bivouac area, because I didn’t have enough room in all my gear without crushing the pack, and since Levy doesn’t smoke I could trust him to hold them, as opposed to some of those other smoke hounds in the squad.

  “Crap!” I whisper. Allmann looks up at me, his expression asking what’s the big deal. “I left my goddamn smokes with Levy, for chrissakes,” I hiss. This is nerve-rack
ing.

  A few minutes pass and I can’t stand it anymore—because there’s no telling how long we’ll be up here.

  “Look, Charlie,” I begin, antsy. “I’m gonna go down there and get my pack, alright? I’ll be back in a flash.”

  Moving again at a crouch, I shuffle and zig along the trail, going down to where I saw Levy and Frankie stake their ground earlier.

  When I see Frank, by himself, I skid to a halt and sidle up to him, dispersing a few loose coral pebbles in the process.

  “Hey, Frank, where’d Levy run off to?” I quick-look to the right and left, trying to see where Sy moved his position. When I gaze back at Frank there’s something in his downturned countenance that looks a little off. Out of focus.

  “Frank?” Ocepek remains with his head down. I wince inside, where a tiny spike of nausea flips in my stomach and jumps around in there. What the hell’s goin’ on here?

  “Frank?” I try again. I can hear the shaking in my voice. Desperate. “Where the fuck is Levy, Frank?”

  A pause in my life. Just a pause.

  “Nobody wanted to tell you…” His words barely audible under his helmet; he begins to raise his face to meet mine, and all the time this crazy flipping in my belly gets wilder and wilder. Then I know. I know. I know before I see the gray tone of sadness in Frank’s eyes. Even before he finishes the words. “Nobody wanted to tell you, I’m just … Sorry, Mace. He’s gone. He took one in the head as he peered over the edge, to have a look. He just … he just said was tired of this shit, and then he looked…”

  Oh, Jesus, Levy …

  “Where is he, Frank? Where’d they take him?” I hear myself say in a flat tone—as flat as the earth was once … a thousand years ago. I could fall off the edge of the map—a place marked you are here—but I’m not here. I’m not anywhere close to being here.

  I hear Frank say something about them taking Sy’s body back down the cliff, and all I can imagine is them carrying Levy’s body over the spewing bellies of Japanese carcasses, rife with gas and hatching fly larvae; over the piles of human excrement, which speaks of how we come into this world and how we’ll leave it, too; and then over the streams of toilet paper, so white and out of place, much like the beard Levy wore when he returned from the hospital ship an eternity ago.