Battleground Pacific Page 24

  “Just leave the horse here,” I finished.

  The two marines backed slowly away, and just as soon as they felt it was safe to turn their backs on us, they swung around and quick-walked back the way the came.

  “Jeez.” Orley took out his Ka-Bar and gutted the pig. A fresh smell of earth and wet grass, clay, and offal came from within the pig’s slit belly. “Some friggin guys, huh? Get in a war, and people forget all how to act!”

  It was common to see marines riding horses around, everywhere they went. Some horses were used to carry ammunition, while other marines rigged ways to strap their rifles to the horses. The riflemen were especially adept at playing city cowboys.

  There we were in full marine regalia: Dungarees, leggings, packs, and helmets, armed to the teeth, yet at the same time you could find a pack of wild marines whooping it up and racing horses down the beach. Nobody gave a damn. Some officers, like that shit-eating Lieutenant Johnson, tried to stop the races and the pandemonium—but what was he going to do? Shoot us off the horses? Horses could be shot, pigs could be shot, the Marine Corps Manual could be shot—but for God’s sake, don’t shoot the man behind the globe and anchor. That man had gunpowder in his veins and a powder keg for a heart. Every veteran knew that we were coming into action again. So the rule of the day was to simply enjoy life, sitting on your keister, before it was your time to get killed.

  Besides, if Lieutenant Johnson ran back to the CP to report disorder among the ranks, I’m sure they’d tell him to calm his ass down, try some of the local sake, and maybe if he was lucky someone would kill a chicken, and they’d all dine well for the night.

  Eventually, however, our revelry trickled to a halt. We were instructed to set up proper bivouac areas. Orders came down for us to inch farther north, patrolling on the alert, for who knew if there were Japs skulking around the upper portion of the island? What’s more, not long after we reached the eastern side of Okinawa, we learned that the source of all the shelling and machine-gun fire to the south of us was the army running into stiff resistance. Very stiff resistance—and news like that had a sobering effect of its own.

  The fact is, it could have been us down there, getting ripped up by the Nips, if the planners of the invasion had engineered for the marines to swing south as the army went north. The way I saw it, it was merely happenstance, as far as what the brass knew, that northern Okinawa was so lightly defended, so far, while the southern half of the island was brimming with Japanese cutthroats. After all, we remembered how tough the landing was supposed to be; and if that didn’t materialize, like they warned us, then the top brass really didn’t know any more than we did about strength of force and the disposition of the Japanese army.

  We would find out soon enough, however, as the daily patrols grew more plentiful—and paranoia began to spread like yellow fever.

  *

  Okinawa Shima, Ryukyu Chain, April 10, 1945.

  “Hey, Mace!” the company runner called to me while I sat outside eating breakfast with the boys.

  “Yeah, what’s goin’ on?” I asked. “But keep it down, willya? You’ll wake up my breakfast, and if it starts movin’ I won’t be able to eat it.” I stuck my spoon back into the little green C ration can. “See, now look what you made me do. I killed it. It’s no good anymore.”

  “Well, I’ve got a can of peaches you can have.” The company runner looked at me, exasperated. “Look, Captain Stanley wants to see you right away, okay?”

  That got my attention.

  I looked at Bob Whitby, and he simply shrugged his shoulders. Beats me. Glancing at Gene Holland, he whistled through his teeth, as if to say, Boy, you’re really in trouble now, son.

  “Okay.” I sighed, placing the can of C-rats on the deck, standing, then brushing my hands off on my dungaree pants. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Whatever it was that Captain Thomas Stanley wanted with me, I was sure it was a crap detail.

  Ever since I made corporal, on Pavuvu, Stanley seemed to have it in for me.

  It all started with some sort of school, or a lecture, an officer was giving us on Pavuvu.

  We all stood in a semicircle around the officer. Yack, yack, yack, that’s all we heard from him; to tell the truth, most of us didn’t give a shit what he was saying. A couple of other Marines and I were at the back of the class, grab-assing or whatever, and … yack, yack, yack, the officer droned on in a monotone, which was probably indicative of his own enthusiasm toward the lesson at hand.

  I forgot who the other comedians were with me—it could have been Leyden and Holland. Anyway, we started up the old Tom Mix routine from The Miracle Rider, or some other Western that was popular when we were kids.

  My two cohorts held their arms out with their fingertips touching each other’s, miming a pair of old swinging saloon doors. Then I would push through their arms, like a real hero, with my fingers as a pair of revolvers in my hands, guns blazing away at a group of imaginary villains. That got a few chuckles. Then I’d go through the doors again, but this time, the marines with the saloon doors for arms would swing their arms back and hit me in the backside—turning the gag into something more like a Charlie Chaplin bit.

  City cowboys.

  It was lowbrow humor, sure—anything to pass the time—and although the teacher for the day didn’t notice, Captain Stanley was taking the whole thing in, from the entrance of his tent, only thirty yards away.

  When school was over, Stumpy Stanley called me over to his tent.

  “That was quite a display, Mace.” Stanley glared at me, giving me the ol’ evil eye. “I wouldn’t say you were paying attention. What would you say you were doing?”

  I didn’t even try to offer him an excuse. It wouldn’t have done any good.

  “Yeah, Captain,” I said. “We were grab-assing like little kids. That’s all.”

  “Well, what we’re going to do—” He paused. “Well, since you’re a corporal now, I’m sure you’ll be happy to be corporal of the guard for a couple of weeks. That’s two weeks. Is that understood?”

  I understood, alright. It was no big deal, corporal of the guard. That only meant I could sleep during the day, go on duty at 10:00 P.M., walk around all night talking to whoever was up, and then go off duty about 7:00 A.M. the following morning.

  It’s not as if there were any Nips around to worry about, so it was soft duty.

  The only person I had to keep an eye out for, at night, was “Jack the Ripper.”

  Now, Jack the Ripper—our Jack the Ripper, on Pavuvu—like his original namesake of London fame, will forever remain an enigma, more powerful in myth than he ever was in life.

  The rumor was, a marine was going around Pavuvu killing other marines with a knife. Of course, as far as anybody knew, a body was never produced, let alone a harvest of them. Still, they had to give this phantom psychotic marine the Jack the Ripper moniker; and although I doubt he ever existed, that didn’t make him any less real.

  I had a feeling, right away, that the Jack the Ripper phenomenon was a bunch of hooey. Partly because it wasn’t difficult to imagine battle-stressed marines coming back from Peleliu and conjuring up something wicked lurking between the coconut trees—perhaps an overimaginative marine who had gone twisted from combat. Mostly, though, it was crap, because whatever marine decided to take a Ka-Bar in hand and give the business to his fellow troops could have chosen a better weapon to do it with! My own experience with the Ka-Bar left me with the impression that the marines would have been better off issuing us sharpened sticks, instead of the infamous blade that personified Marine Corps bloodthirstiness. The only time I ever used mine was after I returned from Peleliu, and upon spying a frog sitting in the sand, I decided I could probably hit the frog with my Ka-Bar, if I threw the knife hard and fast enough. With dead-eye vision, I held the knife a certain way and then deftly zinged it in the frog’s direction. The frog simply sat there, ignoring my deadly projectile, merely regarding me (perhaps with curiosity) with his great
bulbous eyes, making me feel like a fool in the process. Not only did I miss the frog, but the Ka-Bar knife was a broken object on the ground. The blade had snapped right off at the hilt, having collided with the soft sand.

  So much for the Ka-Bar.

  So much for Jack the Ripper, too.

  It wasn’t long after I had done my stint as corporal of the guard that the Jack the Ripper paranoia reached its crescendo. I was his last victim.

  One night, as we were all sleeping in our mosquito-netted hammocks, a marine from another tent got up to take a leak, and as he was walking to the head, he spotted a softball lying in the company street. Knowing that I was in charge of the softball team, he must have put two and two together that the ball belonged to me, so he tossed it in the tent. As luck would have it, his pitch was a perfect strike, right over the plate, and the ball hit me square in the stomach. I let out a surprised Oomph—the ball took my breath away, and immediately all my tentmates rose in a clamor. Eubanks tore right through his mosquito net, and Blowtorch Willy jumped up and grabbed his .45, looking to shoot anybody or anything that looked out of place.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “It’s Jack the Ripper! Keep your eyes peeled!”

  “Mace—you alright?”

  I picked the ball off my stomach, trying to clear my eyes of sleep. “Yeah, I’m okay.” I held the ball up. “Hey, look, it’s my ball!” I said with a wide grin.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Blowtorch shook his head. “We thought the Ripper had gotten ahold of you, Mace.”

  “You kiddin’?” I asked. “Jack is gone with the last of the guys who rotated home.”

  Sure enough, the scuttlebutt regarding Jack the Ripper fizzled out and faded, just as soon as the Canal and Gloucester marines, like Jim McEnery, bade us farewell.

  Jack wouldn’t be making the Okinawa landing with us. Neither would Jimmy.

  Besides, we had real troubles to contend with on Okinawa, in the form of murderous Japs, not killer marines. Or, like in my case on Okinawa, a captain who assuredly had troubles of his own planned for me.

  Entering Stumpy’s tent, I quickly noticed that Stanley wasn’t alone. Standing off to my left was another officer: A thin, older marine—at least in his fifties—with graying hair, about my height, and sporting the gold oak leaves of a major on the collars of his dungaree jacket.

  Immediately I snapped to attention and saluted them both.

  “At ease, Mace,” Stanley intoned. “Mace, this is Major Paul Douglas. He’s got the idea that the Nips are cutting the communication lines between the Fifth and the Seventh. We’re having the damnedest time reaching them by radio. So what I want you to do is take your fire team and escort Major Douglas. Find out what’s going on, and check it out.”

  “Yes, sir!” I said.

  “Good. Anything else, Major?” Stumpy nodded at his senior officer.

  The major replied that everything was to his satisfaction. We all gave our exiting salutes, and then the major and I stepped out of the tent.

  Outside, the day was bright, so Douglas and I both shielded our eyes from the sun as we talked.

  “Okay, sir,” I began, “so what’s the plan?”

  “Well, it’ll be easy to follow the telephone line to the Seventh. What we’ll do is track the wire to its breaking point, and if we see any signs that the Nips have cut it … well, then we’ll make sure they don’t do it again.”

  Douglas was right; following the line on the ground was simple. The major started off leading my fire team out of the company area, but as we moved farther off the beaten path, we found that Douglas had steadily been inching toward the rear of the column, yet still giving us a few directions here and there, so that we knew who was still in control.

  The terrain itself was pretty simple, too, in that it wasn’t a difficult trek, alternating between open land, spotty shrubs, and here and there a few rocky patches of turf.

  As it turned out, it was the rocks that were wearing out the telephone lines—that, and probably some agitation from the weather.

  Whitby looked down and pointed out this discovery. “Look there, Mace—old wire.”

  At various intervals we noticed the exposed copper, peering out of its conduit, frayed and cracked at different sections—some of it in really bad shape.

  “Think we should tell the major?” Bob asked.

  I gazed back at the major; he appeared to be idling back there, taking compass readings, or maybe bird-watching.

  “Nah, Wimp,” I said. “Let’s not upset the applecart here. The last thing ya wanna do is upstage an officer. He’s the expert, so he’ll get the medal for this. Besides, if you wanted to be an electrician so bad, you shouldn’t have begged for the goddamn infantry.” I winked.

  The joke was on us, however, when about two hours into our journey Weisdack spotted what appeared to be a small cave, recessed a little off the path from the wire we’d followed.

  The cave itself was nothing like the Peleliu variety. To enter the cave you would have to stoop down, as it was only about four feet tall, and it appeared to get shallower as it made its natural run to the end, only about five feet deep.

  “Whattaya think of this?” Weisdack asked me.

  I squinted a little, and I could see the end of the cave, as the sunlight illuminated part of it. “Oh, nothin’. Looks like maybe a twelve-year-old kid dug this thing ou—”

  Bang!

  What the shit?

  Major Douglas, in all his bravado, stood at the side of the cave, his .45 in hand, having just fired a round into the entrance.

  Douglas looked at me. “Go in there and check it out.”

  Is this guy for real? I gazed around at my fire team, but they didn’t know caves from an Okinawan toilet; they were simply milling around the entrance, looking to me for answers.

  “Well,” I said to Douglas, “pardon me, sir—but we just don’t operate that way, Major. If someone throws a grenade in there, I’ll go in.” Now, that’s what I said to the major, but what I was thinking about telling him was entirely different. If I didn’t have respect for the officers, he would have probably received the blunt end of my opinions.

  The only thing the major gave me in return was a blank expression, which told me one of two things: He understood the way riflemen did things, or he was still trying to process the information. I simply wanted him to understand—in case he ran across a more dangerous cave in his adventures—that certain steps are needed to clear a cave, or you’ll be sorry.

  Either way, there wasn’t a grenade among us. After Sergeant Leonard Ahner blew himself up with his own grenades at the beginning of the Okinawa campaign, everyone sort of shied away from them. We even went to the great lengths of wrapping tape around the grenade’s spool, as an added precaution. That way, pulling the pin wasn’t enough to activate the grenade—you’d have to unwrap the tape, if you really thought a grenade was the way to go. On Okinawa, so far, we hadn’t needed to use many of them, so it was a moot point … until you needed one but didn’t have one.

  Nevertheless, I knew a sure thing when I saw one, so I went in, nosed around for a second, and then came back out. “All clear, sir,” I said.

  “Good,” Douglas replied, reholstering his .45. Everything went the way the major wanted it to, and I was there to make sure it happened.

  That wasn’t the last we saw of Major Paul Douglas, though.

  I’ll save the rest of the story for another time.

  *

  Takabanare Shima, Ryukyu Chain, mid-April 1945.

  While conducting a good spring cleaning, it’s imperative that you seek out every nook and cranny you can find, in order to sweep all the dirt away. Otherwise, you’re only half-assing it.

  That’s what we’re doing on the island of Takabanare. Spring cleaning. Now, whether Takabanare is a nook or merely a cranny, none of us have the foggiest; nevertheless, since there is supposedly a Nip radio on the island, communicating with Japanese headquarters, the brass made
us do another shore-to-shore landing, from Okinawa to this piece-of-shit island—cleaning the dirt out. Despite our best efforts, we are half-assing it anyway. It’s only us gyrenes, low-crawling on our bellies, in a perfect textbook skirmish line, feeling like a bunch of jerks as we maneuver across some islander’s sweet potato field. The three native women tending the field try not to pay us any mind, but I’m sure we’re making a mess out of their harvest. They simply continue working, stuffing their bags with sweet potatoes, as we feel steadily dumber for being here. We’re supposed to be keeping an eye out for the enemy. What a joke!

  “Mace!” Billy Leyden is beside me, crawling like an idiot, too. “Reach up there and give her the goose.”

  The native woman is close enough for me to goose her; her ass is sticking straight up in the air, and she keeps taking quick looks at me, as if she’s expecting to get goosed, too.

  “Nah,” I say. “You do it, Bill.”

  Billy doesn’t goose her either. The truth is, you can attempt to lighten the mood only so much under the burden of any strain. Besides, any joke, right now, would come out too forced and feeble, when half a world away the nation we are defending is mourning the loss of our leader.

  Before we landed on Takabanare, the word came down to us that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president most of us had known for all of our lives, had died in Warm Springs, Georgia, of a hemorrhage in his brain, precipitated by the polio that had plagued his life.

  Sister Dorothy, be my guide.

  On Takabanare, there is no Jap radio. There are still no Japs. There is only a series of unimportant little villages, under a non-American sky. Now, you ask Truman what he can do for us, on Takabanare, and we’ll be all ears.

  “Candy! Candy!” A little native boy comes up to me as we take a break in one of the villages; he shows me the universal sign for wanting food, with his mouth open wide and his hand going to his mouth.

  “Get a load of this kid, Gene,” I say. “This cute little guy is asking for candy. I wonder where he learned that shit from.”

  “Beats me,” Holland says. “Teach him to say ‘pogey bait’ and he’ll have every marine that passes through here givin’ him all they got.”