Then I had an idea. Since I had the big stuff at my disposal, I called them back and told them the target was obscured and announced a second fire mission. This time I called for armor-piercing rounds and spotted the impact points back up on the top rim of the Quarry—directly above the bunker, I hoped. I couldn’t know how far underground they’d built that bunker, but if I could make the tunnel’s roof collapse, they’d be permanently out of business. Nevada, using a single turret, fired six more rounds in three-packs, all but one of which landed near or on the overhead line of the tunnel.
One round, the last one, went a bit long, for some odd reason. It took about forty-five seconds between rounds, and I could just envision the turret crew clearing that barrel’s gaping maw and then feeding the next shell and its attending powder bags, slapping on the primer pads, and then hydraulically activating the massive breechblock to swing back up, engage, and then rotate to the locked position.
Nothing happened from when these rounds first hit until the delayed-action fuses fired, by which time I was hoping these even heavier projectiles had penetrated down to where the tunnels and our treacherous enemy lurked. One of those AP rounds apparently found an ammunition storage chamber, because suddenly there came a pillar of flame erupting hundreds of feet into the night air and illuminating the entire middle part of the island with a sustained fiery roar. I knew that if that chamber had been part of the tunnel complex there’d be a similar firestorm pulsing underground throughout every tunnel in that complex that was physically connected to that ammo chamber.
The gunny came scrambling back up the slope to my position with a huge grin on his face. “That mean what I think it means?” he asked me.
“Well, if nothing else, they’re gonna be out of ammo,” I said. “Where’s that other bunker?”
I made a final transmission to Nevada indicating the target had been neutralized. I couldn’t say destroyed, but the ship would have seen that blast and known they’d done something worthwhile. Hell, everybody on the island had probably seen that eruption, which had illuminated the underside of the clouds. The Japanese started up with another mortar barrage from a different position, which lasted twenty minutes. They couldn’t actually hit the platoon’s hideout because of the overhang at the top of the Quarry’s rim, but they could get close enough to keep all of us pinned to the ground until it stopped.
Goon Logan showed up out of the dark with a big grin on his face. “Nice work, Loot,” he said. “It’s almost zero four hundred; getting late for infiltrators, but you know they’re gonna send a crowd over here later tonight. We need to get what’s left of this platoon outta here before first light and back down to the beach. These boys are done.”
“I’ll get Nevada to walk some five-inch rounds around the opposite rim of the Quarry,” I said. “We might get lucky, catch some of ’em out in the open.” I turned to the gunny. “Have you got comms with your CP?”
He shook his head. “They shift freqs and codes every day. We think there’s good guys about five hundred yards due west of here. We sent a couple of runners two nights ago; they never came back. Only positions we know about are the ones we can see shooting at us. We flashed an SOS to one of the carrier planes; prolly how you guys got here.”
“I’ve only got a couple of spotter freqs and codes,” I said. “I’ll get Nevada to relay a message to your regimental CP that we’re gonna try to extract back to a secure area on the beach. Corporal Logan—when you want to head out?”
“Ten minutes?” he said. “While it’s still really dark.”
“Okay, then, that’s not enough time to go after individual targets. I’ll give them an area target instead. I’ll get ’em to cover the other side of the Quarry with a time-on-target call. That way the sonsabitches’ll be taking cover while we’re breaking cover. I’ll ask for five-inch this time.”
Goon and the gunny acknowledged that, then hurried back down to rouse what was left of the platoon while I got on the radio to Nevada. A time-on-target area-fire mission was a box drawn on the grid. It was the shooter’s job to cover as much of that area as possible using his fire-control computer by introducing a series of spots manually at the computer. “Time on target” meant that he’d start firing at the time I specified, expending the number of rounds I requested. Nevada carried a lot more five-inch rounds than fourteen-inch, so if the objective was to drive the enemy into his foxholes rather than destroy a specific structure or emplacement, five-inch shells would accomplish that. Once I gave them the mission and they rogered for it, I was free to move.
Thirty minutes later, not ten, we moved out on the same path we’d taken in. The platoon’s gunny was technically in charge, being the senior enlisted man present, but it was Goon Logan leading the way. Monster had been sent out ahead, with Twitch acting as his wingman. Gunny Malone had told me that my bodyguards were officially designated Marine Raider/Scouts, specialists in small team reconnaissance, behind-the-enemy-lines sabotage and sniping, and what the Marines called pathfinding. If a regular unit was preparing to advance, the raiders would go in ahead of them, usually at night, to reconnoiter what the larger unit might be facing. Our objective was to get away from the Quarry and its surrounding ravines, low ridges, and subterranean enemy. I was the only officer, but I was mostly along for the ride, being “only” a naval lieutenant.
It was nothing like moving through a jungle, which, of course, I had only seen in the movies. The entire island of Iwo Jima was the tip of a submerged, active, oceanic volcano, rising from the sea floor some six thousand feet down. Mount Suribachi was only the most recent, in geological terms, vent. The so-called soil was a mixture of shattered lava, pumice, packed sulfur, and ash. Nothing grew right now on Iwo, after months of preparatory Navy shelling and Army Air Forces bombing. The Japanese who’d been living here before the war had mined sulfur. They’d lived on rainwater, rice brought in from the home islands, marine vegetation such as kelp, and locally caught fish. Iwo Jima, translated into English, roughly meant Sulfur Island.
Five of the platoon’s remaining men were stretcher cases, so men took turns humping them over the ankle-twisting terrain. Everyone else was spread out, ten feet apart, rifles and submachine guns at the ready, and trying to walk in the zig-zag footsteps of Goon Logan. Each man could see only the man in front of him in the gloom. The theory was, if Goon didn’t step on a mine, chances were they wouldn’t either. Monster and Twitch were still out on the wings ahead, watching for trouble. It was slow going, no more than ten feet per minute at best. I was counting the minutes until dawn broke. I think we all were.
I’d liberated a battered carbine and one spare clip. We’d burned the contents of my gym bag before leaving, destroyed the second radio, and left grenade booby traps under any still-serviceable gear. Everyone was hungry and very thirsty. The gunny’s shirt pocket was bulging with the dog tags of the guys they’d lost. The platoon was upset at the fact that we’d had to leave Marine bodies behind. Marines always brought in their dead comrades.
Nevada’s area barrage cranked up when we were maybe three hundred yards out of the Quarry area and slogging through some nasty dunes of black sand. I wasn’t sure my fire mission was doing any actual damage, but I thought it might convince the Japanese that the platoon and its accursed spotter were still hiding out under the Quarry’s opposite rim.
All of a sudden, Monster yelled and then threw himself flat on the ground while opening fire on something—I couldn’t see what because I, too, was getting flat and struggling to unlimber my carbine. A roar of incoming machine gun fire erupted in our direction, with bullets humming and snapping much too close for comfort. In a panic, I wondered: had I charged it? I dared to look up into the darkness, where what looked like a thousand points of red light flashed at us from somewhere ahead. The Marines behind and around me returned fire, convincing me to become one with the earth as a storm of lead flew both ways. I could actually feel the incoming fire and the returning fire humming a few inches above my head as I lay there with my eyes squeezed shut.
There came a sudden, almost unnatural silence. I could hear rifles being recharged and clips being slammed into receivers all around me. Someone was crying in pain. The darkness was so full of gun smoke that my eyes were watering. I pulled slightly back on the slide of my carbine, being careful to make no noise. The gleam of a brass cartridge case was barely visible in the breech.
Okay, I thought: my weapon was ready.
For what? Where’d they go?
We were flat down on a narrow trail curling through the dunes and the surrounding badly stunted underbrush. The constellation of airborne flares drifted to seaward, revealing a shattered landscape whose shadows danced erratically in the gloom as my eyes adjusted. Where were the Japanese? I crouched in the dirt while trying hard to squirm my way up against a four-inch lip of crusted volcanic ash. Not exactly great cover, but it was something. I kept closing my eyes and then reopening them, looking hard into the gloom.
I thought I heard feet. Somebody running toward me.
There: three indistinct figures, hunched way over, coming right at me, their feet making no noise. Who they were—what they were—I couldn’t quite make out, but I remembered Goon’s rules about movement in the night. I raised the carbine and shot each one of them, right in their middles. Then I did it again, even though they were down on the ground, half-kneeling, fully flat, or just subsiding down onto their knees. Fortunately, I hadn’t put the weapon in full auto, thereby not expending all my ammo in one terrified burst.
Roll, a distantly remembered voice told me: Roll!
I rolled, once, twice, and then took up firing position again, pointing out into the dark. A sudden scream erupted behind me and I rolled again just as someone buried a sword into the dirt right next to my head, swinging so hard that he fell down right next to me. Without even thinking I stuck the muzzle of my carbine right into his mouth. I actually felt the barrel tip striking his teeth. I fired, scattering the entire back of his skull into the darkness. As he subsided, I heard more footsteps, this time making no effort to be quiet. I saw a smudge of yellowish uniform materializing out of the corner of my eye, rolled to the other side, and fired again, this time shooting my attacker full in the throat, more times than was probably necessary. I wanted this shit to stop.
The carbine was empty. I ejected the clip and then jacked my one spare into the weapon. I had to think for a second: now what? Oh, right. Release the slide. Chamber the fucking thing!
Move, something told me. Move, move, move!
But this time it wasn’t necessary. Once again, it had gone quiet. My hands were hurting until I realized I needed to relax my grip on the carbine. By now I was contorted into some ridiculous position where it hurt to just stay still.
Goon appeared. That’s when I realized it was beginning to get light. I’d been huffing and puffing and trying not to urinate.
“Goddamn, Loot,” Goon said, looking around at all the bodies. “Gonna make a real Marine out of you yet. Twitch, Monster, come see what our squid did.”
“That’s squid sir to you,” I muttered, keeping the joke going. He chuckled and executed a mock salute. “All right, ladies,” he called. “Move out. We got ground to cover.”
“Hey, Loot, “Monster called. “You claimin’ that sword?”
“Hell, no,” I said as I got fully up and began dusting off my uniform. “I don’t need any more stuff to carry. Anybody got another clip for this carbine?”
Monster called dibs on the sword. Nobody had an extra clip. I slung the weapon over my shoulder and unsnapped the holster on my .45. We’d lost two of the stretcher-bearers, so I took a turn. The sky was definitely getting lighter to the east and the terrain had begun to descend toward the shore. The flares had stopped, but we no longer really needed them. We were encountering real dunes now, which Goon explained meant the bad guys couldn’t dig in and ambush us because of the loose sand. When I first began to hear surf, my thirst became overwhelming. I was reminded of those haunting lines from Coleridge: water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Our squid, I thought. Definitely advancing in the world.