In the hospital tent Frankie La Barbara lay on his cot and listened to the bombardment in the distance. He knew that the big attack was under way—he’d heard it on the grapevine—and he knew that the recon platoon was out there someplace: Butsko, Lieutenant Breckenridge, Bannon and all the rest, their bayonets fixed and their M1s locked and loaded, waiting for the order to charge.
Frankie had been on many big attacks with the recon platoon, and all the feelings came back, the fear and anxiety, the rage and determination to win and survive somehow against the odds and the possibility that a stray Jap bullet or chunk of shrapnel could end a GI’s life.
His stomach ached, and never in his life had he experienced such a deep, horrible, never-ending pain. Whenever he moved, it hurt more, and he was afraid to cough, because he’d done that once and it had been nearly as painful as the initial wound.
He’d been in the hospital on New Caledonia with malaria once, but that hadn’t been painful. This was much worse; he felt weak and helpless. He couldn’t even get up to piss: He had to do it in a bottle. He’d watched while the nurse had changed his bandage the morning before, and the sight of the gash in his stomach, all stitched up, almost made him faint.
Suddenly in the distance the bombardment stopped. Frankie perked up his ears and his eyes darted around wildly. He knew that the attack was beginning just then. All his buddies were rushing forward toward the barrels of the Japanese guns, and it would be hell. Every GI would think he’d be cut down in a minute or two, and he’d be able to see other GIs getting shot. And somehow you just kept going, because there was nothing else to do. You had to charge and lay your head on the chopping block, because that’s what everybody else was doing.
Frankie gripped the sides of his cot and stared at the top of the tent. He thought about his buddies in the recon platoon galloping toward Kokengolo Hill.
“On your feet!” shouted Sergeant Suzuki. “Hurry!”
In the dark, narrow corridor the Japanese jumped up and ran in two single files toward the incline that led to the top of the fortress. They held their rifles at port arms and their faces were grim, because they knew they were hugely outnumbered. The battle for which they were waiting had begun. Now it would be vicious and bloody until the bitter end.
The soldiers ran toward the uppermost section of the mission fortress. The Mosquito saw smoking rubble everywhere. Artillery soldiers hauled their cannons to the parapets, and Machine gun crews set up their weapons. The top of the fortress had been devastated, but the piles of debris would provide all the cover that the defenders needed.
The Mosquito choked on the smoke and strong odor of cordite. Visibility was poor, the sun making a gray haze in the smoke.
“Move quickly!” Sergeant Suzuki shouted. “Open fire!”
The Mosquito dropped down behind a pile of boulders that had once been a wall of the mission. He pulled his rifle butt to his shoulder and lined up the sights. The wind was blowing away the smoke, and he could see the long green line of American infantrymen running toward the base of Kokengolo Hill. A cannon fired nearby, and for a moment the Mosquito thought his head had collapsed from the shock waves. The shell exploded at the base of the hill, blowing GIs into the air. Rifle fire crackled around the Mosquito, and then another artillery shell was fired.
The Mosquito aimed at a GI, held his breath, and pulled the trigger of his bolt-action Arisaka rifle. Its butt kicked into his shoulder and the barrel rose several inches into the air. The Mosquito worked the bolt, ejecting the spent shell, and pushed a fresh one into the firing chamber while looking down at his target.
The GI had fallen and his comrades jumped over him or swarmed around him as they charged Kokengolo Hill. The Mosquito took aim at one of them and squeezed his trigger again. When the smoke cleared he saw that he’d shot that soldier too. It was hard to miss at that range.
The bullet hit Longtree in the center of his chest and he blacked out while still on the run. His legs lost coordination and he fell to the ground, rolling over and flattening out on his back.
“Medic!” shouted Bannon, who had been beside Longtree. “Medic!”
Bannon knelt beside Longtree and saw the big bloody chest wound. Oh, my God, he’s dead, Bannon thought. Longtree’s chest was covered with blood, and he lay so slack on the ground Bannon thought there couldn’t possibly be any life in him.
“Medic!” he yelled again, looking around, but he couldn’t see Gundy. Maybe he’s been shot too.
Ka-pow—a Japanese artillery shell landed fifty yards away, shaking the ground and sending clods of earth flying through the air. Bannon wanted to feel Longtree’s pulse, but there wasn’t time. He had to get up there with his squad again. He turned to see where they were and found himself looking into the camera of Lydia Kent-Taylor.
Click!
She took the picture. A GI weeps over his fallen buddy. As she wound the film, Bannon jumped up and ran past her to join his squad. She looked around for another good shot; they were everywhere: She had to make up her mind which was best. Her thirty-five-millimeter wide-angle lens was screwed into the camera so she wouldn’t have to worry about focusing, and the light was constant. All she had to do was wind, aim, and shoot.
She snapped the shutter, then sped forward to keep up with the main line of attack. Her fear of being shot or blown up was overwhelmed by all the great pictures she saw. She shot one of Lieutenant Breckenridge running forward, holding his carbine in his right hand over his head, leading the recon platoon toward Kokengolo Hill. She filled the frame with a long rank of GIs running toward the hill, and just as her finger came down on the shutter button, one of them was stopped by a bullet.
Click!
She caught him as he was halfway down. What a picture! she thought, feverishly winding the knob. Getting to her feet, she ran toward the fallen GI and saw him squirming on the ground, his face wrenched with pain.
Click!
Gundy, the medic, dropped to his knees beside the fallen soldier, who was Pfc. Solomon Mayer from Atlanta, Georgia. Mayer had a bullet through his left shoulder, and Gundy cut away his shirt with his razor-sharp Ka-bar knife.
Click!
The GIs raced up the sides of Kokengolo Hill as the Japanese fired everything they had at them. GIs were raked with Machine gun and rifle fire and blown to bits by Japanese artillery. But still they attacked, their officers and noncoms urging them on.
“Move it out!” yelled Colonel Stockton.
He ran up the hill, holding his Colt .45 in his right hand, firing wildly at the mission station.
“Keep going!”
He saw soldiers falling all around him, and he expected to be shot at any moment, but he wasn’t afraid. He wanted to get inside that fort, where the artillery would no longer be a problem and where the GIs would be able to kill Japs face-to-face.
“We’re almost there! Charge!”
Bannon’s heart chugged in his chest as he ran up the side of the hill. Private Bollings dropped to the ground beside him, a bullet in his head, but Bannon didn’t stop to take a look at him. Close to the Japs now, he was a big target and didn’t dare let himself become stationary. Nearby he heard the voices of Lieutenant Breckenridge and Sergeant Butsko shouting orders. He thought of Frankie La Barbara in the field hospital and Longtree lying motionless on the ground. Bannon pumped his legs and raced up the side of the hill. They had only about fifty yards to go and then they’d be inside the fortress.
Barrrooooommmmmm!
Bannon felt himself being lifted into the air, tumbling, spinning, twisting. He blacked out, saw flashes of light, came to, and went out again. A Japanese artillery shell had blown him twenty feet in the air, and he had landed on his left shoulder, rolling over and coming to a stop on his stomach.
He wasn’t unconscious but he wasn’t fully awake, either. His head ached fiercely, and he couldn’t figure out what had happened. He was just a tiny glimmer of consciousness without any moorings, floating in a black sea.
“Holy shit!” said Butsko.
Bannon opened his eyes and saw Butsko’s face spinning above him. Bannon was aware that his face was wet, and his vision was tinged with red.
“You okay?” Butsko asked above the din of battle.
Bannon opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was dizzy and felt weird. His head felt as if somebody had buried the head of an ax in it. “Ooooohhhh,” he said.
“Medic!” screamed Butsko.
Lydia Kent-Taylor heard Butsko’s voice and turned toward it, thinking he’d been hit. She saw him on his knees beside a soldier with a terrible head wound. She raised her camera and pressed the button.
Click!
The composition and lighting were perfect. The wounded soldier’s blood soaked into the ground, and Butsko’s face was contorted with concern.
“Medic!”
Lydia moved closer for a tighter shot and then recognized the man on the ground, Corporal Charles Bannon from somewhere in Texas. Lydia recalled speaking with Bannon once, and he’d made a nice impression on her.
Then she realized that this wasn’t just another picture for a magazine back home: It was a man with a bleeding head wound, and Butsko leaned over him, worry on his face. Butsko pulled out Bannon’s first-aid pack, ripped off the wrapping, and applied it to the wound on Bannon’s head. The gauze quickly became soaked with blood.
“Medic!”
Lydia moved her camera to the side and dropped down beside Bannon, whose eyes were wide open and staring.
“You’ll be okay, kid,” Butsko said. “Just take it easy.”
“I can’t see anything, Sarge,” Bannon said through quivering lips. “I’m scared.”
“Medic!”
“Am I gonna die, Sarge?”
“They say if a head wound doesn’t kill you right away, it’s probably not too bad.”
“Butsko, where are you!” shouted Lieutenant Breckenridge.
“Over here!”
“Get the fuck up here!”
Butsko looked at Lydia. “Can you stay with him till the medic gets here?”
“All right.”
Butsko took one last look at Bannon, then turned around and jumped to his feet, running up the hill. Lydia looked down at Bannon, who was moaning softly, his eyes closed. She felt his pulse. It was beating, but she didn’t know whether it was strong or weak; she was no nurse.
“Just take it easy, soldier,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”
Bannon shuddered and Lydia thought he was going to die. She gazed at his face and saw the pain and confusion. A tear rolled out the corner of his eye.
“I’m gonna die,” he whispered.
“You’re not going to die.”
She felt weird saying that, because she didn’t know for sure that he wouldn’t die. Gazing at his face, the reality of war came through to her. She’d seen Bannon roaming around the bivouac for two days, full of life, strong and healthy, and now he was dying on the ground. Bullets whizzed over her head and one kicked up dirt nearby. She was no longer a photographer snapping shots of the war: She was in it and a bullet could hit her too.
She dropped lower, looking up the hill. The GIs were close to the fortress, too close for the Japanese artillery to fire. They were just about ready to go inside.
“I can’t see,” Bannon muttered, as if in a dream.
She held his limp hand and squeezed it. He’s so young and he’s probably going to die, she thought. She felt sick inside, because she didn’t want to watch him die. She didn’t think she could handle it, but she couldn’t leave him alone, either.
“Hold on,” she said. “You’re not hurt that badly.”
Private Gundy dropped down beside her and grabbed Bannon’s wrist, looking at his watch. Then he let go of Bannon’s wrist and took away the bandage Butsko had put on. Blood welled up from a hole the size of a half-dollar. He sprinkled on the coagulant powder to stop the bleeding, then reached into his haversack for an ampule of morphine.
Lydia realized she could leave then. No more shells were falling, and few bullets were being fired over her head. The battle was somewhere else; the GIs were ready to storm the fortress.
She stepped back and looked on as Gundy jabbed the ampule into Bannon’s ass. It was a great picture, but she didn’t feel like lifting her camera. Looking around, she saw the side of the hill littered with bodies of American soldiers and pockmarked with shell craters. Blood was everywhere, and her eyes fell on a leg severed from a body.
“My God,” she thought, feeling nauseous, and dropped onto her ass. She felt vertiginous and weak. So many men have been killed and wounded—for what? A hill on an island nobody has ever heard of? What the hell’s going on up here?
Leo Stern appeared next to her, his face smudged with dirt. “You okay?” he asked.
“I feel sick.”
“My God, what a battle! Why aren’t you taking any pictures?”
“I don’t feel so good, Leo,” she said, covering her face with her hands.
“C’mon, don’t be such a woman. Let’s show the folks at home what it’s like out here.”
“You go on without me. I’ll catch up.”
Leo gripped his pen and pad and ran up the hill. Lydia, still shaky, took out a cigarette and lit it, trying to put her thoughts in order. She recalled what Lieutenant Breckenridge had said about whether she could show the war as it really was.
All her pictures made the war appear interesting. The attack on Kokengolo Hill had looked through the lens of her camera like a wild, thrilling charge, and indeed it actually had seemed that way to her while the attack was going on. The GIs who’d been shot had appeared heroic as they dropped to the ground, like brave warriors on their way to Valhalla, but now, surrounded by blood and gore, she saw the war in a new way. It may have been thrilling and heroic for a while, but now it was all horror and misery.
The folks back home should see this part too, she thought, raising her camera to her eyes. Looking through the viewfinder, she saw the American bodies lying on the side of the hill, some doubled up in pain, others motionless forever.
Click!
She moved closer to one soldier, whose eyes were shut, his mouth trickling blood and his rib cage blown apart. The peaceful expression on his face somehow didn’t fit with his bones glistening in the sun. Lydia’s teeth were on edge as she carefully composed the picture.
Click!
She heard running footsteps and turned around. Two medics were carrying Bannon away on a stretcher, and his lifeless hand hung over the side, bouncing up and down.
Click!
She lowered the camera. “Is he going to be all right?” she called out after the medics.
They paid no attention to her as they ran with Bannon toward the surgical tents set up in the jungle. The sun rose in the morning sky behind them, silhouetting them against the blue sky, while dead soldiers lay everywhere amid shell craters and pieces of equipment that had been thrown away.
Click!
Troops from the Thirty-eighth US Regiment breached the northeast wall of the fortress, hollering and screaming, bayoneting Japanese soldiers.
“Hold fast!” shouted Sergeant Suzuki.
The Mosquito turned to see hand-to-hand fighting at the other end of the fortress. He couldn’t see how it was going, but he was scared to death. From all sides, Americans were converging on the shattered walls, and he knew he’d be fighting hand-to-hand with one of them soon if he didn’t do something first.
Sergeant Suzuki spotted him. “Turn around and fight!” he screamed.
The Mosquito hated Sergeant Suzuki. He wanted to raise his rifle and shoot him down, but he didn’t have the guts. Facing straight ahead again, he saw American soldiers only a few yards away!
“Over the top!” yelled Lieutenant Breckenridge, leaping into the air.
He sailed over the Mosquito, who became so frightened that he fainted dead away. He collapsed on the ground and Lieutenant Breckenridge landed behind him, followed by Butsko and the rest of the recon platoon.
Lieutenant Breckenridge found himself a few paces in front of Sergeant Suzuki, who aimed his pistol at him.
Blam!
The pistol fired, and Lieutenant Breckenridge heard the bullet whistle past his ear. He leveled his carbine and fired a shot from the waist, but Sergeant Suzuki didn’t fall down. Sergeant Suzuki steadied himself and took aim at Lieutenant Breckenridge, pulling the trigger, but before his Nambu pistol fired, a group of GIs got in the way.
Blam!
One of them dropped to the ground, and the rest turned toward Sergeant Suzuki, opening fire. Two of them missed but three didn’t, and their bullets lifted Sergeant Suzuki into the air. His pistol dropped from his hand and he fell onto his back, where he lay still, never to issue a command again.
Lieutenant Breckenridge saw the Japanese soldiers retreating toward the doors and passageways that led to the bowels of the fortress. American soldiers pursued them, shooting them in their backs, while other Japanese soldiers couldn’t run away because they were engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with American soldiers.
Butsko faced one of them, a steely-eyed Japanese corporal with a Fu Manchu mustache. The Japanese soldier bent his knees and lunged at Butsko, thrusting his rifle and bayonet forward, and Butsko parried it easily, slamming the Jap in the mouth with his rifle butt, kicking him in the balls, and bashing him again with his rifle butt. The Japanese soldier fell to the ground and Butsko rammed his bayonet through his heart, the blood gushing out red and shiny in the light of the morning sun.
“Stay after them!” shouted Lieutenant Breckenridge. “Follow me!”
He headed toward one of the passageways, which was pitch black inside. He couldn’t see anything, so he fired a few rounds from the waist as he ran forward, to make sure no Japs were standing there.
Suddenly a Japanese hand grenade came flying out of the black hole and landed at Lieutenant Breckenridge’s feet. He bent down, picked it up, bobbled it, got a grip on it, and threw it toward the passageway. The grenade flew about ten yards and exploded in the air, driving chunks of shrapnel into Lieutenant Breckenridge’s chest, stomach, and pelvis. He felt as if his body were being torn apart, and he bellowed in pain as he staggered from side to side, dropping his rifle, pressing his hands against the bleeding holes.
I’m hit! he thought. He didn’t know what to do. A terrible chaos came over his mind, and he felt his legs give out underneath him. He tried to catch his footing but didn’t have the strength, and he fell onto his face.
He wanted to get away. Pulling together all his energy, he pressed his hands against the ground and tried to raise himself. He managed to push himself up a few inches, then everything went black and he fell onto his face again.
Butsko ran toward him. “Medic!”
“Yo!” replied Private Gundy, working on a wounded soldier from another outfit.
“Lieutenant Breckenridge is hit!”
“Be right there!”
Butsko looked down at Lieutenant Breckenridge and saw all the holes. He’s a goner, Butsko thought. But Lieutenant Breckenridge’s chest rose and fell with his breathing. He was a big strong man and he was still alive. Butsko thought about Bannon, Frankie La Barbara, Gomez, Shaw, and all the others who’d been wounded. There ain’t gonna be no recon platoon left after today.
Colonel Stockton appeared in that section of the fortress, followed by Major Cobb, Lieutenant Harper, and Private Levinson, who carried a backpack radio. The fighting on the top of the fortress was over, and bodies of soldiers, most of them Japanese, were everywhere. The sounds of shouting and shooting could be heard from the passageways and trapdoors, because the fighting now had moved to the labyrinth below.
Colonel Stockton’s eyes fell on Butsko. “What the hell are you doing, Sergeant?”
Butsko looked up, a dazed expression on his face. “It’s Lieutenant Breckenridge, sir!”
“You’re not a medic! Get back to your damned platoon!”
“Yes, sir!”
Butsko jumped up, adjusted his helmet on his head, took one last look at Lieutenant Breckenridge, and turned away, running toward the passageway from which the grenade had been thrown. Colonel Stockton looked at Lieutenant Breckenridge and thought he must be dead. He moved to find out if that was so, when Private Levinson called out to him.
“Major Berman wants you, sir!”
Colonel Stockton reached for the headset and pressed it against his face. “Colonel Stockton here!”
“This is Major Berman, sir. Colonel Hunt has been killed in action, and I’m taking command of the Third Battalion, with your permission, sir!”
“Continue your attack!” Colonel Stockton replied.
Private Gundy ran toward Lieutenant Breckenridge and knelt beside him, dropping his haversack onto the ground. He unbuttoned Lieutenant Breckenridge’s shirt and looked at the holes. None of them bubbled, which meant neither lung had been punctured. He could see that Lieutenant Breckenridge still was breathing, so he took out the blood coagulant powder and sprinkled it over the wounds.
Colonel Stockton and his entourage walked away, leaving Private Gundy alone with Lieutenant Breckenridge and a carpet of motionless American and Japanese soldiers. Gundy unwrapped bandages and taped them to Lieutenant Breckenridge’s chest and stomach. Then he bent over and pressed his ear against Lieutenant Breckenridge’s heart.
It beat strongly and steadily. This guy’s as strong as a horse, Gundy thought, becoming erect again. Something moved in his line of vision and he turned to it. His eyes bulged as he saw a Japanese soldier raising his head and shoulders from the ground, aiming a Nambu pistol directly at him!
Gundy couldn’t believe his eyes. The Jap’s arm shook as he tried to aim, and Gundy could see him gritting his teeth. He was lying in a pool of blood.
Blam!
The bullet whizzed past Gundy and brought him back to the real world. He knew he had to do something, and he had no desire to become a casualty. He picked up Lieutenant Breckenridge’s carbine.
Blam!
The Japanese soldier fired and missed again. Coughing blood, he drew a bead on Gundy, who lined up the sights of the carbine on the Jap’s face, holding steady and pulling the trigger.
Blam!
His aim was off; the bullet hit the ground in front of the Jap and ricocheted upward, hitting the Jap on the throat, severing his windpipe. Blood spurted out of the Jap’s mouth and his head dropped down to the ground.
Gundy stared at him, his jaw hanging open. I’ve killed a man! He blinked his eyes, wishing that the dead Jap and the whole battlefield would go away and that he was back at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts, safe with all the other Trappist monks. But when he opened his eyes the dead Jap still was there, lying in an ever-widening pool of blood. I’ve killed him!
Gundy closed his eyes and all his strength drained away. He toppled to the side and fell onto the ground, where he lay still beside Lieutenant Breckenridge, trying to think.
He’d left the abbey because he felt he had to help stop the evil being spread through the world by the Nazis and the Japs. He’d become a medic because he didn’t want to kill anybody, but now he’d killed somebody just to save his own skin.
I should have let him kill me, Gundy thought. I should have turned the other cheek as Christ said I should. Then I would’ve been killed, but I would’ve had eternal life with Christ. Now I don’t know what will happen to me.
He recalled that he hadn’t hesitated a moment before shooting the Jap. He’d had no tug of conscience, no second thoughts. He’d just killed the poor son of a gun. His prayer life, his three years at the abbey—nothing had mattered when he’d seen the Jap. He was just like everybody else: trying to save his skin instead of trying to save his soul. I’m a fraud, he thought. I don’t really believe what I say I believe. Oh, God, I’m sorry.
“Hey, looks like they got one of our medics.”
Gundy opened his eyes and saw legs and feet nearby. He pushed himself upright, and a medic he’d never seen before ran toward him.
“Hey, you all right, buddy?”
Gundy nodded. “Yes, I’m all right.”
The medic cocked his head to the side as he examined Gundy’s face. “What happened to you?
“I must’ve passed out.” Gundy pointed at Lieutenant Breckenridge. “He needs to be evacuated right away.”
The medic turned and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Stretcher-bearers!”
Two medics with a stretcher ran toward them and lay their poles on the ground, moving the canvas under Lieutenant Breckenridge and lifting him.
“Gee, he’s heavy,” one of them said as they carried him away.
Gundy picked up his haversack and adjusted it on his shoulder. He walked toward the dead Jap and gazed down at him. God forgive me, he thought.
Nearby, a wounded GI moaned. Gundy turned toward him and put one foot in front of the other, moving jerkily, like a robot. I’ve got to keep going, Gundy told himself. Later, when things settle down, I’ll think about all this.