Death Squad Read online

  Butsko scanned the inlet with his binoculars from left to right and then back again, when suddenly he heard something. He spun around. The sound had been like a foot stepping on a twig and came from the woods below the summit.

  “I heard something,” he said.

  “It’s probably one of them land crabs,” Sergeant McCabe said.

  “There ain’t no land crabs up this high.”

  Ka-pow! A shot crackled over their heads.

  “Get down!” Butsko yelled.

  The men of the Second Squad already were down, but they got down lower.

  “Japs!”

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  River of Blood

  Meat Grinder Hill

  Down and Dirty

  Green Hell

  Too Mean to Die

  Hot Lead and Cold Steel

  Do or Die

  Kill Crazy

  Nightmare Alley

  Go For Broke

  Tough Guys Die Hard

  Suicide River

  Satan’s Cage

  Go Down Fighting

  The Pecos Kid:

  Beginner’s Luck

  The Reckoning

  Apache Moon

  Outlaw Hell

  Devil’s Creek Massacre

  Bad to the Bone

  The Apache Wars Saga:

  Desert Hawks

  War Eagles

  Savage Frontier

  White Apache

  Devil Dance

  Night of the Cougar

  * * *

  Death Squad

  * * *

  Book 2 of the Rat Bastards

  by

  Len Levinson

  Excepting basic historical events, places, and personages, this series of books is fictional, and anything that appears otherwise is coincidental and unintentional. The principal characters are imaginary, although they might remind veterans of specific men whom they knew. The Twentythird Infantry Regiment, in which the characters serve, is used fictitiously—it doesn't represent the real historical Twentythird Infantry, which has distinguished itself in so many battles from the Civil War to Vietnam—but it could have been any American line regiment that fought and bled during World War II.

  These novels are dedicated to the men who were there. May their deeds and gallantry never be forgotten.

  DEATH SQUAD

  Copyright © 1983 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  EBook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-843-8

  Library ISBN 978-1-62460-184-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

  whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief

  quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover photo © TK/iStock.com.

  ONE . . .

  It was night on Guadalcanal, and Bannon lay in his foxhole, holding his M 1 tightly and peering ahead into the moonlit jungle. Word had been passed along that Japanese soldiers had infiltrated the American lines, and GIs had been found in forward positions with their throats cut. Sporadic bursts of gunfire could be heard, and occasionally a Jap would shout a taunt or laugh maniacally.

  It was eerie and frightening. Bannon didn’t mind fighting Japs he could see, but now the night was full of phantoms, and any shadow might conceal a Jap soldier with a knife in his teeth, creeping forward to kill another GI.

  “I see something,” said Frankie La Barbara, lying next to Bannon.

  “Where?”

  “Over there.” Frankie pointed with his index finger.

  Bannon narrowed his eyes and examined the dark patch of jungle indicated by Frankie La Barbara. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Keep watching. Something’s over there.”

  Bannon thought Frankie was seeing things. Moonlight and shadows made you see things that weren’t there.

  Deep in the jungle to their left they heard a Japanese voice: “I coming for you, Maline! I kill your ass!”

  “I ain’t no fucking Marine!” Frankie shouted.

  “Sssshhhh.”

  Shots and screaming erupted to their right. A mortar shell exploded behind them, brightening the jungle and sending clods of earth flying into the air. Then it became dark and silent again. Bannon blinked, trying to get his night vision back.

  “That son of a bitch,” Frankie said.

  Bannon had a headache and wished he could smoke a cigarette. He’d slept the night before, but he’d gotten no sleep at all tonight, and it was two in the morning already. He and the rest of the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment had landed on Guadalcanal three days before, and they’d been fighting hard ever since.

  Suddenly a machine gun opened fire in the patch of jungle in front of them. Bannon and Frankie ducked quickly as bullets stitched across the top of the foxhole.

  Frankie pulled a grenade from his lapel and yanked out the pin. “I told you a Jap was there,” he said, hurling the grenade into the jungle. They held their heads low and waited a few seconds; then the grenade exploded, making the earth tremble and sending trees crashing to the ground.

  “How’d you like that one!” Frankie shouted.

  “Keep your voice down,” Bannon told him.

  “You think they don’t know where we are? They know where we are and they know what we had for breakfast!”

  “I said keep your voice down.”

  Frankie muttered something and rested his helmet against the side of the foxhole. He was a six-footer like Bannon, with muscular shoulders and arms in contrast to Bannon’s lean, rangy build. Frankie was from New York City and Bannon had been a cowboy in Texas before the war.

  Bannon heard footsteps behind him and spun around, raising his M 1 to his shoulder. “Who goes there!”

  “Butsko.”

  Bannon recognized his platoon sergeant’s voice and lowered his M 1. Butsko, a big gorilla of a man with a scarred, mangled face, materialized out of the darkness.

  Butsko cradled his carbine in his arms as he crawled into the foxhole. “Who threw the hand grenade?”

  “I did,” Frankie said.

  “Whatja see?”

  “There’s a Jap machine gun out there.”

  Butsko looked into the jungle. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Bannon and Frankie glanced at each other, because they didn’t feel like venturing into a jungle infested with Japs, but if Butsko told them to go, they had to go.

  Butsko grunted as he crawled out of the foxhole, and Frankie and Bannon followed him. The ground was covered with damp leaves and clods of earth. Mosquitoes and other insects buzzed around their heads. All the men were covered with blisters and bumps from insect bites.

  They made their way across the floor of the jungle, with Butsko in front and Bannon and Frankie side by side behind him.

  “Maline, you die!” shouted a Jap somewhere in the jungle.

  Somebody to their right fired a rifle. Another Japanese mortar round landed not far away. Bannon wished it would get light soon, so that he could see what was going on.

  Butsko stopped, and so did Bannon and Frankie. They listened to the sounds of the jungle at night, to leaves rustling in the wind and insects chirping. Bannon wondered if a Jap was lurking in the grove up ahead, waiting for them to come closer so he could open fire.

  Butsko moved forward again, followed by Bannon and Frankie. They threaded around the thick trunk of a tree and came to the area where Frankie’s hand grenade had landed. Butsko made motions with his hand and they fanned out, holding their rifles ready to open fire instantly. The air smelled of gunpowder, and a mist of smoke hung over the ground.

  “Looka here
,” Frankie said, waving something in the air.

  Bannon crawled closer, and it looked like the leg and haunch of an animal. Butsko took it from Frankie’s hand.

  “You threw a grenade at a pig, you asshole.”

  “I toldja something was in here.”

  Butsko threw the leg over his shoulder.

  They heard the whistle of a mortar round over their heads and ducked down. The mortar round exploded into the American lines and was followed by three more. Bannon watched the explosions light up the sky and fill it with flying debris. Then everything became quiet again. Butsko peered into the jungle.

  “I wonder where he is.”

  “Where who is?” Frankie asked.

  “The Jap with the mortar.” Butsko sniffed the air and grimaced. “He’s probably not too far away. Let’s see if we can find the son of a bitch.”

  Bannon didn’t think it was a good idea, because the jungle was crawling with Japs, but he never argued with Butsko, who had a ferocious temper once he got going.

  “Don’t make no unnecessary noise,” Butsko said.

  Butsko got to his feet and walked in a crouch into the jungle. Bannon and Frankie followed him, peering into bushes and looking at the tops of trees for movement that could indicate the presence of Japanese. After moving only a dozen paces, Butsko stopped suddenly and dropped to one knee. Bannon and Frankie kneeled beside him. Butsko was examining footprints in the mud.

  “These are fresh,” Butsko murmured. “And they’re deep. They must have been carrying something.”

  “The machine gun,” Frankie said. “I’ll bet they were carrying that machine gun that just fired at us.”

  Butsko looked ahead in the direction the footprints were going, and a faint smile passed over his lips. “They can’t be far away,” he said. “Keep quiet and follow me.”

  They crept through the jungle stealthily in a single file. Rotting foliage stank and mosquitoes continued to buzz around their heads. Vines hung from the trees, looking like snakes. The moon cast phantasmagorical shadows on the ground, and the trunks of the trees were slimy with dew. Bannon’s feet itched and burned at the same time, and he was sure he was getting jungle rot. He wondered if he’d ever see the hot, dry prairies of Texas again.

  Butsko stopped, examined the tracks on the ground, and moved out again. Bannon knew that few sergeants on Guadalcanal would go out looking for trouble like this, but Butsko had a pathological hatred for Japs. He had been on the Bataan Death March and escaped from a Jap prison camp in the Philippines. The experience had warped his mind a little.

  They heard a faint metallic sound and halted suddenly. Butsko pointed to the ground, and they all got down on their stomachs. Bannon stared at a big yellow worm that glowed phosphorescently in front of him. Then the stillness was rent by the sound of a machine gun opening fire a short distance away. It was so close, they could see the muzzle flashes through the foliage.

  Butsko beckoned with his finger and they drew closer to him. “They’re right over there,” he said. “Let’s go get them, but don’t fire until I give the word.”

  They arose and moved quickly through the jungle, not worrying about making noise because the machine-gun blasts drowned everything out. Damp leaves slapped Bannon’s face, and branches scratched him as he tried to keep up with Butsko. The machine gun stopped firing and the three GIs came to a sudden halt. They heard Japanese being spoken in low voices and knew the machine-gun squad was only a few yards away. Then the machine gun opened fire again. They could see its flashes clearly, and the flashes illuminated the three men in the gun crew.

  Butsko dropped to one knee and tore a hand grenade from his lapel. He nodded to Bannon and Frankie, who also removed hand grenades and pulled the pins. Butsko reared back his mighty arm, and Bannon and Frankie did likewise. They threw their grenades at the same moment and pitched forward onto their faces, waiting for the grenades to explode.

  The Japanese soldiers shouted in alarm and tried to flee, but they only got a few steps before the grenades detonated. The jungle roared and Bannon saw one Jap, with his arms and legs akimbo, being blown into the air.

  “Hit it!” Butsko yelled.

  The three GIs jumped to their feet and charged into the little clearing where the machine gun had been set up. There was a big hole in the ground, and the Japanese machine gun lay on its side near the shoulder and arm of a Japanese soldier whose torso was a few feet away. The air was filled with acrid smoke, and one Jap lay on his stomach, moaning. His back was a bloody mass. Butsko raised his carbine and bayonet and plunged it downward toward the Jap’s neck. The bayonet severed the Jap’s spinal cord, and its tip came out the front of his throat. The Jap stopped moaning. Butsko pulled out his bayonet.

  “One less Jap machine gun to worry about,” he said.

  He walked toward the gun. It was a Nambu light machine gun, with bayonet affixed at the end and a bipod on the barrel, like the American Browning automatic rifle. The ammunition for the machine gun had been blown up by the grenades, but the weapon itself still appeared to be in good firing order. Butsko flicked his carbine on automatic and fired two bursts into the chamber of the machine gun, mangling its innards and making certain it couldn’t be used again.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Butsko said.

  The GIs slipped into the jungle and it soon swallowed them up. They entered a denser growth of foliage that blocked out the moonlight, and they could barely see. Butsko found a waist-high boulder and sat down next to it.

  “Take a break,” he said.

  Bannon and Frankie sat down on the moist leaves. Rifles and machine guns fired far away, but they felt safe in their little corner of the night. They took deep breaths and rested their rifles on their legs.

  Bannon looked at Butsko, who slowly turned his head from side to side, listening and searching for the presence of Japs. Butsko never really relaxed, never stopped being a soldier. Bannon was a corporal, a squad leader in Butsko’s platoon, and always felt inadequate around Butsko, who was a fantastic soldier. Frankie was a private in Bannon’s squad, a complainer and a goldbrick, but he could always be relied upon in tough situations.

  “We’ll never find that mortar out here,” Frankie said. “There’s too much jungle. Why don’t we go back, Sarge?”

  “You wanna go back, go back,” Butsko replied. “I’m going after that mortar.”

  Frankie didn’t dare go back alone, and he knew Butsko was counting on that. “How’re you gonna find the mortar out here?”

  “They’re probably using trails to get around fast, and there ain’t that many trails around here. All we have to do is sit next to one of the trails, and the fuckers’ll probably walk right by us. And if they don’t walk by us, maybe some of the other Japs out here will. I know all the trails around here.”

  Just like him, Bannon thought, to know all the trails around here. He’s probably reconnoitered the area on his own time, just in case. The jungle was no-man’s-land, but that didn’t stop Butsko.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Butsko said.

  He stood, stretched, and moved into the foliage, stepping high and bringing his feet down softly so as not to make noise. Bannon and Frankie followed him, walking the same way. Bannon didn’t feel in as much danger with Butsko as he would have without him, because Butsko saw and heard things that no one else did, and Butsko was worth three or four men in combat.

  They came to a narrow trail. Butsko looked up at the full moon in the sky and then around at the treetops. He bent his knees and searched the bushes at the side of the trail. Motioning with his head, he led Bannon and Frankie toward the Japanese lines.

  Frankie didn’t like Butsko’s impromptu patrol at all. He wished he could be back in his little foxhole, copping some Z’s and dreaming of hookers and chorus girls in New York City. More than anything else, he wanted to survive the war. He was not interested in becoming a hero.

  They heard sporadic sounds of fighting in the distance as they moved along the trail, but a
round them were only insects and birds. Frankie squashed a mosquito against his nose, which already had mosquito bites all over it. He’d once had a love affair with a girl who’d been a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, and she’d told him that he’d had a perfect Roman nose, but if she saw it now, she wouldn’t think so. This fucking Army is ruining me, Frankie thought.

  A metallic whump came to them from not far away, and the three of them stopped cold on the trail. No one had to say anything: it was the sound of a mortar. Sure enough, seconds later, there was an explosion in the distance as the mortar round landed inside the American defense perimeter. Then they heard another whump and another explosion far away. Butsko smiled in the moonlight. “I toldja they were around here,” he whispered. He stared in the direction of the mortar, trying to estimate its distance. His ears were sharp and his judgment usually was pretty good. He figured it was three or four hundred yards away. “Let’s go, and keep your eyes open.”

  They moved down the trail toward the Japanese lines and after a while came to the intersection of another trail. Butsko took a left, and they proceeded swiftly through the jungle as the sound of the mortar became closer. They came to another trail, and Butsko held out his hand, then got on his hands and knees and brought his eyes close to the earth.

  Bannon and Frankie joined him, and they saw more tracks. Butsko had been right: The Japs had been using trails to get around quickly as they harassed the GIs in front of them.

  “Maline, you die!” shouted a Jap somewhere in their vicinity.

  Bannon’s hair stood on end and Frankie jumped to his feet. Butsko pulled Frankie’s pant leg and Frankie kneeled down again.

  “Be quiet,” Butsko whispered. “He’s right around here. You two find yourselves a place to hide off the trail. I’m gonna get the son of a bitch.”

  “I kill you, Maline!” the Jap yelled again.

  Butsko trembled with excitement, because he could almost smell the blood of the Jap with the taunting voice. He removed his bayonet from his carbine and passed the carbine to Bannon.