Meat Grinder Hill Read online

  “If you'll permit me to say so, sir, I think your choice of words is a little inexact. The recon platoon's not like a violin. They're just a bunch of bad eggs, and this Bannon is as bad as any of them. You know yourself that he beat up an officer a few weeks back, and if that officer hadn't subsequently been killed in battle, Bannon could have gotten a firing squad. I don't trust Bannon or any of the other hoodlums in the recon platoon, and I've never thought that much of Butsko either. He's worse than all the rest of them put together.”

  “That's why he can handle them.” Colonel Stockton's briar was out, and he placed it next to his ashtray. “You seem to forget, Major, that the recon platoon has done some pretty incredible things out here.”

  “That's true, they've been nothing but trouble otherwise.”

  “We have to pay a price for everything, and I guess that's the price we have to pay for the recon platoon.”

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  Death Squad

  River of Blood

  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

  * * *

  Meat Grinder Hill

  * * *

  Book 4 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.

  MEAT GRINDER HILL

  Copyright © 1984 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  EBook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-845-2

  Library ISBN 978-1-62460-186-6

  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 . . .

  “I believe that's your Headquarters Company over there,” the jeep driver said.

  Private Homer Gladley, a big farm boy from Nebraska, looked into the jungle to the right of the dirt road and saw men wearing helmets and no shirts moving among the branches and leaves. The sound of gunfire could be heard in the distance. The sky was clear and the sun shone with burning intensity on Guadalcanal.

  “Well, thanks for the lift,” Gladley said.

  The jeep driver said nothing; he didn't even look at Gladley. The jeep driver hadn't given him the ride as a favor but had been ordered to do so. He looked grumpily through the windshield and waited for Gladley to depart.

  Gladley swung his long, thick legs to the ground and stood up. He was six feet two inches tall, with mountainous shoulders and an expression of innocence, or maybe stupidity, on his face. He reached into the back of the jeep and pulled out his full field pack and M 1 rifle. The jeep driver revved his engine, turning around in the middle of the narrow dirt road. Gladley waved his rifle in the air as a good-bye gesture, but the jeep driver hunched over his wheel and paid no attention, roaring back toward Henderson Field.

  The rebuff didn't bother Gladley; he just smiled happily as he lifted his pack and ran his arms through the shoulder straps. He picked up his rifle and carried it in his big right hand as he trudged toward the jungle, anxious to see his old buddies again. Nearly six weeks earlier he'd been wounded near Tassafaronga Point and had been evacuated to the Army hospital in New Caledonia. The doctors had taken the bullets out of his stomach and sewed him up, and now he was returning to duty again.

  “You know where the recon platoon is?” Homer Gladley asked some soldiers cleaning the parts of a stripped-down .30 caliber machine gun.

  “Thataway,” said one of the soldiers, pointing with the trigger assembly of the machine gun.

  Homer Gladley turned in that direction and stepped out, thinking about Butsko and Bannon and all the other guys in the recon platoon. They'd landed on Guadalcanal in October and had been through a lot together. He'd missed them while he was in the hospital.

  Homer Gladley made his way through the jungle. Wherever he looked, there were shell craters and trees knocked down by explosions. Evidently a big battle had taken place here recently. He could smell gunpowder and the stench of putrefying human bodies, which lay in bits on the ground and in the bushes, indistinguishable from the ordinary muck and slime of the island. Soldiers everywhere were cleaning weapons and sharpening bayonets. It looked to Homer Gladley as if the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment was moving out soon.

  Homer Gladley looked at a soldier with dark craggy features and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, pulling a patch of cotton through the barrel of his M 1, and recognized him as Pfc. Sam Longtree, the full-blooded Apache from Arizona.

  “Hey, Longtree!” Homer shouted, waving his M 1 in the air. “How're you doing?”

  Longtree glanced up and saw Gladley approaching. “What the hell are you doing here? We thought you'd be back in the States by now!”

  ‘They just returned me to duty,” Gladley said, reaching down and shaking Longtree's hand. “What the hell's going on?”

  “The same old shit. How're you feeling?”

  “Real good. The doctor said I'm fit for the front lines again.”

  “I bet you weren't too happy to hear that.”

  “There ain't nothing I can do about it, so there ain't no use complaining. I guess I'd better report in to Butsko. Where's he at.”

  “He got shot up about two weeks ago. He must be in that hospital that you just came from.”

  “No shit? If I knew he was there, I woulda gone looking for him.”

  “A lot of the guys are there: Frankie La Barbara, Craig Delane, Simpson, Larraby. Madonia is dead, and so's Atwell.” Longtree took off his helmet and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “We've been through some bad shit. You're lucky you missed it.”

  “Looks like everybody's getting fixed to move out.”

  “The Japs have been pulling back and we're going after them.”

  “Who's in charge around here?”

  “Bannon.”

  “Bannon? He was just a corporal when I left.”

  “Well, he's a buck sergeant now, and they turned the platoon over to him.”

  “How's he doing?”

  “He's okay, but there's only one Butsko.”

  “Where's Bannon at?”

  “Over there someplace.”

  “I'd better report
in to him. See you later, Chief.”

  Gladley straightened up, adjusted his pack, and walked toward the section of the jungle where Longtree said Bannon was located. He looked around and saw a destroyed Japanese tank lying on its side, the turret stained with dried blood. Empty C ration cans were scattered about, and Gladley caught a whiff of a latrine that couldn't be far away. He checked every foxhole, saying hello to his old buddies and seeing many new faces—men who'd come to replace the ones who'd been killed.

  Finally he saw Bannon, a tall, lanky Texan, sitting cross-legged in a hole, looking at a map and moving his finger across it.

  “Hiya, Bannon,” Gladley said, dropping into the foxhole, “Guess who's back?”

  Bannon looked up, keeping his finger on the map. “I thought you were dead!”

  “That's what everybody says.” Gladley sat on his haunches. “I heard Butsko got shot and you're the new platoon sergeant.”

  Bannon nodded.

  “I never thought the Japs'd stop Butsko.”

  “Well, they did.”

  “I hear you've taken his place.”

  “Yeah, and you might as well take your place back in the First Squad. Longtree's the new squad leader.”

  “I was just talking to him. He didn't say he was the squad leader.”

  “Yeah, well, he's always been kinda strange.”

  “Is the Reverend still around?”

  “He's still in the First Squad. Listen, I'm busy right now. Report to Longtree and get yourself squared away. We're moving out pretty soon.”

  “Where we going?”

  “The Japs are up in those hills out there and we've got to clean ‘em out.”

  Bannon returned his concentration to his map, and Gladley stared at him for a few seconds. Bannon used to be a friendly, happy-go-lucky guy, but now he was all business. His rank must be going to his head, Gladley thought as he stood up. He climbed out of the foxhole and walked back to Longtree and the First Squad.

  At the Army hospital in New Caledonia, Master Sergeant John Butsko made his way through the ward, passing soldiers lying on their cots, sleeping or reading magazines. Butsko's chest ached constantly from his wounds, and he was still weak from loss of blood and the operation, but he could feel his strength returning steadily and figured he'd be back at the front in another month.

  He pushed open the screened door and saw the green lawn inclining toward more barracklike buildings like the one he'd just left. He could smell salt water from the bay, and a squadron of American fighter planes roared across the clear blue sky. Butsko wore white pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt puffed out in front by the bandages on his chest and stomach. He was deeply tanned and had scars, some of them fresh, on his cheeks, chin, and forehead.

  A group of GIs sat around on chairs, shooting the shit, but Butsko didn't like small talk. He took a chair and carried it toward a coconut palm tree, sitting down in the shade, leaning back, and feeling weird to be in such a quiet, peaceful place, so far from the fighting on Guadalcanal.

  Butsko wasn't adjusting well to the hospital. It was too tranquil for a sensibility accustomed to the constant dangers of the front lines. He thought there was something false about his hospital existence, because the real world was the green hell of Guadalcanal, the machine-gun fire and artillery barrages, the Jap banzai bayonet attacks at night and your men getting cut down before your eyes. Butsko felt like a fuck-off here, away from the action. He thought he was evading his responsibilities, although common sense told him he had been wounded badly and was in no condition to fight or lead men. Butsko was afraid he'd be soft and dull by the time he returned, not able to lead his platoon anymore, and too slow to stay alive.

  He thought of Bannon, Longtree, Jones, and all the others. They were probably glad he was gone and hoped he'd never come back, because he was hard on them. Well, he had to be hard on his men: He didn't know how to be any other way, and he didn't think any other way would be effective anyway. When your life was on the line, you had to stay tough all the time. Lie back for a moment and you'd be food for the rats and flies that infested Guadalcanal.

  Butsko took out a Camel and lit it up with his trusty old Zippo. He glanced at his watch and saw that chow would be served in two more hours. All he did was go to chow, watch movies, and get examined by doctors. He was bored to death.

  “Sergeant Butsko, you know you shouldn't be smoking!”

  Butsko shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up at Nurse Crawford, blond and full-bosomed, the prettiest nurse he'd seen so far on New Caledonia. She wore a white dress and cap and stood with her hands on her hips, looking at him sternly. “The doctor said you shouldn't smoke until your wounds are completely healed.”

  “They're almost healed,” Butsko said.

  “I think you should put that cigarette out right now, Sergeant Butsko, and that's an order!”

  Butsko wasn't accustomed to taking orders from a woman, but she was a lieutenant and he was a master sergeant. He took one last deep drag and stubbed the cigarette out against the bottom of his hospital slippers. “You're a hard woman, Nurse Crawford.”

  “It's for your own good, Sergeant Butsko. And I'd better not see you smoking anymore until Dr. Henderson gives you permission.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  Her face softened. “How do you feel otherwise, Sergeant Butsko.”

  “Good enough to smoke.”

  “When Dr. Henderson examines you today, why don't you ask him about it?”

  “I'll do that, ma'am.”

  Nurse Crawford looked at the group of men sitting not far away, talking and laughing. Butsko examined her profile, the small upturned nose, the finely sculpted chin. She was like the girl next door trying to be a tough Army nurse.

  She turned to him. “Why do you always stay by yourself, Sergeant? Why don't you mix with the other men?”

  Butsko met her gaze. “What you wanna know for?”

  She wrinkled her brow, momentarily surprised by his question. “Just curious. We don't think it's healthy for recovering soldiers to spend too much time alone, brooding.”

  “What makes you think I'm brooding?”

  “Then what are you thinking about?”

  “I'm just biding my time, that's all.”

  “Until what?”

  “Until I go back to the front.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “Staying here?”

  “I'd rather go back.”

  She smiled. “Most of the men would rather stay here.”

  “I ain't them.”

  Nurse Crawford wanted to stay and talk to Butsko, but she didn't think he wanted to talk with her, and on top of that she had her rounds to make. “I've got to be going,” she said. “Hope you feel better, Sergeant.”

  She turned and walked away and Butsko watched her caboose swing from side to side under her white skirt. What a cute little piece of ass she is, he thought. I wonder if anybody's plunking her.

  Nurse Crawford walked across the green lawn, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, thinking about Sergeant Butsko. He was such a strange man, so unlike the others who sat around complaining or telling each other lies all day long. They all made advances to her, but not Butsko. He acted as if he didn't like her very much, but she didn't take it seriously; he didn't seem to like anybody else much either. She'd seen his records and knew he was married, but he never got mail from anybody and never wrote letters. He was an old professional soldier busted up and down the ranks many times, and he'd been on the Bataan Death March, escaping from a Japanese prison camp in northern Luzon. There was something intriguing about him, and she could sense his strength and his rough-and-ready sense of dignity. She thought him the most interesting man in her ward.

  She approached one of the barrack buildings and turned the corner, nearly bumping into a tall dark-haired soldier with tanned features.

  “Well, hello there!” the soldier said, his eyes widening. “Where have
you been all my life?”

  Nurse Crawford smiled and tried to get around him, but he sidestepped in her way. “Boy, you're a real doll!” he said. “What's your name, sweetheart?”

  “Get out of my way, soldier. I've got work to do.”

  “Hey, let's get together sometime?”

  “I said get out of my way, soldier, and I'm not going to tell you again.”

  The soldier stepped backward and made a serious face. “Hey-hey, you're pulling rank on me, huh? Listen, I got this terrific pain and I wonder if you'd help me out with it?”

  She knew he was putting her on, but she had to ask, “Where's the pain?”

  He winked. “You know where.”

  His impertinence infuriated her. “What's your name, soldier?”

  He winked again. “You can call me Frankie.”

  “I mean your last name!”

  “La Barbara.”

  “Your rank?”

  “Pfc.”

  “I'm an officer in the United States Army, Pfc. La Barbara, and if you don't get out of my way, I'll bring you up on charges!”

  Frankie realized she meant business. This one was no pushover, like some of the other nurses he'd run into at the hospital. “Sorry, sir,” he said, stepping out of the way. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

  “You're not from this ward. What are you doing over here.”

  “I heard my old platoon sergeant is in this section, sir. Sergeant John Butsko. Know him?”

  Nurse Crawford pointed toward the lawn. “He's seated back there.”

  Frankie saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Nice talking to you, sir. Hope to see you again sometime, sir.”

  Still saluting, Frankie walked by her, and she knew he was mocking her. He was a wise guy with a New York accent. She didn't like his type and never did. She watched him walk across the lawn toward Sergeant Butsko, and suddenly he stopped, turned, and blew her a kiss.

  He'd known that she was watching him. Irritated, she turned and walked away. It's so easy to hate men, she thought. Most of them are disgusting.