Green Hell

  Death and pain didn't worry Butsko, but failure did. He was a professional soldier and took pride in his work. There was no room for error when you were behind enemy lines. And he didn't have much to work with. He'd picked the best men in his recon platoon for this operation, but that wasn't saying much. They were a bunch of dizzy kids who could fight well but otherwise were lazy and quarrelsome. Probably the best thing you could say about them was they had guts!

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  Death Squad

  River of Blood

  Meat Grinder Hill

  Down and Dirty

  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

  * * *

  Green Hell

  * * *

  Book 6 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.

  GREEN HELL

  Copyright © 1984 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  EBook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-847-6

  Library ISBN 978-1-62460-188-0

  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 April of 1943, and the night was foggy and damp off the coast of a small South Pacific island. No wind blew and the water was still and black. In the distance lay a thin strip of sandy beach, and then the vast jungle filled with swamps, wild creatures, and thick, tangled vegetation.

  All was peaceful; a half-moon glowed high in the sky. The only movement was the rising tide as it gently lapped the beach. Somewhere deep in the jungle an animal shrieked as the fangs of another animal bit into its throat, but aside from that the island was a mysterious antediluvian world, unchanged since the dawn of time.

  The blunt tip of a periscope broke the surface of the water and rose five feet into the air. It stood stationary for a few minutes, water dripping down its sides, and then moved north, trailing a ripple of waves in the shape of a V behind it. It traveled parallel to the shoreline for five hundred yards, then stopped, a weird incongruity in the steamy jungle scene. If a native had been sitting on the beach, looking out into the water, he might have thought a sea monster was there, but no natives sat on the beach that night, and no Japanese patrols were prowling around either—or at least none that were visible through the periscope of the submarine.

  In the conning tower of the United States submarine Garfish, Lieutenant Leonard Scofield rested his arms over the long handles of the periscope and looked at the shore through the lens. His khaki cap was on the back of his head and he swung the scope around slowly in a 360-degree turn to make sure no Jap patrol boats were approaching from his seaward side.

  “No enemy visible,” said Lieutenant Scofield, his eye still on the rubber cup surrounding the lens. “Take her up.”

  The order was repeated in all the navigation compartments of the submarine. Wheels were turned, levers were pulled, lights flashed on. The nose of the submarine tilted upward as ballast tanks filled with air.

  The control room of the Garfish, directly beneath the conning tower, was crowded with sailors ready to climb the ladder and go up on deck. The first group would man the four-inch cannons on the fore- and afterdecks to protect the boat while it was on the surface. The second group carried a large deflated rubber raft that they would launch.

  Behind the sailors was a group of soldiers wearing dark-green fatigues and soft caps with visors, similar to baseball caps. Their faces and hands were blackened with camouflage paint and they carried light packs on their backs. Slung from their shoulders were Thompson submachine guns, and hanging from their necks were bandoliers of ammunition. They grasped pipes and rails to keep from falling as the submarine rose through the warm tropical waters of the lagoon.

  The conning tower broke through the surface, rivulets of water streaming down its sides. The sailors brought the submarine up slowly so that it would make little noise, and its deck and stanchions gradually took form like a strange mechanical specter rising from the depths of the sea.

  The hatch on the conning tower opened wide and Lieutenant Scofield climbed out, followed by his executive officer and watch officer. They raised their binoculars, scanning the shore and sea around them. Nothing threatening could be seen.

  Lieutenant Scofield bent toward the hatch. “Let's go!”

  Hatches opened on the fore- and afterdecks, and sailors climbed out. They ran to the cannons, pulled away the tarpaulin wrappings, loaded the cannons with ammunition, and prepared for action.

  The next group of sailors burst onto the foredeck, carrying the deflated rubber boat. They dragged it to the starboard side of the deck, dropped it, and set to work inflating it.

  Then the GIs climbed up from the bowels of the submarine. The first to appear on the foredeck was Master Sergeant John Butsko, a career soldier from McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Six feet tall and built like a tank, he looked around at the sea and sky, then headed for the rubber boat.

  From the conning tower Lieutenant Scofield watched the GIs climb onto the deck and take their positions beside the expanding rubber boat. He knew they were all specially picked for their mission on the Jap-held island in the distance, and there was a good chance they might not get out alive. He was glad he didn't have to go with them.

  The GIs clustered around the rubber boat, watching it fill with air. Butsko adjusted the cap on his head and looked at the island, a little dot of land he hadn't heard of two weeks earlier, called New Georgia. It was the next island up the Solomon chain from Guadalcanal, and General MacArthur wanted the Japanese airfields on it so he could bomb Bougainville, New Guinea, and the big Japanese stronghold of Rabaul. Butsko and his men were going ashore to do some of the preliminary dirty work prior to the invasion.

  The skin of the black rubber boat became hard and taut. The GIs stood behind Butsko, waiting for him to tell them what to do. They were silent; some fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, and others stood still, looking at the beach a few hundred yards away, wishing they'd landed safely already.

  Sailors pulled away the air-pressure canisters and tightened the airlocks. Other sailors positioned two sets of oars.

  “Over th
e side,” said Chief Boatswain's Mate Rowland.

  The sailors carried the rubber boat across the deck and lowered it down the starboard hull to the water, where it bobbed up and down on the swells. A sailor held on to a rope fastened to the rubber boat's gunwale.

  Chief Boatswain's Mate Rowland turned to Butsko. “Load ‘em up, Sergeant.”

  “Get into the boat!” Butsko said to his men.

  They climbed down the hull of the submarine and dropped into the rubber boat. Pfc. Frankie La Barbara stepped on Private Homer Gladley's hand, but Homer made no sound, although he wanted to call Frankie a stupid clumsy bastard. Corporal Sam Longtree, a full-blooded Apache Indian from Arizona, took his position in the bow of the rubber boat, and Private Dale “Hotshot” Stevenson, the only man carrying an M 1 rifle—in case sniper work became necessary—sat in the stern next to Frankie La Barbara. Homer Gladley, who was the biggest and strongest man in the group, took one set of oars, and Corporal Charles Bannon, a former cowboy from Texas, sat between the other set. Private Billie Jones, known as the Reverend because he'd been an itinerant preacher in Georgia before the war, sat between Bannon and Homer Gladley.

  Chief Boatswain's Mate Rowland slapped Butsko on the shoulder as Butsko went over the side.

  “Good luck, Sergeant!” he said.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Butsko replied.

  Butsko climbed down into the bow of the rubber boat and crouched next to Longtree.

  “All set?” Butsko asked.

  The men nodded their heads or muttered that they were ready to roll.

  “Shove off!” Butsko said.

  A sailor on the submarine threw down the rope, and Billie Jones pulled it in. Frankie La Barbara pushed off the hull of the submarine, and the rubber boat floated away in the current.

  Bannon and Homer Gladley gripped the oars and rowed toward shore. Butsko looked back at the submarine and watched the sailors covering the guns with tarpaulins. On the bridge the officers held their binoculars to their eyes and searched land, sea, and sky for trouble. The sailors ran across the deck to the hatches and climbed down into the submarine. Finally the officers cleared the bridge. The submarine sank into the lagoon.

  “There she goes,” said the Reverend Billie Jones.

  The submarine burbled and farted as it sank into the water. The deck disappeared and then the guns. Slowly the conning tower disappeared beneath the rolling swells. The rubber boat was all alone on the surface of the lagoon.

  Bannon and Homer Gladley rowed toward shore. Both had been selected for their tasks because of their physical strength, but Bannon was lanky and sinewy, whereas Homer had massive bulk. Homer was from Nebraska and had worked on his father's hog farm since he was a little boy. He wasn't particularly bright, but his incredible power made up for everything in Butsko's eyes. Bannon, on the other hand, was clever. He'd saved Butsko's life once on Guadalcanal and could take charge when Butsko wasn't around. He was good at improvising squad and platoon tactics while bullets were flying around.

  In the bow of the boat sat Pfc. Longtree, his sharp eyes and ears focused on the shoreline, his body as tense as a coiled spring. The features of his face were as sharp and bold as if carved from granite, and he was descended from the great Apache chief Mangus, although he never told anybody. In December he'd been wounded in action during the battle for Guadalcanal and now was returning to action for the first time. Sometimes he still felt sharp pains in his chest and back, but he never mentioned them, because an Apache warrior never complains.

  Bannon and Homer Gladley pulled the oars, and the rubber boat glided over the swells, heading for shore. The other GIs held their submachine guns ready and scanned the beach, on the lookout for danger. A bird cackled in the trees, and mist rose from the water in the lagoon. The rubber boat moved swiftly over the water, assisted by the onrushing tide. The GIs knew they were sitting ducks out there, and if any Japs saw them, it'd be a slaughter.

  The rubber boat drew closer to shore and the GIs tensed their muscles, ready to jump out and hit the beach. They looked at each other's blackened faces; the whites of their eyes shone like headlights. Bannon and Homer Gladley heaved the oars and a swell lifted the boat up, carrying it forward to the beach.

  The front of the boat scraped against the sand, and Longtree jumped overboard, landing in water that came up nearly to his waist. He grabbed the front cleat of the boat and pulled it toward shore while Homer Gladley and Billie Jones jumped out to help him.

  They dragged the rubber boat up to the edge of the flat, wet sand, and then the other men went over the side. They held the ropes and cleats and dragged the boat out of the water and up the incline of beach until its stem was out of the water.

  “Hit it!” Butsko said in a hoarse whisper.

  They all dropped down onto the sand. Butsko looked around and listened for Japs, but the jungle was silent except for the squawks of nocturnal birds and the chirps of insects. Butsko waited a few moments, then got to his knees.

  “Let's go!”

  They pulled the rubber boat up the beach and across the dry sand to the edge of the jungle. Longtree found an opening and led them through the thick foliage to a tiny clearing. They stopped again, listening and looking around, their hearts beating wildly from their exertion. The stench of the jungle, rotting vegetation, and stagnant pools of water rose to their nostrils. It was like Guadalcanal, and all the old fear and anxiety came back, for this was the first time they were in action since Guadalcanal had been taken at the beginning of February.

  “Okay,” Butsko said.

  Bannon pulled the plug on one side, and Hotshot Stevenson pulled it on the other. Air wheezed out and sounded like a person with asthma. Frankie La Barbara and Homer Gladley jumped on the boat to force the air out more quickly. Sam Longtree crouched down low and moved into the jungle, looking for a good place to hide the boat. He passed silently among the leaves and branches and found a little clearing surrounded by tall trees with thick trunks. It would be impossible to dig through the tangled roots in the ground without entrenching tools, but they could stash the boat in the bushes nearby and use the trees as landmarks.

  “Over here,” Longtree said.

  The others dragged the deflated rubber boat toward him through the jungle. They entered the clearing and at first couldn't see Longtree because he was sitting motionless against one of the trees.

  “This good enough?” Longtree asked.

  Butsko squinted and found him against the tree. Then Butsko looked around and pointed. “Stick it in there.”

  The soldiers pulled the boat into a thick tangle of bushes, twisting and yanking. They threw some surface dirt onto it and cut some branches, covering the boat with them. Butsko took off his pack, pulled out his poncho and flashlight, covered his head with the poncho, and turned the flashlight on his map of the island. He found the approximate spot where they'd come ashore and made an X with his pen on the part of the jungle where the tent was hidden. Throwing off the poncho, he looked around and made a mental note of the configuration of trees in the clearing so that he could recognize the spot again. He put the poncho and flashlight back in his pack, hoisted the pack onto his shoulders, and pushed through the foliage to the spot where the rubber boat was, to make sure it was camouflaged adequately.

  “Put a few more branches over there,” he told Frankie La Barbara.

  Frankie broke off a few low branches and covered the spot Butsko had indicated. Butsko grunted, returned to the clearing, and then headed back to the beach in a straight line. The others followed him, branches scratching their arms and faces, tearing at their shirts. Butsko counted his paces as best he could and, at the edge of the jungle, looked around for a prominent landmark. He spotted a piece of coral six feet long and four feet high that had been washed ashore by a hurricane many years before and now was covered with moss.

  “If anything happens to me,” Butsko said, “make sure you'll be able to find the boat. This thing here”—he kicked the coral—“will
give you an idea where it is. Once you find it, you know that the boat is back in the jungle near that clearing. Everybody understand that?”

  They nodded or grunted.

  “Clear the tracks away.”

  Butsko sat at the base of the coral as the others took branches and swept away their footprints, starting at the shoreline and working backward. They returned to Butsko, who stood up, his map in his hand.

  “That way,” he said, pointing into the jungle.

  They plunged into the thick green mass of foliage, with Longtree leading the way and Butsko behind him to keep him going in the right direction. Then came Bannon and the rest of the group.

  They all were members of the reconnaissance platoon of the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment. The platoon numbered forty-two men and Butsko had selected six of them for this mission behind enemy lines. Their primary objective was to blow up an ammunition dump at a Japanese stronghold in Vanguna Valley so that the Japs couldn't use the ammo against the GIs who would invade the island soon. Their subsidiary objectives were to harass the Japs in any way they could, cut their lines of communication, ambush Jap patrols, and in general make life difficult for the enemy. Butsko and his men were to travel light and live off the land when the rations ran out.

  They plodded through the jungle, sweat pouring off their bodies, insects buzzing around them and diving in to suck out blood. Each man had been pleased when Butsko picked him for the special duty, but now they wished they were back on Guadalcanal, where it was safe and where pretty nurses wandered around on the loose, looking to get laid.

  Bannon especially missed Guadalcanal, because he'd married a native girl there and had a nice setup with her tribe in the hills. Butsko had let him take a furlough to be with her, and when Bannon returned to duty, Butsko asked him to come on the mission to New Georgia. Bannon had been flattered at the time. He liked Butsko and would follow him anywhere. But now that Bannon was far from his pretty wife and the safety of Guadalcanal, he wondered what the hell he'd been thinking about. Why had he been so happy to risk his life again?