Suicide River Read online

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. If you want to make special preparations for the night of July ninth, that's up to you, but what if you keep your men awake for an entire night, and then the Japs attack on the next night. Your men'll be too tired to fight then, won't they?”

  “No sir, because they won't all be awake on the night of July ninth. It'll be worked out so that half will sleep and half will stay awake throughout the night. Then the next day the ones who've slept can stay awake and the others can sleep.”

  “Well,” General Hall said, “you're free to command your division as you like, provided you remain within the broad framework of rules and regulations set down by the Department of the Army and your commanding officers. I have no objection to what you're doing, but I don't believe I should make any special arrangements on that night that I wouldn't make on any other night in a combat zone. I cannot afford to place undue reliance on intelligence reports, because they've been wrong before. I cannot gamble with my men.”

  “What about my men?” General Hawkins asked.

  “Your men are my men, General Hawkins. Don't ever forget that. If any of my divisions are attacked, I will reinforce them according to the circumstances, but I cannot favor any one division over another, and I believe that's what you're asking me to do, isn't it?”

  General Hawkins realized he'd been put on the defensive by General Hall, and had to think a few moments for an answer. Trees whizzed past his eyes, and he knew he'd look like a dummy if he took too long. He decided maybe it was time to take a step back from his argument. “Perhaps I'm giving undue weight to those intelligence reports, sir,” General Hawkins said. “I guess I'm not looking at the big picture the way you are. I apologize for this intrusion.”

  “That's all right,” General Hall said, turning away from General Hawkins and gazing straight ahead at the road, “you've done no harm.”

  Oh yes I have, General Hawkins thought glumly, bouncing up and down on the jumpseat. You'll remember this next time you fill out my efficiency report, you son of a bitch.

  “It looks like you've got a peptic ulcer,” Dr. Nojima said, removing his stethoscope from his ears. He was short, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and once he'd been portly, but that had been before the food shortages.

  General Adachi stood before him, naked to the waist. “What's a peptic ulcer?” he asked.

  “It's a sore on the wall of your upper abdomen, caused by excessive acidity.”

  “Do you have any medicine for it?”

  “No medicine exists for this. All you can do is eat a bland diet. Try not to use so much soy sauce on your rice.”

  General Adachi took his shirt off the back of his chair and thrust his left arm through a sleeve. “There's nothing I can do for the pain?”

  “Other than eating bland food and perhaps taking a vacation, no.” Dr. Nojima's little black bag sat on General Adachi's desk, and he stuffed his stethoscope inside.

  “How did I get the ulcer?” General Adachi asked.

  “It is generally believed that ulcers are caused by anxiety and worry. I imagine the pressures of your position give you a lot of that, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “There you have it.” Dr. Nojima showed the palms of his hands to General Adachi and shrugged. “I wish I could do something for you, sir. I would like to prescribe a vacation, but under the circumstances that's impossible.”

  “You may leave,” General Adachi said.

  Dr. Nojima bowed. “As you wish, sir.”

  Alone behind his desk, General Adachi looked at the papers and maps spread before him. The time for his big attack was approaching. Supplies were being carried to the front and soldiers were deploying. General Adachi felt a sharp pain in his stomach and gritted his teeth, sucking in air. He placed the palm of his right hand over the pain, cold sweat covering his body.

  General Hawkins's jeep stopped in front of his headquarters, and he climbed out of the front seat, a frown on his face. He believed he'd made a fool out of himself by approaching General Hall the way he did, and thought perhaps he'd damaged his career.

  He entered the tent and Master Sergeant Abner Somerall looked up at him. “Colonel Hutchins is waiting for you in your office,” he said.

  “What!” exploded General Hawkins. “Who let him go in there!”

  “I tried to stop him, but he went in anyway.”

  General Hawkins narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. He strode angrily through the tent network, passing clerks pounding typewriters and staff officers working behind desks. Everybody could see he was rip-roaring mad. He entered his office and saw Colonel Hutchins seated in front of his desk, reading a copy of Time Magazine.

  Colonel Hutchins looked up from the magazine and turned around. “How'd it go?” he asked.

  General Hawkins pointed to the tent flap. “Out!” he shouted.

  Colonel Hutchins didn't bother to get up. “It didn't go so well, huh7’

  General Hawkins continued to point to the tent flap. “Out!”

  “What're you mad at me for?”

  General Hawkins stepped toward him as if he was going to rip Colonel Hutchins's head off his shoulders. Colonel Hutchins jumped to his feet. General Hawkins stopped in front of him and his face became exceedingly ugly.

  “You son of a bitch!” General Hawkins screamed. “I should've known better than to listen to you.”

  “You fucked up pretty bad I guess,” Colonel Hutchins replied. “Guess I'll have to speak to the old man myself.”

  “You stay away from him!” General Hawkins replied. “That's a direct order! If I find out you've been talking to him, I'll throw the book at you! You'll be relieved of command so fast you won't know what hit you! And don't ever come into this office again without permission!” General Hawkins pointed to the tent flap again. “Now get the hell out of here! I don't want to see you again unless it's absolutely necessary!”

  Colonel Hutchins shrugged. “If that's the way you feel about it, okay.” He picked his helmet off General Hawkins's desk and headed for the tent flap. “I been thrown out of better places.”

  It was evening, and chow was finished at the Eighty-first Division Medical Headquarters. The molten copper sun sank toward the horizon, and Butsko practiced walking with his cane in a clearing beside one of the tents. He moved along without much difficulty and his leg felt stronger with every step. The pain had diminished considerably also; it was more than a week since he'd sustained the wound. He raised the cane and took some steps without it, pleased by his success. He hoped he'd be able to walk around without the cane in a few days. He wouldn't be able to walk as well as everybody else, but he'd be able to walk.

  Not far away, the GI with the guitar and another GI with a harmonica were playing bluegrass country music. Men around them sang along. It was a quiet night in the area. No guns were fired and no explosions took place. Butsko took a few more steps without his cane, thinking of how peaceful it was in the jungle. The air had become cooler and there were few bugs out that night. New Guinea wasn't so bad without the bugs, heat, and war.

  “How're you doing, Big Sergeant?”

  Butsko turned his head and saw Lieutenant Breckenridge approaching through the dusk. “Hello there young Lieutenant,” Butsko replied.

  “I brought you a present,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said, holding up a Thompson submachine gun. “It comes with the compliments of Colonel Hutchins.”

  “Yeah, Butsko said. “He told me I might be needing it. Thanks a lot.”

  Butsko took the heavy ugly weapon and held it in his hands. It felt right, and Butsko knew how to use it. Lieutenant Breckenridge handed him five bandoliers of ammunition.

  “This oughtta hold you for a while,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said.

  “A few minutes anyway. You in a hurry?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Pull up a chair and sit down.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge looked around and saw a spot at the base of a tree with a thick trunk. He w
alked toward it and sat cross-legged on the ground. Butsko limped behind him without using his cane and sat down facing him. Both men took out cigarettes and lit them up. Butsko offered Lieutenant Breckenridge a drink from his canteen, which Lieutenant Breckenridge accepted.

  “You got the good stuff,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said after taking a healthy swig.

  “The colonel brought it earlier today. How's he getting along without me?”

  “The rumor is he's in hot water.”

  “What he do this time?”

  “He convinced General Hawkins to talk to General Hall about reinforcing the division in advance of the big Jap attack, but evidently General Hall didn't go for it. General Hawkins thinks he made a fool out of himself, and blamed Colonel Hutchins for it.”

  Butsko shook his head. “The fucking Army.”

  “Anyway, Colonel Hutchins is in the doghouse again.”

  “He's always in the doghouse.” Butsko puffed his cigarette and looked at Lieutenant Breckenridge. “Do you think the attack is going to come on July ninth?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “What're you gonna do about it?”

  “We'll be wide awake with our weapons in our hands— what else can we do?”

  “The way I heard it, the bulk of the Japanese Eighteenth Army will be coming right through the Eighty-first Division. Is that what you heard?”

  “That's what I heard.”

  Butsko nodded, pinching his lips together. He thought for a few moments and then said, ‘This is what I think you oughtta do. If the Japs attack in the numbers you said, pull the men the fuck out of there. Don't hang around and get massacred just because General Hall doesn't believe the Japs're gonna attack. Get out and radio for help. That's about all you'll be able to do, the way I see it. What do you think?”

  “I can't pull back unless I get orders to pull back.”

  “Sure you can. You've got to protect your men. That's your job.”

  “My main job is to fight Japs.”

  “You can't fight the whole Japanese Army,” Butsko said. “Don't get caught up in any losing battles. We've been in enough of them already. Conduct a fighting retreat. That's what the whole regiment should do. That's what the division should do too. Once General Hall sees his airfields threatened, he'll reinforce you. He may be dumb, but he's not that dumb. He'll wake up sooner or later. Understand what I'm saying?”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I'll do my best, Butsko. That's about all I can promise you.”

  “I couldn't ask for more than that,” Butsko said.

  The sun had fallen behind the hills, and the western sky glowed red as if the jungle was on fire. General Hall buttoned up his fly in the officers’ latrine and pushed open the door, stepping outside. He closed the door behind him and walked over the winding jungle path toward his tent, as crickets chirped around him.

  A shadow appeared around a tree, and General Hall went for his service revolver.

  “Can I have a few moments of your time?” said a deep resonant voice with a Southern accent.

  “Who's there?” General Hall asked.

  A heavyset man stepped into the moonlight, and General Hall saw a bulbous nose and fleshy lips. “I'm Colonel Bob Hutchins, sir, and I command the Twenty-third Regiment of the Eighty-first Division. I don't have permission to speak with you, and I know you're a busy man, but you gotta walk back to your tent, and I wonder if you'd let me go just that distance with you and let me speak my mind.”

  General Hall remembered Colonel Hutchins from the meeting three days ago, and knew what was coming. “I don't encourage officers to break the chain of command,” General Hall replied, “but what do you want?”

  Colonel Hutchins walked alongside General Hall and opened his big mouth. “Sir, an officer's first responsibility is to his men, isn't that so?”

  “It is.”

  “Well I'm worried about my men, sir. You see, I expect the Japs to attack on the night of July ninth, and I expect them to hit my regiment straight on. If that happens, I'm concerned about casualties. Now I know one regiment doesn't mean a whole lot to you, because you've got lotsa regiments under your command, but this regiment is all I got, and I don't want it to get wiped out, sir. Do you get my drift so far, sir?”

  “Are you trying to say I don't care if your regiment gets wiped out?” General Hall asked.

  “Oh no, sir. I'd never say that, sir. I know you care about all your men, sir, but you gotta look at the big picture, sir, and that includes lotsa regiments, whereas my regiment is the only one I've got.” Colonel Hutchins looked ahead and saw General Hall's tent coming closer. He shrugged and wheezed. “I might as well come right to the point, sir. I think you oughtta make more preparations for the attack than you're making. I think you oughtta beef up the center of the line where my regiment and the Eighty-first Division is deployed. If you don't, I'm afraid there's gonna be a helluva mess there. I know General Hawkins asked you about this today, and you turned him down, but I thought I'd give it a try myself, because you see sir, if me Japs get through the Eighty-first Division, you're really gonna have your hands full trying to keep them away from the air strips.”

  They reached the front of General Hall's tent, and General Hall stopped. He wasn't angry at Colonel Hutchins, because Hutchins had stated his case clearly and General Hall appreciated his concern. But General Hall didn't have much time for Colonel Hutchins, because he still had work to do before going to bed.

  “What if the Japs don't attack the Eighty-first Division as you expect?” General Hall asked in front of his tent. “What if they're just trying to make us strengthen one part of our line so they can divert our attention from the sector they really intend to attack?”

  “I don't know, sir,” Colonel Hutchins replied. “I just think they're really coming through our sector.”

  “What if you're wrong?”

  Colonel Hutchins shrugged. “What if I'm right?”

  “If you're right you'll be backed up by my reserves. If you're wrong, the sector that is attacked will be backed up by my reserves. I've got to place my reserves where I can move them about quickly, and not assign them a position they can't leave quickly. Understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I have work to do. Good night, Colonel Hutchins.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  General Hall entered his tent, leaving Colonel Hutchins standing outside. Colonel Hutchins took a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket and lit it up. Turning, he walked toward bis jeep. I'll just have to take it as it comes, he thought. Whatever will be, will be.

  TEN . . .

  Colonel Hutchins stayed awake all night, sitting in his office and working by the light of kerosene lamps. He was assisted by Major Cobb, his G-3 (operations) officer; Lieutenant Harper, his aide; and Pfc. Levinson, who performed typing tasks and ran periodically to the mess hall for coffee.

  Colonel Hutchins wanted to reorganize and deploy his regiment so it'd be better prepared to meet the Japanese onslaught he expected on the night of July 9. His men had to be ready, and he had to have a plan for an orderly fighting retreat in case the Japs breeched his line. Colonel Hutchins was an old soldier like Butsko, and tended to think along the same lines.

  His first line of defense would be his mortars, because an intense mortar barrage could disrupt an attack. He studied his maps, conferred with Major Cobb, and worked out a plan that would place all his mortars two hundred yards west of the Driniumor, registered on targets and possible staging areas on the east side. The mortars would have overlapping fields of fire and all ammunition available to do the job.

  Next he'd lay down physical obstacles to the Japanese attack. All forward positions would be mined and wired, to slow down the Japanese infantry. The next and last line of defense would be his soldiers in their foxholes, armed with rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, and fixed bayonets. If the soldiers couldn't hold, and he already believed they wouldn't, the retreat w
ould begin, first back toward his own headquarters, and if no help arrived by then, back to division headquarters.

  The officers worked into the night, calculating every step of the plan, trying to guess what might go wrong and how it could be averted. Colonel Hutchins wished every commander in the task force would do what he was doing. Then they'd have a chance to stop the Japs. He figured some of them might be making plans, but most weren't. Most were like General Hall, holding their cards close to their vests, trying to be ready for everything, but you can never be ready for everything.

  Colonel Hutchins understood why most officers weren't taking the measures he was taking. They didn't believe the Japs would attack on the night of July 9, but he believed. He had no hard evidence, but something in his guts told him the Japs weren't faking, and they were going to do what all intelligence reports indicated they were going to do. They'd go for broke on the night or morning of July 9, because it was the only chance they had. They were all played out and had to do something. Colonel Hutchins didn't think the Japs had the time for ruses. A big rumble in the jungle was coming, and the twenty-third Regiment was going to be as ready as possible.

  At four in the morning the work was done. The officers looked at each other bleary-eyed, the features on their faces sagging with fatigue. Colonel Hutchins sipped more coffee and lit another cigarette. He looked at the other officers and they looked back at him while in the corner Pfc. Levinson hammered away on his typewriter.

  Colonel Hutchins leaned back and blew a cloud of smoke in the air. “Okay,” he said, “we can all get some sleep now, but we have to get up real early. Harper, you take a copy of these plans to General Hawkins's headquarters first thing in the morning and mark them important. If you can't give them to General Hawkins personally, give them to the highest-ranking officer you can find and tell him to give them to General Hawkins.” Colonel Hutchins turned to Major Cobb. “I want you to hold a meeting here at ten hundred hours for all battalion commanders and company commanders and their staffs, and tell them the plans we've worked out tonight.”