Suicide River Read online

  Butsko was flat on his back, but it wasn't due to any medical problem. All his clothes were off and Lieutenant Frannie Divers was naked too, sitting on top of his erection, holding on to his shoulders and bouncing up and down.

  Frannie was right—Butsko did have a big one, nearly twice as big as Dr. Epstein's, and it felt magnificent inside her as she raised herself up and lowered herself down rapidly on top of it. Her boobs bounced around and she licked her lips as she looked down at Butsko, lying with his head resting on his hands, a cigarette dangling out the corner of his mouth, his eyes half-closed.

  Frannie leaned forward and pressed her lips against his ear. “Oh you big bastard—I love you,” she murmured.

  Butsko smiled and puffed his cigarette. “I love you too, kid,” he replied.

  Private Victor Yabalonka raised his head over the edge of the foxhole and gazed at the Driniumor River. He couldn't see any Japs coming across, or hear any unusual sounds. Dropping back into the foxhole, he got onto his hands and knees and lowered his face almost into the grenade sump. Then he took out a cigarette and lit it quickly. If he stayed low inside the foxhole the lit end of the cigarette couldn't be seen.

  Yabalonka needed a cigarette because he was getting nervous. He didn't know whether the Japs would attack or not, but the constant tension was wearing down his nerves. He puffed the cigarette, crouching low in the foxhole, and looked at the Reverend Billie Jones, squinting and trying to read his handy pocket Bible in the moonlight.

  It annoyed Yabalonka to see Billie Jones so calm. Yabalonka was an atheist and supposedly a smart guy, yet he was nervous as a bedbug while Billie Jones, with his stupid superstitious belief in God, was relaxed. “Billie?” Yabalonka said.

  The Reverend Billie Jones looked up from his Bible. “Yuh?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “How can you believe in God, Billie?”

  Billie blinked. “Because He exists.”

  “Where is he? I don't see him.”

  “Just because you can't see Him, that don't mean He ain't here. You can't see Lieutenant Breckenridge either, but that don't mean he don't exist.”

  “But we've all seen Lieutenant Breckenridge. None of us has seen God.”

  “I have,” the Reverend Billie Jones said. “I've seen the great living God many times, and I can even see Him in you, Yabalonka, although you don't believe in Him.”

  “What does he look like?” Yabalonka asked.

  “Depends on how He reveals Himself.”

  Yabalonka realized he wasn't getting anywhere with that line of questioning. He decided to try a new angle. “If there's a God, how could he let things like wars happen?”

  “Men make wars, not God. Men cause their suffering, not God.”

  “He can't be a very good god if he lets wars happen.”

  “He lets us do what we want, and it's up to us to seek Him out. It's up to us to lead a righteous life. God wants us to choose Him. He wants us to come to Him. If a father gives everything to a child, the child becomes spoiled. God, our Father in heaven, doesn't want to spoil us. He wants us to be strong and choose the path of righteousness over the path of evil.”

  Yabalonka shook his head. “I don't know how you can believe all that stuff. People like you need religion because you're afraid to face the truth of the world.”

  “Jesus is the truth of the world,” the Reverend Billie Jones replied. “People like you don't believe in Him because you're too high and mighty, and afraid to admit there's something greater than you. It's all explained right here in Paul's First Letter to the Colossians. Let me read it to you.” Billie thumbed quickly through his handy pocket Bible.

  Yabalonka held out his hand. “Please, not now,” he said. “I don't think I could handle it right now.”

  “Okay Yabalonka,” Billie said, “but you really oughtta read this book sometime. I got an extra one right here in my pack. Lemme give it to you.”

  “Naw, that's all right.”

  But Billie already was rustling through his pack, and pulled out another handy pocket Bible identical to the one he'd been reading. “Here—take it,” he said.

  Yabalonka pressed his back against the wall of the foxhole, to get as far away from it as he could. “No thanks—I don't want it.”

  “Go ahead and take it—it won't bite you.”

  “Naw—give it to somebody who'll appreciate it.”

  “C'mon—put it in your shirt pocket. You can take a look at it when you don't have anything better to read, and even if you don't read it, it'll give you good luck.”

  Billie tossed the Bible to Victor Yabalonka, and it landed in his lap. Yabalonka looked down at it, horrified. He'd been an atheist almost for as long as he could walk, and there was a Bible, that fount of superstition, lying in his lap.

  The Reverend Billie Jones had gone back to reading his own Bible. Victor Yabalonka picked up the Bible and held it out to Billie.

  “Hey Billie,” he said, “I don't want this.”

  Billie didn't move a muscle or respond in any way. Yabalonka didn't want to throw the Bible back at him, because he didn't want to offend Billie, whom he basically liked. I know what I'll do, Yabalonka thought. I'll just hang on to it until I get a chance to throw it away. If Billie ever asks where it is, I'll just say I lost it someplace.

  Yabalonka picked up the Bible and dropped it into his shirt pocket, buttoning it up. Then he lowered his head and puffed his cigarette, remembering the big Jap attack that was supposed to take place.

  He began to worry again.

  Butsko lay naked on his back, his head resting on his hands, looking down through heavy-lidded eyes at Lieutenant Frannie Divers on her knees, bending over and sucking his banana.

  Her head bobbed up and down as she held his banana in her fist, squeezing it hard, drooling and slobbering. She huffed and puffed and her big rear end wiggled with pleasure. Butsko looked at it, thinking that a woman's ass had to be the most beautiful thing in the world, and he thought maybe he'd do it to her doggie fashion after she finished blowing him.

  Frannie pulled her mouth off his banana. “Oh God—I needed this!” she said.

  “We all need it every once in a while,” Butsko replied, “but don't stop now, kid. I was just gonna come.”

  Lieutenant Betty Crawford walked into Captain Epstein's tent and saw the C.Q. (Charge of Quarters) Corporal Raymond Dinkens, sitting behind the desk. “Is Captain Epstein in?” she asked.

  “Not right now,” Dinkens said.

  “Have you seen Sergeant Butsko here recently?”

  “He was here a while ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “No ma'am.”

  “Was he all right?”

  “He seemed all right, ma'am.”

  Betty's brow became furrowed with thought. If Butsko was all right, why hadn't he kept his date with her? Where in hell was the big ugly son of a bitch?

  Just then Captain Epstein burst through the tent flap. He saw Betty and stopped cold. His face was flushed with exertion and he appeared worried. “Have you seen Frannie around?” be asked Betty.

  “No, I haven't.”

  Now Captain Epstein's brow became furrowed with thought. Frannie had told him she didn't feel well and was going to bed early, but when he called the nurses’ residence tent to see how she was, Lieutenant Agnes Shankar told him she wasn't there.

  Captain Epstein turned to Corporal Dinkens. “Have you seen Lieutenant Divers around?” he asked.

  “She was here shortly after you left earlier, sir. She was talking with Sergeant Butsko in your office.”

  Betty's jaw dropped open. Captain Epstein wrinkled his nose and raised his upper lip. Both of them came to the same conclusion at the same moment.

  That rotten bastard, Captain Epstein thought.

  That dirty bitch, Betty thought.

  “What were they talking about?” Captain Epstein asked.

  “I don't know
, sir,” Corporal Dinkens replied. “They were talking awful quiet.”

  Now Captain Epstein's worst suspicions were confirmed, and so were Betty Crawford's.

  “Excuse me,” Betty said. “There's something I've got to do.”

  She turned and stormed out of the tent. Captain Epstein stood in front of Corporal Dinkens's desk and reconstructed recent events in his mind. Evidently Frannie and Butsko had made a date while talking in his office. Then Frannie had come to him and said she was sick. After that she must have gone to meet Butsko.

  Captain Epstein was furious. He considered Frannie a dumb broad, but how dare she be unfaithful to him! He wondered where they could be, and realized it had to be fairly close by. Butsko couldn't walk well and Captain Epstein doubted whether they'd stolen a jeep. Somebody must have seen mem going wherever they were now. All Captain Epstein would have to do was ask around.

  He looked down at Corporal Dinkens. “If anybody wants me, I'll be in the area,” he said.

  “Yes sir,” replied Corporal Dinkens.

  Captain Epstein charged out of his tent, to track down Lieutenant Frannie Divers and Sergeant Butsko.

  Private Joshua McGurk from Skunk Hollow, Maine, stood in his foxhole and stared at the Japanese side of the Driniumor River. He saw soldiers moving around, but there was no point telling anyone. No one would believe him because they couldn't see what he saw.

  Private McGurk had been a lumberjack before the war, and in the off season he used to hunt and trap animals. He was wise in the ways of forests, and the jungles of New Guinea differed from the Maine woodlands only in temperature and the types of creatures indigenous to the area. A man who was accustomed to the black flies of Maine would have little difficulty with the mosquitoes of New Guinea.

  McGurk dropped down into the foxhole, where Pfc. Morris Shilansky sat glumly, looking at the ground. Shilansky said nothing as McGurk kneeled in front of him. McGurk was getting worried about Shilansky. “You okay, Shilansky?” McGurk asked.

  “Yeah, I'm okay,” Shilansky replied.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I'm sure.”

  “Well you're sure actin’ strange.”

  “Look who's calling somebody strange.”

  “I ain't strange.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Somethin's bothering you, Shilansky. Somebody die in yore fambly?”

  “As a matter of fact, somebody did.”

  “Well, worryin’ about it won't do nobody no good. Everybody dies sooner or later. There ain't nothin’ you can do about it.”

  “I think there is.”

  “You can't bring back the dead, Shilansky.”

  “That's right,” Shilansky muttered, “but you can stop more of them from being killed.”

  “They was killed?” McGurk asked, shocked.

  “That's right.”

  “How many was killed?”

  “Millions.”

  McGurk thought Shilansky was joking with him, because everybody always joked with him, but then he saw Shilansky was serious. McGurk wondered if Shilansky was going crazy. How could somebody have millions of kinfolk, and how could anybody murder millions of somebody's kinfolk?

  “I think you'd better get some sleep,” McGurk said. “You sound awful tired to me.”

  “Fuck sleep,” Shilansky replied, spitting into the bottom of the foxhole. “I'm waiting for those Japs to come over here.”

  McGurk had met many oddballs and loony-tunes since he'd been in the Army, and Shilansky was just another of them. It was best to leave them alone. “Well, if'n you're gonna stay awake, maybe I'll get some shut-eye,” McGurk said.

  “Okay,” Shilansky replied.

  McGurk raised his knees and rested his back against the wall of the foxhole, closing his eyes. Look at him, Shilansky thought. He doesn't have a worry in the world.

  Shilansky scratched his nose, which was the nose of a hawk. He bent down and lit a cigarette, thinking about the Japs and hoping they'd attack like some people believed they would.

  Shilansky had reached a major decision during the past hour. If he couldn't kill Nazis for what they were doing to the Jews, at least he could kill Japs, because Japs were partners of the Nazis in the war, and as far as Shilansky was concerned they were cut out of the same hunk of shit. He hoped the attack would take place so he could annihilate Japs. He'd mow them down with the machine gun, and he had plenty of ammunition. McGurk would feed it in and he'd shoot Japs to shit.

  Shilansky looked at his watch. It was 2330 hours, half-past eleven at night. He sat behind the machine gun and wrapped his fingers around the handles, pressing his thumbs against the trigger mechanism. Come on you sons of bitches, he thought. I'm waiting for you.

  In his tent, General Adachi checked his watch at the same instant Pfc. Shilansky looked at his. Only ten more minutes, General Adachi thought. He lowered his hand and laid it on his desk. He looked at the papers lying there and realized they meant nothing now. Although the first bullet hadn't been fired yet, the attack was underway. All his soldiers were in position, and his artillerymen were preparing to open fire. General Adachi couldn't stop the attack even if he wanted to.

  He closed his eyes and imagined artillerymen loading their big shells into the breeches of their guns. Their sergeants and officers glanced at their watches, because everyone was supposed to start firing at the same moment, continuing nonstop for five minutes.

  Captain Adachi's guts churned in his stomach as he waited through the final minutes before the attack. He looked up and saw his staff officers standing around in small groups, speaking softly. Everyone was aware of the seriousness of their situation. General Adachi felt a sharp pain like a spear being shoved into his stomach. Sweat poured from his forehead, but he never flinched or changed his expression.

  THIRTEEN . . .

  Lieutenant Betty Crawford arrived at the pharmacy tent and looked around. An orderly approached the tent along another trail, but no one else was there. It was late and nearly everybody was asleep.

  Betty felt foolish. She realized she should be sacked out, resting up for her tour of duty tomorrow, but she was obsessed with Butsko and wanted to track him down to tell him he was a dirty lying bastard.

  She'd already searched the medical headquarters area, and somebody told her he'd seen Butsko near the pharmacy tent about an hour ago. Now Betty was on the scene, snooping around.

  She walked into the tent and saw an orderly sitting behind a desk, dispensing medication to the orderly who'd just walked in.

  “Hello there,” Betty said in an offhand way. “You haven't seen Sergeant Butsko around here by any chance, have you?”

  “No ma'am,” said the orderly behind the desk.

  “Me neither,” said the other orderly.

  “How long have you been on duty?” she asked the orderly behind the desk.

  He looked at his watch. “Nearly an hour.”

  Betty walked out of the tent. On an impulse she decided to walk around it, in case Butsko might be in back. She realized she was being foolish, and it was extremely unlikely that he'd be in back, but she thought she'd take a look anyway.

  She walked around the side of the tent, looking into the jungle, wondering if Butsko was out there screwing Lieutenant Frannie Divers. It made Betty's blood boil to think that might be happening. How could Butsko stand her up for a big sloppy cow like Frannie Divers? The very thought of it set Betty's teeth on edge.

  She turned the corner and was astonished to see Captain Epstein sitting at the rear of the tent, his arms folded like an Indian, looking off into the jungle. He heard footsteps and turned toward Betty, his face twisting and distorting when he saw who she was.

  “What are you doing here!” he said in a loud whisper.

  “Nothing,” she replied, embarrassed at getting caught, but she was no more embarrassed than he. “What're you doing here?”

  “Nothing.”

  She walked toward him, because she didn't know what else to do. He d
idn't walk away because somebody told him he'd seen Frannie near the pharmacy tent a short while ago. He wanted to catch her in the act if he could.

  Captain Epstein sat down again and crossed his arms. Betty sat beside him. Each put two and two together and figured out what the other was doing there.

  “I think they're in the jungle straight ahead,” Captain Epstein said in a whisper. “Keep your voice down.”

  “What makes you think they're there?” Betty asked.

  “Because somebody saw Frannie around here a while ago, and there are fresh tracks leading into the jungle right there.”

  Betty leaned forward and saw footprints in the soft mushy ground, plus branches bent and broken. She wouldn't have noticed them if Captain Epstein hadn't pointed them out to her.

  “I didn't know you were going out with Frannie,” she said.

  “I didn't know you were going out with Butsko,” he replied. “He doesn't seem like your type at all.”

  “He isn't anymore,” she said. “When I see him I'm really going to give him a piece of my mind, and by the way, Frannie doesn't seem like your type either.”

  “Well you know how it is out here,” Captain Epstein said ruefully. “One has so little to choose from.”

  Betty was insulted. She was there, and he'd never attempted to get anything going with her, although she would've turned him down if he did, because he wasn't her type at all. She didn't like soft flabby men who looked like bookworms. Normally she went for men like the actor Van Johnson, who were blond and wholesome-looking. Her boyfriend, the one who was missing in action, had been that type. Butsko was an aberration in her life, she now believed. He'd taken advantage of her during a weak moment in her life, she wanted to think.

  Captain Epstein raised his fingers to his lips. “Ssshhh,” he said. “Somebody's coming.”

  Betty perked up her pretty pink ears. Sure enough, she heard rustling straight ahead in the jungle. Somebody was heading their way, pushing through the dense foliage.