Suicide River Read online

  For a few brief seconds Butsko found himself without an adversary nearby. Bodies of Japanese soldiers littered the ground all around him, and he saw his submachine gun lying there. He dropped the Japanese rifle and bayonet in his hands, scooped up the submachine gun, and loaded it while glancing around.

  The situation was desperate. Japanese soldiers advanced toward the tents. The ground was covered with dead and wounded GIs. Butsko saw a bunch of Japanese soldiers working their way toward the surgery tent, methodically killing the GIs in their path.

  Butsko thought he'd pull back and try to defend that tent, when a Japanese soldier nearby spotted him and decided to kill him. The Japanese soldier shouted "Banzai!” and charged Butsko, and Butsko turned toward him, pulling the trigger of his Thompson submachine gun.

  The submachine gun chattered angrily, and the Japanese soldier backpedaled, tripping over his feet. He fell to the ground, blood spouting from holes in his chest and stomach.

  Butsko hopped, hobbled, and limped toward the main tent. He saw Japanese soldiers going around toward the back of the tent where the operating section was. Two Japanese soldiers near the front of the tent turned toward Butsko as he ran toward them, and Butsko pulled the trigger of the submachine gun, peppering them with holes. They fell to the ground and he jumped over them, plunging into the main tent.

  Wounded men lay all over the ground, either unconscious or too feeble to fight Japs. Butsko limped past them swiftly, leaping on his good leg and taking it easy on his bad one. He burst into the operating room, and the doctors and nurses continued to operate on wounded men as shots were fired outside and men screamed when they were sliced open with bayonets.

  “The Japs are gonna be in here any moment now!” Butsko said. “You'd better arm yourselves!”

  “We're medical personnel,” Captain Epstein replied, looking up from a shrapnel wound in the chest of a soldier, “and we'll continue with our work.”

  “You won't be continuing with it for much longer,” Butsko told him.

  A Japanese bayonet jabbed through the side of the tent and ripped down. Butsko fired at the slash in the tent, and a Japanese soldier fell through, blood spurting from a hole in his forehead. He landed at the feet of Lieutenant Betty Crawford, who screamed in horror.

  Another Japanese soldier jumped through the hole, and Butsko gave him a submachine gun burst in the face. The far wall of the tent was torn open and seconds later a big burly Japanese soldier leapt inside the tent. Butsko spun around and gave him a shower of hot lead, knocking the Japanese soldier back through the hole he'd just made.

  A Japanese soldier charged through the first hole, and Butsko aimed the submachine gun at him, pulling the trigger.

  Click!

  The machine gun was empty. Butsko held it in both his hands and charged the Japanese soldier, parrying the thrust of his bayonet to the side, bashing him in the snout with the submachine gun, knocking the Japanese soldier back through the hole.

  Butsko went after him, jumping through the hole. He collided with another Japanese soldier, and the Japanese soldier's bayonet cut open Butsko's left biceps muscle, but Butsko kneed him in the balls and the Japanese soldier stuck out his tongue, reaching for his flattened testicles.

  Butsko pushed him out of the way, bashed another Japanese soldier in the mouth with his submachine gun, and then raised it in time to block the downward thrust of a samurai sword in the hand of a Japanese officer.

  Sparks flew into the air as the sword collided with the barrel of the submachine gun, and Butsko kicked the Japanese officer in the balls. The Japanese officer let go the sword and Butsko plucked it out of the air, spinning around and swinging sideways, lopping off the head of another Japanese soldier. He swung down and chopped a Japanese soldier's head in two. He swung low and hit another Japanese soldier in the waist, the blade hacking through nearly to the Japanese soldier's spine.

  Butsko tugged the sword but it wouldn't come loose. Two more Japanese soldiers ran toward him, and he dived toward the one on the right, his big hands clamping down on the Japanese soldier's rifle and bayonet, and he spun the Japanese soldier to the side, pulling the rifle and bayonet out of his hands.

  Bam!

  A rifle butt hit Butsko upside his head and sent him stumbling backwards. He fell through a hole in the tent and landed on his ass inside. A shot rang out as Lieutenant Frannie Divers shot a Japanese soldier with a Colt .45. The Japanese soldier had just entered the tent through the other hole, and now another Japanese soldier came in through the same hole. Frannie aimed her Colt .45, fired, and missed the son of a bitch.

  Butsko picked up a Japanese Arisaka rifle and bayonet and jumped to his feet. He charged the Japanese soldier and rammed his rifle and bayonet forward. The Japanese soldier parried the blow and tried to bash Butsko in the head with the butt of his rifle, but Butsko reached out, grabbed the Japanese soldier's throat with his big hand, and squeezed, cutting off his supply of air.

  The Japanese soldier blacked out, dropping to his knees, but still Butsko didn't let go. The doctors and nurses watched the Japanese soldier turn purple, and then they heard a roar of gunfire outside the tent.

  “What the hell's that?” Butsko muttered, dropping the Japanese soldier.

  His first thought was that more Japanese soldiers had attacked the beleaguered medical headquarters, but then he heard Bronx cheers, rebel yells, and Indian war-whoops. He rushed to the side of the tent, poked his head outside, and saw American soldiers swarming into the area. The GIs charged past the tents, shooting at Japs, clubbing them with their rifle butts, and sticking them with their bayonets. More GIs followed the ones Butsko was looking at, and then more GIs came after those.

  “My God!” Butsko said. “The reinforcements are here!”

  He heard the voice of Captain Epstein. “What's going on out there!”

  Butsko pulled his head back into the tent and turned around. “We've just been reinforced,” he said wearily. “You can go back to work now.”

  The doctors and nurses returned to their patients, resuming their operating procedures. Exhausted, Butsko sat on the floor, leaning against a tent pole. He took out a bent Lucky Strike and lit it up, taking a deep puff.

  An American soldier stuck his head through one of the holes. “Everything okay in here?” he asked.

  “It's about time you guys showed up,” Butsko snarled.

  EIGHTEEN . . .

  “Sir?”

  General Adachi looked up from the map table and saw General Tatsunari Kimura, his executive officer, standing in front of him.

  General Adachi's eyes were bleary with fatigue and his jowls sagged. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I'm afraid I have bad news, sir.” General Kimura paused. His lower lip trembled.

  “Out with it!” General Adachi shouted.

  “Our soldiers have been stopped, sir.”

  “Stopped, you say?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “How can this be? According to the last reports, they were advancing in the crucial center of the American line!”

  “American reinforcements arrived and filled the gap: At least a division of them, sir.”

  “You're sure of that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “The attack has been stopped everywhere?”

  “Yes sir.”

  General Adachi could've been knocked over by a feather. He took a deep breath and saw spots in front of his eyes. He'd been stopped before he captured the Tadji airfields, and he knew what that meant: It was all over for him and the Eighteenth Army. “Excuse me,” he said.

  He turned and walked through the tent flap into his office, and now that his men couldn't see him anymore, he went limp. His shoulders sagged and he collapsed onto the chair behind his desk.

  All is lost, he thought. The offensive has failed. He covered his face with his hands. All he could do now was commit harakiri. He felt a terrible sinking sensation in his stomach, and a jackhammer pounded inside his skull. I've lost.


  He leaned back in his chair, removed his hands from his face, and took a deep breath. A map of the front lay on the desk in front of him and he swept it away; it fell to the ground.

  I should've known it wouldn't work, he said to himself. I didn't have enough troops or supplies. It was clear to him why he'd failed. He'd been living on hope during the past three months, planning a campaign that deep in his heart he knew wouldn't work, but the gallant old field general knew he couldn't just lie down and die; he had to fight and that's what he did.

  It's all over now, he thought. It had been a wild gamble and it hadn't paid off. He thought of all his men out there on the west side of the Driniumor, dead and wounded or alive and waiting for the Americans to counterattack and push them back.

  General Adachi pursed his lips and blew air out. Acid spilled into his stomach, burning his ulcer so furiously that he cried out softly and doubled over, clutching his aching guts with both arms.

  A sliver of the sun broke over the horizon, making the sky glow a light shade of red. Colonel Hutchins sat on a log and sipped from his canteen, thinking of the events of the night. Nearby a crew of soldiers from his Headquarters Company erected a sandbag bunker that would be his new command post.

  Colonel Hutchins was happy and sad at the same time. He was happy because the Japs had been stopped, and that meant they'd shot their wad on New Guinea forever. Their attack had cost them plenty, and they'd never be able to mount one like it again. The battle for New Guinea would become a mopping-up operation from then on.

  He was sad because so many men had been lost. His casualties hadn't been as high as they might've been, because his fighting retreat had gone smoothly. The heavy casualties had come when they'd had to stand and fight.

  Colonel Hutchins wasn't mad at General Hall. Colonel Hutchins knew that somebody had to stand and fight sooner or later, to hold the Japs until reinforcments arrived, and his regiment was one of those that got the dirty job. That's the way war went. But it could've gone worse. The Japs could've won the battle, and then his casualties would've been much higher.

  He heard footsteps and looked around. General Hawkins walked toward him, a cigarette in his ivory holder sticking out the corner of his mouth. “Morning Colonel,” General Hawkins said.

  “Morning sir.”

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  “This jungle belongs to you sir. Sit wherever you like.”

  General Hawkins sat on the log next to Colonel Hutchins, and could smell the liquor on his breath. “It's been a helluva night,” General Hawkins said.

  “Sure was,” Colonel Hutchins agreed.

  “Looks like we licked the Japs.”

  “Looks like we did.”

  General Hawkins turned to Colonel Hutchins. “I figure I owe you an apology. You drink too much and you're insubordinate most of the time, but you were right about everything to do with this attack, and I was wrong. I just thought I ought to tell you that, and in the future I'll try to pay more attention to your views.”

  There was silence for a few moments. Both men felt awkward. Colonel Hutchins shrugged. “That it?” Colonel Hutchins asked.

  “That's it.”

  “Have a drink,” Colonel Hutchins said, holding out the canteen.

  General Hawkins hesitated a moment, then reached for the white lightning. He raised it in the air and said, “Here's to victory.”

  “Right,” Colonel Hutchins said.

  General Hawkins touched the mouth of the canteen to his lips and leaned his head back, swallowing some down. The white lightning was sweet and intoxicating, but not nearly as sweet and intoxicating as the victory he'd just won. The Japs had been stopped. His division was intact. Tomorrow he'd take it to the Japs and push them back all the way to Tokyo.

  “Save some for me,” Colonel Hutchins said.

  General Hawkins passed the canteen back. Colonel Hutchins raised it in the air. “Here's to good booze,” he said.

  He held the canteen with his hand and his teeth and guzzled until every drop of white lightning was gone. Burping, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyeballs danced around in his head and he heard whistles and bells. “It's empty,” he said to General Hawkins. “Let's get some more.”

  “Where?” General Hawkins asked.

  “From my mess hall.”

  “Lets go.”

  The two officers stood, hitched up their belts, and walked off side by side.