Go for Broke Read online

  Blam! The Japanese soldier tripped over his feet and fell to the ground, a widening red splotch on the front of his uniform shirt. Lieutenant Breckenridge lined up the sights on another Japanese soldier and squeezed the trigger again. Blam! That Japanese soldier lost his footing and collapsed onto the ground, a bullet through his throat. Lieutenant Breckenridge moved his carbine an inch to the right and aimed at a third Japanese soldier. Blam! He’d aimed too quickly and his bullet missed the Japanese soldier who was his target, but it hit the Japanese soldier beside him, and that Japanese soldier tumbled asshole over teakettle to the ground.

  Blam! . . . Blam! . . . Blam! Lieutenant Breckenridge pulled the trigger as quickly as he could. The Japs were closer now and all bunched together; he couldn’t miss. Blam! . . . Blam! . . . Blam! Japanese soldiers dropped to the ground, but others loomed up behind them and maintained the charge. They howled like wild animals, spitting and snorting, shaking their rifles and bayonets, thirsty for American blood. They rampaged across the jungle, and Colonel Hutchins felt a sickness in the pit of his stomach, because there were so many Japs and so few of his own men in comparison.

  But he couldn’t turn tail and run like a coward. It was too late for that now. The only thing to do was get up and fight. Colonel Hutchins took a deep breath, gripped his Thompson submachine gun tightly, and jumped out of the hole. Baring his teeth, he charged toward the Japanese, the butt of his machine gun tucked in against his waist. He was a middle-aged alcoholic with a potbelly, but so fucking what!

  “Forward Twenty-third!” he hollered. “Attack!”

  He pulled the trigger of his submachine gun, and it bucked and stuttered in his hands. Hot lead spewed out of its barrel and chopped down Japanese soldiers in front of him. Keeping his finger pressed against the trigger, he swung the submachine gun from side to side as he ran forward.

  “Follow me!” he yelled. “Up and at ‘em!”

  His loud voice reverberated all across that sector of the American line; they didn’t call him Hollarin’ Hutchins for nothing. His men saw their squat potbellied commander charging the entire Jap army all by himself, and they came up out of their holes to follow him. The men from the South let out rebel yells, and the men from the West screamed cowboy cattle calls. The men from New York gave the Japs Bronx cheers, and the ones from New England just hollered like sons of bitches.

  In a long line of tattered OD-green uniforms, they swept across the jungle toward the Japanese soldiers, who in turn were charging them. Both sides drew closer and closer to each other. Each side could see the other’s bloodshot eyes and white knuckles on hands that gripped weapons. Shots rang out on both sides, and Colonel Hutchins lunged into the midst of the Japanese soldiers, firing his Thompson submachine gun without letup.

  Colonel Hutchins was surrounded by screaming hyped-up Japanese soldiers, and he dodged from side to side, spinning around, firing his submachine gun. He aimed at a Japanese soldier in front of him and shot his chest into sausage meat. The Japanese soldier was dead before he even had time to scream, and he collapsed onto the ground at Colonel Hutchins’s feet.

  Colonel Hutchins stepped over him and fired point-blank at another Japanese soldier, aiming a little high this time, and the burst of big fat .45-caliber bullets blew the Japanese soldier’s head apart. Blood and brains splattered in all directions, and the Japanese soldier was hurled backward onto another Japanese soldier.

  Colonel Hutchins got low and fired up into the belly of the next Japanese soldier, blowing his guts through his spine and out a massive hole in his back. Pivoting, Colonel Hutchins shot another Japanese soldier in the balls, the next Japanese soldier in the chest, and a third Japanese soldier in the lower jaw as the kick of his submachine gun raised the barrel progressively higher in the air.

  Colonel Hutchins pulled the submachine gun down and fired at the stomach of a Japanese soldier who was charging toward him, aiming his rifle and bayonet at Colonel Hutchins's heart. The submachine gun fired two bullets that bored through the Japanese soldier’s guts, and then the submachine gun went click!

  Colonel Hutchins was out of ammo, and he didn’t have time to load up. A Japanese bayonet sliced open his left arm, and then a Japanese rifle butt came out of nowhere and slammed him on the side of his helmet.

  It was a good thing he was wearing that helmet, otherwise his skull would have been mashed in; but the force of the blow made him see stars anyway. He fell back on his ass, and when his vision cleared, he saw a Japanese bayonet streaking down toward his face.

  With an angry, vicious snarl, Colonel Hutchins raised his hands quickly at the last moment and grabbed the barrel of the Japanese rifle, pushing it to the side. The Japanese bayonet continued its downward motion and buried itself four inches into the moist, warm ground, which had a consistency similar to human flesh.

  Colonel Hutchins balled up his fists and jumped to his feet, putting all of his weight into a left hook. He caught the Japanese soldier flush on the mouth, knocking his teeth down his throat. The Japanese soldier dropped to his knees, and Colonel Hutchins spun around, pulling the Japanese soldier’s rifle and bayonet out of the ground.

  Before he could get set, a Japanese rifle butt whacked him on the shoulder, and the blade of a Japanese bayonet lay open his left cheek to the bone. Colonel Hutchins staggered to the side, hollering in pain, trying to get his bearings as blood poured down his cheek and onto his uniform shirt.

  “You son of a bitch!” he screamed.

  A Japanese soldier thrust his rifle and bayonet toward Colonel Hutchins’s chest, but Colonel Hutchins parried the bayonet to the side, then swung his own rifle butt around and connected with the face of the Japanese soldier, splintering the bones in the Japanese soldier’s face, fracturing his skull; blood squirted out of the Japanese soldier’s nose, mouth, and ears. The Japanese soldier was slammed to the ground by the force of the blow, and Colonel Hutchins charged ahead, pushing his rifle and bayonet forward, burying the bayonet to the hilt into the stomach of the next Japanese soldier.

  Colonel Hutchins stepped backward with his right foot and pulled the rifle and bayonet loose from the Japanese soldier’s stomach. Then he raised the rifle and bayonet and saw another Japanese soldier directly in front of him, charging hard.

  The Japanese soldier and Colonel Hutchins thrust their rifles and bayonets forward at the same time. They smashed against each other’s hands, but neither let go of their weapons as their rifles and bayonets flashed toward each other’s chest. Both men were approximately the same height and had the same reach. Colonel Hutchins twisted to the side at the last moment, but the Japanese soldier was too excited to react intelligently. Colonel Hutchins’s bayonet sank five inches into the Japanese soldier’s chest, while the Japanese soldier’s bayonet slashed across Colonel Hutchins’s ribs but didn’t penetrate deeply.

  It was as if someone held a flaming torch to Colonel Hutchins’s chest: The pain was so intense he blacked out for a few moments. When he opened his eyes he was lying face down on the ground, and it took another second or two before he realized where he was. In front of him he could see American combat boots and Japanese leggings close together, leaning toward each other. Men grunted and farted as they tried to stab each other and gouge out each other’s eyes. Something glinted in the sunlight and Colonel Hutchins saw a machete lying in front of him, its handle in the hand of a dead American soldier on his back, his eyes wide open and staring. Colonel recognized the soldier as Sergeant Dolan from his own Headquarters Company.

  Colonel Hutchins was half crazed with pain and covered with his own blood. He expected a Jap to harpoon him through the back at any moment, and he knew that his only chance for life was through the killing of others. He leaped forward like the old lion that he was and took the machete out of Sergeant Dolan’s lifeless hand. Then Colonel Hutchins raised himself to his full height and looked around.

  Men were locked in bloody hand-to-hand fighting all around him. There was barely room to move, and he couldn�
�t put his foot down without placing it on a dead soldier. The fight was gritty and gruesome. Japanese soldiers outnumbered the GIs hugely, and Colonel Hutchins wondered when the reinforcements would arrive.

  “Banzai!”

  Colonel Hutchins turned to the sound and saw a Japanese soldier charging toward him, rifle and bayonet aimed at Colonel Hutchins’s heart. Colonel Hutchins gripped the handle of the machete in both hands and raised it over his head, then darted to the side and swung down, chopping off the left arm of the Japanese soldier just above the elbow.

  The Japanese soldier blinked in total abject horror as his arm fell to the ground, along with his rifle and bayonet. Blood gushed out of the stump of his arm as if from a fireman’s hose, and Colonel Hutchins drew back the machete and swung again, the blade slicing easily through the Japanese soldier’s neck. The Japanese soldier’s head, still blinking uncontrollably, flew into the air, falling onto the helmet of Frankie La Barbara, bouncing off, and dropping to the ground.

  Frankie La Barbara felt something hit him but didn’t know what it was, and didn’t care anyway. The main thing was that it hadn’t hurt him. In his bloody, gory hands he carried an ax that he’d found buried in the trunk of a tree that had been blown down during the Japanese bombardment. It was a lucky find, because an ax was a fabulous weapon to have in hand-to-hand fighting.

  “YAAAAAHHHHHHH!” screamed Frankie La Barbara as he raised the ax in the air.

  “Banzai!” cried a Japanese soldier who charged him out of the great tumultuous melee of men struggling to kill each other.

  The Japanese soldier thrust his rifle and bayonet forward, and Frankie La Barbara swung down with the ax. Its blade connected with the top of the Japanese soldier’s rifle, and the power of the blow knocked the rifle out of the Japanese soldier’s hands. Frankie La Barbara swung the ax to the side and buried it in the right shoulder of the Japanese soldier, who shrieked horribly as he was flung to the ground.

  Frankie La Barbara stepped on his face and swung the ax in the reverse direction, hacking off the top half of a Japanese soldier’s head. Blood and brains flew everywhere. Frankie raised the ax and brought it down, chopping a Japanese soldier’s head in half lengthwise like a coconut, and more blood and brains fell on everyone nearby. Frankie swung to the side and cut off a Japanese soldier’s arm just below the shoulder. On the backswing Frankie buried the ax in the chest of a Japanese soldier, and blood welled out around the head of the ax, along with bubbles of air from the Japanese soldier’s lungs.

  Frankie pulled the ax loose and spun around. He saw the back of a Japanese soldier who was fighting with an American GI. Frankie charged as he swung the ax back and then swung forward, cracking the Japanese soldier’s spine in two. The Japanese soldier’s torso bent backward at an impossible angle. Frankie raised the ax with the intention of cutting off the Japanese soldier’s head, when something made him glance to the left.

  He saw a Japanese officer charging toward him, holding a samurai sword in both hands. The Japanese officer was none other than Captain Yuichi Sato, who had placed eighth in the decathlon competition at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

  “Banzai!” screamed Captain Sato.

  “Your mother’s pussy!” replied Pfc. Frankie La Barbara, the former Mafia hoodlum from New York’s Little Italy.

  Captain Sato maintained his charge, holding his samurai sword over his head, the blade straight up in the air. Frankie drew back his ax and swung to the side, hoping to cut off Captain Sato’s arm, but Captain Sato was an expert swordsman with excellent reflexes, and he merely hopped backward.

  Frankie’s ax whistled through thin air, and then Captain Sato lunged forward and swung down with his samurai sword. Frankie saw the blade coming at him and lurched out of the way, barely eluding the downward stroke of the samurai sword.

  The American GI and the Japanese officer looked at each other, each realizing that the other would be no pushover. The Japanese officer was pleased to have found an adversary worthy of his steel, but Frankie La Barbara didn’t like tough opponents, because tough opponents could kill you quicker than easy opponents.

  Frankie wished he had a gun so he could shoot the Japanese soldier, because he didn’t want to fuck around with him hand to hand. He looked down at the ground, hoping to find a spare rifle or pistol lying there—and in fact there were many ballistics weapons of all kinds on the ground—but Frankie didn’t have time to pick one up, because the Japanese officer was charging again.

  “Banzai!” screamed Captain Sato, swinging downward with all the strength in his muscular arms.

  Frankie La Barbara couldn’t run and couldn’t hide. His only option was to raise the ax for protection, and . . . crack, the samurai sword cleaved the handle of the ax in half. The samurai sword continued its downward rush, but Frankie leaned backward in time to save himself from being castrated.

  Frankie looked down at half the ax handle in his two hands and the rest of the ax lying on the ground. Captain Sato smiled as he raised his samurai sword for the death blow, but Frankie wasn’t going to stand there and get wiped out. All he had to fight with was that ax handle, and he threw it at Captain Sato’s face.

  Captain Sato saw the ax handle coming and dodged out of the way. While he was dodging, Frankie La Barbara turned around and ran like a son of a bitch. A bunch of Japanese and American soldiers was in front of him, and he dived into their midst, pouncing on a rifle and bayonet in the hands of a Japanese soldier. Frankie pulled the rifle and bayonet, but the Japanese soldier wouldn’t let go. Frankie pulled harder and lifted the short Japanese soldier off his feet, spinning him around so that he was between Frankie and Captain Sato, who had followed Frankie and was already in the midst of another deadly swing.

  Captain Sato’s eyes bugged out in horror as he saw his samurai sword slam into the head of the short Japanese soldier. Frankie La Barbara became covered with the blood and brains of the short Japanese soldier, whose hands went slack with his sudden demise.

  Frankie yanked the rifle and bayonet out of the short Japanese soldier’s hands and turned to face Captain Sato. “I got you now, you son of a bitch!” Frankie shouted, working the bolt of the Japanese Arisaka rifle. “I ain’t gonna fuck with you any more!”

  Frankie rammed a round into the chamber and pulled the trigger without taking careful aim. Blam! The Arisaka rifle fired, and Captain Sato felt as though his left shoulder had been hit by a truck. The force of the bullet spun him around and he fell to the ground.

  Frankie stalked toward him to shoot him again, when suddenly three Japanese soldiers jumped in front of him. They’d seen their commanding officer fall and tried to protect him. In unison they pushed their rifles and bayonets toward Frankie’s chest, and Frankie stepped forward, parrying one rifle and bayonet to the side, bashing the next Japanese soldier on the mouth with his rifle butt, and leaping beyond the range of the third Japanese soldier.

  The third Japanese soldier turned toward Frankie and thrust his bayonet-armed rifle forward. Frankie parried the Japanese rifle and bayonet to the side, then pushed his rifle butt toward the Japanese soldier’s nose, but the Japanese soldier leaned to the side and Frankie missed him.

  They lined up against each other and tried again. The Japanese soldier feinted with his rifle and bayonet, but Frankie didn’t fall for it. Frankie feinted with his rifle and bayonet, but the Japanese soldier was not suckered out of position. They circled, trying to figure out how to kill each other.

  The Japanese soldier was taller than most Japanese soldiers; in fact, he was nearly as big as Frankie La Barbara. He wore a black Fu Manchu mustache and goatee. On his collar was the insignia of a private first class, which was Frankie’s rank. The protagonists were evenly matched. Within the next several minutes one would live and one would die. Both of them knew that as they sized each other up, looking for weaknesses and openings in the other’s defense.

  Close by, soldiers slammed each other over the head with rifle butts and stabbed each other in the s
tomach with bayonets. They kicked each other in the crotch and elbowed each other in the eye. The air was filled with screams and curses. Metal clanged against metal and fists slammed into noses.

  “Holdfast!” shouted Colonel Hutchins, somewhere in the middle of the melee.

  Frankie and the Japanese soldier continued to circle. They moved in one direction, and then the other. Each recognized in the other a tough, strong fighter, and each realized the least mistake could be fatal. They were being cautious—perhaps too cautious. Frankie felt the anxiety building inside him, because he had to do something about the Jap soldier in front of him. Frankie couldn’t just walk away from the whole mess. He’d have to kill the goddamned Jap.

  Frankie hated the predicament he was in, and it made him madder. He focused his hatred on the Japanese soldier, seeing in him the cause of all his troubles. Frankie would be back in New York City just then, wearing zoot suits and screwing chorus girls, if it wasn’t for Japs like the one directly in front of him. They’d attacked Pearl Harbor and started the war, the sneaky, slant-eyed sons of bitches.

  “You fucking bastard!” Frankie hollered, and then he charged. Clenching his teeth, he thrust his rifle and bayonet forward with all his strength. The Japanese soldier was ready for him, parrying the blow to the side; but Frankie’s power was too much for the Japanese soldier at that particular moment, and Frankie’s bayonet drank blood from the Japanese soldier’s right pectoral muscle and right shoulder.

  The Japanese soldier didn’t cry out or register any other reaction to the sudden pain. So concentrated was he on the fight, he barely felt the pain at all. Continuing the motion of his parry, he brought his rifle butt around and drove it toward Frankie’s face.

  Frankie saw the butt coming and ducked, his forward motion carrying him closer to the Japanese soldier. He collided with the Jap and pushed hard. The Japanese soldier staggered backward, off balance, and Frankie slashed diagonally, hoping to cut the Jap from neck to hip, but the Japanese soldier leaned backward to avoid the blow and lost his balance. He fell on his ass. Frankie lunged down with his rifle and bayonet, hoping to impale the Japanese soldier on the ground, but the Japanese soldier rolled out of the way, still clutching his rifle and bayonet, and jumped to his feet.