Hit the Beach Page 4

  Frankie snorted. “I'd like to see you try it.”

  Bannon stared at Frankie as he unslung his M 1 and handed it to Private Shilansky. Then he let his full field pack fall to the ground. Frankie watched in amazement.

  “Hey, you're serious, ain't you?”

  “I sure am. Are you going or ain't you?”

  “I'm gonna show you that you ain't shit,” Frankie replied, handing his BAR to Pfc. Longtree. He unhooked his cartridge belt and dropped his full field pack. “Let's go.”

  Bannon stepped toward Frankie La Barbara and knew Frankie had the odds on his side. Frankie was heavier than he was and probably packed a harder wallop, but Bannon had been in many barroom brawls and had whipped men bigger than Frankie before.

  Frankie clenched his fists but kept them at his sides. “I guess I'm gonna get court-martialed for cleaning up this jungle with you, but what's a fella gonna do?”

  “You won't get court-martialed,” Bannon said. “Nobody here's seen nothing.”

  “That's the way I like it.”

  Frankie raised his fists and danced around a little bit, to show the squad his fancy footwork. Bannon knew Frankie was a showboater from way back and expected him to do just that, so he charged him and put all of his one hundred and ninety pounds behind the punch in his left hand. Frankie, who'd been involved with his fancy footwork, was taken by surprise, and Bannon's left fist smashed into Frankie's stomach almost to the wrist.

  Frankie went “Oof,” doubled over, and covered fast. Bannon jabbed him twice in the forehead, threw a right across at Frankie's ear, and was preparing to deliver an uppercut to Frankie's chin, when Frankie exploded out of his crouch, punched Bannon in the mouth with his left hand, and slammed him on the nose with his right. Bannon saw stars and moved backward, and Frankie followed him like a big gorilla. Frankie threw a left jab, but Bannon ducked, hammering Frankie once in the gut. When Frankie lowered his guard, Bannon slugged him on the jaw. They were close together and they weren't fighting according to any rules. Frankie wrapped his powerful arms around Bannon and squeezed hard. Bannon twisted and tried to get away, but Frankie held him tightly and Bannon felt as if his spine was going to snap if he didn't do something fast.

  He grabbed Frankie by the throat and pressed his thumbs down on Frankie's Adam's apple. Frankie coughed violently, loosening his grip on Bannon, and Bannon whacked his elbow into Frankie's eye. Frankie screamed and took a step backward, letting Bannon go, and Bannon punched Frankie in the mouth, but except for drawing a trickle of blood it had no effect.

  Frankie shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. He glowered at Bannon and tasted the blood on his lips. “I'm through fucking around with you,” he snarled, reaching for his samurai sword.

  Private Billie Jones raised his hands. “Wait a minute—no rough stuff, Frankie!”

  “Suck my dick!” Frankie replied, pulling out the samurai sword.

  Bannon snatched his M 1 from the hands of Private Shilansky and rammed a round into the chamber. “Come on,” he said.

  Frankie was so mad, the M 1 didn't faze him. He pulled out the samurai sword all the way and raised it over his head, grasping the handle with both hands. “I'm gonna cut your fucking ass in half!”

  “Take one more step and I'll put a hole right through your heart, and I'm not kidding.”

  Frankie stopped and looked Bannon up and down, wondering if Bannon dared to shoot. Bannon's teeth were bared and his face was smeared with blood. His eyes were ablaze and his feet were planted firmly on the ground. Frankie had seen Bannon take on two Australian sailors in a bar in Melbourne once and decided that Bannon definitely would pull the trigger. But Frankie couldn't back down now.

  They heard a commotion in the jungle nearby and dropped to the ground, aiming their weapons in the direction of the sound. Captain Winslow, the CO of Easy Company, entered the clearing, followed by his runner and a tech sergeant.

  “What the hell's going on here!” demanded Winslow, a short man with blubbery lips.

  “Nothing, sir,” Bannon said.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “We had a little problem with the Japs, sir.” Bannon pointed to the dead Japanese soldiers on the ground.

  Winslow's eyes bulged. “There's Japs around here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I didn't know that. We'll have to be more careful from now on. You're from Fox Company, aren't you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just thought I'd check to see who was over here.” He spotted the samurai sword in Frankie La Barbara's hand. “Where'd you get that, soldier?”

  “Off a dead Jap, sir.”

  “Mind if I take a look at it?”

  “No, sir.”

  Frankie walked toward Captain Winslow and held out the sword, which Winslow took from his hands.

  “Very interesting,” Winslow said. “You wouldn't want to sell it, would you, soldier?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Crack!

  Frankie La Barbara stared in horror as Captain Winslow's head was shattered by a rifle shot. All the men in the clearing hit the dirt.

  Crack!

  The second bullet hit the tech sergeant on his way down. He crumpled to the ground, his lungs and heart punctured by the bullet.

  “Sniper!” Bannon yelled. “Take cover!”

  The men crawled into shell holes or hid behind trees. They peered at the treetops, wondering where the sniper was, but all they could see was a dense mesh of green leaves.

  “Where the fuck is he?” Frankie La Barbara asked, aiming his BAR toward the tops of the trees.

  Bannon wondered what to do. You can't shoot somebody you can't see. “He can see us, but we can't see him. Stay where you are.” The sniper must have been among the Jap soldiers who'd infiltrated. He'd climbed a tree after the bombing stopped and then had started shooting. “There might be more than one of them!”

  Now that Bannon was still, the mosquitoes buzzed around him again, biting his hands, neck, and face. He had some citronella lotion in his pack, but he couldn't get it now. A red lizard with white spots slithered through the mud in front of him.

  “Everybody move slowly into the woods over there!” Bannon said, pointing with his M 1. “It'll be harder for him to see us over there.”

  The men crawled toward the woods, taking advantage of the cover provided by shell holes and fallen trees. They heard rifles firing in the distance, but didn't know whether they belonged to Japs or the US Army. The fucking Marines shouldn't have let those Japs get through, Bannon thought. Goddamned oceangoing bellhops.

  He was the first one to reach the shelter of the trees. Perching on one knee, he waited for the rest to join him. They'd all been on maneuvers with the entire regiment before, and things had gotten pretty screwed up, but never as bad as this. There were no coherent communications, no clear-cut chain of command, no nothing. The second squad seemed to be cut off from the rest of the US Army, and now they were in a real war.

  “I want two volunteers,” Bannon said, “to find Lieutenant Scofield and ask him what to do about the sniper.”

  Nobody said a word; the men looked away from him sheepishly.

  Bannon thought he should go himself, but he was the squad leader now and couldn't run off that way. He wondered who to send. Did he dare risk another confrontation with Frankie La Barbara at a time like this?

  “Okay,” Bannon said, “if nobody's gonna volunteer, I'll haveta pick two guys out. La Barbara and Shilansky, get going!”

  “Why does it always have to be me?” Frankie asked sullenly.

  “You haven't done anything yet. Get fucking going.”

  Frankie hesitated a moment, then shrugged and stomped off into the jungle. Shilansky, looking as surly as ever, followed La Barbara. Those two probably will kill each other before they get twenty yards, Bannon thought. “All right you guys,” he said. “Dig in around here, two men to a foxhole, and k
eep the foxholes ten paces apart. Don't make any more noise than what's necessary. Get going.”

  The men took off their field packs and removed their entrenching tools. They adjusted the blades and started hacking into the moist earth.

  TWO . . .

  Colonel William F. Stockton, a tall, lean ramrod of a man, got out of a jeep in front of the Marine headquarters near Henderson Field. He was fifty-five years old and gray-haired, and his face looked as if it had been carved out of granite. He adjusted his helmet on his head, slapped the leather holster of his Colt .45, and marched toward the headquarters building. He was followed by his operations officer, Major Cobb, and his aide, Lieutenant Harper.

  Stockton was the commanding officer of the Twenty-third Regiment, and this was his first day of combat since the First World War, when he'd been a young captain commanding a company in the battle for the Argonne Forest. He felt exhilarated by the prospect of a real war, because he was a professional soldier, a graduate of West Point, and war was the principal purpose of his life.

  Major Cobb rushed ahead to open the door, and Stockton entered a large orderly room. The headquarters building was made of logs and had been constructed by the Japanese engineers who were building the airfield on the day the Marines landed. The Japanese engineers ran for the hills, and a few days later Japanese combat troops arrived to hurl the Marines off Guadalcanal. Although the Japanese troops were from elite units that had won astounding victories in Malaya and the Philippines, they still hadn't made much of a dent in the Marines.

  Stockton approached the desk, behind which a Marine Corps master sergeant sat. “I'm Colonel Stockton,” he said. “I'm supposed to report to General Vandegrift.”

  “He's expecting you, sir. One moment, please.”

  The master sergeant picked up the telephone on his desk and spoke into it. Stockton waited patiently, standing erect and square-shouldered. How peculiar it would be to take orders from a Marine Corps general again. In the First World War he'd served in the Second Division, which had been commanded by Major General John A. Lejeune, also a Marine.

  “You may go in now, sir,” the master sergeant said.

  Major Cobb opened the door and Colonel Stockton entered the next office. It was cool and dimly lit, with bamboo curtains over the windows. Major General Vandegrift, a jowly, sadfaced man, sat behind the desk and looked up from reports and communiqués.

  Stockton strode to the desk, locked into attention, and threw a snappy salute. “Colonel Stockton reporting, sir.”

  Vandegrift returned the salute, then smiled wanly and stood, offering his hand. “Good to see you, Stockton. Welcome to Guadalcanal.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  They shook hands, then Stockton introduced Major Cobb and Lieutenant Harper. General Vandegrift asked them to be seated.

  “I heard you had a little trouble coming ashore today,” Vandegrift said.

  “Yes, sir,” Stockton replied, “we were bombed and strafed rather heavily.”

  “Have any casualty reports yet?”

  “We estimate ten to fifteen percent casualties on the basis of preliminary reports.”

  “Damn,” Vandegrift said. “I needed those men.”

  “Some of them didn't even make it to shore. The Japs are very strong here on the sea and in the air.”

  “This is the asshole of the war,” Vandegrift said. “We won't get much support until some headway is made in Europe. That's the big show, as far as the Joint Chiefs are concerned. But it could be worse for us, because the Japs don't seem to know what they're doing here. They violate all the rules of conventional warfare, and I guess we've got to thank our lucky stars for that. They don't seem to plan much. They just attack whenever they feel like it, with whatever they have at hand. It could be any time of the day or night, but they especially like the night. The individual Jap soldier is very good and very disciplined, much more disciplined than our boys, but the officers don't seem to know much about strategy. They could have wiped us out here a few times if they'd launched carefully planned full-scale attacks, but instead they attack piecemeal, here and there, and they know nothing about the modern usage of armor. It's difficult to fight them, though, because you never know what they'll do next. They're completely unpredictable. Sometimes I think they're all nuts.”

  “I understand they've got your perimeter infiltrated pretty well.”

  “Not really that well. Handfuls of them get through from time to time and they do some damage, but not much. Mostly they rattle the men, and the rumors make everything sound much worse than it is. You have some problems with infiltrators down on the beach?”

  “Yes, sir. Snipers and such.”

  “They knew you were coming and wanted to shake you up a bit. Sometimes I think they want to scare us out of here instead of defeat us in the field. But we're not leaving. We've got to hold this island, because if the Japs ever get that airfield back, they'll be able to bomb Australia and New Zealand and probably even Hawaii. I believe the future of the entire Pacific war will be settled here in the Solomon Islands. Unfortunately we've been unable to make the Joint Chiefs understand that.”

  “I guess the war looks a lot different in Washington.”

  “That's for sure. Come over to the map with me and I'll tell you where I want to put your men.”

  Everyone rose and walked to the six-foot-wide map affixed to the wall. It showed Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Florida Island, and was covered with red, blue, and yellow pins.

  Vandergrift pointed to Henderson Field. “This is the most important military objective on this goddamned island, and in fact it's the only reason we're here. We must keep it secure at all costs.” His knobby finger made a semicircle around the field, barely touching the tops of colored pins. “This is our defense perimeter. We've paid a high cost in blood for every square inch of it, and we don't intend to give any of it up. I want your men to take positions here on the right flank. You'll line up with the Seventh Marines on your left and you'll have Ironbottom Sound here on your right. The Matanikau River will be in front of you, but it curves here and you'll have a lot of open jungle to cover too. We've learned that we have to patrol constantly, because the Japs are constantly doing things. We were taken by surprise a few times when we first got here, but that's ancient history now. You'd better not give up any of your ground, Colonel, and that's an order. If any Japs should break through your lines, maintain your positions and we'll catch them farther back. But the main thing is to hold fast. Any questions?”

  Colonel Stockton squinted at the map. “It sounds like you're describing a defensive strategy, sir. When do we go over to the attack?”

  “When we have more to attack with, but right now we just want to hang on to Henderson Field.” General Vandegrift smiled sardonically. “If it's action you want, you won't have to attack to get it, Colonel. The Japs will give you all you can handle right where you are.”

  Bannon lay on his back in a foxhole, his eyes closed. His helmet was off and his straight, sandy hair hung over his forehead, which was covered with mosquito bites. He'd washed his face and covered it with citronella lotion, but it didn't keep the mosquitoes away. He had to keep slapping at the mosquitoes, and it wasn't easy for him to get any rest.

  His body was long and lean and looked as if it were made out of rope and steel springs. The skin on his face was tanned and weather-beaten from a lifetime of working in the sun, and he appeared wholesome and almost handsome until you noticed the lines around his mouth and eyes, lines that spoke of a harsh life, wariness of strangers, and cynical attitudes. His head was propped on his full field pack; he had two guards posted and felt secure enough to let his mind drift back to Texas, to honkytonk Saturday nights, and to Ginger Gregg, his favorite girl friend. She worked as a waitress at one of those honky-tonks, and sometimes they let her sing with the band. She was a redhead and she'd been around, but he tried not to think too much of that. He hoped there'd be a letter from her at the next mail call.

 
"Halt!” yelled Sam Longtree, one of the guards. "Who goes there?”

  “Frankie and Shilansky,” said a weary voice in the jungle.

  "Advance to be recognized!”

  “Fuck you, Chief.”

  Bannon sat up and put on his helmet as Frankie La Barbara and Morris Shilansky approached. Their faces were scratched by the branches they'd passed through, and their uniforms were soaked with sweat. Frankie sat at the edge of Bannon's foxhole, and Sam Longtree sat cross-legged on the ground.

  “What he say?” Bannon asked.

  “He said to take care of the sniper yourself,” Frankie replied.

  “Me?”

  “Us. The squad.”

  “Did he say how?”

  “Course not, because he probably don't know how himself.”

  Bannon sighed. “What a horse's ass.”

  “He must be a horse's ass if he made you the squad leader.”

  Bannon unsnapped his canteen from its case and took a swig of water. The canteen was nearly empty and he had no idea when he'd get more water. It was nearly noon and he felt as though he were starving to death, but nobody said anything about chow. Mosquitoes and other bugs were driving him nuts. Bannon thought this had to be the worst day in his life, and it wasn't even half over yet.

  Frankie La Barbara looked off toward the treeline. “How are we going to get the fucker if we don't even know where he is?”

  “We'll have to draw him out somehow,” Bannon said. “Why don't you stand up and let him take a shot at you?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Private Sam Longtree had a leathery face and a nose like a hawk. He was extremely introverted and therefore everybody was surprised when he began to speak. “We can make a dummy,” he said in his deep, emotionless voice.

  Frankie grunted. “We don't have to make any dummies. We got ten of them in this squad.”