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  “Sergeant Butsko,” Bannon said, a quaver in his voice, “I think there's crocodiles out there!”

  “Crocodiles!”

  Horrified, the soldiers lowered their submachine guns and rammed rounds into the chambers. Now they could see the long slithering creatures swimming toward them from every corner of the swamp. They opened fire; the big .45-caliber bullets stitched across the water and the backs of the nearest crocodiles. The crocodiles hooted frightfully as blood exploded out of their backs like geysers. They rolled over in the water, showing their white bellies. The GIs kept firing, ripping up the crocodiles, and the swamp water became saturated with reptile blood.

  Other crocodiles smelled the blood and went insane. They thrashed the water with their tails and clamped their gigantic jaws down on the torsos of their dead and wounded brethren, while other crocodiles swam through the muddy water, heading for the legs of the tall creatures nearby.

  Bannon kept the trigger of his submachine gun depressed and raked the water in front of him. One crocodile swam to within five yards of Bannon's legs and Bannon gave it a burst on the top of its head, shattering bone and sending blood and the creature's tiny brain flying into the air. Another crocodile came even closer and Bannon fired almost straight down, tearing apart the crocodile's head and neck, but despite that the crocodile opened its mouth. If it could have closed it, it would have bitten off Bannon's leg, but the crocodile's mouth stayed open and it rolled over onto its side. Bannon gave it another burst in the belly to make sure it was dead.

  Out of ammunition. Bannon reached the pouch of a bandolier and took out a clip as the swamp resounded with the submachine gun fire of his buddies. Something sparkled in the water a few yards away, and Bannon saw an unharmed crocodile streaking toward him. Bannon slammed the clip into the submachine gun but didn't have time to fire. The crocodile opened his jaws wide and snapped them shut, but Bannon leaped backward, bumping into Homer Gladley, which was like bumping into a solid mountain. The crocodile opened its mouth again, but this time Bannon was ready, pulling the trigger and firing a hail of bullets down the creature's throat. The crocodile shrieked and jumped three feet into the air, lashing around with its tail, and Bannon wanted to put more holes in it, but three more hungry crocodiles were headed toward him.

  Bannon pulled the trigger of his submachine gun and swept from left to right and then back again. The crocodiles twisted around and arched their backs, snapping their jaws in pain as blood poured out of the holes in their skin.

  The GIs stood in the center of the sea of blood and writhing crocodiles, which, in their pain, madness, and confusion, were trying to eat each other. Their blood traveled through the ripples and currents of the swamp and was smelled by crocodiles in far-off places, which swam toward their source like moths flying toward electric light bulbs.

  The crocodiles didn't know who they were supposed to eat anymore. They were in a frenzy of death and hunger, thrashing about in the water while the GIs kept firing at them. The water was so thick with dead crocodiles that newly arriving crocodiles couldn't get through and had to be content with chomping huge bites out of dead crocodiles.

  Butsko realized it would be impossible to walk through the swamp. They wouldn't have enough ammunition to fight off all the crocodiles. The only thing to do was back out of there and take their chances with the Japs.

  “Back to dry land!” he said. “Let's go!”

  They turned around and pushed through the knee-high water, firing at crocodiles every step of the way, and as they broke away from the main pack they saw fewer of them attacking their legs. The crocodiles arriving now were zeroing in on the mass of blood and guts behind the GIs, and relatively few were between the GIs and the edge of the swamp.

  The GIs jumped through the water like wild horses. Now they could see no crocodiles coming at them, but they were still energized by the horror they'd just been through. They galloped out of the swamp and onto firmer though still mushy ground, where they collapsed, gasping for breath. They looked back into the swamp and could see, in the faint moonlight, the water boiling with crocodiles eating each other, thrashing their powerful tails, snapping their jaws.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Frankie La Barbara.

  Butsko looked around and made out the outline of a hill in back of them. He had no idea where they were and how to get around the swamp, but they had to get moving. They'd have to work their way around the swamp somehow.

  “Can we smoke?” Frankie asked.

  “No.”

  “But, Sarge, nobody can see us here.”

  “Shaddup!”

  The men lay in the muck silently, trying to catch their breaths, lacking the energy to swat away the mosquitoes that swarmed around and drank their blood.

  Less than a mile away Sergeant Shinko had been startled by the sound of automatic weapons fire up ahead. He knew he wasn't hearing Japanese light machine guns, which fired at a faster rate than the weapons he was hearing, and he didn't think there were any Japanese patrols in forward positions. What was going on? He figured the Americans must have run into trouble of some kind.

  Sergeant Shinko pointed toward the sound. “That way! Hurry!”

  The Doberman pinschers barked and strained at their leashes as they ran in the direction of the firing. Behind them came Sergeant Shinko and the rest of the detachment, excited by the prospect of locating the Americans and killing them all.

  “Okay,” Butsko said. “Let's get moving.”

  “Which way?” asked Frankie La Barbara.

  Butsko pointed in a direction that he thought would keep them out of the swamp. “There.”

  The GIs set off again, but they weren't in very good shape. Exhaustion, hunger, and the fight with the crocodiles had taken their toll on them. Numbly they placed one foot in front of the other and headed in the direction Butsko wanted them to go. Their most fervent hope was that they would get through the night without any more terrible incidents.

  The muck squished beneath their feet every time they took a step, and the half-moon made a long snaky line across the swamp to their right. The dead trees and twisted branches made the swamp a sinister stygian landscape. The water was calm now; the dead crocodiles had sunk out of sight, and the live ones, with full bellies, were on their way home. An owl cackled up in the tree, and from the distance came the sounds of barking dogs.

  No one thought much about the barking dogs at first, because the Solomon Islands had a fairly substantial population of wild dogs, but as the sound came closer and the barking sounded more hysterical than ordinary wild dogs, the men perked up their ears.

  “Now what?” asked Hotshot Stevenson, an angry expression on his face.

  Homer Gladley furrowed his brow. “You don't suppose the Japs'd send dogs after us, would you?” he asked Butsko.

  “Wouldn't I”

  Butsko closed his eyes and listened. It sounded like two dogs coming from the direction of the Japanese camp, and they sounded like dogs on somebody's trail. If that was so, Jap soldiers would be right behind the dogs.

  “I don't think the night's over yet, boys,” Butsko said. “We'd better find some high ground around here.”

  The two Doberman pinschers had been turned loose from their leashes and ran yelping and growling through the jungle. Behind them ran Sergeant Shinko and his special detachment of soldiers. It was clear that the dogs had picked up the Americans’ trail, and Sergeant Shinko could even see the GIs footprints in the jungle ahead. The Japanese soldiers made a terrific racket as they smashed through the thick foliage, trying to keep up with the dogs, anxious to kill Americans.

  “They can't be far away!” Sergeant Shinko shouted, waving his Nambu pistol in the air. “Forward!”

  The GIs found a hill and trudged up its side. They could hear the dogs more clearly now and knew they were coming closer. Halfway up the hill Longtree nudged close to Butsko.

  “Sarge,” he said, “why don't we ambush them instead of taking them head-on.”

 
; Butsko looked at Longtree and thought about it, because the Apache often had good ideas.

  “How would you go about it?” Butsko asked.

  “Well,” explained Longtree, “the dogs are following our trail, and the Japs are following the dogs. That means we can lead them anywhere we want to lead them and wait for them.”

  “What if the dogs smell us.”

  “The dogs will follow the trail. We'll get upwind of them and they won't pick up our scent.”

  “You're sure of that?”

  Longtree shrugged. “You can never be one hundred percent sure of anything.”

  “That's true.” Butsko thought for a few moments and decided it was worth a try. “Hold it up, men!”

  The GIs stopped and turned to Butsko, their faces haggard. Butsko looked back over their trail and wondered where a good spot would be to set up the ambush.

  The Doberman pinschers burst over a hill and clambered down its far side, their noses in the muck, sniffing and snorting, growling and dreaming of chewing people up. Running behind them was Sergeant Shinko and his men, huffing and puffing, and Sergeant Shinko saw something glittering just beyond the trees ahead.

  “Halt!” he shouted.

  His men stopped and looked at him, wondering why he'd stopped them. Sergeant Shinko bent over, placed his hands on his knees, and peered through the foliage. Then he smiled. He realized it was the moon on the water. Evidently they were coming to a lake.

  “Forward!”

  The men charged down the incline, the dogs yapping up ahead. They pushed through the jungle, the ground getting muddier beneath their feet, and then they saw the huge desolate swamp in front of them. The dogs were sniffing around the shore.

  “They've lost the scent, Sergeant,” said one of the handlers.

  “Well, they'd better pick it up!”

  The dogs smelled the ground, whimpered in frustration, turned around, and smelled some more. They darted back and forth, kicking up mud, trying to figure out where the pungent Americans had gone.

  Sergeant Shinko felt let down. He'd thought they would catch the American soldiers, but now it appeared that they'd gone across the swamp. Who knew where they'd touch land again? It appeared that the Americans had gotten away, and he knew Lieutenant Karuma wouldn't like that.

  He thought the Americans must be very brave to have crossed the swamp at night, because there were many crocodiles out there, not to mention snakes and dangerous bugs. Sergeant Shinko waved his hand in front of his face to keep mosquitoes away, but some alighted on his hand and stuck their needlelike snouts in, while others chose the more tender skin on his face.

  Suddenly the dogs yelped wildly again. They jumped into the air, shook their tails, and looked happily at their handlers, because they'd picked up the trail.

  “Let's go, men!” Sergeant Shinko said.

  The dogs sped toward the jungle and the men ran after them. Sergeant Shinko was elated, because now he was confident they'd find the Americans. He looked at the ground and saw American footprints that were fresh. The Americans couldn't be far away.

  The dogs, with their noses inches from the ground, ran around trees and jumped over logs on the ground. They barked and whinnied, because they were having a great time, and the Japanese soldiers ran as quickly as they could to keep them in sight, but it was much harder for men to pass through the jungle than it was dogs. Men are larger and must be on the lookout for branches that can scratch a face or pluck out an eyeball. Men must squeeze through narrow places a dog can dash through easily. Soon the dogs were out of sight, but the soldiers could still hear them.

  “Faster!” said Sergeant Shinko, crashing through a bush.

  The Japanese soldiers pushed their way through the jungle as mosquitoes sucked their blood and leeches dropped onto them from the branches above. The dogs stopped barking and started whining.

  “What's wrong with them?” Sergeant Shinko asked one of the trainers.

  “I don't know, Sergeant.”

  The dogs had stopped and were looking around in confusion, holding their noses in the air, pawing the ground. Sergeant Shinko caught up with them and saw the trail of the American soldiers.

  “Why aren't they following the trauT’ Sergeant Shinko asked.

  “Something's bothering them, Sergeant.”

  “Something's going to be bothering them more if they don't get going!”

  Sergeant Shinko raised his foot and booted the nearest dog in the ass.

  “Get going, you son of a bitch!”

  The dog yipped and slunk away, following the trail reluctantly. Sergeant Shinko picked up a rock and threw it at the dog, narrowly missing its ear. That made the dog follow the trail more assiduously, while the handler urged the other dog forward. Soon both of them were bounding over the trail again, barking excitedly, forgetting already whatever it was that had stopped them, because Doberman pinschers really aren't that smart.

  The Japanese soldiers followed them, with Sergeant Shinko in front, holding his pistol high in the air. He figured the Americans couldn't be too far away, for the trail looked as fresh as if it had been walked on only minutes before. Sergeant Shinko thought of how wonderful it would be when he reported to Lieutenant Karuma that he'd wiped out the Americans.

  Something heavy hit Sergeant Shinko on the shoulder, up-setting his balance. It happened so suddenly that it confused him, and then he heard objects falling all around him and his men. He looked to the ground and his eyes bulged out at the sight of an American hand grenade.

  “Grenade!” shouted one of his men.

  Sergeant Shinko's men were as surprised as he was, and at first they didn't know what to do.

  “Throw them away!” Sergeant Shinko screamed.

  He bent over to pick up the hand grenade lying on the ground and gleaming evilly in the moonlight. His fingers were an inch from the hand grenade when it exploded, blowing off Sergeant Shinko's arm and sending two pebble-size pieces of shrapnel into his brain, while the concussion blew his head off his shoulders. He collapsed onto the ground, his head held to his shoulders by a few tendons. It happened so suddenly that he hadn't heard the explosion or felt a thing.

  The other grenades exploded, blowing Japanese soldiers into the air, and the recon platoon charged out of the jungle, firing their Thompson submachine guns. The grenades hadn't killed all of the Japanese soldiers, and some weren't even wounded, but they were shaken and surprised, and as they turned around to see where the firing was coming from they were cut down by big fat .45-caliber bullets. Some of them dropped to the ground and fired at the muzzle blasts of the submachine guns, but it was hard to see in the dark, and those .45-caliber bullets were falling like rain all around them, upsetting their aim.

  The recon platoon ran forward, firing every step of the way. The Japanese soldiers were bunched together and the GIs sprayed them back and forth and up and down. The Japanese soldiers with the guts to fire back drew streams of bullets, and soon they weren't firing back anymore. The GIs ran closer and kept firing until not one of the Japanese soldiers was moving.

  “Hold your fire!” Butsko said.

  The GIs took their fingers off their triggers and looked down at the dead Japs. Some of the Japs had heads and limbs torn off by the grenade or their bodies were ripped open. Others had been peppered by submachine-gun bullets. The GIs walked over them, kicking the ones they thought might still be alive. Frankie La Barbara took out his bayonet and slit the throats of those still in one piece. He'd seen too many Japs on Guadal-canal who'd looked dead and then pulled out a gun and started firing.

  In silence the Doberman pinschers could be heard on their way back to see what had happened.

  “Get ready for the dogs,” Butsko said.

  “We ain't gonna shoot ‘em, are we, Sarge?” asked Homer Gladley, whose father's farm in Nebraska had been home for many dogs.

  “We sure are.”

  “Hell, I ain't gonna shoot no dog.”

  “Then get the fuck out of the way.�
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  The dogs burst through the underbrush and appeared on the trail in front of them, barking and yapping, baring their teeth because they knew something terrible had happened. They saw the strange men standing near the bodies of their dead handlers, the people who fed them every day, and the dogs went berserk. Snarling viciously, they charged the strange men and opened their mouths wide, showing their sharp fangs.

  The dogs ran so quickly that it was difficult for Butsko to keep his eyes focused on them. One dog charged directly at Butsko, who raised his submachine gun and opened fire, but still the dog kept coming like a streak of lightning. The other GIs also fired their submachine guns, and the dogs snarled as they jumped into the air. Butsko raised his submachine gun and aimed a stream of bullets at the furry creature flying toward him, then dodged out of the way at the last moment. The dog sailed past him and fell to the ground, where it lay still, blood oozing from holes in its fur.

  The other dog had grabbed Billie Jones's arm in his powerful jaws, and Frankie La Barbara, who still had his knife out, stabbed the blade into the dog's throat as Billie Jones shouted in pain and tried to shake the dog loose. The dog wiggled frantically; Frankie had evidently missed a vital spot. He stabbed again, and blood flowed copiously out of the dog's fur, but still it wouldn't let go. The pain was so intense for Bjllie Jones that he dropped to his knees, and this time Frankie dived on the dog, wrapped an arm around his throat, and pushed his knife all the way into the dog's stomach, then ripped to the side.

  The dog screamed as his guts spilled out onto the ground. Homer Gladley reached down, pried open the dog's jaws with his hand, and freed Billie Jones's arm. Billie Jones collapsed onto the ground, his arm raked badly, and Frankie La Barbara and Homer Gladley stepped back from the dog, which squirmed on the ground, its guts tangled up with its legs. Long tree had his submachine gun ready and fired a burst at the dog, which sent it into one last massive convulsion. Longtree stopped firing and the dog was still.