1945 (19 page)

"I understand, sir."

"I want this war over as soon as possible and with as few American casualties as possible."

Truman excused himself. He had a splitting headache and wanted to lie down. Then he wanted to make himself a stiff drink.

Paul Morrell's new fatigue uniform itched. After all the training he and the others had gone through before the typhoon, he was simply unused to the feel of something new. At least, he thought grimly, it stood a chance of not wearing out before the time came to actually land on Japan . He just hoped he'd last as long as the fatigues.

And that time, they were all convinced, was going to come soon, real soon. The army had made Herculean efforts to replace all their missing gear and had largely succeeded. Everywhere he looked, he could see nothing but new material— uniforms, vehicles, tents, and the miscellany of other supplies that an army needs. In a way, the typhoon had done them all a favor by forcing the army to replace worn gear. It had been astonishing how fast it had happened too. In only a couple of days, they were partially refitted and were completely reequipped within a week and a half. It made Paul wonder just how great were the warehouses and resources that could perform such a task so quickly and so efficiently.

Captain Ruger's company had gathered on a hill at the southernmost tip of Okinawa. It was becoming difficult to realize that a war had been fought there only a couple of short months before. Shell craters were being covered by grasses and young shrubs as nature sought to take back what was rightfully hers from the destructive interlopers. In a few years, visitors might have a hard time finding places where their sons had fought and died.

But not yet. Nature had not succeeded in entirely covering man's devastating tracks. In many places the walls of destroyed houses and flattened villages stood as stark reminders to the enormous conflict. Wrecked vehicles of all kinds, including a surprising number of tanks, lay about in disarray. This time, there were no Japanese bodies.

Captain Ruger stood on a rock to look over his now lean and grim-faced company. "Do you know where we are, men?"

The question was rhetorical and no one answered. For a moment, Paul was afraid of a smart-ass comment from one of his men, but none materialized. This was too obviously a place of agony, and the ground on which they stood had soaked up American blood as well as Japanese.

"This," Ruger continued, "is the spot where the last Japanese soldiers on Okinawa died. They were out of ammunition, starving, and many of them were sick or wounded, but they still fought on. They would not surrender."

The men understood. If the Japanese would let themselves be killed instead of surrendering on a crummy place like Okinawa, what the hell would they do on Kyushu? It was a sobering thought.

"Men, there are some who say the only reason the Japs all died is because they couldn't retreat any farther, and that, for them, this was the end of their world."

Paul looked down the hill where a deceptively calm Pacific sent low waves crashing against the rocks of the shore. The last Japs on Okinawa had died on a point of land that was directed south, and not even north toward Japan. Each agonizing moment and step had taken them farther away from their homeland. He wondered what their last thoughts were. Had they been proud and defiant at the end, or had they been too sick and scared even to think at all? What the hell would he think of under similar circumstances?

Ruger held up a Japanese rifle. It was the Arisaka Model 38. It had a bolt action, a permanent magazine, and a five-round clip. It was not considered equivalent to the Ml Garand or the Ml carbine. The Garand was a semiautomatic, while the new version of the carbine could fire full-automatic. The Garand had an eight-round clip and the carbine a fifteen. A number of Americans were still armed with Thompson submachine guns, which had twenty-round clips. The infamous "tommy gun" had been only slightly modified from the Al Capone days for use by the army. Each squad had at least one Browning automatic rifle in its arsenal, and the BAR was almost the equivalent of a machine gun. The Japanese were outgunned.

By comparison, the Japanese Arisaka was so poorly made that it even rattled when carried. In the right hands, however, it was deadly.

Ruger waved the rifle around so that all could see it clearly. Paul wondered whose souvenir it was. "Think of it," Ruger shouted. "They were even willing to die with only this piece of shit to protect them, but"— he paused for effect— "die they did." He gestured to a lanky buck sergeant who had been taking this in with bemused silence. The sergeant, a stranger to the company, had a large white bandage over his left ear and seemed to have a trembling in his left hand.

Ruger gestured the sergeant forward. "Men, this is Sergeant Gleason. He will tell you a few things about this place and the Japanese."

Sergeant Gleason shuffled his feet. He looked about twenty-two and was obviously uncomfortable addressing a large body of men. Finally, he grinned tentatively. "Your first sergeant talked me into coming out here and seeing if I could help you fellas. Actually, he said he'd rip my flicking other ear off if I didn't show up, and I kinda believed him since he was my drill sergeant in basic a few years ago."

The rumble of nervous laughter seemed to give Gleason some confidence. "Fellas, I spent a month fighting for this god-awful part of God's earth, and I lost a lot of friends. I also lost my ear, and I was kind of fond ofthat too. I'm going to go home in a little bit, but you guys are going to have to take over from people like me. Now, some of what I'm going to tell you already know, but don't be pissed off. I'm just trying to help.

"When I arrived here, my platoon had thirty-five men and I was a PFC. When we pulled out, there was just eight of us. I was a sergeant and was in charge of the platoon because everybody else was dead or badly wounded. The ear was infected and I was going to lose it and some of my hearing, but I didn't know that at the time. It doesn't matter anyhow. I'm just goddamn glad to be getting the hell off Okinawa.

"Guys, I just want to remind you how the Japs fight. They don't have any air cover to call in and help them like we do, and they really don't have any artillery, so by rights it shouldn't even be a fair fight. With all our firepower, we should be able to blast their asses right out of our way and walk into Tokyo. Only thing is, they don't know that and they won't cooperate. What they like to do is lay low, take whatever beating they have to from our guns and planes, and then when we're right up close, start fighting. What I'm saying is, they like to wait until we're too close to them to call in air or artillery for fear of hitting ourselves. Then they fight like motherfuckers."

Gleason mentally inventoried the weapons among the assembled men. "I sure as hell am glad that someone has some sense and has gotten you boys a lot more BARs and Thompsons than normal. You're gonna need a lot of short-range firepower when you fight them bastards up close. And don't forget to take all the ammo you can possibly carry because some of the little yellow flicks will stay hidden until you pass by and then try to pick off people carrying supplies up to the lines. When you fight the Japs, there ain't no safety in the rear, so don't close your eyes and don't take nothing for granted.

"And when you shoot them, don't just shoot them once. Do it a dozen times if you have to, 'cause they're like snakes and won't die. You cut off the head of a snake and it'll still try to bite you, and the Japs are just like fucking snakes." Gleason had turned pale and the trembling had spread to his other hand. "You can blow off their arms and legs and they'll still crawl up to you with a grenade in their mouth." His voice had become strident and it was chillingly apparent that he was recalling a specific incident.

Second Lieutenant Marcelli, a recent addition to the unit, was standing by Paul. "Jesus," Marcelli said, "I wonder what the poor son of a bitch dreams of at night."

Paul nodded silently. He wondered what his own dreams would be like if he ever made it back to Michigan.

Mackensen put his hand on Gleason's shoulder, whispered something to the young sergeant. Gleason nodded, paused, and regained some control of himself. "Like I said, I was here, so this place has some real memories. Over there"— he waved with his arm— "is what they're now calling the Cave of the Virgins. You know how it got its name?"

Some did. Paul had heard the rumor, but, as before, no one dared to answer.

Gleason wiped his forehead. He had begun sweating profusely and it was far from warm out. "There were maybe eighty Jap nurses in there, all young women, and a lot of them real pretty. They all killed themselves in that cave rather than be taken alive by Americans. The little fools were convinced we were going to rape and kill them, and then eat their dead bodies." Gleason shuddered. "I went into the cave and saw them. They were all lyin' there with their eyes wide-open and deader'n shit for no reason. Some of them weren't even sixteen."

For a moment it looked as if Sergeant Gleason wasn't going to say anything more. Then he pointed to a place on the hill where they were assembled. A large pile of rocks looked as if they had been freshly gathered and placed there.

"Behind them rocks," Gleason added, "was another cave. This one didn't have no virgins in it, just Jap soldiers. Maybe there was some civilians farther back, but I never saw them. The Japs fired at us from the mouth of the cave and we shot in. There used to be an overhang, so our artillery and planes couldn't get at it, although they tried like hell. When we got close enough, we used flamethrowers, but they just went farther back in the cave and came back out when we stopped to see if they were dead. After a while, we gave up shooting at them and dynamited the overhang so that it fell into the mouth of the cave and sealed it up. End of Japs, end of problem."

Paul gasped. The Japs had been buried alive! Everyone in the company with even the slightest hint of claustrophobia felt sickened at the prospect of being sealed in a cave with nothing to do but wait in the total darkness for the oxygen to run out. Paul wondered whether he would have killed himself or would have gone mad first if he had been sealed in a cave for all eternity.

Gleason stepped over to the pile and patted a large rock. "Who knows, maybe some of them are still alive in there. We don't know how deep those caves are, and how much air there might be. Maybe they can sorta hear us talking about them. Maybe they're digging their way out right now after living on the flesh of their dead comrades and drinking their blood for their thirst."

The men looked nervously at the ground as if expecting skeletal hands to emerge and grab them.

"Sergeant Gleason," Ruger asked, "how many would you say were in this cave?"

Gleason shrugged. "Couldn't tell at all. Only saw the ones who were shooting at us. Could've been a few, could've been hundreds."

"And were there other caves around here, Sergeant?"

Gleason nodded. "Lotsa caves, sir. Caves all over this flicking place and a lot of Japs now buried in them too, sir."

Captain Ruger dismissed Sergeant Gleason, who was gently led away by Mackensen. Once again, Ruger climbed on his rock.

"Men, I had Sergeant Gleason tell you his story for a reason. Our training is over, and we're now going back to camp and begin to pack and get organized to ship out. We've only a couple of days left before we're on a boat heading towards Japan. I want you to know I'm proud of you and the effort you've all put in. Let's get moving."

As the men trudged down the hill in a ragged column, Paul knew that he was more afraid of the unknown than he had ever been in his life. When he looked at the faces of his comrades, he could see that same fear reflected in theirs as well.

Dennis Chambers reveled in the unaccustomed delight of eating C rations and ignored Joe Nomura's laughing at him.

"If you don't mind," Joe said, "I'll stick with rice. I've had enough of government food to last a while."

Dennis sighed and munched on a cracker. He'd already devoured the meat portion— whatever it was had been a vast improvement on insects and the occasional rodent— and was saving both the chocolate bar and hard candy for dessert. He'd had to drink the instant coffee cold, but it was still wonderful, as was the powdered lemonade, which contained vitamin C. Already he could feel his gums getting better as his mild case of scurvy was defeated.

After the food, maybe the best part of the C-ration package was the toilet paper, although the cigarettes came in a close second. He never was a heavy smoker, but being able to wipe his behind with something soft was an incredible delight.

After only a couple of days, Dennis felt his strength and health truly returning. Joe had helped make a proper shelter against the weather, which had now turned rainy. It wasn't the Waldorf-Astoria, but it was much drier and warmer than what he'd had either in the POW camp or on the hill where he'd first hidden.

Dennis now knew that Joe had no intention of telling him where he went when he disappeared on his patrols, and he'd also not shown Dennis where the radio and other supplies were cached. That was fine. If captured, he couldn't divulge what he didn't know. Dennis did wonder if the Japs would believe his tale, under torture, of a one-armed Japanese American spying on them. He knew that Nomura had laid a good deal of his own safety and future on the line for a man he didn't really know.

For the foreseeable future, Dennis was content to be able to survive. From what Nomura told him and from what he'd heard before being shot down, the invasion of Japan would happen real soon. He would wait for that day and grow strong. He would return to Barb and they would live happily ever after, he thought with a laugh.

"Enough," said Joe. He wiped scraps of food from his face with his hand.

"How 'bout a drink?" asked Dennis.

"When I come back, but you help yourself, okay? Just don't get drunk."

Joe was right. When Dennis had first had a couple of swallows of the Scotch they'd taken from the Jap pilots, it had nearly knocked him out. "I'll wait." He grinned. "I never did like drinking alone."