Authors: Homer Hickam
“A far piece from Texas,” Ready agreed. Then, though he was thoroughly frightened, he said, “Let's go,” and led the way across the seawall. No bullets greeted them, but there was an awful din not far away. After going forward for a while, he stopped at a shattered palm tree to regain his courage, then moved to the next one. Tucker, Sampson, and Garcia stayed close behind, their fingers on the triggers of their M-l rifles. Sampson suddenly went down on one knee and fired into the top of a palm tree, and a Japanese soldier fell from it, landing hard on his back. When Ready ran over to him, the man looked up with a fierce expression, which then softened and, just before he died, turned childlike. The marines ran up and fell down beside Ready just as bullets ripped the air above their heads. “I think we found the Japs, sir,” Garcia apprised him.
Ready supposed they had, and maybe something more. He thought he'd seen something unlikely, so unlikely it couldn't be real. He crawled forward and then up on a little mound of sand. Sure enough, his eyes hadn't been deceiving him. There, not more than fifty yards away, were a half-dozen Japanese officers, all tricked out in gold-braided dress uniforms and brandishing gleaming silvery swords. Standing outside a palm log bunker, they looked for all the world as if they were dressed up for a parade. When the trio of marines crawled up, Ready ducked back down behind the little dune. “Anybody know where I might find a radio?” he asked.
“There was one on a dead boy back there,” Tucker said. “I'll go get it.”
Tucker was as good as his word and was soon back carrying a pack radio. Ready halfway didn't expect it to work, but when he fired it up and said cautiously, “Uh, this is, uh, Major Deer. Anybody hear me?” there was an instant response.
“Loud and clear, Major. Who did you say you were?”
“Major Deer. I'm about fifty yards inland of Red Beach Three. Can you put me in touch with somebody what's got some big guns, like artillery and such?”
Within seconds, Ready found himself talking to a sailor aboard the destroyer
Ringgold.
Ready described the Japanese officers who were still standing in the open and where he thought they were.
“I think I know where that is,” the
Ringgold
sailor said. “You want an airburst?”
“Sure thing!” Ready answered.
A few minutes later, Ready heard a series of distant thuds behind him followed by whistling screams overhead. The rounds from the destroyer proved to be long, but they burst high off the ground where Ready could
see them. He told the sailor on the other end of his radio connection to shorten the next ones up a bit. The Japanese officers had looked over their shoulders with some surprise at the airbursts. One of them had subsequently walked inside the bunker, but the others apparently said something to him, and he walked back out. They were all looking around, as if wondering what to do. They didn't have to wonder long. Six more shells from the
Ringgold
came whistling in, this time bursting directly over them with massive boils of smoke and shrapnel. When the smoke cleared, all six Japanese officers were down.
“Let's go get their swords!” Tucker yelled, and before Ready could stop them, the three marines were up and running. He cautiously followed. The Japanese officers proved to be horribly shredded, their blood and guts splattered all over everything, and even the marines didn't have the heart to pick up their swords. With the stink of cordite still hanging heavy in the air, Ready ducked inside the bunker to see what was what. It proved empty of people but filled with maps and books and filing cabinets. On a table was a topographical map of Betio atoll. There were Japanese symbols all over it with arrows pointing this way and that. Tucker came up alongside. “What do you make of it, sir?”
Ready was a bit awestruck. “I think we just killed the officers in charge of this place,” he said in amazement.
“So we done good?”
Ready supposed they had.
Outside the bunker, he called the
Ringgold
sailor. “Who did you say you was again, sir?” the voice asked.
“Major Deer,” Ready answered, checking his name tape again just to be certain.
“ âSir, beg pardon, but your name is Reed,” Sampson pointed out as gently as possible, and Ready realized he'd been looking at the name upside down. Sheepishly, he turned off the radio and looked at the three marines who were looking back at him.
“I just noticed you're wearing sailor pants,” Tucker said.
“It's because they fit,” Ready answered.
Tucker opened his mouth to say something else, but all of a sudden, a dozen Imperial marines appeared from behind the bunker and began to scream bloody murder over the bodies of their officers. They were clearly not pleased with the situation, and all Ready and the three marines could do was run for their lives.
So that was what they did.
At sea, there was a big explosion, and Josh saw a Higgins boat upended by a direct hit from a big artillery round. Nasty smoke boiled from a wound in its side, and then a dozen men crawled overboard, stood on the reef for a moment as if uncertain what to do, and then fell, cut down by an unseen machine gun. Josh finally came upon a marine fiddling with a pack radio. “Does it work?” he asked.
“No, sir,” the radio operator answered. “It got wet coming in.”
“Follow me,” Josh said. “Bring the radio.”
“What for? It's no good.”
“Maybe we can fix it. Come on.”
The marine reluctantly picked up the waterlogged radio and emulated Josh's low dash behind the seawall. It was tricky going because of all the dead marines. It was easier just to step on them, though Josh felt like apologizing each time he did it. Then Josh found what he was looking for, another radio operator, this one looking disconsolately at his battered set. Josh fell down beside him. “Does it work?”
“No, sir, and I don't know why,” the second operator said, eyeing Josh's collar and his rank. “I kept it dry coming in.” He raised his canteen. “You know where I can get some water? I can't keep this puke down, and I'm dry as dust.”
“Get that radio working and I'll call for water.”
The radio operator shrugged. “I'm a little short of spare parts.”
The first radio operator arrived and laid his radio down beside the other one. “See if you can make one out of two,” Josh told them. “And keep yourself alive if you can. We've got some important calls to make.”
Fifty yards on, Josh finally found a live officer, a tall major with a fiery
red mustache who was squatting in the sand and pondering a map. Crouched around him was a mixed group of exhausted amtrac drivers and riflemen. When Josh hailed the major, the man looked up and blinked. A Coast Guard captain in ship's khakis and brown shoes, armed only with a bloody K-bar, was apparently the last person he'd expected to encounter on the atoll of Betio. Josh quickly introduced himself, and the major said, “I'm Major Ryan, sir. Do you know you've been shot?”
“Three times, I think. You got a radio that works?”
Ryan shook his head, and Josh pointed behind him and said, “Send a runner that way. I left two operators putting one together.”
Ryan tapped an amtrac driver on his shoulder. “Son, go up the beach and see if you can find us a radio.”
The boy nodded and ran off, keeping low. A storm of bullets suddenly whipped the air above their heads. Ryan and Josh duckwalked to the sea-wall and crouched there, perusing the map together. Ryan pointed to where he thought they were, the extreme western end of the area designated as Red Beach One. Josh pondered the sandy peninsula that marked the right flank of the beach. On the other side of it was a shoreline that faced generally north. Josh put his finger on the map that identified that particular stretch of sand. “That's Green Beach, and it looks wide open. If the Sixth Marines landed there, they could roll up the Japanese
toot sweet
.”
“The Sixth Marines are only supposed to be held in reserve,” Ryan replied dubiously. He looked seaward. Dozens of Higgins boats were burning on the reef, amtracs were adrift and on fire, and the lagoon was filled with hundreds of dead, drifting marines. “Looks like they've stopped trying to land,” he observed.
“The Second Marines are done,” Josh said. “General Smith is going to have to send in the Sixth, and here's the place to do it.”
Just then, the first radio operator Josh had met fell down beside them. “We got a rig going, sir,” he said.
“Where's your buddy?”
“Dead.”
“How about the runner we sent after you?”
“Dead, too.”
“See if you can raise Battalion,” Ryan ordered. “Tell them we're holding on to Red One and intend to move over and secure Green Beach.”
“Which battalion, sir?”
Ryan shrugged. “Just contact anybody who'll answer.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the operator replied and sat cross-legged in the sand and
cranked the radio. After a few minutes, he looked up. “Sir, I got a Colonel Shoup. He said for us to take Green Beach if we can.”
Ryan looked surprised. “Colonel Shoup? Did he say where he is?”
“Red Beach Three, sir.”
Ryan rubbed his chin. “What the hell is Shoup doing on the beach? He's supposed to be in charge of the whole damned landing. He ought to be on the
Maryland”
“Nothing's going as planned,” Josh answered, raising his voice as the Japanese made a sudden assault on their position, screaming curses and firing their long rifles at the hip. The marines rose and shot them down. When Josh saw the attack was over, he continued. “Shoup probably decided to get in and see what he could salvage of the landing and his career.”
Ryan called over two gunny sergeants. “Listen, gunnies, you don't know me, and you probably don't know many of these men, but put together a couple of rifle squads and get ready to move. We're going to take that beach over yonder.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper,” one of the gunnies responded, and the other one nodded, then asked, “What about water? It's hot as blazes, and the men can't drink this piss in their canteens.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Ryan promised, and off the gunnies went, yelling at the men or slapping them on the backs of their helmets to let them know they were still in the Marine Corps, didn't matter what their old unit was, or how thirsty they were, and now they had a clear mission, which was all a marine ever needed. Josh felt for the first time a little optimism. If they could secure Green Beach, the gate to victory on Betio might be forced open, though it would have to be done by men who had not expected to fight.
Hearing a low drone overhead, Josh looked up and saw a scout plane. “Let's hope that pilot will report back on Green Beach, too,” he said, but it was to nobody. Ryan, the gunnies, and all the other marines had gone over the seawall and were busily raising hell with a pillbox, which shortly exploded in a ball of fire and sand.
Then Josh saw an amazing sight. On the reef, a Mike boat, a medium landing craft, was disgorging six M-4 Sherman tanks. They ground across the reef and into the shallow lagoon, blue smoke blowing from improvised exhaust pipes stuck like snorkels from their engines. Japanese artillery had spotted them, too, and were lashing out with so many rounds the sea around the tanks was whipped into a white froth. When the fire lifted, Josh saw only two tanks still grinding toward shore. When those two reached the beach, Japanese artillery concentrated on the lead tank, and it exploded, its
turret flung into the sky, falling with a mighty crash into the sand. The second tank, the name
China Girl
stenciled on its turret, successfully climbed the seawall and waddled on, unscathed. Josh ran after it, finding the driver's hatch open. “Head for Green Beach!” Josh yelled to the driver, pointing the way, then hopping aboard.
Josh hugged the turret until Major Ryan came running up. Seeing Josh and the tank, a grin spread across his sweaty face. “Where'd you find the Sherman?”
“Went out in the lagoon and pulled her in,” Josh replied, then hopped off while Ryan took his place to direct
China Girl
where it could do the most good.
Josh encountered the radioman. “Who you got on the line, son?” he asked.
“Colonel Shoup, sir. I already told him about the tank.”
“Well, tell him one other thing,” Josh said. “Tell him down here on Red Beach One we ain't winning yet, but we've about stopped losing.”
The radioman rang up the line and announced Josh's message. He listened for a long second, then looked up. “He wants to know your name, sir.”
“Tell him that was from Major Ryan,” Josh answered with a grin, then snarled when a piece of whistling shrapnel caught him in the back, knocking the wind out of him and pitching him face first into the sand. Gasping and spitting grit from between his teeth, he pushed back onto his knees, then looked around and saw the gentle, lapping sea, and the pretty blue-white foam climbing all about the exposed yellow reef, and also the surprised, dead face of the radioman, who had taken a piece of shrapnel in his heart. “You were brave,” Josh told him even though he was past hearing anything forever.
Josh carried the blood-spattered radio to Major Ryan and wordlessly dropped it in the sand. “It's busted,” he said.
Ryan was digging in with his men behind Green Beach. “My God, Captain Thurlow. Now you've been hit in the back. Hang on.”
Josh hung on. Ryan asked his troops if any of them had a pair of pliers. One of his engineers did, and after Josh had taken his shirt off, Ryan used them to pull a jagged sliver of steel from his back. “There's another big scar back here,” Ryan noticed.
“Nazis off Killakeet gave me that one,” Josh answered cryptically “Is it bleeding much?”
“Not much. Cauterized itself, I guess.”
“I think I'll go find Colonel Shoup,” Josh said. “Just to make sure he knows Green Beach is open.”