September '44

Rocks dug into my back, shuffling only seemed to dig them deeper. We sat in that hole all night, ‘hole’, the shelf of dirt that stuck up behind me was rising barely a half foot past the ground. But Snafu hadn’t let us dig deeper.

“Why the ‘ell you want to dig? No fuckin’ reason to waste time. We ain’t staying here.” Then he’d laid back down and told us to keep watch. The darkness of night kept creeping across the ground, clouds casting their phantoms onto the dirt, skirting the earth and driving fear into the men on the edge of their company lines. I used the stripped tree next to us to measure the stars gliding along the dome of the sky. Bill came by, distributing some gum he skeeved off of some 4th JASCO boys. I had been half listening as he told us about their Lieutenant High-Wire, an officer who seemed so keen on the idea of his platoons being wiped out he almost seemed to be betting on it.

“How the hell are they gonna die? They only move in once all the Japs are dead. All they gotta worry about is if we die and the Japs push through,” Oswalt said.

“Shut up, Oswalt. Don’t be fatalist, or I’ll shoot you before you get us killed by talking crazy,” Bill was griping, but he himself wasn’t being anymore hopeful.

“I’m not being a fatalist, that’s the only way they’d-”

“Shut the fuck up, or you’ll cross this damn airfield as my human shield, both of ya’.” Snafu kicked his leg out smacking into the side of Oswalt. We settled back down, swapping sleep shifts before dawn.

…

I had been writing in my bible, the only paper I was really allowed. Guessing at the temperature for something to do. Distant fire from mortars thumped behind me. Oswalt was rubbing a stick on his teeth, he had an odd habit of cleaning them with an almost methodical brush. Snafu woke up, uncurling like an animal in its den, then sat up facing the airfield.

He spoke around a cigarette, “The hell you doing? Break this shit down, get ready to move.” By civilian standards this was quite rude, I knew if I had spoken as such my mother would have been so cross she might even have smacked my shoulder, and admonished me for such behaviour. But for a Marine, and one like Snafu, this was as close to please as you could expect.

The call of water from Leyden, led us all to a blown out building, a crater inside it had dusty water filling it up. Marines crowded around it, passing canteens and most commonly helmets to be plunged under the water. We watched as one of the Marines distributing it, caught the helmet on something, he then handed it back and shoved his hand into the grimey water.

“Jesus,” someone exclaimed as a goat’s head was pulled out. The dark fur and skin dripping an almost milky blood, the slit eyes bulging soggily. Goat’s blood, deemed unholy in Christian faith, swirled in my helmet with mud from a foreign land. The sweat of my own body mixing with this and water, which is held by so many as a pure and a holy thing. Tilting my helmet the water strained through the liner like a sieve, pooling into my hand, clodding the dirt on my palm, then slipping away.

We crouched and received our orders to move out, a shell landing a ways off. Hillbilly stuck himself next to Ack-Ack, watching us. He had eyes like a shepherd, it made me think of the dog that would pace outside the church’s daycare. It’d walk the fence with its body lowered, always watching the little kids through the fence. They’d make it excited, it had no sheep to herd and couldn’t stay inside. One year it got in, I’d seen it through the church window, chasing the kids.
It wasn’t bad, it was just too eager to follow that call in its bones. Hillbilly had those same eyes, it wasn’t hunger, no bloodthirst crept from his eyes. They frightened me, the Lieutenant seemed to fold inside himself, enveloping his mind in this strange way.

We broke down the mortar, shoving and clicking the locks in place. Securing gear tightly, checking that the rounds were locked into the relative safety of their crate. I tried not to think about what would happen if a bullet hit it while we ran. It would always swing low on our legs, the un-sanded edges digging into our knees, leaving cuts and bruises. Would it just take the legs out from the man carrying it? Or would it explode upward enough to get the torso too? Would the splinters burn up, or dig into the fellas running past?

…

Waiting might be the worst thing man has created, it differs from the more animalistic apprehension, prey isn’t aware when it will be hunted. It isn’t told when the hunter will enter the woods, how their death will stalk first downwind, creeping through the underbrush. Marines are, Marines are told when, how, and exactly why they should be hunted, often under the guise of doing the hunting. I wished I was an animal then, I felt like one, my mind seemed to only work in a very fine train. ‘Don’t get hit, stay low, find cover, never stop moving.’ What good was following that train though, would thinking about it actually help? What the hell did the veterans think of? I remembered them vomiting and praying the day before in the LVT’s, some staring ahead, watching the gunwales. Eyes trained on the thoughts whipping inside their heads.

The riflemen set out first, Ack-Ack moving forward a few paces with them, then halted by the next group. Burgin called out to Bill as he left, he didn’t pick “See you on the other side,” an empty phrase that most men seemed fond of.

“Weapons, let’s go!”

Mortar and rocket squads started getting to their feet and charging the field. The rustle of metal, crunch of boots, and clacking of metal parts rose up around me.

“See you on the other side,” Oswalt was behind me, he had the mortar sight slung across his chest, the weapon’s heavy tube slung over his shoulder.

We could still hear the Navy flying overhead as we ran, incoming fire raining from the hills before us. The base plate was clutched in my fingers, the other hand holding my rifle, as I ran, dirt spraying in the air when a shell landed. The dirt rose so high and was so thick it cast shadows on the ground, like swarms of insects heavy with numbers. I could feel rocks and large clumps of dirt smacking into me, dust filling my nose and clogging my already dry mouth.
Everything moved quickly, the edges of it seemed sharp, not blurring. I watched as blood seemed to slip from wounds, saw uniforms bend and stain. I kept running, the base plate gripped so tightly in my hand that my fingers screamed at me. I knew if I dropped it, firing the mortar would be useless, that essential piece of metal dug into my hand with a vengeance to leave a scar. I shucked it into my armpit and squeezed my arm shut, looping my hand under it. Every blast from a missed shell jolted it from my grip and back to my hand, over and over I spun it back upwards, the unyielding metal hitting my body with such force.

I followed Burgin, Snafu, with Oswalt trailing me, as we made for a cement wall. The uneven ground shook under us, sending our feet skidding across the gravel. We stacked up against the wall, backs pushing into the cement seeking as much shelter as we could find. A rebar dug into the back of my lungs, as Burgin ordered us over to a crater.

We mortar boys ducked as the Marines ahead opened fire behind us, calling out a sniper. Ack-Ack called for them to move, and as we got ready to run again I turned and looked. Behind us, maybe four yards, there was a slit in the rocks, surrounded by bullet holes. We ran. The earth shook harsher as the fire rained down, the Japs, never ceasing. Stumbling over more shell impacts, my feet slid next to one. I’m not sure why, but I stopped focusing on the man in front of me and turned my head. My boot had skin on it, the slick of bile from intestines was congealing on the soles. I hope it was a Jap. I told myself the uniform was so dark from the blood, it was beige under it.

Machine gun fire shot through the floorboards of the vehicle we crouched behind. Ack-Ack was calling in the location of an entrenched heavy weapon, its high power ripping gashes in the ground, driving concrete and flesh into the air. We moved, the Navy wouldn’t check if we were clear, the only thing we could do was leave the area and hope they hit their target.

A hot wind seared the back of my neck, making my jacket uncomfortable as it blazed on my skin. I turned to see Snafu lying on the ground, the truck had been damaged when the barrels strewn about it exploded. The force had pushed the blaze outward. I shouldered my rifle, heading back towards him. He lay with his head up, slowly looking around. Oswalt got to his feet beside me, running ahead, slinging the tube back over his shoulder. I rolled Snafu over, slapping his body, moving his dungarees around to find blood.

“You’re okay” I grabbed Snafu’s jacket, pulling him along to a trot. Oswalt stopped before us, calling us onward, as we started to move. I felt Snafu pull me down, I worried he had been hit, that he was worse than I thought. I turned quickly to see him grab a helmet as we ran. It almost felt absurd, but as more shells hit and debris rained on us, the idea of a cement chunk wedging itself through my skull struck me. The machine gun fire picked up, the shells falling less frequently this close to the enemy. The ground still shook, but now it was nipping at my heels, like a great beast hunting us down.

Oswalt got hit. He’d stopped again to check on us, he didn’t want to leave his squad behind. I didn’t know that much blood was in the brain. Maybe it wasn’t just blood, maybe that shot had pulled apart so much flesh it looked liquid. It spread out in the air, like a red wing growing from behind his ear. The helmet’s metal pulled away with the spread, the cover unstained. The force lolled his head back, his knees rocking forward. His back curved as it hit the ground, rolling him to his side. Snafu, Hillbilly, and I grabbed his jacket, dragging him to a crater. Missile’s from the battleships rained down around us, their massive rounds spouting fire into the sky, as thick plums of smoke rolled up after the blaze.
Oswalt was dead, in the quickest manner, he stopped being. Now he was a body, to be stumbled over, moved, and buried. The metal box of the mortar sights lay on his chest, like the citation he would never wear for this. For this airfield, for this war. A body. I pulled it from around his shoulder and wound the strap tightly around my hand.

“Mortars, bomb centre-sector and adjust,” Ack-Ack’s voice carried over to us. HillBilly was already poised, staring down his new target.

“Direct fire, HE on the building on your right front,” he quickly cleared out, racing to the next hole. I dropped the base plate down, shuffling it snug in the earth. Then started digging out an HE round. Burgin pulled the sight from its container, sliding it in place. Snafu secured the tripod's legs, sighting along the barrel. Ack-Ack moved before us, directing fire for the rifle and rocket men. Firing two rounds, Snafu had his range.

…

Calluses on my hands had raised again, watery puss floating under a soft layer of skin. The semi-damp cloth that I rubbed against the sights wearing down the skin ‘til it leaked. We mortar boys sat in a corner of the blown-out building. Counting rounds and checking gear. The night had cooled off, our sweat-soaked dungarees cooling our bodies. I sat with my bible, thinking of how to write what had happened. I couldn’t think of anything, just the feeling, the fear. Crossing the airfield felt like it was already days away, yet it stayed right there behind me. In the field with the bodies strewn about like toy soldiers, and gaping maws of dirt, something stayed. A spectre rising above, observing all we had done to its land and the bodies of its children that we had scattered about in pieces. I shiver crept up my body like death watched me from that field. If
His children were everyone and each was holy why had they been torn apart so easily? He seemed to only ever sacrifice His children, allowing them to brutalise each other in the same lesson over, and over, and over.
The ones that hadn’t torn another afresh sat huddled in holes and ruins, stones of the earth that had been severed from herself stacked into protective walls. Cradling their bodies in a painful lull, made peaceful with their brief rest. Scared children hiding in the scornful arms of our mother, as her bloodied arms cradle us.

We had our first psychological casualty, he became caught in a vision only he could see. Japanese soldiers wading through his mind and flitting past his eyes.

“Just as easily been me counting Japs I can’t see.”

“But it’s not you,” Hillbilly said. He was being frank with me, there wasn’t reason to waste time on the idea. But my mind couldn’t understand how Daniels broke and I hadn’t. He wasn’t much younger than me, his life should have toughened him for this.

“Sir, coming across that airfield today…” I had to tell him, I knew the veterans were just as scared as I was but there had to be some reason they had kept us new guys going. Something past their training, some great power in them keeping their heads screwed on, “I’ve never been more scared in my entire life.”

“We’re all afraid. All of us. A man who isn’t scared out here is either a liar or dead.” He wasn’t a captain, he was a tired Marine, an exhausted man. Crouching before me in the night with fires illuminating his face as trucks burned was a man. “History is full of wars fought for a hundred reasons. But this war, our war, I want to believe… I have to believe that every step across that airfield, every man that’s wounded, every man I lose, that it’s all worthwhile because our cause is just.” There wasn’t anything, only imaginary futures and reasons summed up by a wrecked conscience grasping at the idea that this is right. That deep part of the mind that calls us to violence yet shrinks away from killing. Needing a truth to stake its actions upon.

“Of course, if a just cause came with some hot food and cold water, that'd be okay too.”

…

Our next order came not long after sunrise. We filled our cantines and barehanded our breakfast as the march began. Blisters had formed overnight as our sweat-soaked feet sat in our dank boots. Men walked favouring their toes ‘til those were rubbed raw. We walked flat-footed from then on.

The few fighter aircraft we had flew low overhead as they took off from the airstrip. The ground began sloping up as the few trees grew short and shrubby. Growing between gaps in the volcanic rock and hollow pits in boulders. I had never seen a landscape so violent to itself. A plant struggled and grew withered as another blossomed flowers that flowed with a comforting fragrance. It felt like the island was testing the merit of the plants that had learned to survive here, but the action lacked malice. Lush trees loomed overhead, hollowed-out trunks beside them.

Stones dug into our boots as we scaled the hill that dominated the western shore of the island. The ridge was crawling with Japs, moving silently between the rocks.

“Gunny, get someone from mortars,” Ack-Ack ordered as he moved past, gathering men.
“Aye, Skipper.”
“Burgie, get me an FO.”
“Sledge,” Burgin pushed the binoculars towards me. I wrapped the leather strap tight around my hand as I picked my rifle up. “Leyden too. Let’s go.
The Marines around us readied up as we moved single file up the slope hugging the pockmarked rocks as the gravel and sand slipped under our boots. We crept over the top, I ducked in next to Ack-Ack and Hillbilly to observe. Across a drop in the rocks we could see where the japs were dug in. A few helmets were visible peeking out over fallen trees and rocks.

“Looks like two heavy bamboo machine guns, probably more,” Ack-Ack said, his voice low.

”I need to get a better look”

“Sledge, Leyden.” Hillbilly called over his shoulder, ready to send the FO out front. “No, no, I’m gonna scout it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Get your top ready.” Ack-Ack slinked forward, moving quickly to the next rock up, further from us. Why Hillbilly agreed to send our Captain forward was beyond me. Hillbilly never took his eyes off of Ack-Ack. Ack-Ack signalled to move ahead, leapfrogging us between blasted-out rocks and logs until we’d crept to the edge. Again he pushed ahead, weaving into the Japs line of sight to see their encampments.
Machine gun firing started pinging off the rocks around us, the sound reverberating. Riflemen opened fire, aiming towards the flashes of barrels and grey shapes that ducked into view. Mortar rounds started landing on us, as Ack-Ack ordered us to fall back. We leapfrogged our way back down the slope, rounds cracking into the rock face as we fled. Stumbling back towards the company, Ack-Ack wrangled the radio to battalion. Mortar rounds still hitting the ridge above us.

…

Flares occasionally drifted over us, illuminating the night like low comets with tails of phosphorus. The sweat that had built up on our gear turned cold and seeped out our warmth. The sound of animals scurrying in the dark is the only familiar noise. Every shift in the earth and creak of a tree’s bough ricocheting in our ears. We mortermen crouched in makeshift double foxholes, a stretch of the term for what was a shallow scoop in the dirt and sand. I watched as the flare lit up the edges of the waxy trees, dust slowly falling from them. The air smelt of the dirt that had been thrown up by the shelling, filling our mouths and nose with the taste of rocks. The flare died out and slipped darkness over us again.
Gunney had been by to check on us, making sure we were ready if anyone tried to slip in in the night. The thought wasn’t far from any of our minds. The sounds of our own sergeants shuffling along kept us awake as we listened to their footfalls. The older and more experienced men taught us to learn the sounds of the other men. We couldn’t afford to call out challenge and pass lest it give us away, but so would reckless shots.
Eventually, Snafu gave out watches and fell asleep. I sat staring into the darkness, willing my eyes wider. A soft breeze had blown in and was stirring the plant life. The sounds of animals had started to fade as the moon crept higher into the sky. It’s faint light making the tiniest of movements catch our eyes.
The guard dog stared back at me, its ears pricked up. I wondered where he had been before all this. Dogs were even being drafted, maybe he’d lived on a farm before all this. Was he scared too? His owners suddenly gone, a new person caring and teaching him things he’d never done before. Sounds and scents assaulting him as he was shipped across an ocean to an unfamiliar land. Were we his flock? His precious lambs to be followed and herded through the fences of rock and rubble. Maybe he’d never known any different, maybe he’d forgotten his warm bed and breakfast every morning. Searching out foreign scents among his flock and the shifting of boots that carried voices he didn’t know.
The dog's head turned sharply, pushing to his feet and stepping ‘til his harness went taught. My head followed, seeing to movement. Then I heard a noise from a few yards away. My heart picked up. My mind split, half focusing on the sound, the other running through my memories of range practice.
My eyes focused on the shape of a Marine in his hole, hunched over and whimpering. I thought he was awake, maybe breaking down from all the stress. He wasn’t keeping quiet enough for that, his body was stiff but crumpled in like he was still resting.

“What’s that?” Snafu barely sat up, his ears hearing the sound almost as quick as the dog.

“Sounds like some guy havin’ a nightmare.” I sat up a little more, turning my head to check around us before my eyes landed back on the Marine.

“Better shut up before every Nip knows we’re here.” The other Marines near us started getting antsy. We’d had the cover of silence keeping us safe and the man’s whimpers stood out like a snapping twig in our ears.

“Quiet that man down!” Hillbilly’s hushed order came out. The other Marines in his foxhole tried waking him, or at least getting his mouth shut. His whimpers turned to clear yells that had every man gripping his rifle or getting it ready in his hands. Burgie slipped out of our hole, his body low as he rushed to keep the man quiet. His yells picked up, my heartbeat racing as my mind reminded me how close the Japs were across that ridge. Hillbilly and the Marines started grabbing the man to wake him. The noise of their scuffle adds to the increasing sound of our soon-to-not-hidden position.
A flare shot off, arching overhead. The scene lit up, three Marines pulling and shoving the man, his yells never stopping.

“Who the hell is that?” My frustration started to grow into anger. If he wasn’t shut up, soon enough there’d be mortars coming down and Japs coming at us. He fought like an animal, possessed by the sole thought of his death. It reminded me of the stories my father told me in the late evenings after Pearl Harbor. Men’s minds that were twisted and bent by the claws of their memories. The fear that they had nurtured within their body to protect them.
The fear of being hunted by your own kind, a kind you knew intimately to be extraordinary killers. Your kind that could run for miles, go days without eating, and learn you. Learn how you moved and hid. How our shared fear clouded each of our minds, sending us into a panic that if untamed would lead to an easy kill.
The same easy kill the Marine was leading us to. Another flare shut up, the company digging themselves deeper into their holes. Eyes straining to spot movement on the edges of the light. He didn’t stop yelling until they got the shovel. I’m sure no one meant to kill him. Maybe the blunt side slipped in his hand. Maybe the dirt gave way as he swung, sending more force through his arm.
There wasn’t any more sound from the hole. Hillbilly, Burgin, and the two men silently moved out of the hole. The flare died down.

It was quiet for the rest of the night. A few more flares went up, but those eventually died down too. I kept myself awake all night, my sides stuck between Snafu and the wall of our hole. Shades slipped past in my eyes. The moon had dipped under the horizon a few hours ago leaving us in darkness. I stared up at the path that I had followed Ack-Ack up that led to the top of our cliff. I swore if I held my breath and really listened I could hear them. Boots scuffling along, light voices creeping across the ridge line.

…

Gunny covered his body in the morning. We stood ready in silence, watching as his buddys got his tags and ammo before pulling back to let Gunny put him to rest.

“I guess better him than all of us.”

“Sledgehammer’s right. Had to be done.” The company agreed on this. Whether each man could get himself to believe it was his own problem. It weighed out right. One for all, all alive but one. He died scared, held down and killed by his own. In a hole, blown apart trees and cracked rocks cradling his body.
Rain started as thick roiling clouds rolled over the horizon. His body was soon moved atop one of the tanks. Ack-Ack came back with new orders, told Hillbilly he did good, and sent us on our way.