Chapter 19
". . .They met our line of skirmishers out in the open
and we let 'em have it with our Tommy guns.
We started to charge and the bastards turned and ran
with us whooping it up and hotfooting it after them.
All of a sudden they threw themselves on the ground
and we ran right smack into some machinegun fire
from prepared positions in their rear. God, it was awful.
Before we could flatten out we lost half our platoon."
"We had about as much sense of direction as an
eggbeater. We would chase them back and they would stop
us and maybe make us retreat a little before we
could get them started running again. And that went on
so long and over the same ground so much that
I could have picked up my own cigarette butts anytime."
"I guess I didn't have enough oil on my rifle
because the thing dried up so fast it wouldn't fire
and it started getting as hot as a witch's tit.
So I asked the Looey what in hell I ought
to do, and you know what the guy said to
me? He said, piss on it. It didn't smell very
sweet, but oh, Lordy, how that Goddamn piece could shoot."
"We were cleaning up a dugout with grenades and nitrostarch,
when all of a sudden a Jap officer comes out
bloody and screaming with his face as red as a
spanked baby's ass and waving his sabre like a wildman.
He was wearing all his medals and his best uniform
and he hacked the air to bits like a windmill.
It took a lot of brass to charge that way,
and I have no doubt that a letter of commendation
will be written to the Emperor concerning his fearless act
and that he will find himself promoted in rank — posthumously."
"If I hadn't seen old Rogers with my own eyes
I never would have believed that he could do it.
We located a bunker and got down on our bellies
and moved as cautiously as a centipede with ingrown toenails.
There were five of us and we got to within
fifteen yards of the position without the Nips seeing us.
But when we opened up with our BARs and M1s
we found that we were completely surrounded by enemy nests.
They pinned us down tight with their fifties and thirties
and I began to see us listed under latest casualties.
Hot water? Well, I guess we needed a bath, anyhow.
Rogers was in a bad spot over to my left.
The Japs were using dumdum bullets in their machine guns
and I saw a couple of them hit the stock
of his rifle and slam the thing right out of
his hands. It flew about five feet into the air
and came down on his steel helmet with a bang.
We didn't know that he had been knocked out cold
until we moved for cover and he didn't follow us,
but just laid out there while the Japs took his
measurements for a lead casket. He was nicked by fragments
and when he came to he started yelling, 'Mary! Mary!'
None of us were named Mary, so I guessed that
he was kind of delirious and was calling for his
wife. Anyway, Rogers got up and started throwing grenades around
in the cutest exhibition of one-man armies I've ever seen,
and by the time the rest of our company arrived
all those Nip buggers had enlisted in the ancestor reserve."
"Yeah, I know. These married men ain't scared of nothing."
