Chapter 47
The Japs are encouraged by your failure to return their
fire, and they probably suspect that you have been hurt.
You see one of them warily emerge from behind a
tree and move noiselessly toward you. The grenade is in
your right hand and the finger of your left hooks
the safety pin and withdraws it. Another enemy soldier is
advancing on you from a point off to one side.
Throw it! Throw it! You thrust the grenade along the
ground with a sweeping sidearm motion and you watch it
bounce like a booted football and carom off a root
and roll into some fallen leaves with a dry rustle.
The nearest Jap has seen it, and he springs forward
as though to pick it up, but he cannot find
it and he turns back and frantically waves his arms
and runs. The explosion blows up the earth all around
you and you keep your head low to escape the
fragmentation. You hear a yelp and the thud of a
body falling and the sound of confused feet. Then quiet.
Your face is jammed into your elbow, and you slowly
raise your eyes to see over it, when a second
and more powerful blast knocks your forehead into the dirt.
It seemed to have come from behind you and your
dazed mind asks, wonderingly, "Did I do that?" only you
know that the enemy is probably tossing all they have
in your direction. But what's all the shouting for? What's
all the commotion and the rushing around and the hubbub
and the tumult? There is another eruption, this time a
little closer, and you are sure you heard the whine
of a shell above all the voices. Artillery fire? From
the beach! From us! Now they'll get it! Now these
bastards and whorelovers will get what they've been asking for!
The boys must have debarked the guns and set them
up on shore and begun laying down a barrage in
preparation for a continued push inland. Again a shell screeches
overhead and the air crackles with its passage and the
hillside reverberates with upheaval. A whistle sounds somewhere
mmmdown below
and the jarring quaver of voices stops and there is
only the strident tones of someone giving frenzied orders. Are
they assembling? Feet are pounding the turf as though men
were approaching rapidly. Two of them. Maybe three. And they're
heading your way. You edge closer to Egan. Play dead.
Sink your face into the mud and let your arm
dangle limply. Control your muscles. Take a deep breath and
hold it. Here they are. One of them slows down.
He says something excitedly and the others stop. Maybe they'll
stab you. Maybe they'll shoot you. You feel him standing
over Egan. He kicks him in the shoulder, and the
force of the blow sends his helmet dully clanging against
your own. Another shell whirrs downward and quakes the earth,
and again you hear the whistle through fogged ears.
One of the other Japs speaks, and his manner is
urgent. He starts trotting away and is followed by the
third. The first soldier hesitates momentarily and then moves off,
anxiously calling on his comrades to wait up for him.
You let your air out and open your eyes. Well,
you have been spared, and by every reasoning you should
feel relieved and exalted. But all you can experience is
a profound indifference and a deepening lassitude and a sense
of boredom and weariness and even a little of resentment.
Life's a luxury. You can't afford luxuries on Army pay.
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