Once an Eagle

  I asked them: “What do you need?” and drew a chorus of great replies: “Well—they use like a bed for it.” “Nothing you can bring me on a platter, Chief!” They are really up. Kid named Frohman did a crazy striptease shimmy right there, with the Japs not a hundred yards away on both flanks, turned toward me a great ragged hole where the seat of his trousers used to be. “How about some riding britches, Colonel? or a cast-iron jock?” All of them looking like scarecrows, half-starved, most of them shaking with fever. Thought of Dev, and Raebyrne. All aboard for the frigging Alamo. Put the thought down hard. Told them if they held I’d give them all bronze stars and personally throw them a party they’d never forget. I will, too.

  Hated to leave them out there on that lonely strip of sand.

  Rocky time coming back. Sniper opened up, then bunker nobody had seen before, hit Smith and Watts. Already burdened with two of Bowcher’s wounded. Again Feltner did well: little CPA is going to be all right. Westy never liked him because he wasn’t W’s kind of man. Of course not, he’s his own kind. He just needed a little time to get his feet under him. When bunker opened up I hit the dirt in a panic, thought I was hit. Got up all over mud, couldn’t find my rifle, started floundering around for it. Feltner looked at me, perfectly serious, Tommy gun smoking. “Confidence, calmness, optimism.” Had to laugh.

  Later found holes through medical pouch, left sleeve. Lucky as hell. Japs do not fire unless directly attacked, consequently we are bypassing strong points, never know they are there. And manned. Is this intentional or part of old Nip rigidity? They have no capacity for improvisation, apparently; what they decide on they stick to. Thank God for that—if Westy’s opposite number had brains-one he’d have launched a combined flanking movement from the Bowari Trail and the Watubu Creek, gone out around the swamp and cut us to pieces. I’d give ten thousand dollars (which I haven’t got) for old man Shiraga’s tactical possibilities. Just one of them.

  Zipped over to Brig Hq with my morsel of good news. Westy just back from Timobele. Rowing with the Aussies over the 484th. Almost came to blows with Lawlor, from what I can gather. He’s sick, won’t admit it: has lost over thirty pounds, eyes flickering around. Barely hanging on. MacArthur’s directives stinging him, press riding him now too, snapping at his heels. Bunch of them outside the tent. “Would you say then, General, the attack was adequately prepared and executed?” Curtin, little bantam rooster in blue Navy fatigues (where’d he get those?). Westy turning on him: “I don’t know what the hell you mean by adequately—I have complete confidence in my staff. We’re doing all we can with what we’ve got. What do you want? If we had one tenth the stuff they’re sending SouPac every day in the week …” Moross cutting in deftly, “May we quote you on that, General?” “No, you may not—! For Christ sake, man—what do you take me for? If you had any idea at all what conditions are like up there, in the line …” Last man he should have said that to. A lot of them have been hanging around Brig Hq and the hospital, picking up yarns 9th hand, but Moross was up there for both attacks. Could see him getting mad. “I’ve been up there far enough to see three perfectly good M3 light tanks up over their bogies in mud and water—do you plan to use them as floating batteries?”

  Went from bad to worse. Dickinson trying to pour oil on the raging waters. “Harry, you know perfectly well losses must be expected in operations of this kind—our intelligence and supply problems out here are almost insurmountable.” Half-hauling Westy away before he blew up completely and ordered them all in irons and brought World Opinion down on his weary, sweating head.

  Thought he’d be elated by Bowcher’s big bust-through: seemed only to make him more gloomy. “I don’t like it, Sam. They’ll hit him on both flanks, won’t they? They’ll be wiped out. I don’t like it at all.” Seeing disaster in every situation: perils, losses, drawbacks, negative side of things. Told him I was virtually certain the Japs didn’t have communications to coordinate assault on both flanks, that morale in Bowcher’s crowd was excellent. Tried to tell him it was thin edge of the wedge, could enable us to roll up Atainu Point area in 2 days. “It’s a gamble, Sam.” “Yes it is, General. But I’m confident we can make it pay off.” “Maybe so.” Sitting hunched over, dejected, eyes puffy with lack of sleep, face bruised and slack, only his lips moving; sweat standing out on his forehead in great gobs. “Maybe so. I don’t know. That’s a diversionary business, anyway: it’s the airstrip we’ve got to nail down. That God damn airstrip.” I refrained from pointing out that possession of the strip will mean nothing if the Nips can douse it in mortar fire from the Knoll and the Mission. He doesn’t see the possibilities here: too weary, too worn down.

  He said, “I’m sending in Koch’s people with Frenchy day after tomorrow.” The last reserves. Could not keep the surprise out of my face. “Well, what do you want me to do? I’ve got to take Moapora—I’ve got to! In five days … ” Gazing out at the boondocks, blinking, hands hanging between his legs. “It’s no fun being a general, Sam. I can tell you that. Nobody comes around anymore. There you are, all by your lonesome, grappling with the whole sad damn mess, trying to get out from under. It’s like a God damn tent collapsing on you in the dark …”

  Talked with Dick afterward, then Specs. They are beginning to come apart, too. Afraid we’ll be left to death and capture and all the attendant horrors. Like Bataan. Another sacrifice to the national optimism and indifference, while the Congress dances and Nelson and Knudsen squabble over which plants get the contracts. Well, it isn’t very reassuring. No Navy, no supplies getting in except dribbles from Prince Hal’s celestial charioteers. (Air drop of clothing scattered over half of Papua yesterday afternoon early: would take a three-division sweep to find a tenth of it. Whose bright idea was that?) Could feel fear in the tent, like odor of sweat. Or worse. Everyone very near the edge, one eye on where to light out for. If the situation turns fluid, as that whacky redheaded driver from Kokogela airport said.

  Monterey seems very far away tonight.

  The rain fell in smashing waves, incessant, torrential, as if it wanted to wash the world away, obliterate all blood and detritus and mire, return it to the omnipotent and cleansing ocean. Gradually the mud floor of the tent began to glisten with the passage of water—slender trickles and rivulets that joined, swelled into a larger stream; and objects like helmet liners and discarded ration containers began to float, drifting sluggishly toward a far corner. Sitting at his field desk with his feet up on a box, Damon released the plunger on the Coleman lantern and pumped it smartly for several seconds, adjusted the mantles; then again picked up the Japanese diary, its cover stiff with dried blood, and began making his way laboriously down the delicate rice-grain characters.

  The enemy act like children who have lost their parents. They make jerky movements in the jungle, they look around them fearfully, exposing their bodies. They even call to each other now and then. They do not run away anymore; but they are afraid. They fire wildly at nothing. At night they are even worse. At the slightest sound they work the cocking handles of their guns, reveal their positions and fire with reckless abandon into the jungle. Are they paid for the amount of ammunition they use up each night? It is possible. They are lacking in patience, in discipline. Their grenades are good but they release them too early: they fear their own grenades.

  Damon nodded grimly. Some truth in that: though possibly Lieutenant Niizuma would want to revise that part about the grenades—if he were still among the living. Rasmussen, the brigade intelligence officer, now down with malaria, had told him there was nothing of any tactical value in the diary; but that depended entirely on what one was looking for.

  Where are the reinforcements we were promised from Wokai? If we could only attack! Now, while the Yanks are afraid … But Colonel Eguchi says that we are to hold our fortress. And we will. We are the warriors of Yamamoto. Great Japan has never lost a fortress to the enemy.

  Quite true. He got up and splashed through the water to the map board, which was hanging on
a frame braced against the tent pole, unhooked it, and propping it up against his desk studied it for the hundredth time, moving with slow tenacity over the patches of jungle, the trails and enemy strongpoints—and especially the Watubu Creek, which wound its way circuitously to the sea just beyond Larotai Point, secured now by the reduction of the Japanese force on the east bank of Bowcher’s Bastion. They were at the river and there they sat helplessly, while Westy frantically mounted still another attack on the terrific defenses guarding the airstrip. Tomorrow at 0700 Koch and Frenchy were going to try it again. Another frontal assault.

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes. The air in the blackout tent was close and foul in spite of the lashing rain outside; mosquitoes made a treble moan around him, bumping against his forehead and neck. It was no good. The key was the Mission—there on the high ground, dominating the airfield and the beach. And the key to the Mission was the Watubu. Deep, tidal, sliding toward the sea in a slick brown plate, only forty to fifty feet wide. If they could force that, they could wheel on down the left bank to the sea and drive across behind the Mission; and the strip, pinched on two flanks, would fall in a day. But there were only two landing craft, captured Japanese boats from the Kokogela battle. For lack of a nail the kingdom was lost. For a while he toyed with the idea of building rafts out of coconut logs, dismissed the idea. Too cumbersome, too unwieldy and slow, too defenseless—their occupants would be swept overboard by a hail of fire from the far side. It would have to be quick, deadly, done in a rush: or not at all. But it was the only way he could see.

  The Coleman lantern flared and dimmed like a faulty circuit, making him blink. The water in the mud floor of the tent was several inches deep; the legs of his and Ben’s field cots were nearly obscured. He had to think! Tomorrow’s assault would fail—there was no reason on God’s earth to see why it should succeed—and two days after that Westy, in desperation, would pull the 477th out of the river line and send it in against the strip; and after that the Brigade would be finished as an effective fighting force. They would disintegrate. Dickinson had already made a veiled reference to the possibilities of withdrawal to Kokogela. But it would not be a withdrawal—it would be a panic-stricken, disorderly rout, marked by insubordination and collapse, harried by Japanese air and patrols …

  He’d better get some sleep: he wasn’t doing himself or anyone else any good sitting here like this staring goggle-eyed at the yellowed, dying mantles of the Coleman. But instead he picked up another diary whose final entry was stroked in with a nervous, erratic hand:

  Ah, this is a cruel, wretched land, this black, airless jungle. Are we to be left here, sick and hungry and forgotten? Can it be here that I will meet my fate? I will fight to the last drop of my blood, as a loyal son of Hyogo. But it is a bitter thing. I hold the symbol of the clan deity close to my beating heart. Oh, to see once more the high, green terraces of home!

  A hand pressed against his shoulder, a voice said: “Sam … ”

  He opened his eyes. Ben, in fatigues and patrol cap, soaked to the skin, his eyes red with exhaustion; the three days’ growth of beard made his face look even more bony and lopsided. “What you doing, feeding the mosquitoes?”

  “I guess so. What’s up?”

  “Sam, we’ve got something, I think. Goethals’ patrol found four native boats hidden along the bank. On our side, about a mile upstream.”

  Damon sat up; his feet went into the water with a dull splash. “Are they in good shape? Will they float?”

  Ben nodded. “I’ve just been up there with him. One’s a little leaky.”

  “How big are they?”

  “Thirty feet or so. You could get a dozen guys into each one of them.”

  The two men looked at each other for a moment. Damon rubbed his jaw. “It’s a long shot.”

  “Yeah, it’s a long shot.”

  “If there were only a dozen of them …”

  Ben sat down on the ammunition crate; with the cap’s sodden visor shading his eyes he looked like a tough, dirty kid planning some piece of deviltry. “I’ve been thinking about it, Sam. I’ve had a thought. Suppose we rig lines on them, fore and aft. We rush the far bank, then detail people to stand by the lines. Meanwhile we haul the boats back empty from this side, load them up, and the guys on the far side haul them back. Then we keep doing it.” He raised one hand, fingers extended. “It’s got a lot of advantages: it’ll be twice as fast as paddling, nobody has to make the ride back to this side, and the lines will avoid any foul-ups in landing.”

  Damon nodded. “But the tow-men will have to stand up there, on both banks …”

  “I know. But if we can just get a toehold over there … Christ, I can swim the God damn thing!”

  “Not with eighty pounds of gear you can’t. Or anybody else.” Damon stared hard at the map board. “They’d be sitting ducks … unless we made a night crossing.”

  Ben’s face went slack with consternation. “A night crossing! Jesus, I don’t know, Sam—they’re pretty weary. I don’t know if they’re up to it.”

  “They’ve got to be. It’s the only way.” He could see it now, quite clearly: the four lakatois in the center, the two Japanese barges on the outside. Pin the far bank down with mortars and machine guns until the last possible second. Use Ben’s lines idea until they’d ferried two companies over, then swing the boats around and rig a pontoon bridge with them for heavy weapons. It was possible: it was distinctly possible.

  “Only thing—that first wave is going to be rough,” Ben was saying. “Japs at the Narrows are loaded for bear.”

  “We won’t cross there. We’ll cross farther down, where it’s wider. We’ll give them a heavy preparation up there, too—maybe it’ll siphon some of them off. Then I’ll block left, and you and Stan Bowcher go for the water behind the Mission.”

  Ben gazed at him silently for a moment. Then he said, “It’s worth a try.”

  Damon looked at his watch. Quarter to three. Too late for anything tonight. What they ought to do was tie it in with the assault on the strip. He took the receiver out of its box, cranked the field phone and said: “BULL MOOSE.”

  “BULL MOOSE,” a voice answered, after a pause; he knew it was Albee, the General’s aide.

  “This is BOBCAT,” he said briskly. “I need to talk to the General.”

  “Sir, he’s asleep.”

  “I imagine that’s true, since it’s three A.M.” He threw a baleful glance at Ben, who had blown out his sallow cheeks. “Would you wake him, please. This is urgent.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll—just a moment, Colonel. Will you hold on?”

  “Naturally.” Albee ought to be a laundry officer. Damon could see him standing in the silent tent, frowning with indecision, he could sense the working of the man’s mind: it was three in the morning; the General never liked to be disturbed; was it really important? The line buzzed and crackled faintly. Could a Japanese patrol have tapped it? Almost impossible—it was constantly checked, and the Japs were not probing. Why should they? All they had to do was sit back with their hands on the triggers and let the stupid Yanks come to them …

  “Sam?” a tart, thin voice said. “This is Dick. The General isn’t feeling well, and I’d rather not wake him unless it’s awfully crucial. Has anything come up?”

  He shrugged at Ben, who was picking at his nails. “Yes, there has. We’ve found a way to do that Christopher thing, and it would be good if we could tie it in with the SHAMROCK assault. But we’ll need a minimum of eighteen hours. Is there any possibility of postponing tomorrow’s—today’s—attack?”

  “I’m sorry, Sam. The General left word about that expressly. No changes. Categorically no changes, no postponements. Koch’s battalion’s already staging, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll go over and rout him out if you insist. But I can tell you now he’ll never consent to scratching it.” Dickinson sounded apologetic and troubled. “He’s determined that we get through there with this one.”


  “I see.” Well. It probably wouldn’t accomplish anything to get Westy up: he’d come to the phone angry and befuddled—and a request like this would sound like the very reluctance and defeatism he believed he was combating. It wouldn’t do any good. “Okay, Dick,” he answered. “You’re probably right. Sorry I woke you up.” And to the switchboard man: “Break it down.”

  Ben waded over to his cot and rolled in under the folded mosquito net, fully clothed. Lying on his back he unbuckled his web belt and slid it out from under his hips with a grunt. He looked utterly done in.

  “Well,” he said sonorously, “ours not to reason why. Ours but to dry an eye.”

  They came back along the trail toward the field hospital, sliding and staggering in the muck, the stretcher bearers cursing, panting under their loads, the walking wounded wavering like pathetic drunks. One man was holding to the side of his face a sopping red rag, the blood running down through his fingers and over his wristwatch; his good eye rolled wildly at Damon as he passed. Another boy, helmetless, his face dark with strain as if from carrying too great a weight, clinging to his belly, his buddy helping him, half-carrying him, saying in a soft, fearful tone, “Take it easy, Danny, take it easy,” over and over. Another litter, its occupant belted to the frame, his arm snatching feebly at the air above his head; one leg ended at the knee in a thick knot of blood and gristle and blued slivers of bone. Someone had tourniqueted it crudely with a bayonet scabbard. After that an ambulance jeep, skidding and slewing in the black ooze, full to capacity, with a corpsman perched precariously at the top of the rack, holding a bottle of plasma high in one hand, the tube curving down to one of the recumbent bodies. Then two walking wounded, one boy gripping his arm close to his body as though holding some infinitely precious jewel, fearful of deprivation. A short, swarthy man, his head thrown back, teeth bared in pain, swinging along on one leg between two friends. Another stretcher figure, on its belly, one arm dragging loosely in the muck; the bandage had slipped with his bearers’ exertions and in the center of his bared back a great red hole was visible with blood bubbling out thickly: a rich crimson soup. Behind them, up the trail, the great and little guns bumped and clattered like some beast whose fiery breath had singed them all, was still reaching out for them.