“Damn!” Pinkerton grunted. “How the hell did them Japs live through all that blasting?”
Josh said nothing, even though he recalled one of old Captain Falcon’s axioms: When you send a man into battle, tell him the truth, especially if the going will be hard. A man should be allowed a certain contemplation of his likely fate.
“You know a lot about stuff,” Pinkerton persisted. “Tell me what you think the situation is so I can get myself and my boys ready.”
After a moment’s reflection, Josh said, “There’s a seawall that runs the length of the beaches. I’ve seen it in aerial photos. It looks to be about three or four feet high and built out of palm logs. My advice is to get yourself and your boys to it as quick as you can.”
“Then what?” Pinkerton demanded.
“Stay alive,” Josh replied. “And fight like hell.”
On the wind now came a wild cheering from the island. It was the Japanese rising up out of their holes. Some of them were yelling, in perfectly understandable English: Come you, marine. Today you die!
When some of the marines began to look worried, Sergeant Pinkerton called out to them. “Let ‘em yell. They’ll all be dead soon.”
Then there was an ominous fleck of yellow on the sea. Josh raised his binoculars. Just as he feared, a dodging tide was in fulsome retreat, and the reef was rising in front of the invasion fleet like a gigantic stone fence.
And still no marines went forward.
3
The mood inside the sand fortress had changed from stoic acceptance to jubilation. The rikusentai were running in and out, clutching each other by the shoulders, and yelling excitedly to one another as if a great victory had just been won. Sister Mary Kathleen supposed that survival after the terrible barrage was something of a victory, though what lay next, if Lieutenant Soichi had been correct, was a landing by the Americans. She caught Captain Sakuri’s eye, and the officer stomped over to her. His uniform was impeccable, as if he were heading to a dress parade. He was grinning beneath his helmet. “You Americans die today!” he screamed triumphantly “Babe Ruth go to hell!”
“I’m Irish,” she replied quietly, then regretted saying anything. It seemed to set the captain off. He drew a long sword from its scabbard and waved it about, screaming threats at her she couldn’t understand. She heard her fella boys stir behind her, and then Tomoru was by her side. She put a restraining hand on his arm. “No, Tomoru. Please sit down.”
Nango rose and put his hand on Tomoru’s shoulder to further restrain him. “You will sit,” he ordered, and, with a grunt, the big man backed off.
Captain Sakuri’s attention was mercifully diverted by the appearance of a Japanese naval officer who barked a command. Sakuri, after insolently waving the tip of his sword near the nun’s face, sheathed it and pushed through the milling rikusentai for a word with the officer. He bowed deeply, and the nun supposed the naval officer had brought orders from someone higher in the chain of command. Translated to her world, a bishop had sent word to a priest through a monk. Sakuri yelled something; then he and all the troops in-side the fortress streamed through the twin apertures and disappeared outside. An unnatural quiet and calm inside the dark bunker was the immediate result.
“They are going outside to meet the Americans,” Nango said, in the dialect. “They seem confident.”
“However they seem,” Sister Mary Kathleen answered, “ ‘tis good to be rid of them for the moment.”
“Maybe they won’t come back,” Nango said hopefully. “Maybe the Americans will kill them.”
“Aye, there’s that,” she answered. “Perhaps we will fulfill our quest yet. But first the Americans must win. We must pray that they do.”
“I have been praying to Juki,” the fella boy named Agoru said mischievously. “She is a fickle god, like all of them, but she at least knows what we need.”
“Juki has no power here,” Nango snapped. “She is a god of the Far Reaches. But Sister’s god, he is here and everywhere. Pray to him, instead.”
Agoru shook his head, making his cowrie shell necklace rattle. “Sister’s God is too big and is surely overwhelmed and confused by all the prayers coming at him. I am sorry, Sister. It is what I think. How can just one God control everything? He must have help.”
“Aye, He does,” she admitted. “He has His saints and His angels and of course His son, the Christ. You might also pray to the Virgin Mary, who is much like your Juki, except not fickle, of course.”
“I wonder who the Japanese pray to?” Nango mused. “On Ruka, some of them had shrines, and there they burned incense. They said it was for their ancestors. I concluded they worshipped ghosts, who are the most un-reliable spirits of all. It is little wonder the Japanese are such odd creatures.”
“I will not be happy until they are all dead,” Tomoru growled. “Every one of them, including their children.” He took a breath, then shrugged. “Sister, I talk too much at times.”
“Talk is our only solace at this moment, Tomoru,” she answered quietly, “and prayer our only weapon. Let us all pray in whatever fashion suits us.”
“You pray to your little saint, Sister?” Nango asked.
She smiled. “Aye. ‘Twas a sweet child, she was, to die upon baptism. A perfect spirit. She is with me always.”
“Perhaps all children who die become saints,” Nango offered. “Perhaps so, Nango. Perhaps so.”
She turned, startled, when Captain Sakuri came running back inside. He looked at her and the fella boys, then put his hands on his hips and threw back his head in a great shout of laughter. “Marine no come!” he screamed in an apparent mixture of joy and relief.
But behind him suddenly came a flood of rikusentai. They pushed around him and then crouched down and assumed their stoic expressions. Captain Sakuri looked at them in astonishment, then walked to an aperture and peered outside. Then he looked up, grimaced, and angrily made a fist and pounded a sandbag. Sullenly, he gave Sister Mary Kathleen a murderous glance, then touched the hilt of his sword. She had no doubt he meant to kill her. For a moment she felt grateful and even lifted her eyebrows at him as an enticement. But then she remembered all she had to do, and why Saint Monessa, she silently prayed. Not yet, not yet.
4
The sun baked the J. Wesley Clayton, the steel hatches and exterior bulkheads almost too hot to touch. The marines on the deck sought out what little shade there was, and some of them even went back inside, hoping to find a cooler place.
A deep drone indicated the arrival of aircraft, and Josh looked up to see a formation of Dauntless and Avenger dive-bombers majestically soaring above the armada. The aircraft carriers, though hidden beneath the horizon, were getting into the act. For seven minutes by Josh’s watch, the bombers ranged up and down the island dropping their bombs, each sortie producing spouts of smoke and fire. Then, abruptly, they lifted into the sky, wheeled around, and raced back from whence they’d come. Unimpressed, the Japanese shore artillery opened up again.
For at least the tenth time in the last thirty minutes, Josh checked his watch and then peered at the location of the sun. If the invasion didn’t get started soon, it would have to be called off. Josh was no longer certain that was a good idea. The marines in the landing craft were surely ready to go and would be put in a sour temper if they had to wait another night. Worse, the naval artillery was probably running low on shells. The next morning would find the Japanese refreshed, eager for battle. No, even though he dreaded what they might find, he now believed the marines had to go in today, come hell or, in this case, low water.
“They’re here, girls,” Pinkerton called, and Josh saw an amtrac bump alongside the freighter. As if they’d been invisible, marine lieutenants and captains suddenly appeared, though they stood aside and let the gunnies direct the men down the rope mats.
Josh became aware of an awful retching and was surprised to discover it was the young marine he’d told to drink water. The boy had found a clear place on the rail and was h
eaving his guts out. Blinking away tears, he looked over his shoulder at Josh. “I drank my water like you told me, sir, but it made me sick.”
“What are you talking about?” Josh demanded and unbuckled the boy’s canteen and took a swig, then spat it out. It was foul with oil. “Where’d you get this?” Josh yelled over the shouts of marines clambering over the side and the rumbling noise of more amtracs clustering alongside.
“Out of the scuttlebutt they gave us to fill our canteens, sir,” the boy said, clutching his stomach.
Somebody said, “There they go. I sure feel sorry for them little yellow bastards.”
Josh turned toward Betio and saw, sure enough, the Second Marines, God bless ‘em, finally heading in stately fashion toward Red Beaches One, Two, and Three. Bosun Ready O’Neal, yawning from the nap he’d enjoyed throughout the bombardment, appeared at Josh’s side. Ready was a Killakeet boy and a pleasant young man who rarely saw harm in anyone. He was also an ugly fellow, no two ways about it, with a nose too big, and eyes a little too close together, and a brow a bit too heavy for his face. No matter, he was a cheerful sort, and smart, in that he tended to be thoughtful. In other words, Bosun Ready O’Neal was a good man to have around. “Ain’t them Higgins boats gonna get hung up on that reef?” Ready asked, after a moment of scrutiny.
Josh didn’t have the heart to reply to the good-natured man who had seen instantly what nearly everyone else had missed, or denied. The Second Marines were creeping closer to the reef, and now huge explosions were hitting among them and—there!—one of the amtracs was struck by an enemy shell and upended, its human cargo spilling overboard. No heads bobbed up, just a white froth marking where they’d disappeared. Each man carried nearly one hundred pounds of gear strapped on tight with canvas webbing. At that moment, those men were drowning while trying to strip off their equipment. Not many would succeed.
Josh needed to get higher to see what was happening. He headed for the bridge and burst in on a surreal scene. The watch officers were laughing and slapping one another on their backs as if they were watching a football game. Josh shut the hatch, then ventured to a portal. The good news was that the amtracs were advancing across the reef, not even slowing down—Burr had been right about that—but the bad news was plentiful. The Higgins boats, one by one, were running aground on the reef. Stuck, unable to move, the Higgins coxswains had no choice but to let down their ramps within a storm of bullets and artillery.
A groan rose among the J. Wesley Claytons watch officers at the sight of an amtrac exploding inside the reef, bits of steel and men thrown high into the air, a greasy plume of smoke left to mark the sinking machine. Then an-other of the tracked troop-carriers was struck and sent wheeling aimlessly in the water. Josh swept the beach with his binoculars. Not a single landing craft had yet made it ashore. Then he looked over his shoulder at Burr, who stood with binoculars pressed against his eyes, his mouth a grim line. Behind him, other marine officers stood in shocked silence at what they were seeing, the savage skill and cold discipline of the rikusentai as they tore the heart out of the invaders of Tarawa. Come you, marine. Today you die!
5
“Keep going, keep going!” the gunnies brayed, pushing their boys toward the rail. Over they went, gasping as they took the weight on the unsteady netting, their packs and rifles and bandoliers of ammunition pulling them backward, their boots slipping on the wet hemp as they clambered down to the tossing Higgins boats. Josh left the bridge and descended to the deck, where he stood with his hands on his hips, then walked closer until he was at the rail. He watched the marines, most of them teenagers, going up and over. Josh had been in many battles, against the poachers and pirates of the Bering Sea with Captain Falcon, then captaining the little cutter Maudie Jane against marauding German subs off the Atlantic coast, then against the Japanese infantry in the Solomons, and more. Yet here he was, but an ob-server, while young, inexperienced men were being sent forward to fight and die. This is all akilter, he said to himself, and then something snapped in-side his mind, like a cord stretched too taut.
He had to go.
Without another thought, he put his leg over the rail and went hand over hand down the netting until he dropped into the landing craft. There, he sought out a quiet corner until the last marine climbed down and the Coast Guard coxswain steered the boat away. Josh worked through the silent troops, a few already seasick, or perhaps sickened by the oily water in their canteens. He climbed into the cockpit. “What’s your orders, son?” he asked the coxswain, a boy with big buck teeth that stuck out over his lower lip.
The boy looked at Josh with more than a little surprise. Clearly, he had not expected a captain in khakis, brown shoes, and a soft cap with the stiff eagle crest of the Coast Guard to show up among the heavily armed, helmeted marines. “I juth driff around until the lead boat goeth in, thir, then I follow it,” he explained, still staring. “What the hell’re you doin’ aboard my boat, thir, if you don’t mind me afking?”
“You ever hear the story of the fireman’s horse put out to pasture?”
“No, thir.”
“Every time he heard the bell at the firehouse, he jumped the fence and raced the wagon to the fire.”
“Why’d he do that? Wath he thtupid?”
“Pretty much.”
“You ain’t got no weapon, thir.”
“I’ll find one,” Josh predicted and unstrapped his binoculars and handed them to the driver. “Have a souvenir,” he said.
The coxswain put the binoculars around his neck, then steered the Higgins into a clockwise turn, joining a line of landing craft going around and around. The sun beat down and the temperature rapidly rose. Oily exhaust fumes from the other circling boats turned the air a pale blue. Marines, their utilities soaked with sweat, began to choke. Josh saw three marines doubled over, puking. A foul odor, a mixture of oil and vomit, filled the floating box. Marines drank from their canteens, to rid themselves of the awful taste of the air, only to spit the water out and wipe their mouths in disbelief. From without, a terrible din of machine-gun fire and rifle shots rose and ebbed. The men cursed and spat and raised their faces to the sky in a futile attempt to gasp in a breath of fresh air. Howls of outrage rattled the boat. “Let’s go!” the marines screamed. “What are we waiting for?”
Josh climbed up on the steel frame around the cockpit, balancing him-self with one hand on the coxswain’s shoulder. He could see dozens of Higgins boats snagged on the reef, and in the lagoon marines were slogging ashore through chest-high water, their rifles raised above their heads. The sea was leaping all around them, marking bullet strikes. The sudden disappearance of individual marines told Josh when they were hit. Remembering his duty as an observer, he said to the lad at the wheel, “I need to see this up close. Let’s go in.”
The coxswain shot Josh a wary glance. “I’m thuppothed to wait until the lead boat goeth first, thir.”
“I said take us in, son,” Josh growled. The young man opened his mouth to object, thought better of it, and pushed the throttle forward and cranked over the wheel.
“Marines!” Josh called down. “I need to get on that beach. So do you. It’s our job, boys. So get ready.”
“Anything to get off this crate!” someone yelled, followed by cheers.
Sergeant Pinkerton, the gunny Josh had talked to aboard the troopship, yelled out, “We’re with you, Captain Thurlow!”
Beside Pinkerton stood the young marine who’d drunk the foul water when Josh had suggested it. His eyes stared beneath his helmet like white marbles, and it appeared he was on the edge of puking again. Josh looked away.
Something big opened up from the atoll, and two huge splashes, like sudden boils from an underwater volcano, erupted no more than a dozen yards away from the charging Higgins boat. The coxswain started to weave the boat back and forth, but Josh stopped him. “Full throttle dead ahead, son. No time for maneuvers.”
As they neared the reef, Josh saw with a sudden shock hundreds of bo
dies floating in the lagoon. He also counted eight amtracs adrift; oily bubbles indicated where others had sunk. He could make out only two amtracs on the beach, and black smoke was pouring from both of them. Tatters of water and coral flew as bullets peppered their way back and forth across the reef, chewing up the Higgins boats stuck there with their ramps down. No one appeared to be alive aboard them.
“Steer for that boat there,” Josh told the boy at the wheel, pointing at a random Higgins in the long line. When the sailor hesitated, Josh reached over and jammed the throttle to its stops. “Ram it! Knock it off the reef and follow it in!”
The coxswain gasped, then slumped down, blood pouring from a wound in his neck. Josh grabbed the wheel from him and kept the Higgins on course. Then something stung his arm, and something else whizzed past his ear. The Higgins plunged on, its engine howling. “Get ready!” he yelled at the marines, who screamed their readiness back. They turned as one toward the ramp.
The Higgins plowed into the stern of one of the stuck boats, though the impact knocked it only a few yards forward. Josh backed off, then threw the throttle full ahead again, the sound of shredded steel informing him he’d thoroughly abused the transmission. Then it felt like a mule had kicked him in the ribs. He clutched his side but kept his hand on the throttle. The Higgins plowed on until it struck the stuck landing craft again. This time, the impact was enough to knock it off the coral, and it slid ahead, leaving be-hind a channel of clear blue. Holding his side and gritting his teeth against the pain, Josh drove his boat through the gap just as the transmission tore it-self to pieces and the engine seized. A pall of dense blue smoke poured from the exhaust.
“Far as I can get us, boys!” Josh yelled above the hammer of bullets splintering the Higgins’s ramp. He saw a marine fall, and another was tossed back by the impact of a bullet ricocheting into his face.