Battle Cry - Leon Uris [125]
Thirst…always the hunger for water. Our water was salted and made your stomach rebel. Once in a while you got that vision of a long cool beer floating by. Nothing to do but lick your lips with your thick dry tongue and try to forget it.
How long had we been in the mud? Only six days.
We pulled into the new CP and waited for the rain to sink us deeper.
“O.K., you guys, dig in.”
“Where the hell we going to dig? We’re already in.”
“On the slopes where it is dry, asshole.”
Lieutenant Bryce approached the Feathermerchant, who was on his knees hacking the earth with a pick as Danny shoveled.
“Ski,” Bryce said.
“Yes.”
“After you finish your hole, dig me in.” He unfolded a stretcher he was carrying. “Fix my hole so this fits in.”
Zvonski threw down the trenching tool and arose. “Dig your own goddam hole, Lieutenant. I been lugging water cans for eleven hours.”
“Don’t address me by rank,” Bryce hissed nervously. “There is no rank up here. You want a sniper to hear you?”
“I sure do.”
“I’ll have you courtmartialed for this!”
“Like hell you will. Sam says we all dig our own holes. So start digging—and don’t dig too close around here.”
Bryce turned and left. Ski went over to Gunner Keats. “Bryce got a stretcher from sick bay to sleep on, Jack,” he said.
“The dirty…mind your own business, Ski,” he answered and took off after Bryce.
There was a swish overhead of an artillery shell. It landed and exploded on our reverse slope.
“Say, ain’t the Tenth firing kind of late in the day?”
“Probably just lining up for effect.”
Another shell landed, hitting the top of the ridge some two hundred yards away.
“Crazy bastards, don’t they know we’re down here?”
Huxley rushed to the switchboard. “Contact the firing officer at once. They’re coming too close.” Another shell crashed, sending us all flopping into the mud. It hit on our side of the hill.
“Hello,” Huxley roared as another dropped almost in us, “this is Topeka White. You men are coming in right on our CP.”
“But sir,” the voice at the other end of the line answered, “we haven’t fired since morning.”
“Holy Christ!” the Major yelled. “Hit the deck, it’s Pistol Pete!”
We scattered but the Jap 108s found us in their sights. We crawled deep in the mire, behind trees and rocks. Our foxholes hadn’t been dug yet. Swish…Whom! Whom! WHOM! They roared in and the deck bounced and mud and hot shrapnel splattered everywhere.
Andy and Ski spotted a small cave on the hillside and dashed for it. They hung onto their helmets and braced their backs against the wall. There, opposite them, sat a Jap soldier. He was dead. His eyes had been eaten out by the swarms of maggots which crawled through his body. The stink was excruciating. “I’m getting out of here,” Ski said.
Andy jerked him back in. “Hang on, Ski. They’re blasting the hell outa us. Go on, put your head down and puke.” A concussion wave caused the Jap to buckle over. He dropped, broken in half by rot. Ski put his head down and vomited.
Spanish Joe crawled through the muck to Sister Mary. He put his arm about Marion and held him.
“Why didn’t you stay where you were? You’re safer there.”
“I…I…want somebody to look at,” he whined.
Highpockets was on his feet scanning the sky. He was the only man standing. He waded through the mire as though his feet were a pair of plungers. “Move over to the other slope, you people,” he shouted to one group. He made his way to the switchboard, shouting commands as he went. “Give me the Tenth…firing officer…LeForce, go to the ridge and see if you can spot them. Hello, this is Topeka White…Pete is right on us…can you