Battle Cry - Leon Uris [135]
“Ain’t we supposed to shoot at them, Sam?”
“We’re not boondocking at Eliot, son. Let’s let Henderson Field take care of them.”
“Well, where the hell they at?” Speedy asked as the Japs loomed close. We could see the red balls painted on their sides and wing tips. Slow, steady Mitsubishi bombers moving right for our lines, surrounded by quick buzzing Zeros.
“Lookit!”
“Here they come! Gyrene Corsairs!”
“They were upstairs waiting all the time.”
Marine Corsairs, the F4Us with inverted seagull wings that the Japs called “Whispering Death.” The sky was soon alive with streaking tracers and snarling planes.
A streak of smoke…a plane careened and lowered…another burst into flame. As the Jap craft broke into dizzy whirls and plunged into Skylark Channel a cheer arose from the beach.
An inching bomber burst into flame, disintegrated, and scattered.
“Hit the deck!” A Zero broke and roared in on the beach. Its guns spewing, it zipped by only twenty feet overhead, sending a spray of bullets over us. Our CP machine gun spit back vainly and Speedy emptied his rifle, then defiantly threw it up at the plane as it came in for another pass.
The bombers, now over us, heaved their loads into our midst and the dogfight went on.
“Oh, Jesus—three Japs on that lone gyrene.”
“Dirty bastards, three to one ain’t fair.” A long black line of smoke erupted from the Corsair’s tail and it dropped into the sea.
Finally they left. The remnants of the Jap formation limped home, the Army P-38s falling from the sky upon them as they raced back over Tulagi.
Speedy Gray stood up and stretched. Marion put aside his pocket book, adjusted the tape which held his glasses together. “Got to get to the machine gun,” Speedy drawled. “Two-hour guard watch.”
Marion picked up his book again and nodded as the Texan peered over his shoulder and spelled out the words on the book’s cover. “What the hell you reading that stuff for—Oriental Fi-losophy?”
Marion smiled. “One of these days, Speedy, we’re going to stop fighting. I’m thinking it might be a good idea then to know how to deal with them.”
Speedy scratched his head. “I kind of figured that we’d shoot them all or throw them into stockades.”
“Seventy-five million people? I’m afraid that’s the wrong solution. We’d be defeating our purpose.”
“Aw, they’ll probably all commit hara-kiri.”
“I doubt that too. Somewhere we must find the answer. It must be something that coincides with their culture. If we used your method we’d be the same as the people we are fighting.”
“What culture, Mary? They ain’t nothing but a bunch of monkeys.”
“On the contrary. Their civilization dates back to a time when all good Texans were living in caves.”
“Aw, that there crap is too deep for me. Shoot them all, I say. See you later, I got to take the watch.”
Marion turned the page.
Speedy jumped down into the trench that lay in a grove of trees along the rim of the beach. The man on watch hoisted himself out. “Password is Lilac,” Speedy said.
“Check.”
The sandy-haired lad with the freckled face checked the machine gun. He swung it in an arc aiming his eye through the sight. It commanded any approach up the beach. The dying sun blew up like a leviathan flaming ball. It hit the horizon off Cape Esperance and its mammoth circle silhouetted the curving palms and the gold sand. The water of Skylark Channel was tinged with orange. A quiet and serene beauty like his home back in Texas on the gulf. For a moment he even thought he should like to come back here some day and just lie on the beach and look at it again. His thoughts were broken by a mosquito alighting on his forehead for a drink. He checked his timepiece and settled back.
Down the beach he thought he spotted a moving form. He swung the gun around and strained his eyes. There was something moving! He threw the bolt twice, readying the piece for firing. The form moved slowly and unevenly through the sand. The setting sun made it hard to distinguish. Speedy squinted and waited. It came closer.
“Halt, who goes there?” he