Battle Cry - Leon Uris [198]
“We haven’t heard from them yet, we don’t know,” I said.
Three alligators moved for Blue Beach Two. They became helplessly entangled in the rolls of barbed wire that jutted from the water. The Marines scrambled out and were machine gunned to death before they reached the beach.
“We haven’t heard from Colonel Carpe yet,” Bryant said.
“Let me see those dispatches,” Philips said.
“No word from him, sir, no word.”
An aide sprinted in and threw a message down: Wilson White commander killed.
“Dammit! What is Carpe doing in there?”
“Sir, the Ringgold has been hit again. She moved in almost to the beach, knocking out some Jap 4.7s.”
“Any message from her?”
“The Ringgold says she’ll continue firing.”
Brigadier General Snipes rushed to the table and placed a message in Philips’ hands. It was from Colonel Carpe at Blue Beach Three. Carpe was running the operation from the beach.
OPPOSITION OVERWHELMING. WE CAN’T HOLD. EIGHTY PER CENT CASUALTIES. ARE PINNED DOWN BEHIND THE SEAWALL. SEND REINFORCEMENTS OR ELSE.
“How many alligators do we have left?”
“About twenty-five, sir.”
“Get the rest of Wilson in. Use the alligators first, then send them in with landing craft.”
“Tod!” Bryant shouted. “They’ll have to wade in from a mile out.”
“We have no choice.”
Pfc. Nick Mazoros, a lost radio operator, slushed through waist-deep water stumbling for cover from piling to piling under the pier. He struggled to keep his walkie-talkie above the salt water. A spray from the bullets whining around him sent up a shower. He fell into a pothole, sinking to his knees, then quickly bounced up. A crossfire ripped in. He fought to decide whether to dump his radio and go underwater for protection or try to make it in with her. He kept his radio. Mazoros dropped exhausted on Blue Beach Two dragging his body at last to the cover of the four-foot seawall of logs.
The commander ran up to him. “Is that radio working, son?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Sergeant! Take three men and escort this man to Colonel Carpe at Blue Beach Three. Stay close to the wall. We don’t want to lose that radio.”
“His hand is shot away,” the sergeant said pointing to Mazoros’ right arm.
“I’ll be O.K.,” Mazoros answered. “Let’s move out.”
The Second Marines’ desperate toehold on Betio consisted of fifteen yards of sand from the water to the seawall on Blue Beach Two and Three. On Blue Beach One it was twenty yards inland, dug into foxholes in the jagged coral. Carpe’s headquarters was behind the concrete wall of a blown-up Jap bunker which had been captured with the sacrifice of twenty Marine lives. The seawall which now protected the beleaguered assault wave might well turn out to mark their graves. To vault the seawall into Jap positions was madness. Every square inch of ground was covered by interlocking lanes of fire from the enemy. To go over the wall meant instant death; to stay behind it meant counterattack. They had only fifteen yards to retreat.
Carpe propped himself against the bunker and gave orders. The blood on his leg had dried and was beginning to smell putrid. He called on knowledge beyond his capabilities to hold off the impending disaster that was threatening the Second Marines.
Men came on to reinforce the slim beachhead. The story of the alligators was repeated. Shelled from the water, tangled in the barbed wire, strafed before they hit the beach…but on they came, slushing forward. The landing craft hooked up on the fringing reef a mile out and dropped their ramps. The waves of Second Marines plunged into neck-deep water, their rifles held at high port. They waded in.
A pilot in the spotter seaplane of the Maryland landed in the sea and scrambled up the Jacob’s ladder to the deck. He was hysterical. “I came right over their heads!” he screamed. “They are dropping in the water like flies but they keep moving in. They keep coming and the Japs riddle them…coming through the water with their rifles high!”
On they came. They marched the last mile in the lagoon silently. A Marine folded over…a deep red blot of blood swelled from him…the