Battle Cry - Leon Uris [221]
“Good work. Take it easy, lad.”
“Thank you sir.”
“Where is Lieutenant Rackley?”
“Dead,” McQuade said. “Right through the head. We had to leave him to help the other three back.”
“Too bad. How hard do you estimate they hit you, McQuade?”
“Looks to me like they have a skirmish line in that brush. There was at least two machine guns and they shot like they had plenty of ammunition.”
Huxley whistled under his breath. “How wide is the island up there?”
“Big. Five hundred yards maybe. The camp runs from the center of the island to the ocean. On the lagoon side it’s like jungle.”
Huxley turned to his staff. “Wellman, get Shapiro on the phone. Have him move Fox Company into that abandoned camp and take cover at zero five hundred. Contact Harper and have him move George Company on the flank and move up slowly on the lagoon side and dig in when he straightens his line to meet Fox. Tell him it is jungle thick.”
“Suppose they counterattack?”
“I don’t think they’ll choose to. They are going to make their stand past the clearing of the camp in that brush. We can move to the camp in comparative safety, I believe.”
“Got any ideas of how we are going to get at them past the clearing?”
“We’ll come to that tomorrow. I want to take a look in daylight.” He turned to McQuade. “You’d better stay here tonight.”
“I’d better get back up with Max…er, I mean Captain Shapiro. He’s so mad he’ll probably go after them tonight if I don’t get him calmed down.” Huxley smiled as the large-gutted gunny hitched his belt over his sagging stomach and headed back for Fox Company.
“Gunner.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Radio the destroyer. I want them in the lagoon as close to shore as they can get. Radio to Bairiki and ask them to send some landing craft up here so we can shuttle the wounded to the destroyer.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Through the night I was awakened by the terrible itching. My hands were swelling fast under the impact of a hundred mosquito bites. With each fitful awakening I sat up, and each time, I caught a glimpse of the gangly skipper still sitting by the water’s edge, his knees up, his arm draped about them and his head half nodding. Early in the morning I climbed from my hole and walked over to him. The rest of the camp was asleep except for the radio watch and the corpsman.
“Mind if I sit down, sir?”
“Oh, hello, Mac.” I looked about and saw Ziltch propped against a tree ten yards away with his eyes ever watchful on his skipper.
“How did the fellow with the stomach wound make out, sir?”
“Dead…not enough plasma to do him any good. He had a widowed mother with three other sons in the service. One of them went down on the Saratoga.”
It seemed strange that with the burden of eight hundred men in his command he should be so concerned over the loss of one.
“We picked a dandy spot. These mosquitoes are murder tonight, sir.”
“Hadn’t you better get some sleep, Mac?”
“Kind of hard. I saw you up and I wondered if you were feeling all right.”
“I always did say you’d make a fine chaplain…go to sleep.”
“Aye aye, sir.” I returned to my infested hole and snuggled in close to Burnside. For the first time, I felt sorry for Sam Huxley.
Marion and Lighttower were in the aid station. Mary couldn’t open either eye and the Injun’s face was lopsided. They were assured that the condition was temporary and they would be able to join us by the time we were ready