Battle Cry - Leon Uris [251]
The remains of the Second Battalion of the Sixth Marines threw up a picket line facing Garapan up the coast. Fox Company was strung out in the brush, behind rocks, straddling the road and running down to the water’s edge; it was a slim line, cut deeply by first-day casualties. At dusk the grim horror-filled curtain of dark slowly fell as Shapiro’s Foxes, Whistler’s Easy Company, How, and Captain Harper’s George gritted their teeth and made quick peace with God and waited. Shapiro by understanding and unanimous will took charge of the entire four companies and worked busily over his positions, bucking up the courage of his men.
McQuade and his patrol filtered back and reported to the Captain.
“What’s the scoop, McQuade?” Shapiro greeted him.
McQuade sat down and drew a breath and wiped the sweat from his face. “Max, I’m getting too damned old for those patrols, I’m getting a survey after tonight. We’re up the creek without a paddle, Max. We got halfway to Garapan, sticking close to the road. The Japs are staging for a pisscutter. We spotted four tanks and maybe two or three thousand of them. They got bugles, flags, samurais, and flushing toilets ready to throw at us.” The sergeant scanned the spread of the battalion and shook his head. “I don’t see how the hell we’re going to hold them. Regiment better get at least another battalion up here.”
“I got news for you, McQuade. We are isolated,” Shapiro said.
The sergeant tried to act nonchalant. “Gimme a weed.”
Shapiro went to the field phone and got Major Marlin, now the battalion commander, at the other end of the line. “Marlin, this is Max. My patrol just reported in. King-sized banzai coming…two to three thousand massing with tank support. Can you give us anything?”
“That’s great,” Marlin sputtered at the command post phone. “Can you use slingshots? Max, you’re next in command now. If I’m dead tomorrow I hope you have enough men left for a four-handed poker game.”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“It’s worse than the first night at Tarawa, Max. Worst in the Corps history. I’ll get walking wounded and every gun and bullet we have up there. I’ll do the best I can. We are trying to get help from the Navy but I hear that the Jap fleet is coming in.”
As the moon rose, Max Shapiro called his officers and staff NCOs about him. The harrowing minutes ticked by slowly for the men on the line, their hands clutching their bayoneted rifles and their eyes glued down the coastal road.
Max knelt inside the circle of men about him. “I’m not going to give you people a big Semper Fi talk. We either stop this attack or die. No Marine retreats. If he does, shoot him. Any questions?”
They nodded grimly and returned to their posts. Shapiro then did a very unusual thing. He spread his poncho on the deck and lay down with his helmet as a pillow.
“What the hell are you doing, Max?” McQuade asked.
“What the hell you think I’m doing? I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when the fun starts.”
A wave of laughter spread along the line as the men turned to catch the little skipper feigning sleep. He did a masterful job of acting. It was like a tonic to the tired men.
The Japanese bugles blew. A hundred samurai swords glinted through the moonlight. Down the road the frenzy-whipped enemy charged at Huxley’s Whores.
Actually, the Japs were caught in a trap. In the cover of dark they had massed their men in a wedge to overrun Red Beach One. Two Navy destroyers standing offshore shot up a thousand flares and the night turned into a blaring day. The onrushing enemy was caught, lit up, and exposed. The destroyers moved almost on the beach, pumping salvo after salvo into the packed troops at almost point-blank range. Under the calm leadership of Shapiro, who wandered up and down the lines, the Marines directed fire when the Japs were nearly atop their positions. By flare light the enemy was cut down and stacked up like cordwood, and the coastal road soon became littered with a thousand