Hawaii - James Michener [542]
When might fell on the twenty-ninth of October the Japanese troops were still four hundred yards short of their goal. They slept standing up, or leaning against frozen trees. There was no water, no food, no warmth. Outpost sentries, when relieved, muttered, "I might as well stay here with you." There was no bed. Men ached and those with minor wounds felt the blood throbbing in their veins. Hundreds were already dead.
At dawn a German sniper, hidden with Teutonic thoroughness, fired into the grim encampment and killed Private Minoru Sakagawa. For some minutes his brother Goro was not aware of what had happened, but then young Shigeo cried, "Jesus! They killed Minoru!"
Goro, hearing his brother's agonized cry, ran up and saw Minoru dead upon the frozen ground. This was too much to bear, and he began to lose his reason. "Achhhh!" he cried with a great rasping noise in his throat. Two of his brothers had now died while under his command, and the rest of his troops seemed doomed. His right hand began trembling while his voice continued to cry a meaningless "Achhhh."
Colonel Whipple, who knew what was happening, rushed up and clouted the young lieutenant brutally across the face. "Not now, Goro!" he commanded, using a strange phrase: Not now, as if later it would be permissible to go out of one's mind, as if at some later time all men might do so, including Whipple himself.
Goro fell back and his hand stopped trembling. Staring in dull panic at his colonel, he tried vainly to focus on the problems at hand, but failed. He could see only his brother, fallen on the pine needles of the Vosges. Then his cold reason returned, and he drew his revolver. Grabbing Shigeo by the shoulder he said, "You walk here." Then to his men he roared, in Japanese, "We won't stop!" And with appalling force he and his team marched in among the great trees.
It was a desperate, horrible hand-to-hand fight up the last thousand feet of the ridge. Shigeo, following the almost paralyzed fury of his brother, exhibited a courage he did not know he had. He moved directly onto German positions and grenaded them to shreds. He ducked behind trees like a veteran, and when the last roadblock stood ahead, ominous and spewing death, it was mild-mannered Shigeo, the quiet one of the Sakagawa boys--though there were now only two left--who with, demonic craftiness went against it, drew its fire so that he could spot its composition, and then leaped inside with grenades and a Tommy gun. He killed eleven Germans, and when his companions moved past him to the ultimate rescue of the Texans he leaned out of the Nazi position and cheered like a schoolboy.
"You're a lieutenant!" Colonel Whipple snapped as he went forward to join the Texans, and a boy from Maui looked at Shig and said in pidgin, "Jeez, krauts all pau!"
In rough formation, with Lieutenant Goro Sakagawa at their head, the Japanese boys marched in to greet the Texans, and a tall Major Burns from Houston stumbled forward, his ankle in bad shape, and tried to salute, but the emotion of the moment was too great. He was famished and burning with thirst, and before he got to Goro he fell in the dust. Then he rose to his knees and said from that position, "Thank God. You fellows from the Jap outfit?"
"Japanese," Goro replied evenly. He stooped to help the Texan to his feet and saw that the man was at least a foot taller than he was. All the Texans, starving and parched though they were, were enormous men, and it seemed indecent that a bunch of runty little rice-eaters should have rescued them.
Against his will, for Major Burns was a very brave man and had kept his troops alive mainly through the force of his extraordinary character, the tall Texan began to weep. Then he was ashamed of himself, bit his lip till it nearly bled and asked, "Could my