The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [103]
Adams saw Porter now, the lieutenant climbing up on the back of the truck.
“You boys through acting like assholes? Listen up. Captain says we’re heading down a little farther. Once these doggies get out of our way, we’ll be rolling again.”
Porter dropped down, was gone, hustling back to the next truck in line. The last truck in the army caravan passed by now, a swirl of dust engulfing it, the canvas pulled tightly closed. Ferucci said, “Those bastards know to keep their asses hidden. I’d like to have a little chat with General Buckner, or whoever else thought any army dogs could do this job. They probably took one mortar shell and the whole line collapsed.”
The trucks rolled to life again, the road in front clear. The men rocked against one another, the bumping rhythm returning, more dust, the sun straight overhead now. They rumbled for another half hour, and then, just as before, they slowed, moving into line alongside dozens more. But this time the engines did not shut down. Adams blew the dust out of his nose, coughed it out of his throat, wiped at the grime in his eyes, saw Ferucci up, jumping down, out the rear of the truck. The others followed, filing out through the stink of exhaust, men slapping at the red dust in their clothes, and Porter was there, pulling them off the road.
“Get out this way! The company’s in this field. Space out, dig in, and wait for orders!”
The lieutenant moved away to the next truck, the same instructions, and Adams dropped down off the truck, held his backpack in his hands, his rifle slung on his shoulder. He saw Ferucci eyeing him, then looking toward the others in the squad.
“All right, you heard him. Let’s go.”
As the trucks emptied, they moved away in a roar, the empty caravan rolling back northward. The Marines had been unloaded on a broad hill and to one side were the unmistakable signs of a distant airfield, low buildings and rows of tents, scattered patches of camouflaged netting. Around him the men moved past, most of them with heads down, still spitting out the dust of the miserable ride. Adams began to move, the hillside drawing his eye, and now he stopped, along with a half-dozen men from the truck. On the far side of the hill, away from the airfield, the hill fell away in a gentle slope a mile long, maybe more, and just as wide. To the right he could see the ocean, and southward, in the far distance, he could see a wide swath of smoke settled along another ridge. There was smoke in the deepest part of the valley as well, thin and drifting, and beneath it, the snaking line of a river.
“Move it! Dig in!”
He followed Ferucci, kept his eyes out to the long hillside, caught a smell now, carried on the soft breeze. Around him some of the men were reacting to it, a stink like nothing he had ever experienced. As they moved out into the field, the smell grew worse, the wind driving toward them from the south. The lieutenant had spread them in one section of the wide hilltop, men already digging in on the slope of the hill that faced the airfield. He moved that way, then closer to the ridgeline, the smell curling his face, sweet and bitter and sickening. He stepped up onto the highest point, could see all across the wide sloping ground, saw that the ground was churned and blasted, trees ripped to splinters, shell craters small and large.
“Let’s go! Get off that ridgeline! The enemy can see these heights!”
Adams turned, saw Porter moving along the high ground, waving at him, at the others who had been as curious what lay in front of their new position. Porter moved up past him, slowed, said, “There’s gonna be hell to pay, kid. Right out there … that’s Jap-land. The party’s over.”
PART TWO
15. USHIJIMA
BENEATH SHURI CASTLE,
THIRTY-SECOND ARMY HEADQUARTERS, OKINAWA
MAY 4, 1945
He had allowed a rancorous debate between his staff officers, unusual for someone in his position. But in the end, no matter how passionately Colonel Yahara