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By Root 1519 0

of the kind of work they were trying to do, the darkness and the driving rain disguising their labor. As the men around him waited in soaking-wet darkness, Adams focused his gaze down toward the hidden river, thought about those men, building some kind of bridge. Footbridge, he thought. What the hell is that? Pieces of something laid end to end, I guess. More questions rolled through him, but he would not ask, knew that close by, Ferucci sat, waiting, the others, Welty right behind him. They think I’m an idiot, he thought. Bad enough I brought them undrinkable water. Now we’re about to do … what? They probably think I’m a screw-up no matter what happens next, the new guy who’s not new. I shoulda been there with them all along, shoulda been with Welty on Saipan. Some stupid-assed disease, and now I’m no better than those slick-faced replacements they sent out here with me. Welty’s gotta be scared, the sarge too, all of them. It can’t just be me. He glanced down at his chest, hidden by the poncho, thought of the lumbering weight hanging from his shirt, the extra grenades. Hell, we never trained in anything like this. It never rained like this in San Diego, days at a time. The deepest mud was over my ankles. This stuff … you could drown in it, and they’d never find you. Sure as hell, no one ever told us we’d need a dozen damn grenades. All that bayonet practice, all us tough guys, cutting up a cloth dummy. No one’s shown me a single reason why these Japs are dummies at all. Most of these guys have done all this before, and I bet they’re watching me, keep an eye on the idiot, the new guy. The guy who peed his own damn pants. Well, maybe so. But I bet every one of these guys up here is as scared as I am. I sure as hell hope so.

The words rolled through his brain in a quivering wave, silent chatter, more questions. If we can wade, why do we need a bridge? Who decides who uses the bridge? Is that for officers? Five feet deep, that’s up to my neck. Welty’s shorter than me. Damn, I better keep an eye on him. The Japs know we’re coming? Well, maybe not. He stared into the rain, the steady hiss, and suddenly there were streaks of fire, red lines, then blue, the odd color of the Japanese tracers, pouring out in clusters from the far side of the river. The men flattened out, but the fire was aimed low, toward the water none of them could see. There were short calls, the officers keeping their men in silence, orders not to fire, not to respond. Adams pushed himself flat against the soggy grass, but the only sound came from the rain, none of the pops and cracks from the distant machine guns, no other sound at all. He took a breath, peered up, saw the tracers aimed far below them, only a few machine guns, the rain deadening their chatter. The engineers, he thought. The Japs must have had lookouts or something, must have heard something. Oh God, get those guys out of there. All this for a stupid damn footbridge?

And then the streaks stopped, the Japanese holding their fire. Adams was breathing heavily, heard low talk, close beside him, behind, men in nervous stammers, speculating what had happened. He wanted to tell them, shut up! The Japs heard those guys! They might hear us too. But there was nothing else now, just the rain, and Adams felt his stomach turning over, flexed his fingers, realized he was shaking, the cold and the fear eating at him again.

He heard a rustle in the grass, a man moving up from out in front, a low voice.

“Saddle up. Follow me. Nobody fires on this side of the river. There’s nobody here but us, nobody shoots, you hear me? Keep track of your buddy, whoever’s beside you. Nobody lags behind.”

Porter was already moving away, down into the thick grass. Adams waited for a shadow to move past him, fell into line behind the man. The grass gave way to more rocks, slices in the hillside, narrow gorges of coral and limestone, uneven footing. He felt a high wall on one side of him, tripped on something, stumbled to one side, rammed his ribs into a jutting rock, made a hard grunt, the man behind him doing the same, more