The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [123]
“Get down! Pull back!”
The hand did not move, and his own momentum pulled him away, the Nambu gun chipping the rocks, whistles and cracks around his head. He released the hand, no choice, saw a low place in the rocks, jumped down, the hillside flattening, deeper mud, shell holes and torn ground. There were others moving around him, pulling back, no one stopping, and he kept running, tripping, stumbling, a desperate scamper, saw more of the others, men all across the muddy uneven ground, settling into cover. Faces watched him, terrified, some with dead eyes, and he saw Ferucci, on his knees, the sergeant cursing him, waving at him.
“Here! Take cover!”
Adams slid to a stop, felt mud inside his shirt, the sergeant grabbing him hard, pulling him flat to the ground.
“You stupid bastard! You hear the order to withdraw, you withdraw!”
Adams didn’t know how to respond, wanted to say something about the Japanese in the rocks, but there was no voice, his breathing in furious gasps, the smoke still in his lungs. There was a calm moment, strange, no firing, a wafting black cloud rolling past, the stink of the smoke that poured toward them from the tanks. Adams tried to sit, roll over, see up the hill, but the order came from far down the line.
“Tanks are coming up! Withdraw!”
The words seemed nonsensical, foolish, someone’s stupid mistake. Tanks get blown to hell! He searched the faces, saw some with helmets low, staring into the mud, some looking back up the hill, some with rifles aimed. The tanks came with hard rumbles, the squeaking of steel, and the big guns fired, a steady thumping rhythm into the hill. He thought of the bodies, could see them, splayed out, filthy green heaps, but the tankers aimed high, were blasting the crest, and now a hand jerked his shoulder, sharp words.
“Let’s go!”
He rose up with the others, the Japanese opening up again from hidden machine guns, the firing from the tanks continuing, their own machine guns answering. The Marines flowed back away from the hill, into the undulating ground, thick deep mud, some men seeking cover around the tanks, but the tanks did not stay, were already in motion, pulling away, their machine guns continuing to fire, offering cover to the retreating Marines. Adams scrambled to keep up, searing pain in his chest, legs bogging down in the mud, saw some men jumping up on the tanks, grabbing on, some sliding back off, the bouncing motion of the tanks too unsteady. He followed the men on foot, no faces now, just backs, helmets, rifles and carbines and BARs, a mad scramble away from the hill, the hill they couldn’t take.
18. ADAMS
NORTHEAST OF NAHA, OKINAWA
MAY 11, 1945
The brief respite from the rains had ended, a new storm washing over them with a fury that felt like the clouds were making up for lost time. The winds were blustery, sweeping away the shelter halves, no kind of cover for the muddy holes strong enough to keep the storm off the men who kept low in their foxholes. From hills and hidden places in what seemed every direction, the Japanese continued to choose their targets, anyone leaving his hole likely to draw attention from a dozen machine guns, a hail of rifle fire. And so the men stayed put. They were getting used to the oily water, but only because they had no choice.
In the foxholes themselves, the misery of the mud was made worse for another more personal reason. Those, like Adams, whose guts were twisted into sickening turmoil, had no place to go to relieve themselves, no latrine, no slit trench. But their pants came down, brief seconds of embarrassing hell, the new stink adding to the mud and water in the only place they could stay, the only place there was cover from the Japanese guns, the only kind of comfort there could be.
The stink had come from other sources as