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By Root 1543 0

blending with a sour, rotten smell, the sergeant’s blood on Adams’s boot. He spun around, aiming his rifle at the craggy rock. But he was still too close, underneath it, remembered Ferucci’s toss of the grenade, tried to reach a clumsy hand into his baggy pocket. But there was movement close beside him, from beyond his hiding place, and he jumped, surprised, saw a Japanese soldier, wide eyes staring into his. The man seemed not to know what to do, too close for his own weapon, too close for the M-1. A shot burst out from below Adams’s feet, a crack against the rock close to the man’s head. The man seemed confused, a brief second, the fatal pause Adams had seen before. He did as he had always done, the right hand coming hard in a flash of lightning against the man’s jaw. The man fell backward, his helmet knocked away, tumbled upright into the crack where Adams had hidden. Adams’s fists were still clenched, and he stepped toward the Japanese soldier, saw nothing in the man’s eyes, out cold. Adams relaxed the fist, reached low, pulled out the K-bar knife from its sheath, waited. He wanted the man awake, wanted him to see, to feel it, but there was no time, the rifle fire growing, coming closer, the Marines below him rising up to the narrow ledge and beyond, voices. Adams ignored them, put the knife point against the man’s throat, shoved it in hard, then made a twist, a slice, now jammed the knife harder, severing the man’s spine, his head flopping forward, down, across Adams’s chest, blood flowing out on Adams’s hand.

19. PORTER

SUGAR LOAF HILL, OKINAWA

MAY 14, 1945

The Japanese grenades rolled past him, most of them tossed from high above, beyond the crest of the hill. His own perch was a dangerous basket for any kind of projectile, a muddy bowl set back close to the rocks, hemmed in by burnt brush. He gasped for air, had reached the spot pursued by the cracking fire of a Nambu gun, somehow found the energy to climb what seemed to be a sheer cliff. His legs ached, a rip in one side of his boots, but there were no wounds, nothing to stop him from continuing the climb. But that thought had been erased quickly, the ground out to both sides wide open, flat rock, and just above him the Japanese seemed to target every open space with perfect precision. You’re not fighting a one-man war, he thought. You’ve got to get the rest of those boys up here, find a way to move higher still, silence as many of the enemy up there as we can. His breath was calming, and he glanced out, saw just below him, to one side, a crew working a thirty-caliber machine gun, firing almost straight up, the men straining to hold the gun in an awkward position so the gunner could draw some kind of bead on the enemy caves, which dotted the hillside close above. He watched them with pure admiration, knew that no one had been trained to fire a tripod-mounted piece anywhere but forward, but his admiration had been tempered by fear, the men and the precious gun constantly targeted by Japanese mortars. The blasts shook the rocks around him, the machine gunners still trying to make their weapon work, the same kind of desperation he could see from the others, some of the men in his own command, scampering from shallow cover across exposed rock where there was no cover at all. The Japanese grenades had come from no more than a few feet above him, men who probably had no idea exactly where he was. For now he had kept silent, no orders called out, no voice of authority, knew that if any Japanese soldier suspected he was an officer, someone would find a way to drop one right in his lap. He had used the carbine instead, the shots blending easily with the torrents of fire rolling up across the hill. An entire magazine had been emptied at the opening of the cave, far more from his own frustration than marksmanship. There had been hints of movement there, a brief glimpse of the barrel of the Nambu gun, but the angle was too severe, the cave facing out away from him. Even if his fire struck the rocks around the mouth of the cave, it did little to keep the Japanese