The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [138]
For a long minute he kept his stare out to the open ground, watched those men slogging forward, pushing past plumes of mud and fire, the impact of mortar and artillery fire. He had no idea who they were, who their officers might be, Bennett not telling him any more than he needed to know. They continued to come, emerging out of each blast of smoke, but some were chopped down in the mud, the wounded still moving, some crawling, the sound of their agony erased by the steady roar of the shelling. He couldn’t look away, the surge of men pushing to the edge of the hill, another part of the battalion moving up into the ragged crags. As they climbed, many were hidden by the same gaps and slices in the coral that had protected him, and he knew they were filling every space, slipping into holes and muddy hollows, sliding in behind rocks. Some men were better at hiding than others, and he was helpless to change that, saw boots dangling out from rocky perches, drawing the fire of the sharpshooters and Nambu guns. A mortar shell came down close now, just below him, jarring impact into a thick brushy hole. He was knocked back, hit the rock behind him hard, knocking his breath away, gasped for air, curled up tightly, angry at himself. No time for sightseeing. From the brush below there were screams, then another blast, straight into the same hole, the screams gone. His breath came back, and he struggled to lean forward, nothing to see, the hole just a rolling cloud of dust and smoke. Too many of his men had already tumbled off the hill, victims of the grenades, the mortar fire, some picked off by Japanese sharpshooters, a weapon that seemed to him more dangerous than any other. The single crack and ping had come past him several times, aimed somewhere below, and once he had reached the muddy bowl, so close to the tall rocks, he felt safe from that. But the men hidden down below were completely vulnerable, and the careless man who peered up would probably never hear the well-aimed round that struck the helmet, the helmet that was supposed to protect them. The snipers scared him more than the mortar rounds, something he had learned from the fights he had gone through before. The training had drilled that into him, of course, that any officer who revealed his identity by the careless slip of a show of authority could be the first man to die. They died on Guam, he thought. They’re dying here. The stupid go first. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
He sat back against the rock, no way to keep his legs out of the stinking black mire, pulled the carbine to his chest, thoughts racing through his brain, what he should do, what orders to give. He had felt this kind of fear before, knew it was never acceptable, that he had to find the iron inside of him, make the move, put himself out there, do whatever it took to draw the rest of the men farther up the hill. Dammit, it’s time to be … what? In charge? Those boys are waiting for me, and no matter how many of them are left, they can’t do this on their own. Some will try, some have already tried, the brave and the stupid, no idea how deadly the Jap fire can be. Some of those are the replacements, believing the ridiculous propaganda that the Japs are half blind and subhuman, that all we have to do is shoot at them and the battle is won. No, they need someone to show them just what the hell we’re doing up here.