The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [148]
“Three days.”
Adams stared at the well-spoken man, saw age, a glimmer of seriousness he had seen before. He moved closer, squatted, said in a whisper, “You’re an officer.”
The man stared at him, shook his head slowly.
“Nope. Not anymore. Lost my whole damn company. My bars went with ’em. They followed me up here, and I got every man killed. Some of ’em got hauled off somewhere, an aid station maybe, but pretty sure they didn’t make it. Mortars caught most of us. Too much blood, too many heads half blown off. I didn’t get a scratch. I assumed somebody’s trying to tell me something. So, I thought I’d better listen. I lead men, they die. So no more of that. I’m stuck up here with these two boys, and I assume somebody put me here for one reason, to fight. No more fancy uniforms.” He looked at Welty, and Adams saw the dead calm in the man’s eyes, a deep hint of madness. “So, how about you?”
Welty shook his head, said only, “Private.”
“Well, Private, welcome to our corner of the war. I’m guessing somebody sent you down here to check on us. Fine by me. You’re in command. We heard your boys coming up on those rocks out there. Can’t say it’s a very good place to be, once the rain starts. There’s a few more of us down farther, deep ground, like this. Caves everywhere, Japs inside, waiting for dark. I hope you’ve got a hell of a lot more grenades than what you gave us. The rain oughta start any time now.”
Adams was baffled, glanced skyward, the darkness sifting over them, but the air was clear, no rain at all. He heard a sound, far up on the crest, a low voice, scuffing on the rocks. He put a hand against Welty’s arm, the redhead looking that way as well. The three men didn’t look up at all, slid back farther into their muddy grotto, pulling the thirty with them. The man they called Zeke said, “Half a box. All we got left.”
The officer shrugged, said to Welty, “We’ll hold out here as best we can. We can keep the infiltrators away for a little while. But once the rain starts, we’re probably finished. You will be too, unless you get the hell out of here. The entire Japanese army knows we’re here.”
The sounds above them were increasing, low voices, and Adams heard the dull thump, familiar, a grenade jammed on a helmet. There was another, more thumps on the rocks. Welty grabbed his arm, yanked him hard through the stinking mud, pulling him back into the deepest part of the hidden hole. The grenades came down now, tumbling, bouncing, one landing close to the corpses. They ignited in a scattering of blasts, and Adams pulled his knees up tight, the M-1 against his gut, the blasts blowing mud and dust into him, the ringing of shrapnel on the rocks around him. Above the position, the Japanese could be heard clearly, shouting out, single taunting words, names.
“John! Joe! Hey Doc!”
Another wave of grenades tumbled down, some farther away, the hillside erupting in bursts of fire, more mud and shrapnel, one of the gunners close to him grunting, a hard groan. Adams wanted to move, to help the man, but the grenades did not stop, continued to bounce and thump on the rocks out past the entrance to the odd hiding place. Adams held his knees as tightly as he could, his helmet tilted down toward the worst of the blasts, heard the sudden eruption from the thirty, the gunner firing a brief burst into nothing, a streak of red reaching far out into the dim light, the gun silent now.
“Come on down, you yellow bastards!”
“Time for me to go, boys.”
The words came from the officer, and in the last glimpse of daylight Adams saw the man crawling forward with his carbine, wanted to shout at the man to keep back. The grenades came down farther away again, a carpet of blasts to the right, one sharp scream, a man crying out. The officer seemed oblivious, moved out beside the mangled corpses, leaned down, pulled the ripped ponchos over one man’s body, straightening the legs. He stood now, climbed up from the low hole, stepped out onto the rocks. Adams stared in horror, no one saying anything, the officer a clear shadow, silhouetted by the