The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [177]
The cave that Yahara had secured for the new headquarters faced away from the enemy advance, with its primary entrance on a spectacular promontory that offered Ushijima a serene view of the wide-open ocean to the south. The hill overhead was yet another lush tropical landscape, the slopes bathed in sago palms and low pines, coral and rock chiseled by millennia of tropical storms. From the main entrance Ushijima could view the flat sugarcane fields to the west, a panorama of the small villages that dotted the coast. Though the cave was a poor comparison to the relative luxury at Shuri, Ushijima knew that Colonel Yahara had done his job, had located the most suitable place available, and there would be no complaints, not even from General Cho. But the serenity was short-lived, and already the Americans had disturbed the beauty of the ocean with their warships, and very soon the ground across the peninsula where his troops found new shelter was tormented by the ongoing assault of the American navy’s enormous guns. With the dryer weather, the planes came as well, daylong bombing attacks, strafing from the fighter planes, no safe place for his men to be, except the dark stinking holes in the ground. The fight to the north and east of his hill was going as badly as he had expected, the American army divisions there delayed only awhile by the valiant spirit of those few men he could place on the line. That spirit was no match for tanks, and from their caves the Japanese troops could not hold back the relentless push by American troops who knew that the end of this great fight was drawing closer every day. In a few short days after the retreat from Shuri had been completed, the lush hills around his own headquarters had become targets. The Japanese withdrawal had put his troops in a more compact defensive position, making them an easier target for the overwhelming American wave. There was no sanctuary at all, not even for Ushijima and his staff, the rumbles filling the caves, artillery and bombs already blowing away the vegetation, the hillsides above and around him churned up and denuded of anything green. The tropical paradise had been replaced now by the rotting corpses of his own men, too many for anyone to retrieve, too many for the meager memorial he knew they deserved. There was simply nowhere else to put them, and so they would be left where they fell. Each night now, instead of retrieving bodies, the patrols had one primary mission. The caves above Mabuni had no drinkable water at all, so patrols had to be sent down to the farmland for fresh water and anything edible, mostly sugarcane and sweet potatoes. Ushijima’s staff had been reduced to eating filthy balls of rice, the barest minimum to maintain their stamina, and the vegetables had been welcomed as a rare luxury. Even Ushijima had been forced to limit his own meals to the same fare his men relished, along with a few remaining cans of pineapple. But there was no illusion that his soldiers were enjoying even that much luxury. Along the front, food was usually nonexistent, some men scavenging any way they could. That might include stripping the bodies of dead Americans for the precious K rations