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By Root 1343 0

perfect excuse of every Marine who toiled in some godforsaken jungle, or on some atoll that no one could find on a map. Mail was chancy at best, letters requiring long weeks to reach their destination, if they arrived at all. For months Clay kept silent from his own family, ashamed that he had failed to do what his brother had done, to fight the good fight, to earn his stripes. Certainly there would be the secrets the paratrooper would never share with his mother, the stark horror of all that he had seen, how many of the enemy he had killed, how many friends were lost. If there was a hot spear in Clay’s back, driving him out beyond his recuperation and his soft bed, it was that. He wanted to be that kind of warrior, sharing those stories with his brother, comparing the different enemies, the fears and miseries and triumphs, a link the two of them could have for the rest of their lives. He knew that their shared respect would be a perfect shield against the fury of their father, and give solace to the woman who only wanted her sons to survive, to return, to be her pride in a home where pride had long disappeared.

When word came of the formation of the Sixth Division, Clay had pulled every string a private can pull, had begged and cajoled, made ridiculous speeches to indifferent officers. The process took agonizing months, and then word had come of something new and strange and wonderful. Somewhere in some white office in Washington, the decision had been made to allow women into the Marine Corps. Soon they had begun to arrive in San Diego, their duty freeing those men who agonized to join or rejoin combat units. When the first women arrived at his own post, Adams felt the giddy excitement that finally, he would go back out there. Once he had his orders in hand, all those newsreels and casualty counts were forgotten, all the sights and sounds and smells from the hospital put aside. Finally Clay Adams would hold the steel in his hands, and this time he would face the enemy.

OFFSHORE, ULITHI ATOLL, CAROLINE ISLANDS

MARCH 27, 1945

“Anybody know where the hell we’re going?”

“Shut up. The captain’s on his way.”

The talk continued, different fragments of scuttlebutt from the men blending together into utter confusion. Sergeant Ferucci lay in his own bunk, said nothing, doing what the other sergeants were doing, letting the men blow off steam, the crowded compartment thick with the stink of cigarettes and socks. Adams had been shooting craps in one corner of the cramped space behind one of the hammocklike bunks, but the dice had not been friendly, and he moved away, left three other men to their game. Above him a cloud of cigarette smoke hovered over the bunk of Jack Welty, another of the newly arrived veterans.

“They strip you clean, Clay?”

“A couple bucks. Not really in the mood. You got anything to read?”

“Nothing I wanna share with you.”

Adams enjoyed Welty’s Virginia drawl, the young man barely nineteen. He knew that Welty’s family had money, but Welty seemed embarrassed by that, seemed to resent the lavish care packages of odd food and clothing, most of it completely inappropriate for a Marine. The greatest laugh had come at Welty’s expense only a month before, a large box addressed to Welty that had been his family’s obvious attempt to help him fit in with his comrades. It had been a case of beef stew, small cans not much different from the prime ingredient in their K rations. After the humiliating howls from the others had subsided, the stew disappeared. Adams had a strong suspicion that Welty had tossed it overboard.

Welty sat up, let his feet dangle just above Adams’s head. All around them men were sitting with their backs against the steel bulkheads, or sleeping fitfully in tiny bunks, trying to ignore the chorus of conversation, most of it wild speculation of their next port of call. Across from Adams, another man lay against a gap between the bunks, his helmet liner low over his eyes, and said in another soft drawl, “Tokyo Bay. Heard a sailor saying something about minefields there.”

The responses came