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By Root 1356 0

a thicket of brush, stiff and thorny, scraping his legs. To both sides the men ran with him, Gorman moving close to Gridley, Yablonski beside them, Ferucci’s squad mostly together. There was sweat on every face, grim purpose, some ignoring the order to keep their distance. All around him the wave of green pressed forward, the only sound the boots on rock, hard breathing, and the crunch of the brush. The dirt was reeking of the stink of explosives, craters and blasted rock, smoke from small fires, shattered trees still smoldering, wisps of smoke coming from low places. He tried to keep his eye on Porter, was uncertain where he was, no insignia on the man’s green jacket, all the men anonymous, running as one, scrambling, stumbling through the rocky field. Then a hand went up, familiar. The men responded, settled low, Adams down to his knees, jagged rocks, dirt and brush, more good cover. He rolled to one side, the weight from the ammo belts pulling him down, and he put his rifle at his shoulder, glanced across the rocks, saw men dropping low all around him, rifles ready, no one talking. Porter watched them come, still motioning to the slower men: Down.

Adams’s mind searched for sounds, the fear sharpening his senses. What the hell is happening? Where the hell are the Japs? His heartbeat was heavy in his ears, his breaths coming in short, hard gasps. He heard a whisper of breeze, smoke drifting past, and now a new sound, low at first, then coming fast, louder, a high-pitched screaming roar. The terrifying sounds became engines, and he saw the blue Corsair, then another, the planes racing low over the beach. Just as quickly they were gone, up and over the hills. From the rocks around him, men called out, cheers, but Porter shouted them down.

“Shut up! Do your job!”

Adams stared up at the puffs of white clouds, felt lost, confused, grateful for Porter, for anyone who knew what was going on. He had heard too many horror stories, men crossing beaches, ripped to bits before they reached any cover at all. What he hadn’t heard from the veterans he had imagined, and none of the fantasies was pleasant. No matter how he tried to fight that, the images were there, driven into him by the bloody bandages and missing limbs of the men he had seen in the hospital. Some never made it out of the water, some had been wounded while still in their landing craft. But we didn’t get it at all, he thought. They let us alone, gave us the beach. Did the officers expect that? The navy guns … all that bombing. It worked? So what do we do now?

The whining roar of the engines came again, three more Corsairs, the blue gull-winged planes flying along the beach, higher, wings dipping, the planes turning, going inland, like the others. He could see the bombs beneath their wings, felt a jab of excitement, yes! That’s why there are no Japs. What the navy’s guns didn’t get, the carrier planes have blasted all to hell! Only thing that makes sense.

The quiet returned, low talk from some of the men around him huddled in their rugged cover. For now there were only the soft sounds of the beach, a distant calling of birds, and beyond that, silence.

Silence.

HANZA VILLAGE, OKINAWA

APRIL 1, 1945, 11 A.M.

They were walking, two rows of men in the shallow ditches that lined a narrow gravelly road. Adams kept his eyes on the low patches of brush speckled across wide rocky fields, taller hills beyond, rocks and trees. There were more roads that led away, intersections that led into a row of stone huts, straw roofs, some with sheets of tin. Marines were everywhere, more of the landing force moving inland along other roads, into the small villages near the beach. Porter’s men moved in silence, each man holding tight to his weapon, waiting for … something. Behind them Adams could hear the sounds of engines on the beach, the great invasion continuing, amphtracs and floating tanks driving up onto the narrow shoreline, the larger LSTs unloading their men and machinery all along the landing zone. The tanks were already there, and he knew from the briefings that the engineers