The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [58]
Nearby, Ferucci shouted, “Lieutenant! We got company!”
The plane rolled its wings slightly, the pilot maneuvering, seeking a clear strip of undamaged runway, the plane dropping quickly. Adams watched with raw amazement, thought, hell of a good pilot. Something’s gotta be wrong with him.
The plane made a last bank, a steep turn, putting down onto a narrow strip that led close to the Marines, and they all saw it, the last bit of sunlight reflecting off the plane’s wings, and now the fuselage, the bright red circle. Welty shouted into Adams’s ear.
“Holy Jesus! That’s a Jap!”
Across the field other men had identified the plane already, a swarm of Marines crouched low in a line of fire. The plane slipped its way past the shell holes, moved closer to the buildings at the end of the field, the engine shut off, the prop jerking to a stop. All across the field the rifles and machine guns were aimed, a curtain of silence over the bizarre scene. In short seconds the cockpit slid open, a single man emerging, adjusting his cloth helmet, slipping a parachute off his arms, swinging his legs out onto the wings, dropping down to the ground with a soft thump. He looked around, began to walk toward the first building, then suddenly stopped, turned with a jerk of his head, scanning the field. He seemed to understand now, crouched low, reached for a pistol at his belt. The shots came from close in front of him, and farther across the field, a chattering of fire that crumpled the man where he stood. Close to Adams, one man had fired an entire clip, shouted now, was up and out of his foxhole, running toward the silent plane. It was Yablonski.
“Got him! By God, I got him!”
Ferucci pursued him, others as well, a mass of men moving out from their positions. Adams was drawn with them, Welty following, a quick dash across to the plane. Officers were there now, calling the men back, one older man stepping forward, kneeling at the body.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
The officer stood, moved to the plane, said aloud, “Well, we didn’t shoot it down, but I’d say you boys nailed your first Jap Zero.”
Lieutenant Porter moved out close to the older man, said, “Sir, what the hell was he doing?”
The older officer glanced at Porter, and he shrugged, laughed, looked out to the sea of faces who gathered in a tight circle around the plane and its desperately unfortunate pilot.
“Lieutenant, it’s happened in every army that’s ever fought. There’s always some poor bastard who doesn’t get the word.”
They had tried to sleep, Adams unnerved by the intermittent rattling from distant machine gun fire, the occasional thump of artillery. But sleep did come, both men in their foxhole finally unwinding from the amphibious landing. Welty had been fidgety, and just before dawn, when the low growling call came from Ferucci, Adams was jolted awake to see Welty digging through his own backpack, as though he had not slept at all.
Their breakfasts had been quick and awful, the K rations a poor substitute for the relative luxury of the chow on board the transport ship. As Adams checked his M-1, the routine from the training, Welty had gone out to fill the canteens. Ferucci had called them up out of the foxholes with a sharp curse, and there had been no time for anything but a brief latrine call, men lining up impatiently at a shallow slit trench. The slower men had to handle nature’s call out on the march.
They moved out at the first hint of daylight, the various companies flowing northward on the network of roads that led through the smaller villages and farmlands, every piece of ground offering some kind of cover that could disguise a Japanese machine gun nest. The navy recon planes had provided information on a scattering of Japanese positions, the carrier pilots spotting gun emplacements in the hills, most of them tucked into hiding places that no one might find until the guns had done their job. The experienced pilots had come to expect what they saw now, that the Japanese had positioned the