The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [61]
“Well? You see any treasure? A Jap division maybe hiding under that bamboo thing?”
Adams ignored him, knew the routine, poked his rifle into a pile of some kind of clothing, saw a small cloth sack in one corner of what seemed to be a primitive kitchen. He opened the sack with the muzzle of the M-1, saw sweet potatoes, scanned the kitchen for anything of interest, nothing but crude utensils, one copper pot.
“Nothing here.”
Welty moved quickly into the other room of the two-room house, a quick shout, “Ah! Hey! Stop! Don’t move! Sarge!”
Adams jumped toward the doorway, saw Welty pointing his M-1 downward, aimed at two old women, seated together in a corner, wedged against the crude wall by the side of a straw-covered cot. The sergeant was there quickly, pushed Adams aside.
“Well, somebody lives here. Howdy do, ladies. Sorry to bother you, but we’re supposed to be looking for Jap bastards. You got any around here?”
Adams could see stark terror on the women’s faces, one holding feeble hands up over her head, a pathetic show of self-protection, both women shaking, a mumble of words Adams thought to be a prayer. But there was more, the smell rising over him, thick and sour, and he backed away, said, “Come on, Sarge. Just old ladies.”
Ferucci shook his head.
“Phew-ee. Ain’t had a bath in a while, that’s for sure. Well, hey there, ladies, we’ll be going now. You see any Jap bastards, you be sure to let us know.” He came back past Adams, said, “Let’s go. Welty, you go tell the looey we found some Okies. Didn’t look like much of a threat to me. The aid boys will wanna check ’em out though. I’m not touching them. God knows what kind of damn tropical crud they’re carrying.”
They moved back outside, and Adams glanced skyward, the clouds low and black, the wind picking up, raising the dust from the sandy ground. Welty moved away, a short walk through the cluster of houses, to where the lieutenant waited, sitting on an arch-shaped wall of concrete. The other squads were moving among the houses, rifles aimed into windows, more doors kicked in, no one calling out, no hint of alarm. They had been doing this for two days now, each of the small villages perched near cultivated fields, the farmers only occasionally appearing, old men mostly, primitive plows, tending to rows of short green plants.
Adams could hear the sharp rumbles to the south, the first sounds of fighting on the peninsula. The sounds had been inconsistent, nothing like anyone’s idea of a pitched battle. There was mostly artillery, any rifle fire hidden by the lay of the hilly land, and now the rising winds. Adams had watched a swarm of fighter planes, twisting, banking, seeking targets along the higher hills, but even those were gone now, chased back to their ships by the change in the weather. Ferucci was beside him now, said, “Yablonski may be right. All the action’s down that way. I like the looey, but this job is stupid as hell. We ain’t gonna find any Japs hiding out in these places. They see us coming, they’re long gone.”
Adams thought of the sack of sweet potatoes, could see out past the small houses, a patch of open ground, rows of thick green plants.
“Hey, Sarge, you sure we can’t eat the crops? We could cook up some of those sweet potatoes, and I saw a bean field back a ways. If we boiled hell out of the stuff, dumped in a handful of halazone tablets, might make a good soup.”
He knew what the order had been, the captain passing word through the company that the vegetables were off-limits. But Adams had suspected it was just some protocol for being nice to the farmers. Ferucci was watching the others, turned to Adams, said, “You know what night fertilizer is?”
“Well, I hadn’t heard that before the captain said it.”
“People shit. That make it any clearer? That’s what the Okies use to fertilize these fields. You still interested?”
Adams thought a moment, had seen Indians do the same thing near his home.
“Well, if we boil the vegetables …”