The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [96]
When it wasn’t raining the heat returned, and when the heat gave way to sunset it was the insects. Several of the men had come down with dysentery, and the lieutenant had relayed word from above that malaria was showing itself as well. The Atabrine tablets were plentiful, along with salt tablets, sucrose tablets, and a variety of medical stations where the men could have every ailment treated. The pills were an easy remedy, and Adams was as curious as Porter had been why so many of the men bolted at the thought of swallowing a tiny pill that could prevent a miserable sickness, especially since doing so was an order. Welty devoured something from the cardboard box, crumbs on his face, looked again at Adams, a slight smile, and Adams said, “You’re right, dammit. I got no reason to bitch. This hasn’t been too tough, no matter what some of the others say.”
Welty began scratching again, said, “I’m sick of hearing Yablonski and those other guys bellyache about how the Fourth and the Twenty-ninth got all the fun while all we did was walk. I heard Yablonski say the looey musta been a chicken since he didn’t volunteer us to join those boys on that peninsula fight. Who the hell thinks like that? Stupid as hell. I don’t care how much they hate the Japs, taking casualties ain’t ever fun.”
Welty stopped himself, seemed to withdraw, and Adams let it go, knew that Welty wouldn’t talk about anything he had seen on those other places, the other fights. He seemed to focus more on the fleas, pulled up his shirt, deep red streaks on his belly.
“I’m telling you, Jack. Gun oil. Try it.”
“I got a better idea. We get much more rain in this foxhole, we’ll be up to our necks. That’ll drown ’em. Nothing’s been biting my ass since we’ve been sitting in this slop.”
Adams shifted himself, knew he had to rise up from the mud, that his clothes were already too wet, and with the night would come the biting chill. Shivering in the darkness was bad enough as it was, the unending fear that an infiltrator would sneak up, drop a grenade in the hole.
The veterans were still speaking in low voices about the ease of the operation so far, how most of the Japanese had been wiped out without making much of a fight. The Marines were taking casualties, of course, but nothing like the commanders had expected. That message had been clear, driven home by the number of medical crews they had seen around every command post, every makeshift field hospital. Navy corpsmen were plentiful, and when there were wounded, the corpsmen had always responded with what seemed to Adams to be a complete ignorance of the danger around them. Adams had no idea how many of the medical men were supposed to be assigned to each company or battalion, but the others talked about it with surprise, that there were far more of them now than some of the men could ever recall. As the Twenty-second pressed northward, anchoring control of the northern tip of the island, Adams had marched past a number of command posts, had seen the men with the red crosses on their helmets in clusters, playing cards or, on those rare sunny days, catching naps in the sunshine. It hadn’t taken any officer to explain what the men could see for themselves. The brass had expected those corpsmen and the medical staffs to be in action, far more action than they had seen. It was a strange and uneasy blessing, so many medical staffs with so little to do. Some of the newer men began to talk, all of that loud cheerleading about the Marines and their reputations, as though the Japanese had been so afraid they had scampered underground, to await their deaths in peaceful submission to the flamethrowers. Adams paid more attention to the veterans like Welty and the sergeant, others who had gathered on the northern tip of the island, happy to accept the victory that had been handed them. If the Japanese had decided not to defend Okinawa by rushing headlong into the Marine positions, no one was objecting.
Along the heights that led them