The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [127]
Out front, his feet raw and swollen, Boice ran, ducked, and crawled, trying to keep his men moving over the bridge.
“Move boys, keep on going!” he yelled. It wasn’t any use, though; they were pinned down.
Boice ordered the men to retreat. In a large patch of kunai grass, some found cover while others pawed at the ground, carving out shallow foxholes. DiMaggio flopped down on his belly in the grass, thinking that he had just survived another close call. At Bottcher’s Corner, after one Japanese attack, he realized that a bullet had come close enough to knock the bayonet off his rifle. During another battle, a rifle grenade had landed and exploded a foot from his head, and he was not even scratched.
Just then a Japanese soldier on the other side of the river fired a rifle grenade, and shrapnel flew everywhere. DiMaggio felt hot metal stick into the side of his face and embed itself in his jawbone. Minutes later, an aidman was at his side. Unable to extract the shrapnel, he bandaged DiMaggio’s face and asked if he could walk back to the portable hospital. DiMaggio said he could.
A hundred yards back, a doctor informed DiMaggio that the piece of metal would be his ticket out of New Guinea.
Carl Stenberg had been even closer to the explosion than DiMaggio, and was thrown ten feet through the air when the grenade blew. When he landed, he felt for his limbs. They were all there. But his ear rang like a siren; he had ruptured his left eardrum.
Stanley Jastrzembski was sitting in his foxhole burning up with malaria. He had felt the explosion, but was far enough away from it that he was safe. Like everyone else, his nerves were frayed. “Damn jungle,” he thought. “A guy can hardly see two feet in front of his face even in the daylight.” Suddenly he felt someone jump next to him. “A Jap,” he thought. “I’m a goner now.” He whipped around to defend himself and then he heard an American voice.
“Hey, it’s me Chet.”
It was not unusual for Jastrzembski and Sokoloski to be together. They had gone to St. Michaels and later they enlisted in the Guard together. “A pair of Poles,” they used to joke. But Sokoloski was supposed to be twenty yards away in his own foxhole.
“What the hell you doing over here? I thought you was a Jap. I almost shot you.”
“I just saw some Japs,” Sokoloski replied.
“So,” Jastrzembski said. “Get back there and shoot them. That’s why we’re here, ain’t we?”
“Sure as shit,” Sokoloski thought. “I better get back.”
“Keep your head down, you stupid Pole,” Jastrzembski said to the shadow at the edge of his foxhole.
As soon as Sokoloski left, Jastrzembski felt alone and scared. It would have been nice to have someone with him. They could have said a prayer in Polish. They could have whispered the words right there in the mud with the Japs on the other side of the creek.
“Keep your head down, you stupid Pole,” he hissed again.
An hour went by, then two. The Americans were still on the west side of the bridge. Boice knew that if they could not cross over and clear out the Triangle, the plan to take the Government Station was dead on arrival. Boice jumped up. Maybe, just maybe, they could make it over the bridge. He waved his arm and his men slipped out of the kunai and followed.
Boice might have heard the whine of the mortar shell, but there was not time to jump out of the way. The mortar landed at his feet and blew him into the air. Two of his men grabbed for him, and pulled him away from the bridge. When a medic arrived he checked Boice’s vital signs, then called for a team of litter bearers. At 9:45, on December 19, only feet from the bridge over Entrance Creek, and only two days after being pulled out of reserve, Jim Boice was killed.
For hours, Boice’s men made stabs at crossing the bridge, but by early afternoon, they were still stranded on the west side of the creek.
When Eichelberger heard the news, he ordered the mortarmen to lay down a wall of white phosphorous smoke as cover. The battalion, trailing the smoke, gained a few yards but was stopped short again. Two hours later the mortars fired another