The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [59]
Company E’s trek began, ironically, with a party. At Nepeana, the natives danced and sang and lavished them with rice, yams, and paw-paws. The day after, reality set in with pelting monsoonal downpours that drenched the soldiers to the bone and turned the trail into a river of mud and clay.
Lutjens described what would become an ordinary day:
We’d start at six in the morning by cooking rice, or trying to. Two guys would work together. If they could start a fire, which was hard because the wood was wet even when you cut deep into the center of a log, they’d mix a little bully beef (canned mutton) in a canteen cup with rice, to get the starchy taste out of it. Sometimes we’d take turns blowing on sparks, trying to start a fire, and keep it up for two hours without success. I could hardly describe the country. It would take five or six hours to go a mile, edging along cliff walls, hanging on to vines, up and down, up and down. The men got weaker; guys began to lag back. It would rain from three in the afternoon on, soaking through everything. The rivers we crossed were so swift that if you slipped it was just too bad. It was every man for himself. No one waited for anyone else, unless he was hurt. An officer stayed at the end of the column to keep driving the stragglers. There wasn’t any way of evacuating to the rear. Men with sprained ankles hobbled along…. If they hadn’t made it, they’d have died.
The engineers did their best to remove roots, deadfall, and large rocks from the trail. At river crossings, they toppled trees that could reach the far bank. At steep ascents and descents and along treacherous cliffs, they sometimes erected handrails.
On the way to Strinimu, the men of Company E, like Medendorp’s men, began to jettison equipment they considered extraneous. After all, what need would they have for a gas mask or a razor or a mess kit? The guys got together in groups of three; one kept a spoon, another a knife, another a fork. Later, they would share the utensils. One guy would dip into a can of beans, take the biggest bite he could, and pass on the spoon.
As they approached the mountains, Lutjens watched as men discarded equipment regardless of its utility. They threw out blankets, raincoats, mosquito nets, and extra underwear. They cut their pants off just below the knees and their shirts at the shoulders. They sliced off the extra leather at the top of their boots. Some ripped the buttons from their shirts. They kept their toothbrushes, though; they needed something to clean their rifles.
The waste delighted the native carriers, many of whom brought along nothing more than tobacco, a machete, and a string bag. The practice of platoon leaders like Lutjens was to stop every hour for a ten-minute rest. While the men rested, the carriers set down their loads and backtracked, scavenging everything they could fit in their bags.
When Company E finally reached Laruni, the rain came down in waves. Lutjens was huddled under a shelter half with his best friend, Staff Sergeant Peeper, and Sergeant John Fredericks. All were wet and caked with mud. Their bodies ached, but they were too hungry and exhausted to sleep. What they did was to talk about food. Back home on the farm in Michigan, Fredericks had been a great eater, so Lutjens and Peeper deferred to him.
Fredericks did not disappoint them. He talked about sprawling farm breakfasts and heaping suppers, and about canning apples. When Lutjens and Peeper joined in they discussed Christmas dinners and swore that if they made it out of New Guinea and back home alive that they would devote their lives to the joyous pursuit of food and eating. In other shelter halves, men were discussing the same thing. The subject of women never came up, at least not in a sexual way. When they talked about women, they fondly remembered the smells of their mothers