The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [98]
Back at the Triangle, Stutterin’ Smith’s companies began to move out.
Lieutenant Odell recalls some of the details of that night, “…We each grasped the shoulder of the man in front, and slowly shuffled forward in the pitch black of night. Our only guide was the telephone wire leading to the jump-off point, and the troops in the foxholes along the way who had been holding the ground recently captured. There was no trail and consequently several hours were required to travel as many hundreds of yards. We all had bayonets. Rifle fire was forbidden until after the attack was well under way. Japs encountered along the way were to be dealt with silently.”
When a Japanese plane flew over low and dropped flares, the men froze. They hugged trees or pressed their bellies into the mud.
The attack was scheduled to kick off at midnight, but it became apparent to Smith that because of the terrain his troops would never be in position in time. In some places the jungle was so dense that they were forced to crawl on their hands and knees, pushing like wild pigs through a tangle of vines, creepers, and bushes. When they came to a swamp too deep to wade, some men laid down a log. Hundreds of soldiers had to use that one log, and it took hours for all of them to cross.
Following Gus Bailey, the men of Company G shoved clips into their rifles and sneaked toward the track that led to Buna Village, their movements drowned out by the din of crickets and croaking frogs. Once they arrived at the jump-off spot, the men lay down in the kunai grass. Jastrzembski could feel the dew. He was close enough to hear the Japanese talking, the cadence of their conversations.
The Japanese did not know where G Company was, but they knew something was up. They were firing over the Americans’ heads. Every fifth bullet was a bluish-white tracer. It looked to Carl Stenberg as if a long, brightly lit clothesline had been strung across the kunai field. It seemed unreal and for a few minutes he wondered if what he saw was really happening.
Pieces of his life flashed by. At the age of five, he had been bitten by a dog. The bite was bearable, but it was the pain of the rabies shots that made him cringe all over again. He remembered the time his brother threw him from a boat to teach him to swim, the sickening feeling of swallowing lake water as he sank. He remembered setting fishing nets on Lake Michigan late into the season; the way his wife Frances walked; the little apartment she rented with his sister; how she had “proposed” to him in November ’41 when he was home on leave from Camp Livingston. Frances had been keen to marry; Stenberg resisted. It was not that he did not love Frances—he had no doubt that she was the one. But with war imminent, he did not want to leave her behind to mourn a dead husband.
Now, he could not get Frances out of his head. What was she doing? Did she miss him as much as he missed her? Was she thinking about him? The thought that he might never see her again scared him. It had been just days before that he had seen his first dead man. Walking back to an aid station, he had seen a guy leaning against a tree. He was not moving, and did not seem to be breathing. Stenberg lifted up his chin and saw the handiwork of a Japanese sniper. The man had been shot through the mouth. The bullet had exited at the back of his head.
Back home, Frances was working seven days a week at Continental Motors. On the night of their anniversary she went out for a beer with one of the other army wives. “To my anniversary,” she thought when she raised the glass to her lips. It was a small gesture, but it was important to her to observe the day. The truth was, her anniversary was no different from every other day. She would go home tired and write a letter to Carl and feel lonely.
To Stenberg’s right, Stanley Jastrzembski tried not to make a sound. Hours before, weakened by malaria, he had wondered if he would be able to walk, much less fight. Now his body was alive with fear. The pounding of his heart sounded to him like the hammer of a Juki machine