With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [128]
The battle against Awacha raged on to our left. We dug in for the night in the wet ground. Our mortars weren't set up. We were to act as riflemen and to keep watch across an open, sloping valley. Above us the other two mortar squads dug in in two parallel lines about twenty feet apart and perpendicular to the line of the crest of the embankment above us. Water and rations were issued and mail brought to us.
Mail usually was a big morale booster, but not for me that time. There was a chilly drizzling rain off and on. We were weary and my spirits weren't the best. I sat on my helmet in the mud and read a letter from my parents. It brought news that Deacon, my beloved spaniel, had been hit by an automobile, had dragged himself home, and had died in my father's arms. He had been my constant companion during the several years before I had left home for college. There, with the sound of heavy firing up ahead and the sufferings and deaths of thousands of men going on nearby, big tears rolled down my cheeks, because Deacon was dead.
During the remainder of the night, the sound of firing toward Dakeshi Ridge indicated that the 7th Marines were having a lot of trouble trying to push the Japanese off the ridge. Just before dawn we could hear heavy firing off to our left front where ⅕ and ⅖ were fighting around the Awacha Pocket.
“Stand by, you guys, and be prepared to move out,” came the order from an NCO on the embankment above us.
“What's the hot dope?” a mortarman asked.
“Don't know, except the Nips are counterattacking on the 5th Marines’ front and the battalion [⅗] is on standby to go up and help stop 'em.”
We greeted the news with an understandable lack of enthusiasm. We were still tired and tense from the punishment the battalion took at Awacha the day before. What's more, we didn't relish moving anywhere in the darkness. But we squared away our gear, chewing gum nervously or gnawing on ration biscuits. The sound of firing rose and fell to our left front as we waited and wondered.
Finally, during the misty gray light of early morning, the order came, “OK, you guys, let's go.” We picked up our loads and moved toward the front lines.
Other than occasional shells whining over in both directions, things were rather calm. Our column moved along a ridge just below the crest to the emplacements of the Marines who had been under attack. We found them assessing the damage they had done to the Japanese and caring for their own wounded. Some of the men told us the enemy had come into bayonet range before being repulsed. “But we tore their ass up, by God,” one man said to me as he pointed out at about forty Japanese corpses sprawled beyond the Marine foxholes.
In the pale dawn, the air was misty and still smoky from phosphorous shells the enemy had fired to hide their approach. There was a big discussion in the ranks. Comments passed along to us from the Marines in place had it that somebody had seen a woman advancing with the attacking Japanese and that she was probably among the dead out there. We couldn't see her from our positions.
Then word came, “About face; we're moving back.” In short, our help wasn't needed, so we were to be deployed somewhere else. Back through the rain and the mud we went.
All movements during most of May and early June were physically exhausting and utterly exasperating because of the mud. Typically, we moved in single file, five paces apart, slipping and sliding up and down muddy slopes and through boggy fields. When the column slowed or stopped, we tended to bunch up, and the NCOs and officers ordered sternly, “Keep your five-pace interval; don't bunch up.” The everpres-ent