groaning and sometimes even screaming, bellowing like a big wounded animal. He was too weakened, too pain- racked, to help shoot or even reload. His legs were shot up real bad, way beyond anything we could do for him with the combat dressings in our first-aid pouches.
“That’s all she wrote for the BAR,” Barney said, lowering the big weapon.
“Watkins carries an extra fifty rounds on his belt,” I said. “Want me to crawl over and get it for you?”
Barney shook his head. “I’ll go. You’re weak with malaria; you wouldn’t be on your feet if you weren’t leanin’ on that log.”
I didn’t argue with him; he had a point-you could’ve fried an egg on my forehead. You could’ve fried a powdered egg on my forehead.
Barney continued: “Anyway, I want to stay over there awhile, and lay down some fire-let’s make the Jap bastards believe they got a whole crowd of healthy Marines on their hands.”
“Why not. Get Fremont’s extra rifle ammo, too, while you’re at it. I’ll lay some cover down for you.”
I fired the M-1 over the log, emptying the rifle rapidly, then switching to another of the M-1s, to keep a steady barrage going while Barney crawled on his belly up and out of our hole and over to the one next door.
Then his BAR opened up, and damn near convinced me there
I kept switching guns
At some point, Christ knows when exactly, two soldiers-two young-looking, scared-shitless Army boys-came out of nowhere, crawling on their bellies and dropping into the hole. They were both wounded in the legs, and one in his side as well; they were sobbing with pain. They didn’t have their rifles.
“Who the fuck are you?” I said, with all due sympathy, switching rifles again.
“We…we got detached from our infantry regiment,” the less wounded one said. “We’re lost.”
“Join the club,” I said. I fired off two rounds, looked back. D’Angelo was unconscious again. “You boys’ll have to reload for me.”
“Yes, sir.” They were panting, but no longer sobbing. They reloaded for me.
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ My name’s Heller.”
They told me theirs, but I don’t remember them.
Barney’s BAR firing let up, about then. Soon he had crawled over and dropped down in with us, eyes going wide when he saw our two new tenants.
“The Army’s here to start that mopping-up operation you been hearing about,” I said. “They’re just a little early.”
Barney looked the boys’ wounds over; applied a combat dressing to the wound in the one boy’s side.
“What’s the story?” I asked, no enemy fire coming our way at the moment.
Barney looked up from his medic duty and said, “Watkins said you and me should get the hell out of here- while we still got our legs to do it with, he said. Said they were trapped, couldn’t hope to get out alive, but maybe we could.”
“What’d you say to that?”
“I told him he was full of shit as a Christmas turkey. I told him we were sticking around, and not to give up. Help’ll come.”
“You really believe that?”
“Sure. Robbins was only a half hour ahead of us; the skipper knows by now we must’ve run into trouble. They’ll come for us.”
“I take it you’re out of BAR ammo.”
“Yup. But I got the extra rifle ammo. That’ll help.”
“What about grenades?”
“We’ll have to go back for those, if we need ’em. Couldn’t carry ’em in one trip.”
“We’ll be out of ammo before you know it, Barney.”
“Maybe they’re gone, those lousy Jap bastards. There hasn’t been a round fired in three or four minutes.”
I lit up a smoke. My mouth and throat were dry, my eyes were burning with the malaria and my head was pounding; a smoke was the worst thing in the world for me right now. But it was something to do. Which reminded me: “How’s our water situation?”
He was finished with the dressing, now. He took his position down from me against the fallen log and looked at me glumly and said, “Not good. We had a bad break-both Watkins and Fremont’s canteens got stitched by that machine-gun fire.”
“Monawk’s, too,” I said. “I already checked.”
The two Army boys did have canteens, and so did Barney and me, and D’Angelo. But the wounded men were going through the water fast. I craved it, or anyway my malaria craved it, but the poor shot-up bastards needed it worse.
Twilight.
The machine-gun and rifle fire had let up long enough, now, for the jungle to come back alive, birds cackling, land crabs skittering. Maybe the Japs were gone. Maybe we’d worn ’em down with the 350 or so rounds of ammunition we’d hurled their way.
The wounded men were sleeping, or in comas, who could say, and I began to think maybe we might just be able to last, just hide here, tucked away, and the American troops, Marines, Army, I didn’t care if it was the fucking Coast Guard, would stumble across us, as the front moved forward.
Then machine-gun fire ripped open the night, whittling at the fallen tree, carving Jap initials in it, some bullets ricocheting wildly off the log, hitting my helmet, Barney’s too, putting puckers in our tin hats. We ducked down.
“That fucker’s close!” I said. Bullets flew over us, popping, snapping; tracers bounced off the log and rolled into our hole, sizzling like tiny white-hot rivets. It woke Monawk up with a scream, which dissolved into groaning.
“He’s too damned close to keep missing,” Barney said, over the gunfire and Monawk, “that’s for sure.”
“Hit the fucker with a grenade!”
“I can’t stand up to do it! He’d riddle me to pieces.”
I wasn’t in the running for this event, standing or otherwise; the fever had weakened me too much. It had to be Barney. I mustered a pep talk: “You’re a world’s champ, you little schmuck; just throw ’em from where you are- body punches! Do it, man!”
Face bunched up like a bulldog’s, he pulled three grenades off his belt and, one at a time, pulled the pin with his teeth and hurled. Each one in a slightly different direction.
He did it so quickly there seemed to be only one explosion.
And one high-pitched scream of terror.
And then Barney was standing up, bracing his rifle against the log, firing and screaming, “Got you, you dirty fuckin’ bastard!”
Such profanity was rare from Barney, but he was right: he
We started in firing again, and within fifteen minutes were running out of ammo. Soon we’d be down to the.45 automatics on our hips.
“One clip left,” I said. Eight rounds.
“Cover me while I go over and get the rest of the grenades.”
I used my eight rounds sparingly, but they were gone before Barney was back. D’Angelo, groggy but willing, was suddenly at my side, handing me a.45.
“It’s Monawk’s,” the kid said. “He won’t mind.”
Monawk was out of it again.
By the time I’d emptied the.45, Barney had scrambled back in, dropping handfuls of grenades like deadly eggs into a basket.
