jagged chunks of steel, it blows off their limbs and burns their faces black.
But now the Kawaguchis were falling back again. Now the short squat shapes were springing to their feet and sprinting back into an opaque wall of darkness, jabbering once they had gained cover—for it was the chief failing of these jungle-fighters that they could not keep silent in the jungle. At two o’clock they came again behind another mortar barrage which cut wires to Vandegrift’s headquarters and the artillery.
“Marine you die!” the Japanese shrieked again, but with a notable lack of their former fervor, and the Marines, already exultant with the scent of victory, replied with strings of obscene oaths and streams of bullets, and they cut the enemy down.
At half past two in the morning of September 14 Red Mike Edson called headquarters and said:
“We can hold.”26
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BATTLES do not end suddenly, they die down.
Throughout that long dawn of September 14 the Battle of Bloody Ridge sputtered on like an expiring fuse. Before daylight General Kawaguchi launched two more attacks which came after units of Vandegrift’s reserve had groped their way into Edson’s support. But they were faltering thrusts which hardly began before Marine artillery broke them up.
At six o’clock the Army P-400s roared over the Ridge at twenty feet, spewing cannon into Kawaguchi’s assembly points with devastating effect.
Two thousand yards to the east on the Ishitari Battalion front, five Marine tanks clanked rashly past their own wire in an attempt to repeat the Tenaru slaughter. Three of them sank in the mud and were knocked out by antitank fire. Nevertheless, the Ishitaris retreated rapidly east.
On the Ridge the random pinging of sniper’s bullets still kept Marine heads low. Souvenir-hunters such as Phil Chaffee would pause yet a bit before venturing among more than five hundred Japanese bodies strewn about these muddy slopes. Marines were still dying. At eight o’clock a jeep loaded with wounded was riddled by machine-gun fire that killed Major Robert Brown, Edson’s operations officer, and almost all the other occupants. One of the wounded drove the shattered vehicle out of range on its starter: it hopped out of sight like a monster toad.
Some of the Japanese had infiltrated. Three of them slipped into General Vandegrift’s command post.
Vandegrift looked up from messages he was reading outside his pavilion. He saw two onrushing enemy soldiers and an officer swinging a saber. The officer hurled the saber like a spear at a nearby sergeant, transfixing him. Inside a tent Sergeant Major Shepherd Banta heard the enemy scream: he turned from castigating a clerk to rush outside with drawn pistol and shoot the enemy officer dead. A Marine corporal tried to shoot one of the soldiers, but his pistol jammed. He dove at the intruder; just as he hit him shots rang out all over the command post and both Japanese soldiers fell dead.
Vandegrift continued reading his messages. They indicated to him that Edson had won the most critical battle of the campaign. But they also made it plain that he could not go over to the offensive to destroy his shattered enemy. Colonel Thomas had already fed the Second Battalion, Fifth, into the battle and left Vandegrift without any reserve. Even though Edson had won a great victory at a loss of only fifty-nine Marines dead or missing and 204 wounded, his composite force was reeling. The parachutists were in tatters, down to 165 officers and men of an original 377, and he would have to get them off the island. The Raiders were down to 526 effectives out of an original 750. Vandegrift dared not weaken any point in his line by pulling out troops: there had been the attack to the east and there were reports of enemy forces massed at the Matanikau. No, Archer Vandegrift could only be thankful for Red Mike Edson and his men and let the enemy withdraw.
General Kawaguchi was withdrawing. He was departing in tears.
Throughout the morning he had heard the roll call of disaster: 708 of his men dead, 505 of them wounded. American firepower had been ferocious. Even now the American aircraft with shark-teeth painted on their sharp snouts were pumping cannon into his survivors. And shame had dishonored his defeat: Colonel Watanabe had failed to join the action. The powerful battalion which was to dash to the airfield had spent the night marking time. When Kawaguchi heard of this he wept openly. His guardsman’s mustache quivered, and he sent for Colonel Watanabe.
“Coward,” he cried as the colonel approached, “commit harakiri!”1
Colonel Watanabe hobbled closer and Kawaguchi relented. The man could barely stand, and Watanabe explained that the jungle march had ruined his feet and he had been unable to lead his troops. He did not say why he had not turned his command over to his executive officer, and Kawaguchi was too distressed to press him on it.
The general had to choose between returning to Taivu in the east or marching west to join Colonel Oka at the Matanikau. Still unclear on the nature of the American force that had landed in his rear at Tasimboko, wishing to gather his forces, he decided to go west. In mid-morning he gave the order to break through the jungle toward the headwaters of the Matanikau. Some 400 badly wounded men were placed on improvised litters, four and sometimes six soldiers to a litter, and Kawaguchi’s ragged, beaten, bleeding column began snaking south.
In mid-afternoon they heard firing to the west. Colonel Oka was at last launching his attack from the Matanikau. The firing died down almost as soon as it began, indicating that Oka was not only tardy but also timid.
Overhead, above the matted jungle roof that gave them cover, Kawaguchi’s men could hear the familiar growling of dogfighting airplanes.
Rabaul had still not heard from General Kawaguchi, although it was plain that Henderson Field was still in American hands. Therefore the customary bombing formations were sent south, and they were met by the customary flights of Marine Wildcats.
There was now a rivalry among these fliers, and Captain John Smith and Captain Marion Carl were tied for the lead with twelve kills apiece. That day neither of them shot down another enemy plane, but Carl’s fighter was so badly riddled that he was forced to bail out over Koli Point to the east.
His parachute blossomed above him and he drifted down into the Bay. He freed himself from his harness and swam ashore. Waiting for him on the beach was a powerful, smiling Fijian named Eroni. He was one of Martin Clemens’s most valued men, a “medical practitioner” who was highly respected by the natives. Eroni promised to take the tall American back to Henderson Field.
Kelly Turner was keeping his promise to Archer Vandegrift.
On that morning of September 14 he sailed in
Throughout the day these transports went zigzagging toward Torpedo Junction. Reports of enemy activity multiplied: carriers and battleships to the north, Tokyo Express warships to the northwest.
At noon a big Kawanishi lumbered overhead and Turner knew he had been spotted. He decided that he must withdraw: he could not dare to risk these four thousand Marines who might be the saving of Guadalcanal. But he would continue on until nightfall to delude the enemy into thinking he had held course. After dark, he would retire to await a more favorable opportunity.
September 15 dawned cloudless and blue. Six miles of white-plumed waves separated
