The Final Storm Part 3

"No arguments about this, General. I know your orders. Until the Okinawa landings are completed, and that island is secure, your bombers will do everything I need them to do. Supply will catch up, and I'm certain that you'll get your incendiaries. But right now ..."

"Fine. Put your staff in touch with my logistics officers. For now, there's not much else I can do."

"Plenty you can do. Just do it for me, instead of Hap Arnold. I promise you, he won't mind. He doesn't want Admiral King beating down his office door, b.i.t.c.hing about your lack of support." Nimitz paused, thought he saw a hint of a smile from the man who almost never smiled. Nimitz had calmed, took a sip of the bourbon, savored the sweet burn. "General, how about we put every ounce of energy into capturing Okinawa? You'll have your emergency airstrips, and you'll have your staging area for your fighters. In no time we'll have that place fixed up so your boys can get back to work on those j.a.p cities. I know d.a.m.n well you'll pin a medal on the first fighter pilot who machine-guns the emperor's front door."

LeMay seemed to ponder the image, nodded slowly.

"Yep. Suppose I will. Look, Admiral, I'm not oblivious. I know what it's going to cost to rout a hundred thousand enemy soldiers off Okinawa. I know what it cost to take Tarawa and Peleliu and all the rest. All I want is for you to give me the airbases, get me close enough to do my job like it needs to be done. h.e.l.l, I'll bomb MacArthur's headquarters if it'll end the war any sooner." Nimitz flinched, and LeMay seemed to know he had crossed the line. LeMay lowered his voice, one fist slowly pounding the table in front of him, his words following the steady rhythm.

"You send that d.a.m.n Buckner out there to get me those airstrips. That's what I want." He stood, clamped his hat hard under his arm. "One more thing. When you go out to Iwo Jima, pat a couple of those Marines on the back for me. We've got a h.e.l.l of a flock of Superforts who need those landing strips, and I know your boys got beat to h.e.l.l grabbing them. Hope it's not as bad on Okinawa."

3. ADAMS.

AT SEA, NEAR THE CAROLINE ISLANDS.

MARCH 23, 1945.

"Bust him up!"

"Left hook! Come on! One more!"

Adams heard the roar of voices, ignored them, his brain focused only on the man in front of him, a flicker of motion from the curled brown glove, a lightning jab that whistled past his ear. He ducked, too late, another jab thumping hard straight into his face, square on his nose, watering his eyes. He backed up a step, the man coming forward, closing the gap, sensing some vulnerability, but Adams was angry far more than he was hurt. The jabs had been a nuisance, nothing more, but had kept him off balance just enough to keep him from setting his feet, getting in the good shot of his own. He ducked again, moved to one side, frustrated, but kept his focus, an unshakable stare on the man's chest, the one place the fighter couldn't feint. Adams tried not to look at the man's gloves, knew to ignore the flickers of movement, the quick shift of the man's head, all the fakes designed to mislead. Adams held his own gloves up tight to his chin, his elbows in against his ribs, protection from a man who was becoming less and less of a threat. There had been a few hard punches, one catching Adams flush on the side of the head, but there had been no thunder behind it, no effect at all, and from those first few moments, Adams knew it was only a matter of time. Adams continued to back away, watched as the man pursued him with a clumsy bobbing of his head. His opponent was tall, lean, spiderlike arms, his best a.s.set, used them perfectly, keeping Adams away with the jabs to his face. But there was no damage from that, just the ma.s.sive annoyance, infuriating frustration from the man's pecks and probes, the occasional attempt at a heavier shot into Adams's face. But the man's lack of power had seemed to discourage him, and as the fight moved into the third round, the gangly man worked harder to keep Adams away. Adams had seen this before, a man no longer fighting to win, but just to survive. The jabs continued to come, flickers that mostly slipped past Adams's ears, bouncing off his gloves, anything to keep Adams out of close range, keep him off balance. In his corner the sergeant was spewing out words, instructions, advice, words that melted away with the shouts and cheers of the Marines on the open deck around them. Adams had forgotten about the plan, the careful strategy, the sergeant's instructions meaningless now, the only thought in his brain the search for the opening, seeking the gap, the s.p.a.ce, the target. He saw the man glance away, toward his own corner, and Adams jumped, no time for thought. He sent the left out in a sharp curl into the man's ribs, heard the grunt, the man's gloves coming down slightly, helpless reaction. Adams saw the opening, moved with perfect instinct, rammed a short hard right hand to the man's chin, opening his mouth, twisting his jaw, a spray of blood coming off the man's wounded lips. The man bent low at the waist, staggered back into the ropes, another glance toward his corner, seeking ... help. Adams dropped his arms for a quick second, flexed slightly, fighting the stiff pain, the exhaustion in his muscles. The man was shaking his head, blinking hard, scrambled eyes, trying to focus, and Adams saw the flash of fear. The man pulled his gloves up to his face, feeble protection, and Adams was there, ignored the one weak jab, the man's last desperate punch. There were no more feints, no dancing, the man still against the ropes, and Adams moved closer still, his eyes on the man's chin now, made a quick short step to the right, and in one motion turned into the man, driving his right hand past the man's left, a compact bolt of lightning against the man's exposed jaw. The left followed, a tight upward swing, but there was no target, only air. The tall man had gone down, crumpling into the ropes, rolling over onto his back. Adams leaned low, ready, his arms c.o.c.ked again, the anger spilling onto the fallen man, words in his brain, get up! I'm not done! The man still held his hands up in front of his face, pawing the air, but there was nothing else, blank eyes, his brain off in some other place. Adams was breathing heavily, felt a hard arm across his chest, pulling him away. He turned, furious, c.o.c.ked his right again, I'll kill you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d ... but the distractions came, his brain letting go, a green shirt, the referee, holding a steel grip on his shoulder, the referee's other arm waving, shouting the words, "Seven ... eight ... nine ..."

The hand released him, and the sergeant was there, hands on his shoulders, a happy grin, a flood of words through stinking breath. The sounds engulfed him, and Adams glanced around, beyond the small roped-off square, saw hands in the air. A hundred Marines were standing, wild eyes and wide smiles, cheers and shouts, all directed at him. He began to feel his fists relaxing, the agony of desperately tired arms, sniffed through blood in his nose. He tried to escape the sergeant's breath, looked for his victim, saw him sitting slumped on a short-legged stool, tended to by a corpsman. Adams pushed that way, through the arms of the sergeant, saw the beaten man staring down, still unseeing. Adams stopped, nothing to say, saw blood on a towel, another corpsman coming through the ropes, words ... broken jaw.

He felt a hard slap on his back, the sergeant pulling him toward the ropes. Adams stopped, resisted the man's grip, looked out at the Marines, not as much cheering, their attention drawn away to the next pair of fighters. He saw them coming up close to the ring, towels on their heads, the boxing gloves laced up, ready, the next act in the show. Adams tried to feel the joy, victory, but the dull soreness in his arms was taking over, the blood clogging his nose. He bent low, the sergeant helping him through the ropes, stepped down off the plywood, the single step to the steel of the deck, a towel now wrapping his shoulders.

"Nice job, kid. Like to see you take on Halligan next. Thinks he's a tough guy. You can loosen a few teeth in that big d.a.m.n mouth."

Adams looked toward the sergeant, saw confidence, businesslike, and then a corpsman was there, cotton in the man's hand.

"Hold still, Private. Let me get you cleaned up."

Adams didn't protest, felt the sergeant working on his hands, removing the boxing gloves, while the corpsman stuck something into Adams's nose, cleaning out the blood.

"There. You breathe okay?"

Adams pulled air through his nose, nodded, and the corpsman was gone as quickly as he had come. Behind Adams, a voice came from the ring, the lieutenant, the names of the next pair of fighters.

"All right ladies, simmer down. Next bout. From Greenville, South Carolina ..."

Adams stared out across the deck, the open sea, the sun low on the horizon, salt spray in the air. Above him sailors lined the railings, more of the audience, men staying close to their anti-aircraft guns. Higher up he saw faces on the bridge, but only a few. The men running this ship had better things to do than watch Marines on the deck below beating the h.e.l.l out of each other.

To one side, Adams saw another ship, like this one, moving on a parallel course, more ships beyond. He wanted to stay on the deck, loved the open air, the ships, but the wet towel around his shoulders was growing heavy, cold, and a chill ran through him. He moved through a hatchway into a short corridor, saw a single sailor coming toward him, pa.s.sing by, a quick glance.

"You win?"

"Yeah. KO."

"Figures. Marines."

The man moved away, and Adams flexed his tired arms, took a long deep breath. He could hear the cheers behind him, the new fight beginning, and one part of his brain wanted to watch, but his legs wouldn't move any other way but down, the exhaustion complete. As he moved farther into the ship, the smells returned, grease and paint and the stink of diesel fumes. He thought now of the shower, one minute of blessed hot water, and then his bunk, his quarters, the tight squeeze with forty other men. But there would be s.p.a.ce for him, someone making way, a show of respect coming even from the men who had stayed below, who cared nothing for boxing. They knew his name now, knew he had proven something they all wanted to prove, that he was a tough son of a b.i.t.c.h. He pa.s.sed another sailor, the man ignoring him, and Adams saw the ladder, leading below, felt for the railing with a stiff hand. He started down, gingerly, tired legs, thought, yep. KO. Another one. I'll be d.a.m.ned.

The boxing was a ritual, something Adams had needed. He felt it the moment he arrived at the Marine base at Guadalca.n.a.l, after he endured the automatic look of disgust on the faces of the men who had never left the islands, who had weathered all those b.l.o.o.d.y storms against the j.a.panese. He had wanted to tell them, all of them, that he was not new, not a green idiot, that if it hadn't been for some ridiculous disease, he never would have left them, would never have been shipped home. Adams was desperate for a way back in, a way to prove that to the men who barely remembered him. It was the sergeant, Ferucci, who had opened the door. Ferucci was a tough goon of a man, who came from the hard streets of Jersey City. He knew something of boxing, what he called the sweet science, had talked long and often of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling and Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson, and the message to Adams was clear. He had missed out on so many of the Marines'great fights, and so he would make fights of his own. He would put on the gloves, stand in front of whatever fool felt the same need, and the better fighter would b.l.o.o.d.y the other into submission. In eight bouts, Clay Adams had been the better fighter. He had been afraid at first, but his desire was too great, erasing that part of his brain that spewed out all that annoying common sense. He refused to understand what a man's fist might actually do to your face, that some of these Marines might actually enjoy hurting him, and worse, they might be d.a.m.n good at it. As the sergeant trained him, Adams had asked all those questions, what it felt like, but Ferucci was wise enough not to answer them. So Adams stepped through the ropes with no idea how much it could hurt to be knocked out, if it hurt at all. And until he saw it for himself, he had no idea that another man's teeth could end up around his own feet. But Adams's teeth were still intact. He had surprised the sergeant, and himself, by his smooth talent for slipping away from the fists. And, to both men's surprise, Adams had another talent as well, the coordination you can't teach, the instinct for dropping a thunderous shot into a man's jaw with a perfect right hand. He had knocked out every man he had faced, but unlike the animal cheering that came from the Marines in his audience, Adams felt no special joy in drawing another man's blood, or watching the man's eyes roll up into a frightening oblivion. It was never about victory, as much as it was about being one of them, being accepted back into the Twenty-second Regiment. Whatever he had to prove when he had returned from San Diego, he had done a pretty good job of it. In a few short weeks back on Guadalca.n.a.l, no one in the unit confused him with one of those replacements.

He had spent too many months stateside, and when Ferucci and the others accepted that he was in fact one of their own, he could finally join in the general displays of disgust for the replacements that had come with him. They sailed to the islands full of that mindless spirit that had been driven into them at the Marine training centers, and once he joined them on the transport ship, Adams quickly learned to avoid them. He could identify them as soon as they spoke, all the talk of adventure and conquest, how they were oh so eager to face the j.a.ps, so much asinine talk from men who had no idea what kind of adventure they were headed for. But the transport carried veterans as well, and Adams felt the same guilt that infected so many of those men, mostly the wounded who had been shipped stateside for recovery and recuperation. Not all of the men from the hospitals would return, of course, many of them too damaged, Purple Hearts and a train ticket home. And not all the veterans who were shipped back out on the transports were as eager to rejoin their units as Adams was. Some had seen too much already, had recovered from what they had hoped were million-dollar wounds that would get them out of the fight. But the Marine Corps's nasty secret was that they were losing men at such an alarming rate that the training camps could not keep up with the gaps in the line. If a wounded man had healed well enough to fight again, he would. There was griping about that at first, men who dared to show the fear, who had no desire to go back out there, who believed they had already done their share. No one had patience for that kind of talk, and certainly none of the officers. Most of the veterans pa.s.sed their time in silence, or occupied their thoughts with poker and dice and letter writing, anything that would keep their thoughts away from what they had seen and done, and what they might be asked to do again. They tended to keep separate from the replacements, and Adams had done the same, trying to avoid the idiotic talk. But there was one hitch to the camaraderie he shared with the veterans, a fear he carried every day. He wondered if they knew, if anyone could see through the hard glare he tried to show them, that it all might be counterfeit. Adams had not actually been in a fight, had never fired his rifle, never even seen a j.a.panese soldier. In early 1944, when the Twenty-second moved ash.o.r.e through the ring of islands called Eniwetok, Adams had already been chewed up and spit back to San Diego by a disease he had never heard of.

It was called filariasis, and an enormous number of Marines had been afflicted with the parasite from their first days on whatever tropical wasteland they had been ordered to land. Adams had been one of the first in his unit to suffer the awful misery of what some had begun to call elephant disease. More properly, the doctors knew that filariasis could cause elephantiasis, and might not be curable at all if it stayed in a man's body for any length of time. As a result, the medical staffs took the disease seriously. Adams had been pulled off the line in Samoa, hauled by transport ship back to San Diego, and to his groaning dismay, he had been confined to the naval hospital there for nearly four months. When the disease was explained to him in detail, his griping about abandoning his buddies was replaced by something else: abject terror. The risk that the disease would bring on elephantiasis might have inspired jokes among those who had never suffered from it, since the most grotesque symptoms included greatly enlarged body parts, most notably a man's genitals. The jokes had been obvious and crude, but Adams had seen the photographs, offered indiscreetly by a drunk corpsman, who thought it might be funny to shock the afflicted Marines with the potential horror of what they had contracted.

But the doctors in San Diego had done their work well, and after suffering through an extended recuperation period, he had been a.s.signed to an office, faced with the horror that all his Marine training had gone to one good use: He would excel as a file clerk.

The men who shared his purgatory knew very well what was happening to the Marines in their own units far out in the Pacific. No one could keep hidden the carnage that had spread across so many islands, names now familiar to every Marine. To the wounded, those names had come back to them in nightmares they could not escape, jungle and swamp and jagged coral reefs, shrapnel and machine guns, places where a friend had gone down, or where the captain or the sergeant had led their platoon into annihilation. Adams had escaped it all, but the guilt of not being there caused nightmares as well. The letters had come, one in particular, from his captain, that Adams's close friend, a tall mosquito of a man everyone called Bug-eye, had been killed on the rocky coral reefs at Eniwetok. Word of the man's death had been unreal, a strange joke, but the joke was never funny, and as he shuffled the papers in the nameless office within sight of the vast ocean, Adams had grown more angry and more guilty by the day.

By now every one of the Marines who had been held back on the mainland knew that even in victory, the Marines had been gutted in battle after battle. Most of the a.s.saults had been amphibious landings, the newsreels in American theaters displaying with patriotic pride the grand show of landing craft swarming ash.o.r.e in so many obscure places, places where the j.a.panese waited, places that someone at the top had labeled important. Adams heard the talk from the hospital beds, some of it loud and stupid, the men who begged to go back out there, to join the party, killing j.a.ps as though it were a bird shoot. There had always been that kind of talk, through boot camp, through training in San Diego, more training on Guadalca.n.a.l. There, in September 1944, the Twenty-second Regiment had been a.s.signed as part of a brand-new Marine division, the Sixth, created from what some in the other divisions thought to be dregs, leftovers, the crippled and shot-up remains of other units. But the bra.s.s knew differently and made sure the men who formed this new combat unit knew it as well. The Sixth was commanded by a fire-breathing dragon, General Lemuel Shepherd, who had organized the various ground troops and engineers, the corpsmen and tankers, into a solid fighting force, and had done it on Guadalca.n.a.l by re-creating what could only be called another boot camp. The training had been fierce and brutal, especially for veterans of the combat regiments who thought they had already faced their worst challenge from the enemy. Shepherd had been a hero at Belleau Wood in the First World War, earning medals before most of his command had been born, but having a hero at the top didn't stop their griping. Even the officers who carried out Shepherd's orders had begun to wonder if the general's pride was going to brutalize these men far beyond what they could expect from the j.a.panese.

By the time the rigorous retraining had concluded, the officers knew what Shepherd had already known, that this new division would put up the best fight the Marines could offer. There were rivalries, of course, the other Marine divisions always certain that they were the best, the toughest, the most feared by the j.a.panese. The bra.s.s ignored most of that, focused instead on where all of this angry spirit could best be used. By late 1944 the planning had been complete, the bases established primarily on Guadalca.n.a.l and Guam. As the War Department's two-p.r.o.ng strategy ripped away the island bases from the grip of the enemy, what men in Washington knew only as pins on a map, the Marine and army divisions had suffered in horrific and costly battles. Every month brought some new plan, another invasion, another beach, another jungle. Individually, the regiments that now formed the Sixth had been engaged in fights that began with the disastrous defeat at Corregidor in 1942, right up through the conquest of Guam two years later. But since the summer of 1944, the Sixth had been the focus of General Shepherd's intense training, all units brought up to full fighting strength, rested and refitted for yet another campaign. While they did their work at the base on Guadalca.n.a.l, other Marine divisions had continued the fight across the islands, the most recent the bloodletting on Iwo Jima, the fight that the newsreels were already trumpeting as America's most heroic success. But the Sixth was continuing to strengthen and prepare, receiving an influx of veterans from some of the earlier campaigns, men who had crossed the beaches at Peleliu and Saipan. Throughout the entire Corps, new recruits were being sprinkled into the veteran regiments so that no commander would have to lead completely green troops into battle. On paper the Sixth might be a brand-new division, but they carried too many veterans to ever be labeled untested. Only the commanders knew what that test would be.

Adams had joined the Corps shortly after Pearl Harbor, had spent what seemed to him to be an eternity in the training bases stateside before his opportunity had come to sail westward. The indignity of the filariasis had been more than a health scare. Adams carried a kind of pride that only a few of the men around him would understand. He was the youngest of two, his brother serving in the army as a paratroop sergeant. Jesse was older, and in Clay's mind, tougher. When Clay announced to his brother that he had joined the Marines, Jesse seemed to understand even then that the younger brother had something to prove, to make up for all the fistfights, all the youthful bullying that Jesse had been called upon to prevent. In the mining town of Silver City, New Mexico, a man was defined by his toughness, and Clay had not been the biggest or the strongest, not in school, and not in his own home. Their father was a vicious brute of a man, who hated life and struck back at his own misery by striking first at his sons. When Clay enlisted and announced to his parents that he wanted to go to war, his father's response had been an uncaring shrug, no ceremony, no pride. Neither Clay nor his brother had been surprised. Far more difficult for both boys had been the tearful wrath of a terrified mother, the woman who had stood as much ground as her frail spirit would allow, absorbing the endless abuse from the man she had married. Clay had never shaken that from his mind: one awful night after dinner, his proud announcement that he had enlisted to be a Marine, and his mother's response, a shocking surprise, this quiet-suffering, soulful woman exploding with angry tears. Clay still didn't understand that, the furious attack aimed at her youngest son. To the eighteen-year-old, it had seemed grotesquely unfair that his mother would expect her precious boys to stay close at hand, and that just by leaving, he was abandoning her to a life she could not escape alone. Jesse had been as supportive of Clay as any older brother could be, had stood between Clay and his mother with calm a.s.surances that everything would be fine, that the Marines would do Clay some good, teach him to be a man, teach him to be a better man than her own husband. And so Clay had had no second thoughts, had made his escape, had taken the train westward to San Diego. He could not know that within months, Jesse would fight that same battle again, this time for himself. Clay had wondered if it had been worse for his older brother, if Jesse had been infected even more strongly by the guilt of abandoning the family. It was a horrifying dream to realize that his mother expected either of her boys to stay in that horrific place, to be her family, sacrificing any boyhood dreams only to work in the copper mine, destined to mimic the suffering and the decay of their father.

But his mother had finally softened, and within weeks of his enlistment, her letters began to reach him. The first piece of news was that Jesse would go to Europe, would jump out of airplanes, and later, Clay learned only that his older brother had quickly risen to sergeant in the new Eighty-second Airborne Division. Clay had been amazed by that, but then, he knew his brother would have something to prove as well, would have to accomplish anything that would prevent him from sinking back into their father's life in the copper mines. Clay had wanted to hear all about that, the whole idea of jumping out of airplanes not only wondrous but utterly insane. But there could be no letters directly between them from a world apart, just the tidbits of news his mother would pa.s.s along. It came mostly in a trickle of sadness, but Jesse was at least alive, had fought through the campaigns in Sicily and then Normandy. As Clay labored in the clean white offices of San Diego, there had been a glint of sunlight in one of her letters, a cheerful announcement that Jesse was coming home, the paratrooper's war over. But Clay did not want to write to his brother, not yet, not while he endured the embarra.s.sment of sleeping on white sheets in soft beds. Once free of the hospital, the office work had drained him of his dignity. The daily routine had seemed to be designed to inflict a more agonizing death on an eager Marine than any enemy weapon could. Clay could never admit to his brother what his duty had become, and so he lied about it by not writing at all. He had the perfect excuse of every Marine who toiled in some G.o.dforsaken jungle, or on some atoll that no one could find on a map. Mail was chancy at best, letters requiring long weeks to reach their destination, if they arrived at all. For months Clay kept silent from his own family, ashamed that he had failed to do what his brother had done, to fight the good fight, to earn his stripes. Certainly there would be the secrets the paratrooper would never share with his mother, the stark horror of all that he had seen, how many of the enemy he had killed, how many friends were lost. If there was a hot spear in Clay's back, driving him out beyond his recuperation and his soft bed, it was that. He wanted to be that kind of warrior, sharing those stories with his brother, comparing the different enemies, the fears and miseries and triumphs, a link the two of them could have for the rest of their lives. He knew that their shared respect would be a perfect shield against the fury of their father, and give solace to the woman who only wanted her sons to survive, to return, to be her pride in a home where pride had long disappeared.

When word came of the formation of the Sixth Division, Clay had pulled every string a private can pull, had begged and cajoled, made ridiculous speeches to indifferent officers. The process took agonizing months, and then word had come of something new and strange and wonderful. Somewhere in some white office in Washington, the decision had been made to allow women into the Marine Corps. Soon they had begun to arrive in San Diego, their duty freeing those men who agonized to join or rejoin combat units. When the first women arrived at his own post, Adams felt the giddy excitement that finally, he would go back out there. Once he had his orders in hand, all those newsreels and casualty counts were forgotten, all the sights and sounds and smells from the hospital put aside. Finally Clay Adams would hold the steel in his hands, and this time he would face the enemy.

OFFSh.o.r.e, ULITHI ATOLL, CAROLINE ISLANDS.

MARCH 27, 1945.

"Anybody know where the h.e.l.l we're going?"

"Shut up. The captain's on his way."

The talk continued, different fragments of scuttleb.u.t.t from the men blending together into utter confusion. Sergeant Ferucci lay in his own bunk, said nothing, doing what the other sergeants were doing, letting the men blow off steam, the crowded compartment thick with the stink of cigarettes and socks. Adams had been shooting c.r.a.ps in one corner of the cramped s.p.a.ce behind one of the hammocklike bunks, but the dice had not been friendly, and he moved away, left three other men to their game. Above him a cloud of cigarette smoke hovered over the bunk of Jack Welty, another of the newly arrived veterans.

"They strip you clean, Clay?"

"A couple bucks. Not really in the mood. You got anything to read?"

"Nothing I wanna share with you."

Adams enjoyed Welty's Virginia drawl, the young man barely nineteen. He knew that Welty's family had money, but Welty seemed embarra.s.sed by that, seemed to resent the lavish care packages of odd food and clothing, most of it completely inappropriate for a Marine. The greatest laugh had come at Welty's expense only a month before, a large box addressed to Welty that had been his family's obvious attempt to help him fit in with his comrades. It had been a case of beef stew, small cans not much different from the prime ingredient in their K rations. After the humiliating howls from the others had subsided, the stew disappeared. Adams had a strong suspicion that Welty had tossed it overboard.

Welty sat up, let his feet dangle just above Adams's head. All around them men were sitting with their backs against the steel bulkheads, or sleeping fitfully in tiny bunks, trying to ignore the chorus of conversation, most of it wild speculation of their next port of call. Across from Adams, another man lay against a gap between the bunks, his helmet liner low over his eyes, and said in another soft drawl, "Tokyo Bay. Heard a sailor saying something about minefields there."

The responses came from around the cramped s.p.a.ce, the usual skepticism, opinions from men who knew that they had no idea what they were talking about.

"You know how far it is to Tokyo Bay? We'd get bombed to h.e.l.l before we got halfway there."

"Formosa. I heard Formosa. Found it on a map."

"h.e.l.l no. We're going to China. j.a.ps have been kicking a.s.s, and they need us to take the ports back. Gotta be better than getting blown to h.e.l.l trying to take Tokyo Bay."

"I been bombed plenty of times, sh.e.l.led and machine-gunned. All I know is that Tokyo Bay is in j.a.pan, right? That's close enough for me."

"He's right. Let's. .h.i.t 'em where it hurts. Get this thing over with."

"I wrote my sis I was in Ulithi, and the censors sent it back to me. Top secret. How can a place n.o.body ever heard of be top secret?"

Adams let the talk flow past, adjusted himself to the hard surface under his rear end, tried to find a comfortable way to sit. He looked up at Welty, saw freckles and red hair, the white smile that never seemed to go away. Adams said, "Hey, Jack, where you think we're heading?"

Welty shrugged.

"Someplace else. Can't say I'll miss our glorious week on Ulithi. A sand bar with palm trees. Not much to get excited about there. Rather go back to Guadalca.n.a.l."

The attention turned from the argument over geography, one man catching Welty's words.

"Hey, Red. I bet you loved all those island girls? They ain't never seen anything like you. They thought your head was on fire."

Welty shook his head, ignored the man, who returned to the manic discussion of their next mission. Adams still looked up at the red hair, said, "I don't remember seeing too many girls on Ulithi. Guadalca.n.a.l, different story."

"You can have 'em, Clay." Welty tapped his shirt pocket. "Got all the gal I need right here. She's back in Richmond writing me right now. Gotta write her again too, before we get all wrapped up in whatever we're doing next. My parents aren't too happy about it, but not much they can do about it now."

Adams left that alone, knew Welty wouldn't go into details about his parents at all. And he had seen the photo Welty kept in his pocket, a bright smile on a pretty blonde, every letter coming with that soft scent of some kind of perfume.

"Yeah, well, can't argue that one. Agree with you though. These island dames don't do a thing for me. Most of 'em got no teeth, or too much of everything else."

Welty lay back in the bunk, his feet still dangling, and Adams closed his eyes, tried to avoid the arguments around him, thought, I've seen a few of these island girls that weren't too d.a.m.n ugly. A few. Not sure what I'd do if one of 'em pounced on me.

He had heard plenty from the combat veterans, warnings that the natives on any of these islands could be as dangerous as the enemy soldiers they helped to hide. The words had been drilled into them all, first by the company commander, Captain Bennett, then Sergeant Ferucci. Stay the h.e.l.l away from the indigenous people. He still didn't know exactly what indigenous meant, but the meaning was clear enough. Out here, anyone not a Marine could be looking to kill a Marine. Simple enough.

"Listen up!"

The voice came from the hatchway, and Adams saw Captain Bennett lean in through the oval opening, followed by the platoon commander, Lieutenant Porter. The men shifted across the tight s.p.a.ce, gave the officers room to stand, and Bennett said, "All right, it's time to let you in on the big secret. Though why anything needs to be so d.a.m.n secret out here is a mystery to me. Any of you know where Okinawa is?"

There was a hum, some men suddenly aware that the secret wasn't secret anymore.

"Didn't think so. If you've heard jack about what the First went through on Iwo Jima, you know that place was nothing but a hole in the ocean, one tiny hot rock. Some of you found the same thing on Peleliu. Not much to look at, not much to fight over. But we fought over it anyway, because it was our job. This one's different. A h.e.l.l of a lot different. Okinawa isn't some four-mile lava pile. It's a d.a.m.n country. Sixty miles from top to bottom, maybe a dozen miles across. There are several major airfields there that the top bra.s.s wants, and a load of j.a.ps defending them. As bad as that ought to be, there are a h.e.l.l of a lot of civilians there who have been under the j.a.p boot heels for years. One of our jobs will be to fix that, liberate those people. I've heard about how many of you have been shooting your mouths off how anxious you are to get started on our next mission. Well, good. I want to see you enthusiastic about your jobs. Whether you got your training at Parris Island or San Diego, or whether you had to eat sand for General Shepherd on Guadalca.n.a.l, everything you were taught about fighting the j.a.ps is about to be tested." The captain paused, gave a sharp nod to Lieutenant Porter, who stepped forward, shouted, "Which way do you run your K-bar knife into a j.a.p's gut?"

The response was immediate, a chorus.

"Up, sir!"

"What do you do when you pa.s.s an officer on the line?"

There was a slight hesitation, then a smattering of responses, all the same.

"Nothing, sir!"

Porter seemed satisfied but Bennett said, "That's right. Nothing. No salutes, no yes sir, no sir. No sir at all. I'm not going home in a box because you ladies suddenly decide to show me some respect within earshot of a j.a.p sniper. No officer is to use binoculars. That shows authority, and j.a.ps will target anyone they think is in charge. No radio operator is to let his antenna show, no walkie-talkie operator is to stand in the wide d.a.m.n open. The j.a.ps have shown us what kinds of targets they prefer, and this company isn't going to offer them up on a platter." He paused. "Lieutenant, finish the briefing. I've got four more platoons on this boat, and every one of them is uglier than the last one. That makes you special, ladies. You were first."

The captain turned, slipped out through the hatchway. Porter stood with his hands on his hips, eyed the men slowly.

"Right now, we're headed for Okinawa. We cross the beach on one April. We'll go in alongside the First Marines, and south of us, two army divisions are going in with us. Two more will be in support, and one more Marine division will be in reserve. You don't need to know any more details than that."

The inevitable laughter came, one man raising his hand.

"Sir, has the army finally learned that it takes a whole lot more of them ground pounders to do the job ..."

"Can that, Marine! This is no d.a.m.n beach drill. There could be a hundred thousand j.a.ps on that island, and we don't know exactly where they are. For the past few days, the navy's been sh.e.l.ling h.e.l.l out of every inch of that place, and the air boys are dropping every bomb they can haul there. The word that's come down to us is that you might wade ash.o.r.e into one big d.a.m.n mess of j.a.p bodies. Don't count on that. I'm betting it'll be hot as h.e.l.l. j.a.ps have already shown us they can dig holes, and recon tells us that there are holes all over that place. Lots of concrete too. The captain mentioned the Okinawan civilians. There's hundreds of thousands of them, innocents, likely to be caught in the crossfire, or, if they're stupid, helping the j.a.ps fight us off. They're not savages. A lot of farmers, and there are regular cities too. n.o.body in this platoon has ever fought an enemy door to door. The navy says they'll level every building for us, but I've heard that before. You don't need to know this, but I'll tell you anyway. We're hitting Okinawa for one very good reason that the captain didn't mention. That d.a.m.n island is three hundred fifty miles from the j.a.p mainland. We secure that place, and we've got us one h.e.l.l of a good staging area for an invasion of j.a.pan. But that comes later, and you're not supposed to think about that. Me either. Our primary mission is to get across the d.a.m.n beach as quick as possible, establish a hard perimeter, and hold off any j.a.p counterattacks. By the second day, we'll make a hard push inland, extend the beachhead into the farm country. By the third day, we are expected to occupy and secure the Yontan Airfield. You won't need any maps. It'll be right in front of us."

He stopped, seemed to wait for the mission to sink in. No one spoke for a long moment, and then Ferucci said, "Sir. What's the army doing there? They backing us up?"

There were low comments, and Porter did not smile.

"Quiet. Once we establish control of the airfield, we will drive north, securing the northern half of the island. The army divisions will come across the beaches to our south, and once they establish their own beach-heads, they will drive south and do the same thing. The objective is to divide Okinawa into two theaters of action, driving the enemy in both directions until their backs are to the wall, so to speak. We do not expect the enemy to surrender. So far, he never has. Command antic.i.p.ates a great deal of banzai attacks, and a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of hari-kari when we pen those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up in a tight s.p.a.ce. You want points with me, you bring me back a hari-kari knife. I want a whole d.a.m.n collection of those things." He paused, now a smile. "I got a bet going with an army lieutenant. Old pal of mine from Baltimore. I told him my boys would scoop up a whole pile of those fancy-a.s.sed knives, and he's told his boys to do the same. Whoever gets the most gets a night on the town when we get back home. I might just bring some of you along with me. Don't let me down, boys. Can't let any d.a.m.n ground pounders show us up!"

The response was loud, raucous, Adams joining in, punching a fist in the air. Porter had his hands on his hips again, nodded in approval, then silenced them with a wave of one hand.

"One April. Four days from now. You get a chance to go topside, do it. Take a good look at what's around us. We'll be part of the biggest d.a.m.n fleet ever put together. Bigger than what they did at Normandy. One April is *L-Day.' In case you're wondering, L stands for love. Somebody back at Guam came up with that, thinking it would confuse the j.a.ps." He paused. "None of those admirals asked me what I thought of that idea."

The noisy cheers came again, and Porter held up his hand.

"One April, well before dawn, we'll board landing crafts and head straight into the beach. The coral reefs are not nearly as big a pain in the a.s.s as we've had to cross before. It'll be a sight. If any j.a.ps survive what the navy's doing to 'em right now, there'll be so many of you ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. .h.i.tting that beach, you just might scare 'em away." He paused again, seemed to realize the stupidity of his comment. "But I doubt it. Use your rifles, use your K-bar, use your d.a.m.n fists if you have to. Those of you ... well, some of you know what the j.a.p is all about. Kill those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, every d.a.m.n one of them. 'Cause they sure as h.e.l.l will be trying to kill you. All right, I'm done. Go back to whatever the h.e.l.l you were doing. You sergeants ... keep these boys under control. No fights, and keep the d.a.m.n gambling under wraps. Anybody in this platoon ends up in the brig ... well, I'll make sure you're the first ones across the beach. You got that?"

Porter didn't wait for a response, turned, leaned low through the hatchway, and was gone. Adams felt the thick silence, the fog of clarity that spread through them all, the men absorbing the briefing. One man said in a low voice, "Four days."