CHAPTER TEN
HAND TO HAND
Curly Levitt linked an arm through Barry’s as they left thecommandant’s tent.
“That warning about crews joining the scrap doesn’t apply to us, doesit?” he asked. “We’re short-handed already—with the Old Man andBabbitt in the hospital. Anyhow, the _Rosy O’Grady_ won’t fly for along time after this battle is over. We’re free to do just about whatwe please, aren’t we?”
“I get your point,” Barry answered with a grim smile. “You’resuggesting that the six of us form a sort of guerrilla squad and bag afew Japs on our own. Not a bad idea at all—if our squadron commanderagrees. Let’s get him alone now and see what he thinks about it.”
Captain Loomis was not yet thirty years old, and next to flying afighting ship he loved best a fight on the ground. His sympathy waseasy to enlist.
“I can’t give you boys official permission to join the ground attack,”he told Barry and Curly, “but I won’t confine you to the post. If youpick up some rifles and grenades and wander off into the woods, that’syour affair. And I certainly wish you good hunting!”
“Thanks, Captain,” Barry replied as the two turned to leave. “If wefind a Samurai sword in the bush, we’ll bring it back to you for asouvenir.”
The two young lieutenants found the rest of the _Rosy’s_ crew at mess,and passed them the word to rendezvous in their tent. When the six wereall together, Barry broached the plan.
“It’s better than sitting around and swatting mosquitoes,” heconcluded. “And we know that the fight for Grassy Ridge will be tough.Six extra men might be quite a help.”
“You don’t have to sell us the idea, Lieutenant,” Fred Marmon spoke up.“After two days of taking Jap shellfire we’re all spoiling for a chanceto dish it out. I know where we can get some hand grenades andside-arms tonight.”
“I know where there’s a case of tommy-guns,” said Tony Romani. “We can‘requisition’ them, so to speak, this afternoon. And plenty of ammo, ofcourse.”
“I’ll collect a few tin hats,” added Cracker Jackson, “and some ironrations and water canteens. Reckon you-all didn’t think of them.”
Danny Hale rose to his feet and spread his big fingers.
“If I get near enough to one of those yellow snakes,” he said slowly,“I’d like to match his jiu-jitsu tricks with an Apache wrestling hold.Anyhow, the six of us ought to have a pretty good time before theparty’s over.”
Before supper the _Rosy O’Grady’s_ crew had collected a young arsenalin their sleeping tent. It included bayonets and three sheath knives.Fred Marmon had brought six suits of green coveralls to replace theirflying togs, and even some burnt cork to blacken their faces.
“We’ll have to fit a tin hat over that nice, clean bandage of yours,Lieutenant Blake,” he said. “Anything white would draw Jap bullets likea doggone magnet.... Look. If I set it on sidewise, like this, itdoesn’t hurt your wound.”
“That’s fine, Fred,” Barry agreed. “I’d be cooler without the thing,but it _will_ turn bullets. We’re all going to have a lot more sympathyfor the infantry after this masquerade.”
The attacking troops set out as soon as the tropic night had shut down.Barry Blake and his friends joined a platoon that was pushing andslashing its way through the pitch-black jungle, with the help of a fewdimmed flashlights. The vine-laced growth was so dense that at highnoon only a green twilight would have penetrated it. Bayonets andmachetes made openings through the worst tangles. Thorn bushes foughtback, raking arms and legs mercilessly. Some of the advancing unitsused compasses to keep them headed toward Grassy Ridge. A few of themhad the help of native guides. Most, however, followed the trailsopened by the advance guard.
The _Rosy’s_ crew took their turns with the machetes, cutting a path.The work, in that hot-house temperature, was exhausting. At any rate,the advancing troops had plenty of time. They reached the hill’s steep,rocky base at about midnight.
Here the word was passed to rest for an hour. Mosquito headnets weredonned; emergency rations were opened. Weary, and sweating at everypore, the men stretched themselves out in such level spaces as theycould find by groping on the damp ground.
Fred Marmon complained that the mosquitoes liked his blood better thanthat of any man in the Army. He declared that more of them weregathering from all over New Guinea, as the news spread.
“If they suck me to death,” he groaned, “dig a hole and bury my carcassquick so it won’t draw any more of them. Enough of these flying siphonscould wipe out the whole company.”
Big Danny Hale also suffered aloud. He declared that the onlydifference between New Guinea mosquitoes and Zero fighting planes wasthat the bugs didn’t need an airfield. In size and poison, he insisted,they were about equal.
At the end of the hour, word was passed to start climbing the lower,wooded sides of the hill. This was to be a far slower and more cautioustask than the first few hours of the advance. The Japs were less than amile above them now. Not even dimmed flashlights would be permitted,except in the hands of platoon leaders. All movements would be as slowas a snail’s and, if possible, as silent.
By touch, and by occasional low whispers, the men kept in contact.There were frequent halts, to let those behind catch up. Only theknowledge that they were nearing the enemy, and would soon be charginghis positions, kept the soldiers’ nerves from exploding.
The last and hardest wait came at the edge of the bush, where thecoarse, four-foot-high grass began. Scouts had been sent out to locatethe Jap positions, so the soldiers’ “grapevine” reported. When theyreturned, the troops were to move forward. If all went well they wouldpounce upon their enemies in the first gray light of dawn. The Japs,notoriously late sleepers when they did not expect an attack, would becaught literally napping.
“It sounds fine,” Curly Levitt muttered in Barry’s ear. “But one littlemistake of ours could give those people warning. Wouldn’t it have beensafer to surround the Nips’ positions and rush them from all sides?”
“Possibly—in full daylight,” Barry whispered back. “But at dawnthere’s danger of shooting down our own troops by mistake. Our jungleuniforms are enough like the Japs’ to fool you where the visibility islow. You’ve given me an idea, though, Curly. If the rest of our crewagree, we six might circle around to the enemy’s rear. We’re not underorders, and we’d be taking our own risk.”
“Wait a minute while I crawl around and ask them,” the _Rosy’s_navigator replied eagerly. “I think they’ll eat it up!”
Curly was right in his guess. The extra risks involved meant little tothe four Air Force sergeants. They would go where Barry Blake led, evenif it meant charging the whole Jap force with hand grenades.
Fortunately for their plan, the six “guerillas” were on the far rightwing of the attacking line. In the darkness their silent departurewould not be noticed. Keeping contact by touch alone, they crawled awayalong the edge of the jungle.
The moon was now well up in the sky, silvering the long grass of thehill-crest. Thus Barry could watch the lay of the land, while keepingin the black shadow of the bush. On reaching the height of land, hestopped.
“There’s a rocky outcropping twenty yards from here,” he whispered toCurly Levitt. “I’m going to crawl out to it and try to spot the Jap gunpositions.... They might give us a clue to the trenches our scout planereported the first day.”
Without waiting for Curly’s answer, Barry Blake wormed his way towardthe exposed outcrop. Reaching it, he inched his way to the highestpart. Now he had no protection except the dirty color of his junglesuit. If a Jap sentry should catch his least movement, it would be justtoo bad.
From the rocks he looked down on a sea of grass, broken by littleislands of brush and trees. No trenches appeared. They were eithercleverly camouflaged with grass, or else there were none near by. Oneof the tree clumps, however, drew Barry’s especial interest. From wherehe lay, a vaguely pagoda-like shape could be glimpsed protruding fromthe shadows.
&
nbsp; A Jap tent, draped with camouflage netting? It would be worth a risk todiscover the truth, Barry believed. Cautiously he crawled back to hisfriends.
“We’ll proceed in single file, on hands and knees,” he told them.“Stick a lot of grass in your helmet nets before you start. It’s nearlydawn now, so we won’t have long to wait for the big fight to open.Better take a good drink from your water canteens while you have achance.”
A foot at a time they advanced, with little pauses. A sentry, had heglimpsed the movement of their grass trimmed hats, might have taken itfor a passing breeze.
The light grew stronger. The clump of trees took more definite shape.Now the guerillas could see clearly the angle of a large tent with itsprotective netting. From within came snores in three or four differentkeys.
“Officers’ tent!” Curly whispered. “Sentry must be asleep, too—ifthere is one. What’ll we do now?”
“Get a little nearer; wait for the first shot of the main attack, andthen toss a couple of grenades apiece. That ought to put us into thescrap with a bang.”
“Twelve bangs!” chuckled Curly. “Even one small bomb would do a betterjob, though.”
Barry moved off in a different direction, to bring the open door of thetent into full view. Five yards further on he stopped with a gasp. Hishand had slipped into a hole, beneath the grass roots.
Laying down his tommy-gun, Barry grasped the edge of the hole andlifted. A whole section of the “ground” tilted up. Beneath it yawnedblack emptiness.
“Here’s a trench!” he whispered over his shoulder to Curly. “It’scovered with grass sods, laid on matting. Tell the boys to come on in.”
Feet first, he let himself down into the hole. It was only four feetdeep and very narrow. Evidently the Japs had dug it as a protectionagainst air attacks, but it could also be used for ground fighting. Forthe guerillas’ purpose it was ideal.
At Barry’s orders, only three mats were removed—no more than could bequickly replaced. In the opening all six men stood, waiting fordaylight and the first gun. Each held a grenade, as he faced the doorof the Jap Officers’ tent.
_“Here’s a Trench!” He Whispered Over His Shoulder_]
Their wait was not long, though to their tensed nerves it seemed hours.From behind them a Jap sentry’s rifle shot was blanketed by the heaviervoices of American sub-machine guns. Shrill yells arose. The sharperclatter of Jap .25-caliber machine guns joined the din.
Barry’s party needed no command to toss their deadly little“pineapples.” Two apiece, they lobbed them right into the tent. Thenthey ducked, pulling the grass mats over them.
The explosions came almost together—like a string of giantfirecrackers. A patter of debris sounded on the grass matting just overtheir heads. Jap voices broke out, shrill with excitement, drawingrapidly nearer.
Suddenly light showed, farther down the trench.
“They’re coming in!” Barry snapped. “Wait till they fill the trench,and then rake ’em with the tommy-guns. Curly and I will lie down; therest of you kneel or stand and fire over us. Toss off the end mat atthe last minute.”
“Okay, Lieutenant—we’ll sure clean them out that way!” muttered FredMarmon. “That is, if nobody lobs a hand grenade into _this_ end of theditch!”
Evidently the Japs had no idea that the grenades that had wrecked thetent might have come from the trench. They proceeded to take thecamouflage mats off methodically, moving up from the other end.
Barry lay on the very bottom, with Curly’s elbow digging him in theribs as he aimed his weapon. It was lighter now in their end of thetrench.
Taking a long breath, Barry pressed the trigger. The trench eruptedwith fire and sound. He saw the Japs nearest him crumple like ragdolls, one after another, down the trench. They never knew what hitthem.
At the further end, however, the doomed men saw the licking gun-flames.Some of them tried to return the fire—only to be riddled in the act.The remainder started scrambling out of the death trap. Cracker Jacksonand big Danny Hale caught most of these, but not before one Jap hadlobbed a hand grenade.
The missile, hastily thrown, landed outside the trench, six feet fromHale and Jackson. Without a split second’s hesitation, big Danny flunghimself upon the thing. In one motion he grabbed and flung it. Thegrenade burst harmlessly, fifty feet away.
Now, however, bullets were humming over the slit trench. The Japs wereall outside.
“Down, men!” Barry Blake shouted at Danny and Cracker Jackson. “We’vegot to hold this trench if we want to live.”
All of the shooting now came from the direction of the Americanadvance. The Japs between the attacking force and Barry’s trench werekeeping their heads down and their gun barrels hot. Their camouflagedhelmets offered difficult targets.
“Hold your fire until our boys blast them out of those trenches,” Barrytold his friends. “It won’t be long now. Then we can see what we’reshooting at. Curly, suppose you face the other way and see that nobodysnipes—”
PING!
Barry broke off as a .25-caliber slug glanced off his helmet. The shockof it hurt his old head-wound like a knife stab.
“I see the beggar!” yelped Curly. “He’s in that tree above the wreckedtent....”
The raving of his tommy-gun drowned out Levitt’s words. Tony Romani’sweapon joined it, firing short bursts. Suddenly the shooting stopped.
“One more honorable sniper bites honorable dust,” chanted _RosyO’Grady’s_ navigator. “So solly!”
From concealment in patches of brush and trees the Jap field gunsstarted to fire. They were lobbing shells just over their trenches,feeling for the Americans down the slope. Apparently some of the shellslanded close. Their result was simply to speed up the attack.
In a series of short rushes the two companies closed in on theentrenched Japs. While some of them advanced the rest poured a hot fireinto the Jap positions. Then the foremost Americans started hurlinggrenades. In a few minutes much of the fighting was hand to hand.Howling like wolves, the boys from Montana, Ohio, and New York leapedinto the Jap front-line defenses and cleaned them out.
Fred Marmon and Cracker Jackson wanted to charge down the slope andjoin that fight, but Barry forbade it.
“You’d probably be shot for Japs,” he told them. “And, anyhow, you’llbe more useful here when the enemy starts to scatter.... Look there!Isn’t that a bunch of ’em crawling out of a communication trench? Oncethey reach the bush they’ll all turn into snipers. We’ll have to headthem off.”
The Fortress crew needed no urging. A fight in the open was more totheir taste than crouching in a trench, any day. This time, with bigDanny Hale in the lead, they ran, stooping, through the grass towardthe outcropping of rock.
They were within twenty feet of the enemy when the Japs realized thatthey were Americans. The little men tried to shoot, but the Yanks weretoo close. Swinging his tommy-gun like a war-club, big Danny Haleclosed the distance. He took a bullet through his thigh without feelingit, and mowed down two Japs with one blow. His gun came to pieces, sohe dropped it and fought bare-handed.
Cracker Jackson was using his bayonet like a short sword—inside hisopponent’s guard. Fred Marmon was swaying in a knife duel with a thirdenemy. Tony Romani, his sub-machine gun empty, was coolly picking hisshots with an automatic pistol.
Barry had shot two Japs and knocked out a third with his gun butt.Without stopping to make sure of the last man, he turned to help FredMarmon. That was a mistake. A half-dead Jap is more dangerous than acoiled cobra.
As Barry turned his back the dizzy son of Nippon clawed out a pistoland fired. Fortunately for Barry the Jap’s aim was bad. The bulletdrilled through the calf of his right leg.
Tony Romani’s quick eyes caught the play. His pistol blazed twice. TheJap stiffened out, his weapon sliding from his hand.
The nearest enemies were all accounted for, but a movement to the rightcaught Barry’s eye.
“Down, boys!” he said sharply. “There’s another bunch
coming out of thecommunication trench. I’ll keep ’em busy while you reload yourtommy-guns.”
Throwing himself down behind a small rock, Barry opened fire intwo-second bursts. He must halt the Jap retreat, and still conserve hisammunition until the others had replaced their empty cartridge drums.
His strategy worked almost too well. The Jap officer leading theretreat took Barry for a lone gunner, and decided to wipe him out atonce. Firing in short spurts, he led his thirty-odd men straight at theoutcropping of rocks.
Bullets pounded the stone behind which Barry lay. They glanced off withwicked little screams. Once rock-dust got in Barry’s eye, half-blindinghim.
“Make it snappy, fellows!” he warned through clenched teeth. “Our gamewill be up in half a minute.”
“I beg to differ with you, Lieutenant,” Curly Levitt’s voice sounded athis shoulder. “Just watch this!”
His tommy-gun spoke, just as the thirty Japs started their rush.Barry’s weapon chimed in briefly, slamming its last bullet into theofficer’s midriff. The charging Japs flung themselves flat.
Barry rolled aside to make room behind his rock for Fred Marmon.Sergeants Jackson and Romani had now finished reloading. They werefiring from the highest point of the rocks, raking the enemymercilessly. Quickly the Japs realized that to stay where they weremeant sure death. Behind them the Americans were mopping up the lasttrenches.
Barry had just joined Danny Hale in the shelter of a half-sunkenboulder. The big sergeant was trying to puzzle out the workings of acaptured Jap rifle. Suddenly he glanced up.
“Here they come, Lieutenant!” Danny Hale whooped. “No time to reloadnow.”
Dropping his tommy-gun, Barry whipped out his bayonet. At Danny’s heelshe vaulted the boulder. The Japs who dived through the hail ofsub-machine gun bullets must be met with cold steel.
The shooting fizzled out. Now all the fighting was hand-to-hand. Barrybayoneted a monkey-like figure who had leaped upon Fred Marmon’s back.Turning, he glimpsed Danny Hale wielding his Jap rifle like apitchfork. Just in time, he leaped aside to dodge an enemy bayonetthrust and grapple with the man.
He blocked a vicious kick with his knee, but his wounded leg gave way.The next instant he was rolling on the ground, with the Jap’s buckteeth snapping at his throat, and the Jap’s knife slashing his ribs.
Desperately he twisted aside and jabbed with his bayonet. His enemyscreeched and went limp.
Another mob of helmeted figures came bounding through the tall grass.Barry heaved the dead Jap aside, and came up on one knee. Sweat stunghis eyes, blurring them. He gripped his bayonet for a last thrust.
“Hold it, man!” yelped a Yankee voice. “Don’t you know your friends?”
The newcomers were infantrymen, arriving just too late for the finish.They had popped out of the communication trench and were looking formore Japs. With them was a medical-corps man—the same one who hadattended Barry in the field dressing station. Seeing Barry’s newwounds, he whipped out a hypodermic needle, and drove it home beforethe young flier knew what was happening.
“You bonehead!” Barry cried. “I’m only scratched. Now you’ve fixed meso I can’t carry on. There’s a lot of mopping up to do. Those Jap fieldguns—”
“We’ve plenty of men to take care of them, sir,” the corporalinterrupted. “If the Lieutenant will permit me to contradict him,wounds two and three inches deep are hardly scratches. They need to bestuffed with sulfa powder—not dirt. And besides that, sir, you’ve losta lot of blood.”
“Oh, have it your own way,” sighed Barry, as the swift-acting drugbegan to take effect. “Got a drink of water handy? I’m thirsty as afried fish.”
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