Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

Wermuth wondered what it could be in the boy’s background to give him such a capacity for killing. Small-town kid Satariano had been one of the first group of recruits to arrive in the Philippines, back in April of ’41, and even trained here. He’d been a standout on the target range — obviously, somebody in the boy’s past had taught him to shoot; maybe he’d spent time on a farm.

Not long ago, the life of a GI in the Philippines had been damn near idyllic, training till noon with afternoons free (including an hour for siestas), and plenty of nightlife. American bucks went a long way — food was cheap, a bottle of gin thirty cents! The people were friendly, and this included the females. Then after Pearl Harbor the soldier’s life of wine, women, and song ran headlong into the reality of what they’d been training for...

That the Filipino Scouts could adjust to war came as no surprise, considering the violent history of the Philippines; it was harder on the American boys... though Satariano seemed an exception. Wermuth was well aware that the toughest thing about combat was learning to control your emotions. Fear and panic were bigger hazards than anything the enemy could throw at you.

And emotional control included getting over the psychological hurdle of learning to take lives in combat; killing another human being required an adjustment that most people could never make in the civilian world, and thankfully never had to.

How this kid, fresh out of high school, had developed that ability... from whence the boy had summoned it... Wermuth had no idea. The boy did not seem to be a psychopath; he had no meanness in him — he was, if anything, a sweet, quiet, generous kid, albeit one to keep to himself.

The only exception to that solitary streak was the corporal’s devotion to his captain. Strange that this kid who was such a loner behind the lines made the perfect sidekick at the front. But Satariano seemed to crave someone he could look up to. Someone he could please. And Wermuth fit that bill.

In less than ten minutes, Wermuth and Satariano had reached a small semblance of a clearing; whether the brush had been cut away or trampled into submission or cleared by mortar fire, Wermuth couldn’t venture a guess. Whatever the case, anyone who stepped out of the jungle into the relief of this open air would make an excellent target.

As if to confirm the captain’s opinion, a foxhole had been dug at the edge of the clearing between the flange-like roots of a banyan, home to a trio of Scouts manning a light machine gun. Wermuth knew the three men well — they were under his command — and he was smiling as he approached the position, a greeting on his lips...

...which froze into a grotesque grin as he and Satariano looked down into the foxhole, the three Scouts flung to its earthen floor, their bodies battered and ruptured from the butts of rifles, blue fatigues blood-soaked. Their heads were off and had rolled here and there, billiard balls unsuccessfully seeking a pocket.

Hardened combat veteran that he was, Wermuth was nonetheless horror-struck; his mind shouted, Goddamn samurai swords! But the words did not emerge.

Across from him, at the foxhole’s other edge, Satariano looked up sharply at the captain. “Fresh.”

Wermuth gazed down with new eyes, seeing the still-red blood, summoned from the gaping vacant necks, which spilled scarlet like kicked-over paint cans.

The boy’s face under the tin helmet was void of emotion, but a tightness around the eyes spoke volumes.

All the corporal said, in a whisper that was little more than lip movement, was, “Not a shot fired.”

Satariano glanced toward the clearing, then back at his captain, and their eyes locked in shared understanding: the Nips had killed these sentries without firing a shot, to avoid attracting attention. Why? To take full advantage of that inviting clearing...

Meaning, they’d be back — soon .

Satariano was the first to climb down into the foxhole, ducking below its lip; and then so did Wermuth, finding a spot between corpses, though the wetness of blood leached unsettlingly through his khakis.

The crunching of footsteps on beaten-down brush was followed by the sounds of laughter and conversation in that distinctive foreign tongue. When Wermuth risked a peek above the foxhole rim, he saw a sea of brown uniforms — at least twenty of them — as the enemy soldiers... in helmets, a few in puttees, most with bayonets at their side, some with shoulder-slung machine guns... relaxed and joked and smoked.

Ducking back down, Wermuth looked at Satariano, who whispered, “Turkey shoot.”

And there was no time for discussion, no chance to express a contrary opinion much less for Wermuth to exert his rank. The kid jack-in-the-boxed to a shooting posture and let rip with the tommy gun.

As Satariano’s machine gun thundered, Wermuth aimed his M-1; but the captain held his fire momentarily, as every potential target seemed to be busy taking the boy’s bullets, doing an awful dance for an unseen puppeteer. Spurts of blood, like ribbons flung in celebration, slashed the green landscape and streaked wrapping-paper brown uniforms with scarlet, and cries of agony and surprise made dissonant music in a jungle otherwise gone silent.

Toward the rear, the Nips were running for the jungle and Wermuth finally began to shoot, picking off one, two, three of them. A hot spent shell bounced off Wermuth’s cheek as the blank-faced boy went about his business.

It took a full minute for the corporal to deplete the drum of .45 cartridges, and the captain fired rapidly with the M-1 while Satariano plucked another round magazine of slugs off the webbed belt. But then the clearing was empty of the living, though around twenty of the dead lagged behind. They lay in various awkward postures, snipped puppets now, and the smell of cordite singed the muggy air.

The two men exchanged glances.

Was that all of them? Was it over?

“Cover me,” Satariano said.

The captain followed the corporal’s order, as the boy rose from the grave-like foxhole to thread through the scattered corpses, making sure no living surprises awaited among the dead. The boy made a thorough job of it, occasionally bending over a body to check, and each time Wermuth felt his guts tighten.

Satisfied, the boy began back, moving across the corpse-cluttered clearing in a cautious, circling-around manner, tommy gun ready, managing not to trip over any of the fallen. He was almost halfway when the jungle began to bleed brown uniforms.

Dozens of Nips poured out between the trees, on the run, guns blasting, rifles, sidearms, some with swords upraised, shrill cries cutting the air like verbal blades, shrieking the all-too-familiar “ Banzai! ”

Wermuth instinctively sprang to his feet and began firing the rifle at the onslaught, and when the bullet slammed through his chest and out his back, he tumbled back down into the foxhole, where he damn well should have stayed. He wasn’t in much pain, but couldn’t seem to get his hands to work, couldn’t get himself in place to offer supportive fire to his corporal, out there in the midst of the banzai attack.

But the boy did have that hot tommy and his cool head, and, at the rim of the foxhole, Wermuth watched in amazement as Satariano methodically mowed down the men, turning in ever so slow a pirouette to catch them as they came from all directions. There the young soldier stood, bullets flying all around him, carving into trees, ruffling fronds, lead bees zinging but not quite stinging, the corporal as yet unhit. Somehow Wermuth got his arms working and positioned himself and was taking aim when Satariano, finally, fell, dropping alongside an enemy corpse.

Dread rose like bile in the wounded captain, who nonetheless noted the almost comical sight as the twenty or more Nips momentarily froze, their eyes wide with their adversary’s apparent death.