W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps IV - Battleground

"They just came off patrol, Sergeant," he said. "They ran into some Japs and had themselves a little firefight. I think maybe you'd better listen in on this."

"Yes, Sir," Moore said, grateful for the chance to stop rummaging through personal effects.

He spun around on the dirt floor.

The lieutenant and then the technical sergeant handed him several wallets and some more personal mail.

"We're the first ones back, I suppose," the lieutenant said. "Maybe you can make something out of this shit."

Moore took it, glanced through it, and quickly decided it was more of the same sort of thing he'd been looking at for hours.

Feincamp produced a map. The lieutenant looked at it for a moment, and then pointed.

"Right about here on the beach, Captain," he said. "Captain Brush called a lunch break. I told him that I'd been there before, and twenty, thirty minutes inland was an orange farm..."

"A what?"

"Orange trees."

"Orange grove," Feincamp provided.

"Yes, Sir. Well, the captain said we could walk another half hour if it meant fresh fruit, so we started inland. Ten, fifteen minutes later, right about here..." he pointed, "all hell broke loose. We lost Corporal DeLayne right away. He took a round in the head."

"The big blond kid?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Damn."

"So Captain Brush told me to take a squad around here, on the right flank, and the rest started for where the fire was coming from. Straight ahead. When we started that, they started withdrawing, and we started after them."

Moore saw that the technical sergeant was admiring a Japanese helmet he had taken as a souvenir.

"So then it was sort of like the wild west for maybe twenty minutes. But we whipped their ass!"

"Casualties?"

"A pisspot full of them. We counted thirty-one Japs, and I'm sure we missed some."

"I was speaking of Marines," Feincamp said coldly.

"Three KIA, Sir. Three wounded."

"Sergeant," Moore suddenly interrupted, "let me see that helmet, please?"

The technical sergeant looked at him doubtfully.

"Huh?"

"May I please see the helmet?" Moore asked.

"You want a helmet, Sergeant, you just take a walk up the beach."

"Give him the helmet, Sergeant," Captain Feincamp ordered softly.

The technical sergeant reluctantly handed it over.

"What is it, Sergeant?" Feincamp asked, after a moment.

"This isn't a Rikusentai helmet, Captain," Moore said.

"It isn't a what?" the lieutenant asked.

Moore ignored the question.

"Were the Japanese all wearing helmets like this?" he asked.

"They was-the ones that was wearing helmets-were wearing helmets like that," the technical sergeant said.

"With this insignia?" Moore pursued, pointing to a small, red enamel star on the front of the helmet.

"I don't know," the lieutenant said. "What was that you said before?"

"The Rikusentai, the construction troops who were building the airfield, are in the Japanese Navy. The Navy insignia is an anchor and a chrysanthemum. This is an Army helmet."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning, possibly," Moore thought aloud and immediately regretted it, "that the Ichiki Butai is already ashore."

"What the fuck is whatever you said?" the technical sergeant asked.

"The Ichiki Butai is an infantry regiment-the 28th-of the 7th Division. First class troops under Colonel Kiyano Ichiki. The Japanese are going to send them here from Truk. If I'm right, and they're already here, that would be important."

"How the hell do you know that?" Captain Feincamp asked. "What units the Japs intend to send?"

"I know, Sir. I can't tell you how I know."

"The captain," the technical sergeant said furiously, "asked you a question. You answer it!"

Captain Feincamp raised his hand to shut off the technical sergeant.

"How do we know the Japs didn't issue Army helmets to- what was it you called them?" Captain Feincamp asked.

"The Rikusentai, Sir," Moore furnished. "It's possible, of course. But that Major in G-2..."

"Major Stecker?"

"Yes, Sir, I think so. He told me to look for anything out of the ordinary."

"Captain," the lieutenant said thoughtfully. "I have something... I mean, out of the ordinary. The Japs we killed seemed to be heavy on officers. Maybe half of them were."

"You just forgot to mention that, right?" Feincamp said, sarcastically.

"Sorry, Sir. I didn't think it was important."

"What I think you had better do, Lieutenant," Feincamp said, "is get down to Division G-2, and tell Major Stecker what happened... No, tell the new G-2; I forgot about him. I'm going to send your sergeant and Sergeant Moore back down the beach to see what else Moore can come up with."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"I don't think I have to tell you, Moore, do I, what to look for?"

"No, Sir."

(Six)

Aside from perhaps four hours familiarization at Parris Island, the only experience Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, had with the U.S. Submachine Gun, Caliber.45 (Thompson) was vicarious. He had watched half a dozen movie heroes-most notably Alan Ladd-and as many movie gangsters-most notably Edward G. Robinson-use the weapon against their enemies with great skill, ‚lan, and

They were now forty minutes down the beach toward the site of the encounter between Able Company, First Marines, and the Japanese; and he really had had no idea until that moment how heavy the sonofabitch was.

He had opted to leave his utility jacket in the S-2 Section of the First Marines, which he now recognized to be an error of the first magnitude. The canvas strap of the Thompson had worn one shoulder and then the other raw. And as they made their way down the sandy beach, the two spare 20-round Thompson magazines he carried, plus the.45 pistol and its two spare magazines, had both banged against him, in the process wearing raw and badly bruising the skin and muscles of his legs and buttocks.

He had also quickly learned that the good life he had been living in Melbourne and Brisbane had not only softened the calluses he had won at Parris Island-the balls of his feet and the backs of his ankles had quickly blistered, and the blisters had broken-but it had softened him generally.

To the technical sergeant's great and wholly unconcealed annoyance and contempt, he had absolutely had to stop every five minutes or so to regain his breath. His heart pounded so heavily he wondered if it would burst through his rib cage.

Twenty minutes down the beach, they began to encounter other members of Captain Brush's patrol. Five minutes after that, they encountered Captain Brush himself, bringing up the rear.

When the technical sergeant responded to, "Sergeant Ropke, where the hell do you think you're going?" by informing him of their mission, Captain Brush assigned a Corporal and a PFC to go with them.

Fifteen minutes after that, they reached the site of the action. It was marked by Japanese bodies scattered over the beach in various obscene postures of death. Even more obscene, in Moore's judgment, were the three-quarters-buried bodies of the three Marines who had been killed.

They had been buried with one boondocker shod foot sticking out of the ground so that their bodies could be more easily found later.

In the clothing of the third body Moore examined, that of a Japanese Army Captain, he found positive proof that the Ichiki Butai had indeed been landed on Guadalcanal. He also found in the calf of the Captain's boot a map which looked to him like a Japanese assessment of the Marine defense positions on the beachhead.

He gave this to the technical sergeant, and oriented the map for him.

"Jesus Christ!" the technical sergeant said, after carefully examining the map. "They did a good fucking job with this!"

Moore spent another twenty minutes searching for the bodies of Japanese officers, and then searching the bodies for materials he thought would be important. Finally he had a Japanese knapsack full of documents, maps, and wallets.