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

Resisting the temptation to reach for the bottle, Dillon shook his head no. Liquor, like everything else, was in short supply on the island.

"Sure?"

Dillon reached for the bottle and took a sip.

Pickering took the bottle from him, and began to wrap it in the towels again.

"You were with Colonel Goettge's patrol, Sergeant?" he asked, gently.

"Yes, Sir."

"How did that happen, Jake?"

"I heard about the patrol and told Goettge I'd like to send one of my people along. He said, 'sure.' "

Pickering had a sudden, furious thought: Was that simple stupidity, or did Goettge want to make sure his Errol Flynn-John Wayne heroics were properly photographed for posterity?

He immediately regretted the snap decision: There you go again, Pickering, from all your vast experience as a corporal twenty-odd years ago, judging a man who spent that much time learning his profession. Who the hell do you think you are?

"Can you tell me about the patrol, Sergeant? You say you're just back?"

"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Sellers replied, and then fell silent.

"Start from the beginning, why don't you? You went with Colonel Goettge on the ramp boat from Kukum?"

That much Pickering already knew. When the Navy sailed away from Guadalcanal, they did so in such haste that a number of the landing boats normally carried aboard the transports were left behind. Before the Naval bombardment, there had been a small village called Kukum. The village was almost totally destroyed, but it remained a good spot for keeping the boats the Navy left behind. So Vandergrift formed there an ad hoc unit, "The Lunga Boat Pool," made up of the boats and their mixed Navy and Coast Guard crews.

"That was about eighteen hundred?" Pickering pried gently. He knew what time Goettge left.

Fucking around with one thing and another, including taking his own combat correspondent with him, Goettge's ramp boat left at least two hours too late to do any good once he got where they were headed.

"That's about all we know, Sergeant," Pickering said, gently. "Could you fill me in from there?"

"Well, it was dark when we got there, Sir."

"You mean at the Matanikau River?"

Pickering knew that too. Following First Sergeant Custer's original plan at least that far, Goettge had told him he planned to go ashore about two hundred yards west of the mouth of the Matanikau.

"Yes, Sir. That's probably why we ran aground. It was dark and we couldn't see."

"Where did you run aground?"

"About fifty yards offshore, Colonel," Sergeant Sellers said. Pickering did not correct him. "The... watchacallem? The guy who runs the boat?"

"The coxswain," Pickering furnished.

"The coxswain said it was a sandbar."

"What happened then?"

"Some of the guys went over the sides and tried to rock it free, but when that didn't work, we all went into the water and waded ashore."

"What happened to the ramp boat?"

"A couple of guys stayed behind and kept rocking it. I guess they finally got it loose. We could hear it after a while; we couldn't see it, it was too dark. We could hear it going away."

"So there you were on the beach?"

"So they talked it over."

" 'They'?"

"Colonel Goettge and the officers," Sellers said. "I was there with them."

"And?"

"They decided it was too late, too dark, too, to do anything. Except find some place to spend the night. And then go on patrol in the morning. So Colonel Goettge and Sergeant Custer started walking toward the coconut trees..."

"What coconut trees?"

"There was a grove of coconut trees. It was dark on the ground, Colonel, but we could see the tops of the trees... You know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think so. Then what happened?"

"That's when the Japs started shooting," Sellers said, very quietly, barely audibly.

"Was anyone hit?"

"Colonel Goettge. He got it first. Then Sergeant Custer," Sellers said. "They went down right away. Christ! Then the Doc ran out to help them..."

"That would be Captain Pratt, the surgeon?"

"I think that was his name," Sellers said. "And then Sergeant Caltrider shot the Jap."

"What Jap was that?"

"The one we brought with us. The Jap warrant officer."

"Sergeant Caltrider shot him?"

"Blew the cocksucker's head off," Sellers said. "The bastard led us into a trap. That's what it was, a trap. He deserved it, the cocksucker."

"Was Colonel Goettge badly wounded?"

"Killed. Had half of his face shot away. Sergeant Custer, too. He was hit four, five times. Killed him right away."

"And Doctor Pratt?"

"Him, too."

"And what were the rest of you doing?"

"One of the guys ran back in the water and fired his rifle, to get the ramp boat to come back. The rest of us just laid there. Jesus, there was no place to get out of the line of fire. It was like they were waiting for us, knew where we would be, and when we got where they wanted us, they opened up with everything they had."

"Did the boat come back?"

"No, Sir. Either he didn't know we wanted him to, or he could see what was going on and figured we were all dead."

"Then what?"

"We just laid there. Christ, we couldn't even see where they were to shoot back at them. I mean, we knew where they were, but we couldn't see them."

"But they knew where you were?"

"The only reason I'm alive is because of the way the beach sloped. There was just enough sand to hide behind."

"Where was Captain Ringer? Did you see him?"

Ringer was the S-2 of the 5th Marines. In Pickering's judgment, if any staff Intelligence officer should have gone out on this patrol-and he didn't think any should have-it should have been under the command of an infantry platoon leader. It should have been Ringer. And now he thought, unkindly, that since Goettge had insisted on going himself, Ringer should have stayed behind.

"Yes, Sir. He sort of took over after the colonel was killed. Him and Lieutenant Cory."

"What were they doing at this time?"

"Well, the first thing he did was send a corporal down the beach for help. And then, I guess it was about an hour later, Sergeant Arndt volunteered to swim back for help. I went with him."

"You swam back?"

"Yes, Sir. We ran into a Jap-I think he was as lost as we were-and Arndt killed him. And then we found a boat and paddled most of the way back."

"Most of the way?"

"Sergeant Arndt thought we would probably get shot by our own guys, so we paddled out to one of the landing boats we knew was anchored off shore, and then we got them to start it up and take us in."

"Where is Sergeant Arndt now?"

"They took him to the 5th Marines Command Post, Sir."

"I was there, Flem," Jake Dillon said. "I thought you had better hear this, so I brought him here."

"Yeah," Pickering said.

He looked at Sergeant Sellers.

"Is that about it, Sergeant? Is there anything else?"

Sellers met his eyes but didn't speak for a moment.

"Sir, as we were swimming away," he said finally, hollow voiced, "we could make out... the Japs came out of the boondocks, Sir, from the coconut trees and the other side of them. They... They went after the people on the beach, Sir. Not only with rifles and pistols. I mean, they were using swords. We could see the swords, reflections from them, I mean. And we could hear our guys screaming."

From a remote portion of his brain, dimmed by more than two decades, and intentionally hidden on top of that, Pickering's memory brought forth the sound of the screams men made when their bodies were violated by sharpened steel. Some of the Marines at Belleau Wood, Corporal Fleming Pickering among them, had armed themselves with intrenching shovels. They sharpened the sides with sharpening stones.

These had been more effective than the issue bayonets and trench knives.