W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

But then he saw a faint cloud of red oozing out of his trouser leg-

I’ve been shot in the leg! But why doesn‘t it hurt?

Shock! It doesn’t hurt because I’m in shock!

I’m going to pass out and then drown!

A glob of blood dropped off his cheek into the water and began to dissolve as it sank.

I’m going to bleed to death!

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed by Thy Name . . .

What the hell is the rest of it?

Dear God, please don’t let me die!

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . ..

"Move your ass! Run!Run!Run!Run!Run!Run!"

It’s the second wave!

Now there was small-arms fire, single shots and automatic, and it didn’t sound like .3O-O6s or Thompsons, and then there was a whistling sound followed by a crump and then a dull explosion, and he felt a shock wave and then another and another in the water.

"Get your dumb ass up and off the pier, or die here, you dumb sonofabitch!"

He saw, vaguely, figures running across the pier above him.

He found his voice.

"Medic! Medic! Medic!"

There was no response, and there didn’t seem to be any more movement on the pier above him. The strange-sounding-the Japanese -smalls-arms fire continued, and there were more mortar rounds landing in the water.

"Medic! Medic! For Christ’s sake, somebody help me!"

Now the leg started to ache, and his cheek. He put his hand to his face again, and the fingers came away this time with a clot of blood.

"For the love of Christ, will somebody help me? Medic! Medic!"

There was splashing in the water from the direction of the shore.

It’s a Jap! It has to be a Jap! The invasion failed, and now I’m going to die here under this fucking pier!

"What happened to you, Mac?"

"I’ve been wounded, you ignorant sonofabitch! And it’s ‘Lieutenant’!"

Fingers probed his face.

"That’s not bad," the medic said, professionally. "Another half an inch and you would have lost your teeth, maybe worse. But you just got grazed. Is that all that’s wrong with you?"

"My leg, I’ve been wounded in the leg."

Fingers probed his leg.

"That hurts, goddamn you!"

"I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to get you ashore. Let go of that piling and wrap your arms around my neck."

"Ashore?"

"Lieutenant, I’ve got badly wounded people ashore. Please don’t give me any trouble."

"I’mbadly wounded," Macklin said indignantly.

"No, you’re not. Your leg ain’t broke. You got one of them half-million-dollar wounds. Some muscle damage. Keep you out of the war for maybe three months. In ten days you’ll be in the hospital in Melbourne, looking up nurses’ dresses. Now come on, put your arms around me and I’ll get you ashore, and somebody will be along in a while to take you back to the ship."

Lieutenant Macklin did as he was told. The medic carried him on his back to the shore, and a few yards inland. Then he lowered him gently onto the sand, cut his trouser leg open, and applied a compress bandage.

"My leg," Macklin said, with as much dignity as he could muster, "is beginning to cause me a great deal of pain."

"Well, we have just the thing for that," the medic said, taking out a morphine hypodermic. "Next stop, Cloud Nine."

Macklin felt a prick in his buttocks, and then a sensation of cold.

"I gotta go," the medic said, patting him comfortably on the shoulder. "You’re going to be all right, Lieutenant. Believe me."

A warm sensation began to ooze through Macklin’s body.

I’m going to be all right,he thought. I’m going to live. They’re going to send me to the hospital in Melbourne. It will probably take longer than three months for my leg to heal I will receive the Purple Heart. Two Purple Hearts, one for the leg and one for the face. There will probably be a small scar on my face. People will ask about that. "Lieutenant Macklin was wounded while attacking Gavutu -twice wounded when assaulting the beach at Gavutu with the first wave of the Para-Marines."

I’ll be a captain for sure, now. And for the rest of my Marine Corps career, the scar on my face will be there to remind people of my combat service.

(Six)

Command Post, Tulagi Force

1530 Hours 8 August 1942

The headquarters of Brigadier General Lewis T. Harris, Commanding General of the Tulagi/Gavutu/Tanambogo Force, were now in the somewhat seedy white frame building that had before the war housed the Colonial Administrator of Tulagi, and was somewhat grandly known as "the Residence."

Thirty minutes before, the building had been the forward command post of Lieutenant Colonel "Red Mike" Edson, commanding the 1stRaider Battalion. When the Commanding Officer, 2ndBattalion, 5th Marines, drove up to attend a commanders’ conference called by General Harris, the small detachment of Raiders charged with protecting the Raider command post were still in place, close to but not actually manning their weapons (rifles, BARs, and light .30-caliber machine guns).

Thirty minutes before, the island of Tulagi had been officially reported "secure."

There was a moment’s hesitation before a sergeant called, "Atten-hut!" and saluted the 2ndBattalion Commander. For one thing, he was hatless, riding a captured Japanese motorcycle, and was carrying a rifle slung over his back, which was not the sort of thing the Raiders expected of a Marine major.

But the salute was enthusiastic and respectful. The reputation of the 2ndBattalion Commander had preceded him. It had been reliably reported that during the mopping-up phase of the invasion, the 2ndBattalion Commander had been seen standing in the open, shooting a particularly determined Japanese sniper who had until then been firing with impunity through a one-foot-square hole in his coral bunker. The Commanding Officer of the 2ndBattalion had fired at him twice; and when they pulled his body from the cave, they learned the sniper had taken two hits in the head.

The story had been of particular interest, and thus had quickly spread, both because that wasn’t usually the sort of thing majors and battalion commanders did personally, and also because he had done it with an M-l Garand rifle. The Garand was supposed to be the new standard rifle, although none had yet been issued to the Marine Corps; and it was supposed to be a piece of shit, incapable of hitting a barn door at fifty yards.

But there was no denying the story. A dozen people had seen Major Jack NMI Stecker stand up, as calmly as if had been on the rifle range at Parris Island or ‘Diego, and let off two shots and put both of them, so to speak, in the X-ring.

There was also scuttlebutt going around that Major Stecker had won the Big One, the Medal of Honor, as a buck sergeant in the First World War in France. No one could remember ever having seen a real, honest-to-Christ hero like that. And as Major Stecker walked up the shallow steps to the Residence, two dozen sets of eyes watched him with something close to awe.

General Harris was in his office, the Sergeant Major told Major Stecker, and he was to go right in.

There were no enlisted men in General Harris’s office, but only the other two commanding officers he had summoned to the commanders’ conference, Major Robert Williams of the 1stParachute Battalion and Lieutenant Colonels Red Mike Edson and Sam Griffith, CO and Exec of the 1stRaider Battalion.

They were all holding canteens, presumably full of coffee. There were two cans of bore cleaner on the shelf of the field desk.

"Forgive me for saying so, Major," General Harris greeted Major Stecker, "but aren’t you a little long in the tooth for a motorcycle?"

"With respect, General," Major Stecker said, "I am not too old for a motorcycle. I am too old, and much too tired, to walk up here."