Once an Eagle (80 page)

Ahead stood a grove of coconut trees and what must have once been a copra shed, its roof collapsed, rotting quietly in the jungle; and back under the trees a row of sagging pyramidal tents, black under the fierce celadon canopy. Two soldiers stripped to the waist were dejectedly digging foxholes behind the tents, the muck clinging in lumps to their entrenching shovels.

“End of the line, gents,” the corporal informed them. Putting his little fingers to his teeth he gave two sharp blasts. The diggers straightened and dropped their shovels, and climbing out of the holes began walking slowly toward them. “Brigade Headquarters—that tent at the end, Colonel,” he said to Damon; then swung his arm back across the clearing toward the long green hood of a hospital tent, barely discernible in the forest, and said to Stackpole: “And over there's Agony Hall, Doc.—And right up there”—he cocked one bony finger westward up the trail where now they could hear a muffled popping and bumping, dry and dusty and far away—“is Never-Never Land. With bells.”

“When's the floor show coming on?” Ben asked him.

The corporal doubled up in mirth. “Hey, that's a daisy-cutter. I got to remember that one.”

His laughter followed them through the mud to the end tent where a guard stood picking his nose with a thumbnail; seeing the two officers approaching he came listlessly to attention and saluted. And all at once there was General Westerfeldt coming out to them; he was wearing khaki and leggings, his sleeves turned up.

“Sam! Say, it's good to see you, boy …”

“It's good to be serving with you again, General.” He saluted, but Westy ignored it and seized his hand in both of his own. He had aged a dozen years since the Monterey landings two years ago; his face was deeply lined, the flesh hung from his jowls in blued folds. All the old jovial assurance had gone out of it. He's sick, Damon thought—and then: No, it's more than that.

To hide his astonishment he turned to Ben. “Lieutenant Colonel Krisler, sir.”

“Glad to have you with us, Krisler.” The General returned Ben's salute and shook hands. “I don't know you, but Sam was keen on having you with us—and I don't mind telling you that's more than good enough for me.” He smiled wryly. “Not everybody's exactly wild to come out here to Poverty Row.—Come on in and sit down.” He led the way back inside the tent and lowered himself heavily into the canvas chair behind his field desk. The sides of the tent were rolled but the air was stifling; there was not the faintest puff of breeze. “Sit down, sit down.” He shoved a pile of papers away from him and rubbed his eyes slowly. There were deep ovals of sweat under his arms and around his collar. Scowling he pulled the wet cloth away from his body. “This damn prickly heat, it can drive you crazy.” He picked up a pencil and gripped it in both hands. “It's been rough, Sam,” he said after a moment. “I don't have to tell you how rough it's been.”

“Yes, sir. I know.”

Westerfeldt shot him a glance. “What are they saying down in Brisbane?”

“I didn't hear much, General,” he lied. “We were only there overnight, really. Well, they're disappointed the operation's been slowed down …”

The Brigade Commander grunted. “Are they. The sons of bitches. Sit around in their fancy suites at Lennon's, drinking gin-and-limes and shooting directives—” The field phone strapped to the side of his desk rang and he broke off and picked it up. “BULL MOOSE. Yes. They didn't. I see … Now, look—well no, I don't think so. What?… Well, I'll have to think about it, Frenchy, I don't know. Yes. I'll call you back in a while.” He thrust the phone back in its leather jacket and lifted the cloth of his shirt away from his skin again. “Oh, it's easy for
them
to holler. They aren't sitting here in this lousy swamp with the Japs staring down their throats. Getting bombed and strafed almost every afternoon. Wondering when the next planeload of supplies is coming in. If ever … Do you know what I've got for artillery?” he demanded, leaning forward. “One one-oh-five. One! With sixty-seven rounds. And half a dozen one-pounders and some thirty-sevens. I haven't got anything to work with. The Japs have got all the stuff—they're getting reinforced from the sea, the trail down from Bowari …”

Damon listened to him with what he hoped was a reasonably sympathetic, attentive expression. It was very bad, then; much worse than anyone had intimated. When the General bent down to pick up a sheet of paper that had fallen from his desk he stole a glance at Ben, who rolled his eyes.

The General straightened heavily, scuffing his feet on the tent floor. “Old Pompey,” he said with a slow, sad grin. “I keep thinking the old fellow is right there, by my foot. He knew he wasn't going to make the boat … ”

“How's the old regiment, General?” Damon asked.

Westy had hunched forward again, gripping the pencil. “Yes. Well, that's it, Sam. They've had a hard time. They're good boys, I don't have to tell you that—but they've had a hard time. That long march up from Kokogela. They've had no training for this kind of thing, no really adequate training, there wasn't
time!
Christ, I never thought anything like
this
—”

He broke off and snorted. His mouth looked slack and worn, an old man's mouth. Is he too old? Damon wondered with a pang. Too old? He thought of George Caldwell standing beside the car at the Presidio headquarters building that Sunday morning of Pearl Harbor. Westy was almost his father-in-law's age.

To pull him back he said: “Who was running the outfit, General?”

“Mac. MacFarlane. You remember him.”

“What happened?”

“He got sick. Scrub typhus. The diseases here, Sam—the bugs! They're in the kunai grass, the water, everything, mosquitoes, mites, you've got to be careful—”

He snapped the pencil away and clasped his big hands, staring down at them. “Three weeks ago was the worst. I guess. Some of the boys broke and ran. I tell you it's uncanny, you can't
see
anything! They're in the trees, in holes in the ground, they're everywhere … But the bastards—they've been
training
for this kind of thing for years! Living in the jungle, getting along on a handful of rice and a mouthful of water … You've got no idea what we've been up against, Sam. I had to relieve Chuck Leffingwell. Relieve him! My best friend, from the old Tientsin days—do you think I liked doing
that?
” He glared at the two men a moment, his mouth working; snatched up a piece of paper and shoved it at Damon. “Read that. Go ahead—read it.”

 

Dear Westy:

It should be abundantly clear to you by now that time is of the very essence. It is immaterial that our troops are largely untried, that the Japanese are experienced jungle fighters, that the supply situation is not all that it might be—all that is of no consequence whatever. You must work with what you have. Your mission is to seize the Japanese field fortifications at Moapora by 12 November, and nothing else matters. No necromancy or legerdemain is going to effect your purpose. Battle is your solution—and your only solution. Strike skillfully and resolutely—for, as I have often admonished, fate is long and time is fleeting.

Cordially, MacArthur

 

“Yes, that's the kind of thing I've been getting. Do you know what he said to me? At Moresby? He said: ‘If you fail to take Moapora, do not bother to come back.' Yes!” He leaned forward again, his eyes all at once glistening with tears. “Have I ever failed to do my duty?—what was expected of me as a troop commander? Have I?”

“Certainly not, General.” Watching Westerfeldt's face, harassed and suppliant and sweating in the thick, still air, Damon began to feel troubled. Maybe it wasn't as grim as all this. Nothing was ever as grim as it
could
be. Aloud he said: “Could you brief us a little on the situation?”

“What? Sure. Sure.” The General heaved himself to his feet and went over to the situation map, which was tacked to a board with a transparent overlay. Damon saw what looked like two irregular bulges running inland from the sea and then curving along parallel to a river and trailing off to the northwest. “We've got from here—this grove—to here where the line is now, in nineteen days. And that's where she stands. We just can't grind it out anymore. The Japs have got all the high ground—from the Mission, here, over across Watubu Creek to the copra plantation, here. Coconut log bunkers, they've had months to prepare them—the God damnedest defenses … My boys are in the swamps, wading in water to their hips, all day and all night. The only way forward is on the trails, and the Japs have got them all covered. Perfect fields of fire …” He turned away from the map. “I've asked for air strikes, I've asked for pack howitzers, I've even put in for a diversionary landing up here at Luala, using the Four eighty-fourth.”

“They're not here?”

“No, that's half the trouble. The Aussies got them for the Timobele operation right after Milne Bay and then they wouldn't let them go. And then finally they did—the idea was to send them overland from Timobele; and they got stuck in the swamps down there. You don't know what this country is like, Sam. You just can't imagine …” Westy went into a long harangue involving area commands and jurisdictional wrangles, the gist of which seemed to be that Westy's outfit was a provisional brigade, assembled hastily for the Moapora campaign from two unattached regiments that had been doing garrison duty on Malekula and Efate in the New Hebrides. At the conclusion of the Moapora campaign—or perhaps during the campaign, Westy wasn't very clear about this—the 484th, which had been hung up for some strange reason over at Port Darwin, was to join them, and the 55th Division was to be officially formed.

Damon went over to the situation map. “What about the flank here? beyond the river?”

“It's all swamp, Sam. Mangrove swamps for miles—nobody can get through them. A crocodile couldn't make it …” All at once he gripped the Colonel's arm. “Sam, I'm counting on you. Don't let me down.”

“I won't, General.”

“Sam, they're sick. They're out on their feet. The kids. Half of them are down with fever. Go on up there and fire them up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If anybody can do it, you can …” Westerfeldt went to the tent's entrance and called: “Miller? Take Colonel Damon and Colonel Krisler up to the Four seventy-seventh.—Sam, I'm holding a conference for all regimental and battalion commanders at nineteen hundred.”

“We'll be here, sir.”

“And Sam?”

“Yes, General?” Damon turned.

“Don't—take any chances, will you? Take care …” That distressed, pleading look was back in his face again. It was more than solicitude; it was an old man's trembling fear. It was the wrong look to send a man—any man—up to the line with.

“I won't, General,” he said.

They went out into the still, damp heat and looked at each other.

“Well,” Ben murmured, “I'm beginning to see why they hollered for the fire brigade.”

Damon grinned at him. “Meaning you and me?”

“Hell, yes. We're all they've
got
… Makes you kind of tingly all over, to be spearheading the Allied advance in the Pacific, now doesn't it?”

The jeep swung up beside them and they climbed aboard.

 

14 Oct 42.
Charming scene at CP. Everybody hanging around, passing time of day, drinking coffee: old home week. Leaf colonel named Caylor ensconced on the throne. Natty type, hair neatly plastered back from center part, shrewd little eyes, nicely cared-for fingernails. Westy sent him over from his staff when Mac succumbed. I said, “Where's the line?” “You mean the front? It's right—about—here.” His little pinkie following the tracing on the overlay. “I'll have a jeep ready for you.” I looked at him. “Can't we walk it?” “Well—” his eyes falling off “—it's quite a way, Colonel.” Turned out it was four and a half miles. FOUR AND A HALF MILES. Jesus Christ. I said: “What's opposing you?” “Well, there are extensive fortifications along this general area here, at the edge of the Grove.” “What do you mean—extensive?” “Well …” little pinkie wavering around on the celluloid “…that is, there are a number of log bunkers, reinforced by—” “Have you seen them?” Surprised now, his eyes sliding up at me. “Me? No. Of course not. These are reports, we have a full file of reports …” Hadn't even once been up there. I thought his uniform looked wonderfully impeccable. Another one of the pukka fucking sahibs. And men up front lying in the muck waiting on him.

Told him I wanted him to take out a patrol and verify some of these reports. “A patrol?” Tapping his shiny little nails on the desk. Switchboard operator and runners gaping at me in amazement. “Yes, a patrol. What are you—too good for it?
They're
doing it out there, aren't they?” Was in a cold fury. Oh, these holier-than-thous! His face full of bewilderment and disapproval: too stupid, too pompous even to be scared. “That's not a part of my duties. My duties are—” “You're relieved,” I said. “As of this instant. Get your gear together and clear out.” “Now, Colonel—” “Take off!” I said. “Very good, sir.” Happy to be out of it. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as Peg used to say.

Wandered league on weary league along trail toward the front. People crapped out every which way, huddled under shelter halves and ponchos. Pleasant surprise at 3rd Batt CP. Little Feltner, looking more clerical and harrowed than ever. Holding the fort. Thought for a moment he was going to burst into tears. “I heard you were coming, Colonel—I spread the word.” Now it was only about TWO miles to the line. Everybody's got an air corps complex: bemused by communications networks, victory at long range. Don't fire till you see the white of the next continent. Found an abandoned Jap dugout behind B Co CP and told Ross and Beasley to hoe it out and move in. This enraged Ross but he complied. This is the end of the pukka sahib trail.