The Great Alone (109 page)

When they staggered down to Holtz Bay, Wylie knew they were a pathetic-looking sight. Out of the three hundred and twenty men who reached Holtz Bay, he and Big Jim were among the forty who could walk without pain. The battalion had lost eleven men, and counted twenty wounded. All the rest were suffering from severe exposure, mainly to their feet. Gangrene had already set in for some. The hospital cases were evacuated, leaving behind a force of a hundred and sixty-five men out of the original four hundred and twenty.

As they sat down to taste their first food in nearly six days, in a heated tent no less, Wylie clamped a hand on Big Jim’s shoulder. “I told you, you son of a bitch, nothing was going to happen to us.”

Big Jim grinned tiredly, then glanced toward the distant sound of battle and sobered. “The Japs aren’t off the island yet, Wylie.”

The previous day, the Navy ships lying off the coast of Attu had used up all their bombardment ammunition. They could no longer shell the enemy positions. If a Japanese task force should appear, they were helpless to defend even themselves. The ground troops had to rely on air support from the carrier planes and the land-based bombers on Amchitka. Most of the time, heavy fog and solid clouds kept them grounded. But the battle raged on. The Southern Force remained trapped in Massacre Valley, uselessly flinging its men at the impregnable Japanese lines, but the Northern Force attacked the enemy-held ridges above Holtz Bay, gaining the crests in savage hand-to-hand combat. Wylie slept through most of it, too exhausted to care.

Shortly after midnight on the morning of the eighteenth, Wylie and Big Jim emerged from their tent and joined the remnants of the Scout Battalion assembling outside. With two days of rest and a full stomach, he felt fit and revived. The captain had called for volunteers to go out on a patrol to scout the pass leading to Massacre Valley. It was a job Wylie had been trained to do. Everyone knew the hell the Japs had been giving the guys on the other side of the pass. If there was a chance of breaking through the enemy lines, Wylie wanted to be part of it.

Wylie and Big Jim were assigned to the advance platoon. They set out ahead of the main patrol to scout the northern approach to the mountain pass. Before they reached the top, they heard the muffled crunch of footsteps in the snow and the muted clatter of equipment. Assuming it was an enemy patrol, they fanned out and took cover. As the figures emerged out of the fog, Wylie curled his finger against the trigger of his automatic. Then he caught the murmur of voices talking in American.

“Halt! Who goes there?” the platoon leader demanded.

The oncoming squad stopped and quickly identified themselves as a detachment from Colonel Zimmerman’s outfit in Massacre Valley. The Japs had pulled their troops out of the pass. After a week of bloody fighting, the American forces had finally achieved their objective and linked up at the mountain pass between Holtz Bay and Massacre Valley.

CHAPTER LIX

Attu

May 26, 1943

Inch by bloody inch, they had driven the Japs backward, taking the mountaintop of Point Able, then Sarana Nose, steadily pushing the enemy toward the sea and their main camp at Chichagof Harbor. The long Chichagof Valley lay open before the American forces, but that avenue was an invitation to death. The tenacious Japanese were dug in along the ridge that overlooked the length of the valley. There was no alternative. They had to root the enemy soldiers out of Fish Hook Ridge.

Three days before, the order had come down through the chain of command to take the ridge. For three days they’d been trying. But the snow- and ice-encrusted hogback presented the soldiers with some of the wildest terrain they’d had to face. And the remaining Japanese were concentrated all along the steep, ragged heights of the ridge’s back.

Yesterday it had snowed. And the Japs had used the snow to camouflage their positions by lying motionless under the white stuff, holding their fire while an American squad advanced, then unleashing it with devastating effect or else rolling grenades down on them.

The morning dawned cold and relatively clear. Wylie sat in a foxhole, his rifle comfortably cradled in his arms, almost a permanent extension of his body. The blade of the fixed bayonet gleamed coldly in the morning light. Big Jim was next to him, huddling deep inside his parka for warmth, his breath vaporizing into a thin white cloud as he peered at the jagged summits of the razorbacked ridge. They were some two hundred feet from the top—not far, but they all knew they’d have to fight every inch of the rest of the way.

“According to those two Jap prisoners they captured yesterday, there’s less than a thousand Jap soldiers on that ridge.” Big Jim turned his head to look at Wylie, the wolverine-lined hood of his non-regulation parka covering half of the near side of his face. “We must have fourteen thousand troops on the island now. Don’t those fucking bastards know they can’t win?”

“Somebody must have forgotten to tell them.” Wylie kept his chin tucked deep inside his collar and the encircling hood of his parka, letting the fur warm his cold mouth. “Just like somebody forgot to tell those Jap prisoners not to talk. I hear they never figure on being taken alive, so they aren’t instructed against revealing the strength and position of their troops.”

“But less than a thousand.” Big Jim shook his head.

Wylie glanced at the other GI’s huddled in the foxhole with them—haggard, cold, and hungry, waiting for the dreaded order that would send them up that ridge in a coordinated assault on the enemy positions. They were wrapped in Japanese blankets. Most of them wore caps, hoods, or waterproof boots they had scavenged off the bodies of dead Japanese to replace or supplement their inadequate Army issue, even though it could mean they would be mistaken for the enemy and shot by their own troops.

“I don’t think they feel any better knowing they’re facing less than a thousand Japs.” Wylie nodded in the direction of the teeth-chattering soldiers.

Big Jim studied them for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we’re all gettin’ tired of the fightin’ and the killin’.”

“Just don’t get so tired you let your guard down, because I guarantee you, the Japs aren’t going to give you any breaks.” Snow crunched under a set of scurrying footsteps as someone approached the foxhole. Wylie’s attention was already shifting toward the sound as he added, “And I’m not particularly interested in looking after your woman.”

A sergeant appeared, running in a low crouch, and slid quickly into the protection of the foxhole. “All right, boys, we’re gonna be movin’ out. An’ I wanta hear your guns chatter instead of your teeth. All set?” At their affirmative nods, he swung his attention back to the other soldiers as they reluctantly unwrapped their blankets and draped them around their shoulders Indian-style. “And remember—any dead Japs you find, if they don’t stink, stick ’em.”

“Yeah, Sarge. We hear ya,” one grumbled at the oft-repeated order.

“Let’s find out where they are today.” With a pump of his arm, the sergeant gave the signal to attack.

Wylie and Big Jim charged out of the foxhole together, firing up at the last known enemy position as the three-sided assault on the head of the ridge began. Wylie had barely taken three steps when machine-gun bullets began marching downhill through the snow, seeking his range. He flung himself the opposite way and rolled behind a snowdrift barely a yard in advance of the foxhole. All along the line, the deadly Jap barrage forced the attacking soldiers to seek cover, reducing the charge to a yard-by-yard advance.

“Looks like they’ve got a nest in that snowdrift on the right!” Big Jim shouted.

Wylie wiggled into position for a look, then studied the limited approaches to it. “I’ll try to make that crease on the left. Cover me.” He squatted behind the drift, then nodded to Big Jim that he was ready to make his try.

The crease in the steep slope was little more than a shallow depression, but any cover was better than none. As Big Jim opened fire, Wylie sprinted from the dubious protection of the snow hump, darting and weaving on a line to the crease, firing as he went. Bullets whined and chewed up the snow all around him. One tugged at the sleeve of his parka. But he made it and flattened himself into the hollow, listening to the splat of bullets in the snow searching for the place he went to ground. He was breathing hard and his heart felt as if it were pumping like a steam engine.

Careful not to show himself, Wylie looked over the shallow gully. Partway up, it made a jog to the right. From there it looked like he might be able to work his way around and come up on the Jap position on their blind side. He started crawling on his belly.

The rattle of machine guns and rifles exchanging fire was all around him, punctuated by the explosions of grenades. In the distance, heavy bombers thundered through the sky, dropping their payloads on the enemy headquarters at Chichagof Village. The low rumble of their exploding bombs reverberated over the island. The air reeked with the acrid odor of powder smoke.

Yet all of Wylie’s senses were keenly tuned to his immediate surroundings. When he heard the faint clink of metal against ice, followed by a soft thump muffled by snow, he froze instantly. A second later an enemy grenade tumbled past him, rolling down the slope.

“Grenade!” He shouted the warning to those below and pressed himself flat against the slope, hugging the cold, wet ground.

A deafening explosion rent the air. The snow-covered tundra shuddered beneath him as pieces of snow, mud, and ice pelted his back. He waited a moment, then started climbing again. He heard someone scrambling up the slope behind him. When he reached the jog in the shallow ravine, he glanced down and saw Big Jim. Wylie smiled faintly, then pushed on.

It took the better part of an hour for them to work their way, unseen, to the curling snowdrift where the enemy machine gun chattered at the company of soldiers below. Wylie inched as close as he dared, then plucked a grenade from his string and grabbed the pin. He signaled to Big Jim that he’d go first. In perfectly synchronized rhythm, they rose, one after the other, and lobbed their grenades at the nest, then ducked back to cover. The screams and explosions sounded as one as chunks of flesh, equipment, and snow hurtled through the air. When the debris stopped falling, Wylie and Big Jim scrambled onto the drift.

Four Japs had been in the nest. There wasn’t much left of two of them. Two more were sprawled on the high side of the drift surrounded by blood-splattered snow and charred mud. The hand of one twitched. Wylie fired four rounds into him.

Suddenly bullets whined around their heads. They dived into the debris-littered trench that led to the enemy nest as the GI’s started scrambling up the slope to join them. They waited until several soldiers had slithered into the wet trench, then crept forward to locate the next Jap position.

The trench ran fairly straight for twenty yards, then took a sharp turn along the jagged ridge. Wylie inched up to the corner and cautiously peeked around it. He looked straight at the muzzle of a Jap rifle ten yards away and jerked back as a hot flame stung his cheek. He reached up. When he took his hand away, there was blood on his glove. The bullet had cut a furrow through his beard and scratched his cheek. Wylie ignored it. In this cold, blood coagulated quickly or froze over.

They made a few attempts to bounce grenades down the trench, but the enemy soldier was untouched. Finally Big Jim took two soldiers and climbed out of the trench in an attempt to slip around behind the Jap while Wylie and the other soldiers kept him occupied.

Minutes later, Big Jim sent one of the soldiers back with word that the Japs had two separate machine-gun emplacements ahead. There was no way to take one without being exposed to the fire of the other. They’d have to attack both simultaneously. To do that, they had to dislodge the sniper in the trench, and Big Jim couldn’t get behind him because of the machine guns.

“All right.” Wylie leaned his back against the trench wall and studied the three shivering soldiers, all with hands tucked under armpits trying to keep them warm. “We’re gonna throw our grenades around the corner, then follow them. Just be damned sure you get them well around the corner or they’ll blow up in our faces.”

They tossed the grenades around the corner in rapid succession. As the first one exploded, Wylie sprinted after them and sprang toward the far side of the trench, slamming his shoulder against and firing into the exploding dirt, snow, and mud as he hit. The others followed him, taking whatever was left of the narrow space, one flopping down on his belly in the icy slop and firing blindly into the erupting shower. As the air cleared, there was no answering fire. They crept cautiously forward in a crouch until they could see the first machine-gun emplacement. Wylie sent the soldier back to Big Jim with the message that they were in position and would wait for his signal.

The hoot of an owl was the most bizarre sound Wylie had ever heard on a battlefield. He was chuckling as they launched their attack on the Jap position, crossing the open stretch that was exposed to the machine guns in the next several yards ahead and above them. But those guns were busy with Big Jim.

Within minutes, they had silenced the machine guns and Wylie had plunged his bayonet into the spine of the last Jap who looked like he might be still breathing. He turned and looked to see if Big Jim needed any help, but all appeared quiet there. He recognized Big Jim’s snowy beard and parka as a figure waved to him, signaling his success. Wylie started to wave back. As he raised his hand, the ground behind Big Jim exploded. For a split second, Big Jim seemed frozen in position, then he pitched forward, falling across the bunkered rim of the machine-gun nest.