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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.
Battleground / 293
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, elan, and ease.
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
294 / W. E. B. Griffin
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 con-
tempt, 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.
They started back. Five minutes down the beach, after the first time he stopped
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