But that's what it had been, training. At least until now. The presence of a real dead Jap changed everything. Before them lay the enemy as well as the brutal reality of death.
Ruger's eyes swept the assemblage. "And just because he's dead, don't think he's forgotten how to kill. The Japs have a nasty habit of booby-trapping their dead comrades in hope that some stupid GI will come along to take a souvenir, like that helmet for instance. Look good on a wall, wouldn't it? Or maybe something nice for the missus like a gold filling, or maybe a dried ear, or maybe one of those shitty rifles or a real good pistol. Well, if they've booby-trapped the corpse, and they likely have, you've got to be real careful." He turned to his first sergeant. "Sergeant Mackensen, show us what to do."
"First," said Mackensen, "all you people step farther away." There was a shuffling as two hundred plus men complied. "Now you'll notice that I very carefully tied a rope around his one remaining leg. I'm gonna step back and pull on it real hard. If he's trapped, it'll trigger whatever he's hiding."
With that, Mackensen walked a couple of paces away from the cadaver, lay flat on the ground, and yanked the rope. There was a split second of stillness, then a flash of light and the crash of a grenade exploding, sending bones and pieces of dead Jap into the air. Several of the men got parts of Jap on them, and a couple of them started to gag.
Mackensen got to his feet and saluted Ruger. "Captain, the fucking Jap is now well and truly dead."
Ruger nodded. "Very good, First Sergeant. Carry on with training."
As he said that, it began to rain, and the already strong wind started to pick up in power. They had no real rain gear with them, so Paul started to form them up for more work. If it rained, they were going to get wet and that was that. After all, how often did they call off a war because of rain? He wondered how their tents were holding up in what was rapidly becoming a downpour. Captain Ruger, who was only a few feet away, seemed unperturbed.
A PFC handed a walkie-talkie to Ruger, who listened attentively and then appeared stunned by what he'd heard. "Everybody take cover," he yelled. "This is a typhoon." Ruger then sent runners out to the other platoons and ran out himself, saying that he didn't trust their radios to get through in the rapidly growing storm.
Typhoon? What the hell does one do when caught on an Okinawan hill in a typhoon? Paul wondered. "Dig in," he yelled to the men, who were as puzzled as he was. "Get to just below the crest of this hill and start digging in for protection against the wind. Push the dirt up the hill and form a bunker in front of you."
"Why?" asked a soldier, and Paul debated letting him drown.
"Because, Private Haines, a typhoon is just like a hurricane. That means a ton of rainwater is going to land on us and whatever we dig in is going to be full pretty quick. Push the dirt up front so you don't get washed away. Now shut up and dig!"
Paul checked on his men as they dug frantically into dirt that quickly turned into mud. The wind had picked up and was slashing at them. "Keep your helmets on. There's gonna be stuff flying around and you don't want to get hit."
"Like the stuff we left where we bivouacked, Lieutenant?" one of his men yelled, and a couple of others chuckled at the thought.
"That's right!" Already Paul had to cup his hands and holler to be heard. "So keep your heads down." He then grabbed a couple of men who were earnestly digging too far down the hill. When they protested, he told them they had to watch out for flash floods as well as wind. Chastened, they moved farther up the slope and began anew.
Paul helped two of his men dig a hole in the ground and push an earthen berm before them. To his surprise it worked fairly well, although the torrential rain quickly filled their shelter and made life miserable for them. Miserable, he kept reminding them, but safe.
"Look at that," one of them yelled. Paul looked up and saw a piece of canvas fly overhead.
"One of our tents." Paul grinned. "Probably mine with all my dirty laundry in it. We're not in Kansas anymore," he said in reference to the movie The Wizard of Oz, "but our gear will soon be."
The wind threatened to rip their helmets off and they had to hold them down. Sand and spray whipped around their heads, and as they cowered, they lost track of time. All they knew was that it had gotten even darker than before and that it was probably night. The wind developed a keening, shrieking sound like that of a tormented animal.
During a brief lull, Paul slithered out of his foxhole and crawled around to see if his men were okay. Except for a couple of cuts and bruises, no one was hurt. Bellying his way back to his shelter, he almost ran into First Sergeant Mackensen, who was also crawling about in the mud.
"Don't bother saluting," Paul said.
Mackensen, who rarely deviated from a stern expression, looked at him funny for a minute then smiled slightly. "Wasn't planning on it, Lieutenant. Captain wants to know how you're doing."
Captain Ruger was probably out on his belly checking on his other platoons. "We're fine, top. We'll be all right. How's everybody else?"
"So far so good."
"Great. By the way, that was a damn good dog-and-pony show you and the captain put on."
Mackensen had started to crawl back but stopped. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that it was an impressive display, blowing up that Jap and all that. But I think it was more than a coincidence that you just happened to find that body and that it just happened to be booby-trapped at just the right time for our men to get shocked and serious about war."
Mackensen put on a look of mock hurt. Then he actually chuckled. "Captain said you'd figure it out. Buddy of mine found the Jap a while back and was driving around the island with it on the front fender of his jeep like it was a dead deer. I took it from him and we've had it hidden until the right time. The real bitch was fixing the hand grenade to that fucker. He kept falling apart and we had to tape him back together."
The wind roared again, Mackensen nodded and departed for the dubious comfort of his own hole in the ground, while Paul crawled to his. By the time he got there, the wind was raging harder than it ever had, and the two others had to drag him into the hole, which caused his head to go under the muddy water.
"You okay, Lieutenant?" Both men were laughing as Paul emerged from his ducking, and he joined in even though he was cold, wet, miserable, and scared.
"Did either of you two volunteer for this shit?" he asked.
"Nah"- they grinned- "we all got drafted too, sir."
A good-sized piece of debris tumbled by. It looked like a piece of wood from a house. Had he been standing, it could have impaled him. Paul wondered just what the hell the rest of the island looked like.
After what seemed like an eternity, the wind abated to where it was simply savage, and the rain became merely a torrent. Considering themselves safe, the men crawled out of their water-filled burrows and stood up. It was getting lighter, and a check of his watch told Paul that it was almost dawn. Again a nose count was taken and he was more than gratified to find that everyone was safe and, except for cuts and bumps, no one was seriously hurt.
Paul waved his sergeants over. They all looked so sodden and despondent he had to chuckle.