Therefore, everyone was thankful that the landings had drawn virtually all the American planes southward to protect their ships and men. Even the giant bombers seemed to have vanished. Both men wondered just how long the relative calm would continue. Should the American planes return, it would mean that the landings had been so successful that the Americans on the ground no longer needed such constant protection. Sakei tried to visualize the titanic battles taking place just a little more than 150 miles away.
Sakei bowed and left his unrepentant emperor. If the planes returned, it might mean that he would again have to move the emperor to yet another safe place. He did not relish that thought at all. He'd been lucky so far, but how much longer could that luck last?
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Chapter 31
Dark smoke half-obscured the harsh hills of Kyushu from the men who again lined the rails of the Luce. Clouds from fires and recent explosions billowed skyward, and the men on the crowded transport could see individual explosions where shells impacted on targets farther inland. Rumblings of man-made thunder, occasionally punctuated by sharper, cracking sounds, buffeted them constantly. It was as if Kyushu were alive and angry.
It had been a sleepless night for the men on the Luce. The incipient panic had halted and the men had calmed down. Most then spent the rest of their time mentally trying to prepare for the ordeal ahead. Sardonically, most had decided they would rather face Japanese guns than trust the dubious safety of the Luce as the nightlong battle between the kamikazes and the navy had turned more ships into flaming ruins.
When the LCIs hadn't arrived for them by midmorning, the men began to chafe and wonder, even hope that their landing had been canceled. The delays were agonizing.
To a man, they hoped that the daylight hours would be free from more kamikaze attacks, but the white lines in the skies told them otherwise. Above the low clouds, contrails twisted and crossed each other as American planes continued to seek out their suicidal enemy.
Then, suddenly, the guns on a nearby ship would open up at a diving plane. Soldiers would gape and pray as streams of shells sought out the dark blot in the sky that was the Jap plane. A kamikaze who'd made it that far was a survivor who had somehow penetrated the fighter defenses only to face being blown out of the sky by shipborne guns. When a suicide plane was hit, it either exploded into pieces or had a wing ripped off, which caused the plane to cartwheel out of control and into the ocean. When that occurred, the men cheered.
Sometimes, however, an enemy plane got through, and as they waited, another transport took a hit. They watched in horror as flames billowed from the ship. The stricken ship quickly launched lifeboats, and hundreds of soldiers tried to escape the inferno by jumping into the sea. It looked like an anthill that had been disturbed, only those were people, not ants. The Luce did not change course. Picking up survivors was the job of the destroyers and their smaller cousins, the destroyer escorts.
"Get me ashore," Paul muttered, and shook as he watched men's heads disappear forever beneath the waves. "Please, God, get me off this ship."
At long last, the landing craft arrived and the men clambered awkwardly down cargo nets.
One man screamed and fell into the boat. He grabbed his leg and began to writhe and moan. A medic checked him quickly and turned to Captain Ruger.
"His ankle's broken, Captain. We gotta get him to a hospital ship."
Ruger was coldly furious. "Bullshit. I saw that cowardly little motherfucker let go and fall intentionally. He stays where he is."
The soldier in question was wide-eyed with fear and pain, and the medic was confused. "What do I do with him, sir? I gotta treat him."
Paul had heard of people hurting themselves intentionally to avoid going into combat, even shooting themselves, but he'd never seen it before. He wondered if Ruger was correct in his judgment.
"That sorry son of a bitch is going with us to Japan," Ruger snarled. "When we get there, you drag his ass out onto the ground and leave him there. If he's lucky, somebody'll take pity on him and take him to a field hospital. But there's no way that little shit is going to sleep on a bed with clean sheets while the rest of us are fighting Japs."
That brought an angry growl from the rest of the men, and the LCIs were quickly filled. The injured man whimpered that he didn't want to go, which seemed to confirm Ruger's assessment, but he otherwise stayed quiet.
The LCIs formed a large circle as they waited for all of them to be loaded, and men got sick as they bobbed in the choppy water, and the stink of vomit was added to the scent of fear. Finally, the little boats were lined up with the others that had loaded their human cargo from other transports, and the whole line headed inshore.
As they drew closer to land, Paul peeked over the edge of the boat and looked at Japan. The steep hills seemed to spring directly from the sea. They were scarred and torn, with most of their vegetation blown away or burned off. He could see ruined vehicles and other unidentifiable things that burned fiercely.
As they passed through a line of warships, they tried to identify them. The only one they were certain of was the battleship West Virginia. When her sixteen-inch guns fired at some distant target, the blast was deafening, and it was as if the whole ocean quivered like an earthquake. Despite the shaking they took from the sound of the firing, many were cheered by the sight of the old battlewagon pounding Japan. The West Virginia had been mauled and sunk at Pearl Harbor and, like most of the others sunk in that catastrophe, had been refloated and given an opportunity to take revenge. The Wee-Vee, as she was affectionately known, was happily complying.
"Lookit!" one of the men yelled. Paul followed the soldier's outstretched arm and saw a body floating facedown in the water. Then he saw another, and another. All were Americans. "Aw, Jesus," said someone, who began retching.
"Get your fucking heads down!" yelled the ensign in charge of the LCI as it turned sharply to avoid something. An anonymous voice exclaimed that it was a mine. Bullets clanged against the hull and someone screamed. Paul turned and saw a sailor crumple to the deck. Blood gushed from his massive stomach wound. A medic rushed to help him, but the ensign only glanced briefly at his fallen crewman. His eyes stayed fixed on the dangerous waters and the task of navigating toward the shore.
Sergeant Collins stared at the wounded man. "Jesus, Lieutenant, I thought we owned at least part of this place. What the hell's going on?"
Paul shook his head in disbelief. If the landing forces were still taking small-arms fire a full day after the initial assault, just what had actually been accomplished?
Paul pushed his way through the packed men to the ensign. From the scars on the LCI, she seemed to have made several trips to the Japanese shore. "Is it always this bad?"
Without looking at him, the naval officer laughed harshly. "Bad? Hell, buddy, this trip is a piece of cake. You should've been here yesterday when they threw all kinds of shit at us. I've made four trips in, and this is by far the easiest. I've heard that most of the guys in the first waves were wiped out and that half the people who went ashore yesterday are dead or wounded. If you're real lucky, you guys might even make it onto land before you get killed."
Finally, the ensign glanced down, and Paul saw the ensign was even younger than he was. "The sailor who just got shot is a replacement for another guy who got killed yesterday," the ensign said more gently. "Look to your left."