As their landing craft motored closer, the rate of fire increased. The Japs were throwing everything they had against the boats. More bullets rang against the metal sides. A few feet off to Deke’s left was the ladder leading up to the helm. He looked up to see how the helmsman was faring in the angry maelstrom of fire.
It wasn’t a job Deke envied. The helm sat up high enough to enable the pilot to steer a path through the waves. At the same time, that higher position made the helm a target. Each pilot did have partial metal shielding that provided at least some protection. But the man needed nerves of steel, because he was exposed almost directly to the enemy fire. As they came in range of the beach itself, the small-arms fire became more worrisome. Individual bullets began to ping like deadly hail off the pilot’s metal shield. Say what you wanted about the Japs, Deke thought, but there was nothing wrong with their marksmanship.
Some of the soldiers envied the pilot because he wouldn’t be going ashore. But there was no denying that the pilot was in the line of fire. The pilot ducked down but kept the vessel on track, brave son of a bitch that he was.
Suddenly the pilot slumped. He’d been hit. Deke stared in amazement. In his opinion, that bullet had been too precise to have been a lucky shot. One in a million. His mind went to the Japanese sniper they’d run into on Leyte. It was just the kind of shot that a sniper like that might make.
After all, it was exactly what Deke would have done in an enemy sniper’s shoes — target the incoming boat pilots. It made him uncomfortable to consider that he and the Japanese snipers shared similarly devious minds.
For a few moments the boat forged ahead into the waves, but its path to shore could not continue for long without someone at the helm. The course of the vessel began to veer wildly into an arc, cutting across the paths of other incoming landing craft. Soon the boat bucked like a riderless horse as they turned sideways into the waves. The men in the craft lost their footing and stumbled against one another.
The deck had gone all si goggly, which was the mountain people’s word for something off kilter and unbalanced. He and Philly fell together, doing an awkward dance as they struggled to keep their balance. Adding to the pandemonium was the fact that more and more men around them were becoming seasick. All that food they had eaten at breakfast was making its return — and not in a good way.
The nauseating smell seemed to make seasickness contagious. Deke wrinkled his nose and felt the bile rising in his own belly, but he tried to ignore it. He focused on the situation at the helm. Somebody needed to steer this boat.
Above them, another sailor grabbed for the helm, but he was also shot down — helping to confirm Deke’s theory that a Japanese sniper was responsible. For a fleeting moment, he considered getting into position so that he could shoot back, but the prospect of hitting anything from the wildly bucking vessel wasn’t promising.
He looked around, wondering what the hell else he could do.
It just so happened that Deke was one of the soldiers closest to the ladder that led up to the platform that the helmsman had occupied. Nobody else seemed to be paying attention to what was going on at the helm, because they were too busy being thrown around the boat.
“Who the hell is driving this thing?” Philly demanded as he tugged and pulled at Deke, who was doing the same back to him. “It’s like the pilot had a few drinks this morning. Either that or he’s got it in for us dogfaces.”
“There’s nobody at the helm,” Deke tried to explain, but he doubted Philly even heard him.
Together he and Philly somehow had an equilibrium that kept them on their feet while other men were tossed willy-nilly around the boat. Some men were getting bruised up pretty good when slamming against the metal interior.
Deke kept hoping that someone else — anybody but him — would go up that ladder to the helm, but everyone else seemed preoccupied with staying on their feet despite the wild motions of the pilotless craft. Lieutenant Steele was busy shouting at everyone, trying to keep order while struggling to stay on his feet.
“Dammit all to hell,” Deke said. He turned to Philly. “Watch my gear, will you?”
“Watch your — where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Deke didn’t have time to explain. He reached for the ladder leading to the deserted helm. Before starting up, he shrugged out of his pack. The boat pitched wildly, but he managed to climb the rungs, even when his feet kept slipping off.
Deke knew less about boats than the average soldier, and he didn’t want to know any more, but he reckoned that he could steer the thing. Somebody had to do it.
A shell plunged into the sea not more than fifty feet away. If the Japanese gunner’s aim had been a little better, Deke’s efforts would have been for naught. They’d have been a smear of burning flotsam and jetsam on the surface of the sea.
He reached the helm, but there wasn’t a lot of space, and he had to shift one of the bodies out of the way. Easier said than done — the dead man was heavy as a sack of feed corn. In Deke’s experience, there was nothing heavier than a dead man.
The body of the dead helmsman finally slid out of the way. Sorry about that, fella.
Deke barely had time to feel bad about it, though. Keeping his head down — just in case that Japanese sniper still had them in his sights — Deke reached for the controls and straightened out the vessel’s course. He soon had the vessel running right for shore instead of sideways to the beach and foundering in the waves. Deke didn’t know what he was steering for, but he figured that as long as he could run the landing craft up on the beach, hopefully not tearing the bottom out on the coral reef in the process, then they would be doing just fine.
It was a big beach, after all, and an even bigger island. Pretty hard to miss.
Then again, the helmsman had understood how to zigzag so that the landing craft made a more difficult target. Deke supposed that the best he could do was run straight for shore. As far as he was concerned, the sooner they were off the water, the better. The Japs were tearing them up out there.
Lieutenant Steele spotted Deke at the helm and gave him the “OK” symbol. Philly spotted him and shook his head in disbelief. No matter — the boat was now heading in the right direction. So far, so good. Deke was actually managing to drive this boat.
Deke realized that he had been holding his breath. With a sigh of relief, he let it out.
But Deke’s relief was premature.
Deke had no way of knowing it, but up on Hill 522, the Japanese gunner was adjusting his sights. The gunners were skilled and had practiced on floating targets on this very stretch of sea. The previous round had fallen short by a few dozen feet. The artilleryman wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
The next shot hurtled from the Japanese position.
The landing craft took a direct hit.
CHAPTER NINE
One moment Deke was at the helm, but an instant later he found himself thrown through the air. He hit the water with a shock that forced the breath out of him. He took a gulp of sea water that made him choke and sputter, the salt water burning his throat and nose like acid. If he’d been knocked senseless like some of the other soldiers, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Deke’s survival instincts kicked in automatically. His legs kicked and his arms scrabbled at the water. At first he didn’t even know which way was up and which way was down, but his brain dimly differentiated that he should flail in the general direction of the brighter water.