The dark blotch suddenly pounced at him. Gocho’s senses cleared as he discerned the danger. Sharp fangs and menacing claws shimmered in the pale dawn light.
He registered the sheer power of the creature, muscles rippling and a steady gait as it marked him as its prey. The Raptor closed the distance fast. Its eyes revealed madness. A one-track mind, it meant to devour him. Gocho had never known such fear.
Standing frozen in place, he couldn’t even summon the thought to shoot at it.
Gocho heard a loud thunk. Then, someone yanked his arm, knocking him into the dirt, while screaming, “Get down!”
A whoosh shot from the underbrush and something impacted the creature’s chest.
The stout round exploded, blowing the dinosaur to bits.
Wet goo splattered over the Gocho’s face, slathering him with the Raptor’s innards. Everything went black for a moment, then the Gocho wiped his face and checked on his attacker. Nothing remained of the beast, except a trace of body parts, spread outward from the point of explosion. The mortar round had blown the thing literally to pieces.
Tanaka lay beside him and the private was hunched behind the mortar that had taken out the aggressive dinosaur. Gocho took a moment to catch his breath. He couldn’t believe how close he’d come to dying. And at the clutches of a vile beast.
Scanning the area for the American, the Gocho found him on the ground, motionless, lying in the same place he’d fallen after being shot. “Got him,” he said.
He stepped from the scrub brush intent on fighting the Americans.
A round whizzed by his head, then another sliced along his left shoulder. Merely a flesh wound, it tore his uniform and burned, but the bullet continued into the jungle. Gocho immediately homed in on the enemy shooter.
The marine had taken a position behind a fallen log and was sharpshooting at Japanese soldiers. A fresh unit of Americans had arrived at the scene, ready to decimate the remaining Imperial troops.
“Fall back!” Gocho yelled.
“Yes, sir,” Tanaka and the mortarman said in unison.
Other soldiers nodded and began a retreat.
“Grab the wounded as you go.” The Gocho pointed at the men on the battlefield.
Japanese soldiers scooped up the dead and wounded and trundled from the combat zone. Everyone headed towards the easterly side of the combat zone, where the Gocho stood and waved them on. Americans let off their attack, content to let the Imperial soldiers collect their wounded and dead. They would soon take the field and declare the battle a victory.
The infrastructure blazed all around and the Gocho was enraged by the defeat. He stepped onto the soggy and bloodied ground and pulled his Nambu pistol from its holster. Eyeing the fresh reinforcements, he fired at the Americans until the little magazine was empty.
A few bullets zipped past his head, and one ripped through the other shoulder of his tunic, cutting into the flesh before tearing into the jungle.
He grinned at the superficial wound, then he turned and followed his men. The Imperial forces would regroup and live to fight another day.
Tanaka stood on the edge of the jungle, leaning against a tree, and provided cover for the Gocho and retreating Imperial soldiers. He fired at the American reinforcements.
When the battle reached its climax, and then, shifted to the Japanese falling back, Tanaka did not flee into the brush. He stayed and fought. The role he filled was one of the warrior taking up arms against intruders. Other soldiers had garnered the wounded and the dead; they needed someone to fend the enemy off, while they cleared the battlefield.
The Americans scaled down their offensive as soon as the Japanese soldiers absconded from the scene. None of them shot at soldiers assisting the wounded and clearing the deceased from the field. They honored the dead.
Only rifle shots were being fired by the Americans now. Controlled marksmanship at combatants who continued to fight. These adversaries had principles.
A bullet dug into the tree next to Tanaka. He slung his rifle over a shoulder and waited for the Gocho to egress the battle zone. Last to leave the field, the Gocho trotted casually into the brush. His wild eyes did not reveal fear of being shot.
The Gocho must have realized the Americans would not shoot a soldier in the back while fleeing the field. But there was something more to the crazed look in his eyes. A madness.
He grunted at Tanaka as he ran past, staring at him disapprovingly.
Gocho must have discerned that the Jun-i had fallen. And he likely blamed Tanaka for the defeat. As the senior man on the battlefield, Tanaka would be responsible for the loss.
A sinking feeling churned in the pit of his stomach as he ran through the jungle.
Forty-Five
Dawson awoke to a Navy corpsman kneeling by his side. The young man grinned and shook his head with an amazed look on his face. “You sure got lucky,” the corpsman said.
“What?” Dawson felt addled from the ordeal.
The corpsman raised a hand. “This saved your life.”
Glancing at the tin box that housed his letter to Mary, Dawson understood his meaning, but the corpsman felt like explaining it anyway.
“See, the bullet hit this metal box here, ricocheted into your shoulder.” He smiled again.
Dawson looked at his bandaged shoulder. “Why the hell did I blackout?”
“Well, you flew backwards, and your head smacked that rock.” He pointed.
Dawson glanced at the rock, then felt for his head. His hand slapped the steel pot the Marine Corps issued to all recruits. “I don’t understand.”
“Man, you must’ve hit that rock with some force. Your head pounded around inside that helmet like the clapper gonging around inside a church bell.”
The corpsman looked so cheerful; Dawson couldn’t understand how a man getting shot and his head wrung could make someone happy. We won the battle, he finally realized. He sat up and glanced around.
“Easy there,” the corpsman said.
Dawson didn’t listen. He looked upon the scene in awe.
“Quite a mess,” the corpsman said.
The comment was an understatement. All around him, bodies were strewn on the soggy ground, picked apart, with bone, gristle, and scraps of meat protruding through shredded uniforms. The cleaved flesh glistened in the pale light of dawn.
Death didn’t discriminate; the battlefield was covered with casualties from both sides.
It had stopped raining. But droplets of blood fell into puddles around the battlefield, sounding like a leaky kitchen facet. Somehow, the grisly scene brought with it a calmness, and relief.
Danger dissipated along with the downpours. The Japanese had left the battlefield, along with the Raptors and most of the scavengers. Several fallen dinosaurs lay among the dead and wounded combatants. A few Compys remained, trying to feed upon the fallen, while marines from Bravo Company kicked them away.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex had left the battle zone, but its vanquished foe lay near the razed garrison. A heap of mutilated flesh, the carcass was torn open. Massive hunks of meat had been cleaved from its midsection, leaving exposed ribs and a visceral cavity that could house a Volkswagen. Scavenger dinosaurs fed ravenously upon the entrails that spilled from the beast’s open gut. Flies buzzed around the hide as other scroungers fed on the remains.
Early morning sun had already begun to spoil the remaining meat. A putrid stench wafted across the battlefield and nauseated Dawson. He wanted to vomit.
Reaching back, Dawson attempted to sit upright. The corpsman placed a hand on Dawson’s chest, and eased him back to the ground.