The Old Breed

Chapter 16

Pavuvu

May 8th, 1944

"There's more effin' crabs here than there were Japs on the Cape!" Lanky shouted, kicking an unfortunate crab that decided to crab walk himself into our hooch. It went flying out the door.

The here was Pavuvu. A small island full of crabs, bugs, and just as much heat as Cape Gloucester. The only good thing about Pavuvu was the fact that there weren't any Japs to worry about, and that it didn't rain quite as much. Quite. But that's about where the niceties ended.

After we'd gotten here on the same ol' tub that had taken us to Cape Gloucester, the officers had immediately begun ordering us to build up shelters for the night. We couldn't, didn't want to believe it. Get off one hellish island, and immediately they transport us to another. They hadn't even set up tents for us. We were forced into doing our own labor, made especially worse since rumors had abounded of beautiful Hawaii. I had been more of a realist, knowing that Hawaii would be too nice for the grubby 1st Marines, but I wouldn't have complained if we were pleasantly surprised with that paradise. I was not pleasantly surprised here, and Pavuvu was certainly not paradise.

We'd followed orders, set up our own hooches, rows upon rows of them, making almost a little tent city. With the entire 1st Marine Division, it was a city.We'd been comforted to sleep that night with the thoughts that in the morning, the officers had already received orders for us to start pounding out roads and clearing out the millions of coconuts that seemed to litter the ground.

We found that the entire island was full of empty coconut plantations, and God must have set up a signal with them because it seemed the coconuts all decided to fall of their palm trees and rot as we got there. The smell itself was enough to water your eyes, make you gag. I bet people who can't smell could have smelled those damn rotting coconuts. We spent hours each day clearing coconuts from the ground, throwing them into a swamp, which quickly filled up with piles of stinking, rotting coconuts. A lot of times, the brittle coconut shells would break, splashing warm, stinky milk over us. Moreover, we spent many additional hours crushing coral to make roads, which we had to do with only hand tools, no machines. It was back breaking work.

"Leave the poor crabs alone, Lank," I said, laying down on my cot. I closed my eyes, relaxing in the relative comforts of the cot. I'd heard of replacements complaining about how hard the cots were on their backs, but compared to the mud that seemed to threaten to swallow us up as we slept on the Cape, the cots were a welcome relief.

"You soft, Bishop?" Lanky said, looking around for more crabs. He carried a knife in one hand. He muttered something incoherent in his quest against the crabs. If I hadn't been so tired from a day of crushing coral, I might have laughed at the sight, or even joined in.

"No. They just haven't done anything to you."

He chuckled grimly. "They haven't done anything to me?"

"They haven't stabbed you with knives yet." I tried to say it lightly. Lanky ignored me, kept looking for any unfortunate crab that had picked the wrong day to walk into our hooch.

"Our new lieutenant shipped in. Straight outta the Academy." Rocky said, walking through our hooch's door.

"Ugh, seriously?" I groaned. The officers who graduated from the Naval Academy seemed to always believe in every bit of propaganda shit out there, and were strict with the buttons and brass of the Marine Corps.

"Yeah, I know." Rocky said, and, even though I couldn't see it, I could hear the eye-roll in his voice.

"He okay at least?"