The Old Breed

Chapter 45

Machinato Airfield, Okinawa

April 30th, 1945

In late afternoon, the rain came. It started out as a sprinkle, almost a cool mist. It was perfect. As we dug in as fast as possible, we all all sweated, heated up, the cool rain feeling great. But the sprinkle only lasted a few minutes at most. It was if at once, God had decided to dump out an enormous, endless bucket over Okinawa. I had never seen rain so thick before, not even on Cape Gloucester. It was a blinding wall of water, a torrent so strong that I was afraid it would be able to send me flying. The rain pooled into the craters around us, rose rapidly, was soon spilling over from the shallower craters. By the time Lanky and I had gotten our foxhole dug, we had almost four inches of water in the bottom of our hole. Beggars can't be choosers, I thought resignedly, dropping myself into the wet, muddy hole. The water splashed up around my legs, seeped into my boots. I thought about my feet, knew that hours in this hole would make them look utterly disgusting. Lanky and I were lucky though. Several men had uncovered decomposing bodies while digging, the bodies mostly just cloth and bone by this point. The corpses smelled truly atrocious, the smell wafting over to Lanky and I, and I pitied the men who had to sit in the foxholes. Lieutenant Gibson had made sure each foxhole was at least five yards apart from each other, so if a mortar came down, it would hopefully only take out one foxhole and spare the rest. With that being the case, there was no room for the men to find other places to dig, so they had to be content with sharing a hole with a body.

I shivered, wrapped my poncho tighter around me. The rain loudly splattered off my shoulders and helmet, an incessant roar in my ears. The poncho did some good, sparing me from the brunt of the deluge, but the rain still managed to seep in anyways, dampening my clothes, turning them cold. I had tried moving my hands around, my feet, increase circulation to keep warm, but after a while, I grew tired, and accepted that it wasn't really helping. I took a quick look at my wristwatch. It was only 1640. We hadn't even gotten to night, and we were stuck here till morning. I sighed, leaned my head back against the wall of my foxhole. Lanky was standing up, his chest out of the hole, his rifle beside him, leaning against the wall of the foxhole. I was sitting down, rifle between my knees, arms tucked inside the cover of my poncho. I thought about eating. My stomach ached in protest at the image of eating a K-ration, but I knew I should eat one to refill my energy. Definitely after the run earlier in the day. For now, I stayed in my spot, didn't want to spend any energy on grabbing one out of my pack, open it, and eat it. And, likely, if I got up, I'd inevitably end up soaking myself. For now, I was content enough to remain in my little burrow.

Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance, and a rumble of thunder followed. Somewhere up ahead, an artillery barrage was hitting an unknown target, and I tried deciphering the artillery from the frequent bursts of thunder, found that to be impossible.

"Lanky?" my voice seemed to be drowned out in the rain. I repeated my question, louder. Lanky stayed staring ahead, didn't even acknowledge me. I kicked his boot, and he jumped, genuinely startled, looked down at me. "Yeah?" he said, very loudly.

"Want part of my K-rat?" I said, offering him a few biscuits. He looked long at me. "What?" he said, again loudly. I was confused for a few moments, knew he should've been able to hear me. Then it dawned on me. He'd been so close to that one shell that it had damaged his hearing. I leaned forward, put the biscuits in his hand, He stared for a few seconds, nodded, plopped one of the hard slabs of bread into his mouth. The rain probably softened it. Lanky looked back out into the driving rain thoughtfully, chewed one of the biscuits.

"Lollypop."

I didn't recognize the speaker as anyone from the squad, nor the lieutenant. But he had said the password correctly, so he was American. It was still the same philosophy, that the Japs couldn't easily pronounce the L sound, so we used words with as many L's as possible. I stood up, was already ready for Lanky to not notice the voice. He didn't.