The Old Breed

Chapter 63

Hill 107, Okinawa

June 4th, 1945

Everybody just calm the fuck dow-

The explosion woke me in with a start, sending me into a fit of hard breathing.

"Whoa there, you okay, son?"

I rubbed my eyes and stretched my legs, although they were thoroughly squashed together. I was in the cab of a deuce-and-a-half, a mailbag tucked in the footwell with my legs. It didn't allow for much motion at all, making my legs terribly sore. In the back, the truck was carrying a few more mail bags for the 1st Battalion, and then boxes of ammunition, rations, and water. It had had medical supplies, which it dropped off at the hospital where I was, and the driver was happy to take me, as, coincidentally, he was heading the same way I was.

"Yeah," I said groggily, rubbing my eyes more. The dream always seemed so real. It was always the same, the events leading up to that tomb, the explosion, the pain.

"It's all outbound right now. Nothing to worry about." the driver said. I turned to him. He was a short and stubby man, bald with big glasses, and a uniform too small for his belly, which spilled just slightly over his belly. It wasn't hard to see why he was driving instead of fighting.

"Huh?"

He turned to me quickly, his glasses slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up with a finger.

"The artillery. I think it woke you up. But its outbound, so there's nothing to worry about."

I didn't feel like explaining that it wasn't the artillery that woke me up. I could sleep through that shit under almost any condition unless it was falling around me. I also didn't feel like explaining that duh, of course I knew it was outbound. My brain was programmed to assess the situation no matter where I was and no matter the time. The fact that the artillery was outbound had been processed in my brain before I had even finished rubbing my eyes.

The fact that either of us could hear the artillery, though, surprised me. Rain slapped against the windshield, the driver having the wipers up at full speed, even that not enough for the pouring rain. The only thing we could see out the front were two large blurs of brown and gray, the ground and the sky. I had no idea how the driver still knew where we were.

I could hear the low thumps of shells exiting the barrels of artillery and I turned once more to the driver.

"Are we close?"

He nodded. "Yeah, half a mile out I'd guess. Only a few more minutes, unless this mud swamps Cate," he said. I looked up at the name.

"Cate?"

The driver patted the dashboard of the truck. "Cargo Cate's this ol' bess."

I looked at him funny. "You must spend too much time in this truck."

He laughed and nodded. "That's an understatement. We make runs all day, everyday. We're not supposed to only have one truck a person, but it's the unspoken rule that I, as one of the seniors in my outfit, get this truck. I've been in this business, well, practically as long as this war's gone on. Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, and I was supposed to be in the Philippines, but they sent us here instead. Now I'll tell you, this place is much different than over there. That was a jungle hell, but this? This is a muddy fucking nightmare."

I laughed too, grimly. "Yeah. Ain't that the truth."

The rain softened up slightly, and I could actually see out the front. The landscape was the same as when I left it. Muddy, raining, rolling hills, debris, bodies, and distant ridges. I had not missed a single bit of it. The driver had somehow kept us on the road, so muddy it practically blended in with the rest of the terrain. Only the deep tire ruts from past trucks stood witness to the fact this this road was usable. And even that didn't seem very reassuring.