Monck tried to imagine going out to sea in such a frail craft, with waves crashing around and over it, and knowing that death was the only goal. The little boat pointed out the alienness of the Japanese way of fighting, and the desperation that made them such formidable enemies.

Parker wasn't through with his tour. He led Monck a ways down the waterfront to where a set of railroad tracks led directly into the water.

"This one's really something else, sir." They followed the tracks less than a hundred yards inland, to where a cave had been dug into a low hill. Inside, a long tubular shape rested on a flat handcar.

"General, this is one of their human torpedoes. They call it a kaiten. The intelligence boys were all over it since they thought all the kaiten were launched from ships. Now they know the Japs can send them down tracks like this, and into the water, from anyplace along the coast of Japan. Intelligence is particularly concerned that some of these bastards will be launched at us from the confines of Ariake and Kagoshima bays where the bigger ships won't have so much freedom to maneuver and escape."

"What happened to this one?"

"There were a couple of dead Japs lying around a little earlier, and one of them was probably the pilot. My guess is that a near miss from a bomb killed them. Maybe the same thing happened to the guys who were supposed to man the little boats. Who cares, just so long as they never got launched."

"Good," Monck muttered as he thought about the ships lying offshore. A number of them could be seen from where he was standing. Human torpedoes came in several types and had effective ranges that began with several thousand yards and went up to several miles. Again it was appalling to think of someone riding a torpedo as if it were a horse and sending it crashing into the hull of a ship.

Monck shook his head and thought of the men who were fighting and dying at sea, and then of his own men, who were clawing their way up each hill they confronted. Like most soldiers, he had often been jealous of the navy and that their war was relatively clean. It seemed to have just gotten a whole lot dirtier.

"Parker, just what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?"

He had no answer. Monck gestured to their guards and they began the journey back to their regiment.

Chapter 38

Platoon Sgt. Frank Collins slithered down the steep and rain-slicked hill oblivious to the light but constant rain. His clothing and the soft flesh underneath were cut where the small, wet rocks that jutted from the volcanic soil had sliced at him. He ignored them all. His only urge was to make himself one with the hateful ground and thus not be seen by the guns on the hill above him.

The thought that some Jap was looking down at him and aiming either his cannon or machine gun at him made him whimper with fear. With every jerky motion of his arms and legs, he prayed that he would be allowed to make another. He tried desperately to stay within the folds of the hill, but he had that nightmare feeling that scores of slanty eyes were glaring at him and laughing at his slow, painful progress to shelter.

Mud-covered and exhausted, he slipped into a small ravine and felt a surge of relief. He was safe. At least for the moment. Collins sucked a few lungfuls of air and moved over to Lieutenant Morrell, who looked at him with concern.

"You okay?" Paul asked.

"Other than scared shitless, Lieutenant, I'm just fine, thank you." Morrell offered Sergeant Collins his canteen, and Collins accepted it gratefully. The water, warm and rancid, tasted undeservedly delicious. Not even the purification tablets could rob it of its taste. Collins took a dirty rag from his pocket and wiped sweat and cold mist from his face. "I want to take up another line of work, sir."

"Don't we all, Sarge. Now, what'd you see up there?"

The platoon's advance up the fairly steep hill was halted by a brief cannonade and the staccato crackle of Japanese machine guns. They'd dropped where they were, then scrambled downhill for cover and dug in as the previously unseen cannon again fired from a bunker about two-thirds of the way up the hill. At that point, they realized the Jap gunners had them pinned down. They could not advance and they couldn't retreat without exposing themselves to additional casualties.

First they'd called on artillery support, which hadn't been effective. The rain obscured their spotter's vision and the maps of the area were inaccurate. With logic firmly on their side, the regiment's artillery was reluctant to loose a heavy barrage on the Jap position when American soldiers were only a couple of hundred yards away. As a result, only a few rounds had been fired onto the hill, and none had shut down the Jap gun.

Air cover was equally unavailable because of the layer of mist that touched the top of the hill. The planes would not fly and bomb blindly either. The platoon was on its own. They'd plunked a few mortar rounds at the Jap position, but these had merely churned up some dirt.

Then Sergeant Collins had made his solitary patrol.

"Sir, it's a standard Jap bunker setup. There's one main fortification and at least three machine-gun nests connected to it by zigzagging trenches. There may be a fourth on the other side of the hill, but I kinda doubt it. For once artillery did help out, at least a little. They nailed the nest directly in front of the main bunker. Ain't nothin' left but smoke and dead Japs. However, the big bunker and the two light machine guns flanking it are operating just fine, thank you."

Paul nodded. The Jap complex had been well hidden, and had the enemy gunners showed any fire discipline at all, the platoon would have walked right up to it and been slaughtered. As it was, they'd still been hurt. Jap light machine guns had thirty-shot clips, and he considered them the equivalent of an American Browning automatic rifle, or BAR, and not a true machine gun, which was belt-fed. Even so, they could be quite lethal and were helping to keep the platoon pinned down.

"How're my guys?" Collins asked.

"Holcomb took a bullet through the hand that ripped off at least three fingers," Paul answered, thinking of the grisly mess of tendons and flesh that was Holcomb's hand. "He's okay, but in shock. Keye was shot in the thigh and lost a lot of blood before someone got a tourniquet on him. Unless we can get them to the rear sometime soon, they may not make it."

Both men understood. The healthy could wait in wet misery for darkness and then make their escape, but the wounded needed help immediately.

Paul sighed. "What's in the bunker?"

"Jap tank."

"A what?" said Paul, astonished. Since landing on Kyushu, no one had seen a Jap tank. For that matter, they'd seen precious few American ones.

Collins grinned through his fatigue. "Yessir, it's a real live Jap tank, and she's dug in hull-down in the bunker and covered with dirt and logs. Nothing but a direct hit is going to knock her out, and there's damn little of her poking out from the bunker besides her big gun."

It was commonly accepted that Jap tanks were small, thinly armored, and carried a small-caliber cannon. Thus, they were no match for American M4 Shermans, or even the lighter M24 Chaffees. But even a small-caliber cannon was more than Paul's platoon had.

However, that was not his main problem. He had two men who might die if he didn't get them some help, and he might lose still more men if he tried to move them back. There was only one answer. He would not sacrifice additional men for his wounded. They would have to wait until darkness or until help came.