By the time Peleliu came into view all there was to see was a wall of smoke and flame. Dozens of battleships pounded the island with sixteen-inch shells that sounded like airborne freight trains. Cruisers peppered it with smaller mortars. Soon the sound of all the guns bombarding Peleliu became one deafening thunder. The noise felt like it was pressing down on him. The whole ship throbbed with it. The air smelled like diesel fuel. The invasion force piled into amphibious tractors and Higgins boats and squatted down below the gunwales.
They went right into the middle of it. The air was full of the snapping of bullets. The smoke was so thick Michael couldn’t imagine how the driver knew where to go. Michael felt the amtrac scrape coral. Sergeant Mitchell shouted the order to hit the beach. Michael jumped out and ran. Everything was smoke and chaos. He was aware of men falling all around him and screams of pain, but he kept his head down and hit the deck alongside two other Marines behind a fallen tree. Up and down the beach, amtracs exploded and burned and sometimes men staggered out of them and were cut to pieces by machine-gun fire. Michael saw the deaths of at least a hundred of his brothers in arms. Men he loved and trusted, and he was not, even then, a man much given to trust. But all he felt was nothing. A blur. He’d been shot himself, on the side of his neck. Just a nick, but it bled like mad. Michael had no idea until the man beside him, a corporal from Connecticut named Hank Vogelsong, asked if he was all right.
In combat, no one ever really knows what’s going on. Somewhere far behind them was a colonel in charge of all this who didn’t know which way their guns were pointing. Someone Michael didn’t know and who’d probably never lay eyes on him had decided he was expendable. Not Michael personally. It’s not personal, just war. And Michael was a pawn. All he tried to do at Peleliu was not die. Nothing smart or brave. He was just luckier than the thousand other guys from his division who died that day.
Once enough of them made it across the beach, they were able to advance inland and start stacking rocks and debris so they could return fire. Enemy fire slowed, but still Michael was pinned down that whole first night. They’d apparently given up on those banzai attacks Michael had trained for, and there was never any chance to mow them down.
At first light, Sergeant Mitchell organized an assault on the ridge where most of the shooting was coming from. Michael and ten others made a run for it, about fifty yards to a clump of trees and scrub. Two were killed and two more were wounded before they got there. An American tank advanced to the other side of the ridge, and it drew fire the way tanks always do. Then the shooting stopped. They were twenty feet from the crest of the ridge. Hal Mitchell sent three men with automatic rifles and two with flamethrowers up to the crest. As they were about to scorch it, the Japs opened fire. Sergeant Mitchell ordered Vogelsong and Michael to help him get the wounded out of there and retreat. As Michael covered them, Vogelsong and Sergeant Mitchell carried one of the wounded men back to where Michael stood. As they were going back for the other one, an 80mm mortar killed him and wounded Vogelsong and Mitchell.
Later, when he was questioned about what he did next-both by his superiors and later by a reporter from Life magazine-Michael couldn’t explain what had possessed him to come to get his brothers in arms, or how he got out of there alive, either. Maybe there was too much coral dust from the mortar. Maybe they thought they’d already killed all the foot soldiers and were focused on taking care of the tank, which they blew up as Michael was charging their bunker. Michael had no training at all on that flamethrower. He just grabbed it without thinking and recoiled as a fat tongue of flame shot over the ridge.
There was machine-gun fire from a cave to his right, and Michael felt like his leg had been shot off. He fell and scrambled for cover-alone at the crest of the ridge, a sitting duck. The odor of burned flesh and napalm was horrible. He had a bullet in his thigh and one that went through his calf.
Right in front of him were six enemy soldiers with their eyes boiled out and their lips burned off. Their skin was mostly gone. Their muscles looked like a sketch from a science book.
Michael was pinned down for only twenty minutes before the Japs in that cave were taken out, too, and a corpsman covered head to toe with blood came over that ridge and got Michael out of there. He’d had whole years go by faster than those twenty minutes.
He had no memory of how he got from there to Hawaii.
His first thought when he came to his senses was that his mother must be worried sick. He wrote her a long letter, and he sweet-talked a nurse into picking out something as a gift to send along. The nurse chose a coffee mug with a map of the Hawaiian Islands painted on it. The day Carmela Corleone got it-along with the news that her son was coming home-she filled it with wine, raised the mug, and thanked the Virgin Mary for answering her prayers. From then on, each time she passed Michael’s photo on the mantelpiece, Carmela smiled.
Michael and Hal Mitchell both recuperated. Hank Vogelsong wasn’t so lucky. Right before he died he told the corpsman he wanted Michael Corleone to have his watch. When it arrived, Michael, who barely knew the man, wrote to Vogelsong’s parents, told them how brave Hank had been under fire, and offered to give them his watch back. They wrote back and thanked him but said they wanted him to have it.
While Michael was still in the hospital, he learned that he’d been accepted for pilot training. He was also promoted to second lieutenant. But the promotion was just symbolic, and he never did go to flight school. That was the end of Michael Corleone’s first war.
Just before Michael was discharged, a reporter from Life magazine came to interview him. Michael, who presumed that the story had been set up by his father, thanked the reporter for his interest but said that he was a private person. He already had a medal and he could do without the attention. But Admiral King personally told Michael to do it. Good for morale, he said.
Michael was photographed in a uniform that fit. The story ran in a special issue about the American fighting man. Audie Murphy was on the cover. On the facing page was James K. Shea, the future president of the United States.
Book VII. January – June 1961
Chapter 22
VIA A MAZE of intermediaries, Nick Geraci had been told to come in. To see the Boss. Geraci had a pretty good idea what it was about. He’d suggested the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Too public, he was told. Don Corleone couldn’t possibly risk doing anything that would make his appointment to the presidential transition team any more controversial than it already was-especially the day before the inauguration. It would have to be in the car, a limo.
Which cinched it: they were going to kill him.
In a situation like this, though, there’s no choice but to go where you’re told. It’s a part of the life. Geraci knew that a long time ago. A wiseguy who’s called in, if he’s smart, is like a lawyer preparing a case. You anticipate every question you might get asked and hope for the best. If you’re able to talk your way out of it, walk away pissed off, not grateful.
Asking to bring his guys along for the ride would arouse suspicion. That was out. Packing a gun or a knife was a bad risk. If he’s searched, he’s done for. Even if he’s not, there’s not much chance he’d have enough time to whip out a concealed weapon at the moment of truth.
He waited all morning at a corner table in a tavern on First Avenue along with Donnie Bags, Eddie Paradise, and Momo the Roach. A few connected guys milled around outside. A row of pallid men from the neighborhood drank breakfast at the bar. The place was owned by Elwood Cusik, a boxer who’d done enforcer work for the Corleones.