Battleground Pacific by Sterling Mace

Author:Sterling Mace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

9

A CONSTELLATION OF GHOSTS

“… AND THERE’S A SOLID LEFT hand to the body by Louis, and Conn takes it, rolls off the ropes out into the center! But Louis did not follow up the punch! A bit more action in this round than in the previous two! Conn strong with a left hand into the body!…”

We’re outside a tent in the bivouac area, and they’ve got a spam-can (one half of a military two-way wireless radio) in the tent, and we’re all lying around listening to a broadcast of the Joe Louis and Billy Conn fight in New York.

The heat is still unbearable, which makes the fight a fever dream rolling in on an alien shore. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about anything anymore.

“… Conn is very wary in there! He’s gotten wary all of a sudden!…”

This is the point where every day it’s two or three marines getting killed, and I just don’t want to hear about it. Then when you think it’s all over, it’s one more marine dying.

PFC Alden Moore, KIA.

PFC George Parrett, KIA.

PFC Clarence Morgan, KIA.

“… There’s Louis getting away from a left jab shot at his chin by Conn! Conn, his guns down by his side. Time’s running out in this round…”

* * *

The day before, the Louis and Conn fight we were coming down from the Five Sisters, making the thousand-yard trip out of Death Valley and back toward the bivouac area near the airfield.

We were slugs in marine uniforms: Listless, bone-weary, heads lolling on our shoulders—I’m sure that some of us were walking in our sleep. You could take a look in your buddy’s eyes and there was no life in them. The tiny capillaries in the eyes became magnified. They bulged out as if they were stuffed with every nightmare we had seen on this island to date. So if the eyes are the windows to the soul, then there was no soul in there either. We sacks of bone, blood, and muscle, we’re merely going through the motions of living … and it will happen … something will inevitably stop that activity, too. It was only a matter of time; and time was running out …

Just over the last rise in the coral I heard an explosion and saw the smoke, only about thirty yards away parallel to me and three other marines. Then came a clamor and a call for a corpsman, yet our company kept moving. Nobody stopped, just those in the immediate area.

“… There’s Louis taking a left jab on the chin, and LOUIS IS DOWN FROM A RIGHT CROSS TO THE CHIN! CONN FLOORED LOUIS, WHO GOT UP WITHOUT ANY COUNT! LOUIS GOT UP QUICKLY! Here’s Conn driving a right to the chin! Again, Louis has been on the floor! Time is running out in the round, about twenty-five seconds remaining!…”

Some guys began stripping the body of whatever marine was killed over there: Gear, ammo, socks, his souvenirs, whatever they could use.

I hailed a Marine who had just come from that area.

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