Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

Author:Joseph Bruchac [Bruchac, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2006-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

FIRE EXIT

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST

We were so close I could see how hard the surf was pounding the shore. The beach was not at all like the one we had practiced on at Guadalcanal. It rose up here from the edge of the water as abruptly as a high wall.

Fifty yards from that steep beach, the guns opened fire. Not ours this time. They were the guns of the Japanese. A round from a Japanese .77 hit the waves so close to us that our boat rocked like a toy swatted by a giant. But we kept going, bullets pinging off the prow.

“Keep your heads down,” the lieutenant yelled. “Get ready to go!”

There were eight boats in our wave. As we swung around, I saw the boat to our starboard side take a direct hit. It rose up out of the water in an explosion of smoke and flame and spray. When it fell back it looked as if it had been crushed in a huge fist. Then our ramp grated on the sand.

“GO, GO, GO.”

It was not just the lieutenant shouting. We were all yelling that word. And we went.

Someone’s hand was on my shoulder as we all surged forward, leaping or stumbling onto the beach, firing our weapons in the directions that it seemed the bullets were coming from, falling onto our bellies to get under the deadly crossfire, crawling up that wall of sand to find ourselves confronted by the jungle’s thick walls of green.

Despite all that confusion, the noise of hostile fire, the sound of men crying out as they were hit by shrapnel and bullets, we kept pushing forward. Our training took over, even though some of us were so confused and afraid that we could hardly think. The five boats that survived pulled back from shore to the President Adams for another load.

I don’t remember digging a foxhole, but I found myself inside one, my shovel stuck in the moist dark sand and tree roots at the bottom of the four-foot-deep hole. The sounds of firing were still all around me as the Japanese continued to cover the beach with their well-planned ambush. Another Marine, close to twice my size, was next to me. I was tying a handkerchief around his arm, which had been wounded by shrapnel. It was Georgia Boy. I hadn’t known he was in the landing craft with me, but it must have been his hand on my shoulder, urging me forward as we hit the beach.

“Chief,” he said, “y’all are one tough little Navajo. You know y’all drug me in here with one hand?”

I finished knotting the bandage and Georgia Boy leaned back against the wall of our foxhole. As I looked at my watch I noticed that my fingernails were broken and bleeding. It was 0845.

Of the twelve landing zones, our beach, Blue Beach One, was the worst. Despite the sound and fury of our shelling and our air attack, the Japanese pillboxes had been untouched. Dug deep

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