1945

Perhaps you should have, Monck thought. But that was hindsight. Paul had fought the battle and won it. He was the one who had to make the decisions and not anyone else. He had done what he had to and done it when and how he felt was right. Morrell didn't know it yet, but he truly was a hero.

"If you had used the tank sooner, it might have been knocked out and been useless. No, Paul, the berm shielded the tank until the right moment."

Paul appeared to accept the statement. "All right, I guess, sir. What's the latest on Major Ruger?" Word had reached him that Ruger had been found just barely alive and under a pile of bodies and rubble.

"He's alive, but very badly wounded. With a little luck, he'll make it, but he won't ever be the same again."

"What'd he lose?"

"His legs. Both above the knee. They were terribly crushed and couldn't be saved."

"He's lucky, sir. He won't have to go back to fighting."

"Nor will you, Paul." Monck turned to Parker and ordered, "Get these men off this hill."

"Yes, sir," Parker said. "The relief from the 77th is just a little ways behind us. They'll be up in about an hour."

"Now," Monck snapped. "I want these men off this hill now."

The Japs weren't coming back, and the survivors of Round Top needed to get as far away from the hill as possible. Monck wanted to get them back to a land of clean clothes, showers, and food. They needed to forget the nightmare landscape that was Round Top as soon as possible.

"Leave the tank," Monck ordered Morrell. It was probably too risky to drive the damn thing downhill anyhow. God only knew how they'd gotten it up there in the first place. "Leave everything. Just get down off this hill." Again Monck turned to Parker. "When they meet up with the column from the 77th, they can use their trucks to take them to the rear."

Paul managed a small smile. "Sounds good to me, sir. Then maybe we can begin to put this behind us."

As Paul walked away to gather his men, Monck wondered if anyone would be able to forget what had happened on Round Top and any of the thousands of other battlegrounds on Kyushu. He hoped they wouldn't.

CHAPTER 85

DETROIT

Debbie Winston sat in the chair in her bedroom. Her bare feet were tucked under the long flannel nightgown. It was the middle of the night and she couldn't sleep. Too much was happening in her life.

Days earlier, the final end of the war had been almost anticlimactic. There'd been no dancing in the streets and few parties had been thrown to celebrate it. Instead, there'd been a feeling of enormous relief coupled with worry that this peace would also somehow fall apart. After all, hadn't the Japs surrendered once before? This time, thank God, it looked as if it would stick.

Debbie's brother, Ron, might yet be drafted, but not until after he finished high school. No fighting was going on, which meant he would be safe, unless, of course, he got sent to Palestine, where a small war raged. Maybe, she thought wryly, a little military discipline would help the spoiled and sulky little snot grow up. God only knew he needed it.

She took a deep breath and again read the letter from Paul. He was safe and unharmed, although his choice of words and phrases said there were things he wasn't ready to talk about, or at least put down in a letter.

This was not all that surprising. She had read with horrified fascination of the final desperate battles on Kyushu. One article in Life magazine had mentioned a place called Round Top as an example of the savage intensity of the final conflict. Not until reading Paul's letter did she realize he had been at Round Top. The thought that he had been so close to death had further reinforced her strong feelings for him.

Her friend Ann, whose boyfriend had returned an amputee from the war, had reached over and held Debbie's hands. "All you can do is be there for him. Hold him, listen to him, and understand that he's seen and done things that no one should ever have to endure and that we cannot possibly imagine, no matter how much we read or hear about them."

Paul's letter had been hopeful that he'd be stateside fairly soon, and the newspapers had confirmed it. Those men who'd borne the brunt of the fighting on Kyushu would be coming home in a hurry. They would be replaced by a far smaller number of Americans who'd be taken from the units forming for the now canceled invasion of Honshu.

If she was going to be there to help him through his nightmares, they were going to have to get married fast so she'd be there during his nights. She grinned to herself. She hoped Paul would realize the good that would come from their being wed as quickly as they could arrange it.

Debbie looked out the window of her second-floor bedroom. Snow was on the ground and she wondered if it would still be there when Paul returned. She hoped it would. That would mean they'd be together soon.

CHAPTER 86

KYUSHU, NEAR MIYAKONOJO