1945

"All right," said Ruger. "Did everybody get a good look at the little son of a bitch? That's a Jap lying there, and one of the best kind- a dead one. Somebody toasted his ass good, didn't they? But look at him. You know they've got shitty rifles and bad tactics, but this joker wouldn't give up, would he? No, he fought with that shitty rifle of his and died with it. I wonder how many Americans he killed before somebody saw where he was shooting from and got him."

Paul watched in fascination. The lesson was ghastly, but it had the company's complete attention. Only a few months before, that Japanese soldier had been trying to kill Americans, and dead or not, that man was one of the enemy.

In the weeks of training since they'd arrived on Okinawa, Paul's platoon, the company, the entire regiment, had worked hard to replace skills lost over months of inactivity, and to acquire those they never really had. They'd exercised and marched early each day, then spent the afternoons and evenings in weapons training and small-unit tactics. They'd gotten better, and Ruger had managed to get rid of those who were unable to cope with the demands of training.

But that's what it had been, training. At least until now. The presence of a real dead Jap changed everything. Before them lay the enemy as well as the brutal reality of death.

Ruger's eyes swept the assemblage. "And just because he's dead, don't think he's forgotten how to kill. The Japs have a nasty habit of booby-trapping their dead comrades in hope that some stupid GI will come along to take a souvenir, like that helmet for instance. Look good on a wall, wouldn't it? Or maybe something nice for the missus like a gold filling, or maybe a dried ear, or maybe one of those shitty rifles or a real good pistol. Well, if they've booby-trapped the corpse, and they likely have, you've got to be real careful." He turned to his first sergeant. "Sergeant Mackensen, show us what to do."

"First," said Mackensen, "all you people step farther away." There was a shuffling as two hundred plus men complied. "Now you'll notice that I very carefully tied a rope around his one remaining leg. I'm gonna step back and pull on it real hard. If he's trapped, it'll trigger whatever he's hiding."

With that, Mackensen walked a couple of paces away from the cadaver, lay flat on the ground, and yanked the rope. There was a split second of stillness, then a flash of light and the crash of a grenade exploding, sending bones and pieces of dead Jap into the air. Several of the men got parts of Jap on them, and a couple of them started to gag.

Mackensen got to his feet and saluted Ruger. "Captain, the fucking Jap is now well and truly dead."

Ruger nodded. "Very good, First Sergeant. Carry on with training."

As he said that, it began to rain, and the already strong wind started to pick up in power. They had no real rain gear with them, so Paul started to form them up for more work. If it rained, they were going to get wet and that was that. After all, how often did they call off a war because of rain? He wondered how their tents were holding up in what was rapidly becoming a downpour. Captain Ruger, who was only a few feet away, seemed unperturbed.

A PFC handed a walkie-talkie to Ruger, who listened attentively and then appeared stunned by what he'd heard. "Everybody take cover," he yelled. "This is a typhoon." Ruger then sent runners out to the other platoons and ran out himself, saying that he didn't trust their radios to get through in the rapidly growing storm.

Typhoon? What the hell does one do when caught on an Okinawan hill in a typhoon? Paul wondered. "Dig in," he yelled to the men, who were as puzzled as he was. "Get to just below the crest of this hill and start digging in for protection against the wind. Push the dirt up the hill and form a bunker in front of you."

"Why?" asked a soldier, and Paul debated letting him drown.

"Because, Private Haines, a typhoon is just like a hurricane. That means a ton of rainwater is going to land on us and whatever we dig in is going to be full pretty quick. Push the dirt up front so you don't get washed away. Now shut up and dig!"

Paul checked on his men as they dug frantically into dirt that quickly turned into mud. The wind had picked up and was slashing at them. "Keep your helmets on. There's gonna be stuff flying around and you don't want to get hit."

"Like the stuff we left where we bivouacked, Lieutenant?" one of his men yelled, and a couple of others chuckled at the thought.

"That's right!" Already Paul had to cup his hands and holler to be heard. "So keep your heads down." He then grabbed a couple of men who were earnestly digging too far down the hill. When they protested, he told them they had to watch out for flash floods as well as wind. Chastened, they moved farther up the slope and began anew.