Synopsis | Reviews | Excerpt
Taught
to shoot in the rough logging camps of the North Carolina swamps, Wes Ross remembers
his lessons well. Dodging hostile gunfire with dozens of other young Marines,
he storms a remote Pacific island as one of Carlson's Raiders in the first
commando-style attack of World War II. He blasts several Japanese snipers from
their palm-tree hideouts with buckshot before an enemy bullet sends him home.
The Carolina homefront includes a
new girlfriend and a new occupation, learning to be a rural lawyer in his
uncle's law office, including courtroom intrigue and what goes on behind the
scenes. Wes, like his uncles, is a good man, the kind who takes up for the poor
and downtrodden, looking out for those who are easy prey for bullies.
Frog Cutshaw is the storekeeper in
the Caney Fork backwoods, a swaggering ex-moonshiner who is deadly with his
ever-present .45 auto pistol. Frog's daylight rape of a married woman and the
brutal killing of her husband bring on Bible Belt vigilante justice, an eye for
an eye, a life for a life.
Wally
Avett is a retired newspaperman. He lives in North Carolina.
Coming soon!
One
1942
THE METAL FLOOR vibrated
beneath our feet with the constant turning of the submarine’s engines. Other
Marines sat humped on the floor all around me, packed like sardines in space
usually taken by torpedoes.
Ninety gung-ho Marines were
there on the Nautilus, another hundred and twenty on the Argonaut, running
somewhere beneath the surface nearby. Stuffed in these steel tubes on top of
the regular Navy sub crew, two days out of Pearl and headed west a thousand
miles to bring smoking hell on the Japs at Makin Island. Couldn’t see the sun,
couldn’t see where we were going, it was almost unreal. So we talked, for
endless hours, to pass the time and forget the dangers.
As a Southerner from a
family of lawyers, I was a natural-born storyteller.
"Turkey Jack lives with a
Geechee woman, on the very edge of the Big Carver Swamp. Because nobody is
brave enough to actually live inside the swamp,” I added. "Nothing in there but
cottonmouth moccasins and mosquitoes. Scary place, even in daylight.”
"I
never seen a swamp,” the boy from Maine said. "In fact I never seen the South
’til Parris Island.”
"Well,
Parris was okay but it’s not the whole South. Turkey Jack taught me how to
shoot.”
"Yeah,
I was around him a lot. My daddy and Turkey Jack were always big buddies and
they logged a lot when I was growing up. We’d live in a rough camp way back in
the woods, cutting down trees and dragging ’em out with horses.”
"Yeah,
I seen a lot of timber cut up in Maine.”
"They
taught me how to shoot better’n anything they taught me at Parris Island.”
"What in hell is a Geechee?”
Maine asked.
I had to remember to be
patient with this Yankee. They didn’t know much. I slowly explained that a
Geechee is a colored person who doesn’t speak plain English but rather a
chopped-up sing-song language with lots of strange words. Supposed to come from
some islands down off Savannah.
Suddenly
Maine asked, "Are you scared about the fight?”
"Naw,
it’ll come soon enough.”
To
tell the truth, I wasn’t
really scared about the battle. I didn’t even think much about it. It was the
adventure of the war I was interested in. Going places, seeing things I’d never
seen before. I grew up in a little county seat town in Eastern North Carolina
and Mama died when I was twelve. Daddy and Turkey Jack raised me the rest of
the way. Then a big cypress fell the wrong way on Dad, and it killed him.
"So you don’t have any
parents, any brothers or sisters?” Maine asked.
"That’s right, nobody left
but some aunts and uncles and ol’ Turkey Jack.”
It
was hot. The smells of the place were about what you’d expect—the scent of
sweating men in close quarters, and oil and moldy clothes and all that. We had
to take turns eating when it was mealtime, but thankfully they put the thing on
the surface and let us exercise and walk around a little each day.
"Come
along men, let’s promenade on the grand deck.”
We
had to smile at that. The speaker was another North Carolina boy, a real
hillbilly from way back in the mountains. Cornball sense of humor, and we all
liked him for his jokes. Hillbilly led us up the ladder so we could all stand
and stretch on the little deck. There was a cannon there. I figured the salt water probably
didn’t do it any good.
It
was late in the afternoon and we were alone in the middle of the big blue
Pacific with the big blue sky all around us, nothing to see but water and sky
in any direction. It had been like this since we left Pearl Harbor.
That’s
what I mean about getting to see places and do things. Pearl Harbor hadn’t
meant a thing to me, just a name, when the Japs hit it last December. It was a
big thing, don’t get me wrong, but it was just a name. A strange name, like
Hawaii.
After
Dad got killed, I had floundered around for a while not knowing what to do. I
spent some time out in the country with my Uncle Jubal and Aunt Alma. She’s my
dad’s sister. And I lived mostly right there in Carverville with my Uncle
Herman, my mama’s brother, who is the biggest lawyer in White County.
"So,
Flatlander, when the big war come along, you just had
to join it, right?” Hillbilly said, grinning like
a possum, full of piss and vinegar, as my daddy used to say.
"You
got it right, mountain man. I was afraid you’d kill all the Japs and not leave
any for me.”
"Well,
you just stick close to me when the blood starts a-flying and you’ll damn sure
see some Japs shot plumb to pieces. Mister, my gun is gonna do some talking.”
Back
in the hold, we rode into
the night, not knowing really what time of day or night except by the clock.
Hillbilly lay on a sleeping bag jammed in close to Maine and me and we all
talked. He told us of the remote mountain county where he lived, named for the
Cherokee, and we laughed at his stories of moonshine whiskey.
"I
wisht I had a horn o’ white likker right now,” he said.
"Our
Indians were about gone in the eastern end of the state,” I said. Some of the
Indian blood had been mixed with the white and colored people and we had those
who were combinations of all three races. My friend Turkey Jack was one, mostly
Indian but with both white and colored mixed in too.
"He
taught me how to shoot when I was a kid,” I said to Hillbilly. "I was telling
ol’ Maine here about it earlier. He told me better than the instructors at
Parris.”
"How’d
he say to do it?”
Turkey
Jack lived with a coal-black Geechee woman, a towering colored woman whose
speech I rarely comprehended, in a one-room shack at Big Carver Swamp.
The
so-called "big carver” had been a nameless Indian, last of his breed, who
supposedly lived alone deep inside the swamp and came to town infrequently to
trade his carvings for salt and stuff at the stores.
The
white people had named the mysterious swamp for him while he was still alive.
And shortly after his death, to settle a big public uproar which involved the
names of several citizens vying for the honor, had likewise named the town for
the carver, Carverville. But I didn’t think the Marines would care for that
story so I didn’t tell it.
"What
did he say, Flatlander? What’s the secret?”
"Forget
the sight... bring the stock right up under your
cheekbone... hold your face tight against the gun and shoot
with both your eyes wide open. That way whatever you’re looking at is your
target, automatically. Pull the trigger and you’ll hit whatever you’re looking
at.”
"Both
eyes open, huh?”
"Yep,
that’s all there is to it.”
Hillbilly
was lying against the little rubber boats, all folded up nice and neat, that
we’d use to reach the island. They smelled too, a funny odor from the rubber
and the waterproofing, I guess. I’d been around boats. Anybody from the Cape
Fear country would know something about boats. But I never saw one you blew up
with air to give it a shape.
Like
the boy from Maine, our captain was a Yankee too, lots older than us. We were
just overgrown boys, about eighteen years old, but he was a mature man. His name was Carlson and he
smoked a pipe. He was the
one who trained us, told us all about guerilla fighting.
"How
about Roosevelt?” Maine said. "You’d think he would be in Washington. Not with
us.”
Hillbilly
cackled with laughter at that. "Them damn Roosevelts are unpredictable for
sure. His old daddy has dammed up the rivers out where I live, give people
electricity even way out in the country.”
Language had begun to
fascinate me, in what I heard from Maine and in Hillbilly’s drawl, which was
really not as slow as mine. He spoke like the mountain folks, not as drawn-out
as East Carolina. And I noticed he said "you’uns” a lot too, in places where we
naturally said "y’all.”
"My grandpa Dockery always
calls him ‘that dam Roosevelt’ and says he ain’t saying a bad word cause
Roosevelt built so many dams,” Hillbilly said, laughing at his own joke. "My
grandpa Dockery is a yellow dog Republican.”
"What’s
that?” Maine asked.
"That’s
a feller that would vote for a yellow dog if the dog was running on the
Republican ticket.”
Most
people pronounced Roosevelt so the first part of the name rhymed with "rose.”
But Hillbilly said it so the first part sounded like "ruse.” I noticed he
talked about some sort of fierce wild hog that roamed his home mountains too
and he called it a "rooshun.” It was some time before we got out of him that
these hogs had been imported from Russia.
James
Roosevelt, the President’s son, was going with us on this raid. None of us knew
him very well, but he was second in command to Carlson and we knew he was
important. A tough Marine sergeant was his personal bodyguard and carried two
Colt .45 automatics, one holstered on each hip. The scuttlebutt was that his
orders were to shoot Roosevelt if he were in danger of being captured by the
Japs.
Hillbilly
spent a large amount of time sharpening and re-sharpening his Marine-issue belt
knife, honing it on a little whetrock he carried. He would test it on his shin,
shaving off leg hairs to prove its fine edge. He seemed skilled at this, and
seemed to enjoy it, so I gave him mine to sharpen, too.
"What does yore Indian
friend—the one that taught you to shoot—what does he say about knives?”
Hillbilly asked.
I told him, "Turkey Jack had
no use for a knife, contrary to the fact that most white people believed most
dark-skinned men all carried knives and razors for self-defense.” I told them
about Turkey Jack fighting three drunk loggers at a bootlegger’s shack in the
swamps, all three of his assailants armed with deadly hawkbill knives. Turkey
Jack had calmly picked up a hickory ax handle and whipped all three of them.
"Witnesses
said he broke collarbones, he broke wrists, he poked out eyes, and, as the last was falling, he brought
down the butt of the ax handle on the man’s exposed temple, killing him
cleanly.
"The
law wasted little time in the investigation and Turkey Jack was never even
taken to the courthouse for questioning. The deputy sheriff sent to the scene
pronounced it self-defense, just another killing.
"Turkey
Jack always told me that if you had to use a knife, you’ve let an enemy get too
close to you,” I told them. "A knife is good for cutting up your food, that’s
all.”
"Tell
us another story,” they said. They liked my stories, especially the ones with
violence. "Shut up and go to sleep,” I said. "We’ve got a long ride to go. And
if you don’t shut up and go to sleep,” I chided them, "the Big Carver will come
and get you. That’s what my mama used to tell me—he’ll come up dripping with
water and mud from the swamp and carry you away.”
"I
don’t believe in haints,” Hillbilly said.
The
boy from Maine just looked at us both—he didn’t know what to think.
ABOUT A WEEK later, we
finally got to Makin Island.
The
two subs surfaced just off the beach of the island and we loaded out in the
rubber boats with little gas engines and went in that way. We were all dressed
in regular khaki that had been dyed black, to make us harder to see, Carlson
said.
There
was a mountain between us and the main settlement. We started around the
shoulder of that mountain, easing through the trees and brush. It was about
daylight.
I
think they knew we were coming. We didn’t surprise them, especially after a
Marine let a gun fire accidentally. That whole morning was one big long
rambling fight.
The Japs had snipers hidden in the tops of palm trees and
they killed several of our men before we realized what their game was. I never
did pray a lot, but I said a little prayer as we went in, asked the Good
Lord to spare me if it was his will and make me strong and quick.
I
was putting my faith in the Lord and that good Winchester 12 gauge pump the
United States Marines had issued to me. Old Turkey Jack had taught me how to
shoot a shotgun years ago and now my life would depend on it. It was loaded
full with heavy buckshot and I could feel the weight of about a hundred shells
I was carrying on me. I felt good.
Gunfire
began to crackle constantly to the left and right of me as we walked into the
Japs. Carlson was very informal in his methods and officers were right in with
us enlisted men. We had little squads ranging here and there, taking on the
Nips where we found them.
"Look
at that,” Maine yelled, pointing at a ragged charge by five or six Japs toward
the left end of our line. The enemy soldiers yelled as they ran toward the
Marines and a quick burst of fire put them down.
Hillbilly
was off to my right, carrying his heavy gun at waist level, ready in an instant
to level a horizontal burst into the bushes.
"I’m
hit,” he yelled.
I
had heard a sharp crack and out of the corner of my eye, saw Hillbilly topple
to his right, the muzzle of his automatic rifle pointing to the sky as he fell.
Later, I would
realize the sound I heard wasn’t the report of the Jap sniper’s rifle, but the
flat impact sound of the slug bouncing off Hillbilly’s steel helmet.
"Hold
on, we’re coming.”
I
didn’t even think, just hollered to him and ran toward him. Hillbilly, don’t
die on me. I was talking
to myself. It was all confusing. But in the middle of all that, all my senses
on full alert, out of the side of my vision I saw movement in the top of a palm
tree about twenty-five yards to my left.
"You sonuvabitch,” I said calmly, and felt the pump gun
coming to my cheek and shoulder. The front bead found the middle of that palm
crown and I shot three rounds in about a second. There was a convulsion up
there in the palm fronds and a little Jap soldier in dirty khakis tumbled out
and fell like a sack of grain on the ground, his rifle still grasped in his
hand and his cap still on his head.
"Good
shooting, man,” Hillbilly said. Maine was helping him to his feet and he looked
groggy but he was apparently all right. There was a fresh shiny crease on the
side of his helmet where the bullet had hit at a shallow angle and deflected.
We
walked over and kicked at the dead enemy, turning the corpse over on its back.
I pulled my belt knife.
"You gonna scalp him,
country boy?” Hillbilly asked, laughing.
"Naw, I just want to see what
the buckshot did.”
We
cut the shirt off the Jap and he was a pitiful little wiry thing, probably
didn’t weigh much over a hundred pounds. There was an odor about him, rice and
fish maybe, but his skin was clean. My three loads of buckshot had shredded his
upper chest and he’d also caught a couple of big pellets in the head.
The
boy from Maine got sick and had to puke in the bushes. Hillbilly gave him an
odd look but didn’t say anything. Then we walked on toward the settlement.
There was sporadic shooting all around us.
Around
the middle of the day, the Japs
staged the only thing that looked like an organized battle. Not paying any
attention to us, they formed a line and came toward us, several dozen of them
advancing through the thin brush.
We
had linked up with several other small fire squads and when the Japs got close,
we let them have it with everything we had. There were Marines shooting guns,
M-1s we had gotten from the Army, shotguns, Thompsons, old bolt-action
Springfields, everything. We killed every one of the Japs.
I
used the shotgun to ventilate the tops of any suspicious palm trees and you
could tell they were learning about buckshot. Several times in the distance,
too far to shoot, we’d see snipers bailing out of their trees and running away.
The
Japs had a little town there on the bay and we ran them out of it, shooting
everything in sight. There were some natives, too, who were friendly to us.
Then we saw what seemed to be artillery shells kicking up big sprays of water
around a couple of Jap boats.
"Jimmy
Roosevelt is up on the goddamn mountain,” a sergeant told us. "He’s spotting
for the deck guns on the subs and they’re shooting the shit out of this harbor.
Look, look.”
A
shell from one of the unseen subs on the beach side of the island landed right
in the middle of one of the boats, sending pieces of it high into the air. Soon, another shell hit a Jap flying boat,
some sort of a funny-looking seaplane the enemy had there.
It
was like a scene you’d imagine from hell, all the dead people and the shooting
and the smoke and the noise. The Japs had a building we called Government
House, sort of a combination headquarters place and hospital. We took the flag
down, the Jap "meatball” rising sun thing, and it was along about then that I
got shot.
"What’s the matter?”
Hillbilly asked.
"I been
shot... in the ass.”
Sure
enough, one of their snipers shooting from way, way off, had popped one in my
right cheek, low and deep. I never heard the gunfire, just felt a sudden push
and a warm burn spreading through my hip. When I felt back there, it was my own
sticky blood soaking my leg.
Two
Navy doctors had come from the subs with us and one of them put some medicine
on my wound. Even on a battlefield, you get
kidded about the spot the bullet hit. I reckon a person’s hind end is just
naturally funny.
"Shot
in the ass, huh?” the medic said. "That’ll look great on your record, won’t
it?”
"By
God, I wasn’t running away.”
"I
know that,” he said kindly. "You were standing out there watching them take
down that flag, like everybody else, weren’t you buddy?”
I
nodded, but it hurt. Physically and emotionally. Here I had come halfway around
the world, rode in submarines underneath the ocean and killed Japanese men on a
jungle island, only to end up shot right in the ass, of all places.
The
rest of it was a blur. There was a Jap plane that came over and strafed us, but
it didn’t amount to much. As the afternoon wore on, the pain from my wound got
worse. My hip and leg got numb and I couldn’t walk very good. Luckily, we’d
killed all the Japs.
That
night we tried to get back on the subs but the waves were running too high and
the little outboard motors wouldn’t work and some of us didn’t make it aboard
until the next day.
"I
shore hate you got shot in the ass,” Hillbilly said. "You probably saved my
life, shooting that sniper out of the tree. Hell, he mighta shot me again if
you hadn’t got him.”
"Well,
us Carolina boys got to take care of each other.”
"You
need to go to the doctor,” Maine said. "He’s operating on Marines on their
eating table. Here, we’ll help you walk.”
I
told them to tell the Navy doctor I would wait until everybody else had been
treated and then he could look at my ass. We waited for several hours while
various wounded Marines were treated on that table.
Finally
a submarine officer, a Hogan from Canton, Georgia, came to our end of the boat
looking for me. He introduced himself and kidded me a little but I could tell
he was concerned about all of us.
"Where’s
the tarheel that got shot in the tail?”
"Right
here, sir, ready and willing.”
"You
Marines did a good job,” he said, and told us that they’d already gotten word
over the radio that Admiral Nimitz himself would be waiting on us when we got
back to Pearl.
"Just
help me get to the table, sir.”
They
laid me down on their dining table, just Hogan and the doc and me, in a small
room. They pulled my pants down, stiff with blood and salt water from the
rubber boat trip. Then the doc said, "This is going to be easy. It’s not in too
deep.
"There
it is,” he said, squeezing and bringing out a slug, which he tossed to Hogan.
The Georgian was standing in the doorway, amused at the sight he was seeing.
"Gimme
that,” I told him. "I gave birth to it, and I want it for a souvenir.”
Hogan
grinned and handed over the Jap bullet. It looked to be about a .25 caliber,
only slightly deformed.
I
limped back to my space at the end of the sub and showed my prize to Hillbilly
and the solemn boy from Maine.
"One
of these almost got into my brain,” Hillbilly said, holding the bent bullet up
for everyone to see.
"So
that’s what’s wrong with you,” hooted a kid from West Virginia, good-naturedly
kidding him. "I wondered about you.”
"Look
who’s talking, ridge runner.” Ol’
Hillbilly gave it right back to him.
The
trip back to Pearl was a week or more, just like the front part except we
didn’t exercise much. I couldn’t. The pain in my hip was like a toothache, a
dull hurt that never quit. The Navy doc shot me full of morphine and I know my
eyes must have been glazed, the way people looked at me.
We,
the returning Marine raiders, stood on the
little narrow decks of the two subs as they slid into the dock,.
"There’s
Nimitz,” whispered the boy from Maine. "He’s saluting us...”
They
said our raid on Makin had helped the morale of the American people, showed the
Japs we could surprise them. Medics helped me to a Navy ambulance and took all
us wounded to the hospital. That’s all we cared about.
