hand.
He threw aside the black safety cap as he reached the doorway, and was in the act of tossing the grenade inside when he suddenly stood straight up, his bush-hatfell off, and the side of his face was covered with blood. He fell full length, landing almost at my feet, and someone grabbed him and pulled him away. I was at one side of the doorway, and a small sharp-faced sergeant whom I didn't know was at the other, with a tommy-gun. Gale's phosphorus bomb hadn't exploded—they're dicey things with a tape which unwinds in flight and a ball and spring mechanism—but I had my second 36 grenade in one hand and my rifle in the other. The little sergeant also had a 36; he nodded, we pulled our pins together, he waited
three
seconds that seemed like hours, and we tossed them in, flattening against the bunker. On the heels of the double explosion he darted in, Thompson stuttering; two quick bursts and he was out again.
“Three on ’em!” he shouted, and his jaw dropped as he stared past me. I turned to see a Jap racing across in front of the bunker, a sword flourished above his head. He was going like Jesse Owens, screaming his head off, right across my front; I just had sense enough to take a split second, traversing my aim with him before I fired; he gave a convulsive leap, and I felt that jolt of delight—I'd hit the bastard!—and as he fell on all fours the Highland officer with whom I'd played football dived on him from behind, slashing at his head with a kukri. Someone rounded the bunker, almost barging into me; it was Stanley, shouting: “Where? Where?”—in that kind of mad scramble all that matters is seeing the enemy. He had a Bren magazine in one hand, and was trying to change it for the one on thegun; I grabbed the barrel to steady it, burned myself, yelped, and seized the folded legs while he pushed the full magazine home—one of his puttees was coming loose, a yard away Gale was lying dead with two men bending over him, the whole wood was echoing with shots and explosions and yelling voices. Stanley ran past me, dropping the empty magazine—and as some Presbyterian devil made me pick it up I noticed Gale's hat lying in the bunker doorway, and the little sergeant was shouting and running towards a second bunker.
The sixty seconds I have just described, being among the most eventful of my life, I have been able to relate almost step by step; after that it was more disconnected. There were half a dozen men at the second bunker, feeding in grenades and firing through the slit, a Jap was shot and bayonetted in the entrance, and then we were past it, making for the far verge of the wood. Shots came from an earthwork to our left, a man had his bush-hat shot from his head—usually when a hat is hit it stays in place, but this one spun off like a plate, landing several feet away—and a Jap appeared between the trees and I shot him and he fell against a trunk, and the little sergeant dropped his tommy-gun and swore and picked it up again—the sequence of these things I can't be certain of because it all happened so quickly—or seemed to. I've spoken at the start of this paragraph of “sixty seconds” because I can't believe it took any longer, and probably the rush from the first bunker to the second and on to the wood's edge took about the same—but if that little sergeant were to appear and tellme it took twenty minutes, I couldn't contradict him. We were in that wood four hours, according to the regimental history, killed 136 Japanese, and lost seven dead and 43 wounded ourselves in the whole operation, but I wasn't conscious of time, only of the highlights of action. The fight at the first bunker is crystal clear, but the rest is a series of unrelated incidents.
It was a hectic murderous confusion: the whole section was in the wood, but Stanley is the only one I remember—indeed, Gale is the only other I can positively identify from the entire platoon. The little sergeant was there most of the
He threw aside the black safety cap as he reached the doorway, and was in the act of tossing the grenade inside when he suddenly stood straight up, his bush-hatfell off, and the side of his face was covered with blood. He fell full length, landing almost at my feet, and someone grabbed him and pulled him away. I was at one side of the doorway, and a small sharp-faced sergeant whom I didn't know was at the other, with a tommy-gun. Gale's phosphorus bomb hadn't exploded—they're dicey things with a tape which unwinds in flight and a ball and spring mechanism—but I had my second 36 grenade in one hand and my rifle in the other. The little sergeant also had a 36; he nodded, we pulled our pins together, he waited
three
seconds that seemed like hours, and we tossed them in, flattening against the bunker. On the heels of the double explosion he darted in, Thompson stuttering; two quick bursts and he was out again.
“Three on ’em!” he shouted, and his jaw dropped as he stared past me. I turned to see a Jap racing across in front of the bunker, a sword flourished above his head. He was going like Jesse Owens, screaming his head off, right across my front; I just had sense enough to take a split second, traversing my aim with him before I fired; he gave a convulsive leap, and I felt that jolt of delight—I'd hit the bastard!—and as he fell on all fours the Highland officer with whom I'd played football dived on him from behind, slashing at his head with a kukri. Someone rounded the bunker, almost barging into me; it was Stanley, shouting: “Where? Where?”—in that kind of mad scramble all that matters is seeing the enemy. He had a Bren magazine in one hand, and was trying to change it for the one on thegun; I grabbed the barrel to steady it, burned myself, yelped, and seized the folded legs while he pushed the full magazine home—one of his puttees was coming loose, a yard away Gale was lying dead with two men bending over him, the whole wood was echoing with shots and explosions and yelling voices. Stanley ran past me, dropping the empty magazine—and as some Presbyterian devil made me pick it up I noticed Gale's hat lying in the bunker doorway, and the little sergeant was shouting and running towards a second bunker.
The sixty seconds I have just described, being among the most eventful of my life, I have been able to relate almost step by step; after that it was more disconnected. There were half a dozen men at the second bunker, feeding in grenades and firing through the slit, a Jap was shot and bayonetted in the entrance, and then we were past it, making for the far verge of the wood. Shots came from an earthwork to our left, a man had his bush-hat shot from his head—usually when a hat is hit it stays in place, but this one spun off like a plate, landing several feet away—and a Jap appeared between the trees and I shot him and he fell against a trunk, and the little sergeant dropped his tommy-gun and swore and picked it up again—the sequence of these things I can't be certain of because it all happened so quickly—or seemed to. I've spoken at the start of this paragraph of “sixty seconds” because I can't believe it took any longer, and probably the rush from the first bunker to the second and on to the wood's edge took about the same—but if that little sergeant were to appear and tellme it took twenty minutes, I couldn't contradict him. We were in that wood four hours, according to the regimental history, killed 136 Japanese, and lost seven dead and 43 wounded ourselves in the whole operation, but I wasn't conscious of time, only of the highlights of action. The fight at the first bunker is crystal clear, but the rest is a series of unrelated incidents.
It was a hectic murderous confusion: the whole section was in the wood, but Stanley is the only one I remember—indeed, Gale is the only other I can positively identify from the entire platoon. The little sergeant was there most of the
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