“Martin Macht. I knew it,” said Christian, too nervous to be angry. “Did you speak to him?”
Jack took a long drink of his water and said, “Only a bit. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I asked if you were there, which must have thrown him off, because that’s when he told me who he was.” Jack dropped his gun in Christian’s lap and said. “So if you’re wondering if that’s who fucked you, that’s who fucked you.”
“You didn’t call the police? Write to me?” he asked.
“Nah,” said Jack smiling. “I was about to ship out and see you. Thought it would be more fun to tell you myself.”
“But you didn’t,” said Christian. “Tell me.”
“That’s right. I didn’t. Know why? Because there isn’t shit you or your parents can do about it. You’re about to die in the Pacific,” said Jack, waving his hand at their surroundings, “and your parents are in an internment camp. So I said to myself, why bother the krauts?”
“You’re right,” said Christian, taking Jack’s canteen and pouring the water over his head. “I sure as shit am going to die here.”
Just before eleven in the morning, they had Kwajalein’s shore in sight and were ready to run up the sand. Christian and the other troops looked out at the black smoke billowing up from the already heavily bombed island and after the order from their sergeant, let out a collective yell.
“It’s fucking doomsday!” Jack screamed as they jumped from the boat.
Christian let out his breath, holding his rifle in front of him, and prayed one last time, hoping that somehow his parents, or some higher power, could hear him. Then he jumped into the ocean behind Jack. Between the warm, translucent water and the white sand beaches, the Kwajalein Atoll looked like a brochure for a vacation, not a place for young men to die.
Behind them, American battleships and destroyers were bobbing in the water, and above them, shells were screaming in from the artillery they had set up on Carlson Island the night before. Just a year ago, Christian had been asleep in his pajamas, his parents mere feet away, all comfortably swaddled in happiness and comfort. Now he was walking into gunfire. How could his world have turned on him so quickly?
Jack led Christian and Dave up the beach and into the trees, moving steadily until they heard the gunfire from a Japanese sniper. Christian instinctively pulled Dave down with him into the brush, but Jack was still standing twenty yards ahead of them. Finally, after another round of gunfire erupted, they saw Jack throw himself on the ground and crawl into the brush below the palm trees, their tops seared from the ammunition being dropped by the planes.
The pungent smells of gun shells and burned flesh were knit into the jungle heat, choking the three men as they continued to inch forward with their unit. Christian flinched as a light tank from the Seventh rolled past them, clearing the ground ahead, and Jack hissed at him to stop acting like an abused dog.
Several hundred feet on, they knelt down in foxholes and took turns manning the mortar at that position. When Christian was told to run from his foxhole to one farther on, he stared blankly at his ranking officer, Sergeant Perko.
“We’ve got forty-eight howitzers set up on Carlson, remember, Lange? You have so much cover you might as well be wearing armor!” he shouted. “Now move your ass. We need to move thousands of yards north, not five.” Christian took off, and spent the rest of the day keeping up that pace, as he was tasked with clearing the brush for the other men. It was a job for a disposable soldier, one who wasn’t particularly brave or a good shot, but Christian was glad to have it, especially since he was nowhere ready to fire his gun. He thought of John Sasaki at the camp telling him to enlist. Did he see in Christian the same bravery that his son in the 442nd had? Christian doubted it. It was a recommendation based on love, more than war. Love, it turned out, he was far better at.
Their first day on Kwajalein, the Americans only lost seventeen men, but while they slept under their tarps that night, the Seventh was blindsided by a late Japanese offensive.
The relentless enemy fire continued into morning, and as soon as the sky was streaked with blue, Christian was back in a foxhole, with new orders. No more ripping out bushes on hands and knees; today he would be shooting at Japanese soldiers.
For the first hour, it was nothing but the sound of the jungle coupled with the thrum of his own heartbeat and whispers from Jack about the afterlife. “You’ll be fine if you die, kraut,” he assured Christian. “You’re used to something as boring as heaven. You’re from the suburbs.”
Perko kicked Jack in the knee and they all stayed quiet until they heard movement in the brush.
On signal, Christian rested his elbows on the dirt and tried to get his trigger finger to stop shaking. He held it in his mouth and listened as Perko hissed, “Lange. Pull your fucking trigger. Right now, Lange.” When they both saw that the Japanese soldiers were no longer just sounds, but men in front of them, he screamed, “Shoot!” and Christian stared ahead, still unable to pull.
For the first time, he saw enemy faces. They were distant, but he saw bodies, eyes, skin. He saw men. He looked at them advancing toward them and his hands remained still. Dave was right. When it came down to it, everyone was the same, just blood vessels and heart. All of a sudden, every one of the Japanese men in their drab khaki uniforms felt like him. He shot a desperate glance at Jack, who was reloading his gun, having already fired dozens of rounds.
“Shoot, kraut!” he heard Jack’s voice shouting. “You’re going to get us killed. Shoot!”
Christian turned back to look at the Japanese soldiers and curled his finger around the trigger. He felt the metal against his sweaty skin and thought about all the rounds he had fired in training. Those rounds, despite his sergeant’s assurances, had not prepared him enough. His mind was in a fog, and the buzz of his panic drowned out even Jack’s urgent voice. Finally, he closed his eyes for a split second and pulled.
At first, he only fired straight ahead, aiming at random. But then he spotted a Japanese soldier exposed behind a grove of trees, running toward them, and he fired directly at him. As soon as he pulled, his body tensed and Christian was sure he could see the bullet fly from his gun straight into the man’s heart. He dropped his gun and looked out as the man fell to the ground. He started to stand up, instinctually wanting to run to him, but a hand shoved him roughly down.
“Lange? What in hell are you doing? Get down! You’re going to get killed!” This time it was Dave who was screaming at him.