Angel of Okinawa; Chapter 18

 

Angel of Okinawa; Chapter 18

© 2024 by Amber Wright

From my grassy position I tried to wriggle my head up but the hand on my neck was still there, pinning me to the ground.

Sounds of heavy machine gun fire shattered the air and grenades dusted up the place even more, stinging my eyes.

Trees swayed and bushes uprooted.

Men swung down from branches and willowy palms, yelling out in the most dreadful shrills. I recognized it to be the Japs.

I sighed, and continued to watch.

Both U. S. soldiers and Japs lay on the ground before me; some dead, some wounded, some in heavy stupor.

I felt my stomach churn. Where am I?

As I was wondering, I saw a few men shoot up into the air and as the smoke died away they fell back to the ground in a mess of grayed legs and arms.

Bullets bored holes in the log directly in front of me, and I dug my face into the dry dirt below me. I clawed at the ground, trying to bury myself from the firing.

After the bullets had passed, I looked up and saw my aunt Phan in the middle of the fight.

I stared in horror as my aunt Phan picked up a dead soldier’s machine gun with a blank stare, and she started shooting wildly around.

I watched in numbness.

After several wild shots, the machine gun slipped from her hands and large dark spots began forming all over her dress.

She drifted to the ground still with that blank stare…sinking to the ground below her to join the countless others, both living and dead.

I started to scream out but a hand clamped over my mouth. I cried into the hand that held my mouth shut, silently, tasting the horrible gunpowder dust.

Silent tears dripped down my face as I looked over at where my aunt had fallen.

Her right hand was midair, stiff, still in a sort of grip where she had been holding the machine gun.

My body shook with a sob. My aunt Phan was dead. And I had watched her die.

Suddenly, the ground below me seemed to swirl around. The faces of soldiers, cold and white, rolled past my vision like a film of photography.

The dead heroes of this war.

I buried my face into the grassy dirt below me and my tears mixed with the dust of the earth…where the heroes had fallen, where the forgotten heroes had been buried. My tears mingled with this dust from which I came.

I looked up again.

The bloody war scene was still there.

Bloody corpses.

Bloody wounded soldiers.

Blood stained and black charred burnt ground, and blood drenched machine guns.

I looked up around me, in a stupor, at that terrible war scene. Where am I? I asked myself again. What’s happening?

My lips moved before I could stop them. “Is this war? Is this a hero’s life? Is this power? This is a living hell.”

All of a sudden more bullets rained down on the fight before me and I found my eyes watching a swarm of Japs take off in one direction followed by the U. S. soldiers.

After this, the noise and war scene finished, leaving me completely blank inside. I had finally found out what war was.

Total madness.

Total blood.

Total fight.

Somebody was shaking my shoulders and I struggled to clear my vision. I took a deep breath and looked over to my left.

A familiar face met my dazed eyes.

My shoulders were shaken again and I blinked violently, trying to come out of my daze. Finally, I came back to the present.

A fight had just passed, and my aunt Phan lay dead on the battleground.

I wiped at my face and found my fingers full of mud. The face beside me was full of mud, too.

“We’ve gotta get back, Angel,” the voice said and immediately I sat up on all fours.

“Not until I’ve seen my aunt Phan.” I said in a husky voice and broke free from his grasp.

I crawled over to my aunt before he could stop me and found myself kneeling beside her body.

My aunt Phan.

Her dazed eyes, still and silent, stared up past me to the beyond. Her mouth was slightly parted and her teeth were clenched.

But she was still there, my aunt.

“Aunt Phan!” I cried hoarsely, shaking her stiff shoulders with both of my hands. Silent as the dust below her I knew she would never speak to me again.

With one hand still clutched onto her shoulder, I fell face down onto the ground beside my aunt, clawing the dirt with my other hand with a wild sort of moan.

I had been too late to save my aunt Phan.

I had been too late!

It had only been a little over two weeks since little Phanny’s death and now…this.

Why does the innocent have to die! I wanted to scream, but my muffled sobbing only stopped at the dirt.

Still in a hysteria, I felt my shoulders being pulled up and an urgent voice saying. “Let’s get out of here, Angel, before we both get shot! C’mon!”

I was pushed forward to the camouflage of a tangle of vines and bamboo. There we stopped and then I realized the person behind me was panting.

I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand and stared up at the one who had saved my life. My eyes fell to the bandaged left knee, and I gasped.

“Derek!” I was so shaken.

His face was smeared with mud, his clothes were dirty and so was his bandage. Here he could be in danger of the dirt infecting his wound…and still he did it to save me.

Just to save me.

The thought struck me and I nearly choked on more tears. I wiped at my face, muddy and wet. I must look a sight, I cringed.

“Thank you, Derek.” I croaked out and felt my cheeks burn as he stared at me. Probably staring at the mud, I quickly added. “I’ve got to get this mud off!”

“I was just thinking that you’re the prettiest girl I know,” Derek whispered thickly, “even with a face full of mud.”

My heart thundered with butterflies.

Even if Derek did have a girlfriend, I hated to admit, I did like him pretty bad. Even with his face full of mud, he was still like the cutest guy I’ve ever met or seen.

“You’re still weak.” I said, saying the first thing that popped into my head. “Why did you come—to save me?”

“To save you.” Derek nodded. “When your mother screamed your name, it woke me up. I thought I saw you but then I thought it was a mirage. But now,” he reached up to wipe at his eyes which I realized were getting wet, “you’re really there.”

He paused with a sniff and looked at me directly. “The thought of you dying without me there to save you drove my weakness away. That’s how I made it here.”

“Let’s go back,” I saw him stagger so I took his arm to support him. “Come on. I’ll help you home.”

Derek was a pretty big guy but I managed to help him back to the house. But as the house came into view I shuddered at what I had to tell.