Ruger held up a Japanese rifle. It was the Arisaka Model 38. It had a bolt action, a permanent magazine, and a five-round clip. It was not considered equivalent to the Ml Garand or the Ml carbine. The Garand was a semiautomatic, while the new version of the carbine could fire full-automatic. The Garand had an eight-round clip and the carbine a fifteen. A number of Americans were still armed with Thompson submachine guns, which had twenty-round clips. The infamous "tommy gun" had been only slightly modified from the Al Capone days for use by the army. Each squad had at least one Browning automatic rifle in its arsenal, and the BAR was almost the equivalent of a machine gun. The Japanese were outgunned.

By comparison, the Japanese Arisaka was so poorly made that it even rattled when carried. In the right hands, however, it was deadly.

Ruger waved the rifle around so that all could see it clearly. Paul wondered whose souvenir it was. "Think of it," Ruger shouted. "They were even willing to die with only this piece of shit to protect them, but"- he paused for effect- "die they did." He gestured to a lanky buck sergeant who had been taking this in with bemused silence. The sergeant, a stranger to the company, had a large white bandage over his left ear and seemed to have a trembling in his left hand.

Ruger gestured the sergeant forward. "Men, this is Sergeant Gleason. He will tell you a few things about this place and the Japanese."

Sergeant Gleason shuffled his feet. He looked about twenty-two and was obviously uncomfortable addressing a large body of men. Finally, he grinned tentatively. "Your first sergeant talked me into coming out here and seeing if I could help you fellas. Actually, he said he'd rip my flicking other ear off if I didn't show up, and I kinda believed him since he was my drill sergeant in basic a few years ago."

The rumble of nervous laughter seemed to give Gleason some confidence. "Fellas, I spent a month fighting for this god-awful part of God's earth, and I lost a lot of friends. I also lost my ear, and I was kind of fond ofthat too. I'm going to go home in a little bit, but you guys are going to have to take over from people like me. Now, some of what I'm going to tell you already know, but don't be pissed off. I'm just trying to help.

"When I arrived here, my platoon had thirty-five men and I was a PFC. When we pulled out, there was just eight of us. I was a sergeant and was in charge of the platoon because everybody else was dead or badly wounded. The ear was infected and I was going to lose it and some of my hearing, but I didn't know that at the time. It doesn't matter anyhow. I'm just goddamn glad to be getting the hell off Okinawa.

"Guys, I just want to remind you how the Japs fight. They don't have any air cover to call in and help them like we do, and they really don't have any artillery, so by rights it shouldn't even be a fair fight. With all our firepower, we should be able to blast their asses right out of our way and walk into Tokyo. Only thing is, they don't know that and they won't cooperate. What they like to do is lay low, take whatever beating they have to from our guns and planes, and then when we're right up close, start fighting. What I'm saying is, they like to wait until we're too close to them to call in air or artillery for fear of hitting ourselves. Then they fight like motherfuckers."

Gleason mentally inventoried the weapons among the assembled men. "I sure as hell am glad that someone has some sense and has gotten you boys a lot more BARs and Thompsons than normal. You're gonna need a lot of short-range firepower when you fight them bastards up close. And don't forget to take all the ammo you can possibly carry because some of the little yellow flicks will stay hidden until you pass by and then try to pick off people carrying supplies up to the lines. When you fight the Japs, there ain't no safety in the rear, so don't close your eyes and don't take nothing for granted.

"And when you shoot them, don't just shoot them once. Do it a dozen times if you have to, 'cause they're like snakes and won't die. You cut off the head of a snake and it'll still try to bite you, and the Japs are just like fucking snakes." Gleason had turned pale and the trembling had spread to his other hand. "You can blow off their arms and legs and they'll still crawl up to you with a grenade in their mouth." His voice had become strident and it was chillingly apparent that he was recalling a specific incident.

Second Lieutenant Marcelli, a recent addition to the unit, was standing by Paul. "Jesus," Marcelli said, "I wonder what the poor son of a bitch dreams of at night."

Paul nodded silently. He wondered what his own dreams would be like if he ever made it back to Michigan.

Mackensen put his hand on Gleason's shoulder, whispered something to the young sergeant. Gleason nodded, paused, and regained some control of himself. "Like I said, I was here, so this place has some real memories. Over there"- he waved with his arm- "is what they're now calling the Cave of the Virgins. You know how it got its name?"

Some did. Paul had heard the rumor, but, as before, no one dared to answer.

Gleason wiped his forehead. He had begun sweating profusely and it was far from warm out. "There were maybe eighty Jap nurses in there, all young women, and a lot of them real pretty. They all killed themselves in that cave rather than be taken alive by Americans. The little fools were convinced we were going to rape and kill them, and then eat their dead bodies." Gleason shuddered. "I went into the cave and saw them. They were all lyin' there with their eyes wide-open and deader'n shit for no reason. Some of them weren't even sixteen."

For a moment it looked as if Sergeant Gleason wasn't going to say anything more. Then he pointed to a place on the hill where they were assembled. A large pile of rocks looked as if they had been freshly gathered and placed there.

"Behind them rocks," Gleason added, "was another cave. This one didn't have no virgins in it, just Jap soldiers. Maybe there was some civilians farther back, but I never saw them. The Japs fired at us from the mouth of the cave and we shot in. There used to be an overhang, so our artillery and planes couldn't get at it, although they tried like hell. When we got close enough, we used flamethrowers, but they just went farther back in the cave and came back out when we stopped to see if they were dead. After a while, we gave up shooting at them and dynamited the overhang so that it fell into the mouth of the cave and sealed it up. End of Japs, end of problem."

Paul gasped. The Japs had been buried alive! Everyone in the company with even the slightest hint of claustrophobia felt sickened at the prospect of being sealed in a cave with nothing to do but wait in the total darkness for the oxygen to run out. Paul wondered whether he would have killed himself or would have gone mad first if he had been sealed in a cave for all eternity.

Gleason stepped over to the pile and patted a large rock. "Who knows, maybe some of them are still alive in there. We don't know how deep those caves are, and how much air there might be. Maybe they can sorta hear us talking about them. Maybe they're digging their way out right now after living on the flesh of their dead comrades and drinking their blood for their thirst."

The men looked nervously at the ground as if expecting skeletal hands to emerge and grab them.

"Sergeant Gleason," Ruger asked, "how many would you say were in this cave?"

Gleason shrugged. "Couldn't tell at all. Only saw the ones who were shooting at us. Could've been a few, could've been hundreds."

"And were there other caves around here, Sergeant?"

Gleason nodded. "Lotsa caves, sir. Caves all over this flicking place and a lot of Japs now buried in them too, sir."