With a near-silent swish it sliced off Redwald's head, sending it flying through the air to land on the ground with a dull thud. He swung again. Monck threw himself out of the jeep and the blade clanged against the metal side of the vehicle. Parker had scrambled out the other side, but the driver was trapped and had started to scream. Monck fumbled for his pistol, pointed it at the Jap, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He had forgotten to remove the safety.

The Japanese soldier again shrieked his fury and the sound was recognizable as "Banzai." Just as he was about to kill the driver, one of the guards from the rear jeep ran up, jammed a Thompson submachine gun into the Jap's chest, and fired a burst that shredded their attacker's torso. He howled and fell backward. The GI stood over him and fired another burst, which further pulverized his body, sending flesh and bone spraying through the air.

Monck checked the driver, who was shaken and sobbing but otherwise okay. Parker was on his feet and unhurt, although almost equally shocked. The blood on Monck's uniform had come from Redwald's headless body, which still sat primly in the front seat beside the driver, who had begun vomiting over the other side.

Good idea, Monck thought. His own stomach was heaving at the grisly sight. He looked over to where Redwald's head lay faceup. Incredibly, it looked as if he was smiling.

"Parker," Monck gasped, "what the hell just happened? I thought this place was safe?"

Colonel Parker lit a cigarette with trembling hands. "Ain't nothing safe on this island, General. I think that was one of what our boys're calling spider men. Those are suicide soldiers who dig into the ground and cover themselves up. Then they wait until the fighting has passed by and attack targets of opportunity like one of those trap-door spiders back home in Arizona." He took a deep drag and it seemed to steady him. "Y'know, I think he went after Redwald and not you or me because Redwald looked more like a senior officer than we do."

"Helluva price to pay for clean living," Monck muttered, but he agreed with Parker's assessment. Redwald was dead and they were not because Redwald looked the part of an officer more than they did.

Monck's guards had finished searching the dead Jap's body. They were eager to drag the corpse out of sight so they could see if he had any gold fillings. It was a despicable habit, but if the frontline troops didn't get a crack at the fillings, then some rear-echelon jerk would pry them out. Monck tolerated pulling gold fillings, but drew the line at cutting off ears or penises and drying them for use as an obscene necklace.

According to the dead Jap's papers, he was an officer and about forty years old. In that case, Monck wondered, where the hell were the rest of the guy's troops? Maybe they were all dead and he was the last of the Mohicans and determined to join them. If so, he'd just got his wish.

Gen. Omar Bradley ducked his head as he and Eichelberger entered the dugout headquarters of the U.S. Sixth Army on Kyushu. Along with the stale air and the heavy overlay of cigarette smoke, Bradley noticed the pathetic attempts at Christmas decorations. A few ribbons and some Christmas-tree balls hung on a local fir do not a holiday make, he thought ruefully. Another Christmas would be spent with American soldiers killing the enemy and dying in turn. What a lousy world it sometimes was.

In the distance, antiaircraft guns crumped into the sky, and the people in the dugout complex looked nervously at each other.

Bradley turned to General Krueger. "Should we get to a shelter?" The roof over their heads was camouflaged canvas.

Krueger looked worn-out. His eyes were dark-ringed and his face sagged. "No, at least not yet."

Bradley accepted the decision. As a result of the army and marine advances, some Japanese kamikaze attacks had shifted to ground targets. High on their list were fuel dumps and anything that looked like a supply depot. The army had lost a large amount of its fuel and ammunition reserves in the attacks.

Nor were places like Sixth Army headquarters immune. This was the reason for the highly visible and well-defended headquarters complex that was a couple of miles away and totally empty of working personnel. It had drawn Jap suicide planes the way honey draws bees, while the real headquarters, half-buried and well hidden, remained unmolested.

Bradley took a seat by the makeshift conference table. "General Marshall wishes this offensive wrapped up as soon as possible so we can concentrate on the second phase of the operation."

At sixty-four, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger now looked eighty. He was known as a meticulous planner, an instructor, and a man who worked mightily to keep casualties down. Now he was haunted by failing in that goal.

"General Bradley," Krueger said slowly, the fatigue evident in his voice, "we're moving inland and up the island as fast as we can. If we try to push harder against Jap resistance, we'll only stack up more dead and wounded. Just like on Okinawa, it sometimes takes days to clear a cave complex on one small hill only to find another one a few hundred yards away. This is not the type of fighting that can be rushed."

Bradley stepped to a wall map that showed the line of American advance. A little more than one quarter of Kyushu was in American hands. The line of American battle symbols ran from just north of Sendai on the west coast and looped across the island to a point halfway along the east coast between Miyazaki and Nobeoka. Kagoshima and the dormant volcano that dominated the city had been taken, as had Mt. Kirishima in the middle of the island. Artificial harbors were under construction in Kagoshima and Ariake bays, while more than a dozen small airfields were in operation.

Land areas taken included those optimistically labeled the Ariake, Miyazaki, and, on the other side of the island, the Kushikino "plains." Other areas were labeled "corridors," as if they formed an easy path to the interior of Kyushu. Plains and corridors they might have appeared on maps, and the land might actually have been more gentle than that in the interior, but it was still rugged. By moving through those alleged plains and corridors, the army and marines had been rewarded by confronting even more difficult and arduous terrain. It hardly seemed fair, Bradley thought.

"General Krueger," Bradley said, "the original plans called for us to take only the southern third of Kyushu, and I believe we have pretty much accomplished what we set out to do. Ariake Bay is ours, as is Kagoshima Bay. Our ships are using both shelters and will use them even more if only the kamikazes would stop coming over."

As if to punctuate the comment, something exploded a few miles away.

"Gentlemen, the president is under tremendous pressure to finish this war. He is under additional pressure to support British operations along the China coast in conjunction with the liberation of Hong Kong. He has committed to supporting the British with transports and landing craft in three months."

"No!" General Eichelberger blurted. "That'll mean a delay in our attack on Tokyo."

Bradley smiled grimly. "It is now almost Christmas and it is just over three months before Operation Coronet, the invasion of Tokyo, is scheduled to take place. I want that attack accelerated. Gentlemen, I want this battle on Kyushu wound down so that all our resources can be directed towards Honshu and Tokyo. I want our boys ashore on the Kanto Plain and driving towards the Imperial Palace as soon as is humanly possible. We cannot delay Coronet; therefore we must accelerate it."