Day of the Bomb by Steve Stroble Read Free Book Online Page B

collected enough water to
usually last until the next rainfall. During dry spells, Jason
drank water from coconuts. They and breadfruit quickly became the
staples for his meals. After his diet proved too monotonous, Jason
used another technique gleaned from a Polynesian. He dug pits along
the nearby beach, lined them with rocks, caulked the spaces with
his homemade goop, and waited for high tides. They delivered an
assortment of fish. Because Rule Number 1 was to have no fire that
might draw the attention of a passing ship or plane or native in an
outrigger canoe, Jason cleaned the fish and cooked them on coral
that absorbed and reflected solar heat. His days passed without
incident. But the nights were altogether different.
    Until now, Jason’s life had consisted of the next
landing. Forget all the previous ones. Only the next one mattered
in the grand design of things because it might be your last if you
were not careful. Now isolated with no invasion of Japan on his
schedule to burden him, Jason found his repressed memories came to
life nightly in his dreams.
    The dreams were usually a variation on a theme: Up
before dawn. Check your gear. Receive your ammo and K-rations.
Clutch your M-1 and pile into the Higgins Boats or whatever landing
craft the Navy had at hand. Listen to the final shells fly overhead
as the battleships and cruisers rained down hell from heaven above
on the Jap fortifications and pray that every last one of those
explosive projectiles were direct hits because if they were not,
there was always hell to pay once you hit the beach. Damn Japs.
Sometimes they had guns or mortars that could put shells on you
before you even made it to shore.
    Worst-case scenario for that was the landing craft
sinking and most of us drowning because our packs, boots, and
uniforms were never meant for swimming to shore. Best-case
scenario? The shell hits the landing craft and its shrapnel tears
into one, two, who knows how many guys. Some die instantly. Others
bleed out slowly even though the medics scramble to save them. The
lucky ones get that magical “million-dollar wound” that is just
serious enough to buy you a one-way ticket home. Oh, maybe it means
going home minus a hand, foot, arm, leg, or part or your insides
but at least you get to spend some time there instead of ending up
buried on one of the worthless islands that the Japs are so
desperate to die for and that we are willing to do the same.
    So the scenes of yesterdays’ battles
played out nightly for Jason during his first three months on
Monkey Island. Then they were magically replaced with memories of
home – dreams of Mom, Pop, two sisters and three bothers. Wait a
minute, what are you doing still alive, John. You’re no longer with
us remember? He had bought it as a waist gunner on a B-17 flying to
deliver greetings to Herr Hitler and the boys in Berlin. The
“Boxcar Express,” that was what John had called it. “Those Messerschmidts come at us
from every angle but we give ‘em the gun. Truth is, the ack-ack
from those monster German guns thousands of feet below us scare me
worse than the enemy fighters.”
    The telegram did not mention if it was a fighter
plane or artillery round that made John’s plane explode over the
outskirts of Berlin. Did it matter? According to one of John’s
buddies flying with the same formation, not one of the nine crew
members were able to bail out of the two sections of B-17 left
after the shell hit its fuselage. “It just sort of disintegrated
once the fire hit the fuel tanks,” he had said.
    But one phantom from Jason’s island landings remained
– Private Robert Tinkermann, jerk extraordinaire. Because Robert’s
father had connections he could have kept his son from being
drafted but he chose not to as a way to be rid of the spoiled brat
he had helped to create. After years of little parental discipline,
Robert grew to believe that the world revolved around him. As its
supreme commander, he was naturally