Read Online The Far Reaches by Homer Hickam - Free Book Online Page B

over, so he walked upright until he reached an amtrac with its bow pushed up against the seawall. Twenty or so marines were hunkered down around it. One of them was a colonel talking on a radio.
    Josh felt a hand on his arm and looked at a navy corpsman holding a canvas medical kit. “You’ve been hit, sir,” he said. “Sit down and let me take a look.”
    Josh shrugged him off. “You Colonel Shoup?” he asked the officer.
    A pale, round-faced colonel eyed him. “I am. Who the hell are you?”
    â€œCaptain Josh Thurlow. You get the word on Green Beach?”
    It took a moment for Shoup to get his thoughts wrapped around the bloody apparition that had appeared before him. “Josh Thurlow. You got to be kidding! I thought you were just a story the guys made up after a round of applejack. Green Beach, you say? Is it open?”
    â€œWas the last time I saw it,” Josh answered. “That’s what I walked up here to tell you.”
    â€œWell, I appreciate it, Captain,” Shoup said, “but there ain’t a thing I can do about it until morning.”
    â€œYou plan to get the Sixth Marines across it?”
    â€œThat’s my plan. Whether it happens is up to General Smith. The Second Marines are too beat up to take this atoll, but I don’t think he’s reached that conclusion.”
    Josh suddenly felt like he needed to sit down. That was good, since he discovered he was already sitting down even though he didn’t remember doing it. The medic was working on him, bandaging here, probing there, powdering him with sulfa. “I think I’ll take a nap,” Josh told Shoup. “I mean, if you don’t mind …”
    And that was the last thing Josh recalled until he awoke in Dosie Crossan’s arms, or perhaps, after he’d thought about it and smelt the perfumed tropical air, it was Penelope, her glowing black skin so warm to his touch. A sudden scream in the night caused him to open his eyes, and then he noticed the lovely woman he was holding was actually a quilted camouflage cover. He felt around and his fingers dug into gritty sand and then it all came back as to where he was. He looked up and saw a million, trillion stars, glittering little remnants of the beginning of the universe, the vast, undulating belt of the Milky Way, illuminating the pale milky-white beach dotted with wreckage and dead men.
    He heard now the low voice of Colonel Shoup, still talking into his radio. Josh crawled over to him. “You still alive?” he asked, clearly surprised.
    â€œAfter a fashion,” Josh answered. “Jap attack us yet?”
    â€œNo, and it’s almost dawn. Don’t know why they didn’t. If they had, they might have pushed us into the sea. Either we were lucky or Jap was stupid, not sure which.”
    â€œIt doesn’t make sense,” Josh said after a little thought. “Jap loves to fight at night. It’s when he figures he has the advantage. What could have happened?”
    Then an amazing, miraculous sight appeared from around the back of the amtrac. Barefooted, bare chested, wearing only his dungaree pants, Bosun Ready O’Neal appeared. “Captain Thurlow, you’re alive!” Ready cried andmade almost as if to hug Josh although he stopped short, such a display of affection between men not allowed even on that awful beach.
    Ready plunked himself down in the sand beside Josh and rattled off everything that had happened until that very moment, except he gave all the credit to Major Reed for blowing up the Japanese officers. Josh and Colonel Shoup gaped at him. “I bet those officers included the admiral in charge,” Shoup mused. “That’s why we got through the night. By God, I’ll see that Major Reed gets one hell of a big medal. Killed, you say?”
    â€œDead as a hammer, sir,” Ready answered sorrowfully.
    â€œJap is one helluva fighting man,” Josh said,