19
Circe’s Bloody Hill
Johnny Strange
They came again. Like the tide moving inexorably upon a defiant beach, the Banzai wave crawled up the hill. For the first time Johnny Strange felt lost. The j**s were everywhere, screaming, coming, refusing to stop, even as Achilles squad and the men of X-ray platoon beside them poured a withering fire down the slope. For the first time he was afraid—afraid he was a coward, afraid he would let his buddies down, afraid he would run.
Then, just in that instant before he broke, there was a rushing sound of feet and the dirt at the back edge of the trench scattered as Lt. Crandall slid into the ditch.
“Don’t do it, Strange.”
“Do what, Sir?”
“Run. Don’t run. If you run, you will die, so we might as well die here in our holes, right?”
Johnny settled.
