Tempestuous

Chapter 8: The night the stars fell

Chapter 8: The night the stars fell.

The night was quiet, and most of the men were trying to keep cool by sleeping on the ground out side of their pup tents. The men all stayed as close as they could to the air raid shelters, seeing that the enemy could pop up at anytime, and frequently did. Each man did his best to catch up on some sleep as they knew that the next day or so meant another patrol was in the works.

Hank sat on the ground behind one of the shelters with his back propped up

against a palm tree. It was as peaceful as it could get on Guadalcanal and Hank was thinking about What the chaplain had said about writing Sally. He could see Sally, and she was so close he could almost reach out and touch her golden hair. It was a wonderful dream, and he wished it would just never end, but the starry eyed boy's concentration was broken by a sound from the direction of Lunga Point.

It was a familiar sound, and he jumped to his feet quickly turning to take flight towards the shelter in front of him. Just as he was about to step into the bunker he could hear a deep rumble in the air above him that sounded almost like a freight train, and then a loud thud next to the tree trunk he had been leaning on. The the night was lit up by an explosion from a 14 inch High Explosive round which hurled Hank through the air fifty yards.

"Battle-wagons! Everyone take cover!" Lieutenant Adams yelled.

After that Hank lifted himself off of the ground and walked toward what he thought was a shelter, but it was instead a clump of toppled trees the opposite direction from the shelter. Hank continued walking though his eye sight was fuzzy, his ears were ringing from the blast, and there was blood pouring from his nose. He could hear the shells flying above his head.

The Shells would fly over and you could hear a terrifying rumble as they passed. You had no idea where they were coming from, or where they were going. It was an experience that would fill the hearts and minds of even the bravest of men with a paralyzing fear. Some men would simply loose their minds at the very thought of being put through another bombardment like that.

Hank finally stumbled and fell on his back in a mud hole and was laying chest deep in water. As he lay there his sight began to come back, but soon he wished it hadn't. Hank could actually see the shells flying over the spot where he lay and soon he would loose conscientiousness. The 14 inch shells landing all around these marines were nothing like the small arms fire that they faced on a nearly daily basis, many a man would survive a gunshot wound, but with that sort of thing coming at you, that's it brother, you were simply disintegrated there was no chance of making it out alive.

The bombardment seemed to never end, an hour later when Hank woke he could still hear the shells exploding around him. Soon after that the shelling stopped.

"Whittington, you and Tweedie go out and get Caldwell before he ends up in the glue factory." McEnery ordered.

"Of course, it would have to be me" Tweedie replied.

"That's right chum you volunteered, I heard you." McEnery said with a smile.

"That's it Dick, I heard it too, you had a big grin on your face, and you said hey Mac, let me and old Whit go out and get that kid! Thanks sarge, thanks for letting us do this."

"Anytime boys, anytime."

Adams was laying on his stomach at the mouth of the bunker when he heard a sound that almost sounded like a grizzly bear growling. Adams looked over at Jimmy Snodgrass who was on his side next to him. Scoop nudged Snodgrass who was sound asleep. "Hey Have been asleep this whole time."

"Sure, what else is there to do." He replied.

"Well I guess if you're gonna get killed you may as well be asleep when it happens, hey Scoop!" McEnery said.