The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [40]
He conducted the pivoting operation with brilliance. There were many problems involved. He had to move his front line, stabilized at last, through a ninety-degree arc to the left, and it meant that, while the flank companies on the left who could anchor themselves by the sea would have to move only a half mile or so, the companies on the right would be obliged to wheel through a six-mile arc of jungle, and would be exposed through every hour of their march.
He had two alternatives. The safer plan was to have the battalion on his right flank drive straight inland until it reached the mountains. A temporary line could then be drawn up on a diagonal, and slowly he could have the right wing turn and drive along parallel to the mountains until his lines faced Toyaku. But that would take several days, possibly a week, and there might be a great deal of resistance. The other project, far more dangerous, was to move his right flank in a direct thrust to the mountain cliffs which abutted the Toyaku Line. That way, the entire front could be pivoted in a day.
But it was very dangerous. Toyaku undoubtedly would have a striking force ready to knife around the edge of the advancing troops, and turn their flank. During the entire day he would be pivoting his troops, the General would have an undefended right flank. He took the chance, and turned it into an advantage. On the day of the operation he withdrew a battalion from the road and kept them in reserve. He gave instructions to the commanders of the companies on the right flank to advance through the jungle without concerning themselves with their flank or rear. Their mission was merely to make the six-mile march through no man's land, and establish a defense position by that night at the mountain cliffs a mile away from the outposts of the Toyaku Line.
The General guessed correctly. Toyaku sneaked a company of Japanese troops around the flank while the movement was in progress, but the General met them with his reserve battalion, and encircled them almost completely. For several days an extremely confused battle went on in the jungle behind the division's new lines, but by the end of that time, all but a few stragglers of the company Toyaku had dispatched into the division's rear had been killed. There were more snipers behind the lines, and once or twice a pack train was ambushed, but these were minor incidents. The General did not concern himself with that. After the pivoting operation he was far too busy establishing his new line. In the first two days the men on the front hacked out new trails, and laid barbed wire, cut fields of fire through the jungle, and established telephone communications with their flanks and rear. A few minor Japanese attacks caused the General no great worry. Four days went by after the movement, and then five. With each day the General strengthened his lines, and increased the speed with which he built the road to the front. He knew it would take him two weeks at least before the road could catch up to his troops and until then he could only increase his defenses. A major attack by Toyaku could still embarrass him, but it was a gamble he had to take.
In the meantime he moved his headquarters bivouac. The division's task force had progressed almost twenty-five miles since the day they had landed, and by now the radio communication was difficult, the telephone wire had been extended seriously. He advanced the bivouac fifteen miles up the peninsula to another coconut grove just off the road. It was not as pleasant as the first headquarters had been on the beach, and the troops in headquarters company of the regiment had to spend several busy days clearing the brush between the trees, laying out barbed wire, digging new latrines, and setting up their tents and foxholes, but when they had finished the bivouac was not unlivable. It was much hotter, and little breeze filtered through from the jungle surrounding them, but there was a stream which ran just outside the oval encirclement of wire, and the men did not have to go far to bathe.
Subsequently the General had service company of the 460th bivouacking on the other side of the road from them. He knew that unless there was a disastrous retreat he would not have to move this bivouac for the rest of the campaign, and slowly, as time permitted, he began to build it up. A field shower was built for the officers, and the mess tents were erected, and squad tents were set up once again for the division staff offices. The ground through the bivouac was trimmed each morning, gravel walks were laid along the paths, and the motor pool had a culvert built of empty gasoline drums at the entrance to the road.