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pieces and the engine seized. A pall of dense blue smoke poured from the exhaust.
    â€œFar as I can get us, boys!” Josh yelled above the hammer of bullets splintering the Higgins’s ramp. He saw a marine fall, and another was tossed back by the impact of a bullet ricocheting into his face.
    â€œGet on the beach any way you can!” Josh yelled, then lowered the riddled ramp. He saw Sergeant Pinkerton lead the charge, only to disappear beneath the waves. Others went in behind him, most of them finding their footing, Pinkerton apparently having had the bad luck of stepping into a hole. Thrusting their rifles over their heads and wading toward the distant shore, not many of them survived more than a few seconds. The next marines across the ramp went into the water, then curved around to use the landing craft for cover. They began pushing the boat toward the beach, step by step.
    Josh was aware that he was wounded, maybe mortally, but he’d have to worry about that later. He started to go down the ramp but then was startled to see several marines slogging back toward the reef. “Where are you men going?” he demanded.
    â€œBack to the troopships, sir,” one of them called. “We lost our rifles.”
    â€œTurn around,” Josh ordered. “Take a weapon from the dead and start fighting.”
    Dutifully, they turned around, only to disappear moments later when a stitch of machine-gun fire laced through them. A flurry of bullets was tossed Josh’s way, too. What sounded like a swarm of hornets buzzed past his ears, and Josh knew it was time to follow his own advice and get to the beach. He leapt off the ramp and fell, apparently into the same hole Pinkerton had found. He came up swimming, bumping into bodies every time he lifted his arms. When his feet finally found bottom, he discovered he was walking on dead marines. He couldn’t take a step without stepping on one. Josh picked up a rifle in the shallows and ran to the seawall and threw him-self down. He was heartened to see a dozen or so marines were also there. One of them, sitting with his back against the wall, looked over and nonchalantly asked, “Can I have that rifle, sir? I lost mine. Do you know you’ve been shot in the arm? Your side’s all bloody, too.”
    â€œI’ll trade you for your K-bar,” Josh said, then made the switch, buckling the sheath on his belt and drawing out the knife. “Who’s in charge?”
    The boy scratched up under his helmet. “Nobody, I guess. Except for you, I ain’t seen no officers or gunnies on this beach yet. They gonna send some boats to take us back to the troopships?”
    â€œNobody’s going to send any boats to take you anywhere,” Josh growled. “You’re here to stay.”
    â€œI was afraid you’d say that,” the marine answered. “I don’t think them navy guns killed a one of them bastards. And didn’t nobody know about that damned reef?”
    A Japanese officer, screaming and waving a sword, suddenly appeared at the top of the seawall. A marine rose up and tackled him, and they both landed heavily on the sand. The marine’s K-bar won the short argument that ensued. “Why’d he do that?” the marine wondered as he wiped his bloody knife on the officer’s shirt. “He’s got to know he’s gonna get killed.”
    â€œHe knew it. They all know it, every one,” Josh explained. “That’s why they’re fighting so hard.”
    â€œWhat should we do, sir?”
    Josh gave the question some thought and decided what he needed was a working radio to report his observations. “Keep fighting,” he told the marines. “I’m going to see if I can find a radio.”
    A dozen yards down the beach he instead found a lieutenant, his helmet inexplicably on backward, squatting behind the seawall in front of another knot of survivors. “All right,