No man who was there will forget Beach Red 1 on Tarawa. Our assault landing came on a beautiful south Pacific morning, November 1943. That day left so many indelible memories. The brilliant tropical sun, the calm azure sea; the deafening noise of battle, the hoarse screams of dying men; the whump of the flamethrower's arc into Japanese pillboxes. And the stench. The stench of blood, of cordite, of burning flesh; of excrement as men lost control of their bowels when Japanese machine guns cut them down.
The amphtracs that delivered us became stuck on the coral, so we had to jump out and wade ashore. The trac next to ours took a direct hit. I watched as men, blazing like torches, leaped screaming into the clear aquamarine water. It didn't seem real.
I never made it off the beach. I dragged a few wounded men to safety, using the bodies of their dead comrades to shield them, and then went berserk. I was so damn angry that the landing hadn't gone according to plan. Expect light resistance, they said. We Marines had even joked about native girls in grass skirts coming to meet us.
Somehow I reached an enemy machine gun nest. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I emptied a full round into it, then a second to be sure. That's when a sniper's bullet found me.
I bled like a stuck pig, but it wasn't as bad as it looked. Still, they evacuated me along with the other wounded. We spent that night on a hospital ship. After a few days the ship, laden with a full cargo of broken bodies, turned east and headed to Hawaii, then San Francisco.
I spent a week at the naval hospital, healing quickly but bothered by a slight limp. You'll have that limp for the rest of your life, they told me truthfully. As my home was only a few hundred miles away, they granted me a furlough. But first Major Grady came and had a talk with me. Don't tell civilians what happened on Tarawa, he said. Don't tell anyone what it was really like. He need not have worried.
It should have been a joyous reunion with family and friends, but it was not. I was a haunted man. My dreams were filled with Tarawa. I dreamed about men like Harold, a city boy from Chicago, a natural-born comedian. I'd held him as he bled and sobbed, "Oh God, Russ, help me! I don't want to die here!" But he did.
And I knew that this was just a brief respite. That there were more islands over there, stoutly defended by the Japanese Imperial Army. Yes, there was lots of work left for good old 2nd Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. The way I saw it, I'd already been given a death sentence, date of execution yet to be determined.
I began to hike alone through the pine forests above my parents' farm. My fifth day there, I came to a small hay barn sitting at the edge of a pasture. About a thousand years ago, I'd played in this barn as a kid, reading and daydreaming about the wonderful things the future held in store for me.
The barn actually belonged to our neighbor John Mullinex, who ran a horse ranch. I climbed the ladder up to where the loose, sweet-smelling hay was. I lay there enjoying the stillness as the recurring thought came. Why did I survive Tarawa when so many better men did not?
Shortly I heard a sound below. In the clearing next to the barn was a low water tank, about three feet in diameter, fed by a pipe from a nearby stream. A woman approached the tank, carrying a towel.
Her name, I knew, was Helen. She was in her early twenties, with reddish blonde hair, pretty in a wholesome country girl way. She was a practically a legend around here. The general consensus was that Helen had the largest, most exquisite bosom in the county. In fact, the old men agreed that they could not recall any woman blessed with such enormous and yet perfectly formed breasts.
She was three years older than me, and had been a senior when I was a freshman in high school. I remembered gazing at her in wonder then, reflecting on what God can do when He sets His mind to it.
Aside from her remarkable mammaries, Helen had a typical womanly figure, which merely accentuated her endowments. She was extremely self-conscious about her huge breasts, and usually wore loose-fitting clothes. She was also virtuous, even shy. No man, it was said, had ever gazed upon Helen's bare bosom, wondrous though it surely was.
The possible exception was Roy, a six-foot-four roughneck whom Helen had married right after high school. But Roy had a quick temper. To inquire of him about his wife's breasts, and the extent to which she displayed them at home, would be to invite a black eye and bloody nose. It had happened more than once.
So feared was Roy that when he was drafted and left for the war, no man dared flirt with Helen. The woman had a temper of her own, and kept a list. She let it be known that if any man crossed the line with her, there would be a day of reckoning when Roy came home.
I recalled that the house where Helen and Roy lived was about a hundred yards away. Like many in those days, it had no indoor plumbing. Has she come here to perform her daily ablution, I wondered? The answer was yes. With a quick glance, as wary and alert as a deer, Helen began to unbutton the front of her gingham dress.
She undid it to the waist, pulled her arms out, and let the dress fall around her wide hips. With a quick movement she unsnapped her sturdy brassiere and tossed it on the grass near the water tank.
Helen's breasts were even larger than I had imagined. Creamy, near perfect globes, just slightly pendulous. Of course the areola were expansive, almost five inches in diameter. But her pinkish-brown nipples were small. No child had suckled there.
I honestly did not gaze upon Helen's naked breasts so much with licentiousness as awe. It was like viewing a marvel of nature, say Yosemite Falls or the glorious sunsets that we enjoyed in the western Pacific just before Tarawa.
But my cock did begin to stir greatly as Helen took the soap and washed her face and arms, finally moving down to lather those magnificent breasts, taking her time in doing so. She then dipped them into the water and had just finished rinsing off when a sound caught her attention. She looked to the right, and then quickly gathered her towel and brassiere.
I watched Helen dash toward the opening that ran the length of the barn. A few seconds later she came scurrying up the ladder into the hayloft, still undressed. Then she saw me. She gasped, her great blue eyes widening as she emitted an almost inaudible "Omigod!"
We stared at each other in amazement for a few seconds, I likewise stunned by this turn of events. But then came a deep voice from outside. "Who's up there in the hayloft? Show yourself, I say!"
I looked back at Helen; then, climbed up to the timber-framed bay at one end of the loft. In the clearing below was John Mullinex on his black quarter horse. A 30.06 rifle rested in his free hand.
"It's me, Mr. Mullinex," I said, "Russell Jones."
Mullinex eyed me keenly. "You Lloyd Jones' boy?"
"Yes sir."
"What you doin' in my barn?"
"I was out walking, thought I'd climb up here to rest a while."
"You ain't smokin', are you?"
"No sir."
"Don't allow smokin' around my barns," he said gruffly. "One spark 'n she'll go up like a bonfire."
"Yes sir."
Mullinex placed the rifle back in its scabbard; then, turned to me again. "I thought you was in the service."
