Cryptonomicon

All this means that down below them, vast forces ought to be spread out across the Sahara in readiness for combat. Perhaps there is even a battle going on right now. But Shaftoe sees nothing. Just the occasional line of yellow dust thrown up by a convoy, a dynamite fuse sputtering across the desert.

So he talks to those flyboys. It's not until he notices them giving each other looks that he realizes he's going on at great length. Those Assassins must've killed their victims by talking them to death.

The card game, he realizes, is completely out of the question. These flyboys don't want to talk. He practically has to dive in and grab the control yoke to get them to say anything. And when they do, they sound funny, and he realizes that these guys are not guys nor fellas. They are blokes. Chaps. Mates. They are Brits.

The only other thing he notices about them, before he gives up and slinks back into the cargo hold, is that they are fucking armed to the teeth. Like they were expecting to have to kill twenty or thirty people on their way from the airplane to the latrine and back. Bobby Shaftoe has met a few of these paranoid types during his tour, and he doesn't like them very much. That whole mindset reminds him too much of Guadalcanal.

He finds a place on the floor next to the body of PFC Gerald Hott and stretches out. The teeny revolver in his waistband makes it impossible for him to lie on his back, so he takes it out and pockets it. This only transfers the center of discomfort to the Marine Raider stiletto holstered invisibly between his shoulder blades. He realizes that he is going to have to curl up on his side, which doesn't work because on one side he has a standard-issue Colt semiautomatic, which he doesn't trust, and on the other, his own six-shooter from home, which he does. So he has to find places to stash those, along with the various ammo clips, speed loaders, and maintenance supplies that go with them. The V-44 "Gung Ho" jungle-clearing, coconut-splitting, and Nip-decapitating knife, strapped to the outside of his lower leg, also has to be removed, as does the derringer that he keeps on the other leg for balance. The only thing that stays with him are the grenades in his front pockets, since he doesn't plan to lie down on his stomach.

They make their way around the headland just in time to avoid being washed out to sea by the implacable tide. In front of them is a muddy tidal flat, forming the floor of a box-shaped cove. The walls of the box are formed by the headland they've just gone round, another, depressingly similar headland a few hundred yards along the shore, and a cliff rising straight up out of the mudflats. Even if it were not covered with relentlessly hostile tropical jungle, this cliff would seal off access to the interior of Guadalcanal just because of its steepness. The Marines are trapped in this little cove until the tide goes back out.

Which is more than enough time for the Nip machine gunner to kill them all.

They all know the sound of the weapon by now and so they throw themselves down to the mud instantly. Shaftoe takes a quick look around. Marines lying on their backs or sides are probably dead, those on their stomachs are probably alive. Most of them are on their stomachs. The sergeant is conspicuously dead; the gunner aimed for him first.

The Nip or Nips have only one gun, but they seem to have all the ammunition in the world--the fruits of the Tokyo Express, which has been coming down the Slot with impunity ever since Shaftoe and the rest of the Marines landed early in August. The gunner rakes the mudflats leisurely, zeroing in quickly on any Marine who tries to move.

Shaftoe gets up and runs towards the base of the cliff.

Finally, he can see the muzzle flashes from the Nip gun. This tells him which way it's pointed. When the flashes are elongated it's pointed at someone else, and it's safe to get up and run. When they become foreshortened, it is swinging around to bear on Bobby Shaftoe--He cuts it too close. There is very bad pain in his lower right abdomen. His scream is muffled by mud and silt as the weight of his web and helmet drive him face-first into the ground.

He loses consciousness for a while, perhaps. But it can't have been that long. The firing continues, implying that the Marines are not all dead yet. Shaftoe raises his head with difficulty, fighting the weight of the helmet, and sees a log between him and the machine gun--a piece of wave-burnished driftwood flung far up the beach by a storm.

He can run for it or not. He decides to run. It's only a few steps. He realizes, halfway there, that he's going to make it. The adrenaline is finally flowing; he lunges forward mightily and collapses in the shelter of the big log. Half a dozen bullets thunk into the other side of it, and wet, fibrous splinters shower down over him. The log is rotten.