Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER TWELVE

Leaving the village and the grisly scene behind, they advanced through a countryside that bore the marks of war. They passed shattered trees, the smoldering ruins of modest houses and outbuildings, and scorched craters left by artillery shells.

If it hadn’t been for these scars of war, it would have been a lovely green countryside. Given time to heal, it would be lovely again. But for now the stink of charred wood and cordite seemed to linger in the air. It looked as though a giant had walked through the area, twisting and uprooting trees as he went.

The broken trees and craters were the result of the navy bombardment before the beach landing by US forces. Judging by the number of craters, it must have been an impressive show of firepower. The navy seldom failed to disappoint in that regard. They had big guns, and they welcomed a chance to use them.

What the navy had been shooting at and how much good the bombardment had done was hard to say. Most of the shells seemed to have struck empty fields and patches of forest. There certainly weren’t any Japanese bodies. The Japanese must have pulled back and hidden themselves deeper in the interior jungles, safe from the bombardment.

“I sure hope those squids have some shells left,” Philly said. “They might need them to shoot at the enemy. This looks more like target practice to me.”

“Don’t you know that’s the part that we’re here for?” Deke pointed out.

“And what part is that, exactly?”

“The actual shooting-the-enemy part.”

Philly gave a short laugh. “You must be feeling better. That crap Danilo gave you to drink must have done the trick.”

“You know what they say — what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

Deke still felt shaky, but he was stronger than he had been. Yoshio was still carrying his haversack, but Deke had taken back his rifle. It was slung over his shoulder, and he doubted that he could have used it effectively, but he couldn’t bear to be without it. The weight of it tugging at his shoulder felt reassuring.

By now the path had become a sandy road. Few of the roads in the rural areas of the Philippines were paved. The road was packed down hard in places, but in others the loose sand gripped at tires and made walking difficult. During one of the frequent heavy rains, the road would be a quagmire.

As the road continued, the surrounding forest fell away to reveal open stretches of marsh and cropland. The soldiers felt open and exposed as they passed through the fields abandoned by the local farmers. There was also the nagging thought that the open fields would provide any Japanese defenders with broad fields of fire. But so far they had not encountered any of the enemy. Perhaps the naval bombardment had not been wasted energy, after all, if it had driven off the Japanese. Deke remained wary, just in case they were walking right into an ambush.

They began to pass soldiers going in the other direction. At first it was a shock to see other GIs after being on their own for days. The sight of their own troops meant that the beach landing on this side of the Leyte Peninsula had been successful.

These men didn’t have the appearance of fresh troops. For most of them, it was their second beach assault in the Philippines. The soldiers had taken part in the landing at Red Beach on the other side of the peninsula. They were then crammed into transports and sailed around the tip of the Leyte Peninsula — under constant threat of Japanese attack at sea — before taking part in yet another landing in the campaign to seize Ormoc. In fact, they looked almost as beat up and weary as Captain Merrick’s company did from their jungle trek.

Deke looked for any familiar faces, knowing that Lieutenant Steele, Alphabet, Rodeo, and Egan had taken part in the landing effort. However, it was hard to tell one weary face from another. The soldiers were wet and grimy from head to toe, hardly recognizable as Americans. He had to wonder if he would even recognize any of his old companions. Deke reckoned that he didn’t look much better after the jungle trek.

The other soldiers were so tired that they barely gave Merrick’s men a curious glance. Danilo had dropped out of leading the column and fallen back to walk alongside Deke, Yoshio, and Philly. He didn’t seem to want to call attention to himself, perhaps because he was the only Filipino guerrilla in sight.

At the beach itself, the soldiers emerged onto the white sand and the welcome sea breeze that seemed to carry away the fetid odor of the jungle and their filthy uniforms. Although they were in the full sun after the shade of the jungle, it didn’t seem as hot because of the breeze. Deke’s broad-brimmed hat also helped keep the sun off. He had gotten that hat from a grateful wounded soldier that he had helped on Guam and had long since abandoned his helmet in favor of the bush hat.

As expected, the beach was a beehive of activity. Stacks of equipment were everywhere, along with a handful of trucks that soldiers struggled to get out of the sand. The few company command posts and makeshift hospital areas were marked by tarps or camouflage netting that had been set up to offer protection from the elements. The tarps flapped wildly in the ocean breeze, threatening to blow away. The soldiers’ hold on the beach appeared tentative at best.

Beyond stretched the bright-blue sea without a single ship in sight. Curiously, there were no support vessels offshore. The Japanese still controlled much of the air and waters on this western shore. The landing ships had pulled back to the open sea and the protection of the US fleet and carrier force.

Merrick called a halt, and the company flopped down on the sand, glad to take a load off their weary feet. A runner was sent to the nearest hospital tent, and medics soon appeared, bearing stretchers to carry away the worst of the wounded.

“You ought to go see a doc,” Philly told Deke. “See what they can do about that fever. Hell, if you’ve got malaria, that might be your ticket to one of the hospital ships. They might even send you all the way back to Hawaii.”

“Hell no,” Deke snapped. “I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

“If you say so,” Philly said doubtfully. Philly appeared excited by the prospect of someone getting sent home, even if it wasn’t him. “I’ve got to say, if it was me, I’d be trying to get somebody to punch my ticket out of here.”

“Well, I ain’t you,” Deke said harshly.

“All right, don’t get sore.”

“Look around, Philly. We’ve barely got a toehold on this place. Does it seem to you like we can send soldiers out of here?”

“Look, I just don’t want to have to carry your ass back here in a couple of days if you get sicker.” Philly sounded exasperated. “Besides, you might not have any say in it once Merrick remembers that you’re sick as a dog.”

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Deke said. “Merrick has got more on his mind than one sick soldier.”

Arguing with Philly had tired Deke out. He stretched in a tire track in the sand, pulled his hat down over his face, and promptly fell asleep.

It soon became apparent that Deke’s prediction about manpower was coming to pass. The medics patched up the walking wounded and sent them back to their units. The division was going to need every man who could hold a rifle for this operation. There simply weren’t any reinforcements to be had.

Captain Merrick went off to headquarters to make his report. Meanwhile, the company awaited orders and slept wherever they had managed to stretch out in the sand, oblivious to the fresh sunburns they were getting. Considering that most of them were already deeply tanned, it might have been said that their sunburns were getting sunburns. Some turned red as boiled lobsters, but they were just too tired to care.

Four figures approached across the beach — or five, if you counted the large dog that trotted beside one of the men. They appeared to be battle-hardened veterans, but what really set them apart was the fact that three of them carried rifles with telescopic sights, instantly marking them as scouts and snipers.

The tallest man in the group stopped from time to time to talk to soldiers that they passed. His body language indicated that the officer appeared to be asking questions. Finally, a sergeant pointed at the company sprawled across the sand. The tall officer headed in that direction.

He walked past the prone soldiers, who didn’t so much as acknowledge him, because most of them were in various stages of sleeping or resting. When he approached the small knot of men who had set themselves apart from the rest of the company, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. One of the three men was not sleeping but sat in the sand, watching the officer approach. It was Danilo, whose face broke into a smile as he recognized the officer.

The officer was about to kick the boot of one of the men who had fallen asleep gripping his rifle, but hesitated with his foot drawn back, and instead used the toe of his boot to tap the bottom of Philly’s boot.

“Hey!” Philly complained, sitting bolt upright in the hot sun. “What’s the big idea?”

“Wake up, Philly. I knew better than to kick Deke — he probably would have shot me.”

Philly blinked a couple of times at the tall officer. “I’ll be damned. Is that you, Honcho? Or am I looking at a ghost?”

“It’s me, all right. I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but I’m actually glad to see you, Philly. I was getting so that I almost missed your wisecracks and bellyaching.”

“I’ll do my best to make up for it.”

“Let me emphasize the word almost. Anyhow, I didn’t think that I’d ever see you sorry bastards again.”

“You know us, Honcho. Always turning up like a bad penny or yesterday’s meat loaf.”

“Better make that sir here on the beach,” the lieutenant said. “There are too many other officers around way above my pay grade, and they get touchy about that sort of thing. Save the pet names for the jungle, when there are Japanese snipers around.”

Philly snapped to attention and gave him a salute. “Yes, sir!”

Steele just shook his head.

Behind Lieutenant Steele, Rodeo, Alphabet, and Egan approached. They shouted greetings at Philly. “Look at these lazy bastards! It figures that we’d find them snoozing. Good thing we weren’t Japs!”

“Aw, shut up, you dopes,” Philly replied good-naturedly. “While you were on a pleasure cruise, our asses were hiking through the jungle. Let me tell you, it was uphill both ways, with the Japanese shooting at us the whole time.”

Egan had to hold back Thor, who started barking in excitement.

Yoshio and Deke had been awakened by the commotion. The new arrivals were slapping Philly on the back. Yoshio sprang up and promptly found himself hugged by Rodeo. Alphabet slapped him so hard on the shoulder that he staggered. It was a sign of the easy brotherhood between soldiers, where even being Japanese didn’t matter to men who had lived and fought together.

The soldiers were more reserved toward Danilo but still gave the Filipino welcoming grins. Danilo returned their grins and nodded at them.

Deke got to his feet more slowly, unfolding himself like a rusty jackknife struggling to open. The bright sun amplified his gaunt features, the scars on his face making him look even more haggard.

“What the hell happened to you?” Rodeo asked, sounding a little taken aback.

“Just tired, I reckon.”

“He’s got malaria,” Philly said. “But he’s too damn stubborn to go see the doc.”

Deke shot Philly an angry look for letting the cat out of the bag. Philly was only stating what was obvious, which was that Deke had been ravaged by the jungle fever.

“You’re all a sight for sore eyes,” Lieutenant Steele announced. “Now that we’re all in the same place again, let me see what I can do about keeping us together. I can tell you one thing for sure, which is that we’re in for one hell of a fight to take Ormoc from the Japanese.”

“That’s good to hear,” Deke said. “It’s been at least a day or two since I shot at any Japanese. I’m getting out of practice.”

Steele shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, Deke, but you’re not going anywhere except to the hospital tent.”

Philly barked out a laugh. “How about that, Deke? The minute that we’re all back together, Honcho here tries to get rid of you.”

“Just for that, you can take point next time, Philly. If the Japanese are going to shoot somebody, it may as well be you.”

Ordinarily Deke might have stalled for time, but he didn’t have the energy to put up much of a fight. He was soon dragging himself toward the medical area, wondering if this was going to be it for him on Leyte.