Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The brief barrage had created another problem for the Japanese, igniting fires that began to spread among the village huts, sparks carrying from one burning hut to its tinder-dry neighbor. The huts that had provided such good camouflage were now turning into death traps for the Japanese soldiers in the cellars below.

They began to escape, crawling out from under the huts and making a run for it. Some continued firing as they ran, while others simply dashed away without so much as a look back over their shoulder.

Eager for revenge, the soldiers targeted the Japanese as soon as they appeared from under a burning hut. Some of the enemy waited as long as possible to attempt their escape, finally running out with their clothes literally on fire. They didn’t get far before they were cut down.

Judging by a few of the screams that reached their ears, it was possible that some of the Japanese waited too long before trying to escape and had been trapped by the flames. The sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh reached Deke’s nose. No matter how many times he smelled it in this war, he still found the cloying smell repulsive.

“Let them burn!” a soldier shouted. “Don’t waste a bullet on the ones that are on fire. We’re only putting them out of their misery.”

“To hell with that,” Philly said, and kept on shooting.

Deke lined up his sights on an enemy soldier whose shirt was on fire. The soldier was running away, and Deke shot him between the shoulder blades, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The dead enemy soldier continued to burn, looking like a pile of smoldering rags.

“What did you go and do that for?” demanded the soldier, who didn’t want to waste bullets.

“Go to hell,” Deke said.

The soldier looked as if he might say something in response, but then thought better of it when Deke turned his full attention on him. The look in Deke’s eyes signaled that he wouldn’t mind wasting another bullet right then and there.

Deke worked the bolt and searched for another target. But by the time another enemy soldier appeared, two or three other bullets found him instantly.

This was like the barge all over again, just shooting fish in a barrel. It was clear that the Japanese who still could were pulling out of Ipil.

Deke lowered his rifle, his head swimming from the noise and heat. Damn this fever. Just when he thought that he was feeling better, another dizzy spell washed over him all over again.

Just as quickly as it had started, the skirmish in the village of Ipil had come to an end in the Americans’ favor. Not all the Japanese had made a run for it, and what followed was a mopping-up operation in which the soldiers moved from hut to hut, searching for Japanese.

Nobody bothered to ask if they wanted to surrender. Yoshio could have translated, but his services were not requested. Instead, the soldiers went from hut to hut, tossing grenades into cellars. Sometimes a soldier bent down and sprayed a burst from a submachine gun into the space below the floor. Simply put, this was eradication of the enemy.

If the little village had seemed peaceful when they first approached, it was now being left a smoking ruin as the flames kept spreading from one burning hut to another. Thick, dark smoke roiled into the sky, the clouds of smoke bejeweled with flecks of red sparks and orange embers. The hamlet was now a scene of perfect destruction. Even some of the crops in the vegetable patches had caught fire, flames crackling through the dry vines and leaves. There were a few racks of fish drying in the sun, and these too caught fire. The whole damn place was going up in smoke.

Deke watched it all, wondering how the Filipinos were going to feel when they returned home. It was evident that the people who lived here must be subsistence farmers, scratching a living out of their fields, the nearby jungle, and even the sea. Like poor people everywhere, he reckoned that they would pick up the pieces and go on. At least they would finally be free of the Japanese.

The resistance in Ipil seemed to be at an end. Or most of it, anyway. It appeared that most of the Japanese had been killed or had slipped away into the surrounding forest.

So far he had managed to avoid the mopping-up action.

But he felt like he ought to be doing something rather than standing around gawking. He went to take a step and staggered, catching the attention of Lieutenant Steele.

“Are you all right?” the lieutenant asked. “Are you hit?”

“No, I’m just fine,” Deke replied.

He paused to gather his strength before taking another step. The smoke, the flames, the heat — and through it all the nauseating pork-like smell of roasting flesh — it was all too much, and he felt his senses being overwhelmed. Another wave of dizziness left him swaying on his feet.

He had been doing his best to hide just how weak he was from the lieutenant. He had no desire to be sent back to the hospital area on the beach, perhaps to be deemed unfit for duty and sent to one of the hospital ships offshore. The last thing that he wanted to do was let down the lieutenant and the rest of the patrol.

“Goddammit, you’re still sick, aren’t you? I should have made sure those doctors kept you back on the beach.” The lieutenant shook his head. “Make sure you drink plenty of water and eat something. You’re getting so damn skinny that somebody is going to mistake you for a stick before too long.”

Deke nodded in acknowledgment, the effort of speaking suddenly too much. He knew that the lieutenant was right about eating. The last real food that he’d eaten was the meal that Danilo had cooked on the trail. Fresh chicken and rice — couldn’t ask for better. He doubted there would be more of that anytime soon.

The trouble was, the thought of a cold tin of stew made his stomach knot up. The only food items that sounded good were the hot buttered biscuits that his ma used to make. That and some hot coffee would have gone down good right about now. However, he had about as much chance of getting a buttered biscuit as he did of being promoted to general.

Deke’s thoughts of food evaporated when he heard the crack of a rifle from the scrubby trees nearby. Deke and the lieutenant ducked just as someone yelled, “Sniper!”

Ducking was a reflex that wouldn’t have done them any good if they’d been in the sniper’s sights. A soldier about fifty feet away crumpled and fell.

Apparently not all the Japanese had retreated. There was at least one sniper lurking out there. A trio of soldiers ran toward the trees, intending to take care of the problem. They soon returned, the sniper evidently having slipped away.

“All right, everybody keep your eyes open. We know the Japanese aren’t done with us yet,” Steele said to the men within earshot.

Captain Merrick was at the other end of the village, shouting orders that they couldn’t quite hear above the pop and crackle of the flames from the burning huts.

The lieutenant moved off in Captain Merrick’s direction, but not before giving Deke a long, doubtful look. Steele had a lot more men to worry about now than his handful of snipers, Deke included. Ostensibly, he had been put in charge of a platoon, but he had quickly become Captain Merrick’s de facto second-in-command. He was now doing his best to get the men organized and moving, especially those who wanted to search the bodies of the dead Japanese for souvenirs.

It seemed as if even these combat veterans couldn’t get enough Japanese gear and remained hopeful that they would pick up a coveted pistol or sword.

“Knock it off,” Steele ordered the souvenir hunters. “For all you know, those bodies might be booby-trapped.”

A kind of greed made one of the soldiers overly bold. He was not a big man, but he had a cockiness about him, like a bantam rooster. Wearing an insolent grin, he said, “You think they booby-trapped themselves in between running from those huts and us shooting them, Lieutenant?”

“Don’t be a smart aleck,” Steele said. “And if you call me by my rank again when there might be Jap snipers around, you won’t have to worry about the Japanese, because I’ll shoot you myself. Now get your asses ready to move out.”

There was some grumbling about officers spoiling their fun. It was likely that some of them saw Steele as the new guy and he hadn’t yet earned their respect. He might be a combat veteran, but he hadn’t been in combat with them. Or not much combat, anyway. Also, some of the soldiers had reached that point where they were tired of being told by an officer what to do, or didn’t much care about the consequences if they didn’t.

But Lieutenant Steele could be an intimidating presence with his eye patch and shotgun. He was no butter bar fresh from Officer Training School. The soldiers did as they were told, even if they took their time about it.

Maybe this was why Steele had dodged any kind of promotion or command — Deke could see that being in charge was all one big headache.

However, the soldiers couldn’t resist searching one more body. The man appeared to be an officer, which might prove to be rich pickings. The dead Japanese officer lay on his belly in the dirt. The soldiers could see a sword hilt half concealed under him. Whooping with excitement, they descended upon him like buzzards.

The soldier who had confronted Lieutenant Steele bent down to roll the dead Japanese over.

But they soon discovered that the officer was not dead. He was clutching a hand grenade to his chest. In a flash, he raised the grenade in his right hand. In his final act on earth, he planned to take out a few of the hated Charlies with him.

Taken by surprise, the soldiers did not have time to react before the grenade exploded. Two did manage to turn away quickly enough that the shrapnel caught them in the legs and buttocks. They rolled away, screaming in pain.

The bantam-size soldier hadn’t been so lucky. Blood streamed from his chest and wounds in his face. He didn’t make a sound but stumbled away in shock.

As for the Japanese officer, he was now well and truly dead.

After that, most of the soldiers gave up on collecting souvenirs and took the precaution of putting a bullet into any Japanese bodies that they did have to approach.

Philly had the bug for souvenirs as bad as anyone.

“I’m going to have a look around,” he announced as he started toward one of the huts. “Why let those guys get all the good stuff, right?”

“Hold on now, Philly,” Deke said. “Didn’t you hear what Honcho said about souvenirs? Didn’t you see those fellas get blown up?”

“Aw, stuff a sock in it, Granny Deke. He meant those other guys. He didn’t mean me. Besides, I’m not stupid like them.”

“Don’t go too far,” Deke suggested. “Maybe take Yoshio with you. There might still be Japanese around.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I just need to catch my breath.”

“All right. Come on, Yoshio.”

The two moved off, but they hadn’t been gone long before Philly gave a shout. “Hey, over here!”

Philly had stumbled upon a wounded Japanese soldier who was trying to lift his rifle, but it was clear that his hands were too badly burned to grasp the weapon. It was a pitiful scene. Standing with his back to the wall of the hut, the soldier refused to give up the fight and was clearly in pain, but literally not able to defend himself.

Considering the tense situation, he wouldn’t be allowed to live for long.

Yoshio was saying something urgently to the Japanese soldier, who didn’t seem to be listening.

The standoff ended when Deke walked up and snatched the rifle away. The Japanese soldier sank to his knees and glared at Deke. Deke raised his rifle to finish him off, and the Japanese soldier closed his eyes as if expecting the bullet.

“Hold on,” Lieutenant Steele said, approaching them. “HQ is always wanting prisoners, and there are precious few of them. Let’s send him back to the beach.”

“This guy is pretty banged up, Honcho. Hell, I don’t even know if he can make it back to the beach.”

“These Japanese are tougher than you think, Philly. Anyhow, let’s see if he knows anything first. Yoshio, ask our friend here what we can expect up ahead.”

Yoshio stepped forward and spoke a few words in Japanese. The captured soldier seemed surprised to hear his own language being spoken by someone in a US uniform. At first, all he could do was stare at Yoshio.

The prisoner closed his eyes and winced in pain. He stammered a few words in response to Yoshio’s questions.

“What’s he saying?” the lieutenant demanded.

“I asked him where the rest of his unit is hiding. He says there are concrete bunkers about a quarter mile from here on the way to Ormoc, hidden in the forest.”

“All right, that’s something. We’ll ship him back to HQ and see what else he knows.”

“Should we bandage him up first?”

“Hell no. We’re not wasting bandages on the enemy. We’ve barely got enough medical supplies with us as it is. They can patch him up at HQ.”

Steele looked around and ordered two of the men who had been wounded by the Japanese officer’s grenade to escort the prisoner back to the beach area. One man who wouldn’t be making the trip was the bantam rooster of a soldier. He lay on his back, blood-soaked bandages covering his face. His dead body looked even smaller, all the fight having gone out of it.

“Hey, you two, I’m going to check and make sure that this prisoner made it there. Larson and Walsh, right? Don’t go shooting him and then say he was trying to escape. Guy like that, where would he go, anyway?”

“Yeah, I hear you, Honcho,” Larson said sullenly. “I suppose you want me to give him a drink of water, maybe polish his boots for him?”

“Watch your mouth, soldier,” Steele snarled. “Just be sure he makes it back to the beach. If he doesn’t, I’ll add some buckshot to that shrapnel in your ass. You disobeyed orders and got yourselves rendered unfit for duty. Last time I checked, that was worthy of a court-martial.”

That got the soldier’s attention. He pulled himself up straight, and it looked as if he might salute, but then he seemed to remember where he was. There wasn’t any saluting on the battlefield.

He actually sounded convincing when he responded, “You got it, Honcho. We’ll deliver this prisoner safe and sound.”

Deke was relieved that Steele hadn’t sent him back with the prisoner. He seemed to be reading Deke’s thoughts as he turned to him and said, “Even half-sick, you’re twice as good to us as those jokers. They must think this is all some kind of big souvenir hunt. That’s why I’m sending them back to the beach to get stitches in their ass and keeping you here.”

“You won’t get no argument from me, Honcho.”

Although the enemy had delayed their advance, the victory had come with some rewards. For one thing, the Japanese had left behind several trucks. The original plan must have been for the Japanese to withdraw from the village using the trucks, but the intensity of the fight had spiraled out of their control. Any survivors had simply fled on foot.

Immediately, these trucks were pressed into service. Later, when there was time, sloppy white stars would be painted on them. For now, it would have to suffice that someone had tied a small, ragged American flag to the lead vehicle. Hopefully they wouldn’t be machine-gunned from the air by their own planes.

The vehicles were smaller than comparable US trucks — they had found that everything from rifles to the interiors of tanks to the cockpits of Zero fighters was scaled to the smaller dimensions of Japanese men. Built by Isuzu, these were Type 94 six-wheeled trucks with canvas tops rigged across the beds to keep the sun off. The tall front grille, along with swooping running boards over the front tires, gave the trucks a vague resemblance to a working man’s Packard.

The trucks might be cramped, but they sure beat walking. Even better, the trucks were fueled up and ready to go.

As they climbed into the back of a truck, Philly said, “Gee, it sure is strange riding in a Japanese truck. Might as well have been built by Martians. You could never sell a Japanese vehicle in the States, that’s for sure. Nobody would buy them. I just hope these things don’t fall apart — or blow up before we get where we’re going.”

“I hate to say it, but these are better built than our own trucks,” Honcho said. “Maybe not as big, but sturdy as hell. The Japanese were planning for jungle conditions.”

Deke, at least, was grateful for the ride. He closed his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.

Captain Merrick wanted to know how many Japanese they had killed so that he could report it back to headquarters. The final tally was eighty-three dead Japanese and one prisoner.

“I suppose we were lucky to get a prisoner, even just the one,” Honcho said. “Over in Europe, the push across France toward Belgium and Germany is in full swing. I heard they’ve taken hundreds of thousands of German POWs, maybe even close to a million German prisoners. We’ve captured around half a million Italians.”

“Maybe they’re all a bunch of cowards,” Philly said. “Especially the Italians.”

Honcho shook his head. “The Wehrmacht doesn’t allow any cowards into the ranks, let alone the SS. Just ask our boys who have gone up against them. As for the Italians, didn’t you ever hear of the Roman Empire? Italians make good soldiers. We’ve got any number of Italian Americans in our army. The ones over there are just poorly led. Anyhow, my point is that the soldiers we’re fighting in Europe know better than to keep fighting when the odds are against them.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Philly conceded.

“Altogether, that’s far more than a million prisoners of war who have been captured in Europe,” Honcho continued. “You know how many Japanese we’ve captured so far in the Pacific? Last I heard, it was about thirty thousand. You don’t have to be a math wizard to know that’s a whole lot less than a million. Say what you want about the Japanese, but they sure as hell don’t like to surrender.”

“That’s not news to me,” Philly said.

The company had lost just five men, and another handful had been wounded. While the soldiers keenly felt the loss of each fellow soldier, it was also clear that this fight in the village had been a lopsided victory.

“That is a ratio of sixteen to one,” Yoshio noted. “That is quite impressive.”

“Yeah? Ask our guys who got killed how impressed they are,” Philly pointed out. “They’re dead all the same.”

Nobody had a response, because it was true. In the minds of the soldiers, dead Japanese didn’t count no matter how many there were — only dead Americans mattered. Maybe it was wrong to think that way, but that was the way it was.

More shells began to arc overhead. The US battery was back in business, intending to clear a path for the company’s advance. To their surprise, a few Japanese guns responded. The enemy still had operative artillery and was sufficiently organized to return fire, albeit sporadically. Overhead, the dueling shells crossed back and forth as the men looked up nervously.

It had become clear that the Japanese hadn’t simply run away. Nor had they all been killed. That was just wishful thinking on the part of the American troops. Instead, the Japanese had fallen back to new defensive positions. The Japanese prisoner appeared to have been telling the truth during his brief interrogation by Yoshio before being sent back to the rear area.

They had won the skirmish, but there promised to be plenty of fighting ahead.