Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

By nightfall, Camp Downes and the surrounding area were back in American control, at least for the time being. They all knew from experience that darkness would likely bring Japanese infiltrators, if not a full counterattack.

Consequently, the outcome of the fight might depend on the next few hours. The US line was spread thin, extending tenuously from the beachhead. Military doctrine stated that a beachhead should extend at least a quarter of a mile from the landing zone itself, creating a defensive bubble that would reduce harassing fire or mortar attacks by the enemy.

It wasn’t always possible to follow military doctrine. Sometimes the reality was that you had to hang on by your fingernails. The division barely had enough men to hold the beachhead. Fortunately for US troops, the Japanese had not tried to force the soldiers back into the sea but had fallen back to defend Ormoc and its airfield.

The situation meant that there would be no relief for Merrick’s company or for Patrol Easy. Whatever came their way at Camp Downes, they would have no choice but to face it and try to hang on.

Being little more than a collection of old wooden barracks and outbuildings, Camp Downes did not provide much in the way of a defensive position. It hadn’t been intended as a fortress. If it hadn’t been for the war, the waterfront location of the camp would have been quite pleasant, situated to capture both the view and the cooling breeze off the water. The outpost had been intended as a presence during the days of the Filipino insurrection more than thirty years before, a jumping-off point for patrols into the nearby countryside.

The Japanese had done little to expand the former American outpost, but had focused their attention on building the concrete bunkers and other defenses. Those bunkers were now blackened and blasted ruins, still smoldering from flamethrower attacks by the Satan tanks. Within the smoking bunkers were the remains of the Japanese defenders.

No one was eager to occupy the bunkers under the circumstances, so the soldiers dug foxholes in the open ground around Camp Downes.

“If I’d known that I’d be digging so much, I would have stayed on the farm,” Deke said, bent over his entrenching tool.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you miss the sheep too,” Philly said. He and Yoshio were digging nearby, their shovels loudly scraping into the dirt.

Deke snorted and threw a shovelful of dirt at him.

“Hey, you dumb cracker! Don’t go filling this hole back up, goddammit.”

It was enough to set a man’s mind whirling, to think that he had faced down death earlier in the day and lived to enjoy some minor high jinks. The sound of Philly muttering indignantly under his breath brought a grin to Deke’s face, and he realized that he must finally be feeling better.

This morning he wouldn’t have had the energy to dig a hole. Still, it had been one hell of a day, and every bone and muscle seemed to ache as the sweat oozed out of his pores. The physical labor reminded him of being a boy on the farm, where there had been no shortage of hard work.

Strictly speaking, Deke knew that there hadn’t been a family farm anymore when he had joined the army. He had been living in a rooming house in town with his sister, Sadie.

She was now in Washington, DC, working as a police officer. And here Deke was, digging holes on the far side of the world. It sounded to him as if his sister had come out ahead on that deal. Again, he grinned.

Just as quickly, the grin faded. Their family farm had been stolen away by a rich banker when the mortgage had come due. Bankers just like him had stolen a lot of farms — and people’s houses, too — all around the Appalachians. The mountains had been slow to come out of the Depression, if they ever would.

Thinking about that banker, Deke supposed it was a shame that the man wasn’t here, because the hole Deke was digging was just the right size to bury that banker in.

The sandy, volcanic soil was easy to shovel. That much was different from the farm, at least — the mountain soil was thin to the point of being stingy, except when it came to rocks. There were always rocks in abundance. It was little wonder that the mountain farmers struggled so much. He could see that the farms and fields here on Leyte were far more abundant.

For a change there were no tangled tree roots, because they were digging in what appeared to be the old parade grounds for Camp Downes. They were working by the last of the tropical daylight.

When the night arrived, it came quickly. Once again, the tropical sunset did not disappoint. The sun disappeared in a cloud of purple and orange that hugged the horizon. The last light of day vanished in a heartbeat, swallowed by the clouds. The coming night did little to alleviate the humidity, which groped at them like fingers dipped in sticky lard.

The forest canopy beyond Camp Downes fell into shadow, a tangle of vines and branches, lit by pinpricks of light from fireflies and punctuated by occasional birdcalls. For all they knew, those birdcalls might be Japanese units signaling to one another. The soldiers doubled their pace, working to finish up their foxholes.

Beyond the land, the ocean reflected light like a giant mirror, empty of any ships, friendly or otherwise. A squadron of planes flew in the distance, too far away to tell if they were American or Japanese.

The threat of a Japanese night attack was just one of the problems they were dealing with. There was also the issue of the wounded, not just from their company, but from other units who had been working to push the Japanese back from the beach and pen them in closer to Ormoc.

There were also several dead soldiers, their bodies set out in neat rows and covered in their own blankets. Almost all of them knew someone who was dead under one of those blankets, and they were haunted by the thought, Tomorrow that might be me.

Normally, the wounded would be taken to the beach, and from there to hospital ships or naval sick bays that were better equipped to treat them. However, word had come down that there was going to be a delay in evacuating the wounded.

“The Navy pulled its ships back,” Lieutenant Steele explained. “They’re afraid of Japanese aircraft in the vicinity and also of the Japanese Navy.”

“I thought they licked the Japanese Navy.”

“Not completely,” Steele said. “There are plenty of Japanese submarines around too. Anyhow, the bottom line is that the navy isn’t sending any vessels to take our wounded off Leyte.”

Nobody spoke up to accuse the US Navy of being captained by a bunch of grannies. The soldiers had been passengers aboard the ships, and so they knew better. They had seen what the squids were up against. It was different from being in a dark jungle, but constantly scanning the skies and horizons for an enemy that might appear at any moment to sink you with torpedoes or bombs was no picnic.

The Japanese Navy was no joke, and neither were their remaining aircraft — especially the new kamikaze attacks.

When they had first heard about those, nobody could believe it. It still took some getting used to, the idea of Japanese pilots committing suicide by flying into ships and taking as many US sailors with them as possible. For the average soldier, it was just further evidence of the death wish that seemed to possess the Japanese forces.

“What are we supposed to do with the wounded, then?” Philly asked, sounding disgusted. “Those poor bastards need help.”

“Division is sending a surgeon up from the beach to do what he can for the wounded,” Steele said. “I guess it’s easier to send him here than to try and move the wounded.”

As promised, the surgeon soon appeared, bouncing along in a Jeep with two orderlies. The Jeep was being driven in blackout conditions, its headlights reduced to slits to avoid drawing enemy fire. The flip side was that the dim headlights made navigating the jungle road more than a little challenging. It was a lucky break that there was still some lingering daylight as the Jeep pulled up.

An officer got out and dusted himself off as Lieutenant Steele approached.

“Welcome to Camp Downes, Doc,” the lieutenant said.

“This is it, huh?” the surgeon asked, looking around. He was well into his forties, of average height, and was wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He took off his helmet to rub a sweaty bald head. He had a bit of a paunch that his baggy uniform didn’t quite hide. Considering that nobody was going to get fat eating army food, the paunch must have been a vestige of civilian life.

“It’s my understanding that it used to be one of our bases before the Nips took it over in forty-one, along with the rest of the Philippines,” Steele explained.

“Glad we got here when we did. I don’t think we could have found it once it got any darker.”

“Yeah, it won’t be long before it’s as dark out here as the inside of a meatball,” Philly added.

The combat surgeon gave Philly a quizzical look, as if he was wondering whether he had just found a genuine Looney Tune, but he didn’t respond. He turned his attention back to the lieutenant. “I’ve got to say, this place isn’t much to look at. But I’m sure glad we found you. I was half expecting to run into enemy lines by mistake. The way I understand it, this place is still crawling with Japanese.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong there,” Steele said.

“You’re in charge here?” the surgeon asked.

“Captain Merrick is the company commander, Doc. I’m just in charge of this little corner of paradise,” Steele replied. “I’m Lieutenant Steele.”

“That’s good enough for me, Lieutenant. I’m Captain Harmon, by the way. Doc Harmon,” the surgeon said. He studied the lieutenant’s face — or rather, his leather eye patch. “Why, Lieutenant, I believe you only have one eye. That’s not a fresh wound either. What the hell are you still doing in the field?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

The surgeon shook his head. “Most men I know would be more than happy to be sent home if they were in your shoes.”

“I guess I’m just not ready to give up the fight yet.”

“I know the feeling,” the doc said. “All right, take me to the wounded, and let me see what I can do for them.”

“This way, Doc.”

The orderlies unloaded medical equipment, and the surgeon also carried a bag. It seemed like precious little equipment, considering the injuries of some of the wounded, but the surgeon didn’t appear daunted in any way. He quickly fell into step beside the lieutenant.

The Japanese seemed intent on reminding the soldiers that this fight wasn’t over. From time to time, sniper fire punctuated the darkness. There would be a muzzle flash somewhere in the forest and then the crack of a bullet. Sometimes a man went down, but mostly the sniper fire seemed intended to rattle the soldiers’ nerves. It was harassing fire, pure and simple.

Nobody really knew what the Japanese were shooting at, but every soldier’s natural inclination was to think that the bullet was aimed at him. Nobody blamed a guy for flinching. They were all a little jumpy.

To his credit, and showing that he was no stranger to a combat zone, the doc didn’t even bother to duck at the sound of sniper fire.

The surgeon was guided to where the wounded had been placed on the ground, with a few shelter halves strung over them to keep off the nighttime damp. Under the circumstances, it was the best that could be done for them. The musty smell of the canvas mingled with the odor of blood and sweat, sweetened by the occasional breeze that had carried all the way from the sea, salty and fresh.

A few of the wounded lay moaning, one or two were cursing, and the worst off didn’t make any noise at all. The exception was a soldier with a bad chest wound and ragged breathing. A couple of stretcher bearers had volunteered to tend to the wounded, and they went from man to man, offering water.

The men had a variety of wounds. Some had been shot, others hit by shrapnel. The ones who had been shot had mostly been hit by rifle fire rather than machine guns. That was because the Nambu machine guns tended to rip a man apart. One way or another, the Japanese were intent on killing them, all in the name of their emperor.

An American soldier could only view that motivation with a mixture of mystification and disgust. Also, no one had ever forgotten the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. There was a measure of revenge in everything about this war.

They all knew that the cost in American lives had been horrific. Almost countless sailors had drowned, and thousands of airmen had been lost in the skies. That said, the fighting on land somehow felt more personal.

For the average soldier, there were plenty of ways to die in the Pacific that had nothing to do with the battlefield. These included sunstroke, fever, snakebite, and drowning. By and large, combat deaths across the Pacific islands were caused by blood loss, the exception being those who were killed outright. Basically, the wounded bled to death. Depending on the severity of the wounds, death could take several minutes.

A man’s buddies might make some effort to stop the bleeding, but most of the time there was only so much that could be done. It was a hell of a way to go.

The lucky ones died instantly, which was what most soldiers hoped for.

Lieutenant Steele and the surgeon had reached the wounded spread on the ground. At a signal from the lieutenant, Deke and Philly had fallen into step behind them.

The wounded had lived this long, but could they survive the night? The arrival of the surgeon on the front lines had given them some hope.

The surgeon set to work. From the deft way that he handled the wounded, it was clear that Doc Harmon knew his business. The surgeon moved from one injured man to the next, assessing their wounds, while his assistants readied the necessary instruments and supplies.

What he was doing was triage, seeing who was the worst off, who could be saved, and who should just be dosed up with more morphine and made as comfortable as possible. It was basically the way that wounded had been dealt with since the time of the Romans.

“Have we got any light?” the surgeon asked.

“Just flashlights, Doc.”

“All right, I suppose that will have to do. Let’s raise these shelter halves up. I want to be able to stand under here and have some room to move around. See if we can rig some kind of operating table.”

Steele sent the men out to find materials before it was completely dark. A couple of boards that weren’t charred too badly were retrieved from one of the bunkers, then set up on crates. The surgeon had to stoop down, but it would be better than working on the ground.

“What about the Japanese?” Deke asked.

“What about them?” Steele asked.

“They’ll see the light and start shooting at us, that’s for damn sure. Their snipers won’t let us alone.”

“All right, let’s try to rig some sides and maybe block the light.” More shelter halves were found, along with some blankets. Once they were finished, Steele asked, “How’s that, Doc?”

The surgeon looked it over and nodded. “Better than nothing, I suppose. Get that man over there on the table.”

Once the wounded soldier was positioned on the makeshift operating table, the surgeon set to work. One of his assistants held the flashlight as he began probing the man’s wounds and extracting pieces of shrapnel. He did his best to clean the wounds and stitch up the gashes and cuts.

The so-called operating room that had been pieced together out of shelter halves and scrap wood was cramped, but Deke couldn’t help but linger, watching the surgeon work. Philly had practically run out at the first flash of the scalpel, but Deke never had been squeamish about the sight of blood. He had to admire the surgeon’s deft skill.

That was where his enthusiasm ended. He was glad that he wasn’t the one under the surgeon’s knife. He’d rather face a samurai sword than a scalpel.