Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Americans advanced into the city, moving house by house, street by street. Still, the Japanese did not open fire. The deserted streets seemed to be holding their breath.

Deke had to admit that Philly was right about one thing. The advance into Ormoc took place in an almost eerie quiet, punctuated only by the crackle and pop of flames. Several fires burned in town as the result of the heavy artillery bombardment that had preceded the advance.

Following the usual strategy, the bombardment had been intended to soften up the Japanese defenses. The hope was that any civilians who remained in the port city had found shelter.

While it was true that most civilians had fled, it was always the poorest, the youngest, and the oldest who got left behind. The shacks built of concrete block, scrap wood, and corrugated metal looked even more flimsy in the face of advancing troops and armor. Where artillery shells had rained down, the houses had been reduced to piles of rubble.

Poor bastards, Deke thought. The people here clearly didn’t have much.

The destruction might have been even worse except for the fact that the bombardment effort had relied on the division’s own artillery and whatever aircraft could be sent to aid the fight.

The navy guns that usually handled the job — and surely would have absolutely leveled the town — remained far out to sea to avoid the Japanese planes that still managed to launch attacks from small airfields on Leyte.

Perhaps the Japanese planes no longer appeared in the numbers that they had, but the navy had a healthy fear of the new kamikaze strategy. Turning planes into bombs was a weapon that was hard to understand and difficult to defend against, so it was best to remain farther out to sea for now.

Despite the bombardment, the division’s big guns wouldn’t be enough on their own. Sacking Ormoc was a job that would have to be done on foot, street by street, house by house. It would be similar to the fight they had experienced in Palo on the other side of Leyte, but that had been more of a running battle through the streets.

At Palo, the Japanese had even pushed a wall of refugees ahead of them, using the Filipinos as human shields. Here the enemy had dug in and prepared for them. Thankfully, no civilians remained in sight, so it was unlikely that the events of Palo would be repeated.

Having entered the town, Deke put one foot in front of the other, his eyes locked on the rooftops and windows of the taller buildings, basically scanning any position that enemy snipers might be using as a vantage point.

The trap had been set. Japanese forces had been expecting them for some time. The fighting promised to be fierce.

Deke was moving along the edge of the street, keeping to the shadows cast by trees and front porches. He found himself thinking wistfully of the jungle, which offered much better cover. Besides, Deke always felt more at home in the forest or fields, rather than making his way up a street, feeling too exposed.

He moved like a prowling cat, keeping to a pace that was unlikely to draw much attention to himself. His fever seemed to have abated for now, for which he was grateful. He needed to be sharp.

Behind him came the bulk of the soldiers, who ran between buildings in small squads, crossing the street at a scramble while the men awaiting their turn to cross were prepared with covering fire that wasn’t needed yet.

Deke figured that the rest of the advancing forces could worry about the machine-gun emplacements inside the street-corner bunkers. He could see some of those up ahead, or what he guessed were machine-gun emplacements. It was hard to know for certain because they remained quiet, the Japanese waiting for the GIs to get closer.

Deke would worry about enemy snipers.

Along with Danilo, the rest of Patrol Easy was doing the same thing, watching any likely sniper positions. There were so many possible ones, and yet no one was shooting at them yet.

The peace and quiet didn’t last for long.

A shot rang out. The men behind Deke scrambled for cover, but not before a soldier had fallen. The sniper’s aim had proved deadly. The GI lay sprawled in the dirt street, a pool of crimson spreading around him.

Nobody ran to drag the dead man out of the street, because that would have been suicide, making them an easy target for the Japanese sniper.

“See him?” Philly whispered, his eyes on the rooftops.

“Not yet,” Deke whispered in reply.

The way that the rifle crack had echoed along the street made it hard to tell where the shot had been fired from.

Deke crouched in the shadows, waiting.

Captain Merrick called a halt, and the wait lengthened.

Now and then shots were exchanged, the two sides pecking at one another.

Truth be told, Deke was glad for a chance to rest. They had been in almost constant motion since leaving Bloody Ridge.

The only bad part of taking a rest was that it gave his malaria or whatever bug he had to rear its ugly head. Advancing into Ormoc, maybe he’d just been too busy to be sick.

But he could feel his fever gradually returning — if not at a full boil, then definitely a simmer. Between the fever and sheer exhaustion, all of a sudden he could barely think straight.

Deke knew that he wasn’t the only one who was half-asleep on his feet. Nobody had managed to get much sleep in the days leading up to the beach landing or during the long initial night after that landing, which they had spent fighting off Japanese infiltrators. Half the men were walking around like zombies, even if they weren’t sick like Deke.

He caught himself swaying as a shiver ran through him, despite the high air temperature. It was an awful thing to have fever chills at the same time that you were sweating in the tropical heat.

Speaking of which, from time to time he got a good whiff of himself, the stink of his dirty uniform mixing with feverish sweat. Whenever he moved, his stiff and grimy shirt stuck to his skin, as if it had taken on a mind of its own. The smell was somewhere between a dead woodchuck on the side of the road and the sickly-sweet odor of hay that had been rained on and left to rot. He wrinkled his nose. It was a good thing that everybody else smelled just as bad.

Meanwhile, the tropical heat was nearly overwhelming, and the humidity clung to him like the grasping hands of a thousand greasy beggars. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes but felt it run down his chest and pool in his navel.

He was finding it hard to concentrate, because what he really wanted to do was lie down and take a nap, preferably a nap that would last for a week. The lack of sleep from the last several nights was taking its toll. Unfortunately, the war was not being fought on his schedule, and nobody was going to call a time-out.

Behind him, Captain Merrick’s company had been held up, but not for long. The advance could not be halted because of a single sniper.

“Let’s go!” Honcho shouted.

More soldiers ran across the street, presenting themselves as targets.

Sure enough, the sniper fired again.

Another man went down.

Feverish as he was becoming once again, Dekes seemed to be having a harder time focusing on the windows and rooftops. But like a sudden glimpse of an enemy ship through the fog at sea, he spotted movement in the window of a house across the street. He could just see the sun outlining the shape of a Japanese helmet, neatly framed by the window.

There. He put the rifle sights on the other sniper’s head and ever so slowly squeezed the trigger.

The rifle bucked against his shoulder, jolting his already aching bones.

Had he hit the target?

When he looked through the scope again, the window frame was empty.

“You got him,” Philly whispered. It was hard to say if his tone indicated grudging admiration or disbelief at the skill involved. “Hey, you all right? You don’t look so good. Did your fever come back?”

“Like a freight train.”

“You know what? You picked one hell of a time to get sick again. We’re in the middle of another battle.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It soon became clear that the elimination of one enemy sniper was just a drop in the bucket. The Japanese snipers were scattered throughout the city, taking shots at any US soldiers who appeared in their sights. It was a highly effective strategy for pinning down the advance through the city streets.

And those were only the snipers. Far more daunting were the well-placed bunkers, covering the streets with machine-gun fire. Men scrambled for cover, pinned down one moment, running for their lives the next. They had known this wasn’t going to be an easy job, but it looked as if breaking the enemy stranglehold on Ormoc was going to be even more bloody and costly than expected.

Fortunately, the Americans had at least some aces up their sleeves.

What the Japanese hadn’t counted on were the tanks. Once again, the tanks were the heroes of the hour, able to advance into a hail of machine-gun fire. Even fire from the antiaircraft guns that the Japanese had turned into ground defense weapons bounced off the tanks’ thick steel hides.

The tanks rolled right up to the defensive emplacements and opened fire at nearly point-blank range, obliterating the enemy defenses. For the most part, the tanks refrained from using flamethrowers for fear of incinerating the largely stick-built city — the resulting inferno might trap any civilians or US soldiers within.

Frustrated Japanese defenders attempted to take out the tanks by rushing them with so-called sticky bombs, or they tried to hurl satchel charges under the tanks. However, the infantry moving forward in support of the tanks made quick work of the attackers, turning their efforts into nothing more than another suicide mission. Flesh never won against steel.

The Japanese fought back strongly as ever, employing interlocking fields of fire and rushing reinforcements into the gaps to slow the American advance. However, the army advance moved forward like a grindstone, wearing down the Japanese despite their determination.

Powerful as they were, the tanks could do only so much. Many of the Japanese were scattered around the town in smaller groups, often in the houses, fighting as independent units. A few tanks couldn’t deal with them all. In places, the streets narrowed to the point where the tanks couldn’t reach some of the houses being held by the Japanese.

That job fell to the soldiers. They were forced to go house to house, fighting their way up the streets, each dwelling having been turned into its own version of a fortress. It was a slow and bloody process, considering that the Americans didn’t want to leave behind any defenders who could literally shoot them in the back.

“What a mess,” said Philly, grabbing some shade alongside Deke during a lull in the fighting. “I feel like we’re fighting in all directions.”

“That’s because we are,” Deke said. His head was swimming from the fever, and he took a drink of water from his canteen, hoping that it would help quench his thirst. It didn’t. “I reckon we’re just in the eye of the hurricane.”

More shots spattered around them, and they ran for cover.

The remaining soldiers of Patrol Easy had plunked themselves down nearby, spread out along a low stone wall. Yoshio was nearest to Deke, then Rodeo and Alphabet.

Danilo sat a little apart as always, if “sitting” was the right term. He tended to squat on his haunches. It didn’t look very comfortable to Deke, but it was how most of the other Filipino guerrillas sat when they were out in the open or in the jungle. Danilo kept his rifle across his knees and his mean-looking bolo knife slung across his back.

Deke felt functional despite the fever, but it didn’t help that his movements seemed to be taking place in a fog. He also felt oddly removed from the situation, almost as if he were watching someone else from a distance, maybe an actor in a movie. Again, fever and exhaustion were to blame.

He shook his head, trying to get back to reality. He needed to get with the program, and fast.

If he wasn’t careful, he was going to have an eternity to catch up on his sleep.

Somehow a handful of rear-echelon troops had gotten mixed up with them, including the skinny clerk, Private Rafferty, that Deke recognized from the fight back at the ridge. It was a reminder of how thin the division was spread, when every man was needed for the fight. There would be no reinforcements coming — every spare soldier in the division was in the field.

Things in Ormoc might quickly go south if the Japanese turned out to have more men than expected.

“Look at that. You’re still alive,” Deke said to the clerk.

“You sound surprised,” Rafferty replied, offering him a lopsided grin.

“Keep your head down, and don’t do anything stupid if you want to stay that way.”

The clerk gave him a quick nod to show that he understood. “These Japanese don’t know when to quit.”

“Don’t you worry, kid. They’re saying the same thing about us right about now.”

Missing from the group was Lieutenant Steele, who was trying to bring up the rest of the company. They were a couple of blocks back, held up by a hail of machine-gun fire. The dreaded Nambu machine guns hammered away, their deadly rhythm making them sound like bloodthirsty woodpeckers. Tap, tap, tap.

To make matters worse, the Japanese had planned their fields of fire for maximum efficiency. They also set traps, luring the advancing American units with a lull in the fire, then opening up when they had multiple targets in front of their guns.

Another absent member of Patrol Easy was Private Egan. He and his war dog, Thor, were toward the rear of the company, sniffing out any enemy soldiers who might be trying to hide, so that they wouldn’t cause problems later. The enemy soldiers had a nasty habit of attacking the advancing units from the rear with rifle fire and grenades.

However, the battle clearly had been taking its toll on the enemy. Nearby was a dead Japanese soldier. Deke was surprised to see that the dead man bore a chrysanthemum and anchor symbol on his helmet. He recalled that he had seen this symbol before, when Honcho had pointed out that it designated these troops as part of the Japanese Special Landing Forces. These were elite troops who had seen combat around the Pacific, especially in China. Essentially, they were the Japanese equivalent of marines. Crack troops with a fearsome reputation that was well deserved.

No wonder this had been such a tough fight so far. It was clear that the Japanese were throwing everything they had at Leyte.

Studying the body of the elite soldier, Deke thought, At least that’s one less for us to deal with. Not so tough now, are you, fella?

Yoshio scurried out and quickly went through the dead Japanese’s pockets, returning to the safety of the wall with a few items clutched in his hand.

“Anything?” Philly asked as Yoshio scanned the papers. Yoshio was under orders to gather any intelligence that he could.

Yoshio shook his head, then held up a snapshot of a young woman and child. “Only letters from home.”

It was yet another reminder that the enemy was all too human, even soldiers from an elite unit.

Not only were the snipers doing what they could to take out any Japanese marksmen, but they were also seeing what lay ahead for the advancing troops by serving as their eyes and ears. From time to time, Captain Merrick sent a runner to relay that information.

“Heads up,” Philly said. “Here comes the runner. Poor bastard.”

They could see the man coming, using whatever he could for cover, including the burned-out carcass of an automobile that was still smoldering, licks of flame fed by what was left of the seats, tires, and engine grease. The reeking smoke provided him with some cover.

It was a job nobody envied. Dodging enemy bullets and machine-gun fire was a dangerous game. Here in Ormoc’s streets, it was also a game of cat and mouse.

“All right, looks like he’s gonna make it. We need to send word back about that bunker up yonder,” Deke said. “Can’t have the boys walk right into that.”

“Cover fire,” Philly said.

Patrol Easy began firing at the bunker, but the Japanese defenders were so ensconced behind their sandbags that they made difficult targets.

They watched the runner make the final dash toward the wall that Patrol Easy sheltered behind.

He almost made it.

At the instant before he reached cover, he was caught by a burst of machine-gun fire. The soldier spun around and collapsed in the street.

What unfolded next was difficult to watch. Badly wounded, the soldier managed to drag himself by his elbows toward the shelter of the wall.

Yoshio started to go over the wall to help the wounded man, but even in his fevered state, Deke grabbed the back of his belt and tugged him down. “No, you don’t. You’ll end up just like him.”

Watching a wounded man without being able to help him was one of the most heart-wrenching situations that a soldier faced. In rushing to help him, a soldier tended to be operating on sheer emotion rather than thinking things through. More often than not, that would get him killed. The Japanese machine gunners and snipers liked nothing more than to use a wounded man as bait, luring others into their sights.

Rodeo shouted at the man, “C’mon, buddy. You can make it. Keep going!”

Slowly and desperately, the soldier crawled closer to the safety of the wall.

Evidently the Japanese decided that their trap wasn’t going to work and lost patience. A single shot rang out, and the wounded man went limp.

“Son of a bitch!” Philly said through gritted teeth. “A sniper finished him off.”

“We need to get word to Captain Merrick,” Deke said. “Maybe he can get a tank up here to clear them out. Otherwise, the whole damn company is gonna walk right into this mess. They’re gonna get the same as that poor bastard.”

“What are we supposed to do about it?”

“I’ll go,” Deke said. “Hell, I’m half-dead anyhow.”

Deke started to get up, staggering a little, but Philly pulled him back down. “Hold it right there, Corn Pone. You wouldn’t let Yoshio go, so how would you do any better? You’re sick. You shouldn’t even be on the front lines at all.”

“I said I’d do it, didn’t I?”

“You want to play hero, do it another day when you’re not running a fever,” Philly said. He took a good look at Deke’s face and shook his head. “Look at you. I swear to God that even your eyeballs are sweating. I’ll bet you can’t even see straight.”

Philly hadn’t let go of him, and Deke found that he didn’t have the strength to shrug him off. In his current state, he was reduced to glaring and muttering a few choice words. Normally he wouldn’t have let anyone put hands on him like that, not even Philly.

To their surprise, the clerk spoke up, offering to make a run for it, but he was ignored. The snipers still didn’t consider rear-echelon men like this clerk to be real soldiers — not yet.

Alphabet spoke up. “I’ll go.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve always been quick on my feet. Just ask the girls at the USO dances.”

“I think they’d say you were quick with your hands.”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, just make those Nip snipers keep their heads down, will ya? I don’t want to end up like that guy.”

Feverish though he was, Deke heard himself saying, “Don’t you worry about that sniper. I’ll take care of him.”

He didn’t know if Alphabet had heard him or not. He was busy stripping off his gear to the bare essentials, removing even his utility belt with its spare ammo and canteen. It was clear that he didn’t want to carry anything that would slow him down.

He crouched behind the stone wall, getting in position like a runner at the start of a race.

“Go!” he shouted, as much to himself as to the men around him. Immediately, the men behind the wall poured fire at the bunker area.

Alphabet vaulted the stone wall. He didn’t get more than a few paces before he went down, shot through the legs — not by the machine gunners, but by an unseen Japanese sniper. It literally looked as if the rug had been yanked out from under him — if that rug had been a dusty street.

“I’m hit, I’m hit!” he screamed.

To everyone’s amazement, it was the skinny clerk who was the first over the wall. He moved so fast that he must have caught even the enemy sniper by surprise, because the next shot went wide, ricocheting off one of the stones in the wall.

“Where the hell is he?” Deke shouted, desperately scanning the rooftops and windows for the Japanese sniper. Each open window looked dark and menacing, but empty.

He had no idea where the enemy sniper was hiding.

Nonetheless, he fired at an open window. With any luck, the sniper wouldn’t know that the bullet hadn’t been headed in his direction. He might just keep his head down long enough to get Alphabet to the wall.

He fumbled with the bolt, struggling to get another round in the chamber. Damn, this fever had left him weak as a kitten.

The clerk was struggling to drag Alphabet to safety. Alphabet was trying to help him, but his legs were almost useless. He was just so much deadweight.

Another bullet struck the ground near them, closer this time.

They needed to get moving, because the sniper wouldn’t miss again.

Deke heard the shot but still had no idea where the enemy sniper was lurking. Frantically, he used the scope to scan the windows up and down the street, but he came up empty.

Yoshio went over the wall to help retrieve Alphabet. Like the clerk, he was small and spry, and the two of them working together managed to get Alphabet to the wall.

A bullet bounced off a rock and careened away with a spine-shivering twang. It was clear that the enemy sniper was about to zero them in.

Philly helped drag Alphabet over. All four men sprawled in the shelter of the wall, breathing heavily. By some miracle, they had just escaped with their lives. Maybe Deke had rattled the other sniper just enough to keep him from getting a clear shot.

But Alphabet was not out of the woods. He was bleeding heavily, blood running everywhere. This wasn’t like the previous bullet that had only grazed his neck.

“Dammit, it’s just my luck to get shot again,” Alphabet said.

“He’s hit bad,” Philly said. Automatically, he shouted, “Medic!”

But out here at the knife’s edge of the advance, there were no medics to be found.

“Forget it,” Rodeo said. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding ourselves. Yoshio, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a doc. What should we do?”

It was clear that Alphabet had been shot through the legs, one bullet passing right through both thighs. The copious amount of blood now staining the ground could only mean that the bullet had struck an artery.

They had seen it all before. A wound that a soldier might have hobbled away was a different story when the bullet had opened up an artery.

A man had only so much precious blood inside him. They were in a race against time if they hoped to save Alphabet.

“We need a tourniquet,” Yoshio said.

“Here, use this,” said Deke, who had stripped the sling off his rifle. He tossed it to Yoshio, who quickly wrapped the sling around the upper part of the leg that was bleeding the most. He used a stick to twist the sling tight — then tighter still.

Alphabet yelped in pain.

“I am sorry,” Yoshio said, grunting with the effort of tightening the tourniquet. “The bleeding must be stopped.”

“You sure as hell don’t have a gentle touch,” Alphabet complained. “I’ve had prettier nurses too.”

Yoshio gave one last twist of the tourniquet. The flow of blood from the bullet wound eased to a trickle, which was a good thing — Alphabet was starting to look an unhealthy pale color beneath the sheen of sweat on his face.

“We need to get you back to Doc Harmon,” Deke said. “He’ll fix you right up.”

They knew that the surgeon had set up a makeshift field hospital at the edge of Ormoc to accept casualties from the fight. From there, the wounded could be taken back to the beach, then evacuated to a hospital ship when the time came. The trouble was that they were far in advance of the rest of the unit.

“I’ll help take him,” the clerk offered.

He had made the offer to Deke, and the others waited to see what he would say. Deke had long since become the de facto squad leader. It was a job he had taken on reluctantly, because he had no desire to be in charge of anyone but himself. However, the other men seemed to trust his decisions. Even Philly didn’t argue.

Deke weighed what to do. There were several decisions that had to be dealt with. His fevered mind felt like it was lifting heavy rocks, but he tried to stay focused.

He knew that the clerk had made a selfless offer under the circumstances, considering that he didn’t really know Alphabet — two stretcher bearers would make an irresistible target for any enemy snipers in the area.

Doubtfully, Deke looked Rafferty up and down.

Despite his considerable spirit, it was clear that the jockey-size headquarters clerk would have struggled to carry his end of a stretcher all the way back to the field hospital.

“You know what? I’ve got another job for you,” Deke said.

The clerk would serve as Deke’s new spotter and watch his back while he was on the telescopic sight. This was a job that didn’t require any heavy lifting.

In the end it was decided that Philly and Rodeo would carry their wounded comrade back to see what Doc Harmon could do for him.

That wasn’t their only problem. Word had to be sent back to Captain Merrick sooner rather than later so that the company didn’t walk into the Japanese trap. There was an awful lot of firepower hiding within that bunker.

“I will volunteer to take the message back to headquarters,” Yoshio said.

Nobody argued with that. It was a dangerous job that had gotten them into all this hot water in the first place.

“Go,” Deke said.

A moment later Yoshio was over the wall and gone. Fortunately, he was also one of the patrol’s swiftest runners. A rifle cracked, but he kept going and was soon out of sight.

Danilo had been covering him, but like Deke, he had not seen where the sniper’s shot had come from. The Filipino muttered in frustration. The echo from the rifle shot was distorted by the buildings lining the street, making it even more difficult to determine the source.

The stretcher bearers prepared to leave.

“Good luck, boys,” Deke said. “Whatever you do, don’t lollygag.”

“No worries there. We’re gonna haul ass.”

Then they, too, were over the wall and gone, with both Deke and Danilo firing at any spot where they thought the sniper might be hiding. The Japanese sniper held his fire, Deke and Danilo having forced him to keep his head down.

Or had they? Deke wondered. The fact that the enemy sniper had held his fire was almost like a taunt.

He was still out there, along with who knew how many other hidden Japanese defenders. They were just waiting for fresh targets.

For now, Deke, Danilo, and the clerk were the point of the spear that was the advance into Ormoc. Deke felt like that point had been blunted.

But they were not alone. A handful of other troops were there with them, an ad hoc mixture of veteran soldiers and rear-echelon troops. It would be up to them to clear the way as best as they could for the rest of the company.

If the enemy tried to advance with a counterattack, it would be up to them to hold the line.

Or die trying.