Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Adding to the frustration was the fact that the sniper was still out there.

“Where the hell is he?” Deke whispered. Bleary eyed, he peered through the rifle scope, searching once more for the Japanese sniper he knew was just biding his time.

“I don’t see anything,” the clerk whispered back, glassing the street with the binoculars.

“He’s out there, all right,” Deke replied.

He could sense the Japanese sniper, even if he couldn’t see him. Deke didn’t know whether to call it instinct, intuition, or just a gut feeling. It was as if he could feel the enemy marksman out there, eye to the rifle sights, waiting with a patience that matched Deke’s own.

But Deke’s patience was wearing thin, thanks to his fever and the heat. Sweat trickled into his eye, and he tried blinking away the stinging, salty tears. More sweat blurred his vision, which only added to his frustration.

He was tempted to swipe at it with the back of his hand, but that would require pulling his gaze away from the scope. He didn’t want to do that, not even for a moment.

When he blinked again, his eyelids felt so heavy that he wanted to keep them shut. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to fall asleep right there behind the rifle.

He forced his eyes back open.

Where are you at?

Somebody had shot that runner, and then in turn had shot Alphabet, and Deke hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.

That sniper was still out there, awaiting his next victim.

He glanced over at Danilo, motionless as a lizard behind his own rifle. But he hadn’t had any luck spotting the enemy sniper either.

That sniper was a slippery character, that was for damn sure.

But they couldn’t wait forever for him to show himself. There was a town to capture.

They had to get a move on.

The urgency to seize Ormoc before the Japanese could regroup or mount a counterattack reminded Deke of being a boy on the farm, rushing to put up hay before a summer storm. Still feverish, he was suddenly carried away by the memory into a kind of waking dream, so intense that he could almost smell the clean, fresh scent of newly mown hay.

The hay had been cut, drying on a perfect summer day before it could be raked and stowed in the hayloft. But perfect weather in the mountain country seldom lasted long. The heat had spawned dark clouds on the horizon, heralding a thunderstorm. If the cut hay in the field was rained upon, it would turn moldy and be ruined.

They counted on that hay to feed the stock when the high-country grass turned dry and stingy.

They had all rushed to get the hay put up — Deke and Sadie, Ma and Pa. Even Old Man McGlothlin from the next farm over had come by to lend a hand, same as they would have done for him.

Pa occasionally feuded with McGlothlin over property lines — Pa claimed the corner boundary was an ancient oak tree, but McGlothlin favored a large boulder that his own pappy had told him was the corner. Sometimes the older farmer’s hogs wandered onto their land and rooted up their fields.

In the mountains, shooting had started over less.

Grudges were often set aside when someone needed help. That was the way it had always been among the mountain people.

The wagon went around with Ma driving it, keeping the horse following the rows. Pa, Deke, and McGlothlin forked the dry hay onto the wagon. Sadie, being the most agile, climbed on top, stomping the hay down to fit more. When the wagon was loaded, they rushed to the barn and forked it up to the hayloft, Deke and Pa lifting it up with their forks, and Sadie and McGlothlin taking the load and pulling it into the loft.

It was backbreaking work, Deke forking hay until his arms trembled but not daring to take so much as a moment’s rest, not working alongside his pa. Even Old Man McGlothlin wasn’t a day under sixty, bald as a tom turkey, but he set a grueling pace.

There was no better feeling than those tired muscles after work that meant something.

Years later, Deke’s arms were still like iron bars from all those farm chores. Boot camp had been like a church picnic compared to his daily efforts on the farm. All that running and all those push-ups seemed like wasted energy to a farm boy. You might as well do something useful if you were going to sweat.

The clerk interrupted his trip down memory lane.

“Do you think the Japanese are gonna come for us tonight?”

“I don’t know, kid. Maybe just this once they’ll be as tired as we are.”

“You think?”

“Like I said, maybe. Just keep on your toes. If they do come, we’ll send them packing in a minute.”

As for the Japanese not coming at them tonight, he didn’t believe they wouldn’t, but he hoped it might reassure the clerk. It was like something Honcho would have said, just to give them some hope to hang on to.

Deke returned to his reverie. Revisiting those memories was a far more pleasant place to be than this war-torn town.

Once the wagon was empty, they rushed back to the field and did it all again. They got the last load into the barn just ahead of the storm, then watched from the shelter of the barn door as the rain and lightning swept in. Hail and sheets of windswept rain dissolved the woods and fields into a gray blur. After the heat of the hayloft, the sudden drop in temperature had chilled Deke to the bone, leaving him shivering.

No matter. They had gotten the hay in.

All that Pa had said to him and Sadie had been, “You two done good.”

He could remember it all clear as yesterday.

He reckoned that he had put those words in his pocket and saved them, all these years later.

“Hey, you all right?” the clerk asked.

“Never been better.”

The day had trudged toward nightfall following an exhausting pattern of street fighting. House by house, corner by corner, street by bloody street, the US forces advanced. The Japanese almost literally had to be dug out along the way, so firmly entrenched were they in their defensive positions.

Deke thought it was like rooting out gophers, or maybe turnips.

All the while, the heat and the sun bore down. Deke’s fever settled into a steady burn.

The Japanese snipers haunted their every step. Deke wasn’t sure if it was one sniper — possibly the same one who had shot Alphabet — or a series of enemy snipers. He supposed that it didn’t really matter. The enemy was the enemy.

What did matter to Deke was that he seemed to have lost the ability to fight back. A shot would be fired at them, and he would frantically scan the surroundings for the most likely location for the sniper. Even when he could find the window where the bullet had probably come from, the enemy soldier would slip away before Deke could shoot back. Once again, it was a game of cat and mouse — in which he was mostly the mouse.

The sun was sinking lower, lengthening the shadows across Ormoc. The shadows only served to add to the camouflage for the enemy, their positions revealed by the occasional stab of flame from their muzzle flashes. Often those sudden flashes led to another soldier falling. The fight had turned into a slow and frustrating slog.

Even now the fighting had not ended for the night. For a change, it was the US forces who were still pushing forward. Tracers and muzzle flashes lit the night like the Fourth of July.

Deke was exhausted, feverish, and disheartened. All he could do was slump down against a wall with his rifle across his knees.

With night the temperature dropped, and a cool sea breeze carried across the city. Deke tugged his olive drab shirt tighter, feeling chilled.

He knew that he ought to eat something to keep his strength up, but he had no appetite. Yoshio, Rodeo, and Philly had not returned yet from their missions. Out here on the leading edge of the fight, it was just him, Danilo, and this typist-turned-soldier.

Defeated in body and soul, Deke had gone up against the Japanese snipers today — at least one, maybe more — and come up lacking. He hadn’t brought his best game.

Worse than that, he had allowed Alphabet to get shot. Alphabet had been part of Patrol Easy from the start. They had fought together on Guam, survived a behind-the-lines mission to Leyte, then returned as part of the invasion force. He hoped to hell that Rodeo and Philly had gotten him to help in time.

It would have been ideal to take a chunk out of that Japanese sniper and make him pay for what he’d done. After all, Deke was a firm believer in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And yet the Japanese sniper or snipers had eluded him. Sure, he had been brought low by this fever. But he had to wonder, Was the fever entirely to blame? Maybe he had finally lost his edge.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

The clerk seemed to know what Deke was thinking. Mind reading? Maybe the kid had more skills than he’d given him credit for. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get those Japanese tomorrow.”

“I’m no damn good at this anymore, kid,” Deke complained to the clerk. “The Japanese have got me whipped.”

“I don’t know about that,” the clerk said. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without you. I’ve seen you in action. You’re a real soldier. I’m just a clerk.”

“You don’t fight like any clerk that I’ve seen,” Deke said. “You’ve got some stones, kid. I’ll say that for you.”

“But I’m not you,” he said. “I saw you pick off that officer back at Bloody Ridge. The whole damn company was probably taking potshots at that guy, but you were the one who took him down.”

Deke grinned in the dark. It had been a fine shot.

“I done lost my mojo.”

“Then you had better get it back, for all our sakes.”

“I wouldn’t know where to look.”

The clerk snorted. “It’s not hiding under a rock somewhere, if that’s what you mean. It’s inside you. You just have to find it again.”

Deep down, Deke knew that the clerk was right, which gnawed at him a bit. But he still felt feverish and weak. All that he wanted was to curl up and sleep for a few days.

A rifle cracked in the distance, a reminder that the Japanese weren’t going to let him get that rest.

Deke began to disassemble his rifle. It could use a good cleaning. He got out the gun oil and a rag, almost lovingly wiping down the dully gleaming metal surfaces. He’d heard that in the Japanese religion, places and even sacred objects could be occupied by a kind of god or spirit. Feeling the rifle almost come alive in his hands, he thought that maybe they were on to something.

Other men had their prayers, cards, or fantasies about women, but when Deke needed to escape, he turned to his rifle. The need to concentrate on the task at hand gradually made him feel better.

But he remained in a sort of feverish fog, so much so that he was startled when he felt someone touch his shoulder. He was surprised to see Danilo squatting on his haunches nearby, offering Deke another steaming mug of his mysterious tea.

“Drink,” he ordered. It was just like Danilo to play dumb about knowing English until it suited his purposes.

Deke put aside the rifle and accepted the cup in both hands. It was so hot that it scalded his lips and the roof of his mouth, even after he blew on it. Once again, the bitter taste and pungent odor made him wrinkle his nose. It tasted better hot, or maybe it was just that the scalding liquid helped render his taste buds useless.

His senses rebelled, but he drank it down, feeling the liquid burning as it flowed into his belly. The heat seemed to spread through him, chasing away the fever chills.

Deke gave the Filipino a nod of thanks. Once again, he was reminded of how generous these people could be. They were doing the right thing, fighting to liberate their country.

Danilo produced fresh-cooked rice, along with some kind of dried meat, not unlike deer jerky. Deke was certain it wasn’t venison, but he didn’t ask any questions. Smoky and salty, the jerky tasted a hell of a lot better than another cold tin of rations. Deke ate slowly at first, then more greedily. Danilo gave a grunt of satisfaction and brought him another mug of tea to wash it all down.

The stars had disappeared, and soon came flashes of lightning and the boom of thunder — nature’s artillery. Rain came down in a torrent, although there didn’t seem to be a breath of wind. Deke and the others relocated to a large porch that kept off the wet, though the drumbeat of falling rain on the corrugated metal of the roof was deafening. It was almost loud enough to drown out the permanent ringing that had begun to develop in Deke’s ears.

Deke finished cleaning his rifle, then set it within easy reach. As the rain let up, a crescendo of tropical insects filled the void. A lonely dog barked somewhere, the mournful tone indicating that he was probably wondering where his owner had gone to.

I know how you feel, fella.

Looking around, Deke could see that the clerk was sound asleep, looking baby faced and innocent in his slumbers. Nearby, Danilo still sat on his haunches, his own rifle between his knees, staring out into the darkness. He caught Deke’s eye and gave him a nod.

With Danilo keeping guard, Deke slept.