Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lieutenant Steele sometimes wondered how many beach landings he could make before his luck ran out. In the lieutenant’s opinion, luck wasn’t like a fountain, but more like a bottle of top-shelf scotch. In other words, there was a finite amount of it. You poured a few drinks, maybe spilled some here and there, or shared the bottle around, and before you knew it, the bottle was empty.

He knew from personal experience that there was nothing sadder than a bottle of empty scotch — except a bottle of empty luck.

He’d already been through the landing at Guadalcanal, then Guam, and twice on Leyte. Incredibly, he was about to take part in a third landing on Leyte as part of the task force intent on capturing Ormoc from the Japanese.

The question was, How full was that bottle of luck that he’d been swigging across the Pacific? He was sure it was down to the dregs, and there still seemed to be a whole lot more war to fight.

Steele even went so far as avoiding card games, for fear that he would use up some of whatever luck he had left. He knew maybe that was silly, but he was going to save his luck for fighting the Japanese.

Not that Steele or any of the other soldiers in Patrol Easy had any choice in the matter of going back into combat. A soldier went where he was sent, no questions asked. He’d had just about enough of beach landings, but nobody had asked him how he felt about it.

As an officer — a low-ranking one at that — he knew it was his job to follow orders and make sure those under him did the same. In other words, he kept his doubts and complaints to himself.

They’d already had a few false alarms, and they were sitting ducks out here on the big blue Pacific. They would have to rely on the antiaircraft guns aboard the USS Leo. Though the guns bristling across the deck appeared formidable, Japanese aircraft had still managed to elude these defenses on occasion.

He welcomed it when Rodeo interrupted his thoughts, which were turning gloomy. “How much longer are we gonna be on this floating tin can, sir? I can’t wait to get back on dry land.”

It was true that the cargo attack ship had few creature comforts, especially with so many men crowded onto the deck. This was a short run around the southern tip of Leyte, and as many men and as much equipment as possible had been jammed aboard.

The vessel had been designed strictly for function, which was to carry supplies across the Pacific and fend off any Japanese attacks as needed with its guns. The ship rolled somewhat gracelessly in the waves, fighting the currents in Leyte Gulf. More than a few of its passengers had become seasick as a result.

Rodeo had referred to the ship as a tin can, which was an apt description. “Tin can” was usually a nickname for US Navy destroyers, but Steele and Rodeo were soldiers, not squids, so they could call the ship whatever they wanted.

“Can’t wait to get back on dry land, huh? Spoken like a true ground pounder,” Steele said. “But I’d say this tin can beats walking, wouldn’t you? Don’t tell me you wish you were hiking across the peninsula with Deke, Philly, and Yoshio?”

“No thanks to that, sir. I hope those guys are all right.”

Steele nodded in agreement.

Not long after they had helped seize Hill 522 and the town of Palo, the scouts and snipers of Patrol Easy had been split up. Deke and Philly were now making their way across the interior of Leyte, a jungle region crisscrossed with rugged terrain — not to mention lots and lots of desperate Japanese who would be dug in and looking for a fight.

Dividing the patrol had not been Steele’s idea, but as with this sea voyage, nobody had asked his opinion.

Still, if anyone was going to survive a cross-country patrol through the jungle interior, he thought that it would be Deacon Cole. Together with that tough Filipino guerrilla, Danilo, they would be a match for any Japanese they encountered. As for Philly — well, at least he had Deke to look after him, the lieutenant mused.

Rodeo also seemed to be pondering the scenario of a jungle trek. “You know what, Lieutenant? As long as the Japanese don’t shoot it full of holes, I guess I like this tin can just fine. It’s better than swimming to Ormoc.”

“There you go,” Steele said. “Anyhow, next time you want to complain, do me a favor and bitch to somebody else. Like maybe a seagull.”

“A seagull, sir?”

“Or a mermaid. Hell, you can complain to a mop bucket if you want to, just so long as I don’t have to listen. Better yet, go find a poker game or something. Maybe go clean your rifle. You’re bothering me.”

Rodeo grinned. “You got it, Honcho.”

Rodeo took the hint — the lieutenant hadn’t exactly ordered him to get lost — and made himself scarce, losing himself in the crowd on deck.

“Honcho” was what he had instructed the men to call him instead of “lieutenant.” It didn’t matter so much here on the ship, where protocol required the use of “sir” and saluting when appropriate. Besides, there weren’t any trigger-happy Japanese spying on them at sea. But back on land, addressing an officer using his rank or saluting him was like signing his death warrant at the hand of Japanese snipers. The Japanese had been trained to seek out and target officers.

Considering that he liked his head just fine without a bullet hole in it, Steele had come up with the “Honcho” business.

The nickname was something of a joke on the Japanese, considering that “Honcho” came from a Japanese word for “chief.” They hadn’t seemed to figure that out yet, and it was just fine with Steele if they remained in the dark.

Tall, with gray hair showing at the temples, Steele was on the wrong side of forty for a lieutenant. There were probably younger generals. His men couldn’t decide if that meant he had pulled strings to avoid the headaches of rising through the ranks, or if he had royally pissed somebody off to the point that he was never going to be promoted. The men under his command generally bet on the second scenario, although they would have been wrong in Steele’s case.

He had no plans to be a career officer — he’d be more than happy to go back to civilian life. In fact, having lost an eye on Guam while tangling with a Japanese sniper, he had a valid excuse to be shipped back stateside. But he felt that there was unfinished business regarding the war.

On the rare occasions when Steele had tried to explain it out loud, he had fallen back on simply stating that he was doing his duty. He supposed that summed it up as well as anything.

But it went deeper than that. He thought that the United States of America was a big, messy, imperfect country, but a place where a man could still say and do what he wanted. Just try getting away with free speech in Germany or Japan. If that wasn’t worth fighting for, he wasn’t sure what was.

Being an officer had a few perks — and plenty of headaches. He had found the right balance by getting himself put in charge of these scout-snipers, a job that nobody else wanted and that the army didn’t seem sure needed doing. That job, and not getting shipped back home after being half blinded on Guam, had required pulling strings and calling in favors.

What did he have to go home to? Not much.

Steele stood at the rail of the troopship and looked out at the Pacific. It was a bright, clear day, and the sea was blue and calm. Hell, it would have been a pleasant cruise if it hadn’t been for the Japanese Navy patrolling the waters, and the threat of planes with those big red meatballs on their wings flying overhead.

Steele felt the big ship shift its stance in the waves so that its rolling changed. He was no sailor, but it was clear that the ship had changed course.

They had never really lost sight of land, but now they were drawing closer again. He could see the distant hills of the island. The wind had also shifted, blowing out of a different quadrant. The breeze smelled vaguely of the jungle, tinged with salt air.

The change in course hadn’t been his imagination. Orders began to be shouted as officers organized the men on deck.

It wouldn’t be long now.

They would all be going ashore, hitting the beach yet again.

Along with the other officers, Steele had already been briefed on their mission. In addition to the men of Patrol Easy, he had also been put in charge of an entire platoon. It was not an assignment he had asked for or wanted, but the battalion commander had looked around in desperation, spotted Steele’s lieutenant’s bar, and that was that. Thanks to the sharp-eyed Japanese snipers, there was a growing shortage of officers.

If he wasn’t careful, he might even wind up getting promoted.

He turned and looked at the soldiers milling around on deck. They mostly ranged in age from their late teens to their twenties and early thirties, young men who were about to go into battle. Steele realized that calling them men was a stretch in some cases, considering that some of these GIs barely looked old enough to shave.

Some of them were nervous, others excited. They were in good physical shape and ready for the fight. They were dressed in new khaki uniforms, each man with a loaded rifle and bandolier of ammunition over his shoulder. Most were veterans of other beach landings, but a handful were green replacements.

Steele approached his platoon. Another combat veteran, Sergeant Bosco, had been more than capable of getting the men organized. Steele figured his job was to stay out of Bosco’s way.

“Sir,” Bosco said respectfully, and stepped back, leaving Steele alone in front of the platoon. It was an opportune moment for last-minute instructions before they got into the boats and the actual landing operation began.

“I wish I had a few words of wisdom to offer you,” he said, looking around at the men. The inexperienced soldiers eyed him expectantly. The expressions on the faces of the combat veterans appeared sullen, which Steele could understand. They seemed to be thinking, Another damn beach landing. Let’s just get it over with. “Well, I can give you some words, anyhow. Not much in the wisdom department. When we get to shore, keep your heads down and keep moving forward. If you stay on the beach, you’ll get killed. Do what Sergeant Bosco tells you. Sergeant, anything to add?”

“No, sir,” the sergeant said gruffly. He sounded surprised to have been asked.

The moment stretched on, and the men were still silent, unmoving. Was he supposed to say more? Steele paused and looked out over the sea for inspiration, the sun-dappled waves glaring back at him. Some of the faces were still watching him expectantly, as if maybe he hadn’t said enough, so he turned back to the men. “I’ll tell you this, men. Our job is to beat the Japanese, pure and simple. No matter what happens on that beach, if you stay focused and do your job, we’re going to come out all right in the end. It’s going to be tough. I’m not going to lie about that. Like I said, stick together and do your job. When you see a Japanese soldier, shoot him before he shoots you. Do that, and you might just have a chance of making it back home again. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

The men remained silent as they listened to him. Some of the men who had done this before nodded, seemingly satisfied. They might not know their new lieutenant, but the eye patch was the best medal he could be wearing, and they appreciated that he hadn’t given them a load of crap. Short and sweet.

The cargo nets were lowered, the landing craft pulled alongside, and it was time to go ashore.

The thing about a beach landing was that nobody knew what the hell to expect.

The officers could plan all they wanted, but things tended to go to pieces as soon as a few big waves scattered the boats and the Japanese opened fire with guns that had supposedly been knocked out.

As usual, the navy had lent a hand by shelling the beach and inland areas. It was anyone’s guess whether the impressive show of fireworks had softened up the Japanese — or simply let them know that they should be expecting company.

The shelling let up before the boats began racing in toward the beach. Mercifully, there was not much return fire, aside from a few artillery rounds that plunged into the sea, almost like a token effort. Maybe the shelling had wiped out the Japanese defenses, after all. None of the incoming craft were hit.

The ships themselves wouldn’t be sticking around. The presence of the Japanese Navy and enemy planes made it too risky for the invasion fleet to allow itself to be bottled up close to the shore. Once the troops were away, the big ships would head for open water.

A coral shelf prevented the boats from carrying them all the way into the beach. Instead, the soldiers had to splash ashore from a hundred yards out, wading through the breakers. Fortunately, the sea was calm and the breakers were manageable — not usually big enough to knock a man down.

Steele was the first one out when the metal gangway splashed down. He’d heard some machine-gun fire coming from the tree line. It didn’t take much imagination to picture being ripped in half by a burst from shore. But the tracers were reaching out toward other vessels, poor bastards. So far it looked as though he and his men would be able to get off the boat in one piece.

Despite all their training, some of the men froze when the ramp came down. Steele shoved at the nearest man to get him moving.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Steele shouted, leaping to one side as men spilled down the ramp and hopped awkwardly into the foaming sea. Most were so loaded down with the gear on their backs that they resembled stooped-over, two-legged turtles.

He saw Rodeo and Alphabet go by, carrying their sniper rifles wrapped in plastic to protect them from the salt spray and sand. Private Egan jumped out with his war dog, Thor, held tightly on a leash. The water was over the dog’s head so that Thor had to swim for it, Egan shouting encouragement while he also struggled through the deeper troughs of water. In fact, for a moment it looked like Egan was in greater danger of drowning than the dog. But Thor surged ahead, the tension on the leash managing to keep Egan on his feet in the surging sea.

All around them, similar scenes were repeated from dozens of other landing craft, the massive landing operation forgotten as each man fended for himself in the waves. This was always the hard part, when the whole damn operation threatened to come undone.

The Japanese weren’t entirely absent. A smattering of bullets dappled the surface of the sea like rain. At the next landing craft over, a couple of men were hit and went down, the red stain of their life’s blood spreading through the white foam.

For the briefest moment, Steele felt awed by the utter magnificence of the scene — the rows of landing craft beached on the coral or sand, foaming waves, soldiers in khaki struggling through the water as a few streamers of tracer fire burned even brighter than the tropical sun. He stood there in the water, letting the spectacle of it all imprint on his brain. If he lived another fifty years, he would never forget this sight.

But there was no time to dwell on the scene, not if he wanted to live another five minutes.

“Follow me!” Sergeant Bosco shouted, leading the way across the coral shelf.

To call it a “shelf” was something of a misnomer, because that gave the impression of the coral being smooth and level. The coral posed many hazards. Unseen underwater, deep potholes in the coral waited to trip a man and send him face down into the surf. When loaded down with gear, getting back up again wasn’t easy. Some of the deeper kettles in the coral could drown a man.

It didn’t help that the coral was sharp and abrasive, acting like crushed glass when it came in contact with hands and knees and shins. The raw, scraped skin burned like fire in the salt water.

With all the men off the landing craft, the lieutenant headed for shore.

There was some sporadic enemy rifle fire, mixed with bursts from a few of the dreaded Nambu machine guns, but no concerted effort to keep the Americans from coming ashore. Even the heavier enemy artillery fire had mostly fallen silent. The Japanese had stopped short of putting out the welcome mat, but the situation could have been far worse.

Steele slogged through the water, trying to get ahead of his men. He stopped to help a soldier who had fallen. The man was discovering the hard way that it was entirely possible to drown in three feet of water when you couldn’t get your feet back under you.

Steele dragged the man upright so that the soldier came up, sputtering for air. The lieutenant didn’t wait for him but kept going toward the beach. There was no stopping now. He had to keep the momentum going.

Some of the GIs had already reached shore and were throwing themselves down on the sand, partly to avoid enemy fire and partly because they were exhausted by the effort of reaching dry land.

He didn’t let them rest for long.

He stood there on the beach, well aware that he was a six-foot-tall target but knowing that if he threw himself down on the sand, the men would stall.

“Move out!” he shouted. “We’re not staying on this beach.”

Sergeant Bosco got the men moving, shouting, “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Bosco had to drag some of them to their feet and shove them in the lieutenant’s wake. It wasn’t that the men were afraid, just confused and already worn out.

Egan and Thor were among the men advancing toward the tree line, the dog panting but not barking despite all the excitement. Good dog, Steele thought. The war dogs had been trained not to bark except when the Japanese were around.

He saw that Rodeo and Alphabet had shucked the plastic off their rifles and were using the telescopic sights to scan the tree line for targets, just as they had been trained to do.

Alphabet fired, and one of the machine guns that had been pecking at the men on the beach fell silent.

“Good shot!” Steele shouted, not sure whether Alphabet had heard him or not, then ran on. Once again, he was well aware of being a target as he raced ahead of the soldiers.

He looked back once and saw the men following him, spread out in a line. It went against every fiber of a man’s being to run toward gunfire, and yet they were doing it, every last one of them.

He felt a surge of pride even though he barely knew the soldiers of the platoon that he had been assigned to command. At the moment that didn’t matter. Damn, these were good men. Every last one of them.

Turning his attention to the terrain ahead, he ran toward the line of vegetation where the jungle met the beach, shotgun at the ready. With the exception of his two snipers, most of the men were equipped with the M1 rifle, a fine weapon. But for close-quarters fighting in the dense vegetation ahead, it was hard to beat a twelve gauge.

Once again, he half expected a flurry of shots to tear through his guts, but there was mostly silence. A few enemy rifles cracked, snipers hiding in the trees or in spider holes carved into the sand, a kind of hors d’oeuvre for the fighting that would surely follow.

Reaching the tree line, he passed the base of a tree where, incredibly, a Japanese sniper had tied himself into the upper branches. The man had no hope of escape but was still resolutely firing at the hundreds of soldiers coming ashore, working his bolt-action Arisaka rifle between shots.

The sniper had clearly intended to die at his post, so the lieutenant decided to give him what he wanted.

Steele raised the shotgun and gave him a blast of buckshot. The enemy sniper slumped down, dead, but remained in the tree thanks to the ropes he had used to tie himself there. Back on Guadalcanal, Steele remembered how some of the dead Japanese snipers had been left in their trees until they had turned into skeletons picked clean by the magpies and scoured bare by the sun and wind. That didn’t take long in the tropics.

A grenade exploded nearby, a muffled blast that was the result of being tossed into a spider hole. The explosion indicated that another lone enemy sniper had been dealt with, the narrow hole becoming his grave.

Other than a handful of snipers clinging to the beach area, there was little resistance. They had seen this before. The Japanese were here, all right, but knew that they couldn’t hold the shoreline, not when the naval bombardment would have hollowed out any defenses and blasted them to pieces.

No, the enemy would be farther inland, well dug in, waiting for them.

Now that they were entering the jungle itself, Steele continued to take the lead, and he took it upon himself to find a path forward for his platoon. He didn’t want to hand the job off to Sergeant Bosco, who had plenty of bravado and kept the men in line, but who lacked the finesse that being on point called for.

There might be trip wires, mines, or spider holes waiting for them, and one wrong step could spell disaster. Not for the first time, he wished that he had Deke with him. That hillbilly seemed to have a sixth sense for traps and trouble.

But Deke was somewhere in the interior, fighting his own battles. Steele would just have to manage on his own — one eye or not.

Satisfied that they didn’t seem to be walking right into a trap or ambush, he looked back at the men of the platoon and waved them on. He could sense their uneasiness, as they seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. The soldiers moved ahead cautiously.

He couldn’t blame them. They had good reason to be nervous, Steele thought. When it came to taking a beach and the island territory beyond, there was nothing easy about it.

Aside from the sniper up in the tree, they had seen precious few of the enemy.

The question remained, Just where the hell were the Japanese?

Steele had a sneaking suspicion that they would soon find out.