Jungle Sniper

CHAPTER TEN

Deke left him there and went in search of Patrol Easy — hoping against hope that at least someone had survived the sinking of the landing craft. He hadn’t seen any of them in the water, which wasn’t surprising, given the chaos of the sinking. He refused to believe that they were all gone.

He ran down the beach, keeping at a crouch, running parallel to the surf line. Once or twice he had to step over a dead soldier. He tried to stay below the sandy ledge that had been cut by some previous storm, because it offered cover from the Japs in the tree line. They were watching, all right, because whenever his head popped above the sandy shelf, a flurry of bullets kicked up sand. No matter how many shells had been thrown at the beach, it hadn’t seemed to do a bit of good. They had hidden themselves away like spiders in a woodpile, only to come out when the barrage ended.

He followed his own advice and kept his head down.

Everywhere he looked, it was pandemonium. This sector was known as Red Beach, and it had encountered heavy Japanese resistance. What the men here didn’t know was that other landing zones had been uncontested or very nearly so, with soldiers coming ashore with little or no enemy fire to greet them. It was luck of the draw, considering that other units had gotten off easy, and their only choice was to fight back and eliminate the enemy threat.

Staying on the beach wasn’t an option. The Japs would just pick them off.

Part of the issue was that Hill 522 served as an anchor for Japanese resistance on this stretch of beach. Even without the battery that Patrol Easy had eliminated, Hill 522 remained a veritable fortress.

Deke ran along the shore without any destination in mind, hoping that he would spot another member of Patrol Easy. He didn’t see anybody. Maybe he should have gone in the other direction? Then again, maybe nobody else had made it off the wrecked landing craft. For now, he pushed that thought from his mind.

Sand had stuck to his wet uniform and even his boots, adding extra weight and effort to every step.

Feeling winded, Deke realized that his efforts to find any survivors from his patrol might be futile. The loss would be a bitter pill to swallow. They had endured so much together that he didn’t dare to think of them as dead. Philly, Yoshio, Rodeo, Alphabet, Egan, and his new war dog, and even Lieutenant Steele, who seemed indestructible in Deke’s mind. Maybe he should have tried to find them in the wreck instead of helping that useless four-eyed green bean.

“Dammit!” he shouted in frustration.

He still held out hope. The alternative was too awful to contemplate. But for now he had to make sure that he lived through the next ten minutes on this beach.

He decided to attach himself to a group of soldiers that was rallying around an officer. The man could be heard shouting orders even above all the fireworks on the beach.

To Deke’s surprise, he saw that the officer wore a camouflage uniform. It was none other than Colonel Woodall. Some of his sniper squad was spread along the sand. Their bravado from the ship was gone, however. Most of them had their heads down, too scared to move.

Deke didn’t blame them. This wasn’t shooting at paper targets on the firing range. These men might be well equipped, and they might even be crack shots, but they had never been under fire before. Instead of shooting back at the Japs, they kept their faces buried in the sand.

Woodall was having none of it. This assault on the beach wasn’t his first rodeo. He screamed at the men to fight. He appeared to be a brave son of a bitch, but foolhardy. He stood up and waved the soldiers forward.

“Get off this beach!” he shouted. “If we don’t get off this beach, we’re going to die here. The Japs will chew us to pieces.”

His warning was punctuated by a fresh burst of machine-gun fire. The Japs had gotten some of their knee mortars into play, and they were now walking their fire closer to the sandy shelf where the troops were taking cover.

Colonel Woodall grabbed a man by the shoulder and shoved him forward. After a couple of dazed steps, the man figured it out and ran toward the tree line. Other soldiers started to get the message and began to rush toward the tree line, where the beach sand ended and the jungle began. At least there was cover there. It was also where the Japanese were hidden, and it would be up to the soldiers to push them out.

Deke saw the officer standing tall despite the bullets spitting at the sand around his feet. There was brave, and there was foolish. Get down, Deke silently urged him.

Too late.

Colonel Woodall spun around, clipped by a bullet. He fell back onto the sand.

Deke ran over to see if he could do anything for Woodall. To Deke’s relief, the bullet appeared to have grazed Woodall’s shoulder with enough force to knock him off balance, but it hadn’t done any serious damage.

“Sir, are you all right?”

Woodall looked up and recognized Deke instantly. “You’re one of Steele’s snipers. What are you doing here, soldier?”

“Lost my unit, sir. The landing craft got hit.”

Deke began helping Woodall to his feet, but the colonel shook him off.

“I’m all right. Never mind about me. Start shooting some Japs.” Incredibly, Woodall managed a small smile. “Private, just remember that they’re not seagulls.”

“Yes, sir.”

Side by side, they sheltered behind a sand ledge and studied the tree line ahead. Most of the enemy fire appeared to be coming from a single spot.

“Those Japs can sweep the whole beach from that point,” Woodall said. “They’ve got us pinned down.”

“They must have a pillbox set up.”

“We’ll have to rush them.”

“I may have a better idea, sir.”

Deke set his rifle across the sand, aiming at the muzzle flashes. The gunners themselves were well hidden, but it was clear enough where he had to shoot. The gunner would be right behind the gun, aiming down the beach. As he watched, a trail of tracers sizzled across the beach, and the fresh burst of unseen bullets churned up the sandy ledge where the troops had taken shelter.

Deke squeezed off a round, worked the bolt, fired again. The machine gun fell silent. Although there was still plenty of fire from hidden rifle pits, the biggest threat had been from the machine gun.

Woodall sprang up again. He shouted at his men: “Go! Go! Get the hell off this beach!”

Deke didn’t need to be told twice. He wanted to get into the jungle itself, where there was cover, instead of being stuck out here in the open. It might only be a matter of time before the Japs got another man on that machine gun or they managed to zero in on those mortars.

He sprang up and ran for the trees, screaming a bloodcurdling rebel yell. The rest of the soldiers followed.

The colonel had stayed behind, forcing reluctant men to their feet and urging them forward. The men weren’t all his scouts, but soldiers from units who had gotten mixed up in the confusion of the landing. No matter — the colonel was getting them into the fight.

Deke reached the trees and got in among them, rifle at the ready. He spotted a Japanese infantryman falling back to another spider hole and shot him between the shoulder blades. He worked the bolt just in time because another Japanese appeared. This one ran right at Deke, screaming bloody murder. He was so close that Deke could see his angry, contorted face. The Japs were shorter and smaller than the Americans, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. This one also had a bayonet on the end of his rifle. He looked eager to sink the pointy end into the nearest American.

Deke shot him in the chest. The Japanese soldier went to his knees but was still moving, so Deke shot him again for good measure. This time the enemy soldier lay still. Deke kicked his rifle away, just in case.

He pressed deeper into the trees, moving more slowly and cautiously. The enemy fire seemed to have slackened, but that didn’t mean this sector wasn’t crawling with Japs. He knew from experience that their preferred tactics included keeping hidden until the American troops had gone by, and then ambushing them from behind. They were sneaky bastards, every last one of them.

Now that he was in among the trees and jungle growth, he marveled at the sheer amount of destruction. The naval bombardment had shattered trunks and torn the undergrowth asunder. It looked as if the worst hurricane you could imagine had swept through, turning trees into matchsticks. Everything had been chewed up and spit out.

Many of the trees closest to the beach were palms, now missing most of their fronds so that they resembled irregularly spaced telephone poles. Similar to Guam, the forests on Leyte were substantial, with massive hardwoods climbing up the slopes farther inland. The hurricane winds of the bombardment had still managed to shatter and twist these sturdier trees.

And yet the bombardment had not been enough to entirely thwart the Japanese defending the beach itself. They had either been dug in deep, unaffected by anything but a direct hit, or they had rushed into position as soon as the bombardment stopped.

The navy had put on one hell of a fireworks show, Deke thought, but in the end it hadn’t amounted to a hill of beans.

He looked around and detected motion among the trees. In his frenzy to get at the Japs, he had outpaced the rest of the soldiers. Now, among the shattered trunks, he could see other GIs doing the same thing as him, cautiously advancing.

Take a step. Look around. Take another step. Rifle at the ready. See a hole? Lob a grenade or empty a clip into it. Keep going.

The sight of more American soldiers reassured him. He was no longer out here alone. Maybe, just maybe, they had taken the beach.

With the worst of the Japanese threat eliminated, Deke decided that he’d done his job for now. Colonel Woodall led his company, including his scouts, deeper into the jungle.

“Spread out, men,” he heard Woodall shout. “Keep five-yard intervals. Don’t make it any easier for the sons of bitches.”

Considering what a target Woodall had been on the beach, Deke was a little surprised to see that he was still alive. Not only was he brave, but he was lucky.

That didn’t mean Deke was going to stick with this unit. He still hadn’t given up hope that he could find somebody from Patrol Easy. The Japs in this section had been cleared out, so Deke turned around and headed back toward the beach. A couple of other GIs he passed gave him a look because the only men going to the rear were wounded, but they didn’t say anything. There weren’t any sergeants or officers close enough to give him a hard time. Other than Woodall, Deke realized that maybe the other officers were all dead.

Deke retraced his path, knowing that it was probably the route least likely to have any hidden Japs. On the way he passed the two Japs he’d shot. At first the enemy soldiers resembled bundles of rags rather than dead men. The dead always looked smaller, but these dead Japanese looked almost childlike, much smaller than the American soldiers.

He tried to register some emotion as he stepped around the Japanese bodies and realized that he didn’t feel a damn thing. Well, that wasn’t quite true. What he did feel was anger. They were the ones who had started this war in the first place. They were the reason that so many Americans were already dead on this beach — them and their emperor, Hirohito. Deke wouldn’t mind getting him in his sights.

Back on the beach, more men and material were being ferried ashore. The Japanese fire hadn’t been entirely suppressed. Shells still splashed into the sea. Rifle shots still rang out. From time to time, sniper fire claimed a stretcher bearer or officer. Perhaps out of sheer perversity, the Japanese snipers loved to target stretcher bearers. It didn’t make any damn sense to Deke.

High up on Hill 522, Japanese artillery still fired, dropping a few shells on the beach but mainly targeting the incoming craft. Before long somebody would have to take that hill. Deke pitied the poor bastards who got sent up there. He had seen those defenses and knew that it wouldn’t be an easy fight. The entire hill was one big fortress. If they hadn’t seen many Japs near the beach, he suspected that it was because they were all up on that hill, dug in and waiting for the Americans.

Despite the sniper fire and occasional shells, supply depots were already being established. The army organization of beachheads was like a well-oiled machine at this point. Bullets and bayonets got you only so far. In the end, logistics would be what won the war.

Tarps had been set up to provide shelter from the tropical sun and wind. Under them, medics were at work trying to save the wounded. Those who hadn’t made it lay stretched out in neat rows, field jackets or blankets covering their faces, their exposed boots pointing toward the sky. Poor bastards. Every man who passed the dead knew that it might just as easily have been him stretched out and awaiting the graves registration detail.

Deke wandered the beach, avoiding anyone who looked as though he might be in charge of something. He was still hoping to catch a glimpse of a familiar face from Patrol Easy.

He was passing a temporary HQ of some sort when he heard somebody shouting: “Button up! Button up!”

Curious, he slowed his pace. The term “button up” was the universal warning when the brass was around. Basically it was a reminder to make yourself presentable and act like a soldier.

Considering that they were still taking enemy fire, he wondered what high-ranking officer would be foolhardy enough to come ashore. That was when he heard another soldier say, “Holy mackerel, that’s MacArthur!”

Down the beach, he could see a couple of officers walking purposefully toward the temporary HQ. One of the men had a pipe stuck in his mouth. Up and down the beach, soldiers’ mouths fell open in awe. It was rare for a GI to see someone as exalted as MacArthur — much less to see him on the beach when enemy bullets still flew. Deke wasn’t sure if the general was brave — or foolish. Who was going to run the army if he got himself killed?

Deke didn’t stick around to see more. In his experience, officers attracted trouble like a flagpole in a lightning storm. You didn’t want to go stand under it in a storm. He took one last good look at the general, then turned around and started back in the other direction.

It was a good thing he did. He had barely left all the commotion with MacArthur behind when he spotted a familiar face — several faces, as a matter of fact. Patrol Easy had made it to shore after all. They looked like drowned rats, but they were alive.

“I’ll be damned, look who it is!” Philly shouted, catching sight of Deke. “We thought for sure that you were dead.”

“You ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy.”

Philly slapped him on the shoulder, clearly pleased and relieved to see Deke alive. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Deke that the survivors might have been wondering what had happened to him. No matter. Against all odds, they had all made it to shore and found one another.

Lieutenant Steele gave him a nod. “Thought we lost you when the landing craft went down,” he said. “Knowing how much you love the ocean, you were the last person I expected to swim to shore.”

“Swimming beats drowning.”

Their reunion was cut short by the arrival of a courier who had a message for Lieutenant Steele. Quickly, he scanned the orders and turned back to his men.

“Don’t get too comfortable, boys,” Steele said. “We’re being sent to help take out Hill 522. Somebody decided that we’re just the ones for the job, considering that we’ve been there before.”

“How about that, Deke?” Philly said. “It turns out that you’re just in time to get killed for real this time.”