Jungle Sniper

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The standoff between the Japanese and the GIs continued as the shadows on the hill deepened. One side wanted that ground; the other side refused to give it up. If the Americans were determined to take the hill, then the Japanese were just as determined not to give up one more inch of ground. No place but war was ownership of real estate settled with bullets, blood, and bayonets.

As so often happened in the tropics, the island twilight lingered and seemed to go on forever. The soft light began turning gray, hinting at the darkness to come but still tinged with color from the tropical sunset. It might have been a magnificent display if anyone had taken notice of it. The Gis had other thoughts on their minds, though, worried about the night to come.

The shadows of the soldiers jutted out of the trench from time to time, keeping an eye on the enemy, rifle muzzles gleaming dully in the fading light. Looking more closely, many of the soldiers’ faces were etched in a rictus of fear, their eyes narrowed and mouths set in grim, stiff lines.

“Damn but I hate the nighttime here,” Philly said. “We’re still in this damn trench, which is the last place I want to be once it gets dark. The Japs are right across from us. You’d think we would have kicked those bastards off the hill by now.”

“What’s your rush?” Deke wanted to know. He kept his eyes on the enemy position, rifle cupped against his shoulder, hoping for a flicker of movement to give one of the Japs away.

“I hate sitting around,” Philly responded. “Back home I’d rather walk than wait for the bus.”

It was the army way to go slow and steady, grinding down the enemy like a millstone, unlike the hard-charging marines.

The sun was setting, and the sky became the color of pink coral. Sheets of dark clouds hanging low on the horizon added deep reds and purples to the already stunning array of colors. It was yet another beautiful tropical evening. Grudgingly, Deke had to admit that the sunsets were spectacular in these parts. He wouldn’t have said that the colors were any better than the mountain sunsets he knew so well. Still, they were beautiful in their own way.

Deke didn’t spend much time admiring the glow of sunset. He and the rest of Patrol Easy knew the stalemate couldn’t last for long, and the setting sun served only as a reminder that night and all its dangers were coming on fast.

All the while the Japanese gun battery at the summit kept up its steady fire, wreaking who knew how much havoc on the American forces on the beach below. Still, the Japanese artillery was a yapping pup compared to the big dogs of the American fleet. Those big guns had kept silent, however, for fear of dropping a shell on the heads of their own troops on the hill.

The air stank of gunpowder, and the sickly sweet odor of the dead began growing in the tropical heat.

The gun battery, meanwhile, had been knocking out American artillery on the beach and harassing the landing craft that were closer in, within range. Though the enemy was deadly accurate, they had been unable to halt the American advance, which brought in continuous waves of supplies to the beach area.

Through it all, the Japanese riflemen and machine gunners hidden in their defensive placements on the hilltop continued to keep up a steady fire, as if mocking the Gis.

“You wouldn’t be wrong about nighttime,” Deke said, agreeing with Philly’s earlier comment. “The Japs will be on us like skeeters on a bare ass at the swimming hole, that’s for sure. Philly, you got ammo?”

Philly snorted. “I carried as much as I could up here. Then again, I wish I had more.”

Deke nodded. Most veterans took as much ammo as they could carry, even slinging bandoliers across their chests and backs like some kind of Mexican bandit from the days of Pancho Villa. Nonetheless, when the fighting got hot, they still managed to run low on ammunition. And resupply was out of the question on this hilltop.

“Yoshio, what about you?”

“I have plenty,” Yoshio replied.

“I reckon that just means you ain’t shooting enough,” Deke said. “Give me and Philly some of your ammo. Grenades, too, if you got ’em.”

Yoshio did just that. “Do you think you will need that much ammunition?”

“Once it gets full dark, the Japs will try to get behind us,” Deke said. “They’ve got their damn trenches all over this hill. They probably wanted us to get into this trench in the first place, so they’d know right where we are.”

“You mean it’s a trap?” Yoshio asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’d keep both eyes open. I hope you ate your carrots.”

Yoshio smiled. “You know it.”

Since the early days of the war, it had become a matter of common knowledge that eating a lot of carrots improved your night vision. The truth was that the story about carrots was pure fiction, having been made up by the military to cover the fact that Allied pilots could “see” at night because they possessed superior radar, not because they ate their vegetables.

Neither carrots nor radar would have done the men on Hill 522 much good. When darkness did come, it was swift and complete as a curtain being pulled across some old lady’s parlor window.

The Japanese were notorious for their nighttime attacks, whereas the Americans felt content to stay put until daylight. Much of it came down to a difference in training and tactics.

The Japanese favored the cover of darkness. You couldn’t blame them, because the darkness gave them an edge over what was usually the superior firepower of the Americans. Also, fighter planes didn’t fly at night, which meant that any Japanese forces would not be attacked from the air. That was probably less of a factor on the hill. They were so close to the Japanese lines that the pilots were afraid of hitting their own guys.

“So now what?” Yoshio asked.

“We just wait,” Deke said. “Let the Japs come to us — and they will, all right. Aren’t you glad that you went and insulted that Japanese sniper? He probably can’t wait to come over here once it’s nice and dark and make good on his promises.”

Yoshio looked a little pale in the dwindling light, and who could blame him? War seemed like an impersonal thing — until it wasn’t.

In the dark of night, the password went around. The word was lollygag, which tended to be popular. It didn’t need to be secret, because the password was all about pronunciation. Popular wisdom was that the Japanese could not properly say the letter L. Any password that the troops used had more L sounds in it than a porcupine had quills. Lollipop. Delicious. Umbrella. Those words were good as a barb-wire fence against infiltrators.

They had been placed roughly in groups of three along the trench, with the idea that each three-man team could act as its own unit in defending the trench. Spreading each man out along the defensive line might have been just as effective, but from a psychological standpoint, there seemed to be safety in numbers. An army of three felt a whole lot better in the dark than an army of one.

Deke kept his hands on the rifle, peering out into the woolly blanket of darkness. From time to time, he put his eye to the scope, which managed to gather just a little extra light, but he saw no sign of the enemy. He was fighting blind.

He kept his ears open, listening for the sound of stealthy footsteps, the scratch of a belly crawling over dirt, or the telltale knock of a Japanese grenade being armed against a rock or helmet.

The quiet was broken by the sound of a voice whispering, “Lollygag.”

“Come on in,” Deke whispered back.

A moment later Lieutenant Steele eased himself into the trench beside them. They couldn’t see him well, but even in the darkness, the eye patch that Deke had made for him on Guam out of a piece of old boot formed an even blacker hole in the outline of Steele’s pale, haggard face. It was like a gaping bullet hole, or maybe a glimpse into the dark part of the lieutenant’s soul — the eye patch wasn’t something you wanted to stare at for long. “How you boys holding up?” he asked.

“We’re doing all right, Honcho. We’re a little low on ammo.”

“Then you’d better make each shot count,” Steele said. “You’re snipers, after all. That’s all the ammo we’ve got for now. Nobody is going to resupply us before tomorrow morning. I don’t need to tell you boys that we can expect some trouble tonight. The Japs don’t want us here, and they are going to do everything they can to push us out of this trench. It’s quiet for now, so you had better eat something while you’ve got the chance.”

“You got it, Honcho,” Deke replied quietly. The lieutenant hadn’t told them anything that they didn’t already know about what they could expect in the hours ahead.

“I put all the men in this sector into three-man teams. Your team is the right flank, so keep that in mind. I’d imagine that the Japs will try to get into this trench and roll up the whole line, so be ready. On your left, you’ve got Rodeo, Alphabet, and Egan. Egan’s dog will be sniffing for the first whiff of the Japanese, so if he starts to bark, get ready.”

“What about you, Honcho? Better join up with us,” Deke said. “You can’t take on the Japs all by yourself.”

“I’ve got all the company I need right here,” Steele said, hefting the twelve-gauge. “I’ll be all right. When one of you gets killed, I’ll fill in.”

“That’s awful nice of you, Honcho.”

“You think I’m kidding? I wish I were. This is the best chance the Japs have got. They’ll hit us hard tonight. They know that in the morning our planes will be back, and maybe we’ll get more men to kick the hell out of them.”

“If the Japs want to wait for morning, that’s fine by me,” Philly said.

Steele shook his head. “No such luck, Philly. You know the Japs. They’ll be on us, whether we’re ready for them or not. Deke, I know you won’t let the Japs get past you.”

“We’ll be ready, Honcho,” Deke said, feeling a sudden swelling of fondness for the lieutenant. He was a good man. Deke was also worried about him. Lieutenants and captains had a bad habit of getting killed.

“I know you will, son. Good luck,” he said, then moved off toward the next group. Faintly, they could hear him utter the password once more.

“If there are any Japs listening, they probably know our password by now,” Philly said.

“Yeah, but they won’t be able to say it.”

“If I hear anybody mangle that password, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later,” Philly said. “You hear me, kid? Better do the same.”

“Got it,” Yoshio said.

The lieutenant had ordered them to eat, so that was just what they did now, dipping into their K rations. Deke spooned cold stew into his mouth, barely tasting it, slowly chewing the mushy chunks of carrots and potatoes and stringy beef, then washing them down with a drink of his metallic-tasting canteen water.

It wasn’t home cooking, that was for damn sure, but he didn’t mind. Food was food. Some men griped all the time about the rations, but not Deke. He had gone to bed hungry enough times as a boy, growing up in the Depression-era mountains on a hardscrabble farm, not to complain about a full belly — even if it was army food out of a can. Besides, there were a whole lot of men on both sides who wouldn’t ever be eating again.

Not for the first time, Philly seemed to be reading Deke’s mind, which was a little unnerving. When two guys shared a foxhole long enough, you could expect that to start to happen.

“You know what I would miss the most if I buy it tonight on this hill?” Philly volunteered. Like Deke and Yoshio, he was working his way through a can of rations. “I’d miss good food. A cheesesteak and a cold beer, for starters. Spaghetti and meatballs and red wine. Also, I’d miss women. Well, maybe not women exactly, because they can be a pain in the ass, but I’d sure as hell miss a piece of ass. God, would I miss that. What about you?”

Deke snorted. He had never spoken it out loud, but he had dwelled on this very question before. Most soldiers agreed that it was better if a bullet just flipped your switch, like the lights going out. You’d never know what hit you.

But if death wasn’t instant, then what did a man think about in the seconds after a bullet hit him and he lay dying? What were his final thoughts — if he even got the chance to have any?

Deke knew he wouldn’t be thinking about food or women. “I guess I’d miss seeing Sadie one last time,” he said, then added, “I’d miss the mountains. Just a cool fall morning, sun just touching the treetops, walking alone in the hills.”

He had expected Philly to make fun of him for that, but to his surprise, the other man said quietly, “That sounds kind of nice. Yoshio, what about you?”

“I’d miss my family.”

Nobody could argue with that. Deke finished his cold stew and tossed the empty can into the dirt at the bottom of the trench. “I got a better idea. Let’s none of us get killed tonight.”

Philly muttered a curse. “I sure wish these Nip bastards would go ahead and get this over with. They sure like to drag it out. It’s dark, just how they like it. Why the hell don’t they attack?”

“That’s on purpose,” Deke said. “I reckon they’re toying with us, making us scared of what comes next.”

“Yeah, well, screw that,” Philly said. “Bring it on.”

Deke felt the same way, although he would’ve been happier if it had been daylight. His skills with the rifle weren’t much good when he couldn’t see what he was shooting at. He felt for his bowie knife that had been custom made for him by Hollis Bailey, a bladesmith from back home. The grip in his hand was antler from a mountain buck, which was in itself reassuring.

Hollis had made it his mission to send fighting knives to each and every local boy he could think of who was in the war. Deke’s army-issue knife had been sturdy enough, but the bowie knife was something special, something wicked. With its drop-point blade and razor-sharp edge, the steel almost looked hungry. There was no other way to describe it.

He unsheathed the knife and stuck it in the wall of the trench within easy reach. He didn’t want to be fumbling around for it when the Japs came calling. After a while, Philly nodded off, and from his silence, Yoshio indicated that he was either sleeping or brooding on what was to come. It was a sign of their exhaustion that they could sleep at all.

Deke left them both alone and scanned the darkness, listening as best he could. The war was already beginning to take a toll on his hearing. They would be a generation of deaf old men — if they lived that long. A few minutes of combat — the deafening cacophony of rifle shots, mortars, and artillery — did more damage to your ears than a lifetime of hunting. At this point Deke had lived through far more than a few minutes of combat. It had left him with a condition that the army doctors called tinnitus.

If he tuned out that constant ringing in his ears, then he could still hear well enough. He gripped his rifle and waited.

It was well after midnight when he heard the skittering sound of a boot heel slipping on loose gravel. The sound was not followed by the password, which meant only one thing. This was all the warning that they were going to get.

“Wake up,” he whispered, his hard tone jolting Philly and Yoshio out of their slumber. Both soldiers were instantly awake, weapons at the ready. “We’ve got company.”