Jungle Sniper

CHAPTER ONE

Lying in the hole, staring out into the tropical night, Deacon Cole kept his eyes focused on the darkness and his finger on the trigger.

Anchored to the earth, he was like a creature of the forest. Each one of his senses felt alive. A rivulet of salty sweat ran down his face and stung his eye. He blinked it away. A breeze touched his cheek, carrying the smell of the jungle — decay mixed with the sickly sweet fragrance of a night-blooming vine that was almost like the honeysuckle back home. He heard singing insects and the distant snap of a twig.

The last sound served as a reminder that Deke and the rest of Patrol Easy weren’t alone.

Somewhere out in that dark jungle were hidden Japanese soldiers — maybe hundreds of them. They wouldn’t stay hidden for long. It was only a matter of time before they launched one of their nighttime sneak attacks. When they did, Deke and his rifle would be ready for them. He stroked the smooth metal of the Springfield 1903A sniper rifle’s trigger, eager to shoot the first Japanese that he saw. Maybe it was his imagination, but the rifle felt alive in his hands, just as ready as he was to send a well-placed bullet drilling through the darkness.

He strained to see something, anything, but the jungle directly ahead of the US line remained as impenetrable as the darkness he’d see looking down a well. He stared until the blackness began to swirl, his brain imposing patterns on the void.

Only the sky showed lighter above the treetops, a few brooding hills beyond blotting out the stars. Not more than a quarter of a mile behind them was the beach that they had landed on this morning before fighting their way inland.

“Hold the line,” had been Lieutenant Steele’s command. “Whatever the Japs throw at us, we hold the line.”

That had been the order, and that was what they were going to do.

Not that they had much choice.

If the Japs decided to push them back, the soldiers didn’t have anywhere to go, other than to make a swim for it out to the US fleet. Maybe that was the generals’ intention — it was either fight or drown.

He wasn’t so sure that the squids would be all that eager to take back a bunch of grunts. Besides, the squids seemed to have their hands full with the Japanese Navy still on the prowl.

“I reckon we’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Deke muttered to Philly, who shared the foxhole with him.

“Back where I’m from, it’s called having your nuts in a vise,” Philly replied. “As far as I’m concerned, the Japs can have this damn island if they want it so bad.”

Deke had to admit that he’d never heard of Guam, which was just a flyspeck in the vast Pacific Ocean, until a few days before they had landed here. In terms of square mileage, the island was smaller than his native Hancock County back home.

Guam wasn’t someplace famous, not like Hawaii or even Guadalcanal, well known after the godawful fight there, but Guam had been in American hands since the last century — until the Japanese had taken it over. Now the Americans were here to take it back.

“You see anything?” asked Philly, who was nothing more than a disembodied whisper coming from the blackness a few feet off to Deke’s left. Deke was a loner by disposition, but out here in the night, he welcomed the sound of Philly’s voice.

“Hell no, I don’t see anything. It’s darker than a banker’s soul out there,” Deke replied quietly.

“That’s dark, all right,” Philly agreed. Considering that America had just come out of the Great Depression, in most people’s minds there wasn’t much worse than a banker. It had been a greedy banker who had put Deke and his family off their land back home.

Although Deke couldn’t see him, he could smell Philly’s fresh sweat, with an added aroma of stale cigarettes. Deke was one of those rare GIs who didn’t smoke, but he supposed that he smelled just as bad in his own way. His cotton fatigues had never completely dried out after getting soaked in the surf coming ashore, and he now felt soaked through all over again from sweat and dew.

It didn’t help that this place was so damn hot and humid, like the worst August night back home. There was some breeze off the sea, but down here in their hastily dug foxholes, the movement of the night air didn’t do them much good. The slight breeze wafted the fetid smell of the jungle toward them, close and dank. There was something unnatural and unhealthy about the smell, not at all clean and fresh like a mountain forest.

His eyes continued to play tricks on him, filling the black stew with swirls and shapes, any one of which might be a Japanese soldier sneaking up on them.

Deke felt a tickling sensation as something ran across his hand in the dark, some kind of many-legged beetle or maybe a spider. Lord knows he’d seen some big ones here at the edge of the jungle. The damn things could probably take down a rabbit. A few men had been sent back to the beach with bites that swelled up bigger than baseballs and hurt like they’d been smacked with a bat.

But spiders didn’t much worry a country boy like Deke. He held still without letting go of his grip on the rifle, feeling the tickle of scurrying insect feet on his flesh. Thankfully, whatever the critter was, it moved on.

Philly cursed quietly: “Son-of-a-bitch Japs. I know they’re gonna attack us. Why the hell don’t they just get it over with?”

“Just keep your eyes open.”

“Sure, I’ve got my eyes open, but what difference does it make? Might as well keep them closed. Can’t see a thing.”

“If there’s anybody out there, you’ll see them once they’re on the move.”

“I sure as hell hope so. Those sneaky Jap bastards blend right in.”

In the dark, it was easy to think of the enemy as something inhuman, something right out of the heart of the jungle. Yet Deke had the passing thought that just maybe the Japanese were nervous themselves as they prepared to run at the American line. More than a few of them were going to meet their maker.

In addition to the fear factor of a night attack, the darkness helped the Japanese dodge American aircraft. Japanese planes had been in short supply, given the US dominion in the skies. However, the fighter planes did not fly at night, giving the Japanese a window of operation.

Deke glanced again at the dark where Philly lay shrouded in the foxhole. Philly might sound anxious, but Deke knew that he could count on him, even if he couldn’t see him. They had been thrown together only recently, part of a sniper squad cobbled together under the command of Lieutenant Steele. The lieutenant lay hidden nearby in another foxhole, along with the rest of their sniper squad.

Having seen his buddy from basic training killed during the first few minutes of the landing on Guam, Deke had been reluctant to make any new friends. By his very nature, Deke tended to put a hard shell around himself and not let anyone in. But sometimes you did have to put your trust in the man on either side of you. Slowly Deke was realizing that he might be able to do that with the men of this patrol, starting with Philly.

The city boy was a loudmouth, all right, but from what he had seen so far of Philly, he would hold his ground if the Japs launched one of their dreaded banzai attacks. From the shooting test that Lieutenant Steele had given them earlier, it was clear that Philly wasn’t the greatest shot. He certainly wasn’t Deke’s equal — not that many were when it came to a raw talent for hitting anything that he could put his rifle sights on.

Then again, marksmanship probably didn’t matter as much as nerves when it came to fending off a nighttime banzai attack.

Deke reckoned that Philly could be forgiven for being more than a little nervous. As the green troops on Guam had quickly discovered, there was nothing more nerve-racking than waiting for a Japanese night attack.

Off to his other side was Yoshio, the baby-faced Nisei interpreter whom they had taken to calling “the Kid.” Could he count on Yoshio? That remained to be seen. He glanced that way but saw only darkness.

“Kid?”

“Yeah?”

“Just checkin’ to make sure the Japs didn’t carry you off.”

“Don’t you think I’d ask them not to do that?” Yoshio was one of the few US soldiers who spoke Japanese.

“I ain’t sure they’d listen.”

“I’d ask them nicely — the first time, anyhow,” Yoshio said.

Deke smirked into the darkness. At least the kid had a sense of humor.

In addition to carrying a rifle and fighting, the idea was that Yoshio, using his ability to speak the enemy’s language, could help question prisoners. So far there hadn’t been any prisoners. It was becoming apparent that the Japanese would just as soon shoot themselves or blow themselves up with a hand grenade than surrender. This fanaticism was something that the Americans had trouble understanding. It made the enemy seem all the more strange and frightening. As for the Japanese willingness to take any Americans prisoner, the general consensus was that you couldn’t count on it.

Considering that no attack had taken place yet, Deke almost dared to hope that maybe the Japanese were clear on the other side of the island. It was just like the Japs to keep them guessing. The enemy soldiers were masters of the nighttime attack — in part, Deke supposed, because of the added element of fear that such attacks produced. The situation had been no different for his ancestors on the frontier, fending off the Chickamauga.

While Deke sided with his pioneer ancestors and was grateful to them, he could see how the Chickamauga had a point. If Deke had been an Indian, he wouldn’t have much liked a bunch of palefaces taking over his land.

Unfortunately it was becoming clear that the Japanese had not slipped away into the night. Deke’s ears told him everything that he needed to know, even if the jungle remained a dark blur. From time to time, opposite the American line, he heard a low, guttural voice issue what sounded like an order.

The occasional noise of metal on metal reached his ears, sounding like the buckle of a rifle sling clicking against a steel barrel. Every now and then he heard the sound of a branch breaking or a muffled footstep. The sounds provided all the evidence Deke needed that the darkness was crawling with the enemy.

Philly must have heard the noises, too, because he muttered, “Son of a bitch.”

Deke gripped his rifle and waited.

Having grown up hunting, Deke had plenty of patience. If it came down to it, he could sit still as a stone for hours on end. He also had no problem with killing. He had grown up killing in order to put food on the table. Now he was killing for an equally fundamental purpose — to stay alive.

From his hunting days, he knew that the best strategy was simply to stare straight ahead, waiting for the target to show itself. If anything moved, he’d pick up on it. Still, the waiting was the hardest part. From time to time, Lieutenant Steele or another one of the officers spoke up to say, “Hold your fire, boys. And whatever you do, don’t get out of your foxhole — not unless you want somebody to shoot you by accident.”

Not long after Steele’s warning, the silence from the dark tangle of vegetation before them deepened. All sounds of shuffling feet and rattling equipment stopped. The darkness seemed to inhale and didn’t let out its breath.

It was the quiet before the storm.

“Here they come,” Deke muttered, just loud enough so Philly and Yoshio would hear him.

An instant later, shouts and cries shattered the stillness. The Japanese assault had begun.

The attack was made all the more eerie by the fact that the Japanese did not fire a single shot. Instead, their plan seemed to be to cross the open ground and bayonet the Americans. They could all hear the pounding of the enemy’s boots as they raced closer. Screaming Japs were pouring at them out of the darkness.

They had all heard about the Japanese banzai attacks on Guadalcanal, the furious charges that had been terrifying to behold. So far the Japanese attack remained cloaked in darkness.

But not for long. Brilliant flashes of light blinded Deke as machine guns opened fire from the American side, the tracers stitching patterns of flame in the night.

A few tanks had been brought up from the beach. Their big guns, so useful against enemy gun emplacements, seemed only to go over the heads of the attacking infantry and explode in the jungle beyond, starting fires in the undergrowth. They changed tactics, and their machine guns opened up on the advancing enemy with more telling effect.

Star shells fired from the American lines arced up and then fell back to earth, illuminating the incredible scene spread before them. The Japanese charged en masse, their visible faces contorted in battle fury accentuated by the glow of the burning shells overhead. Each enemy soldier seemed to wear a mask of rage. Bayonets and even sword blades glinted in the light. It was as if hell’s gates had unleashed masses of furious demons.

Deke felt his insides clench at the sight. A man could almost be forgiven for turning tail and running at the sight of the horde approaching them. But Deke wasn’t the running kind.

Neither were Philly or Yoshio. In the glare from the star shells, he could see them on either side of him, bent over their rifles.

Deke settled the crosshairs of his telescopic sight on a Japanese soldier who had outrun all the others, apparently intent on being the first to reach the American lines. He seemed to want the glory of being the first to die, and Deke decided to oblige.

He put his crosshairs on the Japanese soldier and fired. The man spun around and went down. Seconds later, his comrades trampled over top of him.

Already the Japanese had covered so much ground, and so quickly, that Deke was able to pick out individual faces in the glare of the star shells. The enemy soldiers were no longer a uniform mass. He could see that some were taller, some shorter, some skinny, and some solid. Suddenly the war was getting up close and personal.

Deke picked out another target, this time settling his sights on an officer waving a sword. The fact that the officer wore round eyeglasses made him look somewhat like a demented schoolteacher.

Deke touched the trigger, and a round from the Springfield hammered into him. The officer crumpled.

Of course Deke wasn’t the only one shooting. On either side of him, he heard Philly’s and Yoshio’s rifles banging away. The firing from the sniper squad was more methodical because they were armed with bolt-action Springfield rifles versus the semiautomatic M1 weapons with which most troops were equipped. No matter — the snipers made each shot count.

Up and down the line, soldiers poured fire into the oncoming enemy ranks. Added to the machine-gun fire, the small-arms fire was having a devastating effect on the enemy. Whole rows of troops were mowed down at once. Deke was reminded of how old-timers back home used a scythe to mow hay or cut fodder, each sweep of the blade laying out a neat row of cut grass in the field. It looked as if they had taken a scythe to the Japs.

Despite their losses, the Japanese attack showed no signs of faltering. No matter how many enemy soldiers fell, more seemed to surge in behind to take their place.

Shouted orders could now be heard in the Japanese ranks.

“Yoshio, what the hell are they saying?” Philly demanded.

“They are telling them to open fire!”

Startled, they realized that the Japanese had not been shooting back but had been intent on closing the distance to the US position. Just as Yoshio had warned, the Japanese started shooting for the first time. Bullets whistled overhead. Most of the shots were not very well aimed, with the oncoming Japanese simply firing their rifles from their hips. A few soldiers dropped to one knee so they could take better aim at the Americans in the foxholes. Like the snipers, the Japanese were equipped with bolt-action rifles, giving them a slower rate of fire. The American star shells overhead now worked to the enemy soldiers’ advantage as they took aim and picked off targets of their own.

Bullets began to find their mark. Off to Deke’s left, a man whose voice he didn’t recognize screamed, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

“Medic!” somebody else shouted. There seemed to be wounded all over the place.

A soldier wearing a white armband ran past, risking his life to save another.

More bullets zinged past. There was nothing quite like the sound of a passing bullet to make your spine turn to Jell-O. Even above all the shooting, they could hear the frenzied war cries of the Japanese. Were these humans or madmen?

It was anybody’s guess as to whether the US position was about to be overwhelmed.

A fresh strategy on the part of the Japanese also became clear as several soldiers who had been scattered throughout the ranks suddenly pressed forward into view. These soldiers carried stick bombs — long poles with an explosive charge attached to one end. The Japanese called them shitotsubakurai.

Though primitive in appearance, there was no doubt that the stick bombs would be more than effective. All that one of the Japs had to do was jam the explosive tip against a tank or even a machine-gun emplacement, wiping them out. He’d blow himself up in the process, but that thought didn’t seem to trouble the attackers.

One of the bombers separated himself from the horde and began to run right at one of the tanks that had been brought up in support of the US position. The light tanks were not as invincible as they looked. The Japanese had quickly learned this early in the fight for Guam and the tank now made an irresistible target for the bomber.

By some miracle, the Japanese soldier had managed to dodge the streams of machine-gun fire, intent on cutting him down. He juked and dodged as he ran, making him a difficult target for the infantrymen.

“Deke, get him!” shouted Lieutenant Steele. Armed only with a combat shotgun, the lieutenant must have realized that the Japanese was out of range.

The lieutenant knew that Deke was a crack shot. If anybody could bring down that bomber before he reached the tank, it was Deke.

Deke didn’t waste energy responding but put his crosshairs on the racing soldier. It was a difficult shot in that the man was moving fast and was an athletic runner, leaping over obstacles that now included the bodies of his own fallen comrades. He seemed to run even faster as he got closer to the tank. In another few steps, the bomber would reach the tank and slam his explosive-laden pole against it. Deke would have to lead him, same as he would a running deer.

Before he could fire, a Japanese bullet whipped past Deke’s ear, causing him to flinch. He resettled the sights and was swinging them out just ahead of the bomber—

A little voice in his head said, Hurry, hurry, but Deke forced himself to go slower. He knew that he’d have only one shot, and he couldn’t allow himself to miss.

Overhead the star shells that had been illuminating the battlefield began to burn out all at once, plunging the battlefield into darkness.

Deke’s target disappeared in the inky backdrop.

Where in hell—

He couldn’t see the Japanese bomber anymore, but Deke knew that he was still out there, running at the tank. He kept the rifle moving, hoping that he had kept pace with the now-invisible runner.

He pulled the trigger.

An instant later, the darkness erupted with a tremendous explosion in that very spot. Deke had no way of knowing if he’d hit the runner and caused him to drop the explosive tip of the charge he was carrying into the ground, or if he’d somehow hit the charge itself, causing it to detonate.

He reckoned it didn’t matter. The result was the same. The Japanese soldier hadn’t reached the tank. As another star shell climbed into the sky and lit the battlefield again, it was clear that all that was left of the Japanese runner was a hole in the ground.

Philly whooped. “Got him!”

“Good shooting, Deke,” the lieutenant shouted. “I knew you could do it.”

Even in the midst of battle, Deke felt a warm glow from the lieutenant’s praise. For the last few years, Deke had been indifferent to what anyone thought of him, with the exception of his sister, Sadie. With his pa gone, and then his ma, life had been too hard, and filled with too much loss, for him to seek anyone’s approval, or to much care.

But he felt different around the lieutenant. This was a man whose opinion mattered. A few words from Steele felt about as good as a medal.

A nearby shout forced him to ignore his momentary elation at having shot the runner. This fight ain’t over yet.

The Japanese had reached the line. Their numbers had been thinned out considerably, as attested to by the bodies that lay scattered in the kunai grass. But in the moment, however many got through still seemed like too many.

A screaming enemy soldier appeared out of nowhere, racing toward the foxhole. Deke swung the rifle up and shot him, simply pointing the muzzle rather than aiming. The scope was no damn use at point-blank range. Before he could even work the bolt, another soldier charged at them, shouting furiously, “Banzai! Banzai!”

Light flashed off the bayonet that was angled right at Deke. He started to raise his own rifle, hoping to use the barrel to parry the blade. The Springfield was not equipped with a bayonet.

Off to his right, Philly’s rifle cracked. The Japanese soldier crumpled.

Deke looked over and nodded at Philly.

Like a wave against rock, the Japanese banzai attack broke in an angry froth. A few of the attackers launched themselves down into the foxholes, stabbing furiously with their bayonets.

The soldiers responded with their own bayonets, rifle butts, knives, or fists. The hand-to-hand combat did not last long, but it was brutal and savage.

Deke watched as a soldier in a neighboring foxhole used his entrenching tool like a club to bring down the Japanese infantryman who had decided to leap into the hole with him. There was a sickening crunch of metal against bone; then the GI struck a couple more times to make sure the job was done.

The dying screams of American soldiers were mixed with the battle cries of the Japanese. A few Japanese had loaded themselves with hand grenades and leaped into foxholes, turning themselves into human bombs that detonated savagely, blowing themselves up in the process.

The Japanese might be determined, but, ultimately, not enough of them had managed to cross the killing ground. The savage, swift skirmishes in the foxholes brought the attack to its bloody end.

“Cease fire, cease fire!” Lieutenant Steele shouted, finally getting the battle-crazed machine gunners and soldiers to stop shooting. A strange silence settled over the battlefield, punctuated by the groans of the wounded and dying. The Japanese attack had broken like a wave on shore, with only a few of the enemy ebbing back into the jungle. Incredibly, Deke and his companions in the foxhole had survived.

Philly began to laugh, softly at first, then harder and harder. Deke started to worry that Philly had completely cracked up. It had been known to happen to more than one man.

“Dammit, Philly. Pipe down, will you? If any Japs are still out there, they’ll know right where to find us.”

“Can you believe it?” Philly managed to say, barely able to talk. His laughter faded into a few chuckles, then weary silence. “I can’t believe it. We’re still alive.”

“For now,” Deke muttered.

Just a few weeks later, Deke stared into a different darkness, the one in the cramped sleeping quarters of a troopship. Guam and even the raid on Hill 522 were now behind him. He was lying in his narrow bunk aboard the ship waiting to take them back to Leyte. He felt the ship rolling in the ocean swell. That wasn’t something he’d ever get used to, and he’d be glad to get back on land.

Then again, more Japanese would be waiting for them when they returned to Leyte. There might be more nights like the one on Guam.

He couldn’t help but wonder if they’d be as lucky when they faced the Japanese this time around. Deke tended to think of luck being a limited commodity, like moonshine in a mason jar. Sip by sip, sooner or later, that ’shine ran out.

Deke just hoped that his own jar stayed full for as long as possible.