Patrol Easy occupied a cramped corner of the ship’s quarters. There they staked their turf. Even if they had somehow taken a back seat to Woodall’s Scouts, with their newfangled camouflage uniforms and rifles, the snipers of Patrol Easy had enough of a reputation that the green beans on the ship showed them some deference as combat veterans. In other words, they were left alone.
Even during the relatively brief time that they were on the ship, they did what they could to make themselves at home. Somewhere Philly had found a torn poster of Veronica Lake and stuck it to the bulkhead with chewing gum, designating the popular pinup girl as their mascot. Outsiders were not welcome, especially those replacement soldiers or sailors looking for a few souvenirs from the veterans aboard.
Word had gotten around that Philly had a samurai sword, which, along with Japanese pistols, were considered to be the most prized combat souvenirs.
Hardly an hour went by without some eager bastard coming by their quarters, looking to make a trade.
“Hey, buddy, I’ve heard you’ve got a samurai sword?” asked one fresh-faced soldier, appearing in their doorway.
“Beat it, green bean,” Philly said.
“C’mon. I hear you can just pick up swords left and right on the beaches. What do you want for it? Ten bucks?”
“Not for sale.”
“I’ll even throw in two packs of smokes. How ’bout it?”
The silent glares that he received from several sets of eyes accustomed to staring through rifle sights were enough for him to get the message that he wasn’t welcome. If those looks had been daggers, he would have been bleeding by now.
“Last chance,” Philly said. “You know where I’m going to put that sword if you don’t get out of here?”
“All right, all right. Don’t get sore.”
The soldier moved on to the next doorway to try his luck. You couldn’t blame these guys. Most of them did more than their share in rear-echelon support positions and just wanted to bring back a tangible piece of the war. But Deke, Philly, and Yoshio had seen what those swords could do. In the hands of the Japanese, they weren’t just for decoration.
Across the ship, the soldiers bet their meager pay in endless card games. The winners always made sure the losers paid up — once they got to Leyte, there was a good chance they’d never see that money if their card-playing buddies bought it on the beach.
Some men filled the time with endless conversation, but their stories and jokes grew stale, especially when you had been around the same guys for weeks or months at a time. Even the most extroverted soldiers found themselves sinking into a sullen silence. They lay in their bunks, chain-smoking, adding a fog of tobacco smoke to the already thick, humid air.
Some, like Philly, seemed to get louder, as if they could talk themselves out of these doldrums. Others, like Deke, simply retreated deeper into themselves. He just dug himself a mental hole and crawled right into it.
He recognized that this was how he had survived that awful stretch after his family had lost their farm to the bank and they’d had to move into a boarding house in town. It was not a memory that he wanted to return to. Deke was built for action, not for wallowing in self-pity. To keep busy, he spent the time sharpening his custom-forged bowie knife and cleaning his rifle for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
Once again, Yoshio was reading a Western novel. This one was called West of the Pecos. Deke never had been much for books, but he was a little envious that Yoshio could be so easily drawn into the pages. With a book, the time seemed to pass more easily.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, although I can’t believe I’m saying it,” said Philly. “The truth is that I can’t wait to get back to Leyte.”
“You’ll get your wish soon enough,” Deke replied. “I can’t say that I disagree. I’ve had just about enough of this ship. Sure am glad that I ain’t in the navy.”
As far as he was concerned, the sooner they had a crack at the Japs again, the better.
It seemed miraculous, given the vast distances involved, but mail managed to arrive. There was almost nothing so welcome, because it helped to break the monotony of being trapped on the ship. It was also a reminder of home many thousands of miles away and the fact that someone gave a damn about them, whether it was a girl, a wife, or a father or a mother.
Some soldiers wrote letters home every day, sometimes more than once a day, using the thin paper provided to them for this purpose, but it was clear that the letters from home had predated these. No matter — each word from home was savored like the last bite of an apple pie.
To Deke’s surprise, he received another letter from Sadie. His sister was working as a police officer, one of the few female law enforcement officers in Washington, DC. She’d been a wartime hire due to the shortage of men and the occasional need for a female officer to deal with the influx of young women to the nation’s capital.
Deke was proud of his sister. She was right smack-dab in the heart of things. And here he was on a ship in the ocean more than half a world away.
He’d be the first to admit that her tough demeanor made her perfect for the job. Sadie never had been one to back down from a challenge. Also, Deke had to admit that his sister was at least as good with a rifle as he was. He didn’t expect her to be any less of a shot with a police revolver.
The nation’s capital had become so busy during the war that Sadie worked long hours. She even had a few funny stories to tell. One thing for sure, Deke thought, was that they were both a long way from home. How Deke missed waking up in the old farmhouse on winter mornings, so cold that he could see his breath hang in the air. He longed for some of that cool air as he lay in the hot, cramped metal bunk.
It was funny, in a sense — times had been hard, but in hindsight they might also have been some of the best times in his life — at least before Pa had died in an accident at the sawmill.
Pa had been a silent, hardworking man. He had fought in the trenches of Europe during the Great War but had never talked about it. Pa had brushed off Deke’s occasional questions. Now that he had experienced combat for himself, Deke understood his father’s silence. There were things in this world that a man kept to himself.
He settled down to read Sadie’s letter. It was more of a short note, really — neither he nor Sadie were much for writing long letters.
Dear Deke,
I hope you are doing all right fighting the Japs. It sure seems sometimes like the war in Europe is what most folks care about. On the police force, they are always telling us to be on the lookout for German spies, but never a word about the Nips. I guess maybe Washington seems pretty far away from Japan.
My friend Peggy that you met during your visit here was asking about you. I gave her your address, so maybe she will write to you.
It is getting to be fall and I remember all the good times we had picking up apples for cider from the windfalls on Old Man McGlothlin’s orchard, or even making sausage. You can’t get sausage like that here in the city, not no way, no how. But I do like having hot running water. No more heating pots on the stove for a bath!
You be good and lick the Japs — I know you could do it with one hand tied behind your back if you had to.
He folded the letter carefully and tucked it away to read again later. He supposed that he ought to write back to Sadie, but he never had been much for writing letters. He jotted a short note to let her know he was all right and that he appreciated hearing from her. On the page his handwriting was neat but blocky and almost childish from lack of practice.
As for Peggy, he remembered her as a quiet and serious young woman who had also grown up on a farm, somewhere in Maryland, so they’d had that much in common. The city was filled with young men and women fresh off the farm, stuffed into city clothes and trying to look like they knew what they were doing, when a few short months before they had been milking cows or hauling slop to feed the hogs — or even sharing a decent pair of shoes with a brother or sister. The Depression had been slow to let go in a lot of small towns and farms. For these young people, the war meant opportunity.
He hadn’t gotten any letters from Peggy. No wonder — he was sure that his scars had scared her off. Like any young man, Deke was interested in women, but he had mostly put them out of his mind because of his looks. He had gotten to the point where he reckoned that no woman would have anything to do with him. He was damaged goods.
So far, women remained a mystery to Deke. Not that he didn’t yearn for their company sometimes. If he wanted any loving, he supposed that he’d have to pay his two dollars for a few minutes of vigorous humping like all the other desperate GIs had back on Hawaii — and then feel ashamed about it later. It wasn’t how Deke wanted to treat a woman — or himself, for that matter.
Sadie’s letter didn’t say much, but it prompted a flood of memories. Deke also had to smile, thinking of all those times they’d had growing up on the mountain farm. The chores had seemed endless, and it was true that life wasn’t always easy — far from it. But it hadn’t been all bad either. Then again, he supposed that it had less to do with happy childhood memories than it did with taking pride in surviving adversity. He and Sadie had come through a lot together.
If he managed to survive this war, he’d have to see what he could do about getting back the Cole family’s land. The farm didn’t seem to matter all that much to Sadie — she seemed to have moved on and embraced her new city life, with all its possibilities.
When he had visited Sadie in the city, she had caught him studying her with admiration when she had been about to head out the door in her uniform. The uniform had made her appear mature and official. She even wore a touch of makeup and lipstick, something their own mother had never worn a day in her life. Between the makeup and the uniform, she had not only looked older but appeared right at home.
“What are you lookin’ at?” Sadie had snapped, suddenly sounding every bit like the Hancock County girl that she was. “Did I grow two heads overnight?”
Deke had shaken his head sheepishly. “No, you look different is all. Like you belong here in the city.”
“I can’t look like a rube, not if I want to be taken seriously,” she’d retorted. Then her voice softened, and she touched the back of his hand to reassure him. “Don’t you worry, Deke. You know me. I’m the same old Sadie under this lipstick. I’ll always be a country girl at heart.”
Knowing Sadie, he reckoned that was true. Still, he was proud of her for having the courage to move to the city and make a new life for herself.
Maybe the city life was fine with Sadie, but Deke had other plans. He wanted nothing more than to return to the mountains, to see the lush valley farms and the peaks covered in forests. To wake up on a crisp winter’s night to the sound of a fox barking and see the full moon glowing on the snowy fields.
He felt a pang, though, thinking about those farms and fields. Deke swore that if there was one thing he was going to do in this life, it was get the family farm back and kill the son of a bitch who had robbed his family of it in the first place. Given time, they would have paid back the money that his father had borrowed, but that no-good banker hadn’t given them more time.
It all came down to greed. Taking the land was bad enough. Worse yet, he blamed that banker for bringing about his mother’s death. She’d already been frail, and the loss of the farm was a final blow from which she had never recovered.
As for him and Sadie, that banker had stolen their happiness when they’d been forced to move into a boarding house in town. He’d had to find what work he could. His time in a dusty, noisy sawmill had been sheer misery for a young man used to working the land, but it had been a matter of survival because they had needed his wages.
But revenge would have to wait. That snake of a banker was safe enough for the time being.
Right now there were a whole lot of Japanese and a vast ocean between Deke and that goal. If he ever wanted to get home again, the first thing he had to do was survive the war, and there were no guarantees about that.