Pacific Sniper

Chapter Twenty

The rifle fired. From the ravine below, they heard a sudden cry and a body tumbled from the tree.

Deke worked the bolt, but not before they heard a faint crack and, much closer and louder, the whine of a passing bullet. Deke felt his spine shiver at the sound. The second Japanese sniper — the one with the scope — had spotted them.

Fortunately for Deke, the lieutenant, and Tony Cruz, the Type 38 Arisaka was also a bolt-action rifle like the Springfield, and it was thus slower to fire than the semiautomatic M1.

Deke already had a round in the chamber, and the gunshot had revealed where the second Japanese sniper was hidden. Now it was Deke’s turn to shoot. The enemy was well concealed — he swore to God that these damn skinny little Japs could hide themselves with nothing but a blade of grass and a couple of sticks — but Deke lined up his sights on what appeared to be a patch of uniform. Sure of his target, he fired.

A moment passed, Deke wondering if he had missed, after all, and then the second Japanese sniper tumbled from the tree.

“Got him! That’s some fine shooting, son,” Lieutenant Steele exclaimed, clapping Deke on the shoulder. Deke was a little embarrassed to feel himself swell with pride at the lieutenant’s praise. The lieutenant’s approval felt better than getting a medal pinned to his chest. “If those other Japs are smart, they got out of there. There weren’t that many, anyhow. We’ll keep following the trail. You see any other Nips, you take them out.”

“You got it, Honcho.”

Lieutenant Steele signaled to the rest of the squad, who began following the trail down into the ravine. This time, it was Tony Cruz and the lieutenant who led the way. The path became steep and slippery, forcing them to sling their weapons to leave their hands free; essentially, they would now be climbing down the ravine. Egan was having to half carry Whoa Nelly down the slope.

“This isn’t a trail,” Philly complained, after he had slipped and slid several feet, leaving the seat of his trousers slick with mud. “It’s a toboggan ride.”

“Wait here,” Steele said, moving ahead of the others. “I don’t know for sure that we got all of those Japs.”

“You sure about that, Honcho? Maybe I ought to go first.”

“No, you’d better watch our backs, Deke,” the lieutenant said, then moved on. “Besides, you already nailed those couple of snipers. We can’t let you fight the whole war by yourself.”

Steele kept going down the steep ravine, the Chamorro guide ahead of him. Tony’s sandaled feet moved surely along the path, although he was forced to dig the edges of his sandals into the mud to keep from sliding down the slick patches. The lieutenant was having a much harder time in his heavy combat boots.

It came as no surprise when the lieutenant lost his balance and slid the rest of the way down to the bottom of the ravine, tumbling once or twice in the process. His shotgun went flying. Whoa Nelly began barking frantically, but it was hard to say if the lieutenant’s fall had set her off, or the scent of Japs.

“Easy, girl,” Egan said, looking around nervously.

“See what I mean?” Philly said. “Toboggan ride.”

“Honcho, you OK?”

“Come on down,” Steele said, giving them a wave to show he was all right. He had managed to knock over Tony Cruz on the way, leveling him like a bowling ball hitting a bowling pin. The Chamorro managed to pick his way down the rest of the steep grade, looking indignant.

Steele retrieved his shotgun, then walked over to where the bodies of the Jap snipers had fallen out of the trees like bloody, overripe fruit. He poked at one with the muzzle of the shotgun, then reached down to pick up the Arisaka rifle with the telescopic sight.

The lieutenant was studying the rifle with interest when a shot rang out, and Steele went down.

“Honcho!” Philly shouted in alarm, but the lieutenant didn’t move.

Deke could only stare at the lieutenant’s still body, but not for long. They had to move.

Below them on the slope, Tony Cruz scrambled for cover. A shot pecked at rocks near his feet, but he managed to get down the slope and into cover.

The rest of the squad wasn’t as lucky. They were caught out in the open and exposed on the path.

“Spread out!” shouted Deke, who was highest up on the ravine.

Ingram tried to get into the bushes growing alongside the path for whatever cover they offered. Philly opted to sit on his backside and slide all the way down the slick, muddy slope. His method was fast enough, but the drawback was that his tailbone hit every rock and root on the way, leaving him cursing and howling.

Still on the path, Deke raised his rifle and searched frantically for a target, but the sniper was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t even sure where to look. Then a flurry of shots came from the brush in the bottom of the ravine. Was that where the sniper had been hidden?

He couldn’t think of what to do except to get down there and help the others. Was Lieutenant Steele still alive? Only one way to find out. He started down the steep path.

He came even with Ingram, who was clinging to a bush, struggling to keep his balance as he swung his rifle around. Like Deke, he was trying to figure out where the shot that had hit Lieutenant Steele had come from.

Ingram started to say, “Hey, I think—”

His head jerked back and he stared at Deke, startled. Deke saw the blood and realized that Ingram had been shot through the throat.

Ingram sat down in the bushes. He was still alive but unable to speak.

He made a sound like gwaak, gwaak as air wheezed in and out through the gaping hole.

Deke didn’t have anything to press against the wound other than his small gauze pack. Ingram needed bandages, and quick, if they were going to stop the bleeding. He glanced down the slope. Egan was carrying most of their medical supplies — the closest thing that Patrol Easy had to a medic. Right now, Egan was struggling to get himself and the dog to the bottom of the ravine.

“I’ll be right back,” Deke said. “Hang in there.”

Ingram nodded silently, blood staining his chest. It didn’t look good. Deke would have to hurry.

Another bullet snapped past.

Deke slipped and slid the rest of the way down the path, and the next thing he knew, he was falling.

He landed in a heap not far from Philly and scrambled for cover.

“Took you long enough,” Philly said.

“You OK?”

“My ass is sore, but nobody shot me yet.”

“Ingram is hit pretty bad. I’ve got to get some bandages back up to him. What about the lieutenant?”

Philly shook his head. They could both see that the lieutenant hadn’t moved. Deke felt something hollow in his soul. A spark of something else was glowing, too, deep down in him. He realized it was rage, just like when poor Ben had been shot.

Deke tamped down his feelings like jamming a ramrod down a barrel. Ain’t no time for that.

He checked his rifle. Deke had taken a pretty good tumble down the slope, but at least the rifle and scope seemed all right. They were still taking fire from a handful of Japanese who seemed to be hidden in the tall grass on the hill above them. Deke fired, hoping that he’d hit something. In response, bullets ripped the air over Deke’s head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement and ducked. But it was only Philly, who had stood up and hurled a grenade in the direction of where the Japanese down in the ravine were hidden. It was becoming clear that Patrol Easy had walked right into a trap.

“Down!” Philly said, pushing Deke toward the ground.

Seconds later, the “pineapple” grenade went off, scattering its chunks of shrapnel through the Japanese hidden in the grass. They heard screams. Philly hurled another grenade for good measure and heard more screams. The enemy stopped firing.

For all Philly’s complaining and wisecracking, Deke thought that he was a damn fine soldier when he needed to be. He couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather be fighting alongside. But now wasn’t exactly the time for praise. It was a time for action.

“We need to get out of this ravine and up the other side,” Deke said. “We’re sitting ducks down here.”

“I won’t argue.”

“Go on,” Deke said. “Get the others out of here. Don’t wait for me.”

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Ingram was hit. I need to go back and see if I can do anything for him.”

He looked around and found Egan, crouching next to Yoshio. They both had their carbines trained on the hill above, but from down here, he was sure that they didn’t have a prayer of hitting anything. Their best chance was to follow Philly out of the ravine.

He got some bandages from Egan and started back up the slippery path, which forced him to sling his rifle once again and crawl up the slope, digging in his knees and the tips of his boots to keep from sliding back down into the ravine.

A bullet smacked into the hill beside him.

Nope, I ain’t got a lick of sense.

He kept going.

From the hillside high above the ravine, Okubo had watched the Americans draw closer. He allowed himself a rare smile. The foolish enemy soldiers were walking right into a trap, just as he’d hoped that they would.

“Do you see that, Private Kimura?” he asked. “These gaijin are like chickens, and we are the foxes.”

Beside him, Private Kimura bobbed his head nervously, not looking at all like a fox. “Hai.”

Okubo had fewer than a dozen soldiers with him. Their goal was to watch the Japanese perimeter. Until now, they had seen no American troops.

This must be a scouting party, he thought. The bulk of the Americans had not moved far beyond the beachhead that they had established. Okubo knew this because he had seen it with his own eyes — the Japanese had their own scouts.

After the disastrous banzai attack, Okubo and Kimura had withdrawn with the survivors. Not long after that, he had heard that General Takashina had been killed. The bad news just seemed to compound. But the truth was that the Japanese still had several thousand troops on the island, ready to fight until the end. He thought back to Guadalcanal, when there had been at least some effort at evacuation. But the Japanese Navy could no longer mount such an operation after the battering it had received. At most, there were a few small boats and seaplanes available — hardly enough to transport thousands of troops to safety in the middle of the Pacific.

He counted a handful of men and a dog. More than anything, the Japanese hated the dogs. It wasn’t that they feared them; it was that the use of dogs signaled that the Japanese were seen as quarry to be hunted down, no better than wild pigs or rabbits. The Japanese ought to know — they had used war dogs to terrorize the Chinese and Koreans.

“Hmmph,” Okubo grunted. “I would shoot that dog now if it did not mean springing my trap too soon.”

“I do not like the dogs,” Private Kimura agreed.

Turning his attention back to the Americans, Okubo noted that most of the men wore helmets, but one of the soldiers had a broad-brimmed hat with one side pinned up, similar to the American sniper he had encountered back at the disastrous banzai attack. In Okubo’s mind, such hats were equated with foreigners, and possibly cowboys. Japanese did not wear such hats.

A thought came to him. Could it be the same man from the earlier fight? Okubo knew it was foolish, but a part of him wished that it was. In that case, at last, he may have found a worthy adversary. Not since Guadalcanal had he encountered a really good enemy marksman. Having a worthy opponent would make defeating the American sniper that much more satisfying.

However, Okubo frowned as he watched the party approach. Already, he thought that he might be disappointed. The Americans had not seen the decoys in the ravine.

But then he saw the soldier with the broad-brimmed hat raise his rifle and fire. He thought it must be the same sniper, after all. He had been the first to spot the decoys and react.

The enemy sniper fired twice, and Okubo saw two of his own men tumble to the ground. He was a little taken aback by the American sniper’s accuracy.

Okubo sensed that the men around him wanted to open fire and avenge their slain comrades. “Hold your fire,” he hissed. He was thinking of his own soldiers hidden in the grass down in the ravine, lying in wait. “The trap is not yet completely sprung.”

Sure enough, the Americans began working their way down the steep path into the ravine. There wasn’t much cover down there, and they made easy targets.

He saw a man who looked like the leader prodding one of the Japanese bodies with a shotgun. Was the man an officer? So much the better.

It was time to spring the trap.

Okubo put his sights on the leader’s helmet and fired.