CHAPTER EIGHT

Deke woke early enough to watch the streaks of morning light fill the sky. He couldn’t say exactly what had woken him so early. Something tugged at his mind, maybe the remnants of a dream or possibly a premonition, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. His rifle lay right beside him, within easy reach.

He did know that he had woken up with his hand clenched tightly around his new knife. He gave the knife in his hand a rueful smile. The war was supposed to be over on Guam, more or less. But the jungle was still full of Jap infiltrators who would be more than happy to sneak up and cut your throat while you slept. One thing about the Japs — they loved to operate at night.

There was no going back to sleep, so he sat up and watched the morning arrive. If he’d been a smoker, this would have been a good time for a cigarette. Instead, he took a deep breath of the fresh, salty air that had just blown in across several thousand miles of ocean. He welcomed the clear air, now that the burial details had cleared most of the dead Japanese away.

You had to give the Pacific Ocean its due, he thought — it was hard to think of anyplace else on earth with such spectacular sunrises, starting with a slow dawn that filled an endless horizon with all the soft colors of mother of pearl. The softness did not last long. Soon, the rising sun burst above the sea: hot, sharp, angry, red. It was no wonder that the Empire of Japan had chosen the rising sun for its symbol. In the Pacific, the rising sun looked both beautiful and powerful.

Any soldier loved the sight of morning. It meant that the dangers of the night had passed. Fear of the dark was a survival mechanism as old as humanity itself. There might be new terrors or challenges with the arrival of daylight, but at least he could see them coming.

He noticed that Yoshio was also awake, watching the sky.

“Beautiful, ain’t it?” Deke said quietly. He wouldn’t have said anything about the sunrise to Philly, but Yoshio had more of what Deke would have called a poetic disposition.

“Sure is,” Yoshio replied, although it went without saying. “It’s hard to believe that Japan controls everything between here and that sunrise.”

“Not for long,” Deke pointed out.

“That’s why we’re here,” Yoshio agreed.

Nearby, they heard Philly stir and groan. “Will you two shut it? I need my beauty sleep.”

“Then you might as well get up,” Deke said. “You’re gonna need more than a few minutes to sleep off that much ugly.”

“You are one mean hillbilly,” Philly said, and rolled over.

* * *

Two hours later, they were eating a breakfast made from powdered eggs that nobody wanted to taste too much, washing breakfast down along with some brownish, lukewarm water that was allegedly coffee. The lukewarm eggs made Deke miss those country breakfasts from his boyhood that much more, with fresh eggs, ham, or even white gravy and biscuits. Now that was eating. His family hadn’t had much money, but on a farm, there was usually enough to eat. Except when your Pa died, and then there wasn’t.

“Whoever figured out how to take a perfectly good egg and turn it into powder ought to be shot,” Philly said.

“I’ll give you the bullet,” Rodeo said.

“You know what I’d like right now? A big danish and a decent cup of coffee,” Philly added.

Deke had gone hungry enough times as a boy that he wasn’t about to complain about the food, bad as it was, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “You know what I’d like? A big slab of Virginia ham on a fresh biscuit. Now that’s good eatin’ right there.”

“You know what? That does sound better than a danish,” Philly agreed. He looked at the few bites of reconstituted eggs left on his plate, sighed, and shoveled them down resolutely. They had all learned that you never knew where your next meal was coming from, so you didn’t leave anything on your plate if you could help it.

They were just finishing up when Lieutenant Steele called them over to where he stood under one of the camouflage nets that had been erected to create mottled shade against the tropical sun.

“All right, everybody grab a seat. You’ll want to be sitting down when you hear what I’m about to say.”

Once again, the lieutenant’s face appeared just as grim as it had yesterday when he had returned from receiving their orders. He seemed to study them all one by one with his good eye. The right eye that he had lost on Guadalcanal was covered by the leather patch that Deke had fashioned for him out of boot leather. The wound would have been enough to send Steele home, but he had stubbornly insisted upon staying in the fight. How he had swung that was anybody’s guess. He either had friends in high places — or maybe enemies.

The look he was giving them with his one good eye this morning was enough to indicate that he clearly had some bad news to deliver.

One by one, Deke studied the others: Philly, Yoshio, Rodeo, Alphabet, and Egan. Together, they made a good team. They had already been through thick and thin on Guam as Patrol Easy. They had lost one man, killed by the Japanese marksman that Deke had nicknamed the “Samurai Sniper.” That sniper had managed to slip away with the small number of Japanese troops who had evacuated from the island. Most of the rest, thousands and thousands as a matter of fact, had perished at the hands of US forces.

They had also lost Egan’s dog, Whoa Nelly. The military had sent specially trained dogs to Guam to sniff out Japanese pillboxes and warn against infiltrators. The dogs had been so effective that they were particularly hated by the Japanese, and even targeted by enemy snipers. Sadly, at least sixty military dogs had died in the fighting, Egan’s dog among them.

Whoa Nelly had died protecting him from a Japanese soldier who had ambushed them in the ruins of a village near Yigo, in some of the last major fighting on the island. Deke wasn’t entirely sure that a dog equaled a person, but like most country people, he thought that a good dog came awfully close. Egan was still waiting to be assigned a new dog. For now, he was still attached to Patrol Easy.

They took seats on discarded jerricans and ammunition boxes. Philly plunked himself down directly on the sand like a beach bum. They watched Steele expectantly, waiting for him to drop the bomb.

“What gives, Honcho?” Philly asked.

“Hold your horses. I’m not the one who is going to be filling you in.”

As it turned out, the lieutenant was not going to be the bearer of bad news. They looked up as another officer approached. Although he was an army officer, he was accompanied by two marines who stopped well short of the shaded netting as the officer went on alone. To their surprise, the officer wasn’t anyone that they recognized. Although nobody had a pristine uniform at this point, and the tropical heat and humidity was taking its toll on everyone, it was clear that this officer hadn’t been slogging around the jungles. He must be some kind of staff officer.

They got to their feet, but the officer waved them back down.

“As you were,” he said. “I’m Major Berger, from General Bruce’s staff.” Considering that General Bruce was the division commander, this went up the food chain a lot higher than any of them had expected. Deke found himself leaning forward out of curiosity so that he wouldn’t miss a word.

The major continued, “Lieutenant Steele here will give you the details shortly, but I wanted to tell you men that you are being asked to take part in a mission of utmost importance. Before I get started with the briefing, is there anything that you want to say, Lieutenant?”

Utmost importance. They all knew what that meant, and it wasn’t anything good. Philly muttered something under his breath but clammed up when Lieutenant Steele shot him a look.

The lieutenant then took the opportunity to say a few words.

“Fellas, I should tell you that this mission would normally be something that Army Rangers would be doing, but they’ve been a little busy, like the rest of us,” Steele said. “General Bruce volunteered us, saying that his boys can do anything the Rangers can do.”

They all knew that the Rangers were typically doing unimaginable things like sneaking in ahead of everyone else or scaling cliffs just to fight a battle at the top. Famously, it was Army Rangers who had helped capture the beach at Normandy.

In other words, this was stuff that you’d have to be crazy to do. Crap. It wasn’t much of a pep talk. Lieutenant Steele turned it back over to the major.

The major continued, “Thank you, Lieutenant. You know that we are fighting our way across this big damn ocean, hopping from island to island, getting closer to Japan all the time. Mainly, it’s the airfields that we need. Each airfield that’s closer to Japan will make it that much easier for us to drop bombs on Hirohito’s head.”

“Sir, I thought that we had captured all the airfields on Guam,” Philly blurted out. He might have asked more if the lieutenant hadn’t glared at him again.

“Not Guam. Not just an airfield,” the major replied. “An island. We don’t want to give more details than you need to know at this time. Let’s just say that you can’t share any details with anyone.”

“Top secret, sir?” Philly asked.

Before the major could answer, Lieutenant Steele interrupted. “What the major is saying is that you need to keep your damn mouth shut, Philly. Think you can do that from here on out?”

“Yes, sir.”

The major continued, but not before Lieutenant Steele had gone to stand beside Philly like a teacher who had singled out a troublesome student. “You may have heard the rumors that our next operation is going to be the invasion of the Philippines. Well, you heard right. The plan is to land on Leyte, which is one of the Philippine islands. I know that’s hardly a secret at this point. It’s probably where you’ve been expecting to go. That’s where we’ll start the business of taking back the Philippines, which the Japs captured from us right after Pearl Harbor. General MacArthur vowed to be back, and he meant it.

“The Japanese are not going to let us just stroll onto Leyte, of course,” the officer continued. “They have had months and months to build up their defenses, which are quite formidable, I have to say. You’ve had some experience with that here on Guam, I know. Our intelligence indicates that they have done a much better job on Leyte — which is to say, it’s going to be a lot worse.”

Philly opened his mouth but clamped it shut when Steele nudged him none too gently with the toe of his boot.

“The Japanese had built the usual dugouts and spider holes for snipers,” the major said. “But what really concerns us is their artillery. In fact, the Japanese have installed a battery of naval guns that gives them tremendous reach and firepower. Basically, it would be a suicide mission for the invasion fleet.”

Now it was the lieutenant’s turn to ask a question. “Can’t the flyboys knock out those guns, sir? Or the navy?”

“They’ve tried, all right. But we just can’t reach them. The bunker where those guns are hidden is just about impregnable. Nobody can get to it from the air. I’m afraid that the only way to get to them is to send in a demolition team. We intend to sabotage those guns, basically to destroy them one way or another. If we don’t, it’s going to be a slaughter when our landing fleet gets within range.”

Lieutenant Steele spoke up. “With all due respect, sir, my boys are marksmen, not demolition experts.”

“Don’t worry about that, Lieutenant. I know that you and your men bushwhacked your way through the jungle here, dodged the Japanese, and somehow came out the other side. Those are the skills we want from you and your men. We’ll have someone else take care of setting the charges.”

He waved over the marines. Deke couldn’t help but notice that one marine was quite tall, while the other was shorter and broad as a barrel.

As they stepped closer to the dappled shade where the briefing was taking place, it became clear that these were the same marines they had run into earlier — the ones who had taken the last bottles of soda ahead of Deke and Philly.

“Just great,” muttered Philly, who had also recognized the two marines.

“I know it’s a little unusual,” the major stated. “But these are the best demolitions experts that we could come up with on short notice. They just happen to be United States Marines. They will be under your orders, Lieutenant.” Addressing the men, he added, “Now I will turn it over to Lieutenant Steele to give you the details.”

That said, the major made his exit, leaving the two marines behind. For a moment, Steele simply watched the major walking away, looking as if he might want to leave with him. The silence was broken by Philly.

“What are those details, Honcho?” he asked.

Quickly, Steele filled them in. The plan was for them to go in ahead of the main landing force, knock out the guns, and then be extracted. Rumor had it that there might even be friendly Filipino guerrillas to help them out, but running into the right guys would depend on pure luck. There was no means to communicate with any of the guerrilla forces. Finally, if extraction wasn’t possible, then they were to wait until the actual landing — easier said than done.

“You mean, hide out on an island full of angry Japanese?”

“That’s about the size of it, Philly.” Steele looked around. “You all heard the major. This isn’t going to be some cakewalk. Just the opposite. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that none of us will be getting off that island alive. I want to make it clear that this is a volunteer-only mission. If anyone doesn’t want to go, you don’t have to go.”

Quickly, Patrol Easy was on its feet. As if on cue, each one of them took a step forward — even the marines.

“You can count on us, Honcho.”

“I knew that’s how it would be, but I had to ask,” Steele said.

The lieutenant was interrupted by the arrival of a courier. While he was off to one side reading the message, Philly took the opportunity to get acquainted with the marines.

“You two, huh? How’d you like that soda pop?”

“I’ve got to say it was pretty good. It’s a shame that you didn’t get any.”

“I’ll bet. You two must have seriously pissed somebody off to end up on this mission.”

“Well, you know, it’s just like the army to call the marines when there’s a job to get done.”

“Very funny. You guys have names?”

“Cal Hartley,” said the tall one. “This ugly one here is Beryl Watts.”

“Pleasure,” Beryl said.

“Beryl?” Philly snorted. “Isn’t that a lady’s name?”

Beryl glared, clearly unhappy that Philly was giving him flack about his name.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be too quick to kid Beryl about his name,” the tall marine warned. “The last guy who did that is still looking for his teeth. Come to think of it, I might have helped.”

“You marines don’t scare me. We can see what’s what right here and now.”

Cal was taking Philly’s measure. He had a good six inches on him, and at least thirty pounds. He smiled down at him. “Nah, you’re not worth it. None of you guys could scare my grandma, except maybe him.” He jerked his chin in Deke’s direction. “Now that one, I’ll keep my eye on.”

“Why him?” Philly sounded offended. “I’m bigger than he is!”

“You don’t want to mess with him, that’s why. With scars like that, he’s got to be a mean son of a bitch.”

Deke just shrugged. He was sick and tired of hearing about his scars.

“Never mind about him,” Philly said. “It’s me you ought to worry about, tough guy.”

“Yeah?”

Philly and the tall marine stood there glaring at each other.

Steele returned before things turned any uglier.

“Knock it off, Philly,” he said, then turned to the two marines. “Listen, I know you two don’t want to be here any more than we want you here. But as long as you two pull your weight, we won’t have any problems.”

“It’s not us we’re worried about, sir.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Good to know,” Lieutenant Steele said through clenched teeth. “I can see that we’re all going to get along like gin and tonic. Now we’ve got two days before we ship out for Leyte. I plan to spend them training. We’ll start with a shakedown hike tomorrow morning.”

Philly groaned. “Is it too late to unvolunteer?”

“I hate to tell you this, Philly, but the fun is just beginning,” Steele said.

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