CHAPTER TWELVE

Leyte, Philippines

The rest of the voyage to the shores of Leyte was mostly filled by days of boredom, mixed with a few moments of terror whenever there was a scare about a Jap plane or sub. Sure, these squids slept in a bunk and ate three squares a day, but it was hard to forget that at any moment they could end up feeding the sharks if the Japs got lucky with a torpedo.

Finally, the monotony broke when Lieutenant Steele gathered them together on deck.

“Here we are, boys,” Steele announced. He pointed toward the west. All that they could see was more endless ocean. “Leyte is just over there.”

“What, is it invisible?” Philly wondered. “I don’t see a thing.”

Steele shook his head, then assured them that while land was nowhere in sight, Leyte was just over the horizon. The horizon was currently being churned by large waves that caused the deck to roll — a feeling that Deke was never going to get used to, no matter how much time he spent at sea. He definitely had granite running through his veins, not salt water.

They were launching in less-than-ideal conditions, but their timetable didn’t give them the luxury of waiting for calmer seas. Night was falling, and the men were not pleased that they would be landing in the dark, but that was their best hope of making it to shore undetected.

“We can’t go in any closer,” Steele explained. “That big gun that we’re trying to knock out would send this destroyer straight to the bottom. The captain tells me that the ship may already be in range, but that the Japs may not want to reveal more than they have to at this point. In any case, he doesn’t want to make it any easier for the Japs to sink him than he has to.”

“If he knows where the Japs are, why the hell doesn’t he drop some shells on their heads? That’s what I’d like to know. This floating tin can has plenty of firepower.”

“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re trying to get ashore without letting the whole Japanese army know about it. Opening fire on them right now wouldn’t be very smart, now would it? We don’t want to ring the doorbell.”

Instead of the destroyer itself, a smaller launch was taking them in to shore. The craft was piloted by a single sailor. To Deke’s surprise, he recognized the gruff petty officer that he had seen on deck. The man had the air of an old salt about him and hadn’t been overly friendly toward the ship’s “passengers,” but he had volunteered to pilot the launch. “I figured that I’d take you in myself,” he said. “That way, you’ll have a chance of making it to shore.”

Skilled though the petty officer might be, the smaller boat still bucked and bobbed in the swell. He did manage to keep the launch tight against the sides of the much larger destroyer as the men of Patrol Easy climbed down the ladder and dropped the last few feet into the boat.

Deke was the third man over the side, following Lieutenant Steele and Philly. He concentrated on handholds and footholds as he made his way down the ladder. It wasn’t at all like climbing the ladder to fix the barn roof, but just two ropes with wooden slats in between. At first glance, descending the ladder looked like an easy enough task, and maybe it was for a man unencumbered by equipment. At five foot ten with a lean build, Deke wasn’t a big man, but he was solid as a locust fence post. That was a good thing, because he soon found his body being pounded against the steel sides of the ship.

The pack on his back created an awkward weight trying to pull him off the ladder. It didn’t help that the motion of the ship caused the ladder to sway like a pendulum. One moment he was swinging into space, and the next he was slamming back against the side of the ship. It seemed to Deke that the hardest part of the whole damn mission might be getting off this ship in one piece.

His foot slipped off and he frantically sought for a new foothold, his heart hammering. If he slipped, Deke knew that he would plunge right into the ocean. The weight of his gear would take him straight down to the bottom. Some of the sailors had rather gleefully informed him that the ocean here was more than a mile deep — a fact that he didn’t need to know.

If he could have picked the last place on earth that he wanted to be right now, his current situation would have been near the top of that list. Deke wasn’t afraid of much, but he hated anything to do with the ocean. Give him dry land any day.

As if the ladder wasn’t bad enough, the final challenge was to drop the last few feet into the launch itself. For whatever reason, the ladder stopped short of the water. Couldn’t those navy bastards have added a few rungs?

Deke glanced below him. The sea made the small launch bob wildly.

“That last step is a doozy,” warned Philly, who had come down the ladder just ahead of him. “Wait for it… hold on… now!”

Deke let go and tumbled into the launch, landing in a heap. It wasn’t pretty, but at least he hadn’t gotten wet. Nothing seemed to be broken.

Aboard the launch, they had no choice but to squat shoulder to shoulder on the small deck.

“I’ve seen bathtubs that are bigger than this boat,” Deke muttered.

“Good. You didn’t want us to be a bigger target for the Japs, did you?”

If Deke had a tough time of it due to his pack, he realized that he had little reason to complain when he saw Rodeo climbing down with the added weight of the radio that would be their lifeline to the fleet once they were ashore. Even so, the radio would be at the outer limits of its range. Their best hope would be to broadcast from higher elevations.

That was, if Rodeo even made it off the ship in one piece. As the destroyer fell into the trough of a wave, the ladder swung wildly, far over their heads. As the ship righted itself, Rodeo slammed hard against the steel sides. They heard him curse mightily before continuing down the ladder.

Yoshio followed. He was by far the smallest and lightest of them all, and he climbed down nimbly.

Next, the satchel charges that they would use to blow up the Japanese installation were lowered down. They all held their breath when the charges bounced hard against the side of the ship.

“Easy!” Lieutenant Steele shouted.

They all breathed again once the explosives were safely stowed aboard the launch.

The marines climbed down last. Bat was surprisingly agile for a big, gangly guy. When the ladder swung him far out to sea, he whooped with delight, like he was on a ride at the county fair. Ball was just the opposite, seeming to be pure deadweight on the ladder. He dropped the last few feet and landed in a heap that made even Deke’s arrival in the launch look graceful.

“That’s everybody,” Steele said.

The petty officer nodded curtly. He had been doing his best to keep the launch pinned against the side of the massive ship so that the soldiers could drop into the boat without getting the launch crushed in the process. He reversed the motor and backed away from the destroyer. He swung the bow around, checked his compass, and then headed due west toward where the land was supposed to be.

For now, there was only open water in sight — or as far as they could see on the starlit sea, at least. Deke gazed back almost regretfully toward the ship. From a distance, the roll of the ship in the big Pacific waves wasn’t even noticeable. USS Ingersoll looked like a small steel island.

Nonetheless, Deke was glad to get off the destroyer and to be heading for land, but at the moment they seemed to be on a very small boat on a very big ocean. Deke appreciated the fact that the salty old pilot seemed completely at ease as he worked the wheel, trying to dodge the biggest of the waves.

If the men had pictured racing toward shore under the cover of night, they were sadly mistaken. The launch made steady progress, but the petty officer was trying to avoid going so fast that he would cause a wake. Even the wake from a small boat, luminous on the dark surface of the sea, was enough to alert the watchful Japanese of their presence.

Given the heavy seas and the distance involved, any number of things could go wrong, but the occupants of the cramped launch had no choice but to say their prayers and hope for the best. The few words of conversation they attempted felt hollow, swept away by the wind into the vastness of the dark ocean around them.

“Here we come,” Philly said. “I hope the Japanese are ready for us.”

“Don’t you mean that you’re hoping that they’re not ready?” Deke asked.

“What I mean is that I hope their bunker is done so we can blow it up good and proper.”

“So you’re hoping the Japs have done a good job building that bunker?”

“What am I, a politician? Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”

They fell quiet after that, the only sound coming from the motor and the bow of the launch cutting through the water. The plan was to get Patrol Easy to shore under cover of darkness. Once the men were ashore, the boat would be making its way back to the Ingersoll. The boat would return for them in daylight, though, at noon on the second day, giving them roughly thirty-six hours to get the job done. If they needed more time, or an earlier extraction, they could contact the ship using the radio they were bringing along.

However, their time frame was limited. Not only that, but how long could they possibly hope to dodge the Japanese, who would surely be looking for them? If they didn’t succeed, the big guns would still be there to greet the troops who came ashore a few days hence.

“I see it!” Yoshio said excitedly, pointing west.

“You must be eating your carrots,” Philly replied. “I don’t see a damn thing.”

Deke squinted. Yoshio was right; there was a darker smudge on the horizon that could only be land. As the launch closed the gap, details began to emerge. A white line of surf seemed to glow in the distance. Above, a dark promontory loomed. This must be what had been dubbed Hill 522, on account of it being exactly that many feet high. This was where the Japanese ship-killer battery was supposed to be hidden.

The pilot began to cut back on the throttle as they came closer to land. With any luck, the breeze would carry the sound of the motor back out to sea before the Japs could figure out what was going on. If they were met at the shoreline by a Japanese patrol or if, God forbid, that big gun opened fire, the mission would be over before it even started.

“I can’t take you all the way in,” the pilot said. “The coral would tear the bottom right out of this boat. But I’ll get you in as close as possible.”

Lieutenant Steele nodded. “Do what you can.”

Close to shore, the pilot cut the motor to a whisper, then shut it off completely, relying on the momentum of the boat to glide them over the water. Deke looked down and saw coral glowing up at him through the water, no more than a few feet below the surface. The coral appeared to have some sort of natural phosphorescence. It might have been beautiful, if he hadn’t been aware that the tropical coral was sharp enough to shred the hull and cut any bare feet or hands that came in contact with it.

Soon they could hear waves crashing ahead, where the coral created shallows that the boat couldn’t cross. The foaming white line of surf was visible in the night. Just beyond the edge of the reef lay a wide beach that was their ultimate destination.

“That’s as close as I can get,” said the pilot, who still guided the drifting launch toward the shallows where the waves churned. His hands were poised over the controls, ready to nudge the motor back into life if he needed to.

“All right, boys, this is where we get off,” the lieutenant said. “For God’s sake, try not to drown on the way in.”

As it turned out, the lieutenant had not issued an idle warning. From the launch, the water hadn’t seemed all that deep, and the waves hadn’t looked all that big. However, once they were in the water, it was a different story. They splashed into the sea, their boots on the coral shelf. The tricky part was getting through the surf line where the waves were breaking.

Deke barely heard the pilot’s gruff voice say as if to himself, “Godspeed.” Then the motor kicked into life, the bow turned toward the sea, and the launch glided smoothly away into deeper water, leaving them behind in the churning surf.

It was now up to each man whether he lived or drowned. Sea-foam and salt water filled Deke’s nostrils and throat so that he gasped for air. In the darkness, it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the sea started, adding to his difficulties. He struggled to keep his boots under him as the current surged against his legs and waist. He held his rifle over his head, trying to keep it dry. Before leaving the ship, he had wrapped the entire rifle and scope in plastic, but he still didn’t want to take a chance of getting it wet, considering that they might find themselves in a fight as soon as they set foot on shore.

He stepped in a hole in the coral shelf and felt water surge to his armpits. Despite the tropical climate, the dark water felt cold. It would be a hell of a thing, he thought, to come across the whole damn ocean and drown within sight of shore.

He fought the urge to call out for help — which wouldn’t be coming, anyhow. The men around him were also doing their darnedest not to drown in the surf.

To make matters worse, Deke thought about how their silhouettes must have shown plainly against the backdrop of sky. It wasn’t an ideal situation. The sooner that they got to shore, the better.

He took another step, holding his breath, half expecting to sink in over his head, but, gratefully, he stepped out of the hole.

“Watch your step,” Deke whispered to Rodeo, who was right behind him.

Like Deke with his rifle, Rodeo was struggling to keep the radio out of the water. The precious radio was their only communications link. It, too, had been wrapped tightly in plastic. But the radio was a lot heavier than a rifle, not to mention ungainly, and Rodeo was a couple of inches shorter than Deke. When he stepped into the hole, it reached to his chin. Then a wave came in and Rodeo disappeared underwater. He still held the radio out of the water, but the weight of it was keeping him bogged down in the watery hole.

No one could blame him for what happened next. It was simple human nature. Rodeo’s survival instincts kicked in. He let go of the radio and struggled back up to the surface.

Realizing what he had done, Rodeo dove under and tried to retrieve the radio, which had sunk like a stone. Deke saw that he wasn’t coming back up. He cursed, waded back, and held his rifle out of the surf with his left hand while he groped in the water with his right. He grabbed hold of the back of Rodeo’s collar and dragged him to the surface.

They struggled across what remained of the coral reef and reached the shallow water of the beach, then made it to the sand, where they both collapsed, panting.

Steele came over, limping from where he had banged his knee on the coral. “What the hell happened?”

Rodeo still held on to the radio. He was muttering, “Please, please, please.” He tore off the plastic covering. Water ran out. Though intact, the radio was as dead as a drowned baby.

“I’m sorry, Honcho,” Rodeo sputtered. “I don’t even know what the hell happened.”

“No use crying over spilled milk,” Steele said. “Let’s just get the hell off this beach before somebody spots us and we have even bigger problems than a dead radio.”

If they had been vulnerable in the surf, then it went without saying that their dark silhouettes made even more obvious targets against the sand. If any Jap sentries spotted them, they’d be done for. Considering the intelligence reports that there were thousands of enemy troops stationed within a stone’s throw of the beach, to say that they were vastly outnumbered was an understatement.

Steele ran for the tree line, leading the men off the beach. He kept his shotgun ready — he hadn’t bothered to wrap it up in plastic. A twelve gauge could take a lot of abuse and still fire, even after being dunked in the ocean. Deke didn’t stop to unwrap the plastic from his sniper rifle but held the rifle in one hand and drew a pistol with the other.

Looking down, he could see the tracks that they were all leaving in the sand. It couldn’t be helped. If they were lucky, maybe the tide would come in and wash away the tracks. If not, some Jap patrol would find them in the morning.

Deke also took a quick glance upward, at the hill that rose high above the beach. Not a light showed up there. In the night, the hill was nothing more than a hulking darkness, as sinister as a natural feature of the landscape could be. Deke was reminded of mountains back home that were supposedly haunted — old wives’ tales to laugh about in the daylight and think twice about at night. This was their ultimate destination. Somewhere up there, the Japanese battery was hidden. The hill was located about a mile inland, so they sure as hell had a long way to go to get there.

For the first time, it began to dawn on Deke that maybe — just maybe — they had been given an impossible task.

But there was no time to dwell on that now. Deke put his head down and ran, which wasn’t easy in the deep sand. The lieutenant had managed to outpace them all. You had to hand it to Steele. Once again, he showed that he was in good shape, considering that he was the oldest one here. He was also a natural athlete. He’d gone easy on the cigarettes and scotch so that they didn’t affect his wind. He trotted across the sand on his long legs, forcing the rest of them to keep up.

Deke half expected to see the night light up with tracer fire, but so far all was quiet. Steele dashed into the cover offered by the trees, and the rest of the men followed.

Having reached cover, they fell to their knees, panting from the sheer effort of wading to shore and crossing that beach. In the backs of their minds, they were grateful for the shakedown hike that had been an effort to keep them in shape.

Safely hidden in the trees, they took stock. All of them had made it to shore, although Rodeo was still coughing up salt water after his attempt to rescue the radio. Yoshio had a deep gash on his leg from the coral. The two marines had managed to keep their explosives dry, which was good news.

“You should have let me carry that radio,” Bat said to Rodeo. “I wouldn’t have dropped the damn thing in the water.”

“Go to hell.”

“Yeah? I’ve got news for you. We were supposed to use that radio to call for a ride when we’re done with shoving these explosives up the ass of these Japanese.”

Steele had heard enough. “All right, can it. This isn’t the time for a blame game. Radio or not, there’s going to be a boat waiting for us in a day and a half. We just need to get the job done by then.”

But Bat wasn’t ready to let it go. Like everyone else, he knew that plans change. “Without the radio, what are we gonna do, sir? Shout at them?”

“I said that’s enough. And if you call me sir again, the only place those explosives are going is up your ass. You might as well put a target on my back for every Jap sniper to see when you call me that. Call me Honcho like everybody else.”

“Whatever you say, Honcho.”

“That’s more like it.” The lieutenant turned to Rodeo. “Any chance that thing might work once it dries out?”

Rodeo shook his head. “The salt water will have wrecked the electronics, Honcho.”

“All right. No sense lugging deadweight around or leaving that radio where the Japs might find it. Better bury it, then.”

Rodeo used his entrenching tool to quickly dig a hole in the sand. The metal blade struck a rock, and the grating noise seemed loud as a gunshot.

They all held their breath until the night insects resumed their song. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any Japanese ears in the vicinity.

“Jeez, why don’t you just send the Japs a telegram that we’re here?” Philly said.

“Sorry,” Rodeo replied, pulling sand over the dead radio.

“Now what, Honcho?”

“We were sent here to blow up those guns, so that’s just what we’re going to do.” He stood up and started through the jungle in the direction of the hill. “Let’s get to it.”

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