Rising Sniper

CHAPTER TWENTY

Given an opportunity to retreat, Deke and Philly ran like hell for the rendezvous point. The first leg meant getting off Hill 522 in one piece. Lucky for them, it was all downhill, first along the spine of the Y at the top of Hill 522, and then down the slope of the hill itself.

Not far behind them, they could hear shouts and small arms fire.

“Here they come!” Philly warned.

“Don’t look back. Just run.”

The blast from the bunker had startled the Japanese troops, but not for long. Murderous cries and gunshots followed them as they ran, with bullets clipping the air around them. They jumped into a trench for cover, ran down its length, and jumped back out, that much closer to the relative safety of the forest’s edge.

From their vantage point on the hill, they could easily spot the massive, dying tree that served as a landmark for the clearing in the forest where they had spent the night. That was where they were headed. The massive Philippine rosewood — known locally as a toog tree — towered above the rest of the jungle canopy. Scarred from lightning strikes, the gray, grizzled trunk stood out against the green forest surrounding it like a lighthouse on the shore. The old tree drew them now like a beacon.

Deke made the mistake of ignoring his own advice and looking back at the Japanese pursuing them. He could see several soldiers not more than a couple hundred feet away, led by an officer waving a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. There seemed to be no shortage of fanatical officers.

Beyond a doubt, he knew now what those Japs did with their swords. He could almost feel his neck itching. He shouldn’t have looked back.

They entered the cover of the forest and raced pell-mell through the trees, dodging the trunks like downhill skiers, propelled by fear and gravity. Bullets still followed them, but the shots went high, punching holes in the fronds of the big palm leaves overhead and raining green confetti on their heads.

Before entering the forest, Deke had gotten a glimpse of the landmark rosewood tree and held its position in his mind. He didn’t like their chances if they missed the rendezvous point. The jungle stretched beyond, so in its own way, it was a bit like trying to reach an island in the vastness of the Pacific.

He felt relieved that the sounds of the Japanese had faded somewhat. It was no wonder — he and Philly were running like madmen. At any moment, he was sure that one of them was going to fall and break his fool neck. But Deke sure as hell didn’t slow down.

Back when he’d been a boy on the farm, play and games had been rare. His ma and pa had seen play as a waste of time and energy. Why run around when you could haul water to the stock and split firewood? Still, that hadn’t stopped him and Sadie from playing fox and hound on occasion. It was a simple game in which he or his sister got a head start through the woods, while the other one gave chase. Sadie could track him as well as any boy — or grown man, for that matter. It wasn’t just about who could run the fastest and catch the other one, because they constantly came up with ways to give the other one the slip by disguising their tracks or leaving a false trail. She could also run like the wind, and there had been times when Deke was hard-pressed to catch her. That game always had been thrilling, but it was nothing compared to the game taking place now.

The sight and sound of all those Japs had given wings to Philly’s feet, Deke decided. For all his smoking, and despite his shorter legs, Philly managed to pull ahead — and sure enough, that city boy started to run in the wrong direction.

“This way!” Deke shouted, when Philly got off course at a ravine.

“You sure?” Philly didn’t look convinced. Wild eyed, he was about to run off in the wrong direction.

“Sure I’m sure.” Deke still had the picture of that big tree held in his head.

“All right, I’ll trust your redneck instincts out here in the boonies. But if you ever need to find a trolley station, let me know.”

After a few minutes of hard running, they burst into the clearing. The big tree stood just a few feet away. Deke hoped that they had somehow lost the Japanese.

But maybe he was wrong about that. No sooner had they quit running and stood bent over in the clearing, hands on knees, gasping for breath, than they heard someone crashing through the forest, coming right at them. Both men swung their rifles in that direction.

To their relief, it was Yoshio who came bursting from the jungle undergrowth.

“I’ll be damned, but you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Deke said.

“You’re lucky I didn’t plug you,” said Philly, finally lowering his rifle. “I thought you might be a Jap coming after us.”

Yoshio looked around. “Where are the others? Where’s Honcho?”

Deke shook his head. “No sign of ’em yet.”

“Do you think they made it?”

“Let’s give them some time. They were farther away than we were.”

“None of my Filipinos made it,” Yoshio said in disbelief. “Some were captured. They cut off their heads!”

“Yeah, we saw what happened to them.” Deke shook his head in disgust. “Damn Japs!”

From the forest, they heard the sounds of more men crashing through the trees, headed in their direction.

All three men swung their weapons toward the sounds, not sure if they were about to see friendly faces — or Japanese soldiers.

It hadn’t been easy taking out the gun battery. In fact, it had been a near thing. Just as Lieutenant Steele and the others had feared, the Japanese had been expecting them and were well prepared. A couple of machine guns had been set up to cover the approach to the cave that had been carved into the hillside, inside of which was the three-gun battery waiting to blast anything that moved out of Leyte Gulf — or out of the air, for that matter. In addition to the machine guns, there were at least two dozen soldiers spread out in rifle pits as well.

While those were ordinary riflemen, they couldn’t have known that one of the Jap’s best snipers, Sergeant Akio Ikeda, was positioned here as well, with his rifle covering the slope leading up to the cave mouth. Ikeda and his spotter were well hidden in a rifle pit, out of sight. Some of the men scattered throughout the trenches were his sniper trainees.

Something else that the Japanese probably hadn’t intended for them to see were the land mines directly in front of the bunker. If any attackers made it that far, the mines created one final line of defense. The Japanese probably thought that those mines would be a big surprise for any raiders. And they would have been, if Bat’s practiced eyes hadn’t picked out the tiny flags the Japanese had left to mark the mines for their own troops.

“You’ve got to hand it to the Japs. They thought of almost everything,” Lieutenant Steele said, looking over the defenses as he crouched in a nearby trench with the rest of Patrol Easy, the priest, and a handful of Filipino guerrillas. Most of the Filipinos had gone with Yoshio to join the diversion attack. “Then again, they didn’t think of absolutely everything.”

Father Francisco smiled. “The back door.”

“Exactly. You might say our prayers are answered, Padre.”

The very fact that they had reached this point undetected spoke to the reality that the Japanese were expecting any assault on the bunker to come front and center, up the hillside itself. It was just the direction that their attack yesterday had taken. What the enemy wasn’t expecting was an incursion from one side of the bunker — slightly behind it, in fact, where the supply trail emptied out near the summit of the hill. They definitely had Father Francisco to thank for letting them know about that route.

If the Japanese did have any worries about the supply trail, they probably figured that their sentries had it covered. The only problem was that Deke had taken out the sentry at the bottom of the hill, and a similar fate had befallen another sentry at the hands of one of the Filipino guerrillas.

Even so, it wouldn’t have taken much for the defenders to shift their machine guns and their rifles to meet an attack from another direction.

That was where the diversion led by Yoshio had come in. Deke and Philly would also play a role, with Deke picking off as many Japs as he could and sowing confusion. One thing for sure, Honcho had been glad that he wouldn’t be the one in Deacon Cole’s rifle sights. That farm boy could shoot.

“Sit tight, everybody,” Honcho whispered. “Let’s wait for the show to begin down there.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Bat asked. The marine looked pale — it was clear that his wounded shoulder had been causing him some pain.

“It will work, all right,” Honcho said confidently. He added more quietly, “Because it has to.”

Any plan was bound to fall apart, but if and when it did, you had to improvise. Lieutenant Steele wasn’t entirely sure what their plan B would end up being if it came to that, so he hoped to hell that the diversion involving Yoshio and the Filipino guerrillas, and Deke and Philly, was going to work.

When he heard the shooting begin on the slope below, he felt an enormous sense of relief. It also meant that it was time for him and his team to hold up their end of the bargain.

“All right, boys,” he said. “It’s showtime. Bat, Ball, you two get that satchel charge into the bunker.”

“I dunno, Honcho. It’s maybe gonna take more than that to knock out those guns.”

“Then get in there and figure it out,” he said impatiently. “You two are the demolition experts. The rest of us will cover you.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

Ball was carrying the satchel charge, but Bat held up several grenades that he had strung together. They dangled from his big hands like bunches of steel fruit.

“What’s that?”

“That’s me figuring it out.”

Lieutenant Steele waved a hand, and the patrol moved forward. The bunker entrance loomed ahead. Closer, closer. He could see Japanese troops scurrying around inside. What they were up to was anybody’s guess.

Approaching one of the Nambu nests, he leveled his twelve gauge. Incredibly, they were only a few yards away. The Japs were so focused on the sounds of combat from down the slope that none of them paid any attention to the crouching forms running at them from the rear.

Honcho pulled the trigger of the shotgun. Boom!

Quickly, Rodeo, Alphabet, and the handful of Filipinos spread out and opened fire. There were not enough of them to overwhelm the bunker defenses, but all they needed was a little time.

“Go! Go!” Honcho shouted at Bat and Ball.

The two marines went running straight up the middle, headed for the bunker entrance. It was like they were running a football play, heading for the end zone. The image was helped by the sight of Ball running with the satchel charge tucked under one arm like a football.

Yesterday, the sniper had winged Bat just as he’d been about to throw the satchel, messing up his toss. The charge had bounced off the mouth of the cave. They didn’t plan on making the same mistake today.

Somehow, the men had managed to dodge the mines. Bat held back and crouched to one side of the cave entrance while Ball dashed inside, surprising the hell out of the Japanese troops within. He hurled the satchel deep into the bunker, then turned on a dime and raced back out, throwing himself to one side of the bunker entrance as he did so.

Steele could see the shock wave like a clear bubble pushing out of the bunker’s mouth. Even so, he wasn’t prepared for the deafening blast. Dirt and grit scoured his face. As if through a dusty curtain, he could hear muffled screaming from the poor Jap bastards who had been caught inside the bunker when the satchel charge went off.

The marines had done good, he thought. But apparently, they were not finished. Bat and Ball went running back into the swirling dirt and dust inside the bunker, rather than away from it.

What the hell? Then Steele thought about those bunches of grenades that Bat had carried, and he had an inkling of what the two planned to do. They were going to spike the guns, just in case the satchel charge hadn’t been enough.

It was likely that neither man had planned on making it back out, but Steele would be damned if he was going to leave them behind. He pumped the shotgun and fired at the nearest Jap who dared to stick his head up after the blast.

Boom!

Around him, the others kept up a withering fire when they should have been beating it out of there toward the rendezvous point. He glanced at the cave entrance but didn’t see anything but more smoke. What the hell was taking Bat and Ball so long?

He fired again and again. Boom! Boom!

Then the shotgun shucked out the last empty shell.

Before Steele had a chance to reload, Bat and Ball came barreling out of the bunker. The sounds of the explosions that chased them out were anticlimactic, sounding more like a firecracker going off inside a pipe compared to the massive blast earlier. But judging by the grins on the marines’ faces, it had been enough.

“Go!” Steele shouted. “Everybody go!”

They beat a hasty retreat back around the bunker to the supply trail. A couple of the Filipino guerrillas had been killed, but otherwise everyone was none the worse for wear. It was time to head for the rendezvous and maybe, just maybe, there would be a boat waiting for them back down at the beach.

Twenty minutes later, Deke lowered his rifle when he saw that it was Lieutenant Steele who had burst out of the forest and into the clearing. Upon spotting friendly faces, Steele lowered his shotgun.

“I never thought I’d say it, but you guys are a sight for sore eyes. Or sore eye, in my case.”

“We were afraid you might be Japs,” Philly said.

“I have a feeling they aren’t far behind.”

More men entered the clearing. First came Rodeo and Alphabet, followed by a handful of Filipinos, and finally Father Francisco.

The priest’s gaze swept over the American soldiers, then around the clearing, searching for the men who weren’t there. “What happened to the local men?” he asked.

The lieutenant’s questioning gaze fell upon Deke, Philly, and Yoshio, who shook their heads in the negative.

“I’m sorry, Padre. It looks like your men didn’t make it.”

“None of them?”

Deke felt for the priest, who suddenly looked forlorn, standing there in his tattered cassock, in the middle of a jungle clearing, in the shadow of the dying rosewood tree. In places they could still see charred patches where those dead men had built their cooking fires that morning, some of them with wives or children they would never be returning to.

He spoke up. “They didn’t die for nothing, though. They bought us the time we needed to take out those guns. They were the real heroes today.”

He wasn’t going to add that some of them had died from having their heads cut off by the Japanese. The priest didn’t necessarily need to know that part — not at the moment, anyhow.

The priest nodded, then made the sign of the cross.

They had no time to mourn the dead, however. Not if the living hoped to stay that way.

“All right, let’s get the hell out of here,” Honcho said. “We gave the Japs a real gut punch this morning, but they aren’t going to stay down for long. You know the Japs. They keep coming no matter what.”

There were a few items in the clearing that the priest wanted to retrieve, considering that he likely wouldn’t be able to return once the Japanese started beating the bushes for the raiders. While he did that, Philly turned to Bat and Ball. “Did you really blow up those guns? I was starting to wonder if it was even possible.”

“We sure as hell did,” Bat said, looking pleased with himself. “Ball here shoved that satchel charge right down the Japs’ throat.”

“It went boom, all right,” Ball added. “I think we ended up exploding some of their munitions. But we were worried that the guns would come through all that, you know?”

“So we climbed up there and shoved a handful of grenades down the barrels for good measure. I’ve always wanted to try that to see what happened. Anyhow, it worked. It was like a firecracker going down your gullet.”

“It seemed to do the trick,” Ball agreed. “It was like a Boy Scout tied a knot inside those barrels.”

“It was a hell of a thing,” Steele said, clearly pleased. “Those guns shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

Deke was glad that the Jap sniper must have been too intent on his duel with Deke to pay the raiders any attention. In that regard, the diversion had certainly worked.

“What next?” he asked.

“Let’s get down to that beach and see if we can hitch a ride off this island.”

“What if we can’t, Honcho?” Philly wondered aloud. “Maybe those navy boys forgot all about us. You really think they’ll go out of their way to help us dogfaces?”

Lieutenant Steele didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They all knew the answer to that one. They were the only US troops on an island absolutely crawling with the enemy. An invasion might be coming soon, but it would be too late for them if they didn’t escape.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Philly said.

The priest and the remaining Filipinos were not going with them. They retrieved packs and supplies that had been hidden beyond the perimeter of the clearing for just such a contingency as having to move deeper into the forest, out of reach of the Japanese patrols who would be bent on revenge. The plan never had been to evacuate the local guerrillas. The navy boat — if it came for them at all — was going to be a small vessel. Anyhow, Father Francisco and the Filipino guerrillas had been doing just fine against the Japanese before the arrival of the Americans, and they planned to do more of the same.

“Go with God,” the priest said, shouldering one of the packs. “Perhaps we will meet again, God willing.”

“Good luck to you, Padre,” the lieutenant said.

The priest led his small party away, and in a moment they were swallowed up by the green wall of vegetation as if they had never been there in the first place.

“I’m gonna miss those guys,” Philly said.

“Follow me,” Deke said, and led the patrol into the underbrush on the opposite side of the clearing from the direction that the priest and the Filipinos had taken. They were heading west, toward the beach. Honcho brought up the rear. There was no time to waste if they were going to make that rendezvous.