Samurai & Snipers

CHAPTER NINE

If the battle was being slowly won in the mountain ridges and jungle-covered valleys on Leyte, the fight for the Philippines itself was just about to reach its most difficult stage, and Patrol Easy was being thrust into the middle of it.

The Japanese were firmly dug in throughout the capital city of Manila. The troops here were fanatical, including elements of the elite Teishin Shudan, the Japanese special forces. Those tough bastards were the equivalent of airborne troops, and they had seen a lot of action across the Pacific and China. The thought of crossing bayonets with the Americans just made them smile. The Japanese defenders planned to fight for every paving stone of the city streets and make the Americans pay a high price in blood for every block. As defenders, every advantage was theirs.

“When they come, we will be ready,” Major Wataru Tanigawa announced with satisfaction, surveying the grounds of the University of Santo Tomas. Although the university was now filled with civilian prisoners deemed a threat to the Japanese occupiers, care had been taken for its outward defense in addition to keeping the prisoners contained. During the last few months, Tanigawa had seen to it that machine-gun nests were placed at strategic locations, fortified with sandbags. Barbed wire surrounded most of the university grounds. Spider holes and hideouts had been prepared for individual snipers. Of course, he knew that the arrival of US tanks and artillery might make short work of these defenses.

Tanigawa did not share it with Sergeant Inaba, but he was less interested in dying than he was in living — or living long enough to put up a good fight. Although he saw himself as a modern samurai warrior, he was also a pragmatist, his attitude being, Why die for the Emperor when you can make the enemy die instead? It wasn’t a unique attitude; none other than General Patton had expressed something similar in a recent speech to troops in Europe.

To that end, Tanigawa had a trick up his sleeve that he would play when the Americans broke through their defenses at Santo Tomas. After all, he felt that prisoners would serve as better shields than sandbags when the time came. But for now his troops would put up a savage fight.

“Hai. We will fight to the last man, sir,” said Sergeant Atsunori Inaba. Inaba served as the major’s aide-de-camp and had seen to it that the major’s plans for the defensive work around the university had been carried out. Some of the work had been done by Japanese troops, but they had relied heavily on Filipino forced labor. Even the prisoners had been put to work, although Tanigawa considered them too lazy to be of real use.

Tanigawa nodded with satisfaction. It would have been easy to mistake Inaba’s words for those of a sycophant, but the grim set of his face and his eyes like stone chips indicated that he meant every word.

In many ways, the two men were represented by their weapons of choice. Major Tanigawa rarely went anywhere without his elegant sword, which was also a badge of office for a Japanese officer, while Sergeant Inaba relied on the cudgel at his belt to keep their Filipino slave laborers and American prisoners in line. Both weapons were efficient in their own way, much like the men who wielded them. And both men seemed to understand one another.

“You have done well, Inaba,” the major said.

Inaba nodded and bowed, replying with a gruff, “Arigatō, Shōsa.”

When Inaba stood as if awaiting his next orders, the major asked, “Is there anything else?”

“The prisoners, sir. They wish to speak with you. They have organized a delegation.”

The major grunted. “Very well. Make them wait for an hour, then send them to my office.”

Tanigawa spent the hour doing paperwork. It had been a long and circuitous path that had brought Major Tanigawa to his current position. The Japanese officer corps was highly political and favored those from distinguished or aristocratic families — they were fighting for an emperor, after all, not an elected president. Tanigawa hailed from an ancient family with its roots in the samurai class. Although the samurai rank had been abolished during the Meiji Restoration that ushered in the modern, unified Japan, family heritage still loomed large and had created a social class system.

That pedigree had won him a place in the hallowed halls of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, where he had graduated in 1904, emerging as a young soldier forged in the crucible of discipline and honor. For these young men, the legend of the samurai was still very much alive.

By August of 1937, his destiny beckoned, and he was assigned to the storied Imperial Japanese Army’s 7th Division. His unit arrived too late to do more than mop up at the Battle of Lake Khasan against the Chinese in July 1938. The late arrival added a whiff of incompetence. However, fate had other battles in store for Tanigawa.

In 1939, Tanigawa found himself in the crucible of Khalkhin Gol, where disaster struck as they reinforced the beleaguered IJA 23rd Division that was fighting Soviet troops in Mongolia. The battle’s grim toll still resulted in a Japanese setback. By August of that year, Tanigawa had been called back to the heartland, tasked with joining the Central District Army, the guardians of Japan’s very shores. It was not a prestigious position compared to conquering or occupying Japanese territories. The message seemed to be that Tanigawa had been found lacking as a battlefield officer.

However, destiny’s wheel had not turned its last for Tanigawa. He found himself reassigned to the Philippines, eventually overseeing the prisoners in Manila when civilian administrators were found lacking. Lacking in the Japanese view meant being too lenient with their Western prisoners.

But Tanigawa was no pencil pusher or paper tiger. In his youth, he had enjoyed hunting and marksmanship and had worked to hone his skill with a rifle. He had often helped train troops personally in the use of their Arisaka rifles. Personally, he favored a beautiful example of a Rigby double rifle that he had hunted with in his youth during trips to Korea. The powerful rifle was more suited to hunting big game, but he had brought it with him to the Philippines.

His position in Manila was not without its perks. He had taken a Filipino mistress, a girl half his age, who seemed willing enough in exchange for money and favors for her family. She was a frequent visitor to his quarters at the university, where he had moved once the Americans landed on Leyte.

Located in the heart of Manila, the University of Santo Tomas was a Catholic university founded in 1611. It was unlikely that the founding Dominican friars could ever have conceived that their university would someday become a prison camp. The university’s motto was Veritas in Caritate. The Latin translated as “Truth in Charity.” There was little evidence of that motto now. The Japanese had taken over the campus and herded in civilian prisoners, so that some of the more educated prisoners joked that the motto should have been “Truly Suffering.”

Several of the university buildings were substantial structures built of a pleasant light-colored stone, three and four stories tall. They had once been grand, as befitted a place of higher learning for several hundred young scholars — all men, of course — but since the Japanese occupation the campus buildings and grounds had fallen into decay and disrepair. Clay tiles had gone missing from the rooftops, letting the rain in. Pigeons nested in the window ledges. Weeds and small trees had grown up in what had once been well-tended gardens where students and professors could spend a pleasant hour discussing matters of faith or simply reading.

The university buildings were now bursting at the seams with up to four thousand prisoners, many of them Americans. Through no fault of their own, conditions had become increasingly squalid. The old plumbing of the university was nearly overwhelmed, meaning that a sewage smell permeated the buildings whenever the breeze wasn’t blowing, which happened a bit too often on the hottest afternoons.

Water flowed from taps in a rusty trickle. Showering was out of the question, so that the prisoners had to make do with a damp rag to wash themselves down. There was no longer any electricity to power the ceiling fans, which resulted in hot, sweltering days and nights.

In a sense, the lucky inmates were the ones living in huts erected in the university courtyards. At least they had more access to fresh air and felt less confined, although they baked in the midday sun that reached them and slogged through the mud generated by the monsoon rains.

But even being quartered in the courtyard was disconcerting, considering that they were ringed by the high walls, where a few Japanese machine guns were positioned. The guns were a constant reminder that, make no mistake, they were all prisoners. Although the original university had been limited to men, the Japanese captors believed in equal opportunity. Both men and women were held prisoner within these walls. They could mingle during the day but were segregated at night. The grim conditions weren’t exactly conducive to any sort of pleasant courtship. Nonetheless, there had been a few pregnancies as the captivity dragged on, proving the adage that love would find a way.

Back at his office, Tanigawa sat awaiting the arrival of this so-called delegation. He had little patience for such things, but he knew that, as the prison administrator, he had to keep up appearances by hearing them out. Making small concessions helped keep the prisoners in line even better than Inaba’s cudgel.

Finally, the delegation of prisoners was brought before him. He wrinkled his nose at the smell that arrived with them, filling his office with the funk of body odor. The poor water supply meant that the prisoners had a hard time bathing. Maybe next time he could have Sergeant Inaba throw them into a fountain or hose them down before they were brought to his office.

Tanigawa sat at his desk, wearing an impeccable uniform that only brought the shabby clothes of the prisoners into sharp contrast. A black lacquered stand held his samurai sword, both a symbol of office and a deadly object of beauty. Adding to the martial appearance of his office was the heavy double rifle in a wall-mounted rack. Presiding over it all was a portrait of the Emperor, standard decoration for any Japanese military office.

The delegation consisted of a very tall man with red hair; a balding and worried-looking middle-aged man named Littleton, who always looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else; and one of the Red Cross nurses, a fortysomething woman with the very Irish-sounding name of Catherine Rooney. Tanigawa sometimes found the various heritages of Americans to be confusing. Unlike the Japanese, they were not all one thing — a mixture of Irish, German, Italian, Greek, and a dozen others — and yet they stood united.

He studied the woman, her dark hair contained under a white nurse’s cap that had lost most of its starch. Her uniform could not hide her trim figure. She even wore a touch of lipstick in an effort at keeping up appearances.

Perhaps if she had been ten years younger, Tanigawa might have found her appealing. But no, he would stick with his Filipino mistress, who was prettier and much less troublesome. These nurses had volunteered to become prisoners in order to care for the thousands of civilians being held on the university campus. The other prisoners called them “Angels” for what they were doing. Tanigawa called them annoying do-gooders, always complaining about “conditions.” Conditions this, conditions that. Apparently the conditions were never good enough.

He studied the tall prisoner with an indifferent gaze. It was not the first time that he and this prisoner had crossed paths, but Tanigawa wasn’t about to show the prisoner that he was worthy of recognition or that Tanigawa knew his name, which he did. MacGregor. The major remained seated, which was partly a snub showing that the prisoner had no honor and therefore wasn’t worthy of Tanigawa standing to greet him. There was also the egotistical reason that although Tanigawa was tall for a Japanese, the prisoner would have towered over him by several inches. Tanigawa was too proud to allow that.

What the major didn’t know about the prisoner — not that he would have cared — was that the man had a Filipino wife from an upper-class family and three boys who had been born in Manila. Before the war, the tall man had been quite a successful businessman and was well known in the city’s wealthiest circles. He didn’t care for taking orders from the Japanese — or anyone else, for that matter. The arrival of war had meant his status as an American citizen made him an enemy. As Filipinos, a subjected people rather than outright enemies, MacGregor’s wife and sons still dwelled at home.

Nearby, Sergeant Inaba made no effort to hide his sneer. He kept one hand on his cudgel, as if eager to use it and cut the tall prisoner down to size.

“Speak!” Inaba ordered.

“Hello, Major,” the tall man said in a Texas drawl. Although Tanigawa spoke English, he found the man difficult to understand, with all those vowels stretched out. “You remember me, don’t you? Mike MacGregor.”

Tanigawa did indeed remember him, this Texan with the Scottish name. He also remembered his previous complaints, which the major found tiresome. Again, he didn’t want to give the prisoner the satisfaction of knowing he was recognized, so he asked curtly, “What is it?”

MacGregor’s jaw muscles worked as if he was biting back what he really wanted to say. The lack of food had reduced him to bone and sinew, but he was still a strong-looking man. “It’s about the food, Major. You see, we don’t have enough.”

“You have all the food we can spare,” Tanigawa snapped.

Nurse Rooney spoke up. “If you don’t feed us more, people are going to start dying. They’re in very poor health, you see. These are terrible conditions.”

There was that word again. Tanigawa just stared at her until she cleared her throat officiously and looked away.

He wasn’t quite telling the truth regarding the food supplies. Tanigawa had sold at least half the food allotted to the prisoners. He had to pay for his mistress somehow.

Then again, the situation at Santo Tomas had been steadily worsening even before Tanigawa came on as the prison camp administrator.

For the first couple of years, there had been barely enough to eat. In the last months of 1944 and now early in 1945, conditions had gone from barely tolerable to miserable because administration of the internment camp had moved from civilian Japanese authorities to the military.

It was no secret that Japanese officers despised prisoners, whom they saw as having no honor. Tanigawa was no exception. In their view, a good Japanese, even a civilian, would do the honorable thing and kill him- or herself rather than be taken prisoner. In fact, Japanese soldiers who allowed themselves to be captured were reported as killed, mainly for the benefit of their families, so that they did not have to live with dishonor.

By the time MacArthur’s troops landed, the thousands held at Santo Tomas were starving, pure and simple. The Japanese military did not really give a damn, not when they were themselves fighting for survival.

Food rations were cut and given to Japanese troops instead — or sold on the black market, which was exactly what Tanigawa had been doing. Of course, he was sure that his supply officers were already taking their cut before the weekly supply inventory even reached his desk.

Out in the corridor, they heard the muffled cries of a young woman. The prisoner delegation looked over their shoulders in alarm, but the Japanese in the room seemed unperturbed because this sort of incident was now an almost daily occurrence.

Through the door, he saw that some of his men had brought in a Filipino girl. He’d gotten a glimpse of her — young, frightened, her shabby dress torn. Her piteous cries echoed through the halls.

“Aren’t you going to do anything about that?” MacGregor demanded, looking out into the hall. He appeared upset enough to run out and try to put a stop to whatever was happening, but the guards at the door moved closer to block his way. His tall frame seemed to shrink in defeat.

“There is nothing to be done about the food,” Tanigawa said. “Ration it as best as you can.”

“But—”

“Enough!” Sergeant Inaba shouted. “Out!”

MacGregor drew himself up to his full height and glared down at Tanigawa as if he would like nothing better than to tear him apart. However, they both knew he was utterly powerless to do anything. The woman looked just as angry but kept her mouth shut. The third prisoner just looked afraid, wringing his hands.

Inaba shoved MacGregor through the door and the meeting was over.

Echoing through the halls, the girl’s cries continued for twenty minutes while the men had their way with her, some laughing as they urged the others on. They ignored the girl’s sobbing. Finally, there was an angry shout, a gunshot that echoed throughout the building, and the girl’s cries were heard no more.

There was no doubt that the prisoners had overheard the girl’s treatment and her ultimate fate, but Tanigawa thought that it should serve as a warning to them. Their guards’ latest victim had been Filipino. So far the female prisoners had been off limits to the depredations of the guards, but for how much longer as the troops grew more wanton and desperate?

It was something for the prisoners to contemplate. Maybe next time, Tanigawa thought, they would think twice before complaining.

CHAPTER TEN

Tired and exhausted, the snipers reached Manila. Most of the division was not being sent into combat but was training for the invasion of Okinawa. It wasn’t exactly a vacation, but at least they were getting a much-needed break from the front lines.

Deke and the others weren’t so lucky. The fight for Manila was going to involve sniper battles, so Patrol Easy was being sent to do what it did best.

Getting to Manila hadn’t been easy. First, they had endured crossing the San Bernardino Strait to Luzon, half expecting to be torpedoed by a Japanese sub or strafed by a stray Zero. The sea had been choppy, churned by a strong southerly wind. Yoshio and Honcho were the only ones who hadn’t gotten seasick. Deke would always be farm boy first and foremost, so ships never agreed with him. It was a relief to reach dry land again. What followed next was a long truck ride over rough roads to the capital city of the Philippines. The roads closer to the city were paved and had once been decent, but war and neglect had left them in bad shape.

“I wonder what the girls are like in Manila?” Philly said.

“I reckon they’re hiding, if they’re smart,” Deke said.

“Aw, you’re no fun,” Philly said with a snort. “If you come across any Filipino girls, you be sure to send them my way. They’ll thank me later.”

Deke didn’t reply but gave Philly a sideways look. It was a sore point with him that he’d never been with a girl. He couldn’t admit as much to Philly, of course. He never would have heard the end of it. After all, Deke had proved himself to be the tough guy, the hard man, the crack shot, the one who got things done when push came to shove. But it was Philly who’d had all the women, even if you only believed about half of his bragging.

Just about every young soldier had done his level best to lose his virginity before going off to war and possibly getting killed. Even the religious ones sometimes made an exception under the circumstances. Most young men felt that it would have been a shame to die and never know what it felt like to make love. The memory of the event itself would get many a soldier through a dark and lonely night. The topic of conversation among most soldiers alternated between home, good food, sports, and women — they longed for all of them.

Deke felt embarrassed about his lack of experience and wondered if there was something wrong with him. He supposed that his scarred face scared off the girls. Meanwhile, he held on to his secret like it was a gold nugget.

A distant thump of artillery interrupted Deke’s thoughts, reminding him that he had bigger problems to worry about.

In the light of the setting sun, they had their first glimpse of the sprawling city. The rich hues of the tropical sun made the white walls of the city sparkle, although the sight was marred here and there by rising columns of smoke. What Manila lacked in height — most buildings outside the city center were only a few stories tall — it made up for in breadth.

Because Deke was a country boy and his experience of cities was limited, Manila seemed to him like a very large city. He wasn’t wrong — the prewar population made it bigger than Richmond but smaller than Rochester. At the heart of Manila was the historic walled city known as Intramuros, which dated back to the earliest days of Spanish colonization. Now the whole place was going to be a battleground.

Lieutenant Steele filled them in. “It’s just another kind of jungle, boys,” he said. “Except this one has concrete instead of palm trees.”

They soon found out what he meant, spending the night in an abandoned house. The place had once been grand, with a walled courtyard, but the inhabitants had long since fled — or possibly had been killed or incarcerated by the Japanese. All the furniture was gone or smashed, so they slept on the cold stone floor. There wasn’t any electricity in this part of the city due to the fighting, so they lay listening to the sound of gunshots punctuating the darkness. It was hard to say who was doing the shooting and who was doing the dying, but to Deke’s ears, most of the shots sounded like the lighter crack of the enemy’s Arisaka rifles. They were of a smaller caliber, but just as deadly in capable hands. Starting in the morning, it would be their job to take on those Japanese snipers.

The truth was that Patrol Easy was late to the game. US troops had crossed the Pasig River into Manila in early February and had been engaged in bloody street fighting ever since. General MacArthur had urged the Japanese to make Manila an “open city” just as he had done when they had invaded in 1941. Basically, this would have meant that Japanese troops would have withdrawn and spared the city from destruction. But the Japanese were having none of that.

Consequently, Manila had been dubbed “the Stalingrad of Asia,” an allusion to the bitter fight between the Soviets and Germans for that city. The Japanese had turned nearly every major intersection into a fortress, meaning that US troops often had to demolish the surrounding buildings just to get at the enemy. The Japanese had also fortified several of the taller buildings, turning them into pillboxes and using the higher floors to their advantage as they fired down upon advancing troops.

Because the Japanese had been there for years, they had the home team advantage and knew every street and alley better than the Americans who had come to reclaim Manila. They’d also had the opportunity to turn the city into a maze of defensive positions intended to thwart the American advance at nearly every street corner or storefront.

“Do the Nips really think they can hold Manila?” Philly asked. It was a good question, given the forces arrayed against them. More Army troops were pouring in all the time. The hope of any reinforcements or supplies making it through from Japan also had diminished rapidly.

“They know they can’t win,” Honcho replied, his tone bitter. “But for the Japanese, it’s not about winning. Not anymore. It’s about making us bleed as much as possible in the process of beating them.”

There was no doubt that it would be a bloody battle, both for the Americans and for the city itself. Again, the Americans were left with little choice except to use their artillery to turn these buildings into rubble. The conquest of Manila wasn’t even being measured block by block, but rather by each building and intersection that was leveled or captured.

In the morning, Patrol Easy ate a hurried breakfast and thought about getting to work.

Even so, that work turned out to be different from what was expected and involved an old ally from the past.

During the night, a runner had come looking for Lieutenant Steele. That wasn’t all that unusual because runners were how the command post kept tabs on the patrols. Honcho hadn’t mentioned what the message was about, which was his prerogative as an officer, but it was about to become clear. He called his men together in the courtyard of the grand house.

“An old friend tracked us down last night,” he announced. “It turns out that he wants to pay us a visit.”

He then stepped aside as a figure emerged from a doorway. He was a broad-shouldered man wearing the simple brown frock of a priest.

“Father Francisco!” Deke said in surprise, genuinely pleased at the sight of the priest who had fought alongside them on Leyte. He had been a parish priest in Palo, outspoken against the Japanese, until the enemy had forced him to flee for his life into the hills, where he had become a guerrilla leader. They had made his acquaintance not long after they’d hit the beach near Palo.

“It is good to see you, Deacon Cole,” said the priest, who shook hands all around, calling each man by name. “It is good to see all of you, my old friends.”

“We can always use the help, Padre,” Deke said.

“Oh, it is not just me,” the priest said. “I alone would not be of much use to you. I have brought along some help.”

He then beckoned to several figures who had remained in the shadows of the house. Half a dozen Filipinos emerged, wearing the informal uniforms of guerrilla fighters, which consisted of olive drab shirts, shorts, no shoes, and straw hats. It was an outfit that made sense in the tropical heat. They carried small packs on their backs and wore either bolo knives or pistols on their hips — sometimes both. All six carried rifles slung over their shoulders. Though it was hard to define, they had a different air about them compared to Danilo, who was a man of the forests and mountains. To Deke’s eyes, Danilo somehow looked out of place here in the city. He was a man who blended best with deep-green jungles and lush stands of grass.

Due to the similarity of the guerrillas’ dress and gear, it took the GIs a moment to realize that two of the guerrilla fighters were women, a fact that caused the soldiers to exchange glances that involved raised eyebrows and looks of disbelief. In the countryside, the guerrilla fighters had nearly all been men, but here in the city, apparently women had also joined the fight.

Being a female guerrilla held special dangers. If captured, Filipino men would be killed outright by the Japanese, or if they were lucky, sent to a POW camp. Filipina fighters faced a far worse fate if captured — grimmer even than a quick death. Chances were good that they would be forced into service as so-called comfort women in brothels for Japanese soldiers. It was hard to imagine a worse form of hell. For these female warriors, the stakes were high.

“All of the fighters I have brought you are excellent shots, much like you,” Father Francisco said. “However, they have had no real training as snipers. All of them also speak English, which will help with their training.”

“That’s where we come in,” the lieutenant told his men. “We are going to give them a crash course in sniper warfare. The idea is that they will know enough to start shooting Japs without getting killed right away. Remember that when you started, you didn’t know a damn thing. But first, let’s see how well they can shoot.”

The courtyard of the abandoned house was too small for what the lieutenant had in mind, so they moved a short distance to an open area that had once been a parking lot, now choked with weeds. At one end of the lot was the massive wall of a barn-like wooden garage. A bit of paint still clung to the wood, but it was mostly weathered and bare after being neglected during the occupation. Business apparently had not thrived under the Japanese.

“That’s perfect for you, Philly,” Deke said, nodding at the broad wall they faced. “It’s hard to miss the broad side of a barn.”

“Aw, stuff it, Corn Pone.”

Using a piece of chalk, the lieutenant walked down and drew six circles on the wooden wall. He paused, then added faces — a grim line for the mouths, a single dot for a nose, and two slanted slits for eyes. Although it was a crude caricature, the last feature was intended to make the faces unmistakably Japanese. The Filipinos were certainly grinning at the sight.

“All right, let’s see how you can shoot,” Honcho said. His welcoming manner turned gruff as he gave orders. “Spread out. Sitting position first. When you hear your number, shoot the target. Deke, you call the numbers. Mix it up, will you? The Japs wouldn’t give you a chance to do things nice and orderly, and neither will we.”

Deke stood behind the line of guerrillas. A couple had seemed mystified by the sitting position, including one of the women. He got her set up, elbows on knees, bone to bone, the rifle locked in place. He put his hands on her shoulders and adjusted her position slightly, getting her to lean into the rifle more.

“That is Juana,” said Father Francisco, who stood nearby. There was a proud tone in his voice. “She is an excellent shot. So is Hector, the last man down.”

Deke grunted. Despite what the priest said, he had yet to see them shoot and wanted to see for himself. “If you say so, Padre.”

He noticed that the four men held relatively new-looking Springfield rifles with iron sights, no telescopes. He assumed that it was the resourceful padre who had managed to obtain the rifles. Even with iron sights, there was no finer sniper rifle. The two women were armed with Arisaka rifles. These were somewhat smaller than the Springfields and fit the women better. They also fired a smaller cartridge with less kick. That said, they were no less deadly and had some advantages over US weapons. The Arisaka rifle was a quieter shooter with a smaller muzzle flash that made it harder to detect when fired from a hiding place in the ruined city. In the hands of Japanese snipers, the Arisaka rifles had killed far too many Americans. Now the tables were turned and the Arisaka was being used against them.

That thought alone made Deke happy.

“Call ’em out, Deke,” Honcho ordered. It was the lieutenant’s habit to use a telescope rather than binoculars, which were pointless for a one-eyed man. He raised the telescope to better see where the bullets struck.

“Three,” Deke said, matching the lieutenant’s gruff tone.

The guerrilla’s rifle cracked, but Deke’s sharp eyes needed no help to see that the bullet had punched a hole outside the target circle. Inwardly, he groaned. Would the rest of these Filipinos do any better?

“Four! Five!” he shouted in quick succession.

Number four hit the target, a hole appearing in the lower part of the circle. The woman named Juana was in position five. Her rifle cracked, and the bullet struck right between the target’s slanting eyes.

Her glance swung toward Deke, giving him a defiant look. He liked her spirit, but one lucky shot did not a sniper make.

They went through a few more rounds, with Deke calling out their numbers, varying the rhythm. Juana kept hitting the target consistently, and the others mostly did.

“All right, let’s switch to prone,” Honcho said.

When it came to the prone position, Juana knew just what to do. Her marksmanship was even better now, all her shots occupying a space about the size of a buttered biscuit.

When she looked up again with that defiant expression, Deke gave her a nod. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a faint smile play across her lips.

After the shooting test, which seemed to satisfy Lieutenant Steele, he gathered the guerrillas for a lecture in the basics of sniper warfare. The GIs had been curious to watch the shooting action, but they had heard this lecture before. They drifted away to smoke cigarettes, except for Deke and Yoshio. Deke had stayed because Honcho asked him to interject now and then. Yoshio stuck around because he couldn’t help learning something.

They took a break for chow, then did some more shooting in the afternoon. Then Honcho declared that their impromptu training course was over.

“You’re all graduated, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Starting tomorrow, feel free to get yourselves killed or, better yet, stay alive for a while and make yourselves useful by killing a few Japs.”

They all went back to the house, with Patrol Easy staying in the expansive rooms and the guerrillas camping in the courtyard. A watch schedule was set, just in case the Japanese decided to get frisky.

Juana set about cleaning her rifle. Deke drifted over and watched, telling himself that he was curious about the Arisaka. Maybe he had been — at first. He was also impressed by the deft and efficient way that Juana cleaned her weapon. But as Juana deftly went through the steps of cleaning and oiling the weapon, Deke found that his eyes were more focused on her than the Japanese rifle.

She was no statuesque pinup beauty, being shorter and rounder, but she was soft in all the right places. Her hair was dark brown, not quite black, more like the hue of light coffee than midnight ink. Her eyes were a liquid brown like mountain stone after a rain.

Deke was embarrassed when she looked up and caught him studying her. She gave him a frank look in return, her eyes lingering on the scars down one side of his face and neck, the result of the angry, raking claws and teeth of the wounded black bear he had encountered as a boy. Her eyes widened as if alarmed, a reaction that Deke knew all too well. He wasn’t pretty to look at. He turned and walked away.

Philly was waiting for him on the other side of the courtyard, a knowing grin on his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were interested in that girl.”

“I was seeing if she needed help, is all.”

“You know what, Corn Pone? I hate to break it to you, but you’re the one who needs help. I think it’s clear that you’ve got it bad for that girl.”

Deke felt his face reddening, a rare sensation for him. “Like I said, I was just seeing how she was doing with her shooting.”

“She’s a good shot, all right. I’d say she shot you right through the heart.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The nightmare that was shaping up in Manila, which Patrol Easy and thousands of other soldiers were walking into, was worsened by a rift in the Japanese command structure, its roots in the rivalry between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.

Earlier, the overall Japanese commander, General Yamashita, had realized that Manila was not defensible. The city was too sprawling, and the multitude of wooden structures beyond the city center would make it a death trap if any fires broke out. There was also a massive civilian population that only impeded the city’s defense. Yamashita had ordered a withdrawal from the city and was determined to make a stand elsewhere.

However, the naval officer who had taken charge of the defense of the city had different plans. Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 31st Naval Special Base Force, announced that he would fight to the end in Manila. They had every intention of making the fight into a bloodbath. His officers and troops seemed to agree with him wholeheartedly. Either that or they were too afraid of being labeled as cowards to speak up.

Although his forces were under the command of the Shimbu Army Group, Iwabuchi ignored army orders to withdraw from the city. The fact that this rogue commander was a naval officer left Yamashita in a bind, because the Japanese Army and Navy were autonomous and did not always cooperate or recognize the command structure the way that the Americans did, even between branches of the service. In the end, despite rivalries and jealousies, Americans and their allies understood that they were all fighting on the same side. Also, there was a clear command structure. For the Japanese, that distinction was not as clear. They were army or navy first, and Japanese second.

Iwabuchi’s troops were mostly navy men, more used to ships than street combat, although his forces included the well-trained equivalent of US Marines, and he also commanded a few thousand army soldiers. In the end, it was hard to say whether these soldiers never got the orders to withdraw in the confusion of war or perhaps felt as Iwabuchi did and preferred to make a last stand in the city after working so hard to prepare their defenses in Manila. Major Tanigawa fell into this second category.

There was no questioning Iwabuchi’s record as a career navy officer who had commanded several ships, culminating in command of one of Japan’s new cruisers. The magnificent ship was sunk by the Americans off Guadalcanal. Iwabuchi survived but apparently felt that he had lost his honor when he had lost the ship. He saw the Battle of Manila as his chance to redeem himself. Unfortunately, he would drag the fate of tens of thousands and the entire city down with him.

In one of his final orders issued to his troops, while communication to his far-flung forces was still possible, Iwabuchi made his intentions clear: “We are very glad and grateful for the opportunity of being able to serve our country in this epic battle. Now, with what strength remains, we will daringly engage the enemy. Banzai to the Emperor! We are determined to fight to the last man.”

And so they would. The table had been set for a bloody feast of combat.

In the confines of the University of Santo Tomas, Major Tanigawa had felt the noose tightening. The sounds of fighting had marched closer each day until the US troops were finally spotted.

Watching from the upper floors of the university building, the major had watched them through binoculars. They scurried like rats through the ruins. He thought that the GIs appeared dirty and disheveled. He knew that the Americans had started on Leyte and, after finally winning the fight there, they had pushed on to Luzon and Manila. It was hard to believe that they had defeated crack Japanese troops to reach this point. Despite appearances, he supposed that they must be capable warriors.

Tanigawa lowered the binoculars and gazed around his neat and spacious office. Large windows looked out over the city where the American forces were gathering. His expansive desk was ornately carved. Shelves of books lined the walls, bound in leather. They were mostly works of religion or philosophy, some in Latin, the words unknowable to him, and these antique books did not interest him beyond their beautiful appearance. Not so long ago, this had been the office of the university president, a priest who had been sent to a far less pleasant prison camp than the one for more run-of-the-mill civilians.

Although Tanigawa rarely drank, he had kept a crystal decanter of brandy left behind by the university president as a trophy. There was his own officer’s sword, polished to perfection, gleaming on its stand next to the treasured double rifle with its intricate scrollwork. Both weapons were quite valuable, having been passed down through the family. Truth be told, they were the most valuable items Tanigawa owned. Above them, a framed portrait of the Emperor hung proudly on the wall. The room was neat and orderly, everything in its proper place. Just the way Tanigawa liked it. The very idea of the Americans ransacking his office offended him. In his mind, the space within the walls of his office represented Japan itself. He could not stand the idea of this space being defiled.

To guard against that eventuality, Tanigawa had placed a gallon can of kerosene in the corner, out of sight, although now and then he caught a whiff of the strong-smelling flammable liquid. When the time came, he planned to splash the kerosene over everything and set it on fire. He would not let the enemy enjoy the spoils of war. As for the brandy, he would enjoy a glass and then add the alcohol to fuel the flames.

He sighed, his momentary bitterness ebbing as he thought of all the tasks that still needed to be done, for he was a man who welcomed action. He supposed that he had always known that this day would come, but the actuality of the looming conflict now sank in. Tanigawa was no coward. He would fight until the end and die like a true samurai.

He was reassured by the fact that his men were ready. Once again, he ran through a mental checklist of their defenses. Under the direction of himself and Sergeant Inaba, his men had turned the university campus into a fortress, this main building becoming a bunker. Machine guns had been set up on the surrounding streets, the positions well protected by sandbags, to give his men commanding fields of fire down all the approaches to the main building. Barbed wire was strung across the approaches to funnel the enemy into streets covered by the machine guns. Tanigawa had put a great deal of thought and attention into these defenses. They would be able to hold out for a long time against infantry.

However, at this late stage of the game, his one nagging worry concerned the American tanks. Machine guns would be no use against their armored sides. Meanwhile, the Sherman tanks could take their time blasting away at his own positions, softening them. Tanigawa had no heavy weapons at this disposal, aside from a few mortars. There was little he could do against tanks. However, he had issued orders to prepare a supply of satchel charges that his men could use as a last-ditch defense against any tanks, hurling themselves into the tracks and setting off a blast, trading their lives to disable the tanks. In Tanigawa’s mind, it seemed like a fair exchange.

But best of all, his ultimate weapon would be the prisoners that he held. The Americans would be loath to see these people killed, considering that many of those held at the university were their fellow Americans who had lived in Manila. When the time came, Tanigawa planned to use the prisoners to his advantage. If some died in the process, then so be it.

He called for Sergeant Inaba, who kept a small office just down the hall from his own. Again, he thought of how much he had come to rely on Inaba, who was ultimately a man of humble origins. In some ways this went against Tanigawa’s inclinations, but the usual chain of command had not been possible because first his lieutenant, and then his captain, had caught fevers. The lieutenant had died and the captain remained in the hospital. Inaba had also gotten sick, but he’d proved too tough for the fever. He was also utterly reliable in obeying Tanigawa’s orders. He had proved himself to be worth far more than any of Tanigawa’s officers.

“Any updates on the enemy’s movements?” Tanigawa asked his sergeant, although he had been watching the approaching Americans through his binoculars.

Sergeant Inaba replied, “Our men have not yet engaged them, sir. However, they are not more than a few blocks away at this point.” Inaba paused, emotion playing across his features. His face, normally so impassive or twisted into a scowl, literally rippled as he expressed his despair, eyes wide and mouth open, before his features hardened into anger. “I cannot believe we are in this situation. It is like a nightmare.”

“It is the situation we face, Inaba. We will fight and die as we must.”

“Have you heard from headquarters? We need reinforcements, sir. We do not have enough men.”

“We need to keep our heads, Inaba. We will fight with the men we have.”

“How long do you think we can hold them off?”

“Until the end, Inaba.”

“Hai!” Inaba sprang to attention, his old fire having returned. Tanigawa could always count on Inaba.

“Keep me informed,” Tanigawa said. “That is all.”

He picked up the binoculars again and turned to the window. He had meant what he’d said to Inaba. They would fight to the end, but not necessarily in this building.

When the time came, he would share his plan with his men. Until then, he thought, let the Americans come.

The GIs already knew what they were up against because they had faced it before when it came to fighting in the Pacific. Back home in America, readers were getting a glimpse of the Pacific War thanks to reporters like Ernie Pyle in his newspaper accounts. If he had written about Patrol Easy, it might have sounded something like this:

Pyle may not have written those actual words, but he had written similar ones about so many of the young men fighting in the Pacific. Sure, he was doing his job as a reporter, but it was also clear that he cared deeply about these men who were so far from home.

CHAPTER TWELVE

They fought in the streets, they fought in buildings, they took up positions on rooftops. But the strangest place that Patrol Easy fought turned out to be a baseball stadium in the heart of Manila.

In happier times, the Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium, named for a national hero of the Philippines, had hosted the likes of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, playing exhibition games in the more innocent days before the world had been plunged into war. Local baseball fans still spoke of those games with dreamy eyes and a distant smile on their faces. Filipino boys had taken to the American sport with enthusiasm, playing barefoot and barehanded in vacant sandlots across Manila.

But like peace itself, those days were a distant memory. The place now resembled the sort of baseball field where the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse might pause for a game of catch. Since the start of the war, weeds had grown up and covered the field. The painted scoreboard had faded and flaked, with a few bullet holes showing where the numbers should have been.

Even worse, the baseball stadium was now a fortress, having been taken over by the Japanese. The concrete structures of the stadium made a solid defensive position. The dugouts had been turned into machine-gun nests. Snipers occupied the stands where fans had once rooted for the home team. A runner trying to steal a base risked being tagged out permanently.

“My best guess is that there are at least a hundred Japanese dug in here,” Lieutenant Steele explained. “We have armor on the way, planning to sweep out the Japanese, but they need infantry support. That’s where we come in.”

“What good is a tank if it needs us?” Philly wanted to know.

“They don’t want to get blindsided by some Japs with a sticky bomb,” Steele said.

On Leyte and now on Luzon, more than one Sherman tank had been knocked out by these bombs, known by the Japanese as Shitotsubakurai, which were technically lunge mines that made use of a high-explosive charge at the end of a pole. It was a simple and effective anti-tank weapon, the equivalent of a bazooka or Panzerfaust, but on the end of a stick.

One fatal drawback for the Japanese using these lunge mines was that these attacks were essentially suicide missions due to several pounds of HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) charge exploding within a stick’s length of the attacker.

“I wouldn’t touch a tank with a ten-foot pole, but I guess a Jap would,” Deke said.

“With all that steel, you’d think it would take more than a Jap with a stick to take ’em out,” Philly said.

“When you attack it from the side, a tank might as well be a tin can. All the armor is up front. You know they don’t have a lot of visibility inside those tin cans,” Honcho added. “We’re going to be their ears and eyes, and tell ’em where to shoot.”

Orders being shouted to their right came from an infantry company forming up to attempt a frontal assault on the Japanese, hoping to simply push them out of the dugouts and stands. Farther away, tanks rumbled in the background, assembling for the attack. However, it would be the snipers who went in first, scouting out the enemy defenses.

The Americans were entering the stadium from the outfield — from the direction of the third base line, to be exact. One advantage of fighting at a baseball field was that it used familiar landmarks and features. In the annals of military history, it was probably the only time that a combat action had taken place on a baseball field. Somehow, it felt like an affront that the Japanese had taken something as American as a baseball field and cleverly transformed it into a fortress to use against them.

The lieutenant looked around at his team. For days now, Patrol Easy had been working in coordination with the guerrilla snipers that Father Francisco had brought them. Shortly after bringing them the sniper recruits, the priest had moved on to other corners of the city where his faith and organizational skills were needed. Father Francisco held no rank, but among the guerrillas he was as good as a general.

“I don’t know where he found these people,” Honcho said, referring to the Filipino sharpshooters. “But I’ll take another bunch just like them.”

After giving the new recruits a crash course in sniper warfare, Honcho grouped his troops into twos or threes, trying to pair at least one of the Filipinos with the more experienced Americans. More often than not, Deke had found himself paired with Juana. That was just fine by him. She was an excellent shot, she didn’t say much, and he had to admit that she was easy on the eyes.

Deke wasn’t easily distracted; when it came to fighting, he was like a tractor with a stuck gear. He had one speed and one purpose only, ignoring everything else. But when he looked into Juana’s soft brown eyes, it was as if he were transported by thoughts of mountain spring mornings, the smell of fresh-baked pies, the music of cool running streams, and something that he longed for but could not identify. He felt a similar warmth in Juana’s gaze, like heat off a cast-iron griddle, shimmering in the morning light. Though pleasant, he hoped the distraction didn’t get them both killed.

The Filipino snipers had shown themselves to be quick learners when it came to hunting the enemy. Also, they seemed motivated by revenge in a way that was hard for the average GI to grasp, because it was the Japanese who had occupied their country, after all. The enemy had ruined their fields, taken over their homes, stolen their freedoms. Simply put, they hated the Japanese with every fiber of their being.

So far, just one of the Filipinos had been killed when he had tried to run between buildings and had been picked off by a Japanese marksman. Since then, his countrymen — and women — had paid back the Japanese many times over.

The battle for the stadium promised to be a difficult fight, but the Japanese there had to be eliminated. The stadium could not be left as an enemy stronghold while the American advance encircled it.

“Deke, I want you and Juana to get to third base,” Honcho said. “See if you can find some cover in those weeds and start picking off the Japs in the stands on that side of the stadium.”

Philly laughed. “That’s a good one, Honcho!”

“What’s so damn funny?”

“I’m not sure that Deke has ever gotten to third base before.”

Honcho did not appear amused. “You’re a regular comedian, aren’t you, Philly? Just for that, you can take the outfield. There are enough bushes growing out there to give you some cover.”

Nobody but Philly seemed to have much of a sense of humor considering that they were about to face at least a hundred dug-in Japs. Deke glanced at Juana, who made no sign of having picked up on Philly’s joke about third base. He wasn’t about to explain.

Besides, he and Juana had barely exchanged more than a few words during the last few days. In the field, they had made do with hand gestures and nods. It was the only communication they needed, and they had made a good team. After that Japanese sniper had taken out one of the Filipinos, Juana had rigged a helmet on a stick to draw the Jap’s fire, enabling Deke to spot his hiding place and put a nice fat chunk of lead into him.

There wasn’t time for much conversation when you were busy fighting and trying to stay alive. Deke wondered if he even wanted to get to know Juana any better. In his experience, combat situations could lead to a very short life expectancy. Maybe it was better not to get attached, but it was getting so that he trusted Juana almost as much as Philly, Yoshio, or anybody else from Patrol Easy.

He pushed any stray thoughts from his mind to focus on the task at hand, which involved shooting the enemy without getting shot himself.

Deke scrambled forward, crawling on all fours. Juana moved behind him, a little off to his left. Somewhere off to his right, he reckoned Philly would be moving into position. A couple of days ago, it might have felt strange being teamed up with Juana instead of Philly. But they seemed able to read each other’s minds. She was a natural and a much better shot than Philly.

Deke was developing a theory that women made better snipers, in the same way that female cats were better at catching mice than tomcats. Everybody back home knew that if you had a barn overrun by mice, the thing to do was to get yourself a mama cat and put her in there. Then again, Deke mused, you didn’t want to mess with a mean tomcat.

Thankfully, the machine guns that they knew to be in the dugouts did not open fire, perhaps not wanting to waste ammo on the sparse targets presented by Patrol Easy. Instead, they were going to let the Japanese snipers in the stands pick them off.

The weeds were tall enough to reach above him, but he worried that the snipers in the stands had a good view of anything moving on the infield. The crack of a rifle and the snap of a bullet overhead verified his concerns. He pressed himself lower to the ground and moved more slowly to create less of a disturbance in the sea of weeds. Another bullet whined overhead, and Deke wished that he could burrow like a box turtle into the infield.

After a few minutes of crawling, he reached the vicinity of third base. Fortunately, there was more than brush to provide cover out here. The wing of a downed plane lay in the weeds, having been there long enough that a few vines crept over it. He could see a chunk of the fuselage in the outfield, which might give Philly some cover. Deke couldn’t tell if the plane was Japanese or American, and he didn’t much care. In addition to providing decent cover, the broken wing also made a good bench rest.

Juana joined him, and they both rested their rifles on the metal skin of the plane’s wing, searching for targets in the stands. Deke had the advantage of having a telescopic sight on his Springfield, although Juana had proved herself more than capable with the iron sights on the Arisaka rifle.

Through the scope, the details of the stands sprang closer. A long, deep overhang protected the stands from the elements, but in this case it created shadows that hid the enemy. The baseball stadium had mostly been constructed out of concrete, which is what made it an appealing defensive position for the enemy. The stands themselves were mainly filled with plain wooden benches, draped with patches of weeds and ivy that had grown up during the wartime years of disuse. A small Japanese soldier could worm himself under a bench while having a commanding view of the baseball field. The entire baseball field spread below him, like a shooting gallery. With a rifle in his hands, that commanding view made that soldier a very effective sniper.

The challenge was finding him. Or them. There had to be several Japanese hidden away. Maybe even dozens of them. Deke wondered, Where the hell are these Nips?

Finally, one of the Japanese got trigger happy and fired. Deke spotted his muzzle flash.

“Got him,” he whispered to Juana.

He squeezed the trigger and saw the figure of the enemy sniper go limp.

One of the Jap snipers got the bright idea to shoot back and received a bullet from Juana for his trouble.

Beside him, he heard the slip-snick of Juana working the bolt of her rifle. The sound brought a grin to his lips.

By now the rest of Patrol Easy and their Filipino friends would be in position, facing off against the Japanese snipers.

Bases are loaded, Deke thought.

Both sides held their fire, hoping for a target. Deke had to hand it to the Japanese snipers, who had more discipline than he had expected. Maybe they really all were a bunch of damn samurai.

The tense impasse did not last for long. The attack that had been prepared against Japanese positions now began, with soldiers advancing like angry outfielders rushing the mound after a pitch had hit the batter.

Unfortunately, the Japanese had been waiting for this moment. Machine guns opened fire from the dugouts, red tracers slicing the air. A couple of GIs spun and fell into the deep weeds, not moving again. Still more went down, helmets flying off, rifles falling from lifeless fingers. Those who hadn’t been cut down kept running forward, but it was a hopeless situation. The intent of the frontal attack had been to rush the Japanese positions and overwhelm the enemy, but it soon became clear that this strategy was mostly based on wishful thinking.

The Nambu machine guns in the dugouts kept up their ruthless tap, tap, tap until not a GI was standing. Those who weren’t dead lay with their heads buried as deep into the weeds as they could go. Meanwhile, enemy snipers fired from the stadium heights at anything that moved on the baseball field.

From behind the airplane wing, Deke watched it all with a growing sense of rage. The Japanese had turned the dugouts into pillboxes by piling sandbags in front of the entrances, offering just a slit for the machine guns to shoot from. His rifle felt useless against those defenses. Instead, he concentrated on picking off the snipers in the stands. He fired again and again. Beside him, he could hear the sharp crack of Juana’s rifle as she did the same.

Normally, each of the snipers had trained to work with a spotter who could call out targets seen through binoculars while also watching out for any threats coming at them from their flanks or rear. But in this case, the two paired off and work like a team, alternating their fire.

They fell into a steady rhythm, Deke firing, then Juana shooting while he worked the bolt of the Springfield. It was like a one-two punch. Any snipers in the stands who made the mistake of revealing themselves paid dearly. The sniper fire from the stands slackened. Back in the day, vendors might have been selling cold beer up there and tossing out bags of peanuts. Now, the Japanese were tossing out lead.

The sun felt warm and he could smell Juana sweating beside him, the honest clean smell of work sweat. It reminded him of toiling in the fields alongside Sadie.

The frontal attack having been neutralized, the Japanese now turned their machine guns on Patrol Easy. Bullets and tracers sizzled overhead, forcing them to keep their heads down. Deke and Juana had to duck behind the airplane wing to keep from having their heads shot off. The situation had gone from bad to worse.

Now what?

Deke tried to take a shot at the machine gunners in the nearest dugout, but that only provoked a burst of fire that raked the length of the airplane wing. They were pinned down, good and proper.

Like an answer to a prayer, Deke heard the rumble of a tank, then another. The cavalry had arrived.

For the Japanese, the tables had turned. The machine guns peppered the steel sides of the Sherman tanks, but the bullets bounced off. Tracer rounds slid off the armor and went flying through the air. The tanks lined up their main guns and fired at the dugouts. Surprisingly, the sandbags had been piled so thick that they absorbed the first few rounds. But the tanks rolled closer and hit the dugout defenses at nearly point-blank range, demolishing the wall of sandbags. The echo of the muzzle blasts and explosions was deafening within the confines of the stadium.

The main guns were more than enough, but the armored unit was taking no chances and wasn’t satisfied with simply pulverizing the Japanese. A couple of the tanks were equipped with flamethrowers. They let loose with burning streams of jellied gasoline, hosing down the dugouts with fire. This napalm was horrible stuff, a sort of sticky lava that clung to everything it touched. A few clumps of napalm fell short and hit the field, setting the tall weeds on fire. The breeze fanned the flames and carried the fire and smoke toward the enemy position. Even from the outfield, Deke was pretty sure that he heard screaming as the enemy soldiers were burned alive, either by the flamethrowers or the spreading brush fire.

Faced with the awful threat of the flamethrowers, some of the Japanese ran headlong from positions around the baseball dugouts. The limited visibility from within the tanks meant that some of the enemy had managed to slip away unseen by the tank crews. However, the fleeing Japanese didn’t get far because not all the GIs from the ill-fated attack had been killed. They popped up now out of the long grass and weeds, firing at any Jap who made a run for it, taking their revenge.

Deke picked out a runner and squeezed the trigger, hearing the satisfying thunk of a bullet hitting home. It was a sound like a ripe watermelon breaking open — or maybe a fast ball hitting a glove. The Jap went down like a lifeless rag doll. Beside him, Juana grunted her approval.

Another Japanese ran to escape the horror of the flames, his tightly wrapped leggings already burning. The motion of his panic-stricken legs only served to feed the flames. Juana swung up her rifle, but before she could fire, they heard the deep boom of a 12-gauge shotgun. The enemy soldier collapsed in a heap.

“Honcho,” she said with a wry smile.

They watched as the one-eyed lieutenant racked another shell into the shotgun and waited patiently for the next target. He might have been hunting pheasants.

Once the tanks had finished their grim business, there was still one task remaining for the foot soldiers. What followed next was like a gopher hunt as they mopped up the Japanese still trying to hide in the stands. With the Americans now controlling the infield and outfield, there was nowhere for them to go except off the high upper rows of the stadium. A couple of them tried it and fell to their deaths.

The Japanese rarely left themselves an escape route. There was no plan in the Japanese mind to fight another day. They fought to the death. The American soldiers were glad to oblige them.

Patrol Easy were joined by more GIs for the mopping-up operation. They spread out in a rough line, from the upper rows down to the box seats, and worked their way through to find any Japanese snipers trying to hide among the benches. Sometimes the Japanese leaped up and ran at them, screaming bloody murder in a singular version of a banzai charge. They were quickly shot down. Some put up no fight at all, but remained hidden in hopes that they might somehow escape their fate.

From up in the stands, the soldiers could see the bodies of several dead GIs sprawled in the weedy field where they had been mowed down by the machine guns in the dugouts. None of those American boys would ever be going home again.

As they hunted down the last of the defenders, nobody bothered to ask if any of the Japanese wanted to surrender, not even Yoshio.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Smoke from dozens of small fires hung like a pall over the city, turning the setting sun bloodred, like a single angry eye squinting at the destruction. In addition to the smell of burning wood, the smoke stank of scorched rubber and sometimes roasted meat. By night, the GIs holed up in the ruins and slept fitfully even when they weren’t on watch, wary of any marauding Japanese. There was no electricity across Manila, but the darkness was interrupted by flickering flames and an occasional muzzle flash. The soldiers welcomed daylight, even if it only meant more fighting from one ruined block to another.

That was about to change. A runner arrived at daybreak with new orders for Lieutenant Steele. The soldiers of Patrol Easy were still licking their wounds from the battle at the baseball stadium, but it turned out that they been assigned a special task that took them all by surprise and would be one of their greatest challenges yet.

“Grab a seat,” Steele said, having gathered them all to hear what he had to say. Deke and the rest of the patrol, along with the Filipino fighters, could only guess at what they were being asked to do next. Deke glanced at Juana, who was watching the lieutenant intently, ready for anything. She looked up and caught Deke’s eye. Her lips were normally set in a grim line, but she gave him a slight smile. Deke did the same in return.

Philly had caught sight of that exchange and stared as if he had just witnessed two lumps of coal suddenly sparkle like diamonds. He opened his mouth to say something that he would probably regret, but at that moment the lieutenant started to speak and saved his bacon.

“We’re being asked to do a job that requires some finesse,” Steele began. “HQ wants us there because we are good shots, but there may not be any shooting. In fact, it would be better if there wasn’t.”

Philly spoke up as usual. “With all due respect, Honcho, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m getting to that,” Steele said. “I’m talking about a hostage situation. Our boys have a bunch of Japanese surrounded at an old university near here, but it turns out the Japanese are holding prisoners there. A lot of those prisoners are Americans, and they are threatening to shoot them unless we give the Japanese safe passage.”

“Safe passage where?”

“They just want us to let them go. I’d imagine that they’re hoping to link up with the rest of their friends, planning to make a last stand in the old quarter of the city.”

“Why should we let them do that?” Philly wondered. “We’ll just have to fight them later.”

Steele shook his head. “Remember those hostages I mentioned? It all comes back to that. Anyhow, none of that is up to me. Our job is to pick off the Japanese if it comes to that. The brass doesn’t want to start shooting randomly with machine guns or artillery. We’d have a lot of dead prisoners then, including Americans. Some of the prisoners are women, from what I hear.”

“Who is going to negotiate with the Japanese?”

He nodded at Yoshio. “We have an interpreter, remember? That’s just in case they don’t speak English, although we know a lot of their officers do. But don’t worry, HQ is sending an officer to lead the negotiations.”

“It figures,” Philly said. “What’s the matter, Honcho? Doesn’t anybody trust us?”

“Look at this way, fellas. If any of the prisoners get killed, it’s on him,” Honcho said. “As usual, our job is mainly to shoot Japs — if we’re needed to do that.”

Steele explained that the negotiator was slated to meet them at the campus. Within the hour, they were moving through the increasingly ruined city, heading in the direction of the university. Once-proud buildings had been reduced to rubble during the fighting, mostly the result of artillery that was being used to systematically destroy any structure harboring the enemy. So much dust hung in the humid air that the sunlight turned a strange burnished sepia tone, like it was filtering through a faded yellow curtain at Grandma’s house.

Bodies of dead Japanese soldiers lay strewn here and there, but there were many more dead city residents, a grim reminder of the price that Manila had been paying. The Filipinos who hadn’t fled worked to gather and bury the bodies, but it was hard to keep up. Nobody bothered with the enemy dead. Stray dogs with their ribs sticking out nosed through the ruins, hoping for scraps.

“It looks like the surface of the moon,” Yoshio said sadly.

“I haven’t been to the moon, but that sounds about right,” Deke replied.

Where the fighting had quieted down, bulldozers were at work, pushing the rubble aside to clear the streets so that tanks and supply trucks could advance more easily. Their loud engines and belching smoke only added to the chaotic feel of destruction.

“Keep your eyes open,” Lieutenant Steele warned. “There’s no telling if there are still a few Nips around.”

“They’re as hard to wipe out as sewer rats,” Philly muttered.

Seconds after Honcho had issued his warning, a shot rang out, targeting one of the nearby bulldozers. Deke literally saw the spark as the bullet glanced off the dozer’s heavy frame. Inside the cab of the roaring dozer, the engine noise was so loud that the operator didn’t even know that he was being shot at.

Honcho waved at the man to get down, but the operator either didn’t see him or didn’t know what was going on.

The next shot was right on target, hitting the dozer operator square in the chest. The man slumped behind the controls, and the dozer rolled on as if it had a mind of its own, finally coming to rest against the stout wall of a building, engine grumbling, smoke pouring from the exhaust.

Another shot echoed along the street, but Patrol Easy had taken cover behind some of the larger chunks of rubble. The street-clearing crew had come to a stop, having seen what had befallen the other dozer operator.

“Anybody see where that sniper was at?” Philly called, scanning the remains of the hollowed-out buildings nearby nervously.

“On it,” said Deke, who thought that he had seen movement in the empty window of a building that still stood at the end of the block. He put his rifle to his shoulder and the scope to his eye, praying that the sniper gave himself away.

Sharp-eyed Juana had seen something too. “There,” she said, pointing, before swinging her own rifle up. She had found cover behind a chunk of concrete not more than a couple of yards from where Deke hid, his rifle resting on a stone block to steady it.

Even through the scope, it was hard for Deke to see any sign of the sniper, because the brownish uniforms worn by the Japanese blended in all too well with the dust-colored buildings, providing nearly perfect camouflage.

But Deke was nothing if not patient. He kept his eye trained on the spot where he thought that he’d spotted movement. He didn’t have to spare a sideways glance to know that Juana was doing the same beside him, although her rifle lacked a telescopic sight. Over the last several days, she had done well with the iron sights. Deke’s eyes were good, but he was beginning to wonder if Juana was even more eagle-eyed than he was. The thought made him smile.

The enemy sniper made the mistake of firing again. His bullet cracked harmlessly overhead but kept the soldiers pinned down. Nobody wanted to end up in his sights.

Deke couldn’t even say that he actually saw the muzzle flash so much as the pressure wave of hot gases leaving the muzzle, creating a split-second ripple against the still backdrop. Looking closer through the scope, he saw a square of the enemy sniper’s cheekbone, the sweaty flesh not quite blending in with the sun-dappled ruins in which the sniper hid. Breathing out, Deke put his crosshairs on that spot and squeezed the trigger.

At the same instant that he fired, he heard the crack of Juana’s rifle.

The enemy sniper never had a chance. Both bullets hit him at once, flinging him back into the ruined room behind him.

Deke looked over at Juana, who returned his gaze and gave him a nod. Again, he thought he saw a slight smile play over her lips. My kind of girl, Deke thought.

“You two make a pretty good team,” Philly said. “I’ve got to say, I’m a little worried that I might be replaced. I always thought it was you and me, Corn Pone.”

“Let’s face it, Philly,” Deke said, grinning. “She’s a better shot than you, and she’s a whole lot better looking.”

Philly laughed. “Is that so? In your case, I’d call that a match made in heaven.”

Deke didn’t say anything, but he’d been having that very same thought.

The body of the dead operator was removed from the bulldozer. He was carried away with as much dignity as possible under the circumstances. Someone else climbed into the dozer and gave the surrounding windows a nervous glance. The work clearing the streets resumed.

“All right, the show’s over, so let’s move out,” Honcho said. “In case you all forgot, we’re expected somewhere else.” He paused, looking around at the buildings where any number of snipers might be hiding. “Whatever you do, keep your eyes open.”

They moved cautiously through the ruined city, knowing that each empty window or pile of rubble might be concealing one more enemy soldier eager to die for the Emperor while trying to take out an American soldier at the same time.

Deke and Juana led the way, with Philly and Danilo just behind them. Every footstep felt tense as they threaded their way through the streets, dust from the rubble rising up to coat their boots and their trouser legs. As he walked, Deke’s eyes swiveled in every direction, looking for any sign of movement. Staying alive from one street corner to the next was starting to feel like a small miracle.

Anyone watching Deke would have been reminded of the way a hunting cat prowls through an alley, every muscle tense, ready to jump sideways or pounce, depending on what emerged from the shadows. But Deke was more than an alley cat; he was more like a mountain lion.

Block by block, they finally reached the university campus. A tank stood by silently, its gun covering the entrance to one of the taller buildings.

“What’s the situation?” Steele asked the tank commander.

“That’s where the Japanese are holed up with their hostages, sir,” the sergeant replied, nodding at the building. “I’ve got to say, I’d rather shoot at them than talk to them.”

“It’s new territory for us all, Sergeant,” Steele replied.

Steele looked around. Other than the tank crew, who did look itchy to open fire rather than negotiate with the enemy, the only other person around was a dark-haired boy who was keeping his distance from the soldiers. Though dark-haired and with brown almond-shaped eyes, his boyishly handsome face had pale skin and Caucasian features, seeming to combine the elements of both races in a way that surprised the lieutenant and his men. The soldiers were so used to the sight of Filipinos that they had almost forgotten that there were Americans and Europeans who had been left behind when the Japanese first sacked the city.

“Who the hell is that kid?” Steele wondered.

“Aw, he says his father is one of the prisoners inside,” the tank commander replied.

“He can’t hang around here,” Steele said.

“I told him that, but he’s still here, isn’t he?” The tank commander looked amused. “Now that you’re here, I guess it’s your turn to babysit that kid.”

“So he speaks English?”

“Sure, he speaks it as good as you or me. He just doesn’t listen so well.” The sergeant added, “Listen, sir, we’re gonna roll out. This tank isn’t doing much good here, anyhow, because if we open fire, we’ll bring that building down on the heads of everyone in it, including the hostages.”

“Good point, Sergeant. But are you sure you’re that tired of babysitting? What are you going to do instead?” Steele asked.

“We’re gonna go shoot us some rats,” the tank commander said, nodding at the large gun of the tank.

“Must be some big rats,” Steele said.

“City’s full of ’em,” the tank commander said. “Especially down at Intramuros, the old walled part of the city. That’s where the Japanese are planning to make their last stand.”

“Happy rat hunting,” Steele said.

The tank cranked up, exhaust fumes hanging heavy and the growl of the engine echoing off the stone faces of the nearby buildings. Then the tank rolled out, leaving Patrol Easy to keep watch and wait for the negotiator to arrive from HQ.

Steele looked over at the boy. “Hey, kid. Come here a minute.”

The boy approached cautiously, keeping out of arm’s reach. “Yes, sir?”

“I hear your father is inside.”

The boy nodded. He looked both angry and fearful, which was understandable under the circumstances. Steele was pretty sure there were a couple of tear tracks down the boy’s dusty face. “My father is American, but my mother is Filipino. My grandfather is judge of the appellate court. The Japanese took my father prisoner but left the rest of us alone.”

Steele could see now that in addition to his American and Filipino traits, the boy’s proud bearing hinted at some of the old Spanish blood typical of the city’s elite, which an appellate judge certainly was. Right now, it didn’t matter if the boy came from the upper classes. This was no place for any civilian, let alone a boy.

“I’m sorry about that, kid. But you need to go home. Your father wouldn’t want you to be out here. He’d want you to be home taking care of your mother.”

“She’s the one who sent me,” the boy said. “She wants me to bring him home as soon as the Japanese let him go. Our house was wrecked, so we’re living someplace else for now, and he wouldn’t be able to find us in this mess. I know this city about as well as anybody. The Japanese don’t pay much attention to a kid, so I’ve been coming and going here for weeks.”

The lieutenant rubbed his chin, thinking it over. It was bad enough that he had to cope with grouchy GIs, short-tempered commanding officers, bloodthirsty guerrillas, and sneaky Nips. Now it seemed that he also had to deal with a snot-nosed kid. He sighed.

Philly spoke up. “Honcho, you want me to give him a kick in the pants and send him on his way?”

“No, let him stay.” The lieutenant had done a quick mental calculation and didn’t like the boy’s chances of getting home alive on his own. He pointed to a large rock to Deke’s right. “Kid, get down behind that rock and don’t you move unless that man there tells you to. He’ll keep you alive if anyone can. Understood?”

The boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s your name, anyhow?”

“Roddy MacGregor. My father’s name is Michael.” The boy paused, then added with a touch of pride, “His friends call him Big Mike because he’s so tall.”

“All right, Roddy. Keep your head down.”

From the open windows, they saw Caucasian faces peering out from the lower levels. Maybe one of those prisoners was the boy’s father. The faces of Japanese soldiers looked down from the higher levels of the building. The Japanese soldiers were pointing rifles at them. The Japanese didn’t open fire, and neither did Patrol Easy. Instead, the two sides kept under cover, watching one another warily.

“How long do we keep this up, Honcho?” Philly wanted to know.

“Until the cavalry gets here,” Steele replied.

“When is that?”

“Whenever they decide to show up, that’s when,” Steele snapped. “Meanwhile, everybody hold your fire. I see those Japanese in the windows as well as you do, but we don’t want to hit any prisoners.”

That said, Patrol Easy settled down to wait for this so-called cavalry, which at that moment was several miles away, riding on a bucking steed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Captain Jim Oatmire had ridden in a jeep from the beach to the outskirts of Manila. Although the ride wasn’t exactly comfortable, he reminded himself that he had nothing to complain about. Much of the military force descending upon the city had arrived in a beach landing that had been largely unopposed, so different from the reception they had received from the Japanese when landing on Leyte. The Philippines was a nation of islands, and on the island of Luzon, the Japanese had withdrawn inland and awaited the approach of Allied troops. This was going to be a defensive operation. In part, this was why Manila had become a battleground.

“This is as far as we go, Captain,” the driver said. Although it was usually the officer who delivered such announcements to enlisted men like the one behind the wheel, the driver in this case seemed to have decided that experience trumped rank. He was an older man who clearly wasn’t impressed with Oatmire’s captain’s bars or neatly pressed uniform.

“What are you talking about?” Oatmire asked. Their surroundings swarmed with activity as army troops pushed deeper into the city, so he couldn’t figure out why the driver had stopped.

Unperturbed, the driver nodded at the road ahead — which was largely blocked by rubble and the wrecked, burned-out hulks of civilian vehicles. It wasn’t exactly an open road. Oatmire got it then — there was literally no way for the jeep to proceed. Bulldozers worked to clear the debris, but they hadn’t made much progress. The only thing that seemed to be getting through was a tank, which was unlikely to give him a ride.

Above the grinding motors of the bulldozers, they could hear a few shots in the distance. The driver didn’t appear eager to get any closer to the shooting.

“It’s literally the end of the road, sir.”

“I can see that. So this is Manila, huh?”

“Not much to look at, is it, sir?”

He had seen postcard images of the elegant old city with its Spanish architecture that General MacArthur loved so much. That picture-perfect city was rapidly becoming just a memory as the war raged. He sighed. “No, it’s not.”

Oatmire climbed out of the jeep and grabbed his haversack. His only weapon was his sidearm, a fact that the driver noticed.

“Don’t you have a rifle, sir?”

“I don’t plan on doing much fighting, soldier. No need for a rifle.”

“You might change your mind about that, sir.”

“I hope to hell not.”

“There are still a lot of Japanese around.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Oatmire said. “You’d better get on back to the beach.”

The driver gave him a wave that may have been a half-assed salute, then turned the jeep around and headed back toward the landing area. As the sound of the jeep motor faded, he could hear the thump of artillery in the distance and rifle shots nearby. Maybe that driver had been right about taking a rifle along. Oatmire looked out at the battered city and thought, What now?

Oatmire pulled out his map but quickly realized that he didn’t know what the hell he was looking at. The street signs were long gone, and any sort of landmarks on his map were unrecognizable, having mostly been reduced to rubble.

He began picking his way through the city streets, asking for directions to the University of Santo Tomas. Some of the men he asked had no clue; they knew they were in Manila and that was about it, so he kept asking. The areas that he moved through were more or less cleared of the enemy, but not completely. He dove for cover just twice, both times when sniper fire broke out. His clean uniform quickly got dusty, not to mention sweaty.

After two hours of tense movement through the city streets, knowing that each time he crossed open ground, he was making himself a target, he finally arrived at the university.

He soon realized that reaching his destination was only the start of his challenges. It turned out that the university was essentially an island, surrounded by city blocks now controlled by US forces. That much was a relief. Considering that the army had plenty of artillery firepower, the normal course of action would have been to blow the enemy to hell and bury them in the rubble, but that was not an option here. This was because the Japanese held dozens of prisoners hostage. The number of prisoners had been much larger, several thousand at the start of the battle. However, the Japanese had realized that controlling so many desperate prisoners might enable the prisoners to turn on them. Also, they had run out of food and water for the prisoners.

Holding a smaller number of prisoners still gave the surrounded Japanese a powerful negotiating tool. In fact, the presence of the hostages was why Oatmire was here in the first place.

Currently, US forces were surrounding one of the university buildings, a tall stone structure with architecture that would have been at home in Old Spain. The soldiers held their guns at the ready and kept their fingers on the triggers.

Several of the soldiers covering the building’s main entrance were snipers, indicated by the fact that they carried rifles with telescopic sights. Mixed among the sniper squad were several Filipino fighters, including a few women. The presence of the women took Oatmire somewhat by surprise. From their dirty uniforms to the gunpowder grime on their faces, the whole bunch looked like tough customers. Their weapons appeared battered but gleamed with fresh gun oil as if well tended. Oddly enough, there was also a boy hanging around, maybe ten or twelve years old, wearing shorts and a striped shirt, crouched behind a rock next to one of the snipers. He looked more American than Filipino. What a kid was doing here was a mystery. Oatmire decided that one of the first things he’d be doing was sending the boy away. This was no place for a kid.

He noticed that the sniper positioned between one of the women and the boy took his eye away from his rifle scope long enough to assess Oatmire. The man’s gray eyes passed over him cooly, his face indifferent. Oatmire noticed that one side of the man’s face was covered with a raking scar, but he was otherwise rather handsome in a rawboned way, deeply tanned by the tropical sun. The sniper gave the impression that he’d pull his trigger and deliver a deadly shot with no more thought than he would give to smashing an insect. Glad he’s on our side, Oatmire thought. Instead of a helmet, the sniper wore an Australian-style bush hat. The hat was not regulation, but Oatmire wasn’t about to say anything. That wasn’t his role here.

In the windows of the university building, he could see several Japanese with their own rifles at the ready, aimed at the Americans. With a start, Oatmire realized that he was almost certainly in the Japanese sights, and fresh sweat broke out on his forehead.

Nobody was shooting, but for how long? There were itchy trigger fingers all around. He realized that one small miscalculation was going to turn this whole situation into a bloodbath. If that happened, there sure as hell wouldn’t be any hostages for him to rescue.

Nobody but the alert sniper had paid any attention to his arrival. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

A tall lieutenant stepped forward, Oatmire noting with surprise that the man wore an eye patch. The patch looked homemade, as if it had been cut from a scrap of boot leather. Oatmire couldn’t help but stare.

“That would be me,” the lieutenant said. He didn’t offer a salute, which was typical of combat conditions where the gesture would make it easier for Japanese snipers to pick off the officers. “I’m Lieutenant Steele.”

“Captain Oatmire.”

“You must be our hostage negotiator.”

“That’s what I’ve been told,” Oatmire said. “It looks as if you have the Japanese bottled up.”

“If they didn’t have hostages, there wouldn’t be a building left, sir,” Steele said. “We’d have called in artillery to level it.”

“How many hostages?”

Steele shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Too many. Every now and then, the Japanese make their prisoners stand in the windows as a reminder that it would be a bad idea if we start shooting.”

“Damn Japs. We’re getting reports that they’re using civilians as human shields all over the city. Have you talked with them?”

“No, I haven’t, Captain. Seems to me like that’s your job.”

Oatmire nodded, then pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket. He had brought it along for this very purpose. He noted with some disappointment that the handkerchief had been white, but the dusty city was already making it dingy. “All right, I’m going to approach them under a flag of truce. Hopefully they won’t shoot me.”

“Good luck with that, sir,” Steele replied. It wasn’t reassuring that he sounded doubtful that the white flag was going to do anything but get Oatmire killed. “We do have an interpreter if you want him. Yoshio, come over here a minute.”

One of the GIs scurried out from behind a chunk of rubble. Oatmire was surprised at the sight of a young Japanese man wearing an army uniform. He’d heard about these Nisei, Japanese Americans who spoke the enemy’s language. Even at headquarters, there were some who didn’t quite trust their loyalties.

“Thanks, that will be useful if there are any language issues,” Oatmire said. “Some of these Japanese speak at least a little English, but you never know.”

“You never know,” Steele agreed. He gave him another look. “If you don’t mind me asking, how many negotiations have you done?”

“I once bought a used car and got the dealer to knock off fifty bucks. Does that count?”

Steele stared at him for a moment, seeming to wonder if Oatmire was serious or not; then his face broke into a grin and he even gave a short laugh. It had a rusty sound, as if he hadn’t had much reason to laugh recently. “And you’re the guy HQ sent, huh? Sounds about right.”

“That’s the army way,” Oatmire agreed. He also found himself grinning. “On-the-job training. Any advice?”

The lieutenant thought it over. “Just remember that they’re Japs,” he said. “They don’t think like us. Most Japanese could not care less about dying, and I don’t expect that these bastards are any different. Especially the officers. I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised that any of the hostages have survived. But I guess that they want a bargaining chip.”

Oatmire found a low whistle escaping his lips. “That’s not much to negotiate with. A bargaining chip, huh? What the hell do they even want?”

“Probably to let them leave here so that they can fight and die gloriously in a last stand somewhere else in the city.” Steele tapped his shotgun barrel. “We’ll be glad to oblige.”

“All right,” Oatmire said, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“One thing, sir,” Steele said.

“What is it?” Oatmire found that he didn’t mind any excuse that delayed stepping out into the open, in full view of the Japanese riflemen in the upper floors.

“Maybe you could go alone at first. It’s just that I’d hate to lose our interpreter too.”

Gee, thanks for that, Oatmire thought. He took a deep breath to settle his nerves, although it didn’t help much, and shook out the so-called flag of truce. He realized that he was trusting his life to a dingy white handkerchief. “All right,” he said. “I’ll call your guy over if I need him to translate. Here goes nothing.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

From the safety of cover, the soldiers watched tensely as Captain Oatmire approached the university building, waving his white handkerchief. He was not armed, having put his faith in the scrap of fabric to keep him safe.

“What do you think the odds are that the Japanese will shoot him?” Philly wondered.

“Fifty-fifty, but I’m not taking that bet,” Deke said.

“Me neither,” Philly said. “You’ve got to hand it to that captain, though. He’s got some guts.”

Deke couldn’t argue with that, he thought, watching the officer approach the massive, arched entryway of the stone building. Then again, there was an outside chance that Oatmire was more afraid of failing General MacArthur than he was fearful of the Japanese.

Like the others, Deke held his breath, waiting for the shot to ring out that would send Oatmire toppling into the dirt. If Oatmire had any qualms, he showed no outward sign of fear, striding forward toward the entrance with all the confidence of a door-to-door salesman looking to unload some encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners.

Deke thought that the captain was either a brave son of a bitch or a fool who didn’t know he was dead yet. Maybe a little of both.

Instead of being greeted by a gunshot, Oatmire was met by a Japanese officer. Deke was surprised to see that he was tall for a Japanese and neatly dressed, down to the creases on his uniform that looked sharp as a samurai sword — which the officer happened to be wearing at his belt. Although the officer himself was not waving a white flag, the man next to him, a tough-looking fellow who was apparently some sort of flunky, did have one. Other than the sword, which was more like a badge of office for the Japanese rather than a weapon, they were not armed — but there were plenty of Japanese soldiers in the building behind them with weapons at the ready. In an instant, there might be a storm of lead flying at the Americans.

Oatmire and the Japanese officer spoke briefly, then Oatmire looked toward Patrol Easy’s position and waved. Apparently he had need of an interpreter, after all.

“That’s your cue, Yoshio,” Lieutenant Steele said. Then he pointed at Deke. “You go with him, Deke.”

Deke was taken aback. There was no way that he wanted to offer himself as a target. Without thinking, he blurted out, “What the hell, Honcho? I don’t speak the lingo.”

“You don’t need to say anything. Some things can be communicated better without words. With all due credit to Yoshio and that captain, I want you to make an impression on the Japanese about what’s in store for them if they don’t go along with Oatmire. He looks like a damn overgrown Boy Scout. We need somebody to put the fear of God into them. If they don’t release the hostages, I want to remind those Nips that the last thing they’re gonna see in this world is your ugly mug.”

“Good cop, bad cop,” Philly muttered. “You are definitely the bad cop.”

“You sure know how to make a fella feel appreciated, Honcho,” Deke said, then straightened up. He wasn’t reassured by the worried look that Juana was giving him. Like the others, she seemed to expect shooting to break out momentarily. She kept her captured Arisaka rifle pointed at the enemy position.

“Should I bring my rifle, Honcho?”

“No, those Japs aren’t armed. Leave your rifle here, son.”

Deke did as he was told and left behind his rifle and pistol. It felt strange not to have them within reach, almost like he was naked. He did keep his bowie knife in his belt. He figured that was fair enough. Hell, that Jap officer had a damn sword.

He followed Yoshio into the open and they joined Captain Oatmire, who was facing the two Japanese. “This is Major Tanigawa,” Oatmire said, giving Deke and Yoshio a quick glance. “He’s willing to discuss the release of the hostages with us.”

Deke looked Tanigawa up and down. Again, Deke was impressed that the enemy officer was tall and well built for a Japanese, even rather regal, with a uniform that was cleaner and neater than the captain’s. Although Oatmire hadn’t been gone long from headquarters, his uniform was struggling to stay clean and pressed in these combat conditions. The katana sword at his belt added to the major’s dignified appearance.

Another damn Jap who thinks he’s a samurai, Deke thought, admiring the beautifully crafted sword in spite of himself. It was hard to read the officer’s face, which was studiously indifferent. The man would’ve made a good poker player. His eyes lingered the longest on Yoshio, as if Tanigawa was trying to digest the idea of someone of Japanese heritage wearing an American uniform. His demeanor cracked just a bit, and he almost appeared puzzled by the sight.

The face of the flunky standing beside Tanigawa was much easier to read. In fact, his thoughts were as plain as the headlines of a newspaper. He scowled, his eyebrows knitting together. He didn’t seem to think much of Oatmire or the American Nisei interpreter. Oatmire had picked up on the Japanese flunky’s hostility, and jerking his chin at the man, he asked, “Who is this, anyhow?”

Major Tanigawa seemed taken aback that anyone would care about the man who had accompanied him to this negotiation. He barely gave the flunky more than a passing glance before replying, “Sergeant Inaba.”

Sergeant Inaba’s stare indicated that he would like nothing better than to take out the Americans. At one point the man’s eyes slid to Tanigawa’s samurai sword, as if contemplating grabbing it and using it on the Americans, white flag be damned.

Same to you, buddy, Deke thought, locking eyes with the man. He touched the hilt of his bowie knife, just to send the Jap a message. The sergeant nodded, seeming to recognize an equal, a slight smile coming to his lips as if he would welcome mixing it up with Deke. Both men squinted as they studied each other, as if lining up the other man across a rifle sight. Sometimes no language was needed to express how you really felt — Honcho had sure been right about that. Deke had to remind himself that their current purpose was to avoid any shooting.

Sounding angry and glaring at Yoshio, the major spit out something in Japanese. The harsh, guttural language grated on Deke’s ears.

“What’s he going on about?” Oatmire asked.

“He says that I am a traitor,” Yoshio explained.

“Yeah? Well, to hell with him,” Oatmire said. “Anyhow, we’re here to talk about the hostages, not his damn opinions.”

Oatmire began the negotiations by making a direct appeal.

“Major Tanigawa, what do we need to do to get you to release these prisoners that you are unlawfully holding hostage?” Captain Oatmire asked. Then he turned to the interpreter. “It’s Yoshio, right? Go ahead and ask him, Yoshio.”

Yoshio asked the question. The major replied in Japanese, and Yoshio translated. “He says we can leave the area, for a start. Then he will let the hostages go.”

“Tell him we can’t do that,” Oatmire said. “Tell him he and his men are free to go if they leave the hostages behind.”

Tanigawa replied and Yoshio explained, “He says they would require an escort for safe passage.”

“An escort? Where the hell does he want to go, Tokyo?”

The Japanese major then startled them by speaking up in passable English. It turned out that the enemy officer had been slyly pretending he didn’t know the language. “Not Tokyo, Captain. I only wish to lead my men to join the rest of our troops here in the city.”

Oatmire raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you didn’t speak English,” he grumbled. “If you release the hostages, we could provide an escort.”

“Such an arrangement would be amenable to me.”

Oatmire nodded. “How many hostages are we talking about here?”

“Many have already been released, but several dozen prisoners remain. They will be released also.”

“All right, send them out.” Oatmire seemed a bit perplexed that there wasn’t more to discuss, as if he had come all that way for not a whole lot. “Once you’ve done that, come back out and you can be on your way to join up with whomever you want here — with that escort you asked for.”

“This is satisfactory to me,” Major Tanigawa said.

He offered a curt bow, then turned on his heel with military precision and headed back inside. His sergeant gave Deke one last glare, then followed.

Oatmire stood there, watching the Japanese go.

Deke wasn’t as patient. He was antsy to get his hands back on his rifle. Although they had reached an agreement with the Japanese, it hardly felt like a victory. Everything about what had just happened had left them feeling tense and uneasy. Something about the deal just didn’t sit right with Deke. “Now what, sir?”

“Now we wait. He said that he’s going to release the rest of the hostages.” A thought seemed to come to Oatmire. “You’ve been at this a while, soldier. Do you trust these Japanese?”

“Not as far as I can throw ’em, sir.”

“That makes two of us. I’ll tell you what. I’ll wait here and see what happens. You and Yoshio go back.”

“And do what, sir?”

“Get your rifles, that’s what. If diplomacy fails, there’s going to be some shooting to do.”

Deke and Yoshio did as they were told, heading back to take cover in the rubble. Of course, Deke was glad to get his hands on his rifle again. With any luck, he’d have a chance to shoot that Japanese sergeant with it.

“Are we really gonna let them go?” Deke wondered.

“We do what we promise,” Honcho said.

“Do you think the Japanese would do the same for us if the tables were turned?”

“Maybe not,” Honcho agreed. “But that’s the difference between us and them, isn’t it? Americans mean what we say. You can take us at our word.”

It was hard to argue with that. Even in the midst of a brutal war, whether it was in Europe or the Pacific, the Americans and their allies tried to do the right thing. There was the brutal war fought with bombs and bullets and flamethrowers, but there was also a war for hearts and minds fought by setting an example. So far America and the Allies were winning that war.

Then the lieutenant added an afterthought: “Also, we want the Japanese to release those hostages, so we really don’t have much choice.”

Deke felt better now with his rifle back in his hands. “For a bunch of people who like to think of themselves as samurai warriors, they sure don’t have any trouble hiding behind prisoners, even ones wearing skirts.”

“You’ve got that right,” Honcho agreed.

Several minutes went by, the minutes stretching into an hour. Still, the Japanese had not reappeared. The heat of the sun seemed to amplify exponentially with each passing minute. The scent of smoke, burning debris, and the putrid smell of dead corpses hung heavily in the air. Deke swigged from his canteen to wash away the taste of dust and ash that lingered on his tongue like a sprinkling of the destruction and death that surrounded them. He noticed that Juana had barely moved, her finger on the trigger.

Flies appeared and buzzed annoyingly into their ears and eyes. Everyone tried hard not to think about the fact that these same flies were probably the ones they had seen earlier swarming over the faces of the dead they had passed in the shattered streets. The boy came over and crouched near Deke and Juana, as if he didn’t want to be off by himself. Deke couldn’t blame him.

Finally, the Japanese began to emerge. This in itself was something of a spectacle because they formed into marching order, as neatly as though they were gathered on a parade ground. It was a strange sight, seeing the enemy up close. So close, in fact, that Deke could see their individual features.

He studied them with curiosity because it wasn’t often that he’d seen enemy soldiers this close. They were shorter than the average American by two or three inches, but there was an undeniable physical strength about them, the soldiers being either wiry or squat and powerfully built. Also, these Japanese had been living in comparative comfort compared to the soldiers that Patrol Easy had encountered in the jungles and mountains or damp underground bunkers. Consequently, they appeared relatively strong and healthy, their uniforms clean and even their brown boots polished, contrasting with the lighter-colored laces.

As they formed up, the hobnailed soles of their boots grated in an unsettling manner on the flat paving stones that remained in the courtyard. Enemy footsteps. How many times had they heard that scrape of steel on rock in the dark and knew all too well what was coming next? What stood out most of all were the impassive faces of the enemy, all of them with eyes staring straight ahead, as if the Americans were nothing to them at all — or perhaps were not even there. The only other sound aside from the hobnailed boots came in the form of a few harsh, gruff orders. The well-disciplined soldiers obeyed instantly.

There were also a lot of soldiers, at least a hundred men, vastly outnumbering Patrol Easy and the handful of infantry guarding the campus.

Philly gave a low whistle. “Now that I see them up close, I’m glad we didn’t have to fight them.”

“There were a lot more Nips than we figured,” Deke agreed.

“We’ve got them right where we want them,” Philly said. “We ought to just say to hell with it and shoot them all right now. Mow them down. It’s now or later, right?”

“Shut up, Philly,” the lieutenant said, having overheard. “You talk too much. We’re here because of those hostages, remember?”

Maybe the Japanese were worried about that very notion of betrayal coming into the heads of their enemy because it soon became clear that the Japanese weren’t taking any chances. Once the Japanese were formed up, there were more shouted orders and their ranks opened like a chunk of firewood being split down the middle. From the college building emerged a dozen prisoners — a mixed bag of men and three or four women.

“Papa!” shouted the boy, who had been watching rapt as the Japanese formed up. Deke and the others had almost forgotten that he was still there.

A prisoner looked up, tall as a drink of water and skinny as a rail. He was six foot four if he was an inch, towering over the Japanese soldiers. The boy had said that his father’s nickname was “Big Mike,” which made perfect sense. He wore what had once been a business suit, but which was now ragged and hanging loosely on his frame. Clearly, he had lost a lot of weight while being held captive. A reddish beard covered his face, which broke into a smile.

“Roddy!” the prisoner shouted.

The boy started running toward the tall man, who was in turn trying to force his way through the Japanese to reach his son. In a perfect world, it might have been a happy reunion for them both.

But a reunion was not meant to be. “Stop!” Tanigawa shouted, pointing his sword at the man. He wasn’t about to listen, but several Japanese soldiers sprang forward and held him. At first it looked as if they might not be able to stop him because he was so determined to reach his son. The difference in height gave an almost comical impression of a giant being restrained by dwarfs. However, the dwarfs appeared quite strong and the giant among them had been weakened by captivity and starvation. Try as he might, he couldn’t break free. Still, one of the Japs took an elbow to the nose for his trouble, bright blood spurting. The sight of the blood in the middle of what had started out as an almost ceremonial event was jarring and hinted at more to come.

Sergeant Inaba settled the matter by appearing as if out of nowhere and pointing a submachine gun at the prisoner’s head.

“Stop!” he shouted in English. Apparently here was a second Japanese who only pretended not to know the language.

Meanwhile, two Japanese soldiers stepped forward to intercept the boy, who was still running toward the enemy formation. For one terrifying instant, one of them raised his rifle butt as if about to club the boy, but stopped at another warning shout from Tanigawa. Instead of hitting him, they grabbed him and lifted him clean off the ground.

“Let go of my son, damn you!” the prisoner shouted, struggling anew to break free. “Get your hands off him.”

The neat Japanese formation began to unravel. Rifles came off shoulders and began pointing toward the US soldiers, whose own fingers were on their triggers. Deke already had his sights lined up on the Japanese officer, Tanigawa.

“Come on,” he breathed. He fought the urge to pull the trigger. “Come on.”

The situation had quickly worsened and threatened to turn into the bloodbath they had expected from the outset. To his credit, it was Captain Oatmire who stepped forward, putting himself squarely in the middle of everyone’s gunsights. He moved toward the soldiers holding the struggling boy.

“OK, it’s OK, I’ve got him,” he said.

Yoshio was now right on his heels, shouting something in Japanese. The enemy soldiers glanced at Major Tanigawa, who nodded. They let Oatmire take charge of the boy, who got a firm but gentle grip on his shoulders. “It’s all right, kid. You’ll see your father soon enough,” he said. To the father he shouted over the tops of the enemy’s heads, “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him.”

“Damn these lying people!” the father shouted, but he allowed himself to be shoved back into formation. He really didn’t have any choice.

But Sergeant Inaba had to get in one last blow. He used the metal butt of the submachine gun to jab Big Mike savagely in the small of his back, right in the kidney. The prisoner cried out in pain and sank to his knees.

“Damn you, Inaba!” Big Mike shouted.

The sergeant just smiled. He raised the weapon as if to smash Big Mike again, but stopped when Major Tanigawa shouted something. It was likely that the major was less motivated by any sense of kindness toward the prisoner who was now on his knees than by a desire to maintain the calm after a melee had nearly broken out. Reluctantly, Inaba lowered the weapon.

The rest of the Japanese got back in formation, sandwiching the prisoners in the middle as neatly as a hot dog inside a bun or jelly inside a doughnut.

“One thing for sure, that boy’s father has got a loud mouth,” said Philly, lowering his rifle. “He’s not afraid of these Japanese.”

“In my experience, being a loudmouth can be a health hazard,” Deke replied, muttering around his rifle stock. He hadn’t taken his sights off the Japanese major, a fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed by the lieutenant.

“Deke, lower your weapon, dammit,” Honcho said.

“All right,” Deke said, taking his time doing it.

He didn’t like how this was unfolding at all.

Briefly, Deke had been a prisoner himself during a rescue mission on Leyte. General MacArthur had made the release of POWs a priority, just as he was doing here in Manila, so Patrol Easy had found itself at a remote jungle prison camp. The best way of getting the prisoners out had promised to be from within, so Deke had allowed himself to be captured, posing as a lost GI. He had then helped lead the prisoners through the wire and toward safety, all while being pursued by the Japanese guards and a demented camp commandant with a bow and arrow. It had made for a memorable few days, to say the least.

In any case, Deke could certainly sympathize with how these prisoners must feel now, with freedom snatched from them at the last instant. It didn’t sit right with him.

He wasn’t the only one.

“What the hell is happening here?” Honcho wondered aloud. “This wasn’t the deal. They’re supposed to let the prisoners go. Dammit, Oatmire, go talk to him.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tanigawa now stood at the head of the Japanese formation, calmly watching as Captain Oatmire approached him again. This time there was no charade about the need for interpreters. It had already become clear that the officer spoke English.

“Major Tanigawa, what the hell is going on?” Oatmire demanded.

Tanigawa gave him a cold smile. “Insurance policy,” he said. “I think that is the expression that you Americans would use.”

“That wasn’t the agreement,” Oatmire complained. He felt his temper spike and struggled to keep it under control, knowing that it wouldn’t make the situation any better. “We didn’t talk about any damn insurance policies.”

Tanigawa just shrugged. “Do you wish for the release of the prisoners or not? I have let most of them go. These few will be released once we reach our destination.”

Oatmire marched back to Lieutenant Steele with the bad news. “I hate to say it, but these Japs have us stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Honcho said. “I would’ve said they had our nuts in a vise.”

“Well, that too,” Oatmire admitted. “Dammit, I feel like my first hostage negotiation didn’t go so well. I must have missed something.”

“Captain, the only mistake you made was trusting these lying Nips in the first place,” Steele said.

“No kidding,” Oatmire said, sounding disgusted.

“Not your fault, you know. You were simply making a good-faith effort. I’ve got to say, I don’t like it any better than you do, but at this point, I don’t think we have much of a choice except to go along with what Tanigawa wants. We’ll escort them to wherever they want to go, and then we’ll see that the prisoners are released.”

“All right,” Oatmire agreed. Although he outranked the older man, he wasn’t about to order around the lieutenant or his veteran combat patrol. “Sounds like the only choice we have.”

“I’d suggest that we just keep one thing in mind,” Steele added.

“What’s that, lieutenant?”

“The Japanese have already lied to us, so chances are that they’ll do it again. Knowing that, let’s both of us be on our toes in dealing with them.”

Right before they moved out, Sergeant Inaba barked an order and several of the Japanese soldiers fixed bayonets. Their intent seemed to be to use the bayonets to prod their prisoners along. If anyone was too slow or caused trouble, such as trying to make a run for it, the Japanese clearly meant to stab them in the back.

The icing on the cake was a soldier who carried a Japanese flag next to Major Tanigawa at the front of the column.

“It looks like they’re having a damn parade,” Deke muttered.

“All they need is a marching band,” Philly agreed. “Just who the hell do they think they are?”

“They’re proud bastards, I’ll give them that,” Deke replied.

With the Japanese now formed up in marching order, Patrol Easy and the Filipinos formed a loose ring around them, and both groups moved out into the city. Tanigawa had not announced his destination, but from the pace he set, it was clear that he knew where he was leading his men.

The surrounding city was a mess, a labyrinth of burned-out cars everywhere, along with broken buildings and scattered bodies, mostly of Filipino civilians, not to mention a few dead dogs. Overall, it was far from a pleasant or encouraging sight. The smell of the dead in the warm sun mixed with the odor of raw sewage and the acrid stink of burned rubber. It all made Deke long for the greenery of the jungle. This manmade jungle was far worse.

As the soldiers moved through the city, the only living beings they passed seemed to be other combat troops, mainly American soldiers and a handful of Filipino guerrillas. They watched the procession with curiosity and puzzled expressions. For the Japanese, having an American escort forming a loose ring around them had proved to be very smart, because they would not have lasted long otherwise, surrounded by trigger-happy GIs. Even with the hostages, their chances of making it so much as a block wouldn’t have been very good.

“Ain’t this a hell of a thing,” Deke said as they walked along beside the Japanese. “Who would ever think we’d be babysitters for a bunch of enemy troops?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Philly agreed. “You know that we’re just going to have to fight these sons of bitches later, and if not us, then some other poor bastards will.”

“I don’t think we have much choice,” Deke said, nodding at the prisoners. They walked with their heads down, picking their way through the rubble. If any of them slowed down too much, Inaba or one of the other Japanese was quick to shout at them. So far they had refrained from jabbing the prisoners with bayonets. Even Big Mike appeared cowed, walking along with his head bowed. They could see him plainly because he was literally a head taller than the surrounding Japanese.

Tagging along with Patrol Easy was the prisoner’s son, who had insisted on following them. The nightmarish cityscape they passed through was no place for a young kid.

“I wish to hell that kid would go home,” Deke said. “He doesn’t have any business being out here.”

“If that was your father being herded along, would you go home?” Philly wondered.

“I don’t reckon I would.”

“There you go. What makes you think that kid is any different?”

The boy appeared to sense his tenuous position because he kept well away from the soldiers. He seemed to be afraid that if he got too close, they would yell at him to go home. However, the shattered streets they were passing through wouldn’t have been safe for him to travel alone. They began passing more and more civilian bodies, including women and children. Several of the injuries to the women and their torn or missing clothes indicated that they had been molested. They passed the body of a young woman, her shirt ripped open, revealing that one of her breasts had been cut off.

“Who the hell does that?” Philly wondered.

Nobody had a good answer for him. Juana went over and tugged the young woman’s shirt closed, then put a handkerchief over her face to keep off the flies. It was as much dignity as she could give the young woman in these circumstances.

It was becoming clear that the Japanese were killing anyone they could, including Westerners. Not all the bodies belonged to Filipino civilians. One of the dead appeared to be a heavyset middle-aged Caucasian man wearing linen suit pants and a dress shirt sliced to ribbons by bayonet cuts. The shirt had once been white but was now soaked in uneven stripes of blood. This victim appeared out of place alongside the others.

“Another American?” Philly wondered aloud.

“If he was running free around the city, instead of being a prisoner, he must be a German,” Honcho said. “Allies with the Japs. They’ve corralled everyone else.”

“Good riddance, then,” Philly said.

There had been a surprising number of Germans in Manila, most of them there in some kind of business capacity. There were also a small number of German Jews who had escaped Nazi Germany just in time, scattering to whatever far corner of the world would take them. The Japanese had not cared about their religion and consequently considered these refugees to be on equal footing with the other Germans. The presence of a German population was a problem that would have to be dealt with once the city was secure. Right now, US forces had more immediate concerns.

The heat beat down, humidity seeming to add extra effort to every motion. Deke forced himself to stay alert. There was no telling when the enemy might try something. Also, there were more than a few trigger-happy GIs wandering the streets who would have been happy enough to avenge the death of a buddy by opening fire on the Japanese soldiers. If someone from their own side opened fire, Deke wanted plenty of warning. He also wasn’t going to lift a finger to defend the Japanese if that happened, although it wouldn’t bode well for the prisoners within the enemy ranks.

“The Japs say they want those prisoners as insurance, but what do you really think they want with those women nurses?” Deke wondered, having seen what the marauding enemy had done to the Filipino women.

“The thought crossed my mind. I just hope to hell they don’t kill the rest of the prisoners as soon as they get where they’re going,” Philly replied. “You can’t trust these damn Japanese.”

“Don’t let the boy hear you say that. He’s upset enough as it is.”

After the boy stumbled over a bayoneted body and stared down at it in horror, Lieutenant Steele waved him over. “Stick close to me, kid. We don’t want to lose you in all this mess.”

Shaken by what he had seen, Roddy did as he was told and did not stray far from the lieutenant’s side. As for the boy’s father, Big Mike was too far away to communicate with his son. Once or twice when he did try to speak up, he only earned himself a rifle butt slammed painfully into the small of his back. That was better than the point of a bayonet, at least. But where the Japanese were concerned, he might be pushing his luck. It was clear they had little patience for their prisoners.

Deke had to hand it to the Japanese — they were quite disciplined, marching in tight order while still managing to herd the hostages along. There were a dozen hostages, mostly men, but among them, Deke counted three women who looked to be in their late thirties or even their forties. They had a no-nonsense appearance, not about to be confused with beauty queens, although one of the younger nurses had on a touch of lipstick. All three wore nurses’ uniforms, and he was amazed at their bravery.

He’d heard about these Red Cross nurses who had volunteered to help the prisoners, in turn becoming prisoners themselves. Now, instead of being released, they had either volunteered to be hostages or the Japanese had decided that female hostages gave them more negotiating power. He caught a glimpse of the nurses’ faces and saw no tears there, or even fear, but only a calm defiance.

From time to time, Deke locked eyes with the Japanese sergeant he had traded threatening glances with during the negotiation phase. Again, the Jap kept giving him what he must have thought was a mean-eyed scowl. Deke wasn’t impressed.

You don’t know the half of it, fella, he thought. His finger itched on the trigger, and he was more than eager to simply take out the Jap, but that wasn’t going to be possible under the circumstances. For now, they would just have to put up with him.

The group marched for nearly an hour across the city. The distance they covered wasn’t impressive, because the condition of the city streets made for slow going. In a few places, the Japanese had to march around obstacles rather than pick their way through. Once or twice, the rubble from collapsed buildings completely blocked the wall like a rockslide in the mountains back home. Maneuvering around it all took extra time.

Meanwhile, artillery boomed and echoed off the barren walls of the remaining intact buildings that still lined the streets. Rifles cracked and flamethrowers vomited fire into basements and dugouts, flushing out any hidden Japanese defenders. Those who fled the flames were instantly shot, and those who stayed were burned alive. Of all the weapons of war wielded by the soldiers, the flamethrower was the most horrible, a nightmare as much as it was a weapon. The sickly-sweet smell of roasted flesh drifted on the afternoon breeze. Once smelled, that odor could never be forgotten.

Tanigawa’s unit somehow managed to ignore the fate of their comrades and kept moving. Their destination soon became clear as the old walls of Intramuros came into sight.

“I’ll be damned,” Honcho muttered. “So that’s where they’re headed. Rumor has it that every Japanese soldier left in the city is holing up in there to make a last stand.”

“Looks like these boys want to join them,” Deke agreed.

Intramuros was the original walled city of Manila, walled like a medieval European city against whatever threats the surrounding countryside and seas posed. In the distant past, there had been raids by Muslim pirates against the Spanish and, of course, the constant threat of insurrection by the Filipinos themselves, who didn’t always appreciate being under the Spanish bootheel. On occasion, a warlord had risen up and found his forces broken against those thick walls.

As Honcho had stated, this walled city was where the remaining Japanese in Manila had decided to make their stand. Not only was this the oldest quarter of the city, but it was basically a fortress in its own right, offering cover for house-to-house and street-to-street fighting, where the defenders would enjoy a distinct advantage. Every inch of ground would be hard-fought inside the walled city.

There were several gates into the city. Once they reached one of these gates, the Japanese called a halt. Major Tanigawa detached himself from his men long enough to approach his escort. He was still carrying his double rifle. The expensive hunting weapon with its ornate filigree and finely checked stock looked out of place in the rough surroundings, considering that most other weapons were dull, battered, and scratched. In comparison, the submachine gun that Sergeant Inaba carried appeared completely utilitarian, to the point that it looked as if it had been welded together out of scrap metal. But Deke had seen those Type 100 submachine guns in action and knew that a quick burst could practically cut a man in half. The weapon was just as brutal as it looked.

“This is our destination,” Tanigawa announced. “We will join our comrades here.”

“That’s as far as we go, then,” Steele said. “We’ll take those prisoners off your hands now.”

Tanigawa did not reply but shouted an order in Japanese. His men began to move through the gate, still surrounding the prisoners. He still had not acknowledged the lieutenant’s comment regarding the prisoners.

“Hey!” Honcho yelled. “What the hell is going on here?”

Tanigawa continued to ignore him as his men trooped inside the old city.

Deke and Philly raised their rifles, but Lieutenant Steele shouted, “Hold your fire! You’ll hit one of the hostages. Maybe the bastards will release them once they’re inside the city walls.”

Deke did not lower his rifle. He had Tanigawa in his sights and his finger on the trigger. All that he needed to do was put slightly more pressure on the trigger⁠—

“Deke, do not fire that rifle!” Honcho shouted. “You’ll get every last hostage killed.”

“I ain’t gonna hit anybody but that Jap officer,” he muttered around the rifle stock, fully confident of where his bullet would go. He didn’t take his finger off the trigger.

“Do not fire. That’s an order!”

Slowly, Deke lowered his rifle, watching as the Japanese got farther away, becoming smaller targets. The snipers’ opportunity had passed.

Honcho’s hope that the Japanese would release the hostages at this point turned out to be wishful thinking. Even with their weapons trained on the Japanese, there was nothing they could do except watch in anger and frustration as the enemy troops moved inside. Suddenly the neat ranks of Japanese fell apart as the men at the back of the column spun around and sprayed fire at Patrol Easy and the Filipinos.

Deke noticed how that damn Inaba stood in the middle of the pack of Japanese, so close that Deke could see the maniacal grin on his face as the man hosed down everything in sight with his submachine gun. Deke and the others hit the deck, dodging bullets. Deke and the others put their rifles to their shoulders, ready to return fire. They hesitated, fearful of hitting the hostages. Meanwhile, short bursts from Inaba’s weapon kept them pinned down. Deke pressed his face into the dirt and dust, his mouth filling with grit as the fat slugs ricocheted around him.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Honcho shouted. “You’ll hit the prisoners!”

The lieutenant wasn’t the only one yelling. They heard the boy give a heartrending shout: “Papa!”

But Big Mike was likely too far away to hear and too close to the enemy gunfire. They had a final glimpse of his tall figure before he and the other hostages were spirited away at muzzle-point.

Helplessly, they had no choice but to watch while the Japanese slipped away into the city, taking the hostages with them. The enemy fire slackened and Deke straightened up, keeping the rifle to his shoulder, hoping for at least a parting shot, but no good target presented itself.

He lowered the rifle and spat some of the grit from his mouth into the dirt.

“Dammit all. Now what?” Honcho wondered, clenching and unclenching his fists in helpless anger.

The lieutenant seemed to be thinking out loud, but Deke went ahead and answered.

“We go after those lying bastards, that’s what,” Deke said.