Samurai & Snipers

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the ruins of Intramuros at the heart of the old colonial city, the final battle for Manila began. Most of the Americans knew that it was only a matter of time before they ground the enemy into defeat. However, the lives of the hostages now hung in the balance.

Like the others, Deke had watched with anger and disbelief as the Japanese disappeared into the ruins, using their human shields to keep them safe.

“What a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards,” he said. “They’re hiding behind prisoners, including a bunch of damn women.”

“They’re Nips,” Philly pointed out. “What else do you expect?”

Deke hawked up some of the dust that had been collecting at the back of his throat and spat. His own saliva tasted like bitter bile. In situations like this, one of the best things he could think to do was to shoot something. His gray eyes flashing, he looked around for a target. He didn’t see anything stirring among the rubble, which only added to his frustration.

Somewhere in the surrounding walled ruins, the Japanese were ready to make their last stand. While Patrol Easy was mainly focused on liberating the hostages that Major Tanigawa had taken, they would face more challenges. It wasn’t just Major Tanigawa and his band, but several thousand die-hard Japanese soldiers that he had joined for this final struggle.

The simplest approach would have been to shell Intramuros into rubble, indiscriminately destroying every building in sight. However, the artillery units had been informed that there were American hostages within those walls. Lieutenant Steele and Patrol Easy were being given a very narrow window to find those hostages before the shells came raining down again.

Honcho wasn’t sure there would be enough time. He went in search of the artillery commander to beg him to hold off long enough to give Patrol Easy a chance to do things their way.

“Dammit, I’ll give you until lunchtime tomorrow,” the unhappy colonel grumped when Lieutenant Steele explained the situation. He chomped on a cigar and glared at the lieutenant as if holding off on an artillery barrage was a personal affront.

“Sir, that’s just not enough time. Hell, we don’t even know where the Japanese have taken these hostages.”

The colonel did not look sold on the idea, especially when it was coming from a mere lieutenant, so Captain Oatmire spoke up. His uniform was still clean enough that he was obviously not a combat soldier. He introduced himself as MacArthur’s liaison, which was something of a stretch. Still, the fact that he had come from headquarters gave his words extra weight in this situation. What he lacked in rank he hoped to make up for with clout. “Colonel, I have direct orders from General MacArthur to get those hostages to safety.”

Honcho gave him a sideways look. He knew that what Oatmire was saying wasn’t entirely true, but the colonel seemed to buy it hook, line, and sinker. “All right, I’ll give you a few more hours. Dammit, I’m not happy about it. I won’t have those Nips sneaking away again. If that’s not good enough for MacArthur, then by gum he’ll have to come down here and tell me in person.”

“Thank you, sir,” Oatmire said.

As they walked away, Honcho said, “That went better than I expected. If I didn’t know better, I would have believed you when you brought up that bit about MacArthur.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna go running to headquarters and tell them any different. Anyhow, believe me when I say that the last thing any career-minded officer wants to do is get on MacArthur’s bad side.”

“It seems to me maybe that’s just what you did, to get sent out here.”

“Come to think of it, you might be on to something.”

They returned to find Patrol Easy and the Filipino snipers waiting for them, plus the boy that had somehow latched on to them. Steele had mixed emotions about dragging the boy into this mess, but they were too deep into the city to send him home. Considering that the place was a war zone, he would never make it home.

The lieutenant looked around at the faces, which were tired and dusty. Hell, when was the last time that any of them had washed, slept, or eaten something that hadn’t come out of a ration can?

Even Deke, who was as lean as a locust fence post and usually took about as much abuse as one of those weathered posts without complaining, looked a bit gray around the edges. They would all have to get some decent sleep tonight, if the enemy let them.

To Honcho’s surprise, he saw that Deke wasn’t constantly scanning the surroundings, as he was wont to do. For a change, he was in a halting conversation with Juana. Then again, the Filipino girl was hardly a talker herself. They both knew just a few words of the other’s language. However, she seemed to understand Deacon Cole well enough.

Realization dawned on the lieutenant. Deke and Juana? He always counted on Deke to be as tightly strung as the short strings at the top of a guitar neck, a crack shot and cold-blooded hillbilly killer with a chip on his shoulder because he was a dirt-poor hillbilly farm boy, and an ugly, scarred one at that. Deke played one note, like constantly plucking that tight guitar string all the time. But maybe there was another side of him, after all. A rare smile crossed the lieutenant’s face. Well, I’ll be damned. To be fair, he should have seen this coming. If you put a red-blooded man and a woman together, something like that was bound to happen, even in the middle of a war.

He found himself facing the dilemma of many officers in that he loved these grimy goddamned men, had even come to respect and appreciate the Filipino fighters, but he had no choice but to order them back into the meat grinder of battle. Their work here was far from done and the clock was ticking. The ruins of Intramuros beckoned, possibly waiting to swallow them whole.

“Now what, Honcho?” Philly wondered.

“Now we go after the bastards and free those hostages, that’s what. Let’s move out.”

The chase began. This old, central heart of the city literally existed within walls entered through several gates interspersed along those walls. The gate that Patrol Easy entered through now was called the Gate of Saint James. Deke thought the gate was a wonder, unlike anything he had seen before, intricately carved in stone, featuring a warlike sculpture that intrigued him.

He couldn’t have known that was an image of Santiago Matamoros, or Saint James the Moor-killer — patron saint of Old Spain. He was depicted crushing Muslims, traditional enemies of the Spanish Catholics, under his horse’s hooves. Above it all presided the royal seal of Spain. There was certainly no ambiguity here. This gate and stone carving were a projection of long-ago colonial power. The weathered carvings seemed so ancient and foreign, however, that any meaning was lost on the average American soldier.

If the soldiers hadn’t been so tired or more given to consider the philosophical nature of things, rather than trying simply to avoid getting shot, they might have reflected on how history simply repeated itself, war and violence being the common denominator. Like Mark Twain once said, history might not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

They weren’t the only ones preparing to enter the city. Ahead of them, a rumbling Sherman tank bulled its way through the rubble. When it couldn’t go around the chunks of rock and scattered timbers, or even a twisted bicycle or two, it stubbornly went right over top of them. The presence of a tank always made foot soldiers feel better, like a big brother backing you up with a baseball bat.

“We’ll let those boys go first,” Steele said, referring to the tank. “If there’s a welcoming party, I’d rather have a tank crash it than us.”

“Honcho, I like how you think,” Philly replied. “Maybe those boys can track down those Japs for us?”

“Don’t push it, Philly.”

Ahead of them, the sturdy Sherman tank squeezed through the gate in the walled city, its steel flanks nearly scraping the stone. Not so much as a single rifle shot greeted its arrival.

The question was, Where had the Japanese gone? They had last seen Major Tanigawa and his men slipping away through the city before being forced to temporarily retreat. Deke was reminded of rats scurrying to hide when the door of a corncrib back home was flung open. Unfortunately, the rats in this case were herding prisoners. Both the Japanese and their hostages had simply melted into the landscape.

The tank and the GIs parted company, with the tank having to keep to the more open areas of the streets so that it could navigate between the piles of rubble. Patrol Easy struck out in the direction where they had last seen Tanigawa’s contingent. There was no sign of them anywhere. How could they have disappeared so quickly?

It was Danilo who spotted it, just when they were feeling lost. A Red Cross nurse’s cap hung from the branch of a shattered street tree. This was the best kind of breadcrumb that they could have hoped for. In fact, Deke guessed that one of those brave nurses had done this on purpose, leaving them a sign to follow.

“Aqui!” Danilo shouted.

The Filipino guide raced ahead, Deke and Philly trotting after him like hunting dogs with a whiff of the quarry in their noses. Danilo was as tough as monkey meat left to dry in the sun. However, Danilo was such a creature of the mountains and jungle that he looked out of place in the ruined city. But he was adapting, as they all were. Manila was just a stone and concrete jungle, after all.

They were reminded of this fact as they picked their way cautiously through the ruins. The shelling that had already taken place had left the city a mess. Deke moved down what must have once been a street, with the tall stone facade of a building to his right. Each block of stone must have weighed hundreds of pounds, all of it joined together with thick layers of mortar. No wonder the building still stood when the shelling had ripped its surroundings asunder.

If the street had once been paved, it was hard to tell because the surface of asphalt and cobblestones now resembled a freshly plowed field. Deke was reminded of the fact that he sure as hell didn’t want to be here when the big guns resumed firing.

The sun was still up, casting long shadows across the rubble. Although the artillery barrage had been suspended for now, much of this inner city had already been severely damaged by shelling and aerial bombardment.

He walked under an overhang of corrugated metal with holes punched through it by shrapnel. Deke had a passing thought that he hoped the flyboys had also gotten the message to hold off — the last thing they needed were bombs falling around their ears.

It was shadowy under there, but the shrapnel holes let daylight filter in. To his left, where the plowed street was located, more tangles of sheet metal clogged the area. The big, corrugated sheets lay every which way, resembling metallic leaves blown into piles by storm winds. The whole mess smelled of burned metal, charred wood, cordite, and unpleasant whiffs of hidden corpses rotting in the warmth.

Deke kept his eyes peeled because there were so many potential hiding places for the enemy. It was the perfect environment for an ambush if Tanigawa’s men intended to slow them down — or wipe them out. He had the unsettling thought that one hidden Jap with a machine gun or a grenade could have cut them all down, especially if he was willing to die himself in the process. That never seemed to be an issue with the Japanese.

“Easy, easy,” he called to Danilo. He struggled to summon a word from his limited Spanish vocabulary. “Cuidado.”

But the tough guerrilla guide was too intent on pursuit to listen. Deke cursed under his breath and hurried after him.

Leaving the tunnel of corrugated sheets behind, they emerged into an open area that appeared to be a city square. That’s when they caught their first glimpse of Tanigawa’s group.

Danilo whooped and fired a shot, which set the events that followed in motion.

Although they were strung out, the problem was that Tanigawa had nearly one hundred men with him, each determined to die like the good little samurai they imagined themselves to be. Several still herded the prisoners along with bayonets. As soon as Danilo fired, a handful of Japanese soldiers turned to fight a rear-guard action, meeting their pursuers with gunfire. Deke realized that they’d been foolhardy and had badly overreached. They were so outnumbered that if the Japanese had decided to fight in force, they might easily have wiped out their pursuers. To make matters worse, Patrol Easy was basically moving in a straight line because they had all been so eager to follow Danilo.

“Spread out, spread out!” Lieutenant Steele managed to shout, right before the deep boom of his 12-gauge shotgun echoed between the buildings.

The Japanese returned fire, bullets whining and ricocheting off the rocks and rubble. Up ahead, the main force of the Japanese kept moving. Tanigawa seemed to have a destination in mind.

Deke crouched behind a stone block — not a moment too soon, it turned out, as a bullet struck the stone and sent chips flying. The enemy’s smaller-caliber Arisaka rifles had a sharper, higher-pitched report, making the shots from their side sound like a crackling fire.

Briefly, he looked around to check the position of the others. Honcho was not far behind, in the process of shoving the boy’s head down. The stupid kid had apparently been curious to see what all the shooting was about.

Philly crouched right behind him, sharing the stone block for cover. But where was Juana? He didn’t see her right away and felt a momentary pang of concern, right up until he glimpsed her taking cover behind a tangled pile of corrugated metal sheets. He checked himself, wondering why he cared so damn much. But now wasn’t the time to ponder that.

“Ready?” he asked Philly. “I’ll shoot right, you shoot left.”

“Yeah.”

“One, two, three!”

Both men popped up, shooting at the Japanese. They got off two rounds each, working the bolt in between. Lucky for them, the enemy troops also had bolt-action rifles. Deke squeezed off a third shot at a Japanese who was turning his rifle in their direction.

“Got one,” Philly said. “You?”

“One, maybe two.”

But they hadn’t gotten all the Japanese, who were soon returning fire. More bullets hit the stone that they were sheltering behind. Lucky for them, it would have taken an artillery shell to get through that block. Off to one side, Honcho’s shotgun boomed again.

“They’re falling back,” Honcho shouted. “Let’s go!”

They had taken out some of the rear guard, but more peeled away to replace their fallen comrades, and in greater numbers. The sniper squad was at a disadvantage because they relied on precision rather than firepower. Undeterred, the Americans pressed forward as best as they could, firing, advancing a few feet, taking cover, then doing it all over again. Deke shot a Japanese, whose arms flung wide as dramatically as a dead man in a movie. Two more took his place.

Clearly Major Tanigawa was prepared to fight a battle of attrition and didn’t care about the losses of his own men if he could slow down his pursuers.

What transpired was a running battle through the ruined city streets. The Americans continued to advance, but it was slow going.

“Look out!” Yoshio warned.

He had spotted something to one side of their route through this no-man’s-land. One of the Japanese soldiers they had shot wasn’t quite dead. He lay wedged between two chunks of concrete, grasping a grenade to his chest.

Yoshio shouted something in Japanese at the soldier, probably encouraging him to give up. But by now Yoshio should have known that surrender was not the Japanese way.

I guess he’s got to try, Deke thought. Even though Yoshio was clearly wasting his breath.

It wasn’t clear whether the wounded enemy soldier intended to blow himself up or throw the grenade at the nearest American. Deke didn’t give him a chance to make up his mind. He squeezed the trigger and put another bullet in him. The body twisted with death throes and then the grenade went off, the noise ringing in Deke’s ears. Some wet gore spattered on the rocks and on his trousers.

Philly swore and wiped at his face, which had a splash of blood across it.

“You all right?” Deke asked him.

“Not mine,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of a grimy hand. He spat. “Dammit, I’ve got some of that Jap’s blood in my mouth. I hope to hell he wasn’t diseased.”

They moved on, stepping around the dead soldier’s mangled body. Deke didn’t give a second thought to shooting him — it had been them or the Jap.

“Keep after them,” Honcho shouted, then ran ahead, outpacing even Danilo, who seemed to have a kind of death wish, evidently determined to be the first to reach the Japanese column. He had found a wounded Japanese soldier among the rubble and had finished him with a quick swipe of his wickedly sharp bolo knife.

It was becoming clear that the Japanese were making for a large building across the square. It looked like something official, like one of the government buildings that Deke had seen on his visit to Washington, DC, before shipping out. Neoclassical was not in Deke’s vocabulary, but that was the architectural style that they were looking at. There were elements of Rome in there, and Greece, with some Spanish colonial mixed in. The solid stone building was a brooding presence over the rubble-strewn square.

The formidable building would make a good fortress. The Japanese were making a beeline right for it.

“That’s the legislative building,” Honcho explained. Despite the quick pace, he hardly sounded winded. “The heart of the Filipino government — at least until the Japanese came along.”

The Japanese reached the broad stone steps and surged between the tall pillars. Deke caught a glimpse of the red-haired American, who was looking back, as if still hopeful of rescue. Then he was gone, forced within the shadowed entrance with the other prisoners.

It turned out that Tanigawa’s men were not the first ones there. Rather, they were joining Japanese forces already in position. Emphasizing this fact, a Nambu machine gun opened fire from the rooftop, tracer rounds suddenly burning even brighter than the scorching sun.

“Down, dammit, everybody down!” Honcho shouted.

More fire poured at them, every window seemingly occupied by a Japanese soldier with a rifle. It was becoming clear that the Japanese had let them approach this close so that they would enter the killing field.

Honcho fired his shotgun, but it was only adding to the noise, the 12-gauge useless at this range. More machine-gun fire swept around the Americans and Filipinos. Entire hunks of stone went flying, and the whine of ricocheting bullets filled the air. Improbably, an alley cat had been mousing in that no-man’s-land and streaked away, leaving the humans to their fate.

Patrol Easy got down low in the rubble, dodging the enemy bullets by some miracle. Their luck wasn’t going to last long, however. The Japanese machine gun was giving them the worst of it.

“Deke!” Honcho shouted.

Deke knew just what to do. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, resting his arms over a chunk of what had once been a building. A bullet struck the stone, but he ignored it. He could just see the tops of the machine gunners’ helmets above the parapet of the legislative building.

That Nambu was spitting bullets and tracer rounds like a fire-breathing dragon. But all that Deke needed was one bullet. Well, maybe two.

He put his crosshairs on one of those helmets and fired, feeling the satisfying punch of the powerful rifle against his shoulder. The .30–06 round split the top of the Jap’s head like an ax blade pops apart a chunk of firewood. He slumped over the gun, blood sizzling on the hot barrel. The second machine gunner did his duty, pushing aside his dead comrade and getting behind the Nambu. Deke lined up the sights again, and the Jap thought his last thought before the top of his head was likewise blown off.

Now that the machine gun had blessedly fallen silent, the GIs and Filipinos ran for better cover than that offered by the rubble. Japanese bullets nagged at them, but the soldiers weaved as they ran, managing to dodge the gunfire.

They reached the shelter of a stone building overlooking the square.

Panting, Philly looked back at the heavily defended legislative building and said, “That’s gonna be a tough nut to crack.”

Deke spat out a mouthful of dust. “That ain’t no nut, city boy. That’s a damn cannonball. Good luck cracking that.”

Nearby Honcho was looking around with concern. “Anybody see where that boy got to?”

“Last time I saw him, he was hightailing it over here with the rest of us,” Rodeo said.

“Well, I sure as hell don’t see him,” Honcho said. He raised his voice and called, “Roddy, where the hell are you?”

They all looked back toward the no-man’s-land of the city square that they had just navigated, but the boy was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Running for his life, Roddy made a fateful last-minute decision not to stick with the Americans. They seemed intent on getting away from the Japanese, running for cover, which seemed to Roddy to be completely the wrong direction. They should have been running toward where the prisoners were being held. Thanks to the immortal perspective of youth, he didn’t think that any of the bullets were meant for him. His only thought was I’ve got to get my father back. He hadn’t figured out how he was going to do that but had acted on impulse. He now felt as if the whole weight of rescuing his father had fallen on his thin, young shoulders.

He veered left, hooking back toward the hulking legislative building. The storm of bullets followed the soldiers but left Roddy alone, as if he had just managed to swim out of a riptide.

He was small enough that the Japanese didn’t see him making his way through the rubble. That was what saved him in the end. He paused, hiding, and studied the landscape around him to pick out a path to take. Even his young mind recognized that a frontal attack on the huge building wasn’t going to work. Instead, there had to be a back way, or a side way. It didn’t really take a military genius to understand the situation. After all, young boys knew about such things from their own games of chase and war. You outsmarted your enemy by finding their weak point, which was just what he set out to do.

Although his mind vaguely registered the fact, he didn’t realize just how much danger he was in. At any moment a Japanese sniper might spot him. The machine gun atop the building might open fire again once its crew had been replaced. His short life might be over in an instant.

But he was in too deep to go back, entirely on his own in this no-man’s-land of a battleground. He had no choice but to stick with the plan that he had set for himself.

Little did young Roddy know that he was on a collision course with the Japanese.

Back in the shadows of the bank building, Lieutenant Steele announced that they were going to send out a search party for the boy. In their hearts, Patrol Easy knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean they were happy about it.

“Let’s face it, that dumb kid is probably dead,” Philly pointed out. “He had no business being with us in the first place.”

Deke glanced at Juana, who was normally stoic. He knew that, like Honcho, she had grown fond of the boy in the short time that he had been part of their patrol. She looked stricken at Philly’s words.

“Shut up, Philly,” Deke muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

Philly looked as if he wanted to say more, but he glanced at Deke and went quiet.

“Look, fellas, I don’t like this any better than you do,” Honcho explained. “But I don’t like the idea of leaving that boy out there if there’s any chance he’s still alive. What are we going to do, get his father away from those Japs and then break the news to him that we got his son killed?”

It was a valid point.

In the end, Deke and Philly volunteered to look for the boy.

“I thought you said the boy was as good as dead?” Rodeo said.

“If Deke wants to go look for him, that’s good enough for me,” Philly said. “Besides, somebody’s got to keep him from getting his crazy cracker ass shot off.”

Rodeo wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure it’s not the other way around? Seems to me that most of the time Deke is the one saving you.”

Philly did his best to look indignant. “Are you being serious right now?”

Juana wanted to go along to help look for the boy. Deke’s first instinct was to say no, but then he thought better of it. He realized that he somehow felt protective of Juana. He wondered where in the hell that feeling had come from. She was as good of a soldier as any of them. Maybe even better than most. Juana was tough, reminding him of his sister, Sadie. What would Sadie have said if Deke had tried to keep her from doing something because he thought it was too dangerous? Hell, she would have belted him in the gut, that was what. He was sure that Sadie and Juana were cut from the same cloth.

Grinning at Juana, he nodded. “We’ll take all the help we can get with the Japs so close,” he said.

Deke glanced at Danilo, but their Filipino guide didn’t meet his eyes. This was uncharacteristic of Danilo, who was usually up for anything. However, it was clear that the city unsettled him. Danilo preferred the mountains and jungle to the dusty rubble and the stinking burned wreckage of vehicles and buildings. His element was the natural world, not these choked city streets. Deke knew just how he felt, but a soldier couldn’t always choose his ground. Besides, how terrifying it must have been for that boy to be out there on his own. If he was out there, Deke knew that he had to at least try to get him back.

Juana pointed them in the right direction. “This way,” she said. As it turned out, she had been one of the last to see the boy, just when he had taken off on his own. Fortunately, the machine gun on top of the legislative building remained silent. Even the snipers they had spotted before in the windows seemed to be giving them a break.

Then again, nobody thought this was going to be easy. There was a lot of ground to cover if they wanted to find the boy. Deke just hoped that the boy wasn’t already dead.

What the search party — and Roddy — couldn’t have known was that at that very moment, the Japanese inside the legislative building were preparing a patrol led by Sergeant Inaba to counter any attacks on their flanks or rear — the exact approach routes that the boy’s mind had conjured. Ideally, Inaba would be able to leave pairs of soldiers in the outlying rubble as forward observers, or the equivalent of outposts, to detect any approaching threats.

Sergeant Inaba carried his submachine gun again, while one of his men carried an Arisaka rifle with a telescopic sight. Inaba was hoping against hope that his sniper would have a chance to use it against the American sharpshooters. Such was his confidence in the superior abilities of Japanese troops that he had no doubts that his sniper would prove to be the better shot. He took twelve experienced soldiers with him, more than enough to handle any enemy patrols they encountered.

“Move!” he admonished his men. “Ugoku!”

Major Tanigawa stood nearby, looking on with approval as Sergeant Inaba organized his men. The major’s samurai sword hung from his belt, and he held his prized double rifle in his hands. Although it was not a military weapon, it was perfect for this kind of urban fighting, able to get off two quick shots that would pack quite a wallop, considering that he was using a cartridge designed for big game.

“I feel like I am about to go on a hunting trip!” he said, a rare grin touching his face.

Inaba nodded at his superior officer, then led his patrol into the smashed ruins surrounding the building where the Japanese were planning to make their last stand.

The battle had reached the point where it went without saying that they didn’t plan on taking any additional prisoners, whether they were American GIs, civilians, or boys. As for the hostages they had taken, they were still alive, but at a command from Major Tanigawa, that would no longer be the case.

Inaba looked forward to that moment.

“We will split up,” the major said. “That way, we will cover more ground. Take some of the men and make sure that the gaijin are not hiding in the rubble or the alleys on the far side of the square. If you run into trouble, I will bring up the rest of the patrol.”

“Hai,” Inaba said, and began to lead his men forward, finger on the trigger, ready to shoot anything that moved.

Not that far away, Roddy picked his way through the ruined square. He wore gray dungarees and a red-and-white-striped shirt, which hardly helped him blend into the strewn rubble and debris. He passed wrecked vehicles and a handful of bodies. He knew better now than to look at them too much, but he couldn’t resist staring with fascination at the bodies.

Most were dead Filipinos, although a few were Japanese. The clothes of the dead Filipinos were shredded and sometimes pulled open as if they had clawed at themselves in pain. It was hard to know how they had died. Some of the bodies of the women were bloody in places that his innocent mind found hard to fathom. One thing for certain, whether the dead were Filipino or Japanese, the buzzing flies had found them all. As for the smell — he walked away quickly, gagging. He didn’t know it then, but it was an odor that he would never be able to forget. He hoped that he wouldn’t end up the same way. It seemed a horrible way to be dead, lying out here in the open.

He felt sorry for them all, mostly for the kind and friendly Filipino people, but also a little for the dead Japanese. There had been at least a few Japanese soldiers during the occupation who had been easygoing enough, even kind, at least toward harmless kids. You could never paint every Japanese soldier with the same brush. Roddy was still of a tender age, and like the innocent boy that he was, he had listened in church enough to believe that there was good in all people, at least deep down. He didn’t yet know that this wasn’t true. In particular, the Japanese occupiers overall had shown that they were capable of cruelty in ways that were hard to understand.

Even though his father had been imprisoned, his family had remained relatively insulated from the worst that the Japanese had to offer. From time to time, an officer and a couple of soldiers appeared at their door, politely asking the names of all who lived there, including their two servants. Roddy hadn’t felt much fear or anger toward the Japanese, but really just boyish curiosity, being more interested in the rifles that the soldiers carried and the pistol on the officer’s hip. Any boy found weapons fascinating. The Japanese had been polite rather than threatening. The Japanese soldiers had never given them any trouble after his mother provided that information, made courteous apologies, and quickly left.

But times hadn’t always been easy, and they had steadily gotten worse. They were sometimes allowed to visit their father at the university compound, and Roddy recalled how his father had asked his mother what had become of her diamond stud earrings.

“My earrings?” she’d said vaguely, touching her bare ears as if in surprise, when they all knew very well that she never went anywhere without them.

“The ones I bought for you in Brisbane before the war,” he’d said, looking at her with sad eyes, as if he had already guessed the truth.

Tearfully, his mother had admitted that she had traded them for a two-pound can of dried milk. Roddy hadn’t had any idea that the food he and his brothers were eating had been so dearly bought. Years later, Roddy would wonder what else his mother had given up to provide for and shelter her family. One by one, their family heirlooms and the pretty objects his mother had collected had quietly disappeared.

More than once, his mother had pointed out that they were lucky because they still had at least some money. Anyone with money in American banks — the Philippines was a US territory, after all — had no access to their saving because the banks had been closed, their assets possibly gone forever. However, their family connections had meant that his father had ended up keeping their money in a Filipino bank managed by one of his mother’s distant relatives. There just hadn’t been much of it, considering that his father had been unable to conduct any business after the Japanese arrived.

Despite the fact that his mother did what she could to insulate her children from the realities of war, the threat of the Japanese was always there, and sometimes Roddy had tempted fate. There was nothing playful about the Japanese, and their patience with gaijin children went only so far.

He recalled seeing a truckload of American and Australian POWs stopping in his neighborhood on its way through the city. This in itself was unusual, but it was a hint that Allied forces must be slowly closing in on Manila, if there were now new prisoners being taken or old ones being moved out of the way of advancing forces.

One of Roddy’s pretty young neighbors had passed by, a Filipino girl in her late teens or early twenties, and one of the Australians had tipped his hat to her in a gallant gesture. The Japanese had responded by using a rifle butt to knock him unconscious. Roddy and his friends did their best not to react, because the Japanese guards were watching them and would have beaten them if they showed any sympathy for the poor prisoner.

Another time, he and his friends had been playing spy by lingering outside the local Japanese headquarters and keeping track of how many vehicles came and went, writing down the numbers in a little notebook. The information didn’t have any point or use. The boys were just playing at being spies, but if they’d been caught gathering that information, the Japanese surely would have killed them without mercy.

One of the stranger things that the Japanese had done was to seize every toy pistol that they could find. Playing cowboys and Indians was a favorite game, and a toy six-shooter was a boy’s prized possession. It turned out that the toy guns had also become popular with Filipino guerrillas and even thugs, who used them against unsuspecting Japanese soldiers who couldn’t tell the difference between a toy gun and the real thing. Owning a toy gun became a very serious crime.

Roddy had come to realize that there was nobody prouder than a Japanese soldier, men who considered themselves superior to any of the civilians. They had been pumped up by their own propaganda. They certainly didn’t look superior to Roddy, especially compared to his tall father. The Japanese were short, often bowlegged, and many wore thick eyeglasses. But they were the ones with the guns, which was all that it took to make them superior.

In the distance, he heard a Japanese shout, which made his mind snap back to the present. He had better pay attention if he wanted to help his father and not get caught.

Working around toward the rear of the legislative building, he found himself in a kind of alley at the back of the structure. The alley was now choked with debris, including chunks of stone and broken tree limbs, from the various bombardments that Intramuros had already suffered. There were long rows of trash cans and piled boxes, indicating that the alley would have been used by the service staff who came and went through the back rather than the formal front entrance, or for taking deliveries.

On the other side of the alley stood a stone wall and beyond that another tall building, creating a kind of manmade canyon. The only way in or out was at the ends of the alley. It was a promising way into the building, and as far as Roddy could tell, it wasn’t guarded. He felt his spirits soar at his good luck, wondering if he had so easily found a way into the building, but he stayed cautious, creeping forward.

His hopes were soon dashed. Peering above a chunk of stone, he spotted the Japanese patrol moving toward him. He counted a dozen of them, all with rifles, looking this way and that. Apparently they had recognized the alley as a weak point and were on the lookout for any interlopers.

With a start, Roddy recognized their leader as the sergeant who had been at the university when the hostages were brought out — his father among them. Instinctively, he knew that this man was trouble. He had a cruel hatchet-like face with a perpetually angry expression.

There was no way that Roddy could avoid the Japanese patrol if he stayed where he was. He looked around for someplace to hide, where he might be able to tuck himself into the rubble, but unless he could shrink himself to the size of a mouse, he was out of luck. He looked again at the Japanese. They were close enough now that if he made a run for it, they might spot him. What should he do? He ducked down again, trying to make up his mind, feeling his heart hammering. He wished that he was older, bigger, stronger, and that he had a rifle like the GIs. He thought of the lieutenant with his shotgun and that soldier with the scar — either one of them could have licked these Japs in a minute.

But Roddy had only himself.

What would his father do in this situation? His father would fight back, that was what.

Roddy remembered one time when he had gotten into a fight with an older boy who had been picking on one of his friends. He had come home with a torn shirt and a bloody nose, having gotten the worst end of things. But the older boy had gotten the message that Roddy and his friends weren’t worth picking on. He had fully expected to get in trouble for fighting. His tall, red-haired father had towered over him, scowling down at Roddy.

Tears of anger and frustration that he’d held back in the wake of the actual fight had found their way out when recounting events. Roddy had wiped the tears away using the back of a hand with scraped knuckles from an ill-timed punch that had managed to hit a patch of gravel instead of the bully’s face when Roddy had briefly gotten the upper hand as the boys grappled on the ground.

His father had heard him out and then put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, saying with a sad smile, “It’s all right, son. Sometimes you have to stand up and fight for what’s right, even when you know you’re going to lose.”

Roddy’s hand went to his pocket, where he kept one of his most-prized possessions, a barlow knife that had been a Christmas present from his father. He clenched the pocketknife, reassured by its heft, but knowing that it was still a puny weapon. But it was all he had. There wasn’t any other choice. The Japanese soldiers were coming closer. He was cornered.

Desperate now, he slowly began to draw the knife from his pocket⁠—

When he felt the touch on his shoulder, he started to jump up and would have cried out if strong hands hadn’t pulled him down and clamped over his mouth.

“Whoa now, pardner,” a voice whispered in his ear. “We’re on the same side.”

Roddy turned his head enough to see that it was the sniper with the scar who had grabbed him. Roddy recalled that his name was Deke. Roddy nodded, the sniper nodded back, and the soldier released his grip. Somehow the GI had managed to slip this close to the Japanese without being seen.

“They’re coming,” Roddy said. “Aren’t you going to shoot?”

“There’s too many of them,” Deke said. “They haven’t seen us yet, so what do you say we skedaddle? Do me a favor and try not to get lost this time.”

Keeping low, they beat a hasty retreat down the alley. The sniper moved as silently as smoke, and the boy did his best to follow just as quietly. Some distance away, the others were waiting for them. Roddy saw now that it wasn’t the whole patrol that had arrived, but only Deke, Philly, and Juana.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Philly said. “I thought for sure that you were dead.”

“He doesn’t need to hear that right now, Philly,” Deke snapped. “Besides, if you haven’t noticed, there’s a passel of Japs headed our way.”

That seemed to get Philly’s attention. “Huh, you don’t say?”

Sure enough, the Japanese had come back into view, prowling down the length of the alley. Lucky for the GIs, they still hadn’t been spotted.

“Think we can take ’em?”

Deke shook his head. Juana didn’t look convinced either. “Too many. One of them is Sergeant Inaba. I’d recognize his ugly mug anywhere. As much as I’d like to shoot that son of a bitch, I don’t like our chances. We need to get this kid the hell out of here anyhow.”

“I’m not afraid of those Japs!” Roddy blurted.

“I like your spirit, kid. But let’s see if we avoid getting killed today.”

They began to beat a hasty retreat, but they had delayed too long. A shout came from the direction of the alley. They had been spotted. Moments later, a rifle shot rang out. The bullet went too high, but it made an unsettling twang as it split the muggy air. Another bullet shot struck a chunk of concrete and ricocheted with an off-key note not unlike the sound made by plucking a bent saw blade.

“Move it!” Deke shouted, although it wasn’t necessary. The four of them quit trying to be stealthy, keeping low and under cover, and started running for all they were worth.

A spray of bullets pattered viciously on the rocky moonscape around them, but nobody slowed down. To Deke’s relief, the boy didn’t have any trouble keeping up. He was running like a jackrabbit. Deke dodged and weaved, trying to make himself a difficult target, helped in part by the uneven ground. The others did the same.

Juana spun around and fired a shot at the Japanese. Not to be outdone, Deke did the same, but it was like spitting into the wind. The Japanese were running now, shouting encouragement to one another and sounding to Deke’s ears like baying hounds with the scent of quarry in their noses.

Thankfully, the bank building loomed into sight. The others sheltering there heard them coming and started firing at the Japanese. One of the soldiers who had been firing a submachine gun dropped, bringing some welcome relief from the storm of gunfire following them.

As the covering fire from the bank building increased, it became clear that the tables had turned. Now it was the Japanese who were in trouble. Another soldier dropped. To Deke’s disappointment, it was not Sergeant Inaba who had taken a bullet.

The Japanese stopped their advance and began to fall back, keeping to the cover offered by the rubble.

Deke led the way into the shelter of the building, the boy in tow. He turned to get off a couple of shots at the retreating Japanese, but once again they had scurried away into the rubble just like rats. At this point he couldn’t pick out Inaba anyhow. Settling his score with the Japanese sergeant would just have to wait.

Lieutenant Steele was waiting for them. “Good job, you three,” he said, then turned his attention on the boy. “Listen up, kid. Don’t go wandering off. You need to stick with us. I don’t know what happened out there or what you were thinking, but don’t let it happen again. Do I make myself clear?”

The boy gulped. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The lieutenant turned to the others. “Now that we know the Japs are launching patrols from their hidey-hole there, let’s see if we can catch a few of them on their way out.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

To call the massive legislative building a hidey-hole was just the sort of understatement that a good GI found humor in. To call it a fortress was more accurate. The tall, brooding building commanded the ruined city square. Though quiet and still, the square was deceptive in that anyone who dared to cross it found himself under the enemy guns. A few desperate civilians tried to get across in hopes of finding safety, but they found themselves at the gates of heaven instead.

Even stray dogs weren’t safe — they watched one pick its way across the square. A shot rang out from the Japanese bastion and the dog went down, spasmed, and was still.

“Those sons of bitches shot that dog,” Deke said, incredulous. He’d always had a soft spot for dogs, even these strays that seemed to plague Manila. “What the hell is wrong with them?”

“I’d make you a list, but I don’t have enough damn paper,” Philly grumped. “Besides, maybe we ought to thank that dog. It was a good reminder that if we try to cross that square, the same damn thing will happen to us. The whole damn place is a big damn Japanese shooting gallery.”

“Damn,” Deke added, just in case Philly hadn’t said the word enough times.

The legislative building was far too formidable for Patrol Easy to launch a direct attack on the enemy position. They needed to find a way to take down the enemy forces holed up inside the legislative building without putting themselves in too much danger. Lieutenant Steele was right that if they could catch a few of the Japanese out in the open, away from the cover of the building that the enemy had turned into a fortress, so much the better.

No sooner had they escorted the boy to safety than they set out once again to deal with the Japanese. Keeping to the cover of the buildings that still stood, Patrol Easy worked its way toward the rear of the legislative building, Deke leading them to where they had found the boy and encountered Sergeant Inaba’s patrol. With any luck, they might catch the patrol out in the open. This time Deke had more firepower with him, so he hoped that the outcome would be different.

Attempting to stay out of view of the Japanese so as not to lose the element of surprise, they moved away from the square and followed streets one block away. However, he soon grew confused in the back streets that they passed through because they all looked the same. It was odd that he’d never felt lost in the jungles or mountains that they’d fought through so far, but the city was something altogether different.

He wasn’t the only one who seemed to feel this way. Even Danilo, who was so adept at navigating the forests of the Philippines, just looked at Deke and shrugged. He appeared as lost as Deke felt.

After taking a wrong turn that led them away from the square, rather than closer to it, Deke had to admit, “This damn city all looks the same to me.”

“This way,” said Juana, stepping forward to take the lead. Instead of feeling miffed, Deke had to admit that he felt grateful.

Juana, a city girl who was somewhat familiar with the layout of Intramuros, suggested using the tunnel-like alleys that ran between the buildings. Even the boy seemed to know the way, and at one point he and Juana conferred briefly about which direction to take.

These alleys had been used since the Spanish colonial times. If the brooding stone walls could have spoken, what tales would they have told? No doubt these walls had seen their share of murders, thievery, and liaisons over the centuries. Dark and narrow, the alleys provided a sheltered route that enabled Patrol Easy and the Filipinos to work toward the rear of the legislative building without being seen. Their success depended entirely on the element of surprise.

It was risky, considering that at any moment they might go around a blind corner and run smack-dab into the Japanese, who could be planning to ambush them, but it could be their only chance at getting close enough to the building without drawing heavy fire from the enemy defenders within.

Cautiously, they made their way through the dark and rubble-strewn alleys until they reached a point directly behind the legislative building. Like city alleys everywhere, the sides were lined with trash cans, many of them knocked over, their contents not smelling very pleasant in the heat. An alley cat raised its head and glared at them as if considering holding its ground as they approached, then thought better of it and ran down the narrow crack between two buildings, dragging half a fish skeleton with it.

Clumsily, Philly’s boot kicked a garbage can lid, making it skitter and clang along the cobblestones.

“Dammit, Philly!” Lieutenant Steele muttered. “Watch where the hell you’re going.”

If there were any Japanese around, there was a good chance that they had heard that. They all went on high alert, straining to listen. Of course, the city itself was far from silent, with the constant thump of artillery and the crack of small-arms fire, most of it in the distance.

Sure enough, they could hear faint voices and even a few footsteps nearby, the sound of hobnails crunching through gravel or grinding on pavement, indicating that the Japanese were on the move. However, the confusing echoes in the narrow alleys made it hard to tell which direction the Japanese were taking. They were out there, but where?

“I hear them, but where the hell are they?” Philly wondered.

“I reckon they’re wondering the same thing about us,” Deke whispered harshly. “They sure as hell heard us. Now kindly shut your piehole or they’ll find us before we find them.”

This was going to be a game of cat and mouse. It was entirely possible that the Japanese had already guessed that the Americans were there. Would Patrol Easy get the drop on them, or would the Japanese turn the tables?

The end of the alley loomed, a partially collapsed brick wall that created a dead end. Cautiously, they looked out over the open ground between the end of the alley and the steps of the legislative building in the distance.

Deke motioned for Juana and Philly to stay put as he climbed the broken wall. He reached his destination — a shattered window near the top level that had been previously boarded up with wooden planks. He quickly pulled out his bowie knife and began to pry them off one by one, doing it as quietly as he could under the circumstances. He was still worried about where that Japanese patrol that they’d heard earlier had gone. He just hoped to hell that they hadn’t managed to circle back and were coming down on Patrol Easy through the alley.

He was soon at a point where he could look over the square. Peering out, he saw several Japanese soldiers standing guard on the upper floor of the building. His finger itched to get on the trigger and take some of them out, maybe wreak a bit of havoc, but what he saw next made him freeze. The Japanese patrol that they had heard was almost directly beneath him, having a smoke break. He could plainly see Inaba, the only one of the bunch who was looking cautiously around them, clearly on high alert.

Deke glanced back at the others, signaling that he had seen something. He quietly made his way back down the crumbling wall to his fellow soldiers and whispered his plan. They would throw a few grenades and hope for the best. There was no way for them to climb the wall quietly enough to bring fire to bear on the Japanese.

And so they did just that. Rodeo had the best arm, so he threw the first grenade, then Philly, and finally Honcho following up with a third grenade.

Three blasts in quick succession followed. Crump, crump, crump. The wall didn’t do much to muffle the blasts, explosions echoing through the alley and shaking loose bits of mortar from above. The mortar pattered on their helmets, the sound as loud as the inside of a drum. Deke wore the bush hat as usual, so the chunks rained down across the brim, though he scarcely noticed because of the terrible ringing in his ears. Those grenades had packed a wallop, that was for sure.

“Go! Go!” Honcho shouted, the need for any kind of quiet gone, and their group swarmed up the pile of bricks, ready for anything, aware that the Japanese were on the other side.

Taking advantage of all the chaos caused by their grenades, not worried about how much noise he was making, Deke led the charge up the broken wall. As he scanned for movement from their vantage point on top of the ruined wall, Deke looked down and saw just what he had hoped for — the torn bodies of Japanese soldiers on the ground. However, there should have been more dead Japanese.

Deke lowered himself down the other side of the wall. Philly was just behind him, and Juana behind him. Honcho and Rodeo stayed on the wall, ready to offer covering fire. So far there hadn’t been any sign of any surviving Japanese.

Deke darted out from behind cover without giving it a second thought, rifle at the ready. He stepped over one of the dead Japanese, the shrapnel from the grenade having eviscerated the man. He didn’t waste time looking, other than to ascertain that the Jap was dead. Deke’s eyes went everywhere at once, looking for targets. It seemed as if the grenades had been grouped a little too close together, the shrapnel missing some of the Japanese patrol. There weren’t enough bodies, and Inaba wasn’t among the dead.

“Where the hell did the rest of them go?” Deke wanted to know. “There were more than three Japs, I can tell you that.”

“Look awake, everybody!” Honcho shouted.

They soon got their answer. The dust shifted as if the rubble was coming alive. Sergeant Inaba suddenly appeared. He and two more Japanese had managed to camouflage themselves in the rubble. Armed with his submachine gun, Inaba sprayed bullets at the American snipers. Deke quickly took aim and was about to fire a shot at Inaba’s chest to bring an end to this episode, when something stung him in the upper arm, above the elbow. That was what it felt like — a sting, as if a hot, metallic hornet had found him. Somewhere in the back of Deke’s mind, he realized that he’d been shot.

He didn’t have time to assess how badly he’d been hit — at any rate, his arm still worked, which turned out to be a good thing. He was going to need it. He swung his rifle up, trying to get it into play against the Japanese sergeant.

But he didn’t have time. Another danger had appeared.

A figure emerged from behind Sergeant Inaba, looming out of the drifting dust and debris left by the grenade blast. It was Major Tanigawa himself, armed with his double rifle. He was leading a handful of troops toward the fight.

Where the hell had he come from with those other troops? Deke wanted to kick himself for not spotting the major earlier — and those reinforcements.

They were so close that Deke got a glimpse of Tanigawa’s eyes, glittering like wet basalt in his dusty face, as the man glared at them from his position in the moonscape of the ruined city square.

Though meant for hunting big game, Tanigawa’s rifle was more than adequate for a combat role. Tanigawa’s rifle fired twice, the two shots so quick that they were almost one. Near Deke, one of the Filipino snipers cried out and went down.

Just when it seemed like Tanigawa had gained the upper hand with his powerful rifle, Juana appeared out of nowhere and threw a grenade at him. The explosion shook the ground as Tanigawa was thrown off balance. His fancy rifle went flying, and the major fell to his knees before throwing himself onto the ground as more shots whipped over his head.

Taking advantage of this opening, Deke aimed carefully and prepared to fire a shot at Tanigawa. Deke’s heart pounded, the sound of gunfire and explosions echoing in his ears. The Japanese were advancing quickly, their relentless attacks threatening to overwhelm the small US patrol. A bullet snapped past his ear, forcing him to flinch. By the time Deke was ready again, Tanigawa was scurrying away with his rifle, getting under cover.

It was hard to say how long the savage fight lasted. Time seemed to slow down as shots were exchanged no more than a few paces apart, stabs of flame from the muzzle flashes cutting through the dust left by the grenade explosions. Another one of the guerrillas fell, but Deke was only vaguely aware of that from the corner of one eye. All his attention was focused on the Japanese.

Bullets ricocheted off walls and debris as fighters on both sides dodged and weaved to avoid being hit, leaping for cover and diving behind chunks of stone or sections of brick still clumped together with mortar. Close as the fighting was, they never reached the point of hand-to-hand combat. They were fighting a brawl; it was the gunfight at the OK Corral all over again, bullets flying, every man for himself.

Deke had a glimpse of Captain Oatmire, helmet gone, sweaty hair plastered to his head, firing his .45 at the Japanese.

Just as quickly as they had appeared out of the dust and smoke, the Japanese faded away to regroup. There were more than before — Deke could see them gathering for a counterattack, more of the enemy clad in their brownish uniforms streaming from the legislative building. Several dead men were similarly clad, but the enemy hadn’t gotten the message.

“These Japs just won’t quit,” Philly complained, taking cover behind a pile of rubble. “It’s like they don’t care how many men they lose.”

“Same old story,” Deke replied grimly, aiming and firing again at the distant targets, all the while keeping his eyes open for Tanigawa or Inaba. At that moment they were nowhere to be seen. He was beginning to think that they were more like ghosts or phantoms than men, seeming to appear or disappear at will. “When did the Japanese ever care about that? All they care about is winning at any cost. It doesn’t matter how many of them die.”

Deke became aware of the pain in his arm and glanced down at the wound, noticing that blood was running down his arm. He didn’t find much relief in the fact that it was a trickle rather than a torrent. Along with the pain, an awareness that the blood was leaking out of him hit him hard. A sudden wave of weakness nearly caused him to drop his rifle, and he stumbled.

Philly looked at him with concern. He reached out to steady Deke. “Dammit, you’re hit.”

“It’s nothin’,” Deke responded, shrugging off Philly’s hand. There was no rear to go to, anyhow, no medics to call for help. His only choice was to keep fighting. He cursed under his breath but pushed through the pain and moved forward with his rifle again.

The brief respite did not last long, no more than a few minutes. The window for retreat narrowed and then closed. More Japanese troops streamed from the legislative building, coming to renew the attack. Deke got off a couple of shots at them, dropping one man and missing another due to his weakened arm, but the enemy troops were multiplying like ants. It was clear that Patrol Easy would be outnumbered.

“There’s too many of the bastards!” Philly shouted over the chaotic sound of gunfire. “We need to get out of here.”

"Dammit," Deke muttered. He hated to give an inch of ground to the enemy, but he knew that Philly was right.

More Japanese soldiers poured out from the ruins of the buildings, making it clear that they were outnumbered and outgunned. Deke kept shooting, taking down as many enemies as he could, but Philly was right — they couldn’t keep this up forever.

Lieutenant Steele seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. “We need to fall back!” he shouted.

One by one the GIs and Filipino guerrillas began to peel away and return to the alley, which turned out to be their best escape route, giving them cover from the Japanese onslaught. First, they had to pass the bodies of the dead enemy that had been torn by the grenades, then climb the tumbled brick wall, all the while coming under direct enemy fire. Bullet strikes raised puffs of brick dust the color of blood. One of the Filipino fighters was dead, and they left his body behind. Juana and Rodeo were on either side of the wounded Filipino fighter, half carrying and half pushing him up and over the rubble wall.

Soon only the lieutenant and Deke were remaining. The Japanese kept coming, bullets flying at them as the enemy fire increased.

Two of the enemy got close enough to launch their own version of a banzai charge, howling with rage as they screamed toward the two Americans. They were so close that Deke could see how their faces were twisted into contorted, angry masks.

Deke shot one. Beside him, Honcho’s 12-gauge boomed and the second attacker flew back as a handful of buckshot hit him.

There were more Japanese coming behind them. Honcho racked another shell into the chamber and fired.

The enemy continued their advance relentlessly, firing indiscriminately. The zip of Japanese lead cut through the air. Deke hunkered down behind debris and tried to steady his breathing as he took aim at an approaching soldier. He squeezed the trigger just as a nearby explosion rocked the ground beneath him. The damn Japs had thrown a grenade.

His shot went wide, the bullet whizzing past the Japanese soldier’s head.

Honcho grabbed Deke’s shoulder and shoved him toward the wall.

“Deke! We need to get out of here!”

Finally, with a heavy heart, Deke turned and started scrambling up the brick wall. The lieutenant struggled up the half-demolished wall behind him. Deke might have stayed, but he knew that Honcho wouldn’t go without him.

At the top of the wall, Philly had taken up a position to offer suppressing fire with his rifle, not that it seemed to be slowing down the Japanese. Juana was up there, too, firing, working her rifle bolt, then firing again.

Deke tried not to feel like a scared rabbit or a kicked dog running with his tail between his legs. The Japanese jeered at them as they fell back, taunting them with shouts of victory.

Deke gritted his teeth and kept moving. People talked about defeat having a taste, something bitter, and they’d be right. He could taste it now, like something he’d bitten into that was spoiled and rotten. He spat. A split second later, a bullet hit the same brick that his spit had struck.

Then he was up and over the wall.

As they regrouped farther away from the Japanese, Lieutenant Steele barked orders for them to establish a new defensive position. They set up behind some partially destroyed walls, using whatever cover they could find in the rubble-strewn streets.

They braced themselves, ready for it, expecting the Japanese to come over the remnants of the wall and pour down into the alley. A grenade flew over the wall, then another, the Japanese returning the earlier favor. The blasts echoed ruthlessly between the alley walls, shrapnel shrieking. By some miracle, nobody was hurt.

But no soldiers followed. For whatever reason, the Japanese had decided to break off the attack. Maybe, in their minds, a handful of Americans just weren’t worth the effort. They had bigger fish to fry.

Lieutenant Steele stood up. He had taken shelter behind a miniature landslide that seemed to be made up primarily of broken doors and garbage cans. Something dark, foul-smelling, and wet clung to the knees of his fatigues.

“All right, show’s over,” he announced. “Let’s get the hell out of here and find some shelter for the night. Those Japanese will be on the prowl.”

If the Japanese had broken off their attack against the Americans, it was only because they had easier targets to occupy their attention.

Major Tanigawa and his men moved out, but not before Sergeant Inaba asked, “What about the American soldiers?”

“Never mind the Yanks,” Tanigawa said. “If they return, we shall teach them another lesson.”

For the Japanese, teaching that lesson had come at a cost. Inaba did not point out that Tanigawa was stepping around the bodies of the men slain by grenades. He had been fortunate in being out of range, although some of his patrol had not shared that good luck.

A few more bodies lay scattered in the rubble, killed in the melee with the Americans. Ultimately, they had been driven off.

Inaba thought that was too bad. He had wanted another crack at the sniper, the one with the scars on his face. But it was not to be. No matter — they had sent the Americans running like beaten dogs.

During the initial American attack, he and Tanigawa had gone back to the legislative building to organize the counterattack, hurling their men at the small American force. By the time that they could rejoin the attack, the Americans had retreated, climbing the wall at the end of what appeared to be an alley running between the larger buildings on this side of the street. Running like the cowards they were.

Major Tanigawa did not seem interested in pursuing the Americans, so Inaba had little choice but to do as he was told. Also, he suspected that the major was correct. The patrol that had been probing their position was not strong enough to pose any real threat or storm the legislative building itself. It was only a matter of time before US forces reached them in greater numbers, or unleashed their air force or artillery against Japanese positions.

“Major, where are we going?” Inaba could not help but ask.

Major Tanigawa smiled. “Hunting,” he said.

Major Tanigawa led his men into the city, shooting any civilian on sight. Others were put to the bayonet. Whether the victim was gray haired, or a woman or child, didn’t matter. Anyone they caught was slain. These civilians were only trying to flee the fighting and get themselves or their families to safety.

Even soldiers who ordinarily would have shown restraint found themselves driven on in their killing spree by the officers and by their fellow soldiers.

When they’d finally had enough, the major brought his men back to the legislative building. His troops were now in a bloodthirsty mood, and their eyes fell upon the prisoners, under guard by a few men that they had left behind.

“Should we finish them off?” Sergeant Inaba asked. “These prisoners have troubled us long enough.”

The major shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “They may still have some value to us. As long as we have the prisoners, the Americans may wait to shell this building.”

Inaba nodded. As usual, the major was thinking two steps ahead of him. “Hai!” he said.

“Make sure the men eat well,” the major said, referring to the captured foodstuffs they had found. “Allow them a few bottles of sake. One way or another, this fight will end tomorrow.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

As the light began to fade, Patrol Easy moved to hole up for the night in the ruins of an old house. Perhaps the house had once been grand, but the stucco facade was now scorched and cracked, ravaged by war in addition to the neglect brought on by the years of Japanese occupation. It might even be said that the battered house very much resembled the mood of the snipers.

Currently, the dwelling’s chief attribute was that the house had thick walls and barred windows that would keep out enemy infiltrators during the night. In a sense, the house was a small fortress within the walled city itself.

Compounding the soldiers’ exhaustion was the fact that the fight for Intramuros had not been going well. The Japanese had sworn to fight to the last man, and so far they were living up to that pledge. The code of the samurai warrior seemed to beat in the heart of every Japanese in this city. For them, there would be no surrender. The battered army troops were getting frustrated by their losses. Consequently, it was only a matter of time before the full brunt of the US Army’s massive artillery firepower was brought to bear on the city. If they hoped to rescue the hostages, Patrol Easy was running out of time.

Inside the temporary shelter of the house, the patrol was licking its wounds, both literal and figurative. The Japanese enemy had chewed them up royally today, seemingly always one step ahead of them, as if reading their minds. It was not only frustrating; it had been costly to life and limb, with one of the Filipino snipers having been killed and one wounded. Deke himself had suffered a minor wound — he knew that it could have been much worse.

They all felt battered after today, but they could not yet give up. Tomorrow they faced a stark reality. They would have to find the hostages early in the day or watch as the old walled city was obliterated along with anyone inside it — hostages included.

Why were they even bothering? It was a good question. Of course, the boy’s father was one of the hostages, but that wasn’t the only reason to try to get them back. It was just the idea that the hostages were somehow an extension of home. Also, the Japanese had tricked them and gone back on their word by not releasing the hostages. When Deke thought of that snake Major Tanigawa and his henchman Sergeant Inaba, he felt himself getting angry all over again.

If the soldiers and even their tireless guerrilla allies appeared disheartened, their young guide looked the most dejected of all. Maybe he had started out the day with a sense of adventure, but seeing men die had cured him of that. It seemed to be sinking in for the boy that war was a deadly business. Like most boys his age, he’d probably been caught up in the excitement of it all. Because of his age and his relatively wealthy family, he had been sheltered from the worst of the war. Not any longer. For better or for worse, he had been forced to grow up a great deal in a single day based on what he had witnessed.

Honcho opened rations and handed them to the boy, along with a spoon. Franks and beans — the finest tinned rations a soldier could expect. “Eat up, kid. You’re gonna need the energy.”

“Yes, sir,” Roddy said. At first, he picked listlessly at the food, but then hunger overcame exhaustion and the sound of the spoon could be heard scraping against the empty metal can. As if by magic, chocolate ration bars appeared next to him on the stone block that was serving as the boy’s seat.

Honcho watched him eat for a moment, then said, “Hey, kid, you know what? Your father would be proud of you.”

The boy smiled in spite of himself and perked up. “Thank you, sir.”

“I thought I’d tell you that since he’s not around to say it. But don’t you worry, kid, he’ll tell you that himself soon enough.”

Roddy nodded and tackled a chocolate bar. The Hershey’s tropical bar or D ration was chalky, engineered not to melt in the heat, and while they weren’t exactly candy, they would somewhat satisfy the sweet tooth of a hungry boy. The kid deserved a whole lot more, like maybe an ice-cream sundae, but this was the best they could do in these conditions.

Deke realized that the lieutenant had an easy way of talking with the boy, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The lieutenant reached down and mussed the boy’s hair. It was such an automatic gesture that it hinted at Honcho having done this before, maybe back home, to a young nephew — or maybe his own son. Deke realized how little any of them really knew about the lieutenant. He had never mentioned family of any kind, but now Deke wondered. They lived and fought elbow to elbow, yet they all managed to keep some part of themselves private, especially officers, who naturally kept apart from the enlisted men.

Each man had a different way of handling the war. There were men who preferred not to think about home or the future because those were only distractions from the business of being a soldier. Some men, like Philly, talked constantly about home, women, food, baseball, or whatever else came into their heads. You couldn’t blame them — it was their way of dealing with being thousands of miles from home and being shot at to boot.

Deke preferred not to share anything too personal. Hell, now that he thought about it, Philly was probably the only one of the bunch who even knew he had a sister. Then again, it wasn’t hard to guess at Deke’s background or his nature. There was no hiding his Appalachian accent or those hard gray eyes that resembled ice chips when looking down the barrel of a rifle. He couldn’t hide the scars on his face and body, either, although few knew the story behind them.

Never one for deep thoughts, Deke turned his attention to his rifle. It was dusty and battered with fresh scars on the wood and new scratches on the barrel. Still, he had managed to keep the precious scope from being broken. Beat up as it was, the rifle looked pretty much like he felt.

He dug his cleaning kit out of his haversack, broke down the rifle, and set to work. When he had finished, he felt better, as if he had also somehow managed to clean out the grimy parts of his mind. Though the wooden stock was battered and the barrel was scratched, the rifle still managed to gleam with deadly intent.

Deke spread his blanket on the stone floor, and Juana did the same beside him. The rest of the squad was nearby, either having something to eat or focusing on cleaning their weapons.

Nobody said much, and even Philly was quiet for a change. They were all exhausted from a hard day of fighting and from the losses that they had taken at the hands of the Japanese. The final fight in the alley had been short and vicious before they had been forced to beat a hasty retreat. The boy curled up near Honcho and was asleep in minutes. There was no electricity, but Deke had found a candle in the ruins and dancing shadows soon lit the interior walls.

“Déjame eso,” Juana said, nodding at the bloody bandage on Deke’s arm. He had learned that Juana, like many Filipinos, could switch easily between languages. Spanish had been the language of the land for three centuries. Then English was taught in schools during the American era, which explained Juana’s fluency. She also spoke Tagalog with her fellow guerrillas. Hardly any Filipinos had bothered to learn Japanese, in part because the occupiers were so hated.

“Leave it be,” he said, starting to pull away. “It’s just a scratch.”

Juana just shook her head and reached for his arm to unwrap the bandage, which was stiff with dried blood. Tipping water from her canteen, she wet the end of a rag and dabbed at the wound. The injury was just an annoyance; come to think of it, Deke realized that he had gotten banged up much worse than that doing chores on the farm or hurrying to get the hay in before a rain, ignoring the rough twine from the heavy bales cutting into his hands until they bled or the deep scratches on his arms. And, of course, the claws and teeth of that enormous bear had done a lot more damage than the Japanese, nearly killing him as a boy.

The wound began to bleed again, which wasn’t a bad thing, the fresh flow of blood carrying away the dirt and dust so that a clean scab would form. Juana put a fresh bandage on the wound and bound it tightly. It hurt like fire, but Deke was so captivated watching her work that he didn’t so much as make a sound.

“You are a good man,” she said.

“If you say so.”

But was he? Deke had often wondered about that. The last few months had forced him to question everything he knew about himself, and humanity in general. He had proved himself to be a very capable soldier, even a skilled killer, but neither of those things meant that he was a good person. He missed seeing the good in people, including the good in himself.

Normally, he might have disagreed with Juana, but tonight he didn’t mind hearing her words. Just five kind words spoken in truth the way she saw it. They were like a salve to all his wounds, physical and mental.

“I do say so,” Juana said. “And when I say something, I mean something.”

All he said in return was, “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself. A lot of girls wouldn’t pick up a gun to fight, but you did.”

“Of course I want to fight,” she said, her voice going hard, sounding indignant. “Life has been very hard for the people of the Philippines. My people. First, the Spanish came centuries ago. Then the Americans came in my grandparents’ time. The Americans have been good friends to the Philippines, teaching us what freedom meant. We lived under your Constitution. But then came the Japanese. There were no more rights. Never has there been such cruelty.”

“We’ll help you beat the Japanese,” Deke said. “But after the war, it sounds as if the Philippines should be run by Filipinos.”

“I could not agree more.”

She surprised him then by reaching out to take his hand. They had never touched before, at least not in this way. Her skin was rough, like a farmer’s hand. He was reminded of his sister Sadie’s touch, rough but gentle at the same time. It was a touch with heft and strength behind it. He squeezed her hand.

Later, he couldn’t have said how they both knew what to do next. Something unspoken passed between them.

Picking up their blankets, they moved deeper into the house, away from the others, giving themselves some privacy. If any of the others saw them leaving, they pretended not to notice.

The candle provided a soft light. In a corner of an unoccupied room, they once again spread their blankets on the stone floor. For a while they simply sat studying one another, their shoulders touching, a kind of electricity building between them. The very air seemed to crackle. Deke found his head spinning as if he’d just had a drink of Old Man McGlothlin’s moonshine back home. Being this close to Juana felt intoxicating.

There was enough light that he could see her upturned face, her closed eyes and slightly parted lips. Deke didn’t have much experience with the opposite sex, but he knew one thing for sure. Here was a girl waiting to be kissed.

“Deke,” she whispered.

“Juana.” He exhaled her name like he was breathing out to take the longest shot he had ever taken. In a sense, it was. They kissed again, and he felt himself melting into her. Their hands wandered over each other, slowly at first and then more desperately.

“Mi soldado,” she murmured. “Mi guerrero.”

Like any inexperienced young man, Deke had always worried about what to do that first time he made love, but everything happened naturally and urgently. Afterward, they lay sticky and spent under a blanket despite the warmth of the tropical night. It was the part that came after that was harder, at least at first. Deke ran through several emotions ranging from embarrassment about giving in to his urges, to wanting to go off by himself to process what had just happened, to the desire to do it all over again — but that wasn’t going to happen because he felt pleasantly limp as a shoestring and empty as a sack turned inside out.

Deke had often imagined what it would be like to be with a woman, and now that the veil of mystery had been lifted tonight, he decided that it was everything he had imagined — and then some. He was glad that he had waited to find someone whom he cared about rather than running off to the whorehouses like some of the boys had done back in Hawaii. With his scarred face and body, he had doubted that he would ever experience a night such as this without having to pay for it. Juana had given him a great gift tonight.

She murmured something and wrapped herself around him, soothing his restless mind. They heard the occasional thump of artillery or the rattle of a machine gun beyond the walls, but that all sounded far away and they felt safe enough in this house, with their armed companions on watch in the next room, isolated for a few hours from the war. Juana’s steady breathing soon indicated that she was asleep. Deke closed his own eyes, then slept deeply.

But the Japanese wouldn’t leave him alone, even on this night of all nights, haunting his dreams. He kept seeing the enemy snipers shooting at them, hearing screams as men went down around him. Deke tried to shoot back, but in his dream there was always something that wasn’t working right. Sometimes his rifle wouldn’t fire. Other times his finger couldn’t even pull the trigger, as if locked in rigor mortis.

All the while the grinning face of an enemy sniper taunted him through the rifle scope. Again and again he felt the terror of imagining enemy crosshairs on him, helpless to get out of the way, his heart hammering in his dreams. Even as the noose closed around the enemy, the Japanese seemed to grow more powerful.

He woke in the morning because he felt Juana’s eyes on him. Her face lay inches away, the two of them breathing the same air. He stroked her warm body under the blanket, pleased that his fingers worked just fine despite the unsettling dreams.

It was already light, dawn filtering in through the shattered windows. In a few minutes Honcho would be rousting everyone for another day of war. They still had those hostages to rescue. Time was running short for these prisoners. But for now it was just the two of them. Just as with Honcho the night before, he realized how little he really knew about Juana. Did she have any family? What had her life been like before the war?

Finally, he wondered if what they had done together now joined them in some way. At the same time, he knew that this one night might be all that there would be for them. It had been a sojourn for them both, a renewal, a reminder that they were young and alive. It was all so distracting, given the business at hand.

“Juana, I—” he began.

But Juana was having none of that. She touched his lips to silence him. “Do not think of me today,” she said, as if she had read his mind. “That will get you killed. Muerto. Think only of how true your bullets will fly. I know your heart, mi guerrero.”

“We’re still chasing those damn Japs⁠—”

“No mas,” she said. “That ends hoy dia. Today you will know victory, mi soldado. Today you will kill our enemies.”

Reluctantly, Deke disentangled himself from Juana’s arms and slipped out from under the blanket. Juana did the same, and he got a quick, glorious glimpse of her naked body. They dressed in the dim light, the candle having melted down until the wick lay sputtering in a puddle of wax, signaling the end of the dark night, and he felt his old resolve returning like the rising sun itself.

The night with Juana had renewed something deep within him. His eyes glinted as he bent to blow out the candle and then reached for his rifle. Deke’s sense of determination had returned stronger than ever.

He decided that Juana was right. The fight would end today, one way or another.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The sun rose on another hot and muggy morning. Instead of the promise of a new day, the rising sun revealed a city that was a battleground. In the distance, they heard scattered gun shots and the boom of artillery like the thunder of an approaching storm. Normally, birds would have greeted the new morning, even in the city, but their singing among the shattered trees had either been drowned out by the sounds of war or the winged songsters had done the smart thing and fled.

Patrol Easy had been surprised by the arrival of a messenger from headquarters. He was a slight young man, a real bantamweight built for speed and stealth, the perfect candidate for messenger duty, or what in army slang was called a “carrier pigeon.” He had come to remind them about the looming deadline for the artillery barrage to resume. The colonel hadn’t bothered with a written message, considering that what he had to relay was short and to the point.

“The colonel says you’ve got two hours. He says that after that, he’s going to open fire no matter what.”

“All right, we’ll take what we can get,” Lieutenant Steele said. “Did you run into any Japs getting here?”

Helmets were all the same size, and the runner’s seemed far too big for his head to the point that only his nose, the whites of his eyes, and his bright white teeth were visible from the hidden depths under the helmet brim. “Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t, but dead men tell no tales,” the messenger said with a grin, brandishing his carbine. Then he slipped out the door and was gone.

Philly watched him go. “Do me a favor, Corn Pone. Next time I complain about anything, remind me that I could be a carrier pigeon instead.”

“Aw, you’d complain even if you got hanged with a new rope.”

“Sounds about right.”

Deke stepped outside the house where Patrol Easy had sheltered for the night and took a deep breath. The damp morning air smelled of dust, rotting vegetation, and the faint hint of bodies decomposing in the ruins. He longed for the clean smell of mountain air, redolent of green leaves and high-country meadows, or at the very least, the earthy aroma of freshly plowed fields. The mountains were what he yearned for, but battle-torn Manila was what he had.

He turned to the wall and relieved himself. The smell of warm urine mixed with the other pungent smells of the ruined city. The boy, Roddy, sat on a chunk of stone in the morning sun and gnawed at one of the chalky tropical chocolate bars, using both hands in a way that reminded Deke of a chipmunk attacking an acorn. Danilo came out, leaned against the wall just beyond spattering distance, and lit a cigarette, oblivious as the contents of Deke’s bladder streamed down the wall and puddled in the dust. Rodeo was relieving himself nearby, all of them so used to living in proximity that they didn’t give bodily functions a second thought. Besides that, wandering off to relieve yourself might put you in enemy crosshairs.

Deke realized that was something else he missed — privacy. The only real private space a soldier had was between his ears.

He buttoned up his khaki trousers and turned to find Juana offering him a hot cup of coffee, something of a miracle in these circumstances, but Juana and the other guerrillas were always resourceful. They had built a tiny, smokeless fire under the portico of the grand house.

He gave her a grateful nod, and she gave him a shy smile in return, which Deke answered just as bashfully. He found it funny — neither one of them had been all that shy last night. This morning, returning to the reality of a war zone, last night seemed like a dream. Had it actually happened? He realized that Juana’s smile was all the proof he needed.

For the others, it probably hadn’t been any secret what he and Juana had been up to off by themselves. Nobody said a word about it, except for Philly, who gave him a smirk and said, “I guess you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Something in Deke’s eyes wiped the smirk off Philly’s face. “Uh, nothing,” Philly said. “Forget I said anything.”

“That’s what I thought.” Deke sipped his coffee and added, “You know I ain’t one to kiss and tell.”

Philly grinned. “Unlike me, you mean?”

“If the shoe fits.”

Deke sipped more coffee, watching as Juana delivered another cup of java to Lieutenant Steele and then to Captain Oatmire. Honcho looked more tired than any of them, every last one of his years showing. Maybe it was Deke’s imagination, but he could have sworn that when Honcho took off his helmet, there was yet more gray hair.

Although he found it hard to take his eyes off Juana, this wasn’t the time to dwell on what had happened last night, wonderful as it had been. Today, Deke knew that they had to get the hostages out. They were out of time because the artillery barrage was set to begin again. It was now or never.

And Deke finally had a plan.

But he was going to need a little help. This wasn’t something that he’d be able to do alone. He approached the lieutenant and told him as much. Still looking tired, Honcho nodded. “All right, let’s hear it.”

Deke made his way to the center of the group as all eyes turned to him.

“Gather round, y’all,” he said. “I think I’ve got an idea to outfox these Japs.”

“This I’ve got to hear,” Philly said. “Although I’d much rather hear about last night.”

“Watch it, city boy.”

“Who, me? What did I say?” he asked innocently.

Honcho interrupted before things could get ugly. “All right, Deke. That’s enough suspense. Let’s hear about this plan of yours.”

Lieutenant Steele was more than willing to hear him out. What Deke proposed was simple enough. He wanted the patrol to make a frontal attack, but more as a diversion. Meanwhile, he and Philly would slip away and come at the legislative building from the side, hopefully taking out the machine gunners again. Once that machine gun was knocked out, it would clear the way for Patrol Easy and the Filipinos to advance. Deke and Philly would continue to pick off any Japanese they could get in their sights.

If they got Sergeant Inaba or Major Tanigawa in their sights, so much the better. But that was almost too much to hope for. If he wanted to find Inaba or Tanigawa, he might have to go looking for them.

With that in mind, he continued to explain his plan to the others.

“Meanwhile, we’ll be working our way around to the back of the building,” Deke added. “When we went that way searching for the boy, we saw what it looked like back there. There’s a kind of alley and lots of doors and windows. The Japanese can’t have blocked them all, and they don’t have enough men to watch every inch of the place. Also, we know that they’re using at least one of those back doors to leave the building to go out on patrol. They’ll be worried about the attack out front. We might have a shot at getting inside and then finding those prisoners to get them out.”

“In other words, a two-pronged attack. Knock on the front door, and meanwhile go in the back,” Honcho said. He thought it over, then nodded. “It could work. All right, then, let’s saddle up and get it done.”

It was a bold plan, considering that the Japanese holdouts outnumbered them. The key would be taking out that machine gun. Deke was going to need to get in position to take the shot, and he’d require not a little bit of luck along with it.

“There are a lot more of them than us,” Philly said.

“When has that ever stopped us?” Deke pointed out.

They gathered their gear and prepared to get going. The sun was rising higher above the city skyline, the heat of the day already growing. A haze of smoke and dust turned the sun bloodred. Although it was the cooler season in the Philippines, it promised to be another warm and muggy day with enough humidity to make you feel as if you had just stepped out of a shower. Off to the west, a few dark clouds were already building, threatening a downpour later in the day.

The only one who didn’t have a role that morning seemed to be the kid, Roddy. He was moping around like a lost puppy. They couldn’t send him home, not through a dangerous war zone, but they couldn’t simply abandon him here with bands of Japanese soldiers on a killing spree, targeting any civilians they found. From the bodies they had seen among the ruins, they knew that the Japanese had no qualms about killing children.

“Stick with me, kid,” Honcho said. “When the shooting starts, I’ll want you to hang back.”

“Give me a gun,” the boy said. “I can fight.”

“I know you can,” the lieutenant said. “I like your spirit, kid. But what I really need you to do is carry our canteens. We’ll be no good today without water.”

Roddy nodded glumly, apparently not thrilled with the idea of being a water boy. “Yes, sir.”

However, Honcho wasn’t done assigning him duties. “Also, you are going to help us by watching our rear and making sure no Japanese sneak up on us.”

“Really?” Robby seemed to understand the importance of what he was being asked to do, gun or no gun. He nodded somberly. “Yes, sir. I can do that.”

“You be ready — give a shout at the first sign of any Japanese. But keep your head down and stay out of sight. With any luck, we’ll get your dad back today. I sure as hell don’t want to tell him that his son stuck his head up and got himself killed.”

The boy seemed glad enough to do his part, smiling and squaring his shoulders, pulling himself up to his full height. He was ready to prove that he was as much of a soldier as any of them.

For the briefest of moments, Deke and Juana found themselves alone. This morning their missions would take them in different directions.

Deke turned to her and said quietly, “Listen, Juana. If I die, I want you to know that I… that I⁠—”

Juana shook her head and touched a finger to his lips, silencing him. “No dying,” she said, then added a few words in Tagalog: “Makinig sa akin, sundalo. Only winning.”

Lowering her hand, she went to join the other Filipino fighters.

Standing nearby, Philly had overheard the exchange. “I like how she thinks,” he said. “But if you do get killed, can I have your bowie knife?”

“Sure you can have it.” Deke touched the hilt and grinned. “Just as soon as you pull it out from between your ribs.”

“Very funny,” Philly replied.

Deke pantomimed drawing the knife, and Philly pretended to double over with an imaginary stab wound. Both men suddenly looked younger than they had in months, more like overgrown boys, the weight of war momentarily lifted.

Honcho spoke up: “I’ll be damned, Deke. That’s the best mood I’ve ever seen you in. Maybe you ought to get laid more often.”

“Wha—” Deke reddened.

Honcho went on, “Now, if you two are finished playing grab-ass, how about we go shoot us some Japs?”

Twenty minutes later, Patrol Easy found itself back at the open square, looking out at the rubble-filled space. The landscape was becoming all too familiar to the point that Deke longed for some greenery, which made him feel most at home.

Aside from a few trees shattered by bombs, there wasn’t a stick of vegetation. The acrid smell of smoke and gunpowder hung in the air, along with a whiff of sewage and worse, a reminder of the violence that had taken place. The taste of dust and grit lingered on Deke’s tongue as he breathed in the aftermath of destruction. Every now and then the sound of a distant explosion and the rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard, another reminder that the war was still raging.

Presiding over the space stretching before them was the legislative building. The building stood tall and imposing, its exterior marred by bomb blasts and pockmarked by bullets. However, the thick walls looked impenetrable and forbidding. The Japanese flag flew boldly from the parapet. They could see Japanese soldiers in some of the window openings, waiting for them. One soldier broke discipline and fired a shot that whispered overhead, causing Deke’s spine to tingle.

“I guess it was too much to hope that the Japanese moved out during the night,” Deke said.

“That would mean we’d miss all the fun,” Philly replied.

Honcho glared at the enemy flag. “If the sight of that flag isn’t a sharp stick in the eye, then I don’t know what is,” he said. “One way or another, that flag is coming down today.”

Honcho glanced at Captain Oatmire, who simply nodded back in agreement. He was letting the lieutenant call the shots, which in Deke’s mind was the smart thing to do.

Then again, bringing down that Japanese flag might be easier said than done. The enemy was still firmly entrenched in the fortresslike building.

Deke realized that his plan would have worked better under cover of darkness, but they had learned that the night belonged to the Japanese. Whether it was on land or at sea, the Japanese had extensive training in night fighting. They knew what tactics worked best, and they had practiced nighttime combat. Most of their deadly banzai attacks came at night, taking advantage of the cover of darkness. Whether the Americans wanted to admit it or not, these night tactics added to the fear that the Japanese inspired in their adversaries. Americans preferred to fight by the light of day.

Here in the morning light, there was no point in trying to be stealthy. The Japanese were certainly on watch and likely had spotted them as soon as they’d entered the square. Adding to the lack of surprise was the fact that Danilo had spotted a stray dog chewing at something in the ruins. Manila, like most of the Philippines, had no shortage of the smallish, short-haired mutts that roamed the streets of cities and towns. The ownership of these dogs seemed to be loose and fluid. Consequently, the dogs had been left behind whenever civilians fled, and hunger made the animals desperate, sometimes roving in packs that had become a danger to the wounded or to children. When civilization faltered, it didn’t take long for nature to return to its natural state.

Danilo was nearest the dog and shouted at it, but the starving animal had responded by turning and growling at him, standing guard over whatever it had turned into a meal. Nobody wanted to think too much about what the dog had been eating. The poor beast was probably mad with hunger or possibly rabid. Danilo raised his rifle and fired a shot that struck close enough to the dog that it finally ran off.

“If nothing else, that will wake up the Japs,” Philly said.

He was right about that. Moments later, a burst of fire from a Nambu reached toward them, causing Patrol Easy to dive for cover.

“See, what did I tell you?” Philly said, hugging a concrete block as tracer fire passed overhead.

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Deke agreed.

“OK, now’s the time,” Honcho said. “Deke, you and Philly break right and see if you can work around their flank. I’ll give you a few minutes, and then I’ll let the Nips know we’re here.”

Deke did just that, keeping low, using the rubble and debris for cover. So far he didn’t think that he and Philly had been spotted. They kept moving, going as fast as they could to get around to the eastern side of the legislative building. They were running out of cover, however. If they tried to cross the last hundred feet or so of open ground, they would surely be seen.

“There’s not enough cover here for a rat,” Deke complained.

“That’s being generous,” Philly said, eyeing the ground. “I would have said there’s not enough cover for an ant.”

As if on cue, Patrol Easy opened fire on the legislative building, starting to advance toward it in a frontal attack. The Japanese inside the building quickly returned fire. There were a few rifle shots and then came the deadly peck, peck, peck of the Nambu from the top of the building.

“Go!” Deke urged, and scrambled across the open ground. Philly followed right behind him.

They covered the distance without anyone shooting at them and got to cover on the other side.

Deke was feeling good about his plan so far, at least until he ran into the Japanese outpost that had been hidden in the rubble. The Japanese gave a shout and opened fire. Deke raised his rifle and picked off one of the men, but that only made the three remaining soldiers that much more cautious. They took their time returning fire, choosing their shots and keeping Deke and Philly pinned down.

With a sinking feeling, he realized that his plan to surprise the Japanese by circling around the building had just fallen apart. Meanwhile, he could hear the deep boom of Honcho’s shotgun and the crack of rifle fire as the rest of Patrol Easy kept the Japanese occupied toward the front of the legislative building.

Now what? he wondered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Inside the fortresslike legislative building, Tanigawa felt the noose tightening. The morning had dawned quietly, the first hour or two passing peacefully, until the flurry of fire from the square that signaled a fresh attack. There was also gunfire from one of the outposts, indicating that the attackers were also trying to flank them.

Going to the window, he glanced out and enjoyed the view of the early-morning sun, even as it lit the ruins. He couldn’t have said how, but he knew with certainty that this would be his last morning. He took a deep breath and enjoyed it, feeling calm in the knowledge. It was how his samurai ancestors would have greeted the dawn before a final battle.

He felt that he had served the Emperor well. He knew that a few officers might opt for seppuku, the traditional suicide ritual of the samurai warrior. He would not judge others for taking that course of action. His route was simply different, planning to die with honor, fighting to the last.

He was already dressed, but he took a moment to straighten his uniform, tugging at the creases, rewrapping the puttees around his calves, using a thumbnail to rub away a crusty spot of mud. There were a few splashes of dried blood here and there, but that couldn’t be helped. He combed his hair and carefully donned his officer’s hat.

Tanigawa studied the sword in its holder on his desk. He stood up and buckled it to his belt, feeling complete.

Although there was no mirror to check his appearance, he could see his reflection in the window glass. Perhaps it was better not to be able to see himself too closely. He grunted in satisfaction.

Yesterday’s rampage through the city streets had been a necessary bloodletting, an act of revenge. But today they were not facing helpless civilians. The soldiers attacking them were determined and skilled. The Japanese officer was well aware that if he killed these American soldiers, then there would only be more. Also, he was sure that the Americans had artillery, but had not been bringing it to bear, perhaps to protect the hostages still held by the Japanese.

He had decided that they would not hold these hostages for much longer. They had served their purpose. To that end, he summoned Sergeant Inaba, who he was sure would be glad to carry out the order. Quickly, he explained what he had in mind.

“Shoot the men, spare the women,” he said.

“Hai,” the always dutiful sergeant replied. If Sergeant Inaba was surprised by the fact that he wasn’t to shoot the nurses that had annoyed them so much, he didn’t show it.

Once Inaba had left to carry out his orders, the major reached for his double rifle and balanced it over his shoulder, as he might have done if going out for some hunting.

When they left the university where he had been living for more than a year, he knew that he would not be returning and that where they were going, there would be no use for the few more-precious items that he owned, such as his radio and his books. He had not taken much more than his weapons and the uniform on his back. It had been his best uniform, at least. One way or another, he planned to die in it. All that remained unsettled was the when and how, but he knew that it would be soon.

The morning sun had risen, orders had been given, the die was cast.

Meanwhile, the hostages were making their own plans.

Mike MacGregor looked around uneasily at the room where they were being held, a dozen of them, the female nurses alongside the men. The thought of being nothing more than a bargaining chip felt demeaning.

He was not a man who was used to being told what to do. Before the war, he had been one of Manila’s leading businessmen, managing both a stock brokerage and an import-export business. Of course, the connections offered by his wife’s family had helped establish his business, but ultimately he was a capable businessman known for his honesty.

If he was sometimes abrupt or drove a hard bargain, he blamed it on his Scottish roots — his grandfather had immigrated to the United States just in time to serve in the Confederate army and had ultimately settled in Texas after the Civil War, looking for a bit of peace and wide-open country, giving rise to subsequent generations of tall Texans with odd Scottish names. However, MacGregor had also inherited his grandfather’s restlessness and wanderlust, eventually finding himself in the Philippines, seeking to make his own name. He had found success and started a family.

Now here he was, a prisoner of Imperial Japan. But not for much longer, if he could help it. MacGregor had reached his limit.

“How much longer do you think they’ll keep us?” one of the nurses wanted to know.

“As long as they want to,” said one of the men, who looked haggard and gray. Clearly, all the fight had gone out of him, and the man had resigned himself to his fate.

They all looked worse for wear, not having been fed properly since their arrival in the legislative building. They’d barely had enough water to drink. Their latrine facilities consisted of a filthy bucket in the hall. A single soldier stood guard beside the door. Judging by the shooting outside, the other two guards normally posted there had been needed to help defend the Japanese position.

The guard was a middle-aged Japanese, stocky and heavyset. He seemed to be one of the lowest-ranking soldiers, which, given his age, indicated an indifference toward military life. At this point in the war, the Japanese were rounding up every man that they could up to age forty-five for the regular army. Rumor had it that males between the ages of fifteen and sixty were being drafted in Japan, at least for national defense duties. Barely much older than Roddy, he mused. The draft apparently included young women. In Japan, with the Allies slowly closing in, there were no longer any civilians, only soldiers.

Anyhow, this guard had probably been judged too old for the physical activity of combat. Even so, MacGregor knew better than to underestimate the man. His appearance was typically sloppy, but he always managed to have a gleaming bayonet on his rifle. He was a mean son of a bitch who treated the American prisoners like dogs. In fact, guarding prisoners appeared to be his singular military talent.

The only Japanese who was worse to them was Sergeant Inaba. Fortunately, they had not yet seen his ugly face today. MacGregor wasn’t in any hurry to see him. Having grown up in Texas, MacGregor was convinced that lately Inaba had taken on the air of a cattleman sizing up steers for slaughter.

They didn’t know what the Japanese ultimately had in store for them, but it didn’t take a military strategist to figure it out. Some wanted to take their chances and hope for the best, but MacGregor didn’t plan on giving them a choice. He stood, drawing himself up to his full considerable height.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get home to my family. If we don’t try something soon, we might not get another chance.”

MacGregor hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down. One benefit of this particular guard, at least from the prisoners’ perspective, was that the man didn’t know a word of English. Consequently, they could plot to their hearts’ content within earshot of the guard. A few of his fellow prisoners stirred or looked up at him in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Getting us out of here, that’s what.”

“The Japanese might have something to say about that,” Nurse Rooney said. Her prim appearance signaled that she was a rule follower, even if those rules came from their captors.

MacGregor nodded at the window, toward the sound of gunfire. Clearly, an attack was taking place against the Japanese stronghold. “It sounds to me like they have their hands full right now.”

“But for how long?”

“Look, there’s one guard in the hall,” he replied. “You know as well as I do that the Japanese plan to shoot us. It’s now or never.”

“We don’t have any weapons,” Nurse Rooney pointed out.

It was true that the Japanese had taken the precaution of emptying the room of anything that might make a handy weapon. They had, however, left behind several heavy, rather uncomfortable wooden chairs for the prisoners to sit in. Based on their own physical dimensions, the Japanese probably hadn’t considered these chairs to be weapons, but MacGregor was far bigger than your average Japanese soldier.

“Get up,” he said to the nurse, who was sitting in one of the chairs.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, Get up, woman!” MacGregor barked.

Promptly, the nurse jumped to her feet.

MacGregor was surprised when Littleton stood and went to the door. The balding, middle-aged man had always come across as too timid in MacGregor’s book, but he seemed to have reached the same conclusion that this might be their last chance.

“I’ll call our friend in,” Littleton said.

“All right. Get ready, everyone.”

MacGregor stood against the wall closest to the hallway, just inside the door. He hefted the chair over his head.

His fellow prisoner went out in the hallway and made some fuss, gesturing for the guard to come into the room. From the angry noises made by the guard, it didn’t sound as if he was eager to comply. Finally, he shouted something irate and stomped into the room, bayonet at the ready.

Too late, he either sensed MacGregor behind him or felt the rush of air as sixty pounds of hand-carved chair descended in his direction. The guard started to turn, but not before MacGregor hit him with the chair.

The man went down as if he’d been poleaxed.

MacGregor sprang on top of him and delivered two swift punches for good measure. They hadn’t been necessary, but they sure felt good.

Littleton picked up the guard’s rifle. Clearly, it wasn’t his first time holding a weapon. He no longer looked so tired or defeated. It was amazing how holding a rifle gave a man hope and power over his destiny.

“Let’s go,” MacGregor said.

He started toward the stairs, his plan being to lead them down, but just as quickly he realized that wasn’t going to work.

They could hear the Japanese on the stairs below, sounding as if they were coming up, maybe hauling ammunition to the machine gunner on the roof — or coming to finish off the prisoners. MacGregor glanced down and spotted Sergeant Inaba coming up the stairs.

The only way to go now was up. “Follow me!” he said.

He didn’t have a plan. Maybe, just maybe, they could overpower the machine gunners and barricade themselves up there, hoping that the Americans could finally somehow overwhelm the Japanese defenses.

They ran up the stairs, MacGregor taking the steps two at a time, the group getting spread out because some of them were weak from the lack of food and water.

There was a shout from below — they had been spotted. A bullet cracked up the stairwell, then another. Littleton fired back and, judging by the shout of pain that followed, had managed to hit one of their pursuers, buying them precious minutes.

MacGregor’s long legs quickened the pace, taking the stairs three at a time.

More shots came from below.

Deke and Philly needed to improvise, now that their plan to get around behind the legislative building had been blocked by the Japanese outpost.

Deke looked around and saw the bank building where the patrol had found cover yesterday. An idea began to take shape. Without any sort of heavy weapons, they would have to do what snipers did best — pick off Japs. There was no time to waste. He looked over toward the rest of the patrol, who were being kept pinned down by the relentless fire from the Nambu machine gun on the roof of the legislative building. The machine gunners had gotten smart and piled up more sandbags, making them a difficult target from ground level in the square. If he and Philly could take out that machine gun, the rest of Patrol Easy might just have a fighting chance. To do that, they were going to have to get up higher.

“Come on,” Deke said. “Let’s get up on the roof of that bank building.”

Philly had also seen that the chances of their original plan working had fallen apart. He nodded, seeming to have read Deke’s mind. “If we can get up there, it’s gonna be like a shooting gallery for us.”

“That’s the idea.”

They scurried away through the rubble, shots chasing them. Some of the Japanese jeered, evidently thinking that Deke and Philly had turned tail and run — which in a sense they had. However, Deke was a strong believer in living to fight another day. The Japs think they’ve got us licked, but we’ll see about that.

Reaching the front door of the bank building, they scrambled inside. El Banco de Manila featured a grand lobby with marble floors, tall Doric columns holding up the vaulted roof, and gleaming counters of polished wood with glass partitions separating the well-dressed clerks from the even-better-dressed customers. Tall windows, covered in ornately wrought iron bars that provided both security and beauty, filled the lobby with the sort of sunlight that encouraged scrutiny. Normally it was the sort of setting where Deke never would have felt comfortable in a million years. But now it was a war zone.

The marble floor was strewn with dust and broken glass from windows shattered by bomb blasts, though the ironwork remained. Birds flitted under the tall ceiling and had even begun to nest at the tops of the columns. Nature asserting itself where humankind had faltered. A puddle of congealed blood spread across one corner, evidence that someone had died there, and badly.

He had to admit that the sight of the ruined bank lobby didn’t make him feel sad. He hated bankers. After all, it had been a greedy banker who had foreclosed on their family farm at the rat-tail end of the Great Depression, just before the war. This place was far grander than the local bank that had stolen the Cole family’s land — which meant the bankers here were likely that much greedier.

“This place has seen better days, that’s for sure,” Philly said.

“Maybe there was a run on the bank,” Deke said.

“I’ll say. Hey, I wonder if there’s still any money in the bank vault? If we had a grenade⁠—”

“Come on,” Deke said. “There’s no time for that. Let’s find the stairs and get up to the roof.”

They started toward the rear of the lobby. Outside, they could hear the firing as Patrol Easy took on the Japanese. However, Deke heard another sound — boots crunching on glass. He froze, then signaled Philly to do the same.

“What?” Philly whispered.

As if to answer his question, the sound of footsteps came more clearly now. Then they heard the guttural sound of Japanese speaking among themselves. Someone kicked something across the floor, making it hop and bounce. One of the soldiers laughed. Judging from the sounds, it was a small band of Japanese, maybe three or four men. Deke realized that the enemy soldiers were also headed for the stairs. The sons of bitches probably had the same plan that he and Philly did, which was to get to the roof for the commanding view that it offered. If the Japs got up there, Patrol Easy wouldn’t stand a chance. They would be sitting ducks, picked off from both directions.

Deke and Philly spread out, moving as quietly as they could across the broken glass on the floor, both finding cover behind the tall stone columns. Deke pressed his rifle against the cold, hard stone and waited.

The Japanese soldiers rounded a corner and came into sight. There were three of them, moving quickly, weapons at the ready. Maybe Deke and Philly hadn’t been as quiet as they had hoped and the sound of crunching glass had given them away.

Deke fired at the soldier on the left. Inside the confines of the lobby, there was a distinct sound of the bullet hitting flesh and bone. The soldier went down. Philly’s rifle cracked and dropped the soldier on the right. That left the man in the middle, who managed to get off a wild shot that ricocheted off the column that Deke was taking cover behind.

Deke worked the bolt and shot him, Philly’s bullet coming in a split second later. Hit twice, the Japanese soldier went down. They waited a moment, just to make sure no Japanese had been lagging behind.

“Coast is clear,” Deke said. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Philly said.

They scrambled toward the stairs, which were broad and marble, leading to offices on the second floor. There was less destruction here, and they moved easily up the stairs. To their relief, there didn’t seem to be any more Japanese soldiers. The stairs grew narrower as they climbed from floor to floor, away from the public eye, finally ending in a utilitarian set of wooden steps that led to a hatch in the roof. They climbed out onto the roof, keeping low, not wanting to attract any attention in case enemy eyes were watching. Again, they were glad not to run into more enemy soldiers up here.

“Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves,” Deke said.

“Fine by me,” Philly replied.

It turned out that the roof had a slight pitch to it, with acres of copper sheeting coated heavily in tar to keep the rain out. It wasn’t the easiest surface to cross, and already the sun was making the black tar and metal surfaces unpleasantly hot. But that might be the least of their worries if the Japanese caught sight of them before they were in position. One burst from that Nambu might sweep them right off the roof.

Crouching, they ran around to the front of the roof that overlooked the square and the legislative building on the other side. Although the buildings were similar in height, the steeper roof of the bank building gave it an advantage, adding a few precious feet of elevation. This made all the difference because they could look down on the roof of the legislative building — giving Deke a clear shot at the machine gunner.

Deke got next to a chimney, which not only offered at least some cover but, more importantly, provided a solid surface to steady his rifle against. Philly set up on the other side of the chimney.

“I’ll take care of business,” Deke said. “You watch our backs. Maybe those Japs we saw earlier have some friends around.”

“You got it.”

Deke lined up his sights on the two machine gunners operating the Nambu. It was the longest shot that he had taken for a while, so he took his time steadying the sights, then raising his aim just a hair. If he missed, and they were spotted by the machine gunner, it was going to get unpleasant up here in a hurry, because there was precious little cover on the rooftop. First, he fired to take out the man feeding the ammo belt into the gun, the sound of the Nambu masking his shot. The man slumped down, but his comrade on the machine gun didn’t notice. Deke worked the bolt and fired again.

The machine gun fell silent.

Next, he turned his attention to the square below, where he could see Patrol Easy trying to advance against the superior numbers of the Japanese force defending the legislative building. The Americans and Filipinos were clearly outnumbered.

“There’s too many Japs,” Philly said.

“Let’s see if we can even the odds,” Deke said, putting his eye back to the rifle scope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Across the square in the legislative building, the fleeing prisoners led by MacGregor had reached the rooftop. To his surprise, the two-gun crew was slumped behind their wall of sandbags, clearly dead. Briefly, MacGregor thought about taking command of the machine gun and using it against the Japanese, but there simply wasn’t time. Already the Japanese were in the stairway landing.

“Close the door!” he shouted as the last hostage made it through. The nurse turned and helped him slam the door shut. There was no lock on the outside, but he grabbed a length of broken board and jammed it under the doorknob. Already the soldiers on the other side were pounding on the door until it bounced in its frame. The door wouldn’t hold for long.

“What should we do?”

He looked around. It was a good question. They were trapped up here. He began to doubt the wisdom of having fled to the roof, but they were out of time or options.

“Everyone scatter and hide as best as you can,” he said. “Littleton and I will hold them off as long as we’re able to.”

The door shuddered again, then started to splinter. Littleton fired a shot through the door, then another. That slowed the enemy but did not stop them. A spray of bullets followed, wounding Littleton, who didn’t go down but limped away, turning and firing as he ran.

Then the door gave way and the Japanese came pouring out.

Deke was about to start picking off enemy soldiers in in the square below when he noticed a flurry of activity on the roof of the legislative building. He squinted through the scope to take a closer look. To his surprise, he saw the prisoners spilling out onto the roof of the legislative building. A couple of the men hung back, apparently trying to barricade the door.

“Philly, get a look at this,” he said, pointing toward the rooftop.

Philly glassed them with binoculars. “I’ll be damned. Those are the prisoners,” he said. They had both recognized the tall fellow, MacGregor, father to the boy who had fallen in with Patrol Easy. “But where are they going? They’re trapped up there. I see that they’re trying to barricade the door, but that won’t stop the Japanese.”

As if to prove the point, the door leading to the rooftop suddenly banged open, scattering the two men who had been trying to hold it closed against the Japanese. Enemy soldiers boiled out of the door like angry hornets looking for someone to sting. The last soldier out wore an officer’s uniform and carried a sword in addition to a rifle. Deke realized it was none other than Major Tanigawa.

For the prisoners trapped on the roof, the situation had just gone from bad to worse.

Within moments, he and Philly watched a drama play out on the rooftop, feeling helpless to do much about it.

Pursued by the Japanese, they could see that there was nowhere for the prisoners to go.

Deke glanced at the square below, where Patrol Easy was fighting for survival as the Japanese forces advanced. The next few minutes were going to be critical both on the roof and down in the square. With a sinking feeling, Deke realized that he had a choice to make. He and Philly could either save some of the prisoners, or they could help Patrol Easy. Which was it going to be?

As the door to the roof flew open, MacGregor turned to run, not sure where to run to. He dove behind a wide chimney before the Japanese spotted him. To his surprise, it was Inaba who went running past. On an impulse, MacGregor stuck out a long leg and tripped him.

Inaba went sprawling, his submachine gun flying out of his hands and clattering across the rooftop.

MacGregor marched toward him as the Japanese sergeant regained his feet. Inaba saw him coming and took a fighting stance, his weight on his back leg, body coiled, his arms raised in some kind of Japanese fighting position. Inaba made a noise that perhaps was intended to be a battle cry, more like a bellow than any kind of word. MacGregor thought it sounded like a noise that an upset steer would make.

“Kee-yiii!”

The big Texan was not impressed. This wasn’t his first rodeo — you didn’t grow up in Texas without getting in a fistfight or three. MacGregor expected an easy fight, but he soon found that he was sadly mistaken. Inaba turned out to know a trick or two. Overconfident, MacGregor swung. The Japanese sergeant easily dodged the blow and instantly hammered the American in the ribs with a quick one-two punch combination. Like lightning, a fist connected squarely against MacGregor’s face. He felt the wind knocked out of him and he sat down rather unexpectedly. Inaba was stronger than he looked, and a whole lot quicker.

Grinning, Inaba waited for MacGregor to get up again. The Japanese seemed to be enjoying this.

MacGregor shook his head to clear it. He got back on his feet and advanced on Inaba, more cautiously this time. He made the mistake of keeping his eyes on Inaba’s hands. He didn’t expect Inaba’s foot to suddenly come flying at him. The kick sent Big Mike sprawling.

Once again, he got to his feet. Once again, Sergeant Inaba was waiting for him. MacGregor didn’t plan on disappointing Inaba, but he decided to change his tactics.

He was at least a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than Inaba, emaciated though he was. The ropy muscles that he had developed on the family ranch had never left him. Inaba had taken up his fighting stance again. This time, MacGregor kept his distance. With his long reach, he swatted Inaba’s hands away, leaving the man’s chin nicely exposed.

MacGregor swung his fist, putting all the frustration of the last few weeks into it. He struck Inaba a hammer blow squarely in the face, sending the man reeling.

“I’ve got to say, that has been a long time coming,” MacGregor said.

MacGregor raised his fists to hit the man again, but it wasn’t necessary. Staggering, Inaba had reached the edge of the roof. Trying to find his balance, he took one more step back — into thin air. His eyes went wide as he realized his mistake. And then Inaba fluttered his arms like a flightless bird and ever so slowly tipped over backward into nothingness.

He screamed on the way down.

But MacGregor’s sense of victory was short-lived. The last Japanese soldier through the doorway was Major Tanigawa. He emerged onto the rooftop, carrying his double rifle, which he pointed at MacGregor.

From the Texan’s perspective, the dual dark muzzles were big as twin cannons pointed right at him.

“Now hold on, Major,” MacGregor said, raising his hands. “I’m a prisoner.”

“No,” said Tanigawa. “You are a dead man.”

MacGregor closed his eyes, not wanting to see what was coming. It wasn’t fear — he just didn’t want Tanigawa’s ugly mug to be the last thing he ever saw. Instead, in his mind’s eye, he pictured his family — his beautiful wife, his daughter, young Roddy. They would be his last thought in this world.

The moment stretched on. He heard the crack of a rifle some distance away, but still Tanigawa didn’t fire. MacGregor opened his eyes and glared at the Japanese officer. “Just get it over with, will you?”

Deke had made up his mind. He reminded himself that the whole reason they were here in the first place was to rescue the prisoners. He turned his rifle toward the last stand on the rooftop, leaving Patrol Easy to fend for itself for now. Quickly, he picked off one of the enemy soldiers, then another. He desperately wanted to get Sergeant Inaba and Major Tanigawa in his crosshairs, but he had lost sight of them for the moment.

Finally, his luck changed. Across the square, through the scope, Deke saw MacGregor scuffling with Sergeant Inaba, who seemed to have lost his submachine gun in the fracas. Deke tensed at the sight of the Japanese sergeant confronting the much bigger American. Deke held his fire — it was a long shot and the angle wasn’t good, so he was afraid of hitting MacGregor. Twice, Inaba knocked the bigger man down. But then the tables turned. MacGregor punched Inaba, and Deke watched in surprise as the sergeant staggered backward and then toppled from the roof.

“I’ll be damned,” Deke said. He let out a low whistle. “Did you just see that?”

“I saw it, all right,” Philly replied. “That son of a bitch flew about as well as a brick.”

Deke wanted to cheer. He was about to turn his attention back to Patrol Easy down in the square, but what he saw happening next let the air out of that balloon. Major Tanigawa had found MacGregor and was pointing his double rifle at the American. MacGregor was unarmed, and there would be no punching his way out of this situation.

“Can you get him?” Philly asked.

“I reckon,” Deke replied.

The machine gunners on the roof had been easier. This was at a longer range, on a different part of the roof. He had to hurry — he was literally going to get only one shot at this.

He picked up a handful of dust and grit, then tossed it into the air to see which way the breeze was blowing. It wasn’t much of a breeze, but it blew fitfully, promising to snatch his bullet off course during the second or so it needed to cross the distance. One second didn’t sound that long until you measured it out loud, muttering one blue mountain or one Mississippi. Either of those phrases took about one second to say. Plenty of time for a stray eddy of wind or a pocket of humid air to send his bullet off course.

“Any day now,” Philly said. “I don’t want to be the one who has to tell young Roddy that his father is dead.”

Neither did Deke, but some things couldn’t be rushed. Take your time killing him, Tanigawa, Deke silently urged. Take all the time you want.

Deke knelt and pressed the rifle against the warm bricks, letting the rough surface dig into the wooden stock, holding it steady. He let out a breath, drew one in, and held it. When his father was teaching him to shoot, he liked to say, Breathe out fear, breathe in courage.

He settled the sights on Tanigawa.

The breeze touched Deke’s face, then faded away.

Deke squeezed the trigger.

On the rooftop of the legislative building, MacGregor was waiting to die, staring into the muzzles of the Japanese officer’s double rifle, intended for the likes of tigers, lions, and water buffalo. MacGregor knew that he didn’t have a prayer.

He saw that Tanigawa was looking in his direction, but that his eyes were unfocused. Puzzled, MacGregor noticed that a red stain had appeared in the middle of Tanigawa’s chest, rapidly growing in size. MacGregor realized that the distant rifle crack that he’d heard earlier must not have been random.

The Japanese officer sank to his knees, then collapsed.

MacGregor turned and looked in the direction that the bullet had come from. As far as he knew, all the soldiers were fighting down in the square. Who in the world had shot Tanigawa?

Across the square, from another rooftop, he saw a soldier give him a big sweeping gesture, what they called a “hillbilly wave” back in Texas. Even at this distance, he could see that the soldier wasn’t wearing a helmet, but a bush hat with one side pinned up. He must be either a Filipino or a stray Aussie. No matter — MacGregor owed that eagle-eyed bastard his life. He grinned and waved back, thinking, That was one hell of a shot.

Then he picked up Tanigawa’s rifle and fired at the closest Japanese soldier. The big round from the double rifle was as good as kicking the Jap in the chest, and down he went. Following MacGregor’s example, a couple of the other prisoners had retrieved the rifles dropped by Inaba and the other Japanese and were now shooting back.

MacGregor aimed the rifle and fired again, then reached down and dug around in Tanigawa’s pockets for more cartridges. They were big brass shells, practically the size of railroad spikes, or so it seemed. He grinned as he shoved two more shells into the rifle and snapped the breech shut.

Maybe a fight wasn’t what the Japanese wanted from their hostages, but it was a fight they were going to get. And right now they were losing it.

Down in the square, while Deke and Philly were occupied by the fighting on the roof, the rest of Patrol Easy was managing to advance. It turned out that the Japanese had found one of their infamous knee mortars and were using it to walk rounds toward Patrol Easy.

“Juana, take care of that!” Lieutenant Steele shouted, frustrated that the mortar squad was beyond shotgun range. With Deke and Philly out on their mission, she was the best shot that he had left.

He recognized the high-pitched crack of her Arisaka rifle — once, twice — and that was the end of the mortar attack. After that, the enemy fire slackened, but there was still plenty of it coming at them.

It helped that the Japanese were rudderless, having lost their command structure. Unlike the Americans, the Japanese soldier was far more dependent on his officers telling him what to do. The Japanese didn’t like soldiers to think for themselves. Maybe there were some benefits to that for the Japanese and their brutal tactics, but not in this situation.

The enemy began to fall back and scatter, some returning toward the legislative building and others simply melting into the rubble and ruins. The surrounding streets were filled with smoke and debris. The destruction was immense, several more dead bodies now scattered in the rubble.

Amid the chaos, Steele heard a familiar voice calling his name. It was Danilo, their fearless Filipino guide. He was on his knees, both hands gripping his midsection as if trying to hold something in. Blood so thick and dark that it was more like chocolate pudding oozed from between his fingers. The lieutenant started to reach for the man’s hands to pull them away so that he could apply a bandage, but then he hesitated, afraid of what he might find. The lieutenant was far from squeamish, having seen just about everything you could see in terms of how a human being could be killed in this war, but even he had to admit that it was an ugly wound.

“Dammit, Danilo. Do not die on me. That’s an order.”

The tough guerrilla just shook his head. As usual, it was unclear just how much English he understood. But the severity of his wound was clear enough. However, there was no fear in his eyes, just resignation.

Juana was suddenly beside them. She propped her Arisaka rifle, its barrel smoking hot from the multiple rounds she had put through it, against a block of broken concrete and reached for her medical kit. “Go on,” she said. “I will stay with him. There is nothing more you can do.”

Knowing that she was right, but still reluctant to leave their loyal guide, he gave Danilo’s shoulder a squeeze. A final look passed between them; then Danilo nodded and looked away, as if giving the lieutenant permission to go.

There weren’t any medics to call because Patrol Easy was on its own. It wouldn’t have mattered. Danilo’s ragged breathing indicated that he was now struggling to stay alive.

Steele filled with grief and anger. Danilo had been through a lot with Patrol Easy — they might not have survived without him. The lieutenant promised himself that he would make sure that whatever happened to Danilo wouldn’t be in vain.

If any of them survived. Bullets still whined overhead, bouncing off the rocks and debris around him. It was a wonder that the rest of them hadn’t already ended up like Danilo. I really ought to keep my head down, Steele thought. But he’d be damned if he did that, not when his men needed him.

The lieutenant got to his feet.

He looked around, seeing that what was left of his patrol had lost momentum. There was Rodeo, on his belly, firing shot after shot at the Japanese. Yoshio was doing the same, hurling insults in Japanese at the enemy between squeezing off rounds. Captain Oatmire was firing from behind a chunk of stone. The guerrillas had seemingly melted into the debris, taking cover wherever they could.

No, they couldn’t stop. If they halted their advance now, the Japanese might be able to regroup. He glanced at his watch. To make matters worse, the bombardment was set to recommence soon. The last thing he wanted to do was leave his patrol out here in the open, exposed, once the Long Toms finally resumed their deadly work.

“Let’s go!” Lieutenant Steele shouted, leading his patrol forward. Soon they were a hundred feet from the front door, then fifty, then climbing the wide stone steps leading toward the entrance.

A Japanese sprang from the shadows near the door of the legislative building, running at the lieutenant with a fixed bayonet. Steele fired the shotgun, and that was the end of that particular problem.

Moments later they were inside the building itself. Any able-bodied soldiers seemed to have fled out the back like the rats the Americans thought they were. The lobby had been turned into a makeshift hospital, with Japanese dead lined up on one side and the still-living on the other.

“Japs!” Rodeo shouted, swinging his rifle at them.

“Don’t worry about them. They aren’t going to bother anybody,” Honcho said, giving him a shove toward the door.

Unarmed and helpless, the wounded watched them with furtive eyes, but Honcho and the others kept going, not even Yoshio giving them a second glance. They moved deeper into the building’s interior. The only thing he cared about was getting the prisoners out before the US Army rained the wrath of God down on everyone’s heads in the form of heavy artillery.

He heard a deep, booming voice ahead. “Don’t shoot!”

Seconds later, a tall figure appeared, leading the rest of the prisoners. A couple of the prisoners were wounded and had to be helped by the others.

“Is this everybody?” Steele asked.

“All present and accounted for,” the tall prisoner said. “All twelve of us, in various states of repair.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

They turned and headed out of the building, passing the silent wounded again.

“What about those wounded Japanese?” Rodeo asked anxiously.

“To hell with ’em,” Honcho replied, rushing past the men lying on blankets on the marble floor. “They’ll all be dead in about ten minutes, and so will we if we don’t get out of here.”

Juana was waiting for them on the steps. The lieutenant looked at her questioningly, but she shook her head.

Danilo was gone. Though it was no surprise, the finality of it hit the lieutenant hard. He pushed that thought down, not having time for it, and led the patrol back the way that they had come.

Out in the square, there was one more important piece of business waiting.

“Papa!” cried Roddy, who had crawled under a fallen column, keeping out of harm’s way just like Lieutenant Steele had told him to do.

“Son!”

The two embraced, a couple of tears leaving tracks in MacGregor’s dusty face.

Steele told himself that the reunion somewhat made up for Danilo. Life went on. He couldn’t help wondering who would grieve for their dead guide. Like so much about Danilo, the existence of any family that he’d had remained a mystery.

He glanced at his watch. Almost noon. Turning to the prisoners, he said, “We need to get out of here, and fast.”

The urgency in the lieutenant’s voice said it all. They did as they were told, or as best as they could. Rodeo and Yoshio, along with Captain Oatmire, jumped in to help the injured prisoners. At the edge of the square, they were rejoined by Deke and Philly, who hadn’t wasted any time getting off the roof of the bank building.

“You guys are a sight for sore eyes,” Philly said. “I was thinking⁠—”

Whatever thought he’d wanted to share was interrupted by the high-pitched wail of incoming artillery. Right on schedule, the artillery officer was opening fire.

“Run!” Steele shouted.

The first shells hit, making the ground shake. The front corner of the legislative building shattered in a tremendous explosion that sent debris skyward.

Fortunately, the battered band of soldiers and prisoners had made it across the square.

“This way!” shouted Juana, leading them down an alley. They cut through one street after another, shells landing ever closer, and didn’t stop until they had reached the nearest gate of the walled city.

Behind them, what was left of the old city of Intramuros was being reduced to rubble, along with any remaining Japanese holdouts.