Savage Sniper

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When the sun started to go down, the Japanese apparently decided that they’d done enough hard work for one day by interrogating their newest prisoner. Taken from the headquarters building, Deke found himself half-dragged and half-carried — he needed it this time.

Instead of being returned to the shed, he was taken to the main prison barracks and tossed within. That much of the plan was working out. If he’d been locked inside the shed again, only to be interrogated yet more the next day, valuable time would have been lost. Also, Deke had to admit that he wasn’t sure how much more beating he could take. Mentally he was fine, but he knew that his body had limits.

The barracks were full, the day’s work party apparently having returned from their endless task of carrying buckets of rocks through the jungle.

Shakily, Deke got to his feet. He realized that even his teeth felt loose from all the rattling they’d taken.

“Easy, easy,” said an airman in a tattered flight suit, approaching him. “I know from personal experience that those bastards throw quite a welcome party.”

“I reckon you wouldn’t be wrong about that.”

“How did you like the hot box?”

“Do you mean that little shed without the windows? For a minute there I had it confused with a fancy hotel.”

“That’s the one. Lovely place, right?”

The airman offered Deke a drink of water, and he nodded his appreciation.

“Drink up. We have plenty of water. All you can drink. That stands to reason — we dug the well, after all. It’s just food that we don’t have enough of.”

“The Japanese seem to have plenty to eat.”

“I guess they just decided not to share.”

More men gathered around. “Where the hell did he come from?” someone asked.

“It’s the invasion,” another stick-thin soldier said. “Our boys have got to be close. Sometimes we can hear the artillery in the distance.”

“Give him some air, fellas,” said the soldier in the flight suit, whose voice rang with some authority. The ring around Deke loosened up.

The soldier who had spoken extended a hand toward Deke. “I’m Rex Faraday. Technically I’m Lieutenant Faraday, but the Japanese lump us all together, enlisted with the officers. We did have a captain when I first got here, but he caught a fever. He, uh, you know, didn’t make it through. I’m currently the highest-ranking officer here, which puts me in charge of this menagerie.”

The speech had served to give Deke the lay of the land, which he appreciated.

Deke shook the proffered hand. There was something about a handshake that was a refreshingly American gesture, even in the heart of a Japanese POW camp. The Japanese preferred to bow, which seemed fussy to Deke compared to an honest handshake.

“Deacon Cole,” he said. “I usually go by Deke.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Faraday was in his midtwenties, with sandy-blond hair that needed to be cut and several days’ worth of light-colored stubble across his square jaw. It wasn’t easy keeping to military grooming standards in these prison camp conditions, even for an officer. Faraday had the sort of straightforward good looks that Deke somehow associated with other men that he’d met from the Midwest. If you looked up “American” in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of somebody like Faraday.

The prisoners displayed a hodgepodge of clothing because they typically still wore whatever they’d been wearing when captured. It made it easy to tell which branch of the service each man had hailed from. Unlike the clean clothing issued to their own POWs, the Japanese didn’t make that effort.

Faraday still wore his flight suit, though the top part had been left undone and tied around his waist in deference to the heat. He wore a muscle-type T-shirt that was starting to turn a dingy shade of grayish brown. Faraday was still showing some of the muscle that he would have developed in training, indicating that he had not been captive for very long.

“Let’s get that shirt off and take a look at the damage.”

“Do we have to?”

“Best to clean you up. If you get an infection in this place, it’s as good as a death sentence. Besides, you are what passes for entertainment around here.”

A semi-clean rag was brought, along with a basin of water and a sliver of soap, apparently a commodity so rare that it was almost treated with reverence. With an almost surprising gentleness, given the rough conditions and the low light levels in the barracks, Faraday wet the rag in soapy water and used it to clean the wounds across Deke’s back.

It wasn’t so easy to get the shirt off. In places where he had been cut by the cane, the fabric had become embedded in the dried blood. Deke exhaled sharply as the shirt finally peeled away. Faraday whistled. “Those sons of bitches really did a number on you.”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing I can’t take.”

Faraday suddenly stopped in his efforts. He had come to the hard ridges of scar tissue that Deke had carried since boyhood. “I don’t think you’re kidding. Where did you get all these scars?”

“Black bear,” he said. “He wasn’t near as gentle as that sergeant.”

“A bear? Holy hell. No wonder those Japs didn’t rattle you.” Faraday didn’t ask more about the scars from the bear, and Deke didn’t elaborate. Faraday wrung out the bloody rag, wet it again, and went back to dabbing at Deke’s back. “So what the hell are you doing out here? Has the advance really reached this far?”

“Here’s the interesting part,” Deke said.

“I’m all ears.”

“There’s plenty more where I came from,” Deke said. “Well, there’s enough, anyhow. The thing is, boys, I’m here to help get you out of this hellhole.”

Several men were still gathered around, and the reactions on the faces nearby ranged from consternation to disbelief. One man broke down and cackled with laughter as if Deke had just told the funniest joke the man had ever heard.

But Faraday was eyeing Deke intently. In a gesture that was so quick and subtle that Deke wasn’t entirely sure he had seen it, Faraday put a finger to his lips. Then he spoke loudly for the benefit of the crowd, “Everyone says that at first, and then we realize that the only way out of this place is by way of the graveyard — or us finally winning the war.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Deke agreed, just as loudly. “There’s probably no way out.”

“No, there’s not.”

Eventually the men crowded around Deke began to lose interest and drifted away as Deke was cleaned up. That was when Faraday took him aside. With him were a couple of other men that he introduced as Cooper and Venezia. They were as different as Mutt and Jeff, with Cooper being tall and broad as an oak, which was impressive given the conditions in which the prisoners lived, and Venezia being a fireplug of a man with dark Italian features.

“Do go on,” Faraday said, quietly this time. “You were saying something about escaping from this place?”

“Sounds like you didn’t want the people in the cheap seats to hear me the last time,” Deke said. “You got a problem with rats in this place?”

“Unfortunately, both the two-legged kind and the four-legged kind,” Faraday said. “The four-legged kind aren’t bad eating if you can catch them. As for the two-legged variety, there are a few guys who will sell us out for an extra bowl of rice whenever they get wind of anything that the Japanese might be interested in knowing.”

“Sounds like a rat problem, all right.”

“It’s also a matter of self-preservation,” Faraday admitted. “If the Japanese get word of any kind of escape plot, because I’m the ranking officer, they’ll drag me in to get the same treatment that you just got. Then they’ll put me out in the yard and shoot me if they aren’t happy with my answers. I might even get a blindfold if I’m lucky.”

“All because of the rats.”

Faraday shrugged. “You can’t really blame them. Nobody starts out as a rat. Some of these guys are so hungry that they’re not thinking straight. They’ve been here a long time. You just need to be aware of the rat problem. But not to worry. There are plenty of guys in here that you can trust. Most of them, as a matter of fact.”

Looking around, Deke could see why some men might be desperate. A few were so skeletal that they were painful to look at, their eyes sunk deep into the hollows of their skulls. Others were so weak that they could barely stir from their bunks after their day of labor in the jungle. Deke was fairly certain that for these men, their next resting place was going to be that graveyard beyond the prison fence.

He knew that he was too stubborn to ever make nice with the Japanese for a bowl of rice, but he could understand what Faraday meant about the hardships of being a POW wearing men down. Yesterday he would have called such men traitors. But he now had an inkling as to how the enemy treated the POWs. The sooner that everyone got out of here, the better.

“All right, here’s the deal,” Deke whispered. “I’m part of a patrol that was sent here to break everybody out. I let myself be captured so that we could get word to you boys on the inside. Tomorrow night just after midnight, the plan is for them to cut a hole in the fence, and we all skedaddle. We’ve got a little more than twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be quite as easy to walk out of here as you make it sound,” Faraday pointed out. “Have you seen that guard tower with the machine gun?”

“They’re going to cut the hole in the fence on the west side of these barracks. We figure there’s just the smallest blind spot, or at least it will be hard for the machine gun to get a clear shot. If they have to, they can take out the guard tower, but they’d like to keep things quiet.”

“Why take the chance? You’ve met Colonel Yamagata. He’ll shoot every last one of us if he gets the excuse. He and that toady of his, Sergeant Matsueda. We call him Mr. Suey, but not to his face, believe me. The only one of the bunch that has a bone of decency in him is Lieutenant Osako.”

“Eyeglasses?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. He can be all right when he’s by himself. But he can’t go against his commanding officer, of course, and I think he’s half-scared of Mr. Suey.”

Deke was surprised. “You know all their names?”

“It’s best to know your enemy,” Faraday said. “Anyhow, why not just wait out the end of the war here on Leyte? It can’t be more than a few weeks off.”

“Maybe weeks, but maybe months. These Japanese are a tough nut to crack.” Deke paused, not sure if he should continue.

Faraday and the others sensed his hesitation. “So what’s the rest of the story? It sure seems like there’s something that you don’t want to tell me.”

Deke hadn’t been sure how much to tell Faraday, but he decided that the man deserved to know what he and the other POWs were up against. “We were sent here because the Japanese have been killing off their POWs in other camps rather than free them. The orders came right from the top, General MacArthur himself. He wants every last POW camp liberated before the Japanese can do something drastic.”

“Killing our guys for no good reason? Bastards.”

“Yeah.”

“I can one hundred percent see the camp commandant here doing something like that. Let me tell you something about Colonel Yamagata and that bow of his. Every now and then he lines us all up in the prison yard and orders that the gate be opened. If any man wants to make a run for it, they’re welcome to do it. They just have to outrun his arrows.”

“Son of a bitch. Has anyone ever taken him up on it?”

“Sure, a few guys liked their chances. They didn’t make it.” A shadow crossed Faraday’s face as he said this. “There were a few Filipino prisoners that weren’t given a choice — they were told they had to make a run for it. They didn’t make it either. I’m telling you, Colonel Yamagata is sadistic. He’s a murderous bastard.”

“What about you, Faraday? How long have you been in this place?”

“Just a couple of months. That’s why I’ve still got some meat on my bones.”

“What happened?”

“My plane got shot down. Only two of us got out. The pilot was sitting right next to me, but he was pinned in his seat. The other guy who got out was captured with me, but he was one of those who tried to make a run for the gate. Yamagata put an arrow through him.”

“Holy hell. I’m sorry.”

“That’s war for you, I guess. There’s nothing fair or right about it. The problem is that the Japanese hold all the cards. I’m sick and tired of it.”

“All we’ve got to do is hold out until tomorrow night, and then we get everybody the hell out of here,” Deke said.

“Twenty-four hours is like twenty-four years in this place,” Faraday said. “The trick will be not to get caught between now and then.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem if the rats don’t talk.”

“I’m not that worried about the rats,” Faraday said. “We’ll keep this plan on a need-to-know basis right up until the last minute. No, I’m more worried about you. You’ve got that look in your eye.”

“What look?” Deke wondered.

“The one that says you despise every Japanese you’re looking at. You kind of squint at them like you’ve got them in the sights of a rifle. That makes them nervous.”

“Huh.” This was all news to Deke.

“It’s no wonder they beat the hell out of you. Do us all a favor. If you want to last twenty-four hours, keep your head down.”

For Deke, that wasn’t going to be so easy.