Savage Sniper

CHAPTER TWO

Like a stray cat on the prowl, Deke moved through the ruins of the port city, studying the streetscape with more than casual interest. He didn’t need Lieutenant Steele to remind him that each window, each pile of rubble remaining from an artillery strike, even the wreck of a battered jalopy, might very well be the hiding place for a Japanese sniper.

Danger lurked everywhere. They had learned that lesson the hard way, losing a surprising number of soldiers to sneak attacks and enemy snipers.

While it was true that Ormoc had been captured, there were still a few stubborn enemy holdouts. They remained a thorn in the division’s side, but one by one the stray snipers and saboteurs were being rubbed out.

The sniper that Deke had encountered in the forest just beyond where the city streets ended was a case in point.

Like a fighter on the ropes, a few enemy soldiers still awaited their chance to pop up and take one last swing at the enemy.

None of that managed to suppress Philly’s need to yak about nothing.

“I heard of a guy in the 306th who walked ten miles dead asleep,” Philly said. “He would’ve kept right on walking all the way to Tokyo if somebody hadn’t woken him up.”

“It’s kind of hard to walk to Tokyo from an island,” Deke pointed out absently, his eyes on the surroundings.

“That’s not the point of the story.”

“You know what’s funny? I’m actually asleep right now,” Deke said. “It just looks like I’m listening to you.”

“Very funny, Corn Pone.”

“Keep it up.”

The banter helped keep them awake. Deke’s legs dragged wearily with each step, but his eyes never stopped moving, flitting from one spot to the next. To give in to fatigue made you vulnerable to attack.

Some of the others had slung their weapons now that they were back in the city, but he kept his rifle in his hands, just in case.

Despite the dangers, commerce was returning rapidly to Ormoc. It was a reminder of the population’s resilience. After all, the city had survived more than its share of raids and pirate attacks over the centuries.

Over the police department hung a makeshift sign in English: “The Chief of Police of Ormoc wishes all People to know that the Police Station is not a Morgue. Cadavers are not to be deposited here.”

Someone had hung a smaller sign beneath that one, setting the going rate for washing the GIs’ clothes:

Philly saw the sign and shook his head. “I don’t know, fellas. Anyone brave enough to wash my socks deserves hazardous-duty pay. Hey, somebody give me a nickel, and I’ll see if I can get my socks washed.”

They all laughed at that. “I reckon when the time comes, we’ll just hold a funeral for your socks and bury them,” Deke said.

“With full honors, I hope.”

“Of course.”

Shops had sprung up, selling a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables to the other hardy civilians who had returned. Not all the civilians had money, though. Swarms of children had appeared like mayflies after a rain, begging candy off the soldiers. A few of the children looked so painfully thin that the GIs didn’t think twice about giving them all their chocolate bars or even full cans of rations.

Even adults weren’t shy about begging for cigarettes.

Fruits and vegetables weren’t the only goods on display. A few working girls in bright skirts lingered on the corners, trying to entice the GIs. Just a week ago, it was likely that these same girls had been providing their services to the Japanese.

Philly saw them and groaned. “Just give me five minutes, boys. That’s all I’d need. I swear to God—”

“Hell, I’d only need three minutes,” Radio said. “I haven’t had any lovin’ since Hawaii. How about you, Deke? You want a piece of that?”

Deke grunted. “Hell, who wouldn’t?”

The response had sounded a little forced, even to Deke’s own ears. Rodeo hadn’t seemed to notice, but Philly gave him a look.

The truth was that Deke had precious little experience with women — the kind you paid or otherwise. He had steered clear of them as a general rule because he had feared that the scars on his face left by the bear would scare them off. Even the ones who said it didn’t matter — he had caught them studying the angry red furrows with a mixture of fascination and horror when they thought he wasn’t looking.

An MP unit arrived to shoo the girls away, resulting in disappointed jeers from the passing soldiers.

But every now and then shots rang out.

The enemy just didn’t know when to quit. A few remained hidden within the city, but they weren’t about to surrender and allow themselves to be taken prisoner. Most would rather die fighting.

“It seems so futile,” Yoshio lamented. They had long since grown used to Yoshio tossing out words that a normal guy wouldn’t use. They chalked it up to the fact that he was always reading a book whatever chance he could get — even if it was the same book, over and over again. “One man against so many.”

“The Japanese are stubborn bastards — you have to give them that,” Philly said.

“Such a waste.”

“Don’t go getting a soft spot for your dead cousin there,” Philly advised, jerking his chin at the body of an enemy soldier in the street. The motion caused his helmet to bobble loosely. “If that Nip was still breathing, he’d be more than happy to stick a bayonet between your ribs, given half a chance.”

They were passing the corpse of the lone saboteur who, under cover of darkness, had apparently lobbed several grenades at a group of supply trucks parked for the night before making another run to the beachhead.

The dead Japanese had short legs but a long torso and what appeared to be powerful shoulders. His face was dark and contorted in death, lips curled in what might have been a snarl or a final hateful shout.

“That’s the ugliest Nip I’ve seen yet,” Philly remarked with a whistle.

“That’s saying something, all right.”

“I sure am glad that I didn’t run into him. Looks like he was a mean son of a bitch.”

From the fact that the corpse was riddled with bullet holes, it was easy enough to guess the enemy soldier’s fate. He must have thrown his grenades and then been cut down by rifle fire. He didn’t even seem to have been carrying a rifle of his own, unless someone had nabbed it as a souvenir. Given the average GI’s propensity for souvenirs, that was entirely possible. Deke judged that the soldier was in his late twenties or early thirties. What had he been in civilian life? Deke wondered. Maybe a factory worker, a teacher, or a farmer like Deke had once been.

He pushed any further speculation from his mind. It was better not to think of the enemy as anything but the enemy.

The dead man’s lone attack had successfully burned two trucks, vehicles that the division couldn’t spare. There simply weren’t any extras to be had.

They had even pressed a few captured Japanese vehicles into service, covering them with hastily painted white stars to avoid confusion. Even a truck driver who had proudly driven an American-made Chrysler had to admit that the Japanese vehicles were sturdy and even more reliable than the US vehicles.

The blackened hulks of the trucks were still smoking, filling the air with the stench of burned rubber and charred automotive paint. Their steel frames had blistered with heat, burning down to the bare metal, as if the fires of hell had exploded on its surface. Oddly enough, the only markings that had survived were the white stars painted on the doors, although these were smudged with soot and ash.

The reek of the burned trucks wasn’t the only offensive smell.

Nearby, the body of the Japanese soldier was also starting to stink in the growing heat, but nobody made any effort to move it.

Dead Japanese were not a priority, although the living ones certainly were.

Lieutenant Steele soon explained that they wouldn’t be staying in Ormoc for long. He had received new marching orders for Patrol Easy.

“Take a good look,” said the lieutenant, who went by the nickname Honcho around his men. It came from a Japanese word that meant something like “boss.” Anyhow, it was better than being addressed as “lieutenant” and drawing enemy sniper fire as a result. “This may be our last glimpse of what passes for civilization for a while. We’re heading back out.”

“Gee, I was hoping to maybe catch a movie and get a haircut,” Philly said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steele said. “What you really might want to do is find some hip waders. We’re about to slog through some rice paddies.”

Philly groaned, summing up how they all felt. Nobody enjoyed rice paddies. They were muddy, crawling with snakes and occasionally land mines, and there were few places where a man was so completely exposed as a target. But it didn’t sound as if they were going to get much choice.

Gathering them around, the lieutenant spelled out the situation. Now that Ormoc had been taken, the next target for the division would be Palompon. Although smaller than Ormoc, the coastal town provided the Japanese with their last operational port on Leyte. A few Japanese supply vessels and troop transports still managed to come and go, dodging American planes by operating under cover of darkness.

“It’s a straight shot right up Highway 2 from Ormoc to Palompon,” Steele explained.

“Straight shot? I like the sound of that, Honcho. Sounds like there’s nothing to it,” Philly said. “It’s about time we got an easy job.”

“If only it was that simple,” the lieutenant said. “The Japanese have every mile of that road locked up tighter than a farmer’s daughter.”

“I knew there was a catch.”

“There always is, or what would they need us for? Not only is the road well defended, but the Japanese have wired the bridges for demolition. The ones that aren’t ready to fall down, anyhow. Rumor has it that they’ve set up ambushes whenever there is a sharp bend in the road.”

The designation of Highway 2 was overly optimistic, considering that in places it wasn’t much more than a wide dirt road through the rice paddies and forests. Steele added that intelligence reports indicated there were at least forty-two bridges to cross, though most spanned relatively small rivers or streams. Unfortunately for the advancing American troops, each bridge might prove to be a substantial obstacle.

You had to hand it to the Japanese, Deke thought. Having lost Ormoc, they had simply pulled back and planned to defend every inch of the path that US forces would have to take to reach the next objective. By demolishing bridges, and perhaps by planting land mines, they could certainly roll up the carpet behind them.

But the GIs weren’t going to cooperate by marching right into the enemy guns. Instead, Lieutenant Steele went on to explain that the plan was to cut across the highway and come at the Japanese farther up the road, where they might not expect an attack.

“Our job will be to reconnoiter that route for the rest of the division,” he explained. “That’s where the rice paddies come in.”

“Dammit,” Philly swore. “I guess I won’t bother getting my socks washed, after all.”

“That’s the spirit,” Steele said.

On the outskirts of Ormoc were sprawling rice fields that bordered both sides of the so-called highway. Where the rice paddies ended, there were sometimes a few dry, open acres of pastureland used for cattle. Of course, the cattle were long gone, having been taken to feed the enemy. Beyond the rice paddies and pastureland was where the jungle tended to begin, rolling all the way up into the hills deep in the interior.

A few low-hanging rain clouds chased each other around those low, distant hills. From time to time they could hear booming noises that were either thunder or artillery, or maybe a little of both.

Rice was an important commodity in the region, another reason the Japanese were so eager to keep and hold Ormoc. Not only did rice feed their troops, but the hope was that some of the abundant crop might even find its way back to Japan.

However, a drought that corresponded with the war, along with a labor shortage, had dashed those hopes. Still, the Japanese had made tending the rice paddies a wartime priority in terms of how the Filipino laborers were used. Rice was a crop that required water, meaning that these large open fields were flooded.

It wasn’t long before the soldiers headed out. It was tough going once they left the dry land behind and struck out across the rice paddies. The water only amplified the heat, reflecting the tropical sun like a vast mirror. The proximity to so much water added to the humidity, and they were all soon dripping with sweat. Bad as the jungle could be, Deke felt the sun flogging his back and missed the shade that the forest trees provided. At least his nonregulation broad-brimmed hat offered some relief.

Their slow progress across the vast flooded field was emphasized by the occasional fighter plane that zipped overhead with a roar — and then was gone.

The rice was planted in haphazard fashion so that it grew in scattered clumps rather than neat rows. Having grown up on a farm, Deke had more than a passing interest in the crop. The lack of order bothered him, and he thought it would have been more efficient to plant the rice in rows. He grinned to himself and hefted his rifle, realizing that the farming life was far behind him now. Although he missed the land, he doubted that he’d ever want to go back to the plow.

Due to the unevenness of the underlying ground, the depth of the water varied. In some places, they sank up to their knees in the muck and mire. Mud sucked at their boots.

“One thing for damn sure, if someone starts shooting at us, we won’t be able to get out of the way in a hurry,” Deke remarked.

“Keep your eyes open,” the lieutenant said.

“What the hell is that?” Philly demanded, pointing to something cutting a slithering path through the water.

“Snake,” Deke said. “Big fella too.”

Philly pointed his rifle, as if intending to shoot the snake.

“Knock it off, Philly!” Steele shouted. “We’re out here in the middle of a big shooting gallery. Let’s not call any more attention to ourselves than we need to, or we’ll sure as hell have bigger problems than snakes.”

“I think what Honcho means is that snakes don’t shoot machine guns.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Philly said, nervously watching the surrounding water. Now and then they spotted smaller snakes weaving among the rice shoots. Danilo gave them a wide berth, muttering something that sounded like a curse. This was not reassuring, considering that they had seen their Filipino guide face down everything from giant spiders to Japanese warriors without so much as batting an eye.

“Those appear to be poisonous,” Yoshio pointed out.

“Good to know,” Philly replied through gritted teeth.

Deke mostly kept his eyes on their surroundings. He shared the school of thought that machine guns were a whole lot worse than the local reptiles. He kept both hands on his rifle, just in case. Unfortunately, a Nambu machine gun could reach out from quite a distance, being an effective long-range weapon.

At this point, they began to leave the American lines behind and were moving into Japanese territory. Their mission, in part, was to determine where the Japanese were and the best path to bisect Highway 2.

They walked for another half hour, covering precious little ground and fully exposed all the while.

“This isn’t going to work,” Lieutenant Steele announced, pausing to take off his helmet and wipe his dripping brow. “The Japanese are up ahead somewhere, and they’ll see a group of us coming from a mile off. You boys stay here and I’ll go ahead. One person has a better chance of getting through unseen.”

Deke spoke up. It didn’t seem right that the lieutenant was proposing to strike out on his own toward enemy territory. “Hold on, Honcho. Why not let me go?”

“You know me, Deke. I wouldn’t ask someone to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself.”

“Deke is right, Honcho. For once. If the Japanese pick him off, that’s better than losing an officer,” Philly said.

“I wasn’t planning on debating it,” Steele said, but his voice had lost some of its certainty. The lieutenant could be as stubborn as any of them, but even he had to realize that it was true that it would be far worse for the patrol, even their small one, to lose their leadership.

“Aw, Honcho, you know us better than that. We’re just saying we can’t afford to lose you.”

Finally, Steele cracked a grin. “And we can afford to lose Deke.”

Deke said, “You ain’t gonna lose me, you dumb sons of bitches. Honcho excepted, him being an officer and all. Now somebody come over here and take my shit. The only thing I want to drag through these paddies is my rifle and my ass.”

Deke got Philly to carry his haversack, since he might as well be useful for something. In addition to his rifle, Deke hung on to his canteen and his bowie knife. A rifle might get clogged with mud, but with a sharp knife, a man was never defenseless.

Danilo stepped forward as if to go with him, but Deke waved him back. “I appreciate it, but if I get killed, then somebody has to make sure the rest of these boys get their sorry asses back to Ormoc.”

It was always an open question as to how much English Danilo understood, but he gave Deke a nod.

“Yeah, yeah,” Philly said. “I think the rest of us can find a whole goddamn town if we need to. Anyhow, get back here as soon as you can, all right?”

“What, you miss me already?”

“Nah,” Philly said, hefting Deke’s haversack. “I just don’t want to be hauling your crap around for you.”

“You know what, I have one more thing for you to carry.”

Using Yoshio’s shoulder for balance, Deke took off his boots. As a boy, he had often worked the fields barefoot. He knew that the muddy combat boots would be only a hindrance. He tied the laces together and hung them around Philly’s neck.

“Are you shittin’ me?”

“I reckon it will be easier to walk barefoot. My boots will just get stuck in this mud.”

“I know where I’d like to stick these boots.”

“That’s just gonna have to wait until I get back.”