Savage Sniper

CHAPTER THREE

Deke headed out, leaving the rest of the patrol behind. They were still sitting ducks out in the rice paddy, but at least there didn’t seem to be any Japanese in the immediate vicinity. The closer that they got to Highway 2, that was unlikely to be the case.

He moved ahead, feeling as exposed as he ever had. The open rice paddy stretched around him in all directions. But he was headed straight ahead, where there were certainly enemy lookouts. Deke just hoped to hell that he would see them first.

Sunlight glittered off the muddy brown water. It was a tough slog. Even without the boots, mud sucked at his feet. He would take a few steps and hardly be in water that was more than ankle deep. At the next step, he would suddenly plunge up to his calves or even to his knees in mud.

As for snakes, he ignored any that he did see — that was the least of his worries.

The heat beat down and he moved on. If what they had been moving through previously was no-man’s-land, then Deke supposed that he was behind enemy lines by now — even if he hadn’t seen any actual enemies.

It wasn’t long before that changed. There was a collection of huts in the distance, surrounded by a handful of scrawny trees. To be sure, it was one of the few places that offered any shade. It would have been home to the rice paddy workers if they hadn’t wisely fled due to the fears of war. He watched the oasis warily, keeping a steady grip on his rifle.

Sure enough, he spotted movement among the huts.

Enemy soldiers. At least a half dozen of them.

If he could see them, then they could sure as hell see him, exposed as he was in the middle of this flooded field.

As he watched, the soldiers emerged from the scattered huts and started moving along a slightly elevated road in the direction of the highway. There was no longer any doubt that he was behind enemy lines.

There was also no doubt that the soldiers had seen him. They stopped and looked in his direction. One man shaded his eyes against the glare and stared at Deke.

There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, short of diving down into the water. But it was too late for that. Any effort to hide would only raise their suspicions.

He didn’t like his chances trying to shoot them all. There were six of them, and it was beyond the range of an easy shot. They would be shooting back. If there were more Japanese in the vicinity, the sound of gunfire would alert them. The enemy would already be on edge, expecting the American advance. It was the last thing Deke needed.

Instead of opening fire, he lowered his rifle and waved. Two or three of the Japanese waved back; then the whole group moved on, not even giving Deke a second look.

I’ll be damned.

They must have thought he was just another Japanese soldier. Or maybe they even mistook him for a rice farmer. He was more or less covered in mud, and the glare off the water had provided the rest of the camouflage.

He continued on toward the collection of huts, hoping that there weren’t any more Japanese lurking about. But a quick look around revealed that the huts were empty. A few trappings indicated the huts were normally occupied by farmers — tools and other implements were leaning against the walls. Whoever lived there must had fled in a hurry. In addition to the tools, they had left behind everything from blankets to cookware. The Japanese must have been making use of the huts to escape the sun and weather.

Looking at the tools, Deke got an idea. He picked up a hoe, thought about it, then tied his rifle to the handle, using cordage he found. On top of that, he wound an old piece of blanket. Satisfied, he put the hoe over one shoulder. From a distance, he might look like a farmer out tending his crop, carrying some tools over his shoulder. If push came to shove, he could easily bring his rifle into play. It was what you might call a shooting hoe.

Reluctantly, he left the shade and headed out again, this time following the narrow road through the rice paddies that the half-dozen Japanese troops had taken. Fortunately the enemy soldiers had enough of a head start that they were no longer in sight. Although the road meandered, it provided a high-and-dry route through the rice paddies that seemed to lead directly toward Highway 2. It was exactly the route that Patrol Easy had been sent to find.

But Deke knew they couldn’t send an entire regiment down the road on his hunch. He would have to follow it a bit longer just to make sure that the road through the rice paddies went somewhere.

He looked around uneasily. Each step carried him deeper into Japanese-held territory. Up ahead along the road, he could see another collection of huts. Were there more Japanese sheltering there?

He couldn’t take that chance. He left the dry road behind and moved back into the rice paddies. By now he had left the vast flooded field behind, and there were smaller fields filled with the green shoots of rice, bordered by ditches and levees to help manage the flooding of the fields. He kept the hoe over one shoulder, maintaining his disguise. He swung out into the fields, giving the huts a wide berth and keeping to the western side so that the sun would be more directly in the eyes of anyone watching him.

As he came even with the huts, he saw more Japanese soldiers — a lot more, this time. They appeared to be more organized and better armed. In addition to the helmet-clad soldiers, there was a noncommissioned officer wearing the telltale campaign hat with its sun cape down the back of the neck.

In his experience, it was the sergeants you had to watch out for. They were mean, suspicious bastards.

Deke’s belly clenched. He fought the urge to unbundle his rifle. Once again he had been spotted, and it was too late to hide, so he walked as nonchalantly as possible along a berm, keeping his feet dry. His ruse was helped by the fact that he was barefoot and had rolled up his trousers almost to his knees.

He waved at the enemy soldiers, and again a few waved back. The Japanese sergeant gave Deke a long look, and he forced himself to keep his eyes on the ground, then stopped to swing the hoe at an errant clump of mud, chopping it up. He moved on and hoed another clump.

When he looked up again, he half expected to see a contingent of soldiers rushing toward him or a dozen rifles leveled in his direction. But there were no gunshots. The sergeant was no longer paying any attention to him.

Deke kept going, pausing now and then to hoe at the ground just like a rice farmer might.

He decided that this was one of the few times in the history of war that it was best to be armed with a hoe.

Once he was sure that he was little more than a distant figure and of no more interest to the Japanese, he put the hoe over his shoulder and walked parallel to the road through the rice paddies.

After another fifteen minutes of walking, keeping to the paths between the flooded fields, where the going was easier, he spotted just what he was looking for. It was a larger road winding through the countryside. As he watched, a Japanese truck moved along it. It was the same model that they had captured in the fight near Camp Downes and redirected to bring supplies from the beach. He had reached Highway 2.

He kept moving until he got to higher ground that offered the cover of bushes and trees, then bedded down like a deer to wait out the rest of the day.

His next task would be to return to Patrol Easy and relay word about the route he had found through the rice paddies to Highway 2. Aside from the small contingent of soldiers in the larger collection of huts, there promised to be little standing in the Americans’ way. It was exactly what he had hoped to find out.

Deke didn’t return right away, because he didn’t like his chances in broad daylight. He had gotten lucky with the ruse of waving at the Japanese soldiers, or pretending to be a farmer. He didn’t want to press his luck and count too much on the enemy being oblivious. The Japanese were many things, but they sure as hell weren’t fools. Instead, he would return under cover of darkness.

He was so close to the highway now that he could hear the rumble of passing supply trucks and the occasional shouts of a few soldiers, even laughter. The Japanese sure as hell didn’t sound like they’d been beaten. Maybe nobody had told them yet.

It was hot among the trees, but at least the foliage offered cover and shade. He hadn’t brought anything to eat, which was too bad. His belly growled. Just like the good old days growin’ up, he reckoned. There had been more than a few hungry times on the farm. Back then he hadn’t known any better and just figured it was part of life. He had never complained about C rations the way some men did.

Being hungry for a few hours wouldn’t kill him, he knew from hard experience. A bigger concern was exhaustion. He realized how tired he was and even managed to nod off.

He woke with a start, having fallen into a deep sleep. It was the best sleep that he had gotten in a while. He chalked it up to knowing that the enemy was on the highway nearby, oblivious to his presence, so different from being in a foxhole awaiting an attack. He was also alone — which meant not having to listen to Philly’s bitching or his snoring.

It was starting to get dark. The day’s heat had faded, but not the humidity. It was as steamy as ever, like the hottest August night you could imagine back home. The flooded rice paddies were no strangers to mosquitoes, and now great flocks of them emerged, filling the spaces in Deke’s grassy refuge with their whining. He grinned at the humor in the fact that it wouldn’t be the Japanese who drove him out of his hiding place, but the mosquitoes.

Time to get moving.

He figured that Patrol Easy had covered maybe five miles after leaving the outskirts of Ormoc. Moving alone, Deke had gone another three miles or so. All told, that meant covering seven miles in the dark, with the added challenge of the presence of Japanese troops.

His disguised rifle would no longer be of any use in the dark, so he unwrapped it and left the trappings behind in the tall grass. There was still plenty of movement on the road, especially because American planes would leave the Japanese alone at night. The rumble of trucks filled the night, with vehicles busy ferrying men and supplies away from the coastal areas and deeper into Leyte and the port the enemy still held at Palompon.

He returned along the dirt road he had found, so the first couple of miles were fairly easy. Once he had to dodge off the road and into a ditch after he heard enemy troops coming his way. Even in the dark, he was able to count a half-dozen soldiers. He supposed that they were on patrol, keeping a lookout for any Americans or Filipino guerrillas. Deke held his breath until they walked on.

He gave the larger collection of huts a wide berth, just in case there were more Japanese spending the night there. He stuck to the fields instead. The mud squishing between his bare toes actually felt good, and he didn’t even mind the water on this hot night.

Splash.

Deke froze at the sound. There was something else out here in the rice paddy. Something at least as big as a man, from the sounds of it.

He kept his rifle ready and waited.

There it was again. Splash. A pause. Splash, splash.

The splashes were unevenly spaced, very much like a man trying to move with stealth through a very watery environment.

He strained to see in the gloom.

The darkness seemed to shift and gather at a point just to his left, exactly where the sounds were coming from. He kept his finger on the trigger and waited.

If it was a false alarm, then the last thing that he wanted was to alert any Japanese in the vicinity with a rifle shot.

Then the night coalesced around a lone cow, making its way across the rice paddy, pausing every now and then to dip its head and graze at the rice shoots.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

Shaking his head, he moved on. Normally he might have covered that distance in a couple of hours if walking at a swift pace. But in the muck and water, it took him closer to three hours.

By the time someone challenged him with the password, it was close to midnight.

“I wasn’t sure if that was you or the swamp thing,” Philly said. “Then again, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever see you again.”

“What, just because I had to walk about three miles by myself behind enemy lines, waving at the goddamn Japanese the whole way? Shame on ye of little faith.”

“Waving at the Japanese?”

“For some reason, they kept thinking I was a rice farmer.”

Lieutenant Steele approached. “Glad you’re back, Deke. What did you find out?”

“I came across a good road we can use,” he said. “We can pick it up about a mile from here. Leads right to the highway — which is crawling with Japanese, by the way.”

“Headquarters said it might be,” Steele said. “That’s why they want the 307th to cut across the road and stop the enemy from using it.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“It’s going to take more than us to win and hold that road. We’ll have to go back to division and lead another unit out here. Put your boots back on. We have some walking to do.”

They recrossed the territory they had covered the previous day. Although they were close to enemy lines, they didn’t worry as much about stealth. It was almost impossible not to cross the flooded rice fields without making at least some noise. Soon enough, the lights of Ormoc came back into sight. The countryside behind them had been pitch black. There wasn’t any electricity out here, just the starlight and hazy tropical moonlight.

They gave the password and crossed through American lines.

“I thought you guys were Japs,” the sentry said. “They told us there were some patrols out, but I didn’t believe it. There’s nothin’ out there but rice paddies and Nips.”

“Believe it,” Lieutenant Steele said.

The sentry looked them all up and down. “You’re muddy enough.” He wrinkled his nose. “You all kind of stink like those rice paddies too.”

“You don’t smell so good yourself, buddy,” Philly growled.

“Never mind that,” Steele said. He jerked his chin at a battered Jeep parked nearby. “We’re commandeering that thing.”

“Sir?”

“Son, we just walked through miles of mud. We have important information for the division, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk all the way back to HQ.”

“Yes, sir.” They could tell the sentry didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with a lieutenant. Besides that, the soldiers who had just waded in from patrol looked like a rough bunch.

“Get on, boys. Rodeo, you drive. We’re riding in style,” Steele said. The passengers on the sturdy Jeep were soon a jigsaw puzzle of arms, legs, and weaponry. The lieutenant looked around at his muddy, tangled patrol and laughed. “Just don’t get used to all the luxury.”

Nobody minded. They had just traversed miles and miles of desolate enemy territory. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but a ride in the Jeep sure beat walking. Despite Steele’s wisecrack, it really did seem like luxury at that moment. There was nothing in the world that made a man appreciate a ride so much as taking a load off his own two exhausted legs.

The engine cranked, and the Jeep sped off into the night, carrying the soggy GIs and their information on the backdoor route that would be used to hammer the Japanese the next day.