It didn’t help that each calling bird or rustle of an animal in the underbrush set Deke’s nerves on edge. He was worried about the enemy ambushing them, but so far the jungle was empty.
Where the hell were the Japs?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Deke followed Danilo, maintaining an interval. He could almost feel the tension in the Filipino’s wiry shoulders, so he knew Danilo was alert and watchful. Again, Deke didn’t think there were any Japanese around, but maybe Danilo knew something they didn’t. He had been fighting the Japanese for much longer.
The trail was well worn underfoot, and it was clear that a large number of men had passed this way recently. The boot prints were not American. Deke realized that would have been the Japanese column, retreating deeper into the jungle.
From time to time, a tree limb or vine would block the path — it seemed to be the jungle’s not-so-subtle attempt to reclaim the trail or warn them off. Whenever that happened, Danilo’s huge bolo machete would be in his hand in a flash, lopping away the intruding brush. Much as Deke loved his bowie knife, it didn’t have the heft to chop away vines and branches in one swift blow. No wonder so many of the Filipino guerrillas carried bolo machetes. They were the right tool for the job, all right.
Captain Merrick came up, his uniform striped with dark sweat stains. Like most of the men in the company, he carried an M1 rifle. His uniform and helmet bore no insignia — he didn’t need it because all the men in his unit knew who he was. It would have been hard to pick him out as an officer at all, except for the confident way that he held himself, as though he had a ramrod for a spine, even moving down this jungle trail.
“What was your name again?” he asked Deke.
“Private Cole. Most just call me Deke.”
Merrick nodded. “Listen up, Deke. We need to pick up the pace,” he said. “We’re never going to get across the peninsula at this rate. Tell this Filipino gentleman to hurry it up.”
“I don’t think he understands much English.”
“Figure it out. Poke him in the rump with a bayonet if you have to. That’s kind of a universal message.”
Captain Merrick fell back along the trail, checking on the men as he went.
Fortunately Deke didn’t need to poke Danilo with a bayonet. The guide seemed to have understood the urgency in Captain Merrick’s tone of voice; either that, or he understood more English than he let on. He glanced back at Deke with a questioning look.
“You heard the man,” Deke said. “Hurry it up. Rapido.”
Danilo picked up the pace. Danilo didn’t seem happy about moving faster along the jungle trail, and neither did Deke. He understood the captain’s sense of urgency, but some things were better off not being rushed.
It had been growing darker and darker under the trees, and now it started to rain, which was a frequent occurrence on Leyte. An hour later the sun would be out again.
The rain fell gently at first, creating a soothing patter of raindrops on the leaves. Soon the rain fell more heavily, turning each broad leaf into a miniature waterfall that sluiced water onto the heads of the troops. Inside a helmet, the falling water hitting the steel echoed annoyingly. More rain dripped down the backs of their necks and ran under the collars of their field shirts.
A few soldiers stopped to put on their ponchos, but by then they were already wet. He caught a glimpse of the four-eyed soldier struggling to get his poncho over his haversack, holding up the line to the point that a sergeant shouted at him. The clumsy kid managed to get so tangled up that another soldier had to fix his poncho for him. Deke shook his head, wondering what the army expected them to do against the Japs with soldiers like that. It didn’t help that as they waited in the rain, the column of troops looked less like soldiers and more like miserable drowned rats.
Deke didn’t like the rain one bit because it muffled any sound and disguised any movement. All that he could see ahead were wet leaves and sheets of falling rain. There could be an entire Japanese battalion waiting in ambush around the next bend in the trail.
The jungle presented its challenges, so different from the mountain forests back home. Whenever he had been able to slip away from farm chores, Deke had spent hours wandering the woods and overgrown fields of farms abandoned during the Great Depression, the land slowly reverting to a state as wild as it had been when the first settlers arrived before the Revolutionary War.
It took surprisingly little time for trees to begin growing in the fields, for fences to rot away, for sheds to crumble. The landscape was all too eager to become wilderness again. For some reason, these scenes of lonely ruin appealed to him. He had gone out rambling in all sorts of weather and in different seasons, trekking through snow, summer thunderstorms, the chill winds of late autumn under bruised skies.
More often than not, he’d had a rifle or shotgun in hand in case he came across any game for the stewpot. It was just how his ancestors had lived and survived in those mountains, and Deke was formed from the same clay.
While other men like Philly griped and complained about the Philippine forest, Deke managed to appreciate it. The thick canopy created a green roof under which they moved in shadow, even during the daytime, and the walls of vegetation pressing against the edges of the trail created a sense of isolation that he enjoyed. Even the heat and humidity were something he could embrace when he thought back to all the times he had shivered his way through the farm chores on a winter’s morning.
The thousand shades of green and brown, broken up with bright flashes of color from flowers or jungle birds, were hard not to appreciate. Other men kept their eyes focused on the mud and dirt of the trail, but Deke’s eyes roved the surrounding landscape, ever alert. Maybe he was only imagining it, but the jungle seemed to be watching them in turn as the column of soldiers passed by.
There was so much to see, from a bird with brilliant plumage taking shelter from the rain to massive vines, each the thickness of a man’s arm, that hung from the canopy like tendrils. If it hadn’t been for the threat of the Japanese, he would even enjoy walking through a place such as this, rain and all.
The Japanese, he reminded himself. We’re going to fight the Japanese. The Japs are going to be more than happy to fight us.
He kept repeating the thought, trying to make sense of it, trying to fathom what that meant here in this dense jungle cover. It seemed a fool’s errand, in a way. Why hadn’t they simply gone by ship around the peninsula with the bulk of the troops? But some general had decided to keep the Japs guessing, or maybe to keep the pressure on them, so here they were.
Captain Merrick called a halt. “Ten minutes, boys. Get a load off if you want. Just make sure you don’t sit on any snakes or set off any booby traps.”
Some men flopped down on the dank, rotting leaves immediately, while others took their time, investigating first. It was hard to say what worried them more — the captain’s mention of snakes or booby traps. The ones who had simply dumped themselves into the mat of rotting leaves were probably too tired to care, one way or another.
In the middle of the jungle trail, Danilo squatted on his haunches the way the Filipinos did. It didn’t look comfortable to Deke, but it did keep your ass out of the mud.
Deke didn’t rest but moved along the line, taking the measure of the men. He passed the soldier that he had pulled out of the wreck. He couldn’t help but shake his head at the sight of the soldier’s chubby frame. Baby fat. The kid couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He was poking around in the weeds with a stick, making sure the coast was clear before he sat down. Deke wanted to tell him that whatever critters might be in the bushes were the least of his worries.