Farris’s radio man said that Major Baylor wanted to know if they needed artillery support. Farris said it would be nice if they knew precisely where they were, but no thank you.
More soldiers crawled to the thicket and hurled in grenades, which exploded with loud crumps. Again, there was no response. The damn Japs were either dead or waiting for them to get closer.
“Now’s the hard part,” Bear said with a feral grin. “Somebody gets to go in there. Kind of like hunters in India I read about going into the jungle after a wounded tiger.”
Farris swallowed. “You coming with me?” he asked.
Bear grinned. He was openly pleased that Farris was going in himself instead of letting others take the risk. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Lieutenant.”
Cautiously, Farris led a line of soldiers the rest of the way across the small clearing and toward the thicket which now consisted of mangled trees. There was silence. Farris’s heart was pounding as he pushed his way through. He halted as he saw his first dead Jap a few yards in and a second one just a few feet farther away. They had been hit by multiple bullets and were now just bloody human wreckage.
More troops filed in and Farris was pleased to see that they kept themselves spread out and were looking for survivors instead of gawking at the first dead Japanese soldier most of them had ever seen.
They passed through the rest of the thicket. Quick shots finished off a few Japanese soldiers who might yet be alive. One of them exploded as the bullets detonated the grenade he’d been hiding, sending gore over the nearest soldiers. Tim angrily ordered his men to shoot all the corpses, no matter how badly mangled they were.
In all, they found eleven bodies, including one sergeant who’d killed himself by stuffing the barrel of his Arisaka rifle into his mouth and pulling the trigger with his toe. Farris made the cold-blooded decision to not bury them. It would take too much time and, besides, the ground was probably too frozen to dig even a mass grave for so many dead bodies. They searched the bodies for identification and info, such as anything resembling orders and some letters home. It was all chicken-scratching to Farris, but maybe someone like his uncle could decipher it.
Bear pointed at the bodies. “What do you see, Lieutenant?”
“Along with a bunch of dead Japs, I see Japs who are scrawny and in rags. Hell, they must be desperate.” Then he thought that a desperate enemy could be the worst kind.
Bob Hope and his troupe’s arrival at San Diego coincided with the astonishing news that the U.S. Army had landed in North Africa. The war to liberate Europe was on. The news was met with mixed reactions by the troops. Some were jealous that they weren’t in on the action, while others were thankful that the fighting was taking place far, far away.
All of a sudden, place names like Oran, Bizerte, and Tripoli were being used as if the speakers knew where the hell they were. And who the hell was Dwight Eisenhower, the American general in command? With a name like Eisenhower, he sounded more like a German.
Amanda and Dane sat on the ground about a third of the way back from the improvised stage, and quietly wondered how many GIs actually knew where North Africa was in the first place. Still, it was a damn good feeling to be finally striking back instead of taking it in the groin for so very long.
Tim thought Amanda looked striking in a white blouse and blue slacks. She’d worn slacks instead of a skirt so that she didn’t accidentally give some sailors a show. That apparently either didn’t occur to Grace or, more likely, she didn’t care as she sat with Merchant and happily exposed an expanse of thigh. Tim hoped he and Amanda could find a quiet place later on and become at least as intimate as they had in the surf. Since then, he was back in the monastery and she in her nunnery. And now they were part of a huge crowd of people. Damn.
Twenty thousand jubilant soldiers, sailors, and Marines were packed densely on the field in front of the large wooden stage. Hope was there along with Frances Langford who, Amanda decided, really didn’t have all that good a voice, and slapstick comedian Jerry Colonna, who Dane admitted wasn’t all that funny. A man named Les Brown led what he called “Les Brown’s Band of Renown” with okay talent.
But what the hell, the fact that, with the exception of Hope, the talent wasn’t all that talented didn’t matter. They’d made the effort to entertain the troops and the troops appreciated it with noisy enthusiasm for every poorly sung song and every bad joke. Better, it was a break from routine and everyone was having a great time listening to Hope tease all the brass who were in the front few rows and taking it with apparent good humor. Like they had a choice, Amanda whispered.
Hope pointed to the generals and admirals. “How many of you have ever seen an enlisted man before?” he said, drawing gales of hoots and laughter. “Well, you’ve struck the mother lode this time.” Hope would never go beyond gentle teasing, which was part of what made him so compelling and likeable.
Hope ragged on about the bad food, the miserable accommodations (unless you wore a star on your shoulder, of course), how lousy the weather was in southern California what with the almost constant sunshine, and what it was like to get Montezuma’s Revenge along with other maladies from a trip south of the border to Tijuana. Hope had been touring for the USO since May 1941, well before the formal start of hostilities. He informed the troops that there was no way he was going to slow down. Hell, he reminded them, he wasn’t even forty years old yet.
“I’m going to go to England, and Churchill and this Eisenhower guy will be in the audience. Then I’ll go to North Africa and do a command performance for Rommel, except we’ll be commanding him, of course, and he’ll be watching from a prison cage.”
That comment brought cheers and he continued. “When I started these shows, I said I’d take them as close to the front lines as possible. Little did I know that part of the front lines would include San Diego. Y’know, that’s got to change, and real soon.” More cheers. “Here’s a thought. Next year at this time why don’t we have this show a little bit farther west? Like Tokyo.”
Still more cheers. “And we’ll have Hirohito in the audience as well.” He grinned widely and wickedly. “Don’t you think he’d look absolutely wonderful in prison stripes?” He struck a thoughtful pose. “Yes, a prison-striped kimono.”
The show ended to wild applause and the happy crowd filed out. Amanda and Tim waited for the field to empty. She was far from the only woman present, as many nurses and female military were present along with a handful of wives and local girlfriends. Still, girl-hungry young men stared at her. Some glared, apparently resentful that she’d found an officer to care for her. Amanda decided she didn’t care.
As Dane stood up, an envelope fell out of his jacket pocket. “Oops,” he said. “I totally forgot I had this on me. Can’t have other people seeing this.” He was annoyed at himself. He’d left in such a hurry after meeting with Harris that he’d forgotten the pictures were in his pocket.
“Am I other people?” she teased.
Tim smiled. He’d gotten in the habit of talking with her about almost everything, and security be damned. Who the hell was Amanda going to talk to? Tojo?
He handed her the envelope. “Here. These are a couple of photos of some interesting characters.”
“Your saboteurs?”
“Possibly. No, it’s likely them. We may have gotten a break.”
Amanda happily opened the envelope. She liked it when Tim trusted her enough to show her things like that. She stared at the first picture and paled. “Tim, oh, my God.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen this man.”
“Wh-where?” Dane stammered. This was incredible.