Through binoculars, the artillery officers studied the damage. Deke borrowed the binoculars from Philly and did the same.
Many of the Japanese guns had been destroyed in the exchange. The American gunners had clearly gotten the upper hand, with more accuracy and a higher rate of fire. Smashed and broken equipment littered the slope.
The Japanese infantry that they had seen earlier was now under cover or had withdrawn into the forest lower down on the ridges. This meant that the Americans would only have to fight them later. It was a bit unnerving that the size of the Japanese force they had seen earlier outnumbered their own. The Japanese might be hidden for now, but all those enemy troops were still out there.
New orders arrived from headquarters, and while the orders were not unexpected, they were not what the soldiers wanted to hear.
“We’re being told to pursue the enemy,” Lieutenant Steele announced. “And that’s what we are going to do.”
The column moved out. As the road climbed deeper into the hills, it became clear that the field artillery would not be able to continue. The road became more like a muddy track as it rose steeply. The forest pressed in closer, and in places tree limbs reached out and waved in the breeze as if to snatch at the soldiers. Although the ridge where they had seen the enemy was still some distance away, it was hard to shake the feeling that they were walking into an ambush.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Philly muttered.
“We can agree on that,” Deke replied. “I don’t like the looks of this place at all.”
He kept his eyes on the path ahead, seeing with some trepidation that it continued into the hills. The whole area might be crawling with Japanese troops bent on revenge after the shelling they had taken. Deke had assumed that the Japanese troops had retreated, but he had the disturbing thought that maybe they had advanced instead. A few steps behind him, Danilo also scanned the forest, but the Filipino didn’t seem any more alarmed than usual, just cautious.
Finally, the time came to leave the field artillery behind. The bulk of the 305th would turn around and make its way back to the road, where it could fire on the enemy again if the Japanese made an appearance. Patrol Easy would have to forge ahead with a platoon of supporting infantry, meaning that there would be no more than fifty men under Lieutenant Steele’s command.
It soon became apparent that the Japanese had chosen a perfect natural fortress. What had been the road became little more than a rocky, washed-out trail. It was also perfect for walking into an ambush. However, Danilo seemed to have other ideas about how to reach the area where they had last seen the Japanese.
“This way,” he said, offering no further explanation.
Deke and Philly looked at each other, shrugged, and followed in Danilo’s wake as he began to cut through the woods, going downhill. The rest of the soldiers followed. At the rear of the column, Lieutenant Steele didn’t so much as question the change in direction. Danilo had been with them so long that there was nothing to do but follow him.
At the bottom of the hill, they reached a massive ravine. Sheer rock walls rose up one hundred feet on either side of them, the stone faces wet with the runoff of springs. High above, there was enough flow from a spring or stream to create a small waterfall, the sound of its rushing water echoing off the ravine’s walls. The rock face was interrupted by a few plants and shrubs clinging to the rock in clumps, like the badly shaved face of an old man. Deke found the place strangely beautiful in its mixture of rock and lush growth, as if God had swiped a shovel through the hills and then let the greenery slowly return.
Between the rock walls, in a clear space no more than forty feet wide, thick vegetation grew in the bottom of the ravine, so lush and brilliantly green that it didn’t even look real. The ravine stretched for nearly half a mile, and beyond that the ground sloped as if rising to meet the tops of the ravine’s walls. They could see trees and open sky beyond.
There didn’t seem to be any trail, but Danilo plunged ahead without hesitation. The greenery grew to about shoulder height but was free of any large trees or shrubs, as if the space had been clear cut at some point but had since filled in with vegetation. Deke stopped for a moment, taking it all in. This was unlike anything he had seen before on Leyte.
“Where the hell are we going?” Philly wondered.
“To hell if I know. There’s no trail to speak of. Looks like a good place to get snakebit,” Deke answered. “Then again, Danilo hasn’t steered us wrong yet. Keep up.”
Deke waded into the sea of green. He found himself holding the rifle above his head like he might do when wading through water, but in this case he was trying to keep it from getting snagged on the ferns and leaves the size of dinner plates. Up ahead, Danilo moved quickly, as if unconcerned about any Japanese ambush.
They passed through the belly of the ravine and began to climb. Soon the walls weren’t as high because the ground sloped upward. It became brighter as they left the deep shade of the ravine. They emerged on a ridge that appeared to run all the way to Bugabuga Hill, which looked much closer. Danilo’s shortcut had worked.
Danilo didn’t wait for them but kept going. There was a good reason for that, which was the fact that they were now exposed. Any Japanese lookouts would spot them quickly. If any enemy artillery had survived the duel with the 305th, then the patrol might be in yet more trouble. Lucky for them, there was still no sight or sound of the enemy. Steadily, they moved closer to Bugabuga Hill. The clouds had not thinned out, and the dark day was already growing darker.
After another hour, they reached the ridgeline where the Japanese artillery had been dug in. The destruction was impressive, almost as if the ground had been plowed, with empty brass casings scattered across the plowed land like metallic seeds. A few smashed guns were evident, but the Japanese had removed any artillery that was still operational.
What the Japanese had not removed was their dead. Bodies lay sprawled in the holes and ditches where they had fallen, killed by artillery fire. Steele called for a count, and the men came up with fifty-two enemy dead.
“Some of the bodies were in pieces, so we decided to round up,” Philly explained.
“Good enough for me,” Steele said. He called Rodeo over so that he could contact HQ and make his report. When he got off the radio, he said, “That made somebody happy. They’re collecting numbers down there like stamps.”
From the ridge they could clearly see the road they had been on earlier in the day. The Japanese had certainly occupied a commanding position. Higher yet was Bugabuga Hill itself, and Deke, Danilo, and Philly made the climb to the summit. They didn’t find any Japanese dead; evidently, whoever Deke had shot up there had been deemed important enough to carry away.
“You can see for miles,” Deke said. “No wonder the Japanese were up here.”
“The question is, Where did they go?” Philly asked. “We sure as hell didn’t kill them all.”
“I don’t think they went far,” Deke said.
Danilo didn’t seem to have an opinion, but he also seemed to be watching the forests and hills below them warily.
They climbed back down to rejoin the rest of the unit on the ridge. They were still roughly spread out as a column, but Steele hadn’t given any orders to move out.
“Come here a minute, Deke,” Steele ordered.
He hurried toward the rear of the column. “Honcho?”
“We’re losing daylight,” Steele said. “I don’t want to go any farther and get caught in the dark, and I don’t want us to be sitting ducks on this ridge. You know how the Japs love their night attacks. We’ll need to dig in before dark.”
The men got to work with their entrenching tools, turning the deeper shell holes into defenses for the night. The men kept throwing glances at the forest beyond the clearing at the top of the ridge, half expecting the Japanese to emerge from the trees. The fact that no enemy troops appeared was not reassuring because they knew it was more likely that the Japanese would attack at night, when the darkness gave them cover.