“I’ve got news for you, city boy. Life is a suicide mission,” Deke said. “Keep your head down and your eyes open.”
They were maintaining their “dime” — keeping a distance about ten feet apart to lessen the chances that a burst of fire from the jungle would take them both out. Deke heard the crack of a rifle. Another GI sprawled unmoving in the mud at the side of the road.
“Sniper!” someone shouted, and once again the GIs scrambled off the road like ants, taking shelter in ditches or under the trucks. They weren’t quick enough. Another shot rang out, and another man went down, wounded. A medic crawled over to help him.
Deke hid behind a truck tire and swung his rifle in the direction from where his keen hearing told him the shots had originated, but all he saw through the sniper scope was a wall of green, so dense that it looked as if a bullet wouldn’t pierce the veil. He couldn’t see anything to shoot at.
He felt a shiver along his spine, wondering again if he was in the enemy’s sights at this very moment. That imaginary target itched on his back. Dammit. He much preferred being the hunter to being the hunted.
“Did you see where that shot came from?” Philly wanted to know. “I swear, this convoy is nothing but target practice for the Japanese.”
“These snipers are crafty,” said Yoshio as he studied the brush that hid the enemy. “We need to outsmart them.”
“When you figure out how to do that, Yoshio, let me know,” Deke said.
Yoshio could move as silently as any of them when he needed to. The sight of the Japanese American in his GI uniform still brought stares of suspicion, like he might be an infiltrator rather than a soldier in the United States Army. But Deke and the rest of Patrol Easy had come to trust Yoshio with their lives because he had proved his bravery more than once.
Yoshio had been born in Washington State, which made him just as American as anybody else, even if he had grown up speaking Japanese. Although his parents and grandparents had also been born in America, their Japanese heritage meant that they were now sitting in an internment camp, behind barbed wire and under guard, designated as potential enemies of the United States. Yoshio had never expressed any bitterness about that situation, but he had opted to prove his loyalty by enlisting to fight for a country that treated his family with suspicion.
“I guess the best we can do is keep our heads down and pray,” Philly said.
“When your number is up, it’s up,” Rodeo offered.
The only member of the patrol who hadn’t spoken up was Danilo, their Filipino guide. It was always a mystery as to how much English the tough guerrilla knew.
Deke had his rifle to his shoulder, his eye to the scope, and his finger on the trigger. Now and then he spotted a trembling leaf in the breeze or a bird flitting through the branches, but nothing that looked like a Japanese sniper. He had no doubt that the Japanese were watching them.
“I can’t see these fools,” Deke muttered. Behind him, the agonized cries of a wounded GI faded as morphine began to course through his system. “It’s a regular cattywampus, I can tell you that much.”
“A catty-what?” Philly asked.
“He means it’s a hot mess,” Yoshio explained. “Lucky for you, I speak a little hillbilly.”
“You must have picked it up from all those Westerns you read,” Philly muttered.
No more shots came from the green curtain. The wounded man was loaded into the back of a truck; the dead man went into another. Once again, the convoy began to roll.
Bad as things were, the slow-moving column’s luck was about to go from bad to worse, because the Japanese had cleverly prepared a trap for them. The convoy reached a bend in the road between two bridges, one just in front of the column and one behind. The captain in charge checked the bridges and gave the all clear. But as they were to find out, the Japanese had managed to hide the surprise that they had in store for the Americans. The front half of the convoy, led by the Sherman tank, had just crossed the first bridge when the structure erupted in flames and roiling smoke. The Japanese had set off a charge to destroy the bridge, leaving the convoy suddenly cut in half.
From the rear of the convoy, there came the sound of another explosion as the Japanese destroyed the bridge that the column had just crossed. The second half of the convoy that included Patrol Easy was now stranded on the road, with the bridges gone in front of it and behind it, the river on one side and a steep bank hemming them in on the other side.
Not good, Deke thought.
Debris was still raining down when the Japanese opened fire, hitting the trapped portion of the convoy with two machine guns that strafed up and down the line of vehicles. Men dove for shelter wherever they could, crawling under the trucks or behind the thick tires. A few enemy grenades arced down from the steep banks above.
The convoy’s front half had the Sherman tank and one of the M8s to defend it, while the stranded portion of the column had the other M8. Up front, the captain was trying to organize a defense from the other side of the ruined first bridge, but he was cut down and killed by a burst of fire. Technically, that left Lieutenant Steele in charge as the highest-ranking officer still breathing.
“Damn it all to hell, but at least we can see the bastards for a change,” Steele said, nodding toward the muzzle flashes and tracer fire.
Snipers were able to hide in the greenery, but the machine guns were easy enough to spot, and they were within buckshot range. Exposing himself to the hail of lead, Steele walked out from behind a truck and began firing shotgun blasts at the machine-gun team. That gun fell silent, and two quick shots from Deke and Philly silenced the other machine gunners. The M8 accompanying their marooned portion of the convoy added its firepower.
However, the Japanese were far from done. Rifle fire continued to pepper the pinned-down convoy. The vegetation hid the enemy snipers so well that picking them off was next to impossible.
Deke decided that he’d had enough. He could shoot back all day and never hit any of the enemy who lay hidden in the jungle-covered riverbank.
“C’mon, fellas,” he said. “Follow me.”
Using the trucks for cover, Deke ran toward the rear of the column, with Philly and Danilo following him. The small bridge back here had been shattered by the blast, but the debris had fallen in such a way that a single beam remained stretched across the narrow waterway. Brown floodwater tugged and pulled at the beam, making it bob more like a bit of straw than a heavy wood stringer. It was dicey, but it was the only way across.
Here goes nothin’, Deke thought, then raced across the beam without waiting for the others. He was moving too fast to lose his balance, carried across by sheer momentum. His boots got wet where the current washed over the beam, but he managed to dash across and reach the far bank. He dove for cover as first Philly, then Danilo, followed him. Lucky for them, the Japanese were so intent on picking apart the convoy that they scarcely paid any attention to the three men, other than sending a few random shots in their direction.
“What the hell are you up to?” Philly asked, once he lay panting in the jungle underbrush.
“I’m making it up as I go along,” Deke said. “C’mon.”
The three men pushed their way up the steep riverbank. The mud and dense undergrowth made it tough going. They had no choice but to bull their way through the thick weeds and tangled branches. Something slithered past Deke’s boot and he thought, Snake. He ignored it. At the moment he had bigger worries.
At the top of the bank, they were rewarded with the discovery of a narrow dirt track that ran parallel to the river. The trail was likely used by animals, but someone else had been through here — the telltale prints left by Japanese boots were visible in the mud. The Japanese were using this trail to move parallel to the convoy and harass the Americans on the other side of the river.