The thought didn’t cheer anyone up. Then came another flurry of shots. This wasn’t a lone sniper this time, but a squad of Japanese who had come into sight, retreating down a long ditch that had been cut into the hillside. Every soldier in Patrol Easy brought his weapon into play, firing at the enemy. Several Japanese dropped immediately, but the reminder were still shooting at Patrol Easy as they ran.
Honcho surprised them by jumping out of the ditch and running straight at the Japanese, screaming like a madman and firing his shotgun as he went. The Japanese scattered before his onslaught like leaves before a windstorm. A couple of men stood their ground and were promptly cut down by shotgun blasts. Deke fired and took out a third soldier.
While the lieutenant was busy reloading the shotgun, the rest of Patrol Easy followed, shouting as they ran.
They kept running, firing wildly as they followed Honcho’s lead, racing after the fleeing Japanese. Not all the Japanese were intent on escaping. Some turned to fire at the Americans. Behind him, Deke heard another man cry out as he was hit, but there was no time to stop. The men shouted with a mad rage, amplified by the knowledge that the Japanese had drawn blood.
Deke dropped to one knee and fired at a Japanese soldier who had turned to make a stand. The man promptly fell, and Deke raced ahead. Somehow Honcho was already far in front, leaping across a trench and firing down at a Japanese soldier cowering at the bottom.
The rest of the men caught up, and now it was just a turkey shoot. Deke thought they were all like hounds chasing rabbits as they raced down the trench, firing as they went. Finally, whatever Japanese remained were either killed or had hidden themselves in the small caves that dotted the hilltop.
Deke caught up to Honcho, both men panting for breath.
“Damn,” Deke muttered.
“Yeah,” the lieutenant said, racking another shell into his shotgun, then nodded at the dead enemy soldiers. “Count ’em up.”
“Twenty-seven,” Philly announced with a smack of satisfaction. “If you count the dead ones we found. Somebody has to get credit for them. Not so bad for a day’s work, right?”
“Day’s not over yet,” Honcho corrected. The men had reached the point where the dead were just numbers, not husbands, fathers, sons, or brothers who would never return home. The faces of the newly dead looked almost peaceful, at least the ones not contorted in pain from their dying throes.
Deke didn’t dwell on such thoughts for long. He reloaded his rifle and pistol.
“All right, let’s keep going,” Honcho said. “We’re here to hunt the enemy, not sit around.”
“Yeah,” Philly added. “Besides, it’s starting to stink around here.”
In the heat and humidity under the trees, flies were already buzzing around the faces of the dead and the blood-drenched soil of the trench.
“Stay sharp,” Honcho warned. “No telling if these Nips had any friends around. Deke, you take point.”
Deke moved past the others to lead the way. There was a kind of trail through the forest that the Japanese had clearly been using for moving troops and supplies. Soon the trees began to thin out, and they reached the top of a ridge. The ridge was ringed with forest but covered with tall grass, almost like the tonsure of an old-fashioned monk. The grasslands were covered in knobs, and Deke worried that many Japanese could be hiding in the waving grass. A man could easily remain unseen until you were right on top of him.
“Watch your spacing,” Philly muttered, reminding the newcomers to keep alert and stay spread out to be more difficult targets if a Nambu machine gun suddenly opened fire.
Deke’s fears about hidden enemy troops proved true when a single rifle shot split the air, and another man was hit by a Japanese sniper.
Another new guy started running toward the man. There was another shot, and the soldier went down.
“Son of a bitch! Somebody get that sniper!”
The other soldiers had all gone into a crouch, using the grass for cover. The problem was that the sniper was up on one of the grassy knobs, giving him a view of the soldiers below. He fired again, and a bullet whistled past them.
By now Deke had a good idea of the sniper’s location, but he would only be firing blindly. He took a grenade off his belt, pulled the pin, and threw it with everything he had toward the grassy knoll. The shattering blast fell short, but it was enough to rattle the sniper, who jumped up and started running away. He was crouched over, barely visible above the swaying tops of the taller clumps of grass.
That was the only target Deke needed. He swung the rifle to a point just ahead of the fleeing sniper and squeezed the trigger. The man ran directly into the bullet and fell headlong.
“He won’t be bothering us anymore,” Deke said.
“All right, nice work,” Honcho said. “Everybody, keep your eyes peeled. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. This place is too damn quiet and too damn wide open.”
They kept going, crossing more of the rolling grassland, on the lookout for more hidden Japanese. They waited for the crack of a sniper rifle. The very thought made every man itchy between the shoulder blades. Deke kept his eyes high.
Out of nowhere, they heard the roar of an approaching engine. It was not a plane. The sound came from the landscape ahead rather than from the sky. To their surprise, they saw an expensive Lincoln sedan racing through the grass, bouncing its way over the rugged spots.
“What in the world?” Philly said. “Get a load of this guy. What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“One thing for sure, he’s not out for a Sunday drive,” Deke said.
“Who the hell is driving that thing?”
Although it was an American car, the fact that someone began shooting at them out the window settled the question about whether it was friend or foe at the wheel. The Philippines had once been filled with American cars before the war, and it was clear that the Japanese had commandeered this one.
It was time for another grenade. This one was thrown by Rodeo, who probably had the best arm in the unit.
It was a great throw. The grenade went right through the open window and exploded. The car kept going until the gas tank ignited. Even then it kept rolling, setting the dry grass on fire as it went, but the shooting had stopped. The car was no longer a threat, but there were still plenty of Japanese to deal with.
They climbed a bit farther and reached an observation post in a house that was elevated on stilts with a thatched roof.
“I don’t like the looks of that place,” Philly warned.
Sure enough, they heard the crack of a rifle, and they all ducked as the noise echoed and rolled across the knobby peaks. But it wasn’t just a rifle that was situated in that hut, because moments later there was the dreaded sound of a machine gun opening fire with the steady tap, tap, tap, tap of the deadly Nambu machine gun.
“Everybody down!” Honcho shouted. Although the warning wasn’t necessary, because the men were already hugging the ground, as the bullets flashed and flared overhead, the tracers visible even in the daylight.
“Deke!” somebody shouted.
He already had the rifle lined up on the muzzle flash in the shack. He fired, worked the bolt, and fired again. For his trouble, a bullet snapped past his head. Deke had damn near forgotten about the sniper in there too. Off to his left, a rifle fired, and the sniper in the shack fell silent.
“That’s one for me,” Philly said with a grin.
CHAPTER FOUR
Understanding the situation in the Philippines required going all the way back to December 8, 1941. Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces had begun their invasion of the US territory. The enemy had quickly overwhelmed the defenders, ending with the capture of more than seventy-five thousand troops and the cruel Bataan Death March that had resulted in so many deaths.