As they moved up the trail with Danilo on point and Philly just behind him, they were on the lookout for the Japanese.
“Hey, Danilo, just remember to shoot first and ask questions later,” Philly said.
Ahead of him, the Filipino guerrilla threw up a hand to indicate that he had heard Philly. Whether or not he understood anything other than his name remained an open question. Danilo hadn’t spoken any English, but he seemed able to understand it — when he wanted to. It all added to the air of mystery that seemed to hang around their Filipino guide.
“That’s what I like about you, Danilo,” Philly continued. “You don’t say much. Hell, you talk even less than Deke.”
Normally Deke would have been the one leading the unit down the trail. Sick and feverish, he was struggling along behind the others. Every movement seemed to take extra concentration, as if Deke was trying to operate in a dreamy fog.
Yoshio was nearby whenever he needed a shoulder to lean on — which was more and more often as the day wore on.
“I can’t believe I’ve dodged all these Japanese bullets so far, only to get laid low by some jungle bug,” Deke said.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” said Yoshio with a patient smile. “You just take it one step at a time, my friend. You will be feeling better before you know it.”
“So you’re a doctor now too?”
“I am the closest thing you are going to get to a doctor anytime soon, so take my word for it.”
Deke wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. Increasingly, he appreciated Yoshio’s quiet inner strength.
The young soldier had been through so much — from seeing his family put into an internment camp to dealing with blatant prejudice against anything and anyone Japanese — an understandable response in the middle of a war against the Japanese Empire.
Having seen his own family farm lost to the bank during the Great Depression, Deke reckoned he knew a thing or two about what it was like to be uprooted and put off your land. The experience had shaken the Cole family and stolen their heritage. For a mountain person, land and family was everything.
The Japanese American offering Deke his shoulder had gone through much the same experience, thus giving Deke something in common with a person that he never would have expected.
Yoshio never griped, so neither would Deke, no matter how sick he got. He smiled to himself, thinking that maybe that loudmouth Philly ought to learn a lesson or two from Yoshio.
He took Yoshio’s advice and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other up ahead. Each step was an effort. From time to time he did allow himself to lean heavily on Yoshio, but the Nisei never complained. As far as Deke was concerned, those who thought that Japanese Americans were second-class citizens had another think coming.
He appreciated Yoshio’s sturdy shoulder and steadying hands, but what he really wanted to do was put his head down and sleep for about a week. That just wasn’t possible under the circumstances.
Gradually the trail widened somewhat to the point where the forest fell away. It was an encouraging sign that they were leaving the thickest of the jungle behind and approaching civilization near the far coast that had been their destination all along.
But they weren’t out of the woods yet — literally and figuratively.
They approached a large coconut grove to one side of the trail. Perhaps the trees had been planted with the intention of cultivating them, but now it was hard to say if that had been the intent or if this was simply some random grouping.
The years of Japanese occupation had left a manpower shortage so that many crops had become overgrown and abandoned. The Japanese occupiers had been keenly focused on food production to support their army and perhaps even for export home. In their minds, “food” was synonymous with “rice.” Their production efforts — in other words, the labor of the Filipinos — had focused on the rice fields.
Agricultural efforts other than rice took second place under the Japanese. Consequently, the Philippines were littered with abandoned fields and farms, their cultivation interrupted by the war. In the tropical climate, it did not take long for the landscape to revert to a jungle state.
Seeing the coconut grove ahead, Danilo called a halt and surveyed the grove with what looked like suspicion. The lines on his face deepened in a frown.
After all, the landscape before him seemed like a textbook position for an ambush, but there wasn’t any sound or clue that the grove contained anything but fallen coconuts and neglected trees. The Filipino stood for a long time, studying the grove.
The vegetation deeper among the coconut trunks appeared dark and impenetrable, a tangled gloom into which the sunlight didn’t reach. The stillness of the trees gave the impression that the grove was holding its breath. The only movement came from the leaves stirring in the slight breeze and the occasional flicker of a bird moving through the underbrush.
“I’m with Danilo. I don’t like the looks of this place,” Philly muttered. “There could be a million Japanese hiding in there, or just a bunch of weeds and birds.”
“Hush now,” Deke managed to say. Sick as he was, he could also sense that something wasn’t right, but they would have to leave it in Danilo’s hands for now.
Lieutenant Gurley came up. Whether it was intentional or not, the young officer tended to project an air of importance by being noisier than he needed to be — he tended to puff when he walked, his footsteps heavy, there being no effort at stealth. “Captain Merrick wants to know what’s going on.”
“Danilo is trying to sniff out any Japanese in those trees, that’s what,” Philly replied.
“Tell him to get a move on. The captain doesn’t want us waiting around.”
“You’d better tell him yourself, sir.”
The use of “sir” was a small transgression, but the GIs knew that Gurley was one of those officers who would rather get shot at than let military decorum go by the wayside.
With a grunt of annoyance, the lieutenant moved up beside Danilo, pointed down the trail, and said, “Let’s go.”
The lieutenant turned and made his way back along the column, noisy as ever.
Slowly and cautiously, Danilo moved forward again. Philly was right behind him with his own rifle at the ready. The column began to pass the overgrown grove. It seemed as if everything was going to be all right — until it wasn’t.
Just when the center of the company was passing the trees, flames of gunfire erupted from among the trunks. The flashes indicated rifle fire, but there was also a Nambu machine gun in there somewhere.
The bursts of machine-gun fire raked the center of the column and cut down a handful of men before the others could hit the ground.
“Everybody down!” Captain Merrick shouted, his voice managing to cut through the sound of gunfire. It was a good quality in an officer to be able to be heard on the battlefield — maybe even the most important one. “I want return fire on those bastards right now.”
The men did as ordered, operating almost by instinct at this point. For a few moments they were too stunned to move, overwhelmed with shock and fear. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, their training kicked in, and they began to return fire. Though exhausted, they were all battle-hardened veterans who didn’t need to be told how to fight back against the Japanese.
While the enemy had taken them by surprise, it didn’t take long for the GIs to begin their own withering return fire. They shot back at the muzzle flashes in the gloom. Leaves and twigs rained down, but the Japanese kept firing.
Bullets tore through the foliage, and leaves and twigs rained down from the trees. The Japanese kept firing, and the GIs kept shooting back, the staccato burst of bullets joined by the sound of shouting and the occasional scream.