However, in the first bunker was at least one sniper who kept up a withering fire. Each shot came too close for comfort. At one point Alphabet stuck up his head to get his bearings and paid the price for his curiosity.
“I’m hit!” he cried, clutching his neck. Blood seeped between his fingers.
Steele fired a couple of quick shots from his twelve gauge at the slit in the bunker that seemed to be where the sniper was shooting from, then rushed forward and slid down beside Alphabet. “Let me see that,” he said, examining the wound.
“How bad is it, Honcho?” Alphabet asked, wild eyed with fear and pain. “Dammit, I always hoped it would be quick when my number was up.”
“Not so bad,” the lieutenant announced. He dragged out a sweat-stained handkerchief from a pocket. “Put that on it and apply some pressure. You’re lucky. The bullet just grazed you.”
Although the handkerchief quickly became soaked with blood, it was clear that the Japanese hadn’t managed to kill Alphabet — at least not this time. Steele knotted the handkerchief as best as he could to create a makeshift bandage.
Once Steele had finished, Alphabet reached for the rifle he had dropped. “Better luck next time, you damn Nips!” he shouted, and fired a shot at the bunker. The bullet whined angrily off the concrete, sounding as frustrated as Alphabet.
In response, there was another shot from the Japanese sniper, causing Alphabet to duck as the bullet ripped the air just inches from his head.
“What the hell!” he shouted. “I’m getting tired of that son of a bitch.”
“We’re getting chewed to pieces here,” Steele agreed. “Where the hell are those tanks?”
Watching from cover, Deke couldn’t help but think about the sniper that he had battled earlier on Leyte. His name had been Ikeda. The two men had crossed paths more than once. Ikeda had seemed to outwit him at every opportunity, but Deke had finally turned the tables on the Japanese sniper and tricked him by rigging a scarecrow in the jungle as a decoy. Ikeda had been so sure of himself that he had fallen right into that trap.
As always, the Japanese seemed to have no shortage of snipers. Sniper warfare was just another tactic that the Japanese trained for. This sniper was likely not Ikeda’s equal but simply had the good luck to be ensconced inside a concrete bunker.
Deke smiled to himself. That sniper’s luck was about to change.
“Hey, Philly,” Deke said. “Try and hold that Jap sniper’s attention.”
“How do I do that?”
“Shoot at him, that’s how.”
Without waiting for a response, Deke began to creep closer to the bunker, using whatever he could for cover — even, as it turned out, some poor bastard’s body.
It was one of their own soldiers, killed by the Japanese. He avoided looking closely at the face to see which of the company’s soldiers it was. For all he knew, he might have shared a laugh or a canteen with this man. He figured that it didn’t matter now — the soldier was just so much dead meat, a backstop for bullets.
He stopped behind the body just long enough for the corpse to absorb a burst of machine-gun fire and for Deke to slide his rifle over the dead soldier’s rump and squeeze off a couple of shots.
He tried not to think too much about the fact that he was using a dead man for cover. They were in the middle of a battle, and whatever he could put between himself and the endless hail of the enemy’s bullets was just fine by him.
It was almost too much to hope that he wouldn’t end up just as dead in the next minute. The well-defended Japanese in the complex of bunkers were tearing them to pieces.
Deke knew he couldn’t take on the whole damn Japanese army. But he could fight at least one of them man to man, or sniper to sniper.
He could see the slit in the concrete, no more than six inches wide and a foot high, dark against the lighter face of the concrete, reminding Deke of the vertical pupil of a mountain rattlesnake.
That must be where the Japanese sniper was shooting from. Yet the man was well hidden behind who knew how many inches or even feet of concrete.
These Japanese had been preparing for the arrival of American forces for some time, and the entire island seemed to be so incredibly well defended that for every step forward that the Americans were able to take, they also seemed to be bleeding a gallon of blood for each one of those inches.
Time to make the Japs bleed a little of their own precious blood, he thought.
“Can you hit it?” Philly asked. He had scooted up near Deke and was on his belly behind a chunk of concrete that had been blown free by the artillery barrage. He had already emptied his own rifle at the trench slit without any success.
“Don’t go talking nonsense,” Deke replied. “Do you want me to shoot that Jap in the left eye or the right eye?”
“And here I always thought you didn’t brag much.”
“My pa always said it ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.”
Philly reloaded his own rifle. “All right, then. I’ll keep him distracted.”
Making the situation difficult was the fact that the Japanese were shooting at them the whole time, forcing Deke and Philly to keep their heads down, not to mention the rest of Patrol Easy.
“What we need is a tank,” Philly said. “Honcho called for tanks, but I don’t know how long they’ll take to get up here.”
“I don’t see any tanks around, do you?” Deke snapped.
But he had to agree with Philly. What they really needed was more firepower. They couldn’t do much good against concrete bunkers. The rifle felt like a puny instrument in his hands compared to what appeared to be an impregnable fortress in front of him.
He put the scope to his eye and kept focused on the firing slit, hoping for a sign of movement within. However, the Japanese sniper didn’t appear eager to show himself.
He realized that, just maybe, he had been bragging to Philly, after all. Could he really put a bullet through that slit in the bunker?
The day’s heat had continued to build so that the tropical sun beating down through the foliage felt like heated pinpricks. Sweat streamed into Deke’s eyes, making aiming the rifle that much harder. Insects buzzed in his eyes and ears, as if the buzz of bullets wasn’t bad enough.
Damn it all. He inched higher above the corpse, where he had rested the rifle, trying to get a better look at the Japanese position before him. Sure enough, there was machine-gun fire coming from the bunker, but it was the more accurate fire from the sniper that was proving to be even more deadly and taking a toll on the troops.
Maybe it was Deke’s imagination, but he thought he saw a glimpse of movement through the slit in the concrete, even the black gaze of the Japanese sniper’s eye.
But of course he was too far away to actually see that. He knew it was all in his imagination. Maybe he was still feverish.
Deke lined up his sights on the slit and fired. However, he had flinched at the last instant because a bullet had passed too close for comfort. He saw a puff of concrete dust through the scope but wasn’t sure exactly where his bullet had struck.
“You missed,” said Philly, who was watching through his own rifle scope.
“That ain’t exactly helpful.”
“Aim a little to the left,” Philly said.
Deke wiped the sweat from his eyes and put his finger back on the trigger, lining up the sight on the target. Slowly, slowly, his finger took up tension on the trigger until he felt the satisfying jolt of the rifle stock against his shoulder.
This time there was no puff of concrete dust. The bullet sang right through the slit. When the sniper did not reappear, it seemed to indicate that Deke’s bullet had done its job.