They could see Doc Harmon directing the effort, checking each man as he did so. Some were being left behind on the ground, too badly wounded to transport. It would be only a matter of time before there was a grimy blanket covering their faces, to keep off the flies and the heat of the sun.
Philly sighed. “Looks like we’re walking.”
The men were ordered to assemble at the base of the ridge, in the road that had formed their line during the battle. The sun beat down, and men jostled to get under what little shade was offered by the roadside trees.
Once again they donned their battered helmets and loaded up on ammunition. More C rations were handed around and stuffed into haversacks. Some men slung their rifles, which were starting to feel heavy, but others preferred the reassurance of having a fully loaded M1 in their hands.
They were a motley crew, these fighting soldiers, their fatigues alternately filthy with mud or streaked with white from the soaking in the salt water when they had landed on Leyte. But this was no dress parade. This was setting out to finish the job of liberating Ormoc. These men meant business, and there was no doubt that they looked the part.
With the Japanese finally pushed off the ridge, the road toward Ormoc had been opened. Patrol Easy followed the road through the fields and forest, taking point ahead of the rest of the company.
“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Philly whispered, nervously scanning the surrounding landscape for any sign of the enemy.
“I hate to tell you this, Philly, but it ain’t gonna be a shoe that drops. It’s gonna be a boot,” Deke said. “And that boot ain’t gonna drop. No, sir. It’s gonna kick us in the ass. Keep your eyes open.”
“What the hell do you think I’m doing? I wasn’t planning on taking a nap.”
Like his buddy, Deke moved cautiously, alert for any sign of an ambush. Despite the scene of destruction that they had left behind, they had not completely wiped out the Japanese back on the ridge, so the question was, Where had the enemy gone?
Ideally, Deke thought, the enemy would have jumped in the ocean and swum all the way back to Japan, but that was wishful thinking.
If the enemy wasn’t out here somewhere waiting for them, then they had fallen back to Ormoc and would be waiting for them there. Neither prospect was particularly appealing.
Their battered company wasn’t the only one moving into position. Most of the entire division was converging on Ormoc. In the distance, when there were breaks in the trees, revealing a vista of open rice paddies, Deke could see another unit following a path parallel to their own. Deke had waved at them, making sure that they had seen him, in order to avoid any surprises down the road.
There had been more than one situation where soldiers had been killed by friendly fire, which was easy enough in the confusion of the jungle landscape.
The day’s heat bore down, the air feeling heavier by the moment. Sweat slicked the men’s faces, rolled down the backs of their necks, soaked their uniforms. It was almost enough to make them wish for another beach to storm, just for the chance to cool off in the surf.
Like a pot of old stew simmering on the back of a hot stove, Deke had felt troublesome waves of the fever that had afflicted him earlier returning. At first he had tried to ignore it. Then he had stumbled now and again, starting to feel dizzy.
Danilo had given him a knowing, concerned look. The Filipino guide was more than aware of the ebb and flow of the various jungle fevers. They receded like the tide and then came racing back in.
“Are you all right?” Philly asked, after Deke stumbled for a second time.
“Just tired, is all.”
“If you say so. I can tell Doc Harmon about it. Maybe he’s got some pills to fix you right up.”
Deke might have argued that this was a bad idea, that the surgeon might put him in a truck with the other wounded and send him back to the beach, but he was feeling too tired to argue.
It was true that their numbers had been bolstered by the cooks, truck drivers, and mechanics who had not returned to their field kitchens and maintenance yards but had been set on the road to Ormoc. For the fight at Ormoc, where the Japanese planned to make a stand in the streets, the division was going to need every man it had to be carrying a rifle.
They followed the road toward the city, occasionally passing detritus left behind by the retreating Japanese, everything from broken crates to discarded gas masks and an occasional dented canteen. Once or twice they passed a wounded soldier who had succumbed and whose body had been left behind. The GIs studied the bodies with curiosity, hoping for some clue to the enemy. But dead men told no tales. The GIs trudged on down the road.
In places the road ran through wide rice paddies, the sun sparkling off the water that lay in the flooded fields. They passed a few small houses that looked abandoned and forlorn. There was no sign of the Japanese.
Ormoc was a place that few Americans had heard of before late 1944, and it was a name that few would remember in the intervening years, with the exception of those who had been there and perhaps lost a buddy in the street fighting or during combat with Japanese holdouts in the surrounding jungle.
The name itself had come from “Ogmok” in the old Visayan language — a precursor to the modern Tagalog spoken by Filipinos — from a word that meant “low-lying place.” The name hinted at the abundant rice fields on the city’s outskirts.
Perhaps it was not an auspicious name, but the sprawling, small city always had been a busy port, going back centuries, so it had a worldliness to it that belied its remote location.
Stretching back centuries, Ormoc had been a seaside trading village. The Spanish had arrived in 1595 but had never seemed to put their stamp on the place, as they had in larger towns. Ormoc looked and felt very much Filipino.
Given this history of watching the world come and go, there wasn’t much that the people of Ormoc hadn’t seen, and not much surprised them.
Yet it remained a welcoming place. The seaside port had the easy, languid feel of many tropical towns. There was an innocence about the city when the Japanese were out of sight and the city wasn’t under threat of imminent attack. It was rare to see a man in a suit. Younger teenage boys rarely wore anything more than shorts, and the girls went about barefoot in colorful skirts.
You might say that Ormoc was busy but not ambitious. Few buildings were more than two stories high, and judging from the humble nature of even these taller buildings, there was very little wealth in the town. It didn’t help that the war had squeezed dry what little commerce there was, wringing out the local businesses like a sweaty bandanna.
Although the town was pleasant and friendly, it had a ramshackle appearance and made no effort at order or neatness. Even the houses along the waterfront, with its beautiful view of the bay, looked as if they had survived one typhoon too many. These buildings near the waterfront tended to be the largest structures in town.
The streets were winding, unpaved, passing between tightly packed small houses covered in stucco and with tin roofs. Many of the houses occupied miniature compounds with fences or even walls around the cramped yards. Muddy brown chickens scratched in the dirt, and friendly, tan-colored dogs wandered everywhere.
Despite the poverty and oppression by the occupiers, the residents had not lost their love of plants. Entire fronts of houses were taken up with rows of potted plants, sometimes stacked on rickety wooden shelves several rows high. Lush greenery grew in every yard and untended corner, giving the town the appearance of being one sprawling garden. All in all, Ormoc was a town that a Western visitor found easy to love — as long as there weren’t any bullets flying.