The Americans advanced into the city, moving house by house, street by street. Still, the Japanese did not open fire. The deserted streets seemed to be holding their breath.
Deke had to admit that Philly was right about one thing. The advance into Ormoc took place in an almost eerie quiet, punctuated only by the crackle and pop of flames. Several fires burned in town as the result of the heavy artillery bombardment that had preceded the advance.
Following the usual strategy, the bombardment had been intended to soften up the Japanese defenses. The hope was that any civilians who remained in the port city had found shelter.
While it was true that most civilians had fled, it was always the poorest, the youngest, and the oldest who got left behind. The shacks built of concrete block, scrap wood, and corrugated metal looked even more flimsy in the face of advancing troops and armor. Where artillery shells had rained down, the houses had been reduced to piles of rubble.
Poor bastards, Deke thought. The people here clearly didn’t have much.
The destruction might have been even worse except for the fact that the bombardment effort had relied on the division’s own artillery and whatever aircraft could be sent to aid the fight.
The navy guns that usually handled the job — and surely would have absolutely leveled the town — remained far out to sea to avoid the Japanese planes that still managed to launch attacks from small airfields on Leyte.
Perhaps the Japanese planes no longer appeared in the numbers that they had, but the navy had a healthy fear of the new kamikaze strategy. Turning planes into bombs was a weapon that was hard to understand and difficult to defend against, so it was best to remain farther out to sea for now.
Despite the bombardment, the division’s big guns wouldn’t be enough on their own. Sacking Ormoc was a job that would have to be done on foot, street by street, house by house. It would be similar to the fight they had experienced in Palo on the other side of Leyte, but that had been more of a running battle through the streets.
At Palo, the Japanese had even pushed a wall of refugees ahead of them, using the Filipinos as human shields. Here the enemy had dug in and prepared for them. Thankfully, no civilians remained in sight, so it was unlikely that the events of Palo would be repeated.
Having entered the town, Deke put one foot in front of the other, his eyes locked on the rooftops and windows of the taller buildings, basically scanning any position that enemy snipers might be using as a vantage point.
The trap had been set. Japanese forces had been expecting them for some time. The fighting promised to be fierce.
Deke was moving along the edge of the street, keeping to the shadows cast by trees and front porches. He found himself thinking wistfully of the jungle, which offered much better cover. Besides, Deke always felt more at home in the forest or fields, rather than making his way up a street, feeling too exposed.
He moved like a prowling cat, keeping to a pace that was unlikely to draw much attention to himself. His fever seemed to have abated for now, for which he was grateful. He needed to be sharp.
Behind him came the bulk of the soldiers, who ran between buildings in small squads, crossing the street at a scramble while the men awaiting their turn to cross were prepared with covering fire that wasn’t needed yet.
Deke figured that the rest of the advancing forces could worry about the machine-gun emplacements inside the street-corner bunkers. He could see some of those up ahead, or what he guessed were machine-gun emplacements. It was hard to know for certain because they remained quiet, the Japanese waiting for the GIs to get closer.
Deke would worry about enemy snipers.
Along with Danilo, the rest of Patrol Easy was doing the same thing, watching any likely sniper positions. There were so many possible ones, and yet no one was shooting at them yet.
The peace and quiet didn’t last for long.
A shot rang out. The men behind Deke scrambled for cover, but not before a soldier had fallen. The sniper’s aim had proved deadly. The GI lay sprawled in the dirt street, a pool of crimson spreading around him.
Nobody ran to drag the dead man out of the street, because that would have been suicide, making them an easy target for the Japanese sniper.
“See him?” Philly whispered, his eyes on the rooftops.
“Not yet,” Deke whispered in reply.
The way that the rifle crack had echoed along the street made it hard to tell where the shot had been fired from.
Deke crouched in the shadows, waiting.
Captain Merrick called a halt, and the wait lengthened.
Now and then shots were exchanged, the two sides pecking at one another.
Truth be told, Deke was glad for a chance to rest. They had been in almost constant motion since leaving Bloody Ridge.
The only bad part of taking a rest was that it gave his malaria or whatever bug he had to rear its ugly head. Advancing into Ormoc, maybe he’d just been too busy to be sick.
But he could feel his fever gradually returning — if not at a full boil, then definitely a simmer. Between the fever and sheer exhaustion, all of a sudden he could barely think straight.
Deke knew that he wasn’t the only one who was half-asleep on his feet. Nobody had managed to get much sleep in the days leading up to the beach landing or during the long initial night after that landing, which they had spent fighting off Japanese infiltrators. Half the men were walking around like zombies, even if they weren’t sick like Deke.
He caught himself swaying as a shiver ran through him, despite the high air temperature. It was an awful thing to have fever chills at the same time that you were sweating in the tropical heat.
Speaking of which, from time to time he got a good whiff of himself, the stink of his dirty uniform mixing with feverish sweat. Whenever he moved, his stiff and grimy shirt stuck to his skin, as if it had taken on a mind of its own. The smell was somewhere between a dead woodchuck on the side of the road and the sickly-sweet odor of hay that had been rained on and left to rot. He wrinkled his nose. It was a good thing that everybody else smelled just as bad.
Meanwhile, the tropical heat was nearly overwhelming, and the humidity clung to him like the grasping hands of a thousand greasy beggars. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes but felt it run down his chest and pool in his navel.
He was finding it hard to concentrate, because what he really wanted to do was lie down and take a nap, preferably a nap that would last for a week. The lack of sleep from the last several nights was taking its toll. Unfortunately, the war was not being fought on his schedule, and nobody was going to call a time-out.
Behind him, Captain Merrick’s company had been held up, but not for long. The advance could not be halted because of a single sniper.
“Let’s go!” Honcho shouted.
More soldiers ran across the street, presenting themselves as targets.
Sure enough, the sniper fired again.
Another man went down.
Feverish as he was becoming once again, Dekes seemed to be having a harder time focusing on the windows and rooftops. But like a sudden glimpse of an enemy ship through the fog at sea, he spotted movement in the window of a house across the street. He could just see the sun outlining the shape of a Japanese helmet, neatly framed by the window.
There. He put the rifle sights on the other sniper’s head and ever so slowly squeezed the trigger.
The rifle bucked against his shoulder, jolting his already aching bones.
Had he hit the target?
When he looked through the scope again, the window frame was empty.
“You got him,” Philly whispered. It was hard to say if his tone indicated grudging admiration or disbelief at the skill involved. “Hey, you all right? You don’t look so good. Did your fever come back?”