He was passing a temporary HQ of some sort when he heard somebody shouting: “Button up! Button up!”
Curious, he slowed his pace. The term “button up” was the universal warning when the brass was around. Basically it was a reminder to make yourself presentable and act like a soldier.
Considering that they were still taking enemy fire, he wondered what high-ranking officer would be foolhardy enough to come ashore. That was when he heard another soldier say, “Holy mackerel, that’s MacArthur!”
Down the beach, he could see a couple of officers walking purposefully toward the temporary HQ. One of the men had a pipe stuck in his mouth. Up and down the beach, soldiers’ mouths fell open in awe. It was rare for a GI to see someone as exalted as MacArthur — much less to see him on the beach when enemy bullets still flew. Deke wasn’t sure if the general was brave — or foolish. Who was going to run the army if he got himself killed?
Deke didn’t stick around to see more. In his experience, officers attracted trouble like a flagpole in a lightning storm. You didn’t want to go stand under it in a storm. He took one last good look at the general, then turned around and started back in the other direction.
It was a good thing he did. He had barely left all the commotion with MacArthur behind when he spotted a familiar face — several faces, as a matter of fact. Patrol Easy had made it to shore after all. They looked like drowned rats, but they were alive.
“I’ll be damned, look who it is!” Philly shouted, catching sight of Deke. “We thought for sure that you were dead.”
“You ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy.”
Philly slapped him on the shoulder, clearly pleased and relieved to see Deke alive. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Deke that the survivors might have been wondering what had happened to him. No matter. Against all odds, they had all made it to shore and found one another.
Lieutenant Steele gave him a nod. “Thought we lost you when the landing craft went down,” he said. “Knowing how much you love the ocean, you were the last person I expected to swim to shore.”
“Swimming beats drowning.”
Their reunion was cut short by the arrival of a courier who had a message for Lieutenant Steele. Quickly, he scanned the orders and turned back to his men.
“Don’t get too comfortable, boys,” Steele said. “We’re being sent to help take out Hill 522. Somebody decided that we’re just the ones for the job, considering that we’ve been there before.”
“How about that, Deke?” Philly said. “It turns out that you’re just in time to get killed for real this time.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For once the snipers had been chosen because someone up the chain of command realized that Hill 522 would be familiar territory for them, considering that they had been involved in the raid to eliminate the battery just a short time ago.
Their assignment to the assault was a rare example of common sense, extraordinary as a blue moon, but the way that Deke and the rest of Patrol Easy saw it, it wasn’t a decision that worked in their favor.
They had barely made it off that hill alive last time after accomplishing their mission by knocking out those powerful guns. It was anybody’s guess if they could survive that hill a second time.
“That hill is damn well defended,” Philly said. “The Japs have been up there this whole time, digging in. Waiting for us.”
“Mmm,” Deke murmured.
“We’re just lucky, I guess,” Philly continued. “First, we help take the beach. Then we get to lead the assault up that hill. Next thing you know, they’ll be sending us to be the first guys to knock on Hirohito’s palace door.”
“Mmm,” Deke murmured again. He was only half listening. As usual, Philly talked too much. He was like some radio program that droned in your ear like background noise.
But Deke was willing to cut him some slack long after he would have told another man to stop flapping his gums. He recognized that talking was Philly’s way of letting off steam, of dealing with the nervousness, the fear of what was to come.
Deke preferred to keep busy. He was once again honing his bowie knife, which was already sharp as a razor, but the simple act of scraping blade against stone was enough to occupy his mind. It was a soothing sound, but one with a deadly purpose. Better than talking, that was for sure.
Philly went on: “Why can’t the army give us a nice, easy job, like sitting up in a tree and picking off Japs from a safe distance? Isn’t that what us snipers are supposed to do?”
“Maybe that’s because they know you can’t actually hit anything unless you’re close enough to poke it with a stick.”
“Aww, listen to you. You’re not the only one who knows how to shoot. I told you that story about how I won my girl a stuffed bear at that shooting gallery on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.”
Deke couldn’t help but smile. “A stuffed bear?”
Philly waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, you mountain people want trophy bucks or whatever, but I tell you what, that stuffed bear was enough to get me laid that night. I gave her that bear, and she had her panties off like there were ants in them. Then there was the time—”
Deke tuned him out, returning to his own thoughts. Besides, Philly wanted everybody to believe that he had considerable experience with women, which Deke took with a grain of salt.
He didn’t need to jabber about things like Philly did, but the truth was that Deke dreaded the return to the hill. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but something he’d rather not do, like put up hay on a ninety-degree day in July.
Deke knew that he, Philly, and Yoshio had indeed barely escaped just ahead of the Japanese during that raid, and it was a good thing, too, or the Japs might have cut off their heads as they’d done to the Filipino guerrillas they’d captured.
It was on that hill that he had encountered the Japanese sniper who had nearly taken him out with a lucky shot or two. Deke wasn’t afraid of the Japanese sniper, no more than he was afraid of any man, but he had a healthy respect for the man after that encounter. Would the Japanese still be on that hill? It seemed to be where he was stationed. Deke reckoned they would find out soon enough.
“All right, boys, let’s go,” said Lieutenant Steele, leading the way as they trudged inland.
“You taking us to the USO, Honcho? Cold beer, steaks, and broads?”
Steele shook his head, suppressing a smile. “Shut up, Philly. And keep your eyes open. There are still plenty of Japanese around. You know as well as I do that we’re headed back to that hill. Last time we stopped by for a visit. This time we’re going to plant the flag on that son of a bitch.”
Hill 522 was located roughly a mile from the beaches that were rapidly filling with more American troops and supplies. Despite the incursion, the Japanese were far from defeated. From the heights of Hill 522, Japanese artillery still fired, harassing the troops coming ashore.
General MacArthur was already on the beach, fulfilling his promise to return to Filipino soil. For all the sensation that the images of his landing would cause back home, scarcely any of the troops had actually witnessed the landing. They had heard about it only through rumors and excited whispers.
“Hey, you better look out,” soldiers warned one another. “MacArthur is somewhere here on the beach. General MacArthur himself, fellas. Goddamn!”
The rank-and-file soldiers had mixed emotions about MacArthur. Sure, Mac was known as a capable general. But he had a reputation for being aloof. He wasn’t one to mix and mingle with the troops. It was hard to love him the way the men in Europe cheered for General Patton or the navy boys loved Admiral “Bull” Halsey. Those two had made plenty of mistakes, but a little charisma went a long way in the public eye and in the hearts of the men.