“You wouldn’t be wrong about nighttime,” Deke said, agreeing with Philly’s earlier comment. “The Japs will be on us like skeeters on a bare ass at the swimming hole, that’s for sure. Philly, you got ammo?”
Philly snorted. “I carried as much as I could up here. Then again, I wish I had more.”
Deke nodded. Most veterans took as much ammo as they could carry, even slinging bandoliers across their chests and backs like some kind of Mexican bandit from the days of Pancho Villa. Nonetheless, when the fighting got hot, they still managed to run low on ammunition. And resupply was out of the question on this hilltop.
“Yoshio, what about you?”
“I have plenty,” Yoshio replied.
“I reckon that just means you ain’t shooting enough,” Deke said. “Give me and Philly some of your ammo. Grenades, too, if you got ’em.”
Yoshio did just that. “Do you think you will need that much ammunition?”
“Once it gets full dark, the Japs will try to get behind us,” Deke said. “They’ve got their damn trenches all over this hill. They probably wanted us to get into this trench in the first place, so they’d know right where we are.”
“You mean it’s a trap?” Yoshio asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I’d keep both eyes open. I hope you ate your carrots.”
Yoshio smiled. “You know it.”
Since the early days of the war, it had become a matter of common knowledge that eating a lot of carrots improved your night vision. The truth was that the story about carrots was pure fiction, having been made up by the military to cover the fact that Allied pilots could “see” at night because they possessed superior radar, not because they ate their vegetables.
Neither carrots nor radar would have done the men on Hill 522 much good. When darkness did come, it was swift and complete as a curtain being pulled across some old lady’s parlor window.
The Japanese were notorious for their nighttime attacks, whereas the Americans felt content to stay put until daylight. Much of it came down to a difference in training and tactics.
The Japanese favored the cover of darkness. You couldn’t blame them, because the darkness gave them an edge over what was usually the superior firepower of the Americans. Also, fighter planes didn’t fly at night, which meant that any Japanese forces would not be attacked from the air. That was probably less of a factor on the hill. They were so close to the Japanese lines that the pilots were afraid of hitting their own guys.
“So now what?” Yoshio asked.
“We just wait,” Deke said. “Let the Japs come to us — and they will, all right. Aren’t you glad that you went and insulted that Japanese sniper? He probably can’t wait to come over here once it’s nice and dark and make good on his promises.”
Yoshio looked a little pale in the dwindling light, and who could blame him? War seemed like an impersonal thing — until it wasn’t.
In the dark of night, the password went around. The word was lollygag, which tended to be popular. It didn’t need to be secret, because the password was all about pronunciation. Popular wisdom was that the Japanese could not properly say the letter L. Any password that the troops used had more L sounds in it than a porcupine had quills. Lollipop. Delicious. Umbrella. Those words were good as a barb-wire fence against infiltrators.
They had been placed roughly in groups of three along the trench, with the idea that each three-man team could act as its own unit in defending the trench. Spreading each man out along the defensive line might have been just as effective, but from a psychological standpoint, there seemed to be safety in numbers. An army of three felt a whole lot better in the dark than an army of one.
Deke kept his hands on the rifle, peering out into the woolly blanket of darkness. From time to time, he put his eye to the scope, which managed to gather just a little extra light, but he saw no sign of the enemy. He was fighting blind.
He kept his ears open, listening for the sound of stealthy footsteps, the scratch of a belly crawling over dirt, or the telltale knock of a Japanese grenade being armed against a rock or helmet.
The quiet was broken by the sound of a voice whispering, “Lollygag.”
“Come on in,” Deke whispered back.
A moment later Lieutenant Steele eased himself into the trench beside them. They couldn’t see him well, but even in the darkness, the eye patch that Deke had made for him on Guam out of a piece of old boot formed an even blacker hole in the outline of Steele’s pale, haggard face. It was like a gaping bullet hole, or maybe a glimpse into the dark part of the lieutenant’s soul — the eye patch wasn’t something you wanted to stare at for long. “How you boys holding up?” he asked.
“We’re doing all right, Honcho. We’re a little low on ammo.”
“Then you’d better make each shot count,” Steele said. “You’re snipers, after all. That’s all the ammo we’ve got for now. Nobody is going to resupply us before tomorrow morning. I don’t need to tell you boys that we can expect some trouble tonight. The Japs don’t want us here, and they are going to do everything they can to push us out of this trench. It’s quiet for now, so you had better eat something while you’ve got the chance.”
“You got it, Honcho,” Deke replied quietly. The lieutenant hadn’t told them anything that they didn’t already know about what they could expect in the hours ahead.
“I put all the men in this sector into three-man teams. Your team is the right flank, so keep that in mind. I’d imagine that the Japs will try to get into this trench and roll up the whole line, so be ready. On your left, you’ve got Rodeo, Alphabet, and Egan. Egan’s dog will be sniffing for the first whiff of the Japanese, so if he starts to bark, get ready.”
“What about you, Honcho? Better join up with us,” Deke said. “You can’t take on the Japs all by yourself.”
“I’ve got all the company I need right here,” Steele said, hefting the twelve-gauge. “I’ll be all right. When one of you gets killed, I’ll fill in.”
“That’s awful nice of you, Honcho.”
“You think I’m kidding? I wish I were. This is the best chance the Japs have got. They’ll hit us hard tonight. They know that in the morning our planes will be back, and maybe we’ll get more men to kick the hell out of them.”
“If the Japs want to wait for morning, that’s fine by me,” Philly said.
Steele shook his head. “No such luck, Philly. You know the Japs. They’ll be on us, whether we’re ready for them or not. Deke, I know you won’t let the Japs get past you.”
“We’ll be ready, Honcho,” Deke said, feeling a sudden swelling of fondness for the lieutenant. He was a good man. Deke was also worried about him. Lieutenants and captains had a bad habit of getting killed.
“I know you will, son. Good luck,” he said, then moved off toward the next group. Faintly, they could hear him utter the password once more.
“If there are any Japs listening, they probably know our password by now,” Philly said.
“Yeah, but they won’t be able to say it.”
“If I hear anybody mangle that password, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later,” Philly said. “You hear me, kid? Better do the same.”
“Got it,” Yoshio said.
The lieutenant had ordered them to eat, so that was just what they did now, dipping into their K rations. Deke spooned cold stew into his mouth, barely tasting it, slowly chewing the mushy chunks of carrots and potatoes and stringy beef, then washing them down with a drink of his metallic-tasting canteen water.
It wasn’t home cooking, that was for damn sure, but he didn’t mind. Food was food. Some men griped all the time about the rations, but not Deke. He had gone to bed hungry enough times as a boy, growing up in the Depression-era mountains on a hardscrabble farm, not to complain about a full belly — even if it was army food out of a can. Besides, there were a whole lot of men on both sides who wouldn’t ever be eating again.