Not for the first time, Philly seemed to be reading Deke’s mind, which was a little unnerving. When two guys shared a foxhole long enough, you could expect that to start to happen.
“You know what I would miss the most if I buy it tonight on this hill?” Philly volunteered. Like Deke and Yoshio, he was working his way through a can of rations. “I’d miss good food. A cheesesteak and a cold beer, for starters. Spaghetti and meatballs and red wine. Also, I’d miss women. Well, maybe not women exactly, because they can be a pain in the ass, but I’d sure as hell miss a piece of ass. God, would I miss that. What about you?”
Deke snorted. He had never spoken it out loud, but he had dwelled on this very question before. Most soldiers agreed that it was better if a bullet just flipped your switch, like the lights going out. You’d never know what hit you.
But if death wasn’t instant, then what did a man think about in the seconds after a bullet hit him and he lay dying? What were his final thoughts — if he even got the chance to have any?
Deke knew he wouldn’t be thinking about food or women. “I guess I’d miss seeing Sadie one last time,” he said, then added, “I’d miss the mountains. Just a cool fall morning, sun just touching the treetops, walking alone in the hills.”
He had expected Philly to make fun of him for that, but to his surprise, the other man said quietly, “That sounds kind of nice. Yoshio, what about you?”
“I’d miss my family.”
Nobody could argue with that. Deke finished his cold stew and tossed the empty can into the dirt at the bottom of the trench. “I got a better idea. Let’s none of us get killed tonight.”
Philly muttered a curse. “I sure wish these Nip bastards would go ahead and get this over with. They sure like to drag it out. It’s dark, just how they like it. Why the hell don’t they attack?”
“That’s on purpose,” Deke said. “I reckon they’re toying with us, making us scared of what comes next.”
“Yeah, well, screw that,” Philly said. “Bring it on.”
Deke felt the same way, although he would’ve been happier if it had been daylight. His skills with the rifle weren’t much good when he couldn’t see what he was shooting at. He felt for his bowie knife that had been custom made for him by Hollis Bailey, a bladesmith from back home. The grip in his hand was antler from a mountain buck, which was in itself reassuring.
Hollis had made it his mission to send fighting knives to each and every local boy he could think of who was in the war. Deke’s army-issue knife had been sturdy enough, but the bowie knife was something special, something wicked. With its drop-point blade and razor-sharp edge, the steel almost looked hungry. There was no other way to describe it.
He unsheathed the knife and stuck it in the wall of the trench within easy reach. He didn’t want to be fumbling around for it when the Japs came calling. After a while, Philly nodded off, and from his silence, Yoshio indicated that he was either sleeping or brooding on what was to come. It was a sign of their exhaustion that they could sleep at all.
Deke left them both alone and scanned the darkness, listening as best he could. The war was already beginning to take a toll on his hearing. They would be a generation of deaf old men — if they lived that long. A few minutes of combat — the deafening cacophony of rifle shots, mortars, and artillery — did more damage to your ears than a lifetime of hunting. At this point Deke had lived through far more than a few minutes of combat. It had left him with a condition that the army doctors called tinnitus.
If he tuned out that constant ringing in his ears, then he could still hear well enough. He gripped his rifle and waited.
It was well after midnight when he heard the skittering sound of a boot heel slipping on loose gravel. The sound was not followed by the password, which meant only one thing. This was all the warning that they were going to get.
“Wake up,” he whispered, his hard tone jolting Philly and Yoshio out of their slumber. Both soldiers were instantly awake, weapons at the ready. “We’ve got company.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Seconds after Deke’s warning, the Japanese attack arrived with furious force. Enemy soldiers launched themselves at the Americans in the trench, live grenades held in each hand. They leaped down before anyone could stop them, blowing themselves and any nearby GIs to kingdom come.
The suicidal fervor of the Japanese made the attack that much more terrifying — how did you fight back against soldiers who were already so eager to die?
Flares shot overhead, illuminating the scene with a ghostly light. Deke spotted a Japanese soldier running at them and fired. The soldier had been hanging on to a couple of grenades, which detonated with earsplitting blasts. Bits of rock and dirt rained down on their section of trench. Something warm and wet that Deke didn’t want to think about glopped across his face.
“Watch it!” Philly shouted.
Deke whirled, too late to stop a Japanese officer who leaped into the trench to their left, flailing all around him with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. In the light from the flares, they could see that the officer’s face was contorted in rage, a perfect picture of battle madness. The small Japanese pistol barely made more than a cracking sound, but it was deadly enough to drop a couple of men.
Deke, Philly, and Yoshio fired almost simultaneously, the shots striking the officer and knocking him down. Deke worked the bolt and put another round into the man for good measure. Even so, he half expected the Japanese officer to leap to his feet and attack them all over again.
This was the weapon that shook the American soldiers more than a Nambu machine gun or a dive-bombing Zero — the sheer fanaticism of the Japanese attacks. The enemy came out of the darkness like the Japanese yōkai demons of folklore, something inhuman, screaming in a language they couldn’t understand. Holding live grenades, or wielding swords, the enemy had clearly come to die at close range. In doing so, they would take as many GIs with them as they could.
This mindset was something the Americans simply could not understand. Sure, there were times when a heroic soldier might make a last stand, selling his life dearly, knowing that he wouldn’t survive. For the Japanese, suicidal attacks seemed to be a military strategy. Every enemy soldier they killed was making his last stand on this hill. It was hard to fathom.
“Aaaeiie!” a soldier screamed, running at the trench with a fixed bayonet.
Deke pulled the trigger and dropped him. At his elbow, Yoshio fired at a soldier who had belly crawled to within grenade-throwing range of the trench.
The soldier rolled behind a rock just as Yoshio fired, causing him to miss. He worked the bolt, but the rifle was empty. There wasn’t time to reload.
“Deke!” Yoshio shouted.
“Got him,” Deke replied, nailing the soldier just as he sprang up to hurl his grenades. The soldier slumped down, followed seconds later by the twin blasts of his grenades at a safe distance from the trench.
The Japanese kept coming. Yet another soldier materialized and dove for the trench as if the darkness had spit him out like a watermelon seed. He landed right between Deke and Yoshio. Neither man even had the space in which to raise his weapon. Fortunately, neither did the enemy soldier, but that wasn’t his plan. He wasn’t armed with hand grenades or a rifle. Instead, he was carrying a long Japanese knife known as a tantō. He slashed at Deke, who twisted away, the blade hissing through the air where his face had been a split second before.