“Fine by me. You know what they say — the only good Jap is a dead Jap,” Philly said. He glanced in Yoshio’s direction. “Present company excepted.”
“I am not Japanese,” Yoshio pointed out for the umpteenth time. “I am an American, just like you.”
“If you say so.”
“All right, knock it off, Philly,” the lieutenant interrupted. “The reason that I wanted to talk to you boys is that I’ve just gotten word from battalion that we’re moving out again.”
“Of course we are,” Philly grumped.
“They need us to hit Ormoc on the other side of the peninsula,” the lieutenant said. “There’s two ways to get there. One way is by boat, sailing right down the Surigao Strait and around the tip of the peninsula, then up the Canigao Channel — dodging Japanese planes and whatever is left of the Japanese Navy the whole way.”
“Hell, Honcho, after what we’ve been through, that sounds like a pleasure cruise.”
“If you say so, Philly. It won’t be so pleasant once we get there, believe me,” the lieutenant said. “I hear there’s a wide-open beach that we can land on, plenty of time for the Japs to give us hell while crossing it. They’ll be expecting us.”
Nobody had much to say about that. They had now landed on at least two beaches while under fire, and those landings hadn’t been a picnic. The thought of doing that a third time was almost too much to contemplate.
Even Philly, loudmouth that he was, was left shaking his head quietly, words having failed him.
Steele wasn’t finished. “Three of you lucky bastards won’t be going with us. The thing is, we’re going to split up.” When the men started to protest, the lieutenant raised his hands to quiet them. “This wasn’t my idea. It came from on high, so there you have it. Deke, Philly, and Yoshio, you won’t be taking our little pleasure cruise.”
“Please tell me we’re being sent home for a war bond tour,” Philly said.
“No such luck,” Honcho said. “Remember how I said there were two ways to get to Ormoc? We’ll be coming at the Japs from two directions to keep them confused. The boat is one way. The other way is directly across the peninsula. Twenty miles of jungle, mountains, and Japs. It’s going to be Charlie Company’s job to cut across the peninsula. Battalion wants some scout-snipers to go with them on account of the jungle terrain, so I picked you three.”
“Why us?”
“Because it’s my belief that you three have the best chance of making it to the other side alive — not to mention that you’re the best chance for Charlie Company too. From what I hear, a lot of them are green troops, so they need a few veterans like you to show them the ropes.” Lieutenant Steele sighed. For the first time, he seemed to allow himself to display a flicker of the emotion that he had been holding back. A look of sadness crossed his face, but that look was quickly replaced by a wry smile. “Good luck, boys. You’re going to need it. You know what? We’re all going to need it. I suppose I’ll see you again in Ormoc — or in hell.”
As it turned out, Charlie Company was moving out in a hurry. It was going to take a lot longer to reach Ormoc by traversing the interior of Leyte than it would to get there by ship. Deke, Philly, and Yoshio barely had time to digest the news and say their goodbyes to Rodeo, Alphabet, and Egan — and to give Thor’s ears a scratch — before they had to hurry up and report to their new captain. Honcho had informed them that they were looking for Captain Merrick. They found him bent over a map with a lieutenant and a couple of sergeants. Deke didn’t know how much use a map would be — all they had to do was follow the direction that the sun took each day until they hit the ocean on the other side.
Of course, nobody dared to salute him. There might not be any Japanese snipers in the immediate vicinity, but it was a bad habit to get into.
“You must be my scouts,” the captain said, looking away from the map. He had his helmet off, and from his youthful face and lack of gray hair, it was plain that he was a lot younger than Lieutenant Steele. Not for the first time, Deke wondered who the lieutenant had upset so thoroughly that he couldn’t seem to get promoted. “I hear that at least one of you is the best shot in the army — the army on Leyte, at least. I’m pretty sure that’s you.”
The captain was looking at Deke, who drawled: “If you say so.”
“Well, you’re the mean-looking one.” Captain Merrick squinted in surprise at Yoshio, then took a step back in a double take. “You a Jap?”
“I speak Japanese, but I am an American,” Yoshio said calmly.
“Hell, that’s what I meant,” Merrick said after a moment’s hesitation. He appeared a bit flustered by the sight of a Nisei, but he recovered quickly. “We’re all Americans here. Our orders are to capture a few Japs and interrogate them, but you know how that goes. Not many prisoners. The Japs don’t like to give up, and our boys tend to shoot the ones who do. They’ve lost too many of their buddies at this point. Anyhow, glad to have you, son. Glad to have all three of you. When we head out, the three of you will take point. I need somebody up front who knows what the hell they’re doing. I’ll have a handful of veterans at the rear of the column to deal with any Japs who try to shoot us in the back. We know they’re good at that.”
Deke nodded, and the captain turned back to the map, indicating that they were dismissed.
“He doesn’t seem so bad,” Philly remarked as they walked away. “On the sly, I asked a couple of the guys in his company what he’s like, and they said he’s a solid officer.”
Deke nodded. That had also been his impression of the captain during their brief introduction. Captain Merrick appeared competent enough, with that no-nonsense exterior so common to officers with combat experience. He seemed like a good man, and Deke hoped that he’d last more than a few days. The war was hell on young officers, lost at an alarming rate. Too often they were targeted by Japanese snipers. Other times they died leading from the front. The only men that the army seemed to lose more of were the medics.
Before they headed out, there were preparations to make, made easier because they had already said their farewells to Lieutenant Steele and the rest of Patrol Easy. Lieutenant Steele had given Deke his orders and wished him luck.
“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Philly wondered. He appeared to be experiencing a rare moment of introspection. Philly’s usual conversation didn’t vary much beyond the categories of broads, beer, and bratwurst — make that food in general — unless he was complaining about something.
“I don’t rightly know, Philly,” Deke answered honestly. “It’s a big war. We’re all just itty-bitty leaves, caught up in the whirlwind.”
“Well now, listen to you.” Philly pitched his voice up a notch and mimicked Deke’s country drawl. Nearby, Yoshio cracked a smile at Philly’s attempt to sound like anything but a blue-collar working stiff from the row house neighborhoods of Philadelphia. “You’re a regular hillbilly philosopher, ain’t you?”
“Stuff it, Philly.”
The other man gave a short laugh that somehow ended in a sigh. “I hate to say it, but a part of me already misses those bastards.”
“If we want to see them again, we’ll have to live through the next few days,” Deke pointed out. “They’ll have to do the same. It ain’t easy with a war on.”
“I guess you’re right. As for us, we’ll have to be like the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all.”
From what Deke knew of the Three Musketeers, they had managed to fight for one another despite their differences. Here they were, a farm boy, a city boy — and Yoshio, who was hard to typify. He knew that Yoshio had also grown up on a small farm, but with his thoughtful air, he was more like a schoolteacher.