That kid was no soldier. What was he doing here? Why was Deke here? Why was any of this happening?
All because the Japanese had decided to bomb Pearl Harbor, that was why. December 7, 1941. His cousin Jasper had been one of the casualties that day, along with thousands of other sailors. Oddly enough, the coming of the war had liberated Deke from the sawmill. Give me the jungle any day.
Deke looked into the chubby soldier’s face. It was expressionless, blank. A lamb headed to slaughter. He wasn’t afraid. He sat there on the rotting leaves, rifle practically tossed on the ground, waiting for whatever would happen next.
“What’s your name again?” Deke asked.
“Dickie Shelby,” he said in a squeaky voice.
“Didn’t you have glasses before?”
“I broke them when a branch slapped me across the face.”
“Uh-huh. Can you see anything without your glasses?”
“It’s a little blurry,” Dickie admitted.
“Keep your rifle out of the mud,” Deke said. “You might be needing it soon. Just make sure you’re close enough to tell it’s a Jap you’re shooting at.”
A man nearby didn’t seem to like the fact that Deke was handing out advice that bordered on orders. He asked harshly, “What are you, our new sergeant?”
“Shut up,” Deke growled.
The man seemed like he was about to say more, but he got a glimpse of Deke’s cold eyes and clammed up.
Deke moved on. He found Merrick a little farther down the line. The captain gave him a nod of acknowledgment, waiting to hear what he had to say. “Got something on your mind, Deke?”
“I don’t like this,” he told the captain. “We could be walking right into an ambush in this rain. Let me and Danilo go on ahead and make sure the trail is clear.”
“Who the hell is Danilo? You mean that Filipino?”
Deke nodded. “I can tell that he knows this ground.”
“All right,” Merrick agreed. “Send word back if you come across something.”
“Don’t worry,” Deke said. “I reckon you’ll hear me shooting.”
He returned to the front of the column and told his plan to Philly and Yoshio. They would stay with the main column. He rousted Danilo off his haunches, and they left the column behind. He felt better without the distraction of the rain-soaked column following immediately after. With just him and Danilo, it would be a lot easier to sense any enemy activity ahead.
The trail began to climb, then kept going up and up. The trail was steep and slippery in places, with roots trying to trip him. Clearly they had reached some of the mountains they had glimpsed earlier in the distance. That was progress for you. The jungle kept getting thicker and thicker, the heavy leaves seeming to absorb more of the light so that they were moving through shadow.
The air remained hot and humid, almost stifling down here where there wasn’t any breeze. The rain had stopped, but there was still so much moisture dripping from the trees that it was hard to tell.
The bare ground of the trail was wet and slippery, but if you stepped off the trail for a moment, the layer of damp, dead leaves felt as though you were walking on a soggy sponge.
Up ahead, a vine thick as his arm hung down from an overhanging tree branch. The vine moved, which was odd, considering there was no breeze. Taking a second look, he realized that it was not a vine at all, but a large snake. He gulped, keeping an eye on the snake as it slithered along the branch and out of sight, taking its time. The sight of snakes back home didn’t much bother him, but he felt a shiver run down his spine. That ain’t a garter snake.
The place was also lousy with mosquitoes. They buzzed in Deke’s ears, landed on his sweaty neck, flew into his nostrils. Deke was soon covered in bites. Some sort of centipede dropped from overhead and landed on Deke’s arm, then quickly legged it toward the back of his bare hand. Before he could flick it away, he felt a sting, and within minutes a marble-size welt grew on the back of his hand. It hurt like fire, but he ignored the pain, keeping his attention focused on the trail ahead. He reckoned that a Japanese bayonet through his guts would hurt a whole lot worse.
Everything in this place seemed to be out to get them, never mind the Japs. He recalled how Father Francisco had shared a story about how an expedition of Spanish conquistadors had entered the deep jungle during their exploration of Leyte and were never seen again. The priest had shared the story with a certain amount of pride, as if the jungle had settled some kind of score against the Spaniards. At the time, Deke had taken it as an old wives’ tale that those tough bastards with their swords and armor had simply been swallowed up by the jungle. Now he wasn’t so sure.
For whatever reason, the pesky critters didn’t seem to bother Danilo. Maybe he was just used to them. He didn’t swat at mosquitoes or so much as give the snake a second look.
Fortunately, Danilo hadn’t led them astray yet. Even Deke, for all his woodsy skill, wasn’t sure that he could have found their way back, considering that none of the trails were marked. The various forks and crossings got confusing. Their orders were to forge ahead. Either from instinct or experience, Danilo was finding the way forward.
It was hard to say how far they had come. A few miles, maybe? Surrounded by forest, the lack of any visible landmarks made it hard to judge. Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun began to go down. Deke was sure that when darkness came, it would come quickly. He looked around a little uneasily at the dense trees on either side of the trail. Already he couldn’t see more than fifty feet before the trees receded into the jungle gloom.
When they reached a wide place in the trail, Danilo signaled a halt. Deke nodded in silent agreement. It was getting dark, and there was no point in continuing. It would be too easy to simply wander off the trail. Deke pitied anyone who happened to.
He went back and found Captain Merrick, who agreed to a halt.
“Do you want us to dig in?” a sergeant asked, studying the ground beneath his feet doubtfully.
Merrick looked at the ground, thick with tangled roots. “Tell the men to do what they can,” he said. It went against every bone in the captain’s body not to at least try to dig in. “I don’t know how they’ll get through this mess. Let’s make sure we have guards posted at either end of the trail. If there’s trouble, that’s where it’s going to come from.”
Orders were given and the guards were posted. Some men managed to scoop out a shallow hole that was soon filled with rainwater, mud, and all sorts of creepy crawlies.
Deke saw that he’d been right — night fell swiftly. There was no tropical afterglow as there was near the beach areas. It was like being inside a cave.
Before it was completely dark, Danilo produced a string hammock from his bag, along with mosquito netting that he draped over his face. In minutes he was asleep in relative comfort.
The soldiers weren’t nearly so lucky. After their C rations, nobody slept, or not well. The men not on guard duty managed to snatch some sleep, dozing off as they sat upright, clutching their rifles. A few of the men rigged shelter halves in the branches in an attempt to stay dry. Others had a better idea and used the canvas to cover the soggy ground.
Deke sat beside Philly and Yoshio, the three of them huddled under ponchos. Although the rain had stopped, the trees still dripped, and the night was cooler than expected.
“I can’t decide if it’s wetter on the inside or the outside of this poncho,” Deke said.