Sometimes when he was shooting, he realized that he benefited from switching off the thinking part of his mind and letting instinct take over. His eyes, the muscle memory part of his brain, even his finger on the trigger all seemed hardwired together like a light circuit.
He exhaled, picked out a bird, and waited for it to settle into riding one of the invisible air currents trailing the ship. As soon as his crosshairs hovered for an instant, he pulled the trigger.
To his relief, the bird tumbled from the sky.
Cheers arose behind him.
“One down!” someone shouted. “Four more to go!”
“Not gonna happen!” Shaw boasted.
Deke obliged by quickly shooting down those four birds in rapid succession. He needed to knock one more out of the sky to beat Shaw.
Easier said than done. After taking so many losses, the birds seemed to be wising up to what was going on. They hung back farther from the ship and grew more skittish. They weren’t offering themselves up as easy targets.
Deke had no choice but to pick out a gull that was farther out than the others. He had lined up his sights when the bird suddenly dropped, disappearing from the scope’s field of view. Dammit. Fortunately he hadn’t fired yet, but he had to spend a moment acquiring the target again. The bird appeared to have dropped farther back.
Once again he let the crosshairs float across the bird. The instant they were lined up, he fired.
At first, nothing happened. The bird kept flying.
“He missed!” somebody shouted.
“That’s it! Pay up!”
But Deke knew that his bullet had gone true. He could feel it. He kept the scope focused on the bird.
All at once, the gull’s wings folded and the bird tumbled gracelessly from the sky and hit the sea with the smack of all its deadweight.
Deke considered that it hadn’t been the first time that something he’d shot hadn’t immediately known it was dead yet. It took a moment for the body to tell the brain, All right, you’re done. Whatever consciousness that even a bird or animal possessed clawed and fought for life up until the final breath. Deke had seen that it was the same with humans in this war.
Something swirled up under the bird, and it vanished.
Six birds to Shaw’s five. Deke had shown up the other shooter. He could have gone for seven birds but didn’t want to push his luck.
Nobody came over to slap him on the back. One look at Deke was all it took to know that any such gesture would not be welcome.
Philly was the exception. He swatted Deke on the shoulder with a meaty hand.
Deke let it go.
“Ha! How about that!” Philly said. He had added a few bills to join his crisp twenty. “I guess we showed them!”
Deke gave him a look. “Who is this we you’re going on about? Last time I checked, it was just me doing the shooting.”
Shaw came over, trailed by the other men from Woodall’s Scouts. Colonel Woodall stood to one side, scowling. The rest of Patrol Easy came to stand beside Deke.
“You got lucky on that sixth bird,” Shaw said.
“Maybe,” Deke agreed.
“Gee, we hate to show up Woodall’s Scouts like that, them being so fancy and all,” Philly said. “Woodall’s Scouts. Sounds like Boy Scouts to me.”
“Yeah, keep it up,” Shaw said. “I still need to earn my merit badge for busting noses.”
The men in both squads tensed up. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a rivalry turned into a fistfight.
“Knock it off, boys,” Woodall said. “Save it for the Japs.”
Nobody could argue with that — but still. The tension eased and the two groups began to drift away.
But Shaw seemed intent on having the last word. “This isn’t over,” he said. “We’ll have ourselves a proper match sometime on dry land. Actual targets, not seagulls. You’ll see some real shooting then.”
Deke nodded. “I reckon I’ll look forward to it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
If the men aboard ship felt that they were cogs in the wheel of the US war machine, then General Douglas MacArthur was the man cranking that wheel in the Pacific, at least where the army was concerned.
This October morning found him alone in his office, sucking on his pipe, studying maps and scanning reports. And yet he didn’t allow himself to become too absorbed in the paperwork. That was what his staff was for. First and foremost, MacArthur had come to realize that his primary role was to think and plan. He did that best while in motion, pacing his office almost like a caged lion. Definitely a lion, because it was a more regal beast than a panther or a striped tiger.
There was something of the last century that clung to the general’s persona and attitudes, including his ideas of battle. In part this was likely because his own father had fought in the Civil War. More than forty years into the twentieth century, the MacArthur clan still hadn’t completely embraced it.
Studying the maps, the invasion of Leyte weighed heavily on his mind. A great deal was at stake, from the lives of thousands of men to the future of the Pacific War to his own reputation. It might even be hard to say which one of these things MacArthur valued the most.
To be sure, MacArthur was an old soldier in more ways than one. A graduate of West Point, he had been first in his class in 1903, which would have been a foregone conclusion to anyone who’d known him in those days. He had led troops in combat during the First World War as a young officer. Even then he’d had a flair for the flamboyant, wearing a custom-made nonregulation uniform. He’d gotten away with it because he was MacArthur — and even those who didn’t like him had to admit that he was a bold son of a bitch.
The so-called Great War was supposed to end all future wars. It went without saying that the peace promised by that Great War had not been lasting, and had actually set the stage for conflict due to the punitive stance taken toward Germany. It was a lesson in management that MacArthur would later bring with him to the occupation of Japan.
After all, the general was not just a soldier and strategist but also a student of history. Back when he had been commandant of West Point, he had insisted that the students be trained in more than engineering and warfare. He understood that winning was only half the battle — the victors must also be occupiers. An officer with some grasp of history and civics made for a much better peacetime administrator, in MacArthur’s view.
He’d made other changes at West Point, such as working to do away with the savage hazing that took place against cadets. One solution was to eliminate older cadets being in charge of drilling and discipline. Instead, he put veteran army sergeants in charge of training. They weren’t any easier on the cadets, but at least they were professional.
His ideas for changing the curriculum at West Point had not been popular, but MacArthur had forged ahead, despite the naysayers. He never had been one to worry about what others thought as long as the ball was carried forward. Besides, once MacArthur had made up his mind to get something done, he was about as flexible as a steel beam.
While his exploits during the Great War had won him the command of West Point, many people were not as familiar with his more youthful adventures. As a young military surveyor in the Philippines, he had shot and killed two brigands who’d ambushed him in the jungle.
Then, in the US adventure into Veracruz, he had undertaken a daring solo mission and single-handedly held off several attacks by bands of Pancho Villa’s cavalry during the course of a single desperate day, ultimately shooting and killing seven men in the process.
His personal bravery in battle was clear to all — even his detractors and rivals had to admit that MacArthur was a man who was willing to lead from the front.