“You’ve all got rifles, in case you haven’t noticed. There is currently no better weapon than the Garand M1.”
“But don’t we get actual sniper rifles? With telescopic sights?”
“I’m working on it,” the lieutenant said. “In case you haven’t noticed, sniper rifles are in short supply. The armory happens to be several thousand miles away. About the only thing that’s plentiful on this island would be coconuts, sand, and Japs. Speaking of which, it’s going to be dark soon, so we need to dig in for the night.”
“Hey, Honcho, when do we go after the Japs?” Philly asked. He seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was allowed to call an officer by a nickname just a little too much.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Philly. There will be plenty of Japs around tonight. They’re accomplished night fighters, believe me. Tomorrow, we’ll do some training in sniper tactics. Don’t forget what I told you about Guadalcanal. Believe me, if you don’t learn how to beat the Japs at their own game, you won’t last a minute out there.”
Chapter Six
Before they could do any training, they had to survive their first night of war, on a mountainous jungle island held by the enemy. More than one man wondered just what the hell he had gotten himself into.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of wish I was back on Market Street, watching the dames go by,” Philly muttered. “I used to think that was tame stuff. I wouldn’t mind something tame right about now. How about you, Deke? What did you do for fun on Saturday nights in the country? Milk the cows? Fuck a goat?”
Deke snorted. “Goats were all right for weeknights, but if you could get yourself a sheep for Saturday night, now that was special.”
Philly stared at him. “The scary thing is that I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. I sure hope we don’t end up together in a foxhole tonight.”
The squad moved toward the perimeter, where the leading edge of the regiment faced the Japanese Army. Fighting had been intense all day, so no one expected an easy night ahead. The Japs had a reputation as night fighters and favored infiltration. It didn’t help that most of the army troops were green and trigger-happy. Deke and the rest of the new squad took up a position anchoring the flank of B Company.
“Dig ’em deep, fellas,” Lieutenant Steele said. “I know it’s hot as hell, but if the Japs hit us with mortars, you’ll want that hole as deep as possible.”
Deke wasn’t about to argue. He had already gotten a taste of the Jap mortars. He also recalled how a mortar had torn up the soldier who had given him the hat, which he still wore. Maybe it was against regulations, but the lieutenant hadn’t said a word about it.
Deke’s wiry muscles were used to digging, but even so, the sweat was soon pouring off him. They had moved inland away from the breeze on the beach, so that the heat and humidity hung upon them like wet canvas. Flies had pestered them during the daylight hours, but now a host of new biting and stinging insects descended upon them as twilight fell.
Bugs were the least of their worries, however. The men laboring to dig their foxholes needed to protect against further Japanese attack. The troops were holding the narrow band of beach that they had wrested from the Japanese forces. It was only a matter of time before they could expect a counterattack.
Lieutenant Steele paired them off, and Deke found himself digging the foxhole alongside Philly. He would have thought Philly was the lazy type of soldier, but to his surprise, the other man set to work with a frenzy. The folding, short-handled trenching tools were not ideal when standing because of the strain they caused on the back, but the spades worked well enough from a kneeling position. In a pinch, a trenching tool also made a good weapon for hand-to-hand combat. Some of the men carried trench knives with brass-knuckle grips that they had bought in Hawaii.
Deke was happy enough with the sturdy fighting knife he had been issued. He had honed the double-edged tip to a razor’s edge. The knife also doubled as a bayonet that slid on the end of an M1. He drew it now and hacked at a stubborn root.
“If the Japanese come, I’m going to be dug in deep,” Philly said.
“I’ve got to tell you, it’s not a matter of if—it’s when,” Deke said confidently. “You heard what the lieutenant said. Those Japs are sure to hit us and hit us hard. They don’t want us here. You saw all that gear on the beach, same as I did and the Japs did. If they don’t push us off soon, they ain’t gonna have another chance.”
“How long have you been on this island?” Philly asked. “It sure seems like you know a lot.”
“I’ve been here the same as you. Long enough to get the lay of the land,” Deke said.
“Lay of the land, huh? What a hayseed,” Philly said, and went back to digging.
They kept working, shoveling down into the sandy soil, but the digging soon became harder as they encountered roots and even the coral base, like a bedrock, that formed the foundation for much of the island. As far as Deke could tell, the only things that he had seen growing on the island of any size were the coconut trees and plenty of jungle on the distant hills.
For a moment, his memories carried him back to the farm. Even as rocky and stingy as their fields had been, they were far superior to the soil here. The Coles had managed to scratch a few crops out of their hardscrabble soil, but it hadn’t been enough, even when Deke worked himself to the bone. He and his sister, Sadie, had watered those crops with tears and sweat. It didn’t matter. The Coles had lost their farm to the bank in the end. After that, he’d had no choice but to work in the sawmill — labor that was just as hard and twice as dangerous, without the independence or dignity of living off the land.
In a sense, the war had liberated him from a lot of misery.
Not for the first time, Deke thought that if he ever made it home again, he was going to shoot that banker dead.
It wasn’t an idle thought. For the mountain people, revenge ran deep as the veins of granite in the Appalachians. He had to admit, revenge was part of his motivation for fighting the Japanese, on account of his cousin being killed at Pearl Harbor. Already, he had managed to kill two Japs today. With any luck, he’d get at least a couple more.
It felt good to be getting even for his cousin. As for the banker, he’d have to wait.
Still, he imagined that banker in his rifle sights and grinned.
“What are you smiling about?” Philly asked.
“Ain’t nothin’.”
“OK, I was worried you were thinking about sheep.”
Deke snorted and jabbed the blade deep.
All too soon, darkness began to fall. One minute there was a kind of soft light illuminating their surroundings. And then the setting sun slid into the distant band of ocean, and night came on.
With darkness, the fighting certainly had not come to an end for the night. They could see distant muzzle flashes from small arms and sometimes bigger guns — tanks maybe.
Somewhere far to the left, the marines were not stopping for the night but still pushing deeper into the Japanese-held territory. How they could even tell where they were going was anybody’s guess, but they slugged their way forward like a blinded prizefighter. The Japs weren’t giving up anytime soon and fought back, throwing their own punches.
They heard the chatter of machine-gun fire, the snap of individual rifle shots, and the thump of mortar grenades — and possibly even a few tanks. They had seen the burning wreckage of a couple of the small Japanese tanks near the beach. They were no match for the Shermans that had been brought ashore. It boggled Deke’s mind just a little to think that tanks had been brought all the way out here to an island in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from the factories where they had been made.