In terms of recapturing any lost territory, the small attacks had been a futile effort. Strategically, the attacks had been more than effective, denying the GIs any sleep and leaving them with jangled nerves.
A few American bodies also lay on the ground. One of them was a soldier who had made the mistake of getting out of his foxhole during the night to relieve himself.
Philly shook his head at the sight of the body. “Poor bastard,” he said.
Deke remembered the incident all too vividly. In the wee hours of the morning, one of the GIs had seen a shape moving in the darkness just behind the foxholes.
“Who goes there?” somebody had shouted. “What’s the password?”
Before there was an answer, somebody had opened fire with a submachine gun.
Whoever had been out there screamed. It hadn’t sounded like a Jap. Especially not after he’d started crying for his mama in plain, agonized English.
“It’s Stokes!” someone had shouted. “You shot Stokes!”
“Medic!”
“What the hell was he doing out of his foxhole?”
The medic and another man had gone to retrieve Stokes and drag him back to cover.
But it had been no use. They’d heard Stokes crying softly for his mother, the medic telling him to hang in there. Then Stokes had fallen quiet.
“He’s dead.”
“What the hell happened?”
According to his buddy, Stokes had had diarrhea but had been too embarrassed to relieve himself right there in the foxhole. Instead, he had taken his chances and slipped off into the dark. His buddy had known he was out there, but somebody else had spotted him and opened fire before Stokes could respond with the password.
“I didn’t know,” the soldier had said plaintively. “I thought he was a Jap. I didn’t know!”
From the depths of his foxhole, they’d heard sobbing.
Lieutenant Steele had spoken up. Most of the men who were more than a few feet away hadn’t been able to see him, but his voice carried to all those in the vicinity. “Listen, what happened to that kid is a damned shame. But it’s not anybody’s fault. Everybody’s jumpy, and the Japs have already attacked us several times tonight. You can’t tell who’s who in the dark. Anybody who has got to go, do it in your foxhole.”
Philly had sighed. “That fella died because he needed the latrine. It’s a hell of a thing. I hope that lieutenant doesn’t put that in his letter home to that kid’s family. That lieutenant wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Nearby, Steele said quietly, “Listen, Philly. Nobody writes the truth in those letters home. ‘He never felt a thing’ or ‘He died fighting alongside his friends.’ Lord knows, I’ve written a few of those letters myself. Keep your heads down because I’m not in any hurry to write another one.”
Once it was full daylight, the sniper squad stayed put while the rest of the unit began to move out. The Japanese strategy was to go into hiding during the day and let the Americans come to them.
“What about us, Honcho?” Philly asked the lieutenant.
“We’re headed back to the beach,” the lieutenant said. “You saw yourself how the enemy operates. If we hope to have any sort of chance against them, we need to be prepared.”
Accompanying them was the Japanese officer who had charged them the night before. His wrists were firmly bound, and Alphabet led him using a length of rope, although the officer resisted, reminding Deke of stubborn livestock on the farm.
“Keep an eye on him,” Deke said. “He’s ornery. He’d like nothin’ better than to get that sword back and cut you open from stem to stern.”
Alphabet gulped. “You think so?”
“Look at his eyes. I know so.”
“None of us can speak a word of Japanese, so we’ll take him back to HQ and find out what he knows.”
“What, do they have Japs down there at the beach to translate?” Philly wondered.
“As a matter of fact, they do,” the lieutenant said. “They’re called Nisei. Japanese Americans.”
Philly shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust them,” he said. “They’re Japs all the same.”
The soldier’s eyes did glare at them hatefully. Being taken alive was likely the last thing that he had expected. Lieutenant Steele had wrapped the sword blade in a strip of cloth, and he took it out now and inspected it.
Using two hands, the lieutenant swung the two-foot blade a couple of times. They could all hear the way that the razor-sharp edge cut the air. The lieutenant whistled, clearly impressed. “I believe that this is called a katana. A Japanese officer’s sword, which is basically a samurai sword.”
Seeing the lieutenant with the sword seemed to enrage the officer. Shouting, he surged toward the lieutenant, straining against the ropes. Big as he was, it was all that Ingram could do to hold him back.
“What’s he saying?”
“I guess he’s saying that he wants his sword back.” Lieutenant Steele wrapped up the sword again and returned it to his pack. He grinned at the captured Japanese. “Well, you should have thought of that before you attacked us, buddy.”
Philly stepped back nervously from the Japanese officer, who was now simply snarling at them, helpless in his rage. “He’s an animal,” Philly said.
Lieutenant Steele looked thoughtful. “If you could ask him, I’ll bet that he’d say we are the animals. From the Jap point of view, we’re the barbarians — not them.”
“In that case, they’re pretty mixed up.”
They headed back to the beachhead. Deke took one last look behind him at the now-empty foxholes that they had worked so hard to dig. A few dead Japanese still lay scattered about the clearing, with the jungle starting beyond that. It didn’t look like much of anything — certainly not a place worth fighting and dying over.
“What are you thinking, Deke?” Lieutenant Steele asked, noticing that Deke had paused to look back.
“Just that this business of war is gonna take some getting used to.”
“Good luck with that. I’m still trying to get used to it myself, and I’ve been doing this since Guadal. Now keep up. I wouldn’t want the Japs to get you.”
After the lieutenant turned over the captured officer, they returned to the area on the beach where they had gathered yesterday. Waves rushed relentlessly onto the shore, and a few gulls called overhead. The surroundings almost made it possible to forget, even for a moment, that there was a war going on.
They were not entirely alone. A reporter had heard about the sniper squad and their successful capture of a Japanese officer. The reporter had tagged along, much to Lieutenant Steele’s chagrin.
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Ernie Pyle,” he said.
“Say, I’ve heard of you. I’ve even read some of your stories. You’re the actual Ernie Pyle?”
The reporter shrugged his rail-thin shoulders. He had a worn-out, hangdog appearance and sad eyes that looked as if they had seen too much. “I’m not the one who matters here. You boys are the story, not me.”
“I thought you were over in Europe.”
“I was, but with Hitler on the run, this is where the story is now.”
“If you say so, Mr. Pyle.”
“Ernie is just fine, Lieutenant. Just pretend I’m not here. I’m going to take some notes and watch. Listen and learn, as it were.”
Steele nodded. “All right, gather round,” the lieutenant said. “Yesterday, we had a chance to see how everyone could shoot.”
“Some of us are better than others, Honcho. That’s for sure.”
“Marksmanship is only part of the equation,” the lieutenant said. “Sure, it’s important to be able to hit the target. But you’ve also got to be able to get close enough to the target, and then not give yourself away in the process. Meanwhile, the Japanese have their own snipers at work. That’s what we’re going to learn about today.”