They had hoped that the squall would blow on through, but the mass of clouds seemed to drop anchor over the island. Rain fell and wind blew. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed. Deke was worried about the rain getting into his telescopic sight, so he stuck his rifle under his poncho and jabbed his knife into the mud nearby, within easy reach. Earlier, he had given his pistol to Yoshio, who had soon returned from his mission to interview wounded prisoners.
Yoshio huddled miserably nearby, rain sluicing off his helmet and down the back of his collar. He had stuck Deke’s pistol in his pocket.
The interpreter noticed him looking. “Deke, do you want your pistol back?”
“Nah, you hang on to it. But Yoshio, we’re gonna have to find you a rifle later,” Deke said. “That way, you’ll be more like an actual soldier.”
“If you do not think I am a soldier, then what do you think I am?”
“Hell, Yoshio, you’re more like a mascot,” Philly said. “You know, like a Japanese lapdog.”
Yoshio glared.
Deke ignored Philly and asked Yoshio, “How did it go at the beach? Did you talk to any prisoners?”
“I am afraid not. The only wounded prisoners still alive were too bad off to talk or addled with morphine. All the others had taken their own lives in some way.” He shook his head. “They simply refuse to surrender.”
Deke thought about that. What kind of enemy were they up against, anyhow? He recalled the fearless way the Japanese sniper had stood up from the shelter of the rocks during the battle, challenging him. The man must really have thought that he was a samurai. Yoshio was right — soldiers like that would never surrender.
“It’s a hell of a thing,” Deke finally said, hoping he wouldn’t encounter the Samurai Sniper again.
Chapter Seventeen
By the next morning, the sun had returned. Not a cloud marred the sky, and the endless blue bowl of the earth’s atmosphere flowed seamlessly into the azure of the ocean horizon. If it hadn’t been for the dirty water filling their foxholes, it would have been hard to believe that the deluge had ever happened.
Nonetheless, discounting the lush greenery and blue skies, nobody was about to confuse Guam with a tropical paradise this morning.
The men crawled out of their wet holes, and their damp uniforms began to steam as the sun beat down. Insects swarmed relentlessly. Clouds of flies and armies of ants descended on the mass of dead enemy bodies. As the heat grew, the smell made some men puke.
One silver lining was that the night had passed uneventfully after the storm had blown through, even if nobody had gotten any decent sleep in the wet holes. The Japanese must have pulled back deep into the jungle.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Lieutenant Steele warned them as they choked down their breakfast rations. “We’re being sent ahead to track down the Japs and figure out where they’re hiding.”
Philly groaned. “You mean the war’s not over yet? We kicked their asses yesterday.”
“I hate to tell you this, but there are several thousand Japanese still on this island. Before we showed up, they built fallback positions in the jungle. Those Nips are dug in deep.”
“What are we supposed to do about it, Honcho? We’re only a handful of guys.”
“Our job is to gather any intelligence we can. Where are the Japs hiding? What do their defenses look like? Where do they have their ammunition and supplies?”
“But we’re snipers.”
“We’re stealthy,” Steele said. “Or at least we’re supposed to be stealthy. That makes us perfect for the job. So quit your whining and get ready to move out. Pack light. Except for ammo. Bring plenty of that.”
Philly wasn’t ready to give up.
“Can’t the navy boys just steam around the island and bomb it to hell, and the Japs with it? Why do they need to send us?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not just Japs on the island. There is also a significant population of Chamorro natives. Women and children. A lot of them were held in labor camps. You want to drop bombs on their heads?”
“I guess not.”
“Didn’t think so. And the jungle cover is too heavy for the flyboys to see much from the air. Once we give them some targets, it’ll be a different story.”
They soon learned that the squad wouldn’t be going alone. In addition to Deke and the other snipers, they would be accompanied by Yoshio, in hopes that they might be able to capture and interrogate any Japanese prisoners.
“Good luck with that,” Philly muttered.
Also, Egan and Whoa Nelly would be going with them — the idea being that the dog could sniff out any Japs hiding in the mountains. They would also have a guide, a local Chamorro with the improbable name of Tony Cruz. Like most Chamorros, he preferred using both his first name and last name together.
Though shorter than the Americans, he was a solid, stern-looking man, wearing civilian clothes that included trousers hacked off at calf length, and rope-soled sandals rather than boots. He carried a rifle liberated from a dead Jap, but what was most noticeable was the huge machete that swung at his side. His main language seemed to be Chamorro, which sounded something like Spanish that had been left in the tropical sun too long, but he soon showed that he knew enough English to get by.
“Japs die,” he announced, grinning for the first time and revealing brilliant white teeth unstained by coffee or tobacco.
“I like this guy already,” Philly said. “Good to meet you, Tony Cruz.”
Their eight-man patrol wasn’t the only one headed into the jungle that morning. Four other patrols were also fanning out in other directions, with the goal of probing as much of the jungle as possible. They would be the eyes and ears for the entire division.
The patrols were something of a calculated risk — the lives of maybe forty men against the lives of hundreds. Any intelligence that they gathered could be vital. General Bruce wasn’t about to send his division blindly into the jungle-covered hills and mountains. The Japanese would have welcomed that strategy. Of course, the harsh terrain would have finished off whatever troops didn’t fall victim to the Japanese.
Each squad was equipped with a radio — Lieutenant Steele assigned Alphabet to carry it. Each of the squads also received a code name. Steele’s squad was dubbed “Patrol Easy.”
“Sounds about right,” Philly said.
Deke reminded himself that the entire island was only about the size of his own Hancock County back home. That didn’t sound big until you thought about how long it would take to walk all that way, up and down mountains, through thick jungle. A plane could pass over the island in minutes, but not a man on foot. The jungle terrain made the size of the island exponentially larger.
Moving out, first they had to cross through the fringes of the jungle that had been smashed by the naval bombardment. Mixed among the shattered trees and shredded greenery, plus churned soil, were the bodies of the Japanese who had been caught there while retreating from the attack. Deke put his boot down in something soft and pale — and thought that he’d stepped on a mushroom or fungus of some sort. Looking closer, he realized that it was a man’s entrails. His only thought was, Glad they ain’t mine.
Out in the open, souvenir hunters had picked the dead Japanese clean, but they hadn’t made it into the shattered jungle, which had been off-limits. Everyone was too worried that there might still be living Japs around.
“Hey, will you look at that!” Philly exclaimed. He reached down to pull both a sword and a pistol from the body of a dead Japanese officer. Unlike many of the bodies, there didn’t appear to be a scratch on him — he might have been sleeping. Philly held his treasures up for the others to admire. “Jackpot, baby!”