“Philly, we’re just getting started,” Steele pointed out. “Are you seriously going to haul that junk around with you?”
“This is the good stuff, Honcho.”
“If you say so. I’m not going to order you to ditch it, but you know what to do with that stuff when it gets too heavy. Until then, maybe you can use that sword to hack through the jungle up ahead.”
Most of the GIs in the Seventy-Seventh had been issued machetes, but Patrol Easy had opted to leave them behind in the interest of traveling light. If there were any trails to carve, they would leave that up to their Chamorro guide. He looked more than capable with that machete.
Philly stuck the pistol in his belt and slid the sword through a strap in his pack. When Steele had moved off, Deke said quietly to Philly, “If some Jap sniper sees you carrying his dead pal’s gear as a souvenir, you do know that he’s gonna take his time killing you, don’t you?”
Philly just snorted. “I’d like to see him try.”
They reached the banks of a body of water without too much trouble. Lieutenant Steele told them it was a reservoir that once served the US Marines stationed on the island before the Japanese incursion. Here as elsewhere, the trees looked badly shattered by the naval bombardment.
Tony Cruz led the way. Soon, the land rose and they entered a rough, hilly area overgrown by the sharp-edge kunai grass. It grew in clumps that were shoulder high, and with its razor-sharp edges it left painful cuts on any exposed skin. Small rivulets of blood soon crisscrossed their hands and necks where they’d had to force their way through the grass.
It was also snake country. He caught glimpses of snakes slithering away between the clumps of grass, some light brown, some multicolored like the king snakes back home in the mountains.
Snakes had never much bothered Deke, and even in all his treks through the mountains he had only rarely seen a copperhead or rattler, but right now he was still glad of the gaiters protecting his ankles and calves. The wraps were aggravating to put on and take off, but the effort now seemed worth it. Philly seemed especially worried about the snakes, keeping his eyes on the ground. However, Deke kept his eyes on the grassy hillocks ahead. He was far more worried about Japs who might be waiting to ambush them.
He detected movement ahead. A handful of helmets bobbed above the waving tips of the kunai grass.
“Tony Cruz,” he whispered.
The Chamorro nodded. He had seen them too. He stopped, bringing the squad to a halt.
“What is it?” Lieutenant Steele asked.
“Japs.”
“Ambush?”
Deke shook his head. The last glimpse he’d had of the Japs was of them moving away from the squad, as if avoiding the Americans. “No, Honcho. I reckon they’re trying to get away from us.”
“All right, everybody hold your fire. We’re supposed to be scouting, not fighting. Let’s give them a wide berth.”
At the head of the column, Tony Cruz nodded and moved to the right, away from the last place where they had seen the enemy soldiers. Nonetheless, everybody kept their fingers on their triggers. Egan gripped Whoa Nelly’s leash as she sniffed the air. There was no telling if more Japs might be hidden in the tall grass.
Deke wondered about the Japs they had seen. Maybe they’d had enough of fighting and were avoiding the GIs. It was also possible that the small Jap squad was doing the same thing as Patrol Easy — scouting out the enemy. Deke kept his eyes roving across the tall grass that waved and flowed all around them in the island breeze. He didn’t see any sign of the Japs.
It was with a certain sense of relief that they left the grassy plain near the reservoir behind and entered the jungle.
The demeanor of their Chamorro guide quickly changed. Tony Cruz grew even more silent and alert, moving cautiously. He seemed to crouch, giving his already stocky body the appearance of a coiled spring.
He was following a path, his feet making no sound on the soft island soil.
Deke moved right behind him, equally as quiet.
The guide paused and looked back, seemingly surprised to find Deke just a few feet away. He’d been that quiet.
The Chamorro looked Deke up and down. “You hunter?” he asked.
Deke nodded, and the Chamorro nodded back in approval before continuing on his way.
If the field of kunai grass had been a likely place for an ambush, the jungle was even more threatening. Deke decided that an entire squad of Japs could be hiding right off the trail, close enough to reach out and touch, and he would never see them. He just prayed that the Chamorro had some kind of sixth sense for detecting Japs.
The grassy field had been open and breezy, the sunshine dazzling. The jungle felt like the complete opposite. The thick canopy cut off most of the sunlight. They moved through a sun-dappled dusk. Down among the tree trunks, the air felt still and ominous. Swarms of mosquitoes and other nasty biting insects descended upon them in the stillness.
Behind him, he heard the dog whine.
“Easy, girl,” Egan whispered, as if fearful of breaking the silence.
Deke loved the woods back home and had spent all the time there that he could when he wasn’t working on the farm, but this was so different from the deciduous forests that he had known. Was he even on the same planet? he wondered. Smooth trunks reached far above, thick vines hung down, and all manner of vegetation pressed in around them. The odor of decaying plant material filled the air.
At first, the jungle had seemed so quiet. It was the same situation back home. When you first entered the woods, the critters there fell silent. After a time, they got used to you and went back to chattering. But now he began to hear the cries of tropical birds and animals squealing. He passed what he thought was a vine wrapped around a tree trunk not more than a foot from his face — and on second glance realized it was a gigantic snake.
He grinned. The jungle might take some getting used to, but something about it appealed to his solitary nature. If he spent enough time in these shadowy cathedrals, he might even come to like the jungle. He could already sense that Tony Cruz was a disciple of the jungle, well aware of its dangers. The cautious way that he moved was likely prompted by the dual threat of Jap soldiers alongside the hazards held by these twilit surroundings.
They kept going, with the sturdy Chamorro leading the way, his rope-soled sandals silent, rifle at the ready. The trail faded out, and Tony, unperturbed, took out his machete and chopped a path for them through a dense wall of underbrush until they came to another path. How he had known it was there was anybody’s guess. It was hard to say if the paths had been created by animals or humans, or a combination of both.
Around noontime by Deke’s Timex, Lieutenant Steele called a halt. They stopped and gratefully gulped from their canteens, then ate a few rations. Their guide produced what looked like an apple and carved slices with a primitive, bone-handled knife before popping them into his mouth, chewing slowly and methodically.
Having grown up hungry, Deke recognized that as the way you ate to stretch out your food and fool your belly into thinking it was full. He approached Tony Cruz and offered him some of his rations. He accepted with a nod but no other sign of emotion. Deke also knew from experience that when you were really hungry, you sometimes had to swallow your pride along with whatever handouts you could get.
In any case, he was glad that the Chamorro was on their side. Not that there was a single Chamorro who had allied himself with the Imperial Japanese Army — at least not by choice. It was no secret that the Japanese had treated the natives cruelly and were universally disliked. The Spanish and then the Americans had also ruled this island, but the Chamorros had adopted aspects of both cultures. They hated the Japanese.