Deke knew the lieutenant was correct that their mission was to reconnoiter and gather intelligence about the enemy position, so that was exactly what they were going to do.
Going by what the captured soldier had said, they left the cave and prepared to move out.
“Do you think we can trust that Nip?” Philly asked, glancing back at the wounded Japanese soldier. “He might be leading us right into a trap.”
“Philly, this whole island is a trap. Besides, I reckon he knows that he’s one wrong turn away from gettin’ a bullet in the back.”
Cautiously, they climbed out of the valley that contained the waterfall. It had been like a beautiful, hidden oasis from the war raging around them. Deke had to wonder how many places there were like this on Guam, where a man could hide himself away and not be found. He thought that if the Japanese wanted to, they could drag this war out for years if small groups hid themselves in the jungle.
From time to time, an American fighter plane zipped overhead. They tried to keep out of sight of the planes, for fear that from the air they might be mistaken for a Japanese patrol. After all, American forces had not pushed into this sector yet. The pilots would see anything that moved on the ground as fair game.
Once they were back on high ground, they spotted the smoke and flames of something burning on the opposite rim of the valley that they had just climbed out of. The lieutenant paused to look through the binoculars.
“Looks like the flyboys caught up with that Jap tank we ran into earlier,” Steele said. “Good riddance.”
The red dirt trail became more pronounced as they approached the area where the prisoner indicated the Japanese were dug in. It made sense that the paths would be more heavily used if this was an active area frequented by Japanese troops. The minerals in the soil gave the steep sides of the path a kind of rainbow pattern that reminded Deke of shale cliffs back home.
They began to move more cautiously, worried about running into the enemy.
Egan brought the dog up, letting her nose lead the way. “She’ll give us a warning, boys,” Egan said, obviously proud of the dog. “She hasn’t let us down yet. Go get ’em, Nelly.”
Reluctantly, Tony Cruz stepped aside and let Whoa Nelly lead the way down the path. She seemed to be straining at her leash, eager to get at the Japs. Still licking their wounds from the earlier fight, Patrol Easy wasn’t nearly as eager to run into the enemy again.
Even with the dog leading the way, Deke didn’t let his guard down. His eyes roamed constantly. On the upside, he supposed that the Japs weren’t expecting them yet, considering that the bulk of US forces remained on the opposite side of the island.
Given the size of the island, the distance back to the beachhead wasn’t far as the crow flies, but they weren’t crows. Reaching this point would require the rest of the division to bushwhack its way through the jungle. It would have been great if they’d been able to simply land men and supplies by boat, but this side of the island had only steep cliffs that sloped down to the ocean.
The only choice was to come by land, although bringing up supplies and tanks would be a nightmare. There were no paved roads, but only dirt trails. Churned up by the passing troops and saturated by frequent downpours, the red, sticky soil of Guam quickly turned to mud that sucked down boots and gripped tires and tank tracks.
As they walked, sweat dripped into Deke’s eyes. The heat and humidity were worse than it got in August back home.
Deke slapped at a biting fly that had been pestering him for several minutes, and his hand came away bloody. He wiped his palm on his muddy trousers. “Got him. You think the bugs are on the same side as the Japs?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Philly said. “I’ve lost about a pint of blood to these suckers since yesterday.”
“That’s ’cuz you taste so sweet.”
Philly snorted. “We need to get the Seabees in here to spray this whole island with DDT.”
Since the beachhead had been secured, teams had been working to spray the jungle perimeter with a mixture of diesel oil and DDT to keep down the flies and mosquitoes. Deke had no idea whether it worked, but the stink of diesel oil filled the air near the beach.
Fortunately, the Seabees hadn’t gotten this far with their noxious spray. Despite the heat and insects, Deke had to admit that he found something alluring in the landscape of this place. The gentle mountains, meandering creeks, high-country meadows, and deciduous woods of the Appalachians would always be his first love. But the lush green jungle — by turns mysterious, dark, and quiet — also had its appeal, as did this grassy rolling country.
Earlier, he’d made the mistake of saying as much to Philly. “You know what? I reckon I wouldn’t mind coming back here and exploring someday when the place wasn’t crawling with Japs.”
“Are you nuts?” Philly had scoffed. “I don’t want to see so much as a palm tree ever again.”
The Jap prisoner said something, and Lieutenant Steele called a halt. The Jap was pointing at a mountain that loomed out of the jungle ahead. Lieutenant Steele had his map out, getting their bearings.
“That looks like Mount Santa Rosa,” he announced, folding the map away. “Over that way is Yigo. And a little beyond them both is the ocean. If that’s where the Japs are, it looks to me like they have their backs against the sea. There’s nowhere else for them to run.”
“Just like the Alamo, only with Davy Crockett fighting on the wrong side.”
Lieutenant Steele looked over at Yoshio. “Ask our prisoner where we can find his buddies.”
Once Yoshio had asked the question, the prisoner talked at length. Deke tried to wrap his head around some of the words, but Japanese made as much sense to him as chickens clucking, and he gave up after a while. Yoshio would let them know if the prisoner had anything important to say.
The prisoner seemed to have relaxed somewhat around his American captors, who were not the monsters that his superiors had convinced him that they would be. In fact, they treated him better than Okubo had. His wounds had pained him, but the food and water had given him enough energy to keep up with the patrol.
For obvious reasons, the young prisoner had attached himself to Yoshio, who was about the same age. After all, Yoshio was the only one he could communicate with in the patrol. Yoshio treated the prisoner kindly enough. At one point, they had even shared a laugh.
That didn’t go over well with Philly. “Don’t get too friendly with that Jap,” he warned Yoshio. “We might still have to shoot him.”
Yoshio glanced at Lieutenant Steele, who didn’t comment one way or the other but took out his map again as if to occupy himself. He seemed reluctant to say that the prisoner’s life still hung in the balance. They could hardly march around for days burdened with a prisoner.
Now the Japanese prisoner eagerly pointed out what Yoshio explained were artillery positions, dug into the steep sides of the mountain.
“He says there are thousands of soldiers there,” Yoshio explained. “They have dug caves and tunnels to turn that mountain into a fortress.”
“I suppose that I ought to take his word for it,” Steele said. “But I want to see for myself. I want some visual confirmation before I invite the whole division to join us here.”
“Invite, huh? That’s one hell of a way to put it, Honcho.”
With more than a little trepidation, the patrol continued forward. The fortified mountain grew closer. Steele took out his binoculars and studied the slopes. Deke did the same through the riflescope, which was not as powerful but revealed Japanese soldiers milling around the tunnel entrances. Other soldiers stood in the bastions as if awaiting the appearance of the enemy. Deke was sure that they would not be disappointed before too long.