“Captain Okubo!” Private Kimura cried out in dismay, but Okubo ignored him, keeping his focus on the target.
The plane was so close that Okubo could see the pilot inside the glass canopy. Keeping the crosshairs on the target, he squeezed the trigger.
Then he dived, pulling Kimura down with him as the plane swept past them, the wing seeming to cut the air where their heads had been a moment before.
Slowly, he got back to his feet. The tower rolled like a ship at sea. To Okubo’s astonishment, he saw the plane veer to the left and begin to roll, going belly-up before crashing into the base of Mount Alifan, a promontory that rose more than a thousand feet above the otherwise level peninsula.
“You got him!” Private Kimura shouted. “You shot down the plane!”
“So it seems.” It had been a one in a million shot, Okubo thought. He allowed himself a moment to stare in amazement at the flaming wreckage.
Fresh movement beneath his feet reminded him of their predicament. The tower might give way at any moment. He gave Private Kimura a shove toward the ladder. “Iku! Iku! Go! Go!”
The private did not need to be told twice. He started down the ladder with Okubo right behind him. They passed the bloody remains of the flight control officer, draped over a beam. All around them, the swaying tower creaked and groaned.
In the race down, the tower won. Private Kimura let go of the ladder and dropped the last several feet to the ground, and Okubo followed suit, rolling as he hit the ground and doing his best to protect the rifle. Behind them, the tower lurched away and collapsed with a mighty crash. If they had tried to hold on, they would have been crushed.
But the danger was not over. The airfield was still under attack. More bombs fell, and yet more planes strafed anything that moved.
Okubo raced back toward the shelter of the pillbox where they had hidden themselves earlier. On the way, he saw a pilot, badly wounded, dragging himself along the ground. Evidently the man had been running for his plane but hadn’t made it, caught instead by a burst from an enemy aircraft.
“Help me get him to the pillbox,” Okubo ordered Kimura. They both took hold of the pilot and half dragged, half carried him to cover.
“Thank you,” the pilot said gratefully in a weak voice. The pilot’s leather jacket was soaked in blood, and the man’s breathing was ragged. Okubo tugged the jacket open and pulled the man’s shirt away to see if he could somehow stanch the flow of blood, but when he saw the gaping wound, he knew that it was too late for this man. He had seen similar wounds before and knew that the man would suffer and eventually die, but only after hours of agony.
Okubo drew his knife. He did not carry a full-length katana sword like other officers, but he did have a long dagger, known as a tantō. Beautifully made, with a handle decorated with tortoiseshell, it had come down through the family and was very old — and razor-sharp.
“Look at the rising sun,” Okubo said to the pilot. “You have fought with honor.”
When the pilot looked away, Okubo slid the dagger up and under the man’s ribs and into his heart. Okubo’s thrust was quick and efficient, ending the pilot’s suffering. The man shuddered once as the blade drove home, then lay still.
Private Kimura had kept one hand on the pilot’s shoulder; slowly, he let it fall. If he was more than a little astonished at the way in which Okubo had ended the pilot’s life, he managed to keep it to himself.
Beyond the pillbox, the attack seemed to have relented. The American planes were retreating to their aircraft carriers, out of sight beyond the horizon. If the carriers were nearby, then the invasion fleet must be close at hand.
“The Americans have destroyed the airfield,” Private Kimura said, looking around at the destruction. Almost all the planes on the ground were wrecked or burning. The planes that had managed to get into the air would have a hard time landing on the badly damaged airfield. It did not take a general to see that this was a disaster for the Japanese. Without planes, without ships, the island had no protection from the invasion force.
“We will have our revenge,” Okubo said. “They cannot simply drop bombs on us and fly away. Their troops will be coming here, and when they do, they will pay a price in blood.”
“Just like the Battle of Takatenjin, sir.”
Okubo nodded, pleased. Perhaps there was hope yet for Kimura as a soldier. “Ah, you really were listening to my story! Yes, Private Kimura. Just as my ancestors did at the Battle of Takatenjin, we will make the invaders pay dearly.”
Now, listening to the big naval guns pound the island, he knew that day had finally come.
Chapter Four
Moving with the caution of a boxer who’d been bloodied by the punches of his opponent, the US troops advanced deeper into the island terrain. Much of the landscape had been ravaged by the big naval guns leading up to the landing, thinning out the coconut trees and vegetation like a madman’s scythe.
The result was a brutal landscape of shattered trunks, lone fronds standing out like battered flags, and shell holes like wounds in the tropical soil.
Looking around at the scenery, if you could call it that, Deke felt tense. Walking through the shattered groves was like walking through a tropical version of hell. It was more than a little disconcerting. From all around them, they could hear skirmishes being fought. Their turn was coming, that was for sure.
“I don’t like it,” a soldier muttered. “I don’t like it one bit.”
“What I want to know is: Where are all the Japs?”
“Don’t worry. They’re here.”
“Maybe we wiped them out.”
“They’re pulling us in, waiting for us to walk into a trap.”
Surely the naval bombardment had softened up the enemy. The fleet had stood off from shore, launching hundreds, if not thousands, of shells at the island in a spectacular show of force. But from what Deke could see, most of that firepower had landed on empty beach and what some of the men had taken to calling “jangle”—the overgrown vegetation on the peninsula that was not quite so dark or dense as the depths of the island’s jungle.
He didn’t see any evidence of destroyed enemy fortifications. The Japanese must have dug in farther back from the beach, and more deeply, than the navy gunners had calculated. This did not bode well for the fight that the marines and soldiers now faced.
Deke couldn’t help but think that the island battle was like putting two bugs in a jar and making them fight. For both sides, there was no way off the island and nowhere to go. In the end, only one side would remain, but they would surely be battered in the process.
The soldiers marched farther into the blasted terrain as the eerie silence grew.
The Japanese had made it clear that they intended to stay and fight, no matter what.
A shot rang out. Up ahead, a soldier fell.
“Sniper!” the sergeant yelled. “Everybody down!”
The soldiers scattered, diving for whatever cover they could find. A few jumped into nearby shell holes. The rest crouched behind clumps of tropical grasses or shrubs.
The sniper fired again.
Calmly, Deke scanned the jangle up ahead for any sign of the sniper. He noticed that a few trees poked up above the scrub. This seemed to be the most likely hiding place for the sniper.
“Medic!”
“Forget it!” the sergeant shouted. Just a few feet away from Deke, the bullet hole in the soldier’s helmet was plain to see. There was no mistaking the deathly stillness of the man’s body. “He’s gone. Somebody get eyes on that sniper. Conlon, that means you!”