“Whatever you say, Honcho.”
“That’s more like it.” The lieutenant turned to Rodeo. “Any chance that thing might work once it dries out?”
Rodeo shook his head. “The salt water will have wrecked the electronics, Honcho.”
“All right. No sense lugging deadweight around or leaving that radio where the Japs might find it. Better bury it, then.”
Rodeo used his entrenching tool to quickly dig a hole in the sand. The metal blade struck a rock, and the grating noise seemed loud as a gunshot.
They all held their breath until the night insects resumed their song. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any Japanese ears in the vicinity.
“Jeez, why don’t you just send the Japs a telegram that we’re here?” Philly said.
“Sorry,” Rodeo replied, pulling sand over the dead radio.
“Now what, Honcho?”
“We were sent here to blow up those guns, so that’s just what we’re going to do.” He stood up and started through the jungle in the direction of the hill. “Let’s get to it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Not long after first light, Ikeda was leading a reconnaissance patrol on the beach. He found that it kept him and the men sharp, giving them a little exercise away from the hill. He got tired of all the fresh dirt and concrete. The greenery of the forest or the sandy beach was a welcome change of scenery.
In fact, so much attention had been focused on the hill and its defense that it was almost possible to forget that there was far more to the island.
Ikeda breathed in the fresh salt air, enjoying the feel of the sea breeze on his face. What man did not feel energized by the start of a new day? The sun was rising, a big red ball of fire coming out of the Pacific, but the heat of the day was not yet present. There was nothing so glorious as a Pacific sunrise. Later on, they would swelter in that heat, but for now, the rising sun was a thing of beauty, a reminder of Japan itself.
They walked on, some of the men talking quietly in hushed tones. Ikeda permitted it — on the beach, out in the open, there was not much worry about giving away their position, was there? The Filipino guerrillas were not much threat to an armed patrol. As for the Americans, all reports indicated that they must still be many thousands of miles away.
Up ahead, though, something didn’t look right in the sand. The smooth surface of the beach had been disturbed. Moving closer, he could see that several sets of footsteps led from the water, across the beach, and disappeared into the fringe of forest beyond the sand.
“Sir?”
“I see it,” Ikeda said.
Instantly, he was on alert, the sniper rifle gripped tightly in his hands. The men sensed that something wasn’t right and looked around them, but what was there to see but more beach, surf, and sand? Whoever had made those tracks was long gone, the tide having erased many of the tracks.
Ikeda bent closer to examine the marks. He was puzzled as to why the tracks only led away from the sea, as if whoever had left them had materialized out of the water. Also, most of the tracks showed footsteps that were fairly large, sunk deep into the sand. These marks had been left by big men — bigger than the average Japanese soldier or Filipino laborer, at least.
Slowly, a realization began to sink in for Ikeda. The morning calm that he had been experiencing had vanished. If these were not Japanese tracks, or Filipino tracks, then that left one possibility.
Enemy soldiers had landed on this beach and made their way into the jungle at the base of the hill.
This was the only explanation that Ikeda could think of for the tracks on the beach, which clearly showed an organized team had landed here. There had been warnings of commando raids. At long last, those warnings appeared to have come true.
Reluctantly, he dismissed the idea of following the tracks. He would have liked nothing better than to hunt down the invaders and put his rifle to use. However, it was possible that the men who had left these tracks had a head start of several hours. Instead, the reason these men were here seemed far more important. Had the raiders come to attack the hilltop battery?
“We must get back to the hill immediately,” Ikeda said, preparing to set off at a trot back the way that they had come. It would be the fastest way to sound a warning, even if it meant letting the raiders get away — for now. “We must warn the others. There is no time to lose.”
It had taken the men of Patrol Easy most of the night to make their way to the base of the hill. The forest between the beach and the hill had not been very dense, much of it having been cleared by the Japanese, in part for defense of the island, but also for the raw materials needed to construct the defenses on the hill. In fact, they would have felt more confident if the forest had offered more cover. They proceeded cautiously, but by some miracle they did not encounter a single enemy soldier.
“I don’t get it,” Philly wondered aloud. “Where are all the Japs?”
“It’s spooky,” Deke whispered, looking in every direction, rifle at the ready. “I hope we ain’t walkin’ into a trap.”
“They’re not expecting us yet,” Honcho said. “When the fleet gets here, they’ll see it. They’ll have plenty of time to slither into whatever hidey-holes they have prepared for their snipers and machine guns before our boys come ashore. Until then, I suppose they’re all still up on this hill, working to dig themselves in even deeper.”
“You think we can reach those guns?”
“One way or another, we’re gonna have to.”
Lieutenant Steele was correct that most of the Japanese seemed to be working on the hill. They could see work parties busy digging or hauling buckets or rocks and dirt. It was a little surprising that not a single piece of heavy machinery was visible. Japanese soldiers were not the only laborers. A large number of civilian Filipino men appeared to have been pressed into service, ranging in age from boys to gray-haired older men.
It was a miserable existence. They appeared to be constantly abused by the Japanese, punched, kicked, and beaten with sticks whenever they stumbled or moved too slowly to satisfy the cruel Japanese overseers. It was clear that the Filipinos amounted to little more than slave labor.
All that work had produced results. To Deke’s eye, the entire hillside appeared to be a network of trenches, bunkers, and pillboxes. It had all been accomplished with a backbreaking amount of effort, using basic tools.
“It’s like these guys are straight out of the Stone Age,” Philly said.
“Lucky for us,” Deke replied. “Imagine what they could have done with a few bulldozers.”
They could see what must be their destination near the top of the hill. The dark maw of a large bunker was visible. Whatever guns were inside would have a commanding view of the approach to the beach and could rain destruction down on any fleet that approached.
“That’s got to be the big guns we’re after,” Philly said, voicing what everyone was already thinking.
“No doubt about it,” Steele agreed.
“How the hell do we get up there?”
Steele grinned. “We walk on in, bold as brass, that’s how. Luckily, nobody seems to be expecting us.”
Deke could see that the lieutenant was on to something. They could have planned the attack for days and never have had such an opportunity as the one that now presented itself. The attack was bold and spontaneous. It remained to be seen if they could pull it off, but they had total surprise on their side.
While there were plenty of Japanese soldiers in sight, very few of them were armed. These were work details, with the men carrying shovels rather than rifles. Many had their shirts off, no helmets on, or were wearing only the traditional loincloth that the Japanese called a fundoshi. It was the only clothing needed in the tropical heat, but it was basically the same as working in your underwear. Talk about being caught with your pants down, Deke thought.