“It was a hell of a thing,” Steele said, clearly pleased. “Those guns shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
Deke was glad that the Jap sniper must have been too intent on his duel with Deke to pay the raiders any attention. In that regard, the diversion had certainly worked.
“What next?” he asked.
“Let’s get down to that beach and see if we can hitch a ride off this island.”
“What if we can’t, Honcho?” Philly wondered aloud. “Maybe those navy boys forgot all about us. You really think they’ll go out of their way to help us dogfaces?”
Lieutenant Steele didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They all knew the answer to that one. They were the only US troops on an island absolutely crawling with the enemy. An invasion might be coming soon, but it would be too late for them if they didn’t escape.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Philly said.
The priest and the remaining Filipinos were not going with them. They retrieved packs and supplies that had been hidden beyond the perimeter of the clearing for just such a contingency as having to move deeper into the forest, out of reach of the Japanese patrols who would be bent on revenge. The plan never had been to evacuate the local guerrillas. The navy boat — if it came for them at all — was going to be a small vessel. Anyhow, Father Francisco and the Filipino guerrillas had been doing just fine against the Japanese before the arrival of the Americans, and they planned to do more of the same.
“Go with God,” the priest said, shouldering one of the packs. “Perhaps we will meet again, God willing.”
“Good luck to you, Padre,” the lieutenant said.
The priest led his small party away, and in a moment they were swallowed up by the green wall of vegetation as if they had never been there in the first place.
“I’m gonna miss those guys,” Philly said.
“Follow me,” Deke said, and led the patrol into the underbrush on the opposite side of the clearing from the direction that the priest and the Filipinos had taken. They were heading west, toward the beach. Honcho brought up the rear. There was no time to waste if they were going to make that rendezvous.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
From behind them, they heard the horns and bugles that the Japs sometimes blew in battle. The Japs didn’t seem to care about being quiet. In fact, it was as if they wanted to let their quarry know that they were being hunted.
The bleating noises made Deke’s skin crawl, and he moved even faster through the brush, leading the others toward the sea. If the Japs wanted to make him feel like a hunted rabbit, they were successful. He reached a tangle of vines that had woven themselves into an impenetrable net, blocking the direction that he wanted to go in. He was bushwhacking rather than following any kind of trail — not that there were any trails to follow. The tangle spread in both directions, and he didn’t want to take the time to go around it. Each moment that passed, those bleating horns seemed to grow closer.
Sweat ran down from under the brim of his jungle hat and stung his eyes. The still air seemed to wrap around him like a suffocating gauze. He took a moment to catch his breath. He swiped at his face with the back of his hand and thought about what to do next.
He shouldered his rifle and drew his bowie knife. The blade wasn’t as long as that of the bolo knives favored by the Filipino guerrillas, but it was hefty enough, and razor sharp.
With a grunt, he swung at the vines in front of his face. The blade cut through most of the way before it lost momentum and got hung up in the thickest of the vines, as big around as his forearm. Deke pulled back his arm and slashed again at the green notch that his knife had made. He swung again and the vine parted. Stroke by stroke, he began hacking a path directly through the net of vines.
“Need some help?” Yoshio asked. One of the Filipinos had given Yoshio a bolo knife, and he stood shoulder to shoulder with Deke, attacking the vines blocking their path.
As if the vines weren’t bad enough, there were all sorts of spiderwebs here, along with massive spiders that barely troubled themselves to get out of the way. What did these things catch in their webs, he wondered, birds? Snakes and spiders didn’t much bother Deke, but these critters were so big that they were hard to ignore. Then again, if the Japs caught up to them, spiders would be the least of their worries. Still, having the sticky webs cling to his face and hands gave him the creepy crawlies.
Once they had an opening big enough to force his body into, he squeezed through the wall of vines and reached relatively open forest on the other side. Yoshio followed right behind him.
“Keep moving,” he said to the others. “Ain’t nothin’ to it from here.”
It turned out that Deke had spoken too soon. He took a few more steps through the jungle and started to put his foot down in the patch of greenery ahead, but something didn’t feel right. He stopped in mid stride and put out an arm to stop Yoshio, who had come up beside him, ready to surge past Deke.
“What is it?” Yoshio asked, bringing his rifle up.
“It’s not Japs,” Deke said, nodding at the forest ahead, where the branches opened up, revealing open air. “But don’t take another step. It’s a long way down.”
It became clear that they were standing at the edge of a ravine that plunged down twenty or thirty feet — it was hard to tell exactly because of the dense vegetation at the bottom. Thick vines snaked down from the trees overhead into the shadows below.
A quick investigation showed that the ravine was maybe twelve feet across, fracturing the hill for as far as they could see in both directions, like the crooked smile of a jack-o’-lantern. They just didn’t have time to go around it, which meant that they had to get across.
Deke wondered if they could jump the ravine. Maybe he could jump it with a running start, if it had been possible to get up enough speed through all the vegetation, and if he wasn’t weighed down by soggy combat boots and gear. It was as if the hill itself was playing a final trick on them, keeping the other side of the ravine just out of reach, making sure that they wouldn’t leave.
Behind them, the sound of the Japanese bugles became louder and more insistent. The rest of Patrol Easy found itself staring at the ravine, wondering what to do.
“Now what?” Philly asked.
“We have to get across that ravine, that’s what,” Honcho said.
“I can jump it,” Yoshio said.
“No, you can’t,” said Honcho, who had apparently done his own mental calculations. “It’s too wide. You’ll end up stuck in the bottom with a broken leg, or worse.”
Deke had come too far to give up now. There was only one thing to do, foolhardy as it seemed.
“Aw, to hell with it,” he said.
He shouldered his rifle again and took out his bowie knife, then used it to cut through one of the vines hanging within reach. With the bottom end cut loose from the ravine, the vine could now swing freely. He gave it a good tug — it seemed sturdy.
“It’ll be just like when me and Sadie used to swing out over the creek at our old swimmin’ hole,” he said, as much to convince himself as anyone.
“You’re not going to—”
Deke grabbed the vine with his wiry arms and pushed off from the edge of the ravine. He felt the burn of friction as his hands slipped a little, and he held on tighter, hugging the vine with his knees to give him momentum. He told himself not to look down, but he did it anyway, glimpsing a blur of rotting tree trunks and moss-covered rocks far below. Then the far side of the ravine was beneath his feet and he dropped down. He barely cleared the gap and would have fallen in if he hadn’t caught himself on the vine, holding on to it for dear life.
“You crazy redneck,” Philly shouted. Once he saw that Deke had made it, he added, “Hey, swing that vine back over here!”