The tent was full of tired-looking men in uniform, most of them with a few days’ worth of stubble on their faces. It was quite dark compared to the relentless brightness of the beach. The tent flaps had been left rolled down to keep all the paperwork from blowing around, which meant that the interior felt stifling.
A haze of tobacco smoke added to the murkiness within. The atmosphere was not improved by the proximity of soldiers who had not had the luxury of showering for several days. On the plus side, everyone stank about the same.
Deke looked around for someone in charge, but it seemed like every officer there was too busy to pay attention to them. Where the hell was Lieutenant Steele?
Finally, after a few moments, an older man in a major’s uniform stepped out from the gloom at the back of the tent and greeted them keenly. “You boys must be Patrol Easy?” he said with a smile.
“Yes, sir,” Deke replied. Although he didn’t outrank anyone in the patrol, he always seemed to become their point man by default. After all, headquarters was just another jungle of sorts.
The officer introduced himself as Major Henry Flanders, an intelligence officer from General MacArthur’s staff. Hearing that, all sorts of alarm bells began to go off in Deke’s mind, as he recalled their earlier mission to take out the guns on Hill 522 near Palo ahead of the first landing on Leyte. Those orders had come right from the top. Now what?
“You boys are doing one hell of a job out there, and I want to thank you for that,” Major Flanders said quietly. Deke couldn’t help but notice that the major’s combat uniform was sweat stained, but clean in the sense that it wasn’t covered in grime, gun oil, and flecks of dried blood.
Deke’s first impression was that Major Flanders was a no-nonsense sort of man, right down to the .45 on his hip. The worn leather of the holster hinted that the sidearm had seen some use. The major was in his late forties and heavyset but not fat — it looked as if he could still throw a punch or two that would get someone’s attention, and probably had done just that from time to time.
Coming from most officers, Deke would have dismissed the major’s words of thanks as only so much biscuit gravy, but Flanders appeared nothing but sincere. He offered them cigarettes from a fresh pack. Rodeo and Philly accepted, and when Philly tried to hand back the pack, the major waved him off. “Keep it,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” said Philly, sounding like he meant it for once. Then again, when a man said he was from MacArthur’s staff, that tended to prompt respect.
“Let’s grab ourselves a corner of this circus tent and let me explain what this is all about.”
The major led the way to an unclaimed corner of the tent and told them to grab a knee, while he remained standing. Once again, Deke looked around for Honcho. To his relief, he saw him come through the tent flaps, spot his men, and make a beeline for the corner. He was carrying several bottles of Coca-Cola, which explained his absence from the tent.
“I see you boys have met Major Flanders,” Lieutenant Steele said. He handed the bottles around, and the men accepted them eagerly. To Deke’s surprise, the soda pop was even somewhat chilled. It had been weeks since they’d had anything to drink other than canteen water and coffee that was just this side of rusty water. “I thought you all could use something cold to drink while you heard his proposition for us.”
“Proposition?” Philly snorted, then took a long drink from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He smacked his lips in satisfaction. “That makes it sound like we have any choice in the matter.”
“Just shut up and drink your soda,” Steele said. “Major, they’re all yours to brief.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Major Flanders once again praised the men for what they had done up to this point, saying that MacArthur was pleased with the progress on Leyte.
The major filled them in on what they had accomplished so far — they had located several Japanese positions scattered throughout the jungle and hills and were actively rooting out any remaining resistance they came across. It wasn’t anything that the men didn’t already know, but the major’s words made it official.
Then Major Flanders got down to business, revealing why Patrol Easy had been summoned to HQ. Lieutenant Steele had framed it as a proposition, but it soon became clear that the men were being presented with something that they couldn’t turn down — it just wasn’t in their nature.
“You men know that General MacArthur is especially concerned with the status of prisoners of war held by the Japanese. The Japanese have several POW camps, some that we know about and some that are just coming to light. He has warned the enemy in no uncertain terms about the dire consequences of harming any of these POWs. However, the fear is that the enemy will use these prisoners as pawns or bargaining chips.”
“That’s against the Geneva Convention,” Philly complained.
“When has that ever stopped the Japanese?” Deke responded, some heat in his voice as he remembered how the Japanese had killed his buddy within minutes of the beach landing on Guam. He had witnessed nothing but cruelty from the Japanese. More incidents came to mind. “For starters, you saw how they killed all those civilians back in Palo.”
Flanders jumped back in. “Speaking of which, there’s a fear that the Japanese may kill the prisoners outright rather than release them. The prisoners are mostly Americans, airmen who’ve been shot down, sailors picked up at sea, maybe even a few infantrymen captured back in forty-one. There are a few Australians mixed into the bunch.”
“I like those Aussies,” Philly said. “They sure know how to fight.”
Flanders continued, “Unfortunately, we have evidence that there has already been some killing of prisoners, although these are isolated incidents, thank God.” The major paused, looked around to make sure no one else in the tent was eavesdropping, then lowered his voice. “There was a situation recently where the enemy forced our men to dig what they said was an air-raid trench, but it turns out our boys were digging their own grave. They doused our men with gasoline and set them on fire. Burned alive.”
“Those slant-eyed sons of bitches,” Philly muttered.
Deke felt a white-hot surge of anger go through him. He was sure that the others felt the same way.
“If General MacArthur is so damned concerned about the POWs, then why the hell doesn’t he send in some paratroopers or a bunch of tanks to go liberate them? Seems to me that this is all a lot of hot air.”
“Deke,” Lieutenant Steele said, growling a warning. “That’s enough of that, soldier.”
A look of irritation passed over Major Flanders’s face at Deke’s outburst. He opened his mouth to say something, then reconsidered when he met Deke’s angry gaze.
Deke knew better, but he couldn’t help it. His anger bubbled over sometimes when it came to the hot air spouted by the likes of officers, businessmen, and bankers. There were those who talked about it and those who acted. Deke didn’t have much patience with the first group.
Sadie had once compared him to a chicken pot pie that was all hard crust on the outside and bubbling hot on the inside.
“You’re nothin’ but a mouthful of hot gravy waiting to burn somebody,” she’d said.
He felt Yoshio touch his arm in an attempt to calm him down.
“Look, son, we’re all on the same side here,” Flanders eventually said with something that sounded like empathy. “I’m getting to the part where we do something about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Conditions at these camps are pretty rough,” Major Flanders continued. “It’s doubtful that the Japanese have enough food to feed their own troops at this point, let alone any prisoners. Our boys are kept on starvation rations at best.”