“What, you miss me already?”
“Nah,” Philly said, hefting Deke’s haversack. “I just don’t want to be hauling your crap around for you.”
“You know what, I have one more thing for you to carry.”
Using Yoshio’s shoulder for balance, Deke took off his boots. As a boy, he had often worked the fields barefoot. He knew that the muddy combat boots would be only a hindrance. He tied the laces together and hung them around Philly’s neck.
“Are you shittin’ me?”
“I reckon it will be easier to walk barefoot. My boots will just get stuck in this mud.”
“I know where I’d like to stick these boots.”
“That’s just gonna have to wait until I get back.”
CHAPTER THREE
Deke headed out, leaving the rest of the patrol behind. They were still sitting ducks out in the rice paddy, but at least there didn’t seem to be any Japanese in the immediate vicinity. The closer that they got to Highway 2, that was unlikely to be the case.
He moved ahead, feeling as exposed as he ever had. The open rice paddy stretched around him in all directions. But he was headed straight ahead, where there were certainly enemy lookouts. Deke just hoped to hell that he would see them first.
Sunlight glittered off the muddy brown water. It was a tough slog. Even without the boots, mud sucked at his feet. He would take a few steps and hardly be in water that was more than ankle deep. At the next step, he would suddenly plunge up to his calves or even to his knees in mud.
As for snakes, he ignored any that he did see — that was the least of his worries.
The heat beat down and he moved on. If what they had been moving through previously was no-man’s-land, then Deke supposed that he was behind enemy lines by now — even if he hadn’t seen any actual enemies.
It wasn’t long before that changed. There was a collection of huts in the distance, surrounded by a handful of scrawny trees. To be sure, it was one of the few places that offered any shade. It would have been home to the rice paddy workers if they hadn’t wisely fled due to the fears of war. He watched the oasis warily, keeping a steady grip on his rifle.
Sure enough, he spotted movement among the huts.
Enemy soldiers. At least a half dozen of them.
If he could see them, then they could sure as hell see him, exposed as he was in the middle of this flooded field.
As he watched, the soldiers emerged from the scattered huts and started moving along a slightly elevated road in the direction of the highway. There was no longer any doubt that he was behind enemy lines.
There was also no doubt that the soldiers had seen him. They stopped and looked in his direction. One man shaded his eyes against the glare and stared at Deke.
There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, short of diving down into the water. But it was too late for that. Any effort to hide would only raise their suspicions.
He didn’t like his chances trying to shoot them all. There were six of them, and it was beyond the range of an easy shot. They would be shooting back. If there were more Japanese in the vicinity, the sound of gunfire would alert them. The enemy would already be on edge, expecting the American advance. It was the last thing Deke needed.
Instead of opening fire, he lowered his rifle and waved. Two or three of the Japanese waved back; then the whole group moved on, not even giving Deke a second look.
I’ll be damned.
They must have thought he was just another Japanese soldier. Or maybe they even mistook him for a rice farmer. He was more or less covered in mud, and the glare off the water had provided the rest of the camouflage.
He continued on toward the collection of huts, hoping that there weren’t any more Japanese lurking about. But a quick look around revealed that the huts were empty. A few trappings indicated the huts were normally occupied by farmers — tools and other implements were leaning against the walls. Whoever lived there must had fled in a hurry. In addition to the tools, they had left behind everything from blankets to cookware. The Japanese must have been making use of the huts to escape the sun and weather.
Looking at the tools, Deke got an idea. He picked up a hoe, thought about it, then tied his rifle to the handle, using cordage he found. On top of that, he wound an old piece of blanket. Satisfied, he put the hoe over one shoulder. From a distance, he might look like a farmer out tending his crop, carrying some tools over his shoulder. If push came to shove, he could easily bring his rifle into play. It was what you might call a shooting hoe.
Reluctantly, he left the shade and headed out again, this time following the narrow road through the rice paddies that the half-dozen Japanese troops had taken. Fortunately the enemy soldiers had enough of a head start that they were no longer in sight. Although the road meandered, it provided a high-and-dry route through the rice paddies that seemed to lead directly toward Highway 2. It was exactly the route that Patrol Easy had been sent to find.
But Deke knew they couldn’t send an entire regiment down the road on his hunch. He would have to follow it a bit longer just to make sure that the road through the rice paddies went somewhere.
He looked around uneasily. Each step carried him deeper into Japanese-held territory. Up ahead along the road, he could see another collection of huts. Were there more Japanese sheltering there?
He couldn’t take that chance. He left the dry road behind and moved back into the rice paddies. By now he had left the vast flooded field behind, and there were smaller fields filled with the green shoots of rice, bordered by ditches and levees to help manage the flooding of the fields. He kept the hoe over one shoulder, maintaining his disguise. He swung out into the fields, giving the huts a wide berth and keeping to the western side so that the sun would be more directly in the eyes of anyone watching him.
As he came even with the huts, he saw more Japanese soldiers — a lot more, this time. They appeared to be more organized and better armed. In addition to the helmet-clad soldiers, there was a noncommissioned officer wearing the telltale campaign hat with its sun cape down the back of the neck.
In his experience, it was the sergeants you had to watch out for. They were mean, suspicious bastards.
Deke’s belly clenched. He fought the urge to unbundle his rifle. Once again he had been spotted, and it was too late to hide, so he walked as nonchalantly as possible along a berm, keeping his feet dry. His ruse was helped by the fact that he was barefoot and had rolled up his trousers almost to his knees.
He waved at the enemy soldiers, and again a few waved back. The Japanese sergeant gave Deke a long look, and he forced himself to keep his eyes on the ground, then stopped to swing the hoe at an errant clump of mud, chopping it up. He moved on and hoed another clump.
When he looked up again, he half expected to see a contingent of soldiers rushing toward him or a dozen rifles leveled in his direction. But there were no gunshots. The sergeant was no longer paying any attention to him.
Deke kept going, pausing now and then to hoe at the ground just like a rice farmer might.
He decided that this was one of the few times in the history of war that it was best to be armed with a hoe.
Once he was sure that he was little more than a distant figure and of no more interest to the Japanese, he put the hoe over his shoulder and walked parallel to the road through the rice paddies.
After another fifteen minutes of walking, keeping to the paths between the flooded fields, where the going was easier, he spotted just what he was looking for. It was a larger road winding through the countryside. As he watched, a Japanese truck moved along it. It was the same model that they had captured in the fight near Camp Downes and redirected to bring supplies from the beach. He had reached Highway 2.