Eighty kilometers from Subic Bay to Caba-natuan. Too far to walk. He saw that, from the east shore of Luzon, the water carved a semicircle in toward Cabanatuan, and looked to be less than twenty-five kilometers from Cabanatuan — and only fifteen from Fort Magsaysay.
He had an idea. If the rain held, it would work. If not, he might have engineered his own defeat. He reached for his radio to call General Zater and tell him about the new plan.
Zater agreed that it was worth a shot and con-curred with his assessment on its chances. One thing was clear to both men: The Japanese division in the east had to be stopped.
In his mind, he looked across the table at the sneering imaginary warlord, loosened a bound wrist from the armrest, and reached for what few pieces he had left on the board.
Now, if only the rain would hold.
Chapter 92
Zachary moved Kurtz’s platoon out of the rice paddy and sent them back to the wooded knoll near checkpoint three-one. They trudged through the pelting rain, unaware of any change in their condition, having just left the soggy rice paddy. The sky was battleship gray, vomiting rain, with a peripheral darkness that seemed prescient, like a dark circle closing in around them.
Upon approaching Taylor’s position, he saw five bodies lying on the ground, covered in ponchos.
“They ours?” Zachary asked Taylor.
“Yes, sir.” Taylor proceeded to list the name of each soldier and what had happened. Zachary noticed that Taylor talked with a hardened authority, as if something measurable had changed in him that morning.
One of the enemy tanks had fired multiple high-explosive rounds into Zachary’s position. One soldier had caught a round in the chest, blowing a hole right through him. It impacted in the ground behind him, leaving his body still pretty much intact except for the big hole. Taylor spoke about it like it was routine. There was no edge in his voice, sort of a monotone, objective description, like what one heard on Headline News.
“About four guys jumped from one tank we hit with an AT4. We killed two, I think, and one ran in your direction. I called you, but you were on battalion net. Slick took the message,” Taylor said. Water dripped in a steady stream from the front lip of his helmet. He held a map, covered in acetate, in his right hand, the water smacking it with steady rhythm like a clock pendulum.
“Yeah, he told me, but we never saw him. Bastard is probably back there right now pinpointing our position for the next attack.”
Zachary walked over to Barker’s position and saw three more bodies. They had been cut down during the initial action on the flank. Barker said, somewhat embarrassed, that he thought two of them were friendly-fire casualties. He had maneuvered his squads in a fashion so that they converged on each other in the darkness.
“It happens,” Zachary said, remembering how the U.S. pilots had killed more than a quarter of the friendly soldiers who died during combat in the Persian Gulf War.
Kurtz was the lucky one so far. He had only lost Teller, serving as a back-up radio operator to Zach, and that seemed like an eternity ago.
Zachary huddled with his platoon leaders around a stand of mahogany trees.
“We’re moving.” The words were painful. Every-one knew they had to, but the logistics of moving in the rain, with dead bodies and demoralized troops, were overwhelming.
“Have your men get ready. They have an hour. I’ll let battalion know what we’re up to.”
He walked with Slick over to a secluded spot and knelt in a pool of water, into the thick mud beneath it.
“Sir, what’re we gonna do?” Slick asked, nerv-ously. Usually, he could wait to eavesdrop on the commander and gain his information that way, but events were rapidly getting out of control.
Eight dead. Not counting Rock and Teller. Everybody counts. Make that ten dead.
“We need to move, Slick. As soon as this weather clears, this entire hill’s gonna be a free-fire zone. Arty, mortars, helicopters, tanks, you name it. We stopped them for now. But they’re pissed.”
The bodies had already made Slick weak and nauseous. He gave the commander the handset and turned his back. Placing his hands on his knees and leaning over, he vomited into the mud. Zachary watched without emotion. It happens.
He called Kooseman and gave him the word he was moving to the north side of the road and closer to the fort. He would give him an exact grid coordinate of his CP later, when he found a decent location. Kooseman reported they had secured the prison and freed the six thousand captives. His voice sounded as though he had made a mistake by doing so. Instead of setting them free into the countryside, though, he had merely unlocked their cells but kept the gates to the prison locked. Most stayed inside the protective confines of the prison simply to stay out of the rain.
Zachary told Kooseman that he needed more antitank missiles. He was all out. Kooseman obliged, gathering five Javelin missiles and ten AT4s from each company and sending them forward in a Filipino jeepney, trading the ammo for eight bodies. Zachary appreciated Kooseman’s good sense.
The casualties gone, and the wounded patched, Zachary had the battalion’s 105mm artillery pieces fire continuous mixtures of smoke and high- explosive rounds into the perimeter of Fort Magsaysay. All of the tanks that could move had backed along the cement road until they were out of sight.
He hoped no one would see him move. With a grim look of determination, Zachary lifted his arm, palm stretched outward, then brought it forward, saying, “Follow me.”
They slogged their way across the muddy field.
Takishi rubbed the towel across the back of his wet hair. He and Muriami had been the only ones to make it back through the rice paddies. Everyone else had died from the American onslaught. An entire tank battalion destroyed. What a waste.
He looked in the mirror of the command-post latrine as he heard the shelling begin outside. He was frustrated. Mizuzawa had told him that com-manding the division would be easy, that everything would fall into place, that it was all common sense.
But how could he have been so careless as to wander aimlessly into the American ambush? Next time, he would do better.
The rain pelted his rubber coat as he walked to the building where the hostages were supposed to have been, then trudged through the mud to a new tank. Muriami had cleaned the inside and put two more radios in it. Takishi’s gear was stashed on the floor of the turret ring. Takishi gave Muriami a thumbs-up. “As soon as the rain stops, we move north to Bongabon, then”—he paused to smile—“on to Manila.”
Chapter 93
The sun never made an appearance, the rain continuing its onslaught. Zachary had wondered if he might see Noah come floating by sometime soon. A full day of monsoon-force rains. His men waded through knee-deep mud, slipping and falling in the miserable muck. During the move, some forgot their overarching concerns of living through this war and cursed the rain and mud and weight they were carrying on their backs.
Some even cursed Captain Garrett for making them move. The wooded knoll was a perfectly good position. They had defended well from there.
By nightfall, they had found a good spot from which to defend. Zachary had purposely taken them on a circuitous route so that any Japanese intel-ligence collectors would have a hard time figuring their intentions. He heard the men swearing but figured it might do them some good to get their minds off the previous battle, so he said nothing.
When they reached their new defensive position, indistinguishable from any other terrain in the area, he told his men to go to 75 percent security and get some rest. Most tried, but few did.