“My country kept the faith. Your capital city, cruelly punished though it be, has regained its rightful place—citadel of democracy in the East.”
—General Douglas MacArthur
Chapter 1
Deacon Cole kept a wary eye on the trees, looking for any sign of the enemy. The Japanese troops that had escaped the fall of Ormoc and then Palompon had retreated into the forest, using the jungle shadows for cover as they picked off the Americans traveling the roads. It never ceased to amaze him how one enemy soldier with a rifle could harass an entire company of infantry. No wonder the enemy was proving so hard to beat.
“You see anything?” Philly whispered beside him.
“Just keep your eyes open,” Deke replied. “They’re in those trees, all right, sure as a hound has fleas.”
He felt an itching between his shoulder blades as if a target had been pinned there. The unrelenting combat was finally getting to him, the constant tension wearing on him like a millstone grinding corn, leaving him feeling thin. He pushed back the brim of the bush hat that he’d gotten from a wounded Australian and wiped sweat off his forehead before it dripped into his eyes. A few rivulets of sweat ran like a river through the rough landscape of scars etching one side of his face and neck.
Deke and Philly were part of Patrol Easy, scouts and snipers whose job it was to escort this convoy and do what they could to discourage Japanese snipers—and not get themselves killed in the process. Patrol Easy was made up of a motley group who never would have come together anywhere but the army, Deke thought.
Though Deke was the best shot of the bunch, they all had their own skills and talents that together united their motley crew. Philly was a damn good spotter who always had Deke’s back. Rodeo hauled the radio for Lieutenant Steele, who might’ve been the oldest lieutenant in the Pacific. Their Filipino guide was a tough jungle fighter named Danilo. Yoshio was their Nisei interpreter and the most erudite of the bunch, always with his nose in a paperback novel. From time to time, they were joined by Private Egan and his war dog, Thor. They had been fighting together since Guam, then made the landing at Red Beach near Palo into a hailstorm of enemy fire. From there, they had been grinding their way across Leyte.
Over the last few weeks, one by one, the Americans had cleaned out the enemy’s pillboxes and concrete batteries on the island of Leyte. Most of these fortifications had been built using Filipino slave labor. These fortifications and the defenders gradually had been eliminated—blown up, burned out, or shot to pieces. More than a few GIs and Filipino fighters had died in the process. They had paid dearly for each fortification destroyed.
But it hadn’t been enough. It turned out that for the enemy, the green jungle was the only fortress needed. Now their convoy was making its way through this deadly jungle, the soldiers escorting supply trucks making their way from the coast to the inland towns that the GIs had wrested from the Japanese.
Under different circumstances, the forested hills and sunny open fields would have been a pleasant place to explore. But now, the country that they passed through was littered with signs of war, the worst being the bodies of innocent Filipino civilians who had been murdered by the Japanese. The bodies were mostly those of women or older men, bayoneted or shot at close range.
There was no apparent reason for the killings other than a thirst for violence. These civilians weren’t guerilla fighters and they certainly had nothing worth stealing. No, the murders were simply another sign of the enemy’s penchant for cruelty and revenge against the civilian population. If the average GI had been hanging on to some thread of compassion toward his enemy, the sight of those torn and bloody civilian victims had broken it. Any Japanese they captured had a very short life expectancy.
But for now, the enemy still held the upper hand, firing from cover at the convoy. The GIs fired back but the enemy remained frustratingly elusive.
It had been like this all morning. As the sun rose, the air grew muggy. The convoy moving between Palompon and Ormoc crept at a snail’s pace along the road that ran beside a narrow, rain-swollen jungle river no more than twenty-five feet wide. If the river had a name, Deke couldn’t remember it and didn’t much care. The river cut through the countryside for many miles before eventually flowing into the sea near Palompon, which until recently had been a Japanese supply port. The port was now in American hands and supplies were being brought inland.
Normally, the river was more like a stream, rocky and shallow enough that soldiers could easily wade across. Deke had seen it in this stage and it reminded him of the upper reaches of the Clinch River that he was familiar with back home.
But recent rains had transformed the river into a raging torrent in places. They had even seen the drowned carcass of a cow go floating past in the swift brown water. The terrain on both sides of the river was rugged and hilly, covered in dense forest. The meandering road was the only practical way to cross this territory. The enemy knew this all too well.
They had lost at least a half a dozen men so far to enemy snipers. The frustrated GIs had started hosing down the jungle with the machine gun mounted on the M-8 armored cars spaced between the trucks like chunks of meat between the vegetables on a shish kabob skewer. But the bursts of machine gun fire did little more than eat up ammo without having much effect on the enemy. The Japanese just kept their heads down, then picked off another target once the shooting stopped.
Even Lieutenant Steele was started to show signs that the random Japanese attacks were getting to him. Just a minute ago, he had turned and fired several rounds from his 12-gauge combat shotgun into the underbrush, pumping out the hulls that went spinning away into the mud. The military hulls were made of brass because the typical waxed paper shotgun shells that were familiar to hunters swelled in the humidity and jammed the gun.
“What are you shooting at, Honcho?” Philly asked.
“Thought I saw something in those bushes,” the lieutenant muttered. He shoved fresh shells into his shotgun.
He preferred to be called Honcho by his men because being addressed by his rank or as “sir” was a sure-fire way to be targeted by the enemy. Considering that the word came from Japanese term for a squad leader, the joke was on the enemy.
The tall, taciturn lieutenant had lost an eye on Guadalcanal and now wore an eye patch that Deke had crafted for him out of scrap leather. Honcho was old for a lieutenant, his hair touched with gray, but his men figured that he had pulled some strings not only to avoid being sent home after losing an eye but also to remain at a lowly rank. Being a captain meant more headaches. He was more than content to command their squad of scouts and snipers.
Shotgun at the ready, Honcho moved off to check on the rest of the convoy.
“Dammit, we’re sitting ducks out here,” Philly grumbled. He walked a few paces behind Deke, his own rifle at the ready. They both knew that Deke was the better shot, but that didn’t stop Philly from needling him about his marksmanship from time to time. Because Philly was Philly, and Deke’s closest buddy in the army, maybe even the world, he put up with it. “How can we fight the bastards if we can’t even see ‘em, huh? This is a suicide mission.”
“I’ve got news for you, City Boy. Life is a suicide mission,” Deke said. “Keep your head down and your eyes open.”
They were maintaining their “dime”—keeping a distance about ten feet apart to lessen the chances that a burst of fire from the jungle would take them both out. Deke heard the crack of a rifle. Another GI sprawled unmoving in the mud at the side of the road.
“Sniper!” someone shouted and once again the GIs scrambled off the road like ants, taking shelter in ditches or under the trucks. They weren’t quick enough. Another shot rang out, another man went down, wounded. A medic ran to help him.
Deke ducked behind a truck tire and swung his rifle in the direction where he thought the shots had originated, but all he saw through the sniper scope was a wall of green, so dense that it looked as if a bullet wouldn’t pierce the veil. He couldn’t see anything to shoot at.
He felt a shiver along his spine, wondering again if he was in the enemy’s sights at this very moment. That imaginary target itched on his back. Dammit. He much preferred being the hunter to being the hunted.
“Did you see where that shot came from?” Philly wanted to know. “I swear, this convoy is nothing but target practice for the Japanese.”
“These snipers are crafty,” said Yoshio, their Nisei interpreter, as he studied the brush that hid the enemy. Yoshio could move as silently as any of them when he needed to. The sight of the Japanese-American in his GI uniform still brought stares of suspicion, like he might be an infiltrator rather than a United States soldier. But Deke and the rest of Patrol Easy had come to trust Yoshio with their lives because he had proven his bravery more than once.
Yoshio had been born in Washington State, which made him just as American as anybody else, even if he had grown up speaking Japanese. Although his parents and grandparents had also been born in America, their Japanese heritage meant that they were now sitting in an internment camp, behind barbed wire and under guard, designated as potential enemies of the United States. Yoshio had never expressed any bitterness about that situation, but he had opted to prove his loyalty by enlisting to fight for a country that treated his family with suspicion. “We need to outsmart them.”
“Meanwhile, it helps to keep your head down and pray,” Philly said.
“When your number is up, it’s up,” said Rodeo.
The only member of the patrol who hadn’t spoken up was Danilo, their Filipino guide. It was always a mystery as to how much English the tough guerilla knew.
Deke had his rifle to his shoulder, his eye to the scope, and his finger on the trigger. Now and then he spotted a trembling leaf in the breeze or a bird flitting through the branches, but nothing that looked like a Japanese sniper. He had no doubt that the Japanese were watching them.
“I can’t see these fools,” Deke muttered. Behind him, the agonized cries of a wounded GI faded as morphine began to course through his system. “It’s a regular cattywampus, I can tell you that much.”
“A catty-what?” Philly asked.
“He means it’s a clusterfuck,” Yoshio explained. “Lucky for you, I speak a little hillbilly.”
“You must have picked it up from all those westerns you read,” Philly muttered.
No more shots came from the green curtain. The wounded man was loaded into the back of a truck; the dead man went into another. Once again, the convoy began to roll.
Bad as things were, the slow-moving column’s luck was about to go from bad to worse because the Japanese had cleverly prepared a trap for them. The convoy reached a bend in the road between two bridges, one just in front of the column and one behind. The first half of the convoy, which was led by a Sherman tank, had just crossed the next bridge when the structure erupted in flames and roiling smoke. The Japanese had set off a charge to destroy the bridge, leaving the convoy suddenly cut in half.
Not good, Deke thought.
From the rear of the convoy, there came the sound of another explosion as the Japanese destroyed the bridge that the column had just crossed. Much of the convoy was now stranded on the road, with the bridges gone in front of it and behind it, the river on one side and a steep bank hemming them in on the other side.
Debris was still raining down when the Japanese opened fire, hitting the trapped column with two machine guns that strafed up and down the line of vehicles. Men dove for shelter wherever they could, crawling under the trucks or behind the thick tires.
An officer ran down the line, trying to organize a defense, but was cut down and killed. Technically, that left Lieutenant Steele in charge. Although he was more than capable, Steele preferred to command nothing bigger than Patrol Easy.
“Damn it all to hell, but at least we can see the bastards for a change,” he said, nodding toward the muzzle flashes and tracer fire.
Snipers were able to hide in the greenery, but the machine guns were easy enough to spot and they were withing buckshot range. Steele walked out from behind a truck and began firing shotgun blasts at the machine-gun team. That gun fell silent, and two quick shots from Deke and Philly silenced the other machine gunners.
However, the Japanese were far from done. Rifle fire continued to pepper the pinned-down convoy.
Deke decided that he’d had enough. He could shoot back all day and never hit any of the enemy who lay hidden in the jungle-covered riverbank.
“C’mon, fellas,” he said. “Follow me.”
Using the trucks for cover, Deke ran toward the back of the column, with Philly and Danilo following him. The small bridge back here had been shattered by the blast, but the debris had fallen in such a way that a single beam remained stretched across the narrow waterway. Brown floodwaters tugged and pulled at the beam, making it bob more like a bit of straw than a heavy wood stringer. It was dicey, but it was the only way across.
Here goes nothin’, Deke thought, then raced across the beam without waiting for the others. His boots got wet where the current washed over the beam, but he managed to dash across and reach the far bank. He dove for cover as first Philly, then Danilo followed him. Lucky for them, the Japanese were so intent on picking apart the convoy that they scarcely paid any attention to the three men, other than sending a few random shots in their direction.
“What the hell are you up to?” Philly asked, once he lay panting in the jungle underbrush.
“I’m making it up as I go along,” Deke said. “C’mon.”
The three men pushed their way up the steep riverbank. The mud and dense undergrowth made it tough going. They had no choice but to bull their way through the thick weeds and tangled branches. Something slithered past Deke’s boot and he thought, snake. He ignored it. At the moment, he had bigger worries.
At the top of the bank, they were rewarded with the discovery of a narrow dirt track that ran parallel to the river. Mostly, this trail was likely used by animals. But someone else had been through here—the telltale prints left by Japanese boots were visible in the mud. The Japanese were using this trail to move parallel to the convoy and harass the Americans on the other side of the river.
Deke motioned for the others to follow him. Up ahead, it was clear from the sound of firing that the enemy was really tearing up the column. There wasn’t a moment to waste.
He broke into a run, tearing down the narrow trail. Palm fronds and tree branches tore at him from the edges of the trail, but he ignored them. There was no point in being quiet anymore. As Deke charged, a visceral sound came from deep within him, a keening wail that was Deke’s blood-curdling version of a rebel yell. Deke leaped a tree limb and found himself face-to-face with the enemy.
His rebel yell startled the first Japanese soldier that Deke encountered. The man turned to him, wide-eyed, and Deke threw the rifle to his shoulder and shot him down.
He kept going. Philly was shouting now and even Danilo let loose with something that could only be described as a jungle roar.
Screaming their battle cries at the top of their lungs, they rolled up the Japanese positioned along the trail. Deke couldn’t fire the rifle fast enough, so he switched to his pistol. Behind him, Danilo used his wicked bolo knife to finish off any Japanese who still had any fight left.
It was all over in a few seconds. Their madcap attack worked. It was hard to say how many Japanese had been part of the ambush because the ones that they didn’t kill scattered into the forest. The only fire now came from the American side of the river. Bullets tore through the greenery, the so-called friendly fire too close for comfort as Deke, Philly, and Danilo hugged the dirt.
“Stop shooting, dammit!” Philly shouted. “Honcho, tell them to stop!”
On the other side of the river, they heard Lieutenant Steele give the order. Once the shooting stopped, they retraced their steps along the trail to the bridge and crossed over again.
The lieutenant was waiting for them. “You crazy bastards,” he said. But he was grinning with pride. “You three saved this whole damn column—or what’s left of it, anyhow.”
Slowly, they picked up the pieces left by the Japanese ambush. Several of the trucks had been shot to pieces. Two men had been killed and half a dozen were wounded. It was likely that the damage would have been far worse if Deke, Philly, and Danilo hadn’t been able to cross the river and blunt the attack. Oddly enough, the front half of the convoy that had made it across the bridge had been spared.
But the destruction of the bridges had left the divided convoy in a quandary. The bridges could be repaired—to a point. “There’s no way we’re getting these trucks and that M-8 across,” Steele said. “We’ll have to take what we can carry, plus the wounded. We’ll have to leave the vehicles, including that armored car. Hopefully, we can get some engineers back here to make those bridges operational. We’ll have to—this is the main road between Valencia and Palompon.”
“Those Japanese knew exactly what they were doing,” Deke agreed. “They hit us right where it hurts.”
Working in the heat and humidity, a crew of GIs was able to rig a crossing using the bridge to their front. It wasn’t much—just a couple of closely spaced beams that had been wrestled into place. There would be no hope of getting any vehicles across, but it would support the weight of a few soldiers at a time. One of the beams bounced and swayed as soon as any weight was placed on it, threatening to spill the soldiers into the brown water, but they didn’t have much choice. Later, a team of engineers might be able to return and properly repair the bridge so that the road could re-open and the vehicles with their precious supplies could be delivered.
Having to abandon the vehicles and the supplies they carried, Patrol Easy and the rest of the soldiers from the cut-off convoy made their way across the mangled remains of the bridge to join the front half of the convoy. Reluctantly, the four-man crew of the M-8 abandoned their vehicle, hoping that they would get it back soon enough.
The hardest part of the operation was carrying the wounded across the rickety bridge, each step threatening to send the stretchers and the stretcher-bearers into the swollen river. The task was made even more nerve-wracking when a rifle cracked from the opposite bank, reminding them that the Japanese were still present. Fortunately, the enemy’s pot shots didn’t cause any harm.
“Let’s move out!” an officer shouted, once the last of the wounded had been carried across. What was left of the convoy got rolling again.
They were hardly out of sight of the smashed bridge when they began to see black smoke roiling into the sky behind them. Evidently, the Japanese had returned to the ambush site and set the abandoned vehicles on fire. So much for the plan to return and salvage the supply vehicles and the armored car.
Meanwhile, the heat increased as the sun came out again, encouraging flocks of insects that pestered the sweating troops and tortured the wounded. The heat grew until it triggered a sudden thunderstorm, bringing fresh torrents of rain that drenched the men. They slogged on through the mud and downpour.
“Just another day in paradise,” Philly muttered.
Liked the sample? Order your copy and thank you for your support.
David Healey author 