Hunter Sniper

Yoshio changed places with the captain, leaning over the prisoner. The man’s eyes were shut — for all they knew, he might already be dead.

Although it was true that Yoshio was an interpreter, there had been precious few opportunities for him to use his language skills. Not many Japanese surrendered. The ones who were captured tended to be badly wounded, like this man, too weak to take their own lives or beyond caring.

Yoshio spoke a few words to the dying man, whose eyes flicked open in surprise at the sound of his native tongue.

He responded with a few halting words spoken quietly. To Deke’s ears, Japanese was a surprisingly harsh and guttural language. It seemed to roll around in the chest and the back of the throat before the words erupted like short, angry barks.

“What’s he saying?” Captain Merrick demanded.

“He says that he grew up on a farm outside the village of Shirakawa,” Yoshio answered. “As a boy, it was his job to tend the chickens and cattle. He had hoped to return there after the war and marry the daughter of a merchant in the village.”

“I doubt that HQ wants to know any of that, Private,” Merrick said. “Ask him how many more paratroopers there are. Where is their base? Where do they intend to drop next?”

Yoshio translated the captain’s questions into Japanese, but the wounded enemy paratrooper just shook his head and uttered a few guttural words in reply.

“Well?” Merrick demanded, having appeared to hang on every word. He seemed desperate to provide HQ with something that they could use.

“Sir, he says to look around the airfield. Do you not see the bodies fallen like flower petals? There are no more paratroopers coming.”

“All right, I suppose that’s something. Ask him how many planes left their base.”

Yoshio leaned close to do as Merrick ordered. The paratrooper’s words had been faint, and his chest barely rose up and down. Yoshio said something in Japanese, but there was no response. “That is it, sir. He is gone.”

“Dammit! HQ will be glad to know that there shouldn’t be any additional drops — if we can believe this Nip.”

“For what it is worth, I believe that he was telling the truth, sir.”

Merrick snorted. “You believe him, huh? What was he, a cousin of yours or something?”

“I interviewed my share of prisoners on Guam and now on Leyte, sir. Dying men tend to tell the truth.”

“If you say so, Private. From one Jap to another, right?”

“Sir—”

“That will be all. You are dismissed, Private. The rest of you, we’ll be moving out in an hour.”

The three of them exited the makeshift company HQ and headed back to their own foxhole.

“Got to say, Merrick was kind of an asshole back there,” Philly muttered once they were out of earshot of the captain.

Deke nodded in the direction of the burial detail. “I reckon you might be, too, if you were the one who had to write all those letters home.”

“Aw, Merrick can go screw himself,” Philly said. “We all know we can trust you, Yoshio.”

Yoshio gazed out over the field of Japanese dead beginning to bloat in the heat and didn’t say anything at all.

An hour later, as promised, the order came to move out, and they left the airfield and the stinking bodies behind.

CHAPTER FIVE

Leaving the airfield, Deke took point and led the company out. Guarding the airfield perimeter had been a brief respite. It might even have been easy duty if it hadn’t been for the Japanese paratrooper attack. Nobody had planned on that one, of course.

They moved down the jungle trail. Before long, they were supposed to arrive in the vicinity of Ormoc and link up with the troops fighting the Japanese stronghold there. But first there were many long miles of jungle to traverse.

The path was easy going at first but quickly changed the deeper they went into the forest. Leaves and shrubs crowded in from both sides of the trail, creating a tunnel of green and gloom. On the forest floor, decaying leaves and half-hidden tree roots wove a tangle that made their footing unsure, trying to trip up weary feet.

The air was humid and warm, and even in the shadows far beneath the jungle overstory the heat of the sun felt like an oven directed at their heads and shoulders.

Deke licked his lips. The jungle tasted wilted, like spinach gone bad.

The GIs sweated through their fatigues, and sweat poured down their faces, attracting swarms of insects. Some of the bugs were no more than an annoyance, clogging eyes and ears. Others were out for blood. Deke itched all over from mosquito bites, some of which had left big red welts.

The mountains were Deke’s natural habitat rather than the jungle, but nonetheless, something didn’t feel right. Deke found himself glancing back over his shoulder toward the end of the column. Private Frazier was back there with his BAR as a kind of one-man rear guard. But the big man was plodding along in the heat and humidity, not paying attention to what was behind them.