Hunter Sniper

The Japanese had a smart strategy, because the scattered airfields were hard to find and target from the air. As it turned out, a Japanese Zero didn’t need much of an airstrip to take off and land. Although the Zero was no longer a match for newer, more advanced American fighters, the aircraft was well suited to this jungle environment.

The nimble Zero had been the top dog in the early days of the war, back when the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Those were the planes that had sunk the ships at anchor and killed thousands of sailors, Deke’s own cousin Jasper among them.

Incredibly, the Zero was built from canvas and wood, more a product of craftsmanship than mass production, in that a single team often worked to complete one entire aircraft at a time. This approach and the materials used now seemed an antiquated concept, but in the early days of the war the lightness of the Zero gave it the advantage of speed and maneuverability.

Since then, American aircraft had outpaced Japan’s in terms of firepower and speed, but the Japanese planes remained a threat, especially now that the Japanese had resorted to turning their planes into airborne bombs and flying them directly into ships, something that they called kamikaze — a Japanese term that roughly translated to “divine wind.”

The presence of these small airfields helped explain how Japanese planes still managed to take to the sky and harass the American fleet just offshore. No matter how many enemy aircraft the Hellcats managed to shoot down, there always seemed to be more.

Just a few days ago the airfield and fuel had belonged to the Japanese. Not anymore.

The question was, Would the Japanese try to take it back tonight?

Deke and the other soldiers waited to find out.

Each errant noise from the dark jungle surrounding them might very well be indicating a new threat from the Japanese, the sounds of the animals and insects masking the noise of the approaching enemy.

The moonlight was just bright enough to give Deke’s dirty, stained uniform a dappled appearance, mixing light and shadow, like a jaguar’s coat. The condition of his uniform testified to the fact that he had experienced more than a few fights. Even in the dim light, some of the stains looked suspiciously like dried blood — or worse.

“Just keep your eyes open,” Deke eventually whispered in response to Philly. “For all we know, there might be a whole company of Japanese out there, waiting for us to let our guard down.”

“Yeah, yeah, and it might just be a couple of pigs rooting around.”

Farther down the line, a rifle cracked. The stab of the muzzle flash pierced the night. If there were any Japanese in the forest, they now knew exactly where the US line was located.

“What the hell are you shooting at?” a sergeant demanded.

“I thought I saw something, Sarge,” a soldier stammered in response. Deke didn’t recognize the soldier’s voice.

“You didn’t see nothin’. I’ve been starin’ at this jungle the same as you,” the sergeant said. “There’s nothing to shoot at. Knock it off, Kowalski. If there are any Japanese out there, you just drew them a map of our position.”

Deke thought that you couldn’t blame the soldier for shooting at nothing. The moonlit night and jungle cacophony had set everyone on edge.

The American line settled back into uneasy silence. Some nights were like this, Deke reflected. Everybody was jumpy, figuring that something was going to happen. It was like a pot on the stove that was about to boil over. He kept his rifle fitted against his shoulder and his finger on the trigger, just in case.

Back on Guam, they had once opened fire on what had sounded like a Japanese patrol sneaking up on their foxholes. In the morning, they’d discovered that they had slaughtered a small herd of goats. They had felt foolish about it, but better safe than sorry.

They hadn’t seen many goats on Leyte, but there seemed to be an abundance of wild pigs in the forests here, providing a regular source of pork chops for the locals.

Watching the dark forest, Deke didn’t reply to Philly. The sniper was so alert, eagerly scanning for a target, that there was no doubt that he had more in common with the hunters in the dark night than with the prey. Sometimes Deke felt like his rifle was hungry and he needed to feed it with dead Japanese. When he thought about it, he realized that it wasn’t the rifle that was yearning to kill.

He had come a long way from the mountain farm boy that he’d been. He supposed that they had all come a long way.

Deke remembered that, as a very young boy, he had been reluctant to walk out to the barn at night, afraid of what might be out there. Staring at the dark jungle, that boyhood fear seemed laughable now. There hadn’t been anything in the dark to worry about back then — at least not until the bear had come down from the mountain. He touched the left side of his face and felt the deep scars left by that encounter.