Hunter Sniper

“Yes, sir!”

The two platoons moved off, leaving the rest of the company to slug it out with the Japanese in the coconut grove.

His orders given, Merrick hunkered down with the rest of the men and returned fire. However, the Japanese were far from beaten. They kept up a steady fire of such intensity that bits of leaves directly above the GIs fell like green snow.

All that Deke could do was keep his head down and hope that it all ended soon.

He did not have to wait for long. Clearly there were not that many Japanese in the coconut grove. They had to spread out to meet the new threat on their flank. No sooner had they done that than they found themselves attacked from the rear.

“Move up! Move up!” Captain Merrick shouted.

Private Frazier led the way, blasting the Japanese with his BAR. It was an impressive display of firepower, bullets chipping chunks from the trees and knocking down Japanese defenders.

Hit from all sides, the return fire from the Japanese began to slacken. The GIs were close enough by now to use their hand grenades effectively.

Thump! Thump!

There was no hiding from the blasts, which were followed by screams of pain from within the grove.

Finally, the last few shots were fired as the enemy guns fell silent.

Philly was among those men who waded into the grove to make sure the job was done. There was a shot or two, and he emerged a few minutes later.

Deke raised himself up from the dirt long enough to watch Philly come out. In fact, there seemed to be not one, but two, versions of Philly. Deke blinked his eyes to clear his feverish imagination.

“I counted a dozen dead Japanese,” he reported. “They put up one hell of a fight.”

The battle of the coconut grove was over. They had lost Lieutenant Gurley, and four men had been killed, plus another handful of walking wounded. It was a heavy price to pay for passage past a coconut grove that none of them would ever see again. Yet there had been little choice but to fight. Even if the GIs had managed to bypass the grove, it would only have meant that the Japanese would have been free to attack them from the rear.

The American dead were quickly buried near where they had fallen. The enemy dead were left strewn on the ground.

“Let’s move out,” Captain Merrick said. “I want to link up with the rest of the division before nightfall, if we can. Let’s see if we can find the beach. I’ve had just about enough of these woods.”

Once again, Danilo and Philly took point. Yoshio helped Deke to his feet, and the diminished column made its way up the jungle path toward the smell of salt air.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lieutenant Steele sometimes wondered how many beach landings he could make before his luck ran out. In the lieutenant’s opinion, luck wasn’t like a fountain, but more like a bottle of top-shelf scotch. In other words, there was a finite amount of it. You poured a few drinks, maybe spilled some here and there, or shared the bottle around, and before you knew it, the bottle was empty.

He knew from personal experience that there was nothing sadder than a bottle of empty scotch — except a bottle of empty luck.

He’d already been through the landing at Guadalcanal, then Guam, and twice on Leyte. Incredibly, he was about to take part in a third landing on Leyte as part of the task force intent on capturing Ormoc from the Japanese.

The question was, How full was that bottle of luck that he’d been swigging across the Pacific? He was sure it was down to the dregs, and there still seemed to be a whole lot more war to fight.

Steele even went so far as avoiding card games, for fear that he would use up some of whatever luck he had left. He knew maybe that was silly, but he was going to save his luck for fighting the Japanese.

Not that Steele or any of the other soldiers in Patrol Easy had any choice in the matter of going back into combat. A soldier went where he was sent, no questions asked. He’d had just about enough of beach landings, but nobody had asked him how he felt about it.

As an officer — a low-ranking one at that — he knew it was his job to follow orders and make sure those under him did the same. In other words, he kept his doubts and complaints to himself.

They’d already had a few false alarms, and they were sitting ducks out here on the big blue Pacific. They would have to rely on the antiaircraft guns aboard the USS Leo. Though the guns bristling across the deck appeared formidable, Japanese aircraft had still managed to elude these defenses on occasion.

He welcomed it when Rodeo interrupted his thoughts, which were turning gloomy. “How much longer are we gonna be on this floating tin can, sir? I can’t wait to get back on dry land.”

It was true that the cargo attack ship had few creature comforts, especially with so many men crowded onto the deck. This was a short run around the southern tip of Leyte, and as many men and as much equipment as possible had been jammed aboard.