Hunter Sniper

If the soldiers had known what they faced, they might not have run headlong toward where they had seen Japanese troops come down. The paratroopers were crack troops that had seen a great deal of action in China. It hadn’t received much attention, because America was busy fighting its own war, but the Chinese had put up a tough fight against the Japanese invaders. Unfortunately, they had been outgunned and poorly supplied, but they certainly had a fighting spirit in defense of their homeland. The Japanese paratroopers had found that out the hard way, and now they faced American troops.

Just beyond the closest trees, the Americans heard rifle shots and submachine-gun fire.

“Doesn’t sound like one of ours,” Philly panted, struggling to keep up with Deke, whose lanky farm boy’s legs ate up the ground.

“Everybody be careful,” Deke called, not sounding nearly as winded as Philly. “Those Japs came down thicker than jam on a buttered biscuit.”

“Whatever that means,” Philly managed, then put his head down and, with a burst of speed, managed to catch up to Deke.

They burst into the clearing, Yoshio on their heels. Deke saw a paratrooper still struggling out of his harness and shot him.

Immediately stitches of muzzle flashes came from their right. Deke dropped to one knee to make himself less of a target and fired at one of the flashes. The enemy soldier went down.

More GIs spilled out of the trees right behind them. Deke heard a grunt of pain and saw one of the GIs fall. After all that they had been through the last few days on their journey through the jungle, the last thing any of them had expected was for Japanese reinforcements to literally drop out of the sky. Deke cursed when he saw another soldier fall.

Deke picked out another target and squeezed the trigger. Next to him, he heard Philly’s rifle fire almost at the same time. That was two down.

The Japanese probably hadn’t planned on making a fight in this spot, which was nothing more than a random clearing in the surrounding trees, but they were doing a good enough job of it.

The Japanese who were left decided not to stick around. Still firing, they retreated into the trees and lost themselves among the brush and undergrowth.

Deke wasn’t about to let them go so easily. His blood was up. After the tension of the last few days, it was as if something inside him had snapped. With a snarl, he ran after the enemy.

“Deke, where the hell do you think you’re going?” Philly called. There was a curse, and he heard Philly coming after him, muttering, “That stupid redneck is gonna get us all killed. Come on, Yoshio.”

That was the last Deke heard before he crashed into the jungle underbrush. Green and lush as it looked, there was nothing soft or forgiving about the forest. Sharp-edged kunai grass at the edge of the clearing cut his hands as he pushed it out of the way. The spiky leaves of the smaller trees jabbed at his face and eyes.

Deke didn’t care. He just wanted to go after the enemy.

Up ahead, in the darkness, he could make out the brush swaying this way and that as someone forced his way through. Deke put his rifle to his shoulder and pressed his eye to the scope. He caught a glimpse of helmet and fired. There was a grunt of pain. Almost immediately one of the paratroopers fired at Deke, the bullet passing so near that he heard it clip the stem of a palm frond as neatly as a pair of garden shears. Damn, that was close. Deke dropped, hoping the next shot would miss him by more of a gap, then fired at the enemy’s muzzle flash. It was hard to say if he hit anything. All he could see now were the ghostly flashes that had played havoc on his night vision.

He stopped running, hearing noises behind him as Philly and Yoshio caught up.

“What the hell was that all about?” Philly wanted to know.

“Hush now, these woods are crawling with Japanese,” Deke replied, then cautiously moved forward, his earlier battle madness having dissipated. He had gone about fifty feet when he came across the body of the Japanese paratrooper he had shot. The man had been solid and well fed; even his uniform looked new. Many of the Japanese they had faced on Leyte so far had shown the signs of meager rations and a struggling supply chain, although it had little impact on their fighting spirit. This man, on the other hand, did not seem to want for anything.

Deke frowned. He found it disturbing that the Japanese seemed to have an endless supply of men with which to feed their war machine. The brass wanted them all to think that the Japanese were just about licked, but that didn’t seem so obvious on the ground.

He reached down and spent a moment examining the dead enemy soldier’s rifle, noting that it was yet another Arisaka, but well oiled. You had to admit that the Japanese made a darn good rifle, even if the M1 had made the bolt-action weapons increasingly obsolete. So what if it had a slower rate of fire? No matter — it would kill you all the same.