Hunter Sniper

“It looked to me like you had things under control.”

“Come on,” Deke said. “This war ain’t gonna fight itself.”

As they approached the small airfield, they could hear a gun battle taking place. You had to give these Japanese paratroopers credit, Deke thought. They had dropped out of the sky into a hostile landing zone and still managed to regroup quickly and launch an attack. The Japanese attack also appeared to be highly organized, because they had even managed to post a handful of troops to guard their flanks.

They found that out because they ran right into those guards.

Stabs of flame from muzzle flashes punctuated the dark forest ahead. If there was any question about whether those shots were intended for them, that question was answered when they heard the sound of bullets zinging through the night air around them.

“Come on!” Deke shouted, then surged ahead.

“Dammit, Deke!” Philly protested. “Let’s wait for the others to come up.”

It sounded as if the fight at the airfield was not only hot but going badly for their own boys. The sharp crack of the Japanese weapons sounded slightly different from the American rifles, and their bursts outnumbered the smattering of return fire.

Where the hell was the rest of Captain Merrick’s company? Deke wasn’t going to cool his heels while Merrick’s men caught up. Ain’t no time for that. If nothing else, the three of them might be able to take the Japanese attackers by surprise and do some good there. So far, Deke, Philly, and Yoshio were the only cavalry those boys at the airfield were going to get.

Deke wasn’t waiting for anybody else, not if they hoped to have any chance of turning the tide of the fight ahead. He ran toward the sound of the firing, shouting, “Follow me!”

CHAPTER THREE

As Deke ran toward the sound of the fight, the game trail through the jungle narrowed and disappeared, the forest closing in on them like a cattle chute, but Deke kept running pell-mell, shoving aside branches, crashing through the greenery, a one-man bush hog.

It wasn’t how he normally liked to move through the forest, but a kind of battle madness had come over him. He became aware of a constant snarl rumbling at the back of his throat. He wasn’t even himself anymore, he realized, but just an elemental force racing through the trees toward the fight.

They were making as much noise as a herd of buffalo, but considering all the shooting going on up ahead, he doubted anyone would notice. At some point a big spiderweb draped across his face like a net. He clawed it away and kept going. He could hear Philly and Yoshio right behind him.

Their sheer momentum turned out to be a saving grace. If they had been moving slowly, the outcome might have been different.

A figure popped up ahead of Deke. He could see the silhouette, crouched, caught off guard. From the man’s short stature, Deke knew at once that it was a Japanese soldier. One of the paratroopers, probably carried off course, trying to catch up with the rest of his unit.

Philly had seen him too.

“Jap!” he whispered hoarsely.

“Yeah, I see him.”

The paratrooper looked like he was about to launch himself at them, but Yoshio said something in Japanese, “Anata no yunitto wa dokodesu ka?”

Yoshio was asking him, Where is your unit? Yoshio’s words seemed to confuse the enemy paratrooper into thinking that he had run into more of his comrades, but the ruse did not last for long. The soldier scowled, then said, “Anatahadare?”

“He wants to know who the hell I am,” Yoshio whispered, then replied in Japanese: “Watashi wa tomodachidesu.”

Yoshio had told the soldier, I am a friend. Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, or perhaps Yoshio’s accent had given him away. Sure, he spoke Japanese, but he didn’t sound like he’d just come from Tokyo.

Something bright flashed in the paratrooper’s hand. Either a knife or a bayonet. These paratroopers were essentially commandos and had plenty of training with bladed weapons.

No matter how much training he had, not using his rifle turned out to be a mistake.

The hand went up, ready to slash down, the blade once again catching a ray of moonlight, the razor-sharp edge glinting. As the blade started to come down, Deke twisted his lean body out of the way like a mongoose dodging a striking snake. The blade hissed past, cutting only air.

Deke didn’t have time to aim his rifle but fired from the hip at point-blank range, so close that the muzzle blast stabbed out and scorched the paratrooper’s uniform.

The sheer amount of muzzle energy generated by the Springfield packed quite a punch. He hit the enemy paratrooper square in the chest, the force of the impact lifting the smaller man off his feet. The paratrooper tumbled back into the jungle, bladed weapon spinning out of his hand.