Pacific Sniper

He didn’t see any evidence of destroyed enemy fortifications. The Japanese must have dug in farther back from the beach, and more deeply, than the navy gunners had calculated. This did not bode well for the fight that the marines and soldiers now faced.

Deke couldn’t help but think that the island battle was like putting two bugs in a jar and making them fight. For both sides, there was no way off the island and nowhere to go. In the end, only one side would remain, but they would surely be battered in the process.

The soldiers marched farther into the blasted terrain as the eerie silence grew.

The Japanese had made it clear that they intended to stay and fight, no matter what.

A shot rang out. Up ahead, a soldier fell.

“Sniper!” the sergeant yelled. “Everybody down!”

The soldiers scattered, diving for whatever cover they could find. A few jumped into nearby shell holes. The rest crouched behind clumps of tropical grasses or shrubs.

The sniper fired again.

Calmly, Deke scanned the jangle up ahead for any sign of the sniper. He noticed that a few trees poked up above the scrub. This seemed to be the most likely hiding place for the sniper.

“Medic!”

“Forget it!” the sergeant shouted. Just a few feet away from Deke, the bullet hole in the soldier’s helmet was plain to see. There was no mistaking the deathly stillness of the man’s body. “He’s gone. Somebody get eyes on that sniper. Conlon, that means you!”

“Sarge?” The soldier with the sniper rifle was behind a bush, frantically scanning the terrain with his eye pressed to his riflescope.

Another shot rang out.

“I’m hit!” someone screamed.

It was a soldier Deke remembered from training. He thought the man’s name was Rivers. The bullet had hit him in the knee, leaving him helpless out in the open. He tried to drag himself to cover, and another shot came in, striking him in the shoulder.

Deke had the uneasy feeling that the Jap sniper was choosing his shots carefully. He was taking Rivers apart, one bullet at a time.

The enemy fire sounded more like a sharp puff than the usual crack of a rifle. Deke recalled seeing the rifle of the Jap that he’d shot. The weapon had been shorter than the American rifles and apparently chambered a smaller caliber. It was deadly enough but didn’t pack the punch of the .30-06 round used by the Americans—a powerful round that could punch through two inches of wood at five hundred yards.

The Japanese bullets weren’t anything like that. Then again, the shot wasn’t as loud, making it hard to determine where the shooting was coming from. In a sense, the quieter Japanese weapons made the perfect sniper weapon for jungle fighting.

Deke didn’t want to be the Jap sniper’s next target. He stretched out on the sand, behind a tree trunk mostly reduced to splinters. He could smell the fresh sap, sharp and green. His rifle rested on the trunk.

At the next shot, his eyes focused on a tree one hundred feet away. A flicker of movement there had caught his eye.

He didn’t have a telescopic sight like the sniper, but maybe he didn’t need one. He was certain that the Jap sniper was hidden in that tree. The tree was a little taller than the others and stood a little apart, offering a clear line of fire. It was just the tree that Deke would have picked to shoot from.

If the Jap was camouflaged anything like the soldier Deke had shot earlier, it was no wonder that they couldn’t see him.

Maybe I don’t need to see him.

The trunks of these coconut trees or whatever they were weren’t like the trees back home. They didn’t have any branches but rose straight up to bunches of fronds. The trees reminded him of big old feather dusters with most of their feathers missing.

If the sniper was in that tree, then he was hiding in the treetop.

Deke lined up his rifle sights in the middle of that bunch of fronds. He was shooting blind.

Another shot came in. The whimpering from Rivers ended.

“Dammit, we’re pinned down. We don’t have time for this. For Crissakes, Conlon, don’t you see him yet?”

“No, Sarge!” the sniper cried out. “Where the hell is he?”

But Deke knew. He couldn’t have explained exactly how.

He let out a breath, held the sights steady, and squeezed the trigger. It was almost a surprise when he felt the reassuring kick of the rifle against his shoulder.

He lined up the sights again, but there was no need for a second shot.

In the treetop, a bundle detached itself like an oversize coconut and tumbled to the jungle floor below.

“Got him,” Deke said, standing up. Not waiting for the others, he started forward.

Still sheltering behind a clump of bushes, the sergeant stared at him. “I’ll be damned, Cole,” he said. “You bagged that Jap. That’s two so far, if we count the one you stuck full of holes.”

“I reckon.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we might make a soldier out of you yet.”

The sergeant climbed to his feet. Most of the other soldiers were still hunkered down.