Pacific Sniper

Deke sensed that there was more to that story. “What happened?”

“We were forced by the government to leave our farm and move into a camp,” the interpreter said.

“Maybe you can go back after the war.”

The interpreter shook his head. “My parents had to sell everything we owned for almost nothing. We lost our farm, our house, anything that could not fit into a single suitcase, which was all that we were allowed to bring.” His voice sounded sad rather than bitter. “For me, there is nothing to go back to, except my family, of course.”

“Sounds tough.”

“What would you know about it?”

“You might be surprised.”

Deke could have told him how his father had died and they’d lost the family farm to the bank. He could still remember that awful day when the sheriff had arrived with the banker in his fancy clothes and shiny shoes. It didn’t seem possible, but that had been even worse than the day they had gotten the news about his father.

Thanks to a single piece of thin paper, the land that generations of the Cole family had sweated over and broken their backs for was gone. They had lived on that land since before the Civil War. Way back, the Coles had fought the Indians for that land.

Instead of having the run of the woods and fields where he had roamed and hunted, he’d been forced to live in a single room in a boardinghouse with his sister and ailing mother, working in a sawmill six days a week, twelve hours a day. Even at that, they’d barely gotten by. His mother grew sicker, but there was no cure for a broken heart. The war had been a relief, an escape for both him and Sadie.

Deke wasn’t about to share any of that with the Nisei interpreter. The memories were too painful. However, he decided that, just maybe, he would look out for the interpreter, after all. The two of them had more in common than Deke might have expected.

Lieutenant Steele soon reappeared. The bandage over his bad eye appeared to have been changed. It was only a matter of time before the bright-white gauze would be filthy again. “All right, fellas. On your feet.”

Groaning, the men began to gather their gear.

“You didn’t think you could sit here on the beach all day, did you? We’re being sent to the forward beach line again, probably to deal with more of the same that we encountered last night. In the morning, we’ll scout ahead and try to determine where the Japs are hiding.”

Philly sighed, then started to get up. “Just when I was starting to get comfortable.”

“Life’s a beach, ain’t it?” Deke said.

Chapter Ten

As the squad moved into place to join the rest of the soldiers on the front line, the Japanese were also maneuvering out of sight.

With nightfall on the second day of the landing, the Japanese prepared for an all-out attack to push the Americans back into the sea. They had probed the enemy’s strength and resolve in a series of smaller attacks and kept them hemmed in near the beachhead with a vigorous defense that had left the American forces spread thin. The marines held a solid position a short distance inland, with the army soldiers also well-positioned just to the south.

The army and marine forces acted independently and cooperated—to a point. It seemed that neither the army nor the marines had committed troops to protect the center of the American position.

General Takashina understood the failures of interservice communication well enough, having experienced the difficulties of getting the Japanese Army and Navy to work together.

In any case, the probing attacks and nighttime sorties had revealed that the US forces were spread thin in the middle, like an overstretched rubber band.

This was where General Takashina saw his opportunity. As the overall commander of more than eighteen thousand Japanese troops on Guam, he was not lacking for military strength—on paper, at least. The general was well aware that his troops lacked ammunition and, perhaps more important, food and medical supplies. With the island hemmed in by the US fleet there would be no hope of resupply or evacuation. He and the other Japanese troops had their backs to the wall. They were on their own. If they did not manage to overwhelm the Americans in the attack tonight, then there would be little hope of retaking the island—or of survival.

As a man of few words, General Takashina did not share his opinions with subordinates, but he was getting desperate.

Born in 1891, he was getting long in the tooth to be a field commander. But at age fifty-three, he did not lack fire and still appeared to be a man in his prime. Solidly built and with his face set in a perpetual frown, the officers under his command always hurried to carry out his orders. Takashina did not suffer fools or malingerers.