Pacific Sniper

The patrols were something of a calculated risk—the lives of maybe forty men against the lives of hundreds. Any intelligence that they gathered could be vital. General Bruce wasn’t about to send his division blindly into the jungle-covered hills and mountains. The Japanese would have welcomed that strategy. Of course, the harsh terrain would have finished off whatever troops didn’t fall victim to the Japanese.

Each squad was equipped with a radio—Lieutenant Steele assigned Alphabet to carry it. Each of the squads also received a code name. Steele’s squad was dubbed “Patrol Easy.”

“Sounds about right,” Philly said.

Deke reminded himself that the entire island was only about the size of his own Hancock County back home. That didn’t sound big until you thought about how long it would take to walk all that way, up and down mountains, through thick jungle. A plane could pass over the island in minutes, but not a man on foot. The jungle terrain made the size of the island exponentially larger.

Moving out, first they had to cross through the fringes of the jungle that had been smashed by the naval bombardment. Mixed among the shattered trees and shredded greenery, plus churned soil, were the bodies of the Japanese who had been caught there while retreating from the attack. Deke put his boot down in something soft and pale—and thought that he’d stepped on a mushroom or fungus of some sort. Looking closer, he realized that it was a man’s entrails. His only thought was, Glad they ain’t mine.

Out in the open, souvenir hunters had picked the dead Japanese clean, but they hadn’t made it into the shattered jungle, which had been off-limits. Everyone was too worried that there might still be living Japs around.

“Hey, will you look at that!” Philly exclaimed. He reached down to pull both a sword and a pistol from the body of a dead Japanese officer. Unlike many of the bodies, there didn’t appear to be a scratch on him—he might have been sleeping. Philly held his treasures up for the others to admire. “Jackpot, baby!”

“Philly, we’re just getting started,” Steele pointed out. “Are you seriously going to haul that junk around with you?”

“This is the good stuff, Honcho.”

“If you say so. I’m not going to order you to ditch it, but you know what to do with that stuff when it gets too heavy. Until then, maybe you can use that sword to hack through the jungle up ahead.”

Most of the GIs in the Seventy-Seventh had been issued machetes, but Patrol Easy had opted to leave them behind in the interest of traveling light. If there were any trails to carve, they would leave that up to their Chamorro guide. He looked more than capable with that machete.

Philly stuck the pistol in his belt and slid the sword through a strap in his pack. When Steele had moved off, Deke said quietly to Philly, “If some Jap sniper sees you carrying his dead pal’s gear as a souvenir, you do know that he’s gonna take his time killing you, don’t you?”

Philly just snorted. “I’d like to see him try.”

They reached the banks of a body of water without too much trouble. Lieutenant Steele told them it was a reservoir that once served the US Marines stationed on the island before the Japanese incursion. Here as elsewhere, the trees looked badly shattered by the naval bombardment.

Tony Cruz led the way. Soon, the land rose and they entered a rough, hilly area overgrown by the sharp-edge kunai grass. It grew in clumps that were shoulder high, and with its razor-sharp edges it left painful cuts on any exposed skin. Small rivulets of blood soon crisscrossed their hands and necks where they’d had to force their way through the grass.

It was also snake country. He caught glimpses of snakes slithering away between the clumps of grass, some light brown, some multicolored like the king snakes back home in the mountains.

Snakes had never much bothered Deke, and even in all his treks through the mountains he had only rarely seen a copperhead or rattler, but right now he was still glad of the gaiters protecting his ankles and calves. The wraps were aggravating to put on and take off, but the effort now seemed worth it. Philly seemed especially worried about the snakes, keeping his eyes on the ground. However, Deke kept his eyes on the grassy hillocks ahead. He was far more worried about Japs who might be waiting to ambush them.

He detected movement ahead. A handful of helmets bobbed above the waving tips of the kunai grass.

“Tony Cruz,” he whispered.

The Chamorro nodded. He had seen them too. He stopped, bringing the squad to a halt.

“What is it?” Lieutenant Steele asked.

“Japs.”

“Ambush?”

Deke shook his head. The last glimpse he’d had of the Japs was of them moving away from the squad, as if avoiding the Americans. “No, Honcho. I reckon they’re trying to get away from us.”

“All right, everybody hold your fire. We’re supposed to be scouting, not fighting. Let’s give them a wide berth.”