Pacific Sniper

Deke was eager to get moving again. He was glad that they had liberated the Chamorros and gotten them some help, but there had been far too many people in the camp. He actually welcomed the quiet that they found moving along the path. The heavy jungle had thinned out, and they passed through palm groves and rolling hills covered by the ever-present kunai grass. The tall grass stirred in the breeze, filling the air with a constant whispering. Deke was reminded of the spring woods back home and the way that the May breeze rustled the new leaves.

Like the others, Tony Cruz quickly shook off the morning fug and moved more confidently down the trail. Deke walked a few paces behind him. An hour passed and the hot tropical sun rose higher.

Suddenly, the Chamorro guide froze. Deke froze right behind him. He had also seen the movement in the tall grass ahead.

The trail led into a series of rolling hills. They soon reached a deep ravine, almost like a moat in front of the first big grassy hillock. They could see the trail cutting through the grass across the hillock, but first the path led down into the ravine.

Good place for an ambush, Deke thought. If he’d been a Jap, it was where he would have set a trap. The enemy soldiers they’d spotted had been moving in the grass sloping down into the ravine. If the Japanese had been just a little quicker, Deke and the guide wouldn’t have seen them at all, and Patrol Easy would have walked right into the Japanese killing zone.

Lieutenant Steele came up, crouching low. The tall grass gave them some concealment but nothing in the way of cover—anything that might stop a bullet.

“What do you see?” he whispered.

“Japs,” Deke said. “We saw them clear as day. There’s at least half a dozen hidden in the grass down in that ravine, maybe more.”

“Damn,” Steele said. He took off his helmet and scratched his sweaty, matted hair. Deke noticed again that the lieutenant’s hair was flecked with more than a few strands of gray. Steele put his helmet back on.

“I can sneak up there and get a look at them,” Deke said, starting to move forward.

The lieutenant grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “Hang on, Deke. You might be walking right into a nest of Japs. I don’t want to lose my best shot just yet. Besides, our orders are to reconnoiter, not engage the enemy.”

“It’s a long way around that ravine,” Deke said doubtfully. “We’d lose most of a day going around it.”

“You only saw half a dozen Japs? Maybe we can shake them loose.”

Steele took out his binoculars and glassed the ravine. Deke followed his example and used the scope to look for any sign of the enemy.

Tony Cruz crouched beside them, watching and waiting. Without the benefit of optics, it was next to impossible to spot the Japanese hidden in the grass below.

To Deke’s surprise, he spotted movement in a tree ahead—and then a second tree. Two Japanese soldiers were shimmying into position. He could see that one of them had a rifle with a telescopic sight, much like Deke’s own weapon. The range was extreme, so the sniper had clearly been planning for the Americans to come much closer before opening fire.

“Snipers,” Deke said.

“Where?”

“Those trees down in that ravine. Four o’clock.”

Steele glassed the ravine for a long moment. His binoculars were much more powerful than Deke’s riflescope, but then again, he had only one good eye. “Now I see them. Goddamn, Deke. You’ve got good eyes. The question is: Can you hit them from here?”

“Gonna find out.”

It was a difficult shot to make from a standing position, without the benefit of anything to rest the rifle on. The breeze and the waving branches of the trees didn’t help matters. However, Deke could see one of the enemy soldiers clearly enough through the pattern of branches. He lined up the crosshairs just where he wanted them and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Twenty

The rifle fired. From the ravine below, they heard a sudden cry and a body tumbled from the tree.

Deke worked the bolt, but not before they heard a faint crack and, much closer and louder, the whine of a passing bullet. Deke felt his spine shiver at the sound. The second Japanese sniper—the one with the scope—had spotted them.

Fortunately for Deke, the lieutenant, and Tony Cruz, the Type 38 Arisaka was also a bolt-action rifle like the Springfield, and it was thus slower to fire than the semiautomatic M1.

Deke already had a round in the chamber, and the gunshot had revealed where the second Japanese sniper was hidden. Now it was Deke’s turn to shoot. The enemy was well concealed—he swore to God that these damn skinny little Japs could hide themselves with nothing but a blade of grass and a couple of sticks—but Deke lined up his sights on what appeared to be a patch of uniform. Sure of his target, he fired.

A moment passed, Deke wondering if he had missed, after all, and then the second Japanese sniper tumbled from the tree.