Savage Sniper

Other support areas had been established on the beach. In addition to a command post, there were tarps set up to keep the sun off a group of clerks who labored at typewriters, keeping up with the division’s recordkeeping. This included typing up the lists of the dead and wounded, which grew ever longer thanks to the enemy. Deke was sure that one of those clerks would be Corporal Rafferty, who had been thrown into combat with other rear-echelon troops when the Japanese had threatened to overwhelm the tentative grip on the beachhead. Rafferty had shown that he could handle a rifle as well as a typewriter. When it came down to it, sometimes even a clerk or a cook had to be a fighting infantryman. They had done a damn fine job of fighting on the road to Ormoc.

There was also a tent where Doc Harmon and other medical staff were busy treating the wounded. Some were patched up and sent back out. Wounded who needed more serious treatment were ferried out to the navy vessels for treatment. There was still the threat posed by the Japanese Navy and aircraft, but that had diminished considerably since the capture of Ormoc.

A few enemy air bases still operated, but these scattered planes had been pressed farther from the coast, and the US planes were constantly hunting for them.

Despite these efforts, a Japanese Zero or two still appeared to threaten the beach from time to time, sending the soldiers scurrying like ants.

For other men wounded in the fighting around Ormoc, it was too late. They were buried in a cemetery that expanded by the day. The fresh graves were a reminder to the living that there were no guarantees in a war zone. Almost every man on that beach knew someone whose grave was now marked with a simple cross. These were husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, buddies — none of whom would ever be going home again. As the losses mounted, the best that you could do was put the memories of the dead out of your mind.

Hundreds more had been hurt in the fighting. It was easy to pick out the wounded with their white bandages. The air around the medical tent was pungent with the acrid smell of iodine — and blood. Most of the men bore their wounds silently, and those in pain were dealt with using a dose of morphine.

But there were some men whose wounds were less visible. Deke and the other members of Patrol Easy had passed them coming in. These men simply sat and stared into the distance. The infamous one-thousand-yard stare. It was called combat fatigue. These men weren’t cowards — they had simply seen and done more than they could take. Every man was different. Some would be fine after a decent meal, a kind word, and the time to sit for a while with a blanket over their shoulders. Others would need additional time to come around. For a few tragic cases, their minds were permanently broken by the horrors of war. They were simply a different sort of casualty of war.

He could see the breakers foaming on the coral shelf beyond the beach. However, there was no hope of hearing the soft sound of waves crashing on the shore or the distant squawking of seabirds. This was not a restful beach.

Instead, the breeze off the sea carried the sound of roaring engines from landing craft, Jeeps, a bulldozer or two, and even a few planes overhead. All that engine noise was punctuated by irate shouts. It was easy to pick out the source, because the beach masters were notoriously short tempered and foulmouthed.

Transports ran right up on the beach, and soldiers had stripped to their waists, laboring under the tropical sun to unload the vessels. The toiling troops glistened with sweat, their arms and shoulders and torsos long since tanned nut brown by the tropical sun. You could always tell the replacement troops, because they were either fish-belly white or sunburned as red as a boiled lobster.

They didn’t have an easy task, because the soft sand at the tidal line sucked at their feet with every step. Some men had to work in the actual surf, getting soaked in addition to sunburned.

Watching them work, Deke was reminded of growing up on the farm and all the endless chores, from taking to the fields to hoe weeds to putting up hay. Like these men, he had often stripped off his shirt in the heat, exposing his scars from the bear attack he had survived as a boy. The skin across the scars sometimes felt tight as a drum in the morning. The sun always felt good on them, like it was somehow healing them, but maybe that had been only his imagination.

His sister, Sadie, had worked right alongside him. Even now, Deke rarely took his shirt off, because he was self-conscious about the angry red scars that raked down his side. People asked too many questions. Sadie never commented — she knew well enough how he’d gotten them. She’d been there that awful night.