Savage Sniper

Nothing but silence. It was beginning to look as if he might have been the only one who made it out. Much of the fuselage — in fact, most of the rest of the plane — had been pulled apart and scattered through the trees, the crew along with it. Nonetheless, he probed through the wreckage, calling out as he did so.

Much to his surprise and relief, he heard an answering shout. Moments later, he saw a figure limping toward him through the trees and brush. It was Ron “Lucky” Mason, who had also somehow survived the crash landing.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Faraday said, hurrying toward his fellow survivor. He could hear the emotion in his own voice, relief mixed with sadness for all the rest who apparently hadn’t made it, although he still held out hope that some of the others might have survived.

“Hey, they don’t call me Lucky for nothing.”

“You OK?”

“I’ll live.”

Faraday looked Lucky up and down. The young man had a bad gash in his forehead, but otherwise seemed intact. He was swaying a little, however.

“Let’s get you to sit down before you fall down,” Faraday said.

“I won’t argue. Got any water?”

“I’m afraid not. Maybe we can find some in the plane later.”

Lucky looked back at the wreckage. It was none too promising. “Maybe.”

They camped nearby that night, even lighting a small fire, hoping against hope that if there had been any other survivors scattered through the jungle, they would find their way back to the plane’s wreckage.

He wasn’t sure what to do about Okie’s body, still pinned in the pilot’s seat. He doubted that he could face the sight of his dead “big brother” once again. At some point, he and Lucky would have to try to find supplies in the wreckage. He’d also lost his sidearm somewhere, but he wasn’t about to go back to the cockpit to look for it just yet.

Blind Date had carried a crew of eight young men. As the night wore on, it became increasingly evident that he and Lucky were the only survivors. As for their location, he could only guess that they were somewhere in the Philippines, but all that he really knew for certain was that they hadn’t crashed into the sea. As bad as the landing had been, he knew that the bomber would have fared even worse had they taken a swim in the Pacific.

With his back against a tree, Faraday hadn’t realized just how exhausted he really was until he fell into a dreamless sleep. Lucky was already asleep. As it turned out, it would be the only blissful sleep he would have for months to come.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning. Sunlight streamed down through the trees, illuminating the patches of dawn mist. The morning chatter of birds and insects filled the air. The fire had gone out. Lucky was still sleeping. No other survivors had appeared.

But they weren’t alone.

He found himself peering up into the face of a Japanese soldier who was pointing a rifle at him. The dark muzzle of the rifle looked as big as a cannon. Oddly enough, nearby stood another Japanese, holding a bow and arrow.

Faraday realized that he had survived the plane crash, only to become a prisoner of war.

CHAPTER NINE

Faraday was an optimist at heart, but after a few months as a POW, even he had to admit at times that maybe being killed in the plane crash might have been a blessing. Life as a prisoner of war was filled with hard labor, starvation rations, and constant fear.

They were a ragtag bunch, numbering forty-seven prisoners. There had been forty-nine when Faraday arrived. A year before his arrival, he learned, there had been sixty-seven POWs, and even more before that. It was a situation of constant attrition, with the men who had been at the camp the longest being most likely to succumb next. Those who hadn’t made it were now buried in a grubby-looking dirt boneyard beyond the perimeter fence. The Japanese had not allowed any grave markers, so that each heavy rain diminished any signs of a burial.

Faraday and Lucky had arrived at the camp in good health, but the conditions slowly wore them down. He could see and feel himself growing thinner, having to punch new holes in his belt to hold up his pants. Nobody was going to gain any weight eating the slop that the Japs fed them once a day.

The days passed slowly, with them rising before dawn to work at some task that was usually sweaty and futile. The harder it was, the more the Japanese seemed to like watching the prisoners do it. For the last several weeks, they had been working up to twelve hours each day, hauling stones from a nearby creek bed. Using buckets, they carried the stones up a steep hill and then spread them on the road leading from the prison gate.

Faraday didn’t know how far the road went, only that it stretched off into the forest and disappeared. The stones stopped well short of where the trees began. All the rest was dust or mud, depending on the weather. It seemed pointless, considering that at this rate the prisoners would have to work for all eternity to pave the road for even the length of a mile.