Savage Sniper

Walking near Deke, Philly expressed the same thought aloud. “I’ve got to say that I’d rather fight the Japanese than these guys,” he said. “Tough bastards, aren’t they?”

“I suppose you’d be tough, too, if you’d been living in the jungle for years,” Deke replied.

“I wouldn’t be tough,” Philly admitted. “Hell, I’d be dead!”

Deke chuckled. Philly might be on to something. Once again, it spoke to the guerrillas’ innate toughness and determination to oust the Japanese that they had endured so much.

Then again, he understood that it hadn’t always been the case that the Americans and Filipino guerrillas had been on the same side. Many years ago, the fathers or grandfathers of these same guerrillas had fought against the American “occupiers” who had taken control of the islands following victory in the Spanish-American War. Some determined Filipinos had wanted autonomy and had been willing to fight for it.

There had been a series of running battles that stretched across two decades in the early part of the century. Several thousand US troops had died — most from disease rather than combat. Interestingly, General Douglas MacArthur had been one of those combatants. However, that conflict had long ago settled into an easy peace, and the people of the Philippines were now considered to be US nationals.

The Japanese had turned out to be far more high-handed in ruling the islands, and no Filipino was ever going to be a Japanese “citizen.” They were simply chattel of the Emperor.

Some of the guerrillas’ skill had even seemed to rub off on Father Francisco, who easily kept pace with the members of his band. Unlike them, he did not carry a weapon, not even a bolo knife, but he did have a large pack that he had explained was filled with extra food, medical supplies, and even a chalice for celebrating mass.

He had brought the chalice with him when the Japanese occupiers had forced the priest to vacate the church at Palo, fleeing for his life into the forest. Since then, he had provided leadership to the guerrillas — and kept them in touch with their spiritual side as well.

Deke learned that the Filipinos had even given Father Francisco a nickname earned because the priest visited the camps where the guerrillas’ families lived to tend to basic medical care and to celebrate mass as well. He’d become known as Padre del Bosque — Priest of the Forest. Deke reckoned it was an apt name.

The going was not easy due to the oppressive heat and humidity that clung to everything. Here in the Pacific, it was constantly like the most oppressive late-summer day back home.

Deke wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and took a deep breath, but he couldn’t seem to get any real air. He couldn’t help but find himself longing for the clear skies and crisp air of an autumn mountain morning back home. Here the sun always seemed to burn down through a tropical haze.

The comparison to his memories of home made the present conditions seem only worse. He could see the fatigue in the faces of the other GIs, perspiration dripping from their faces, their hair matted to their foreheads under the lips of their steel helmets that grew heavier with each step. Once again, he was glad that he had abandoned his helmet in favor of a broad-brimmed bush hat.

Moisture draped like a wet blanket over everything, heavy and viscous. The air was so loaded with humidity that it made it hard to breathe. Wherever you were, you were enveloped in that blanket of humidity that seemed to weigh down your motions. When a man walked through it, the humidity clung to him like a giant spiderweb.

Speaking of spiderwebs, there were plenty of those across the trail that the guerrillas on point had to break through. Some looked large enough, and the webbing looked thick enough to capture birds, let alone insects. The presence of the spiderwebs was reassuring, however, meaning that no one — in this case the Japanese — had used the trail since the spiders had busily spun their webs the night before.

The jungle seemed as thick as the air, with tangled underbrush and trees creating a latticework of greenery. The jungle canopy of leaves and branches proved so dense almost no sunlight reached the forest floor, creating ominous shadows. This canopy obscured the sky from view, although from time to time they heard aircraft passing overhead. Once or twice a plane flew so low that he could see it clearly through the trees.

To his surprise, both times he had spotted the unmistakable bright-red Japanese meatball on the underside of the wings. Clearly the enemy was still managing to put a few planes in the air. They still had plenty of fight left in them.

Philly had seen the planes too. “Japs,” he muttered as if afraid the pilots could somehow hear him. “You don’t suppose they can see us?”

Deke grunted. “If they could, you’d probably be getting some Japanese lead up your tailpipe right about now.”