Savage Sniper

Deke looked back at the sergeant, whose angry stare was now fixed on Deke’s face. He clearly blamed Deke for the chewing-out that he had received.

Deke knew better, but he couldn’t back down from the sergeant’s stare. The sergeant’s face had turned red from his exertions in the tropical heat. His dark eyes were like bits of onyx, almost like the eyes of a shark. Deke’s own glare was in marked contrast, because his own eyes were gray, more like cut glass, but equally unfathomable.

No words needed to be spoken. The one thing that was clear was that both men truly hated each other. The sergeant’s hand drifted toward his pistol again, indicating that perhaps he no longer cared if he drew the ire of his officer if it meant putting the American POW in his place.

Faraday hurried over, keeping his head bowed as if in deference to the sergeant. He breathed a warning to Deke, “What the hell are you doing?”

“I reckon I’ve had enough of this joker,” Deke muttered, not taking his eyes off Mr. Suey’s.

“Look around you, man. There’s not a whole lot that you can do about this situation. Keep your eye on the prize.”

Deke knew that Faraday was right, but it didn’t make things any easier. How he wished to get his hands around his rifle and get the Japanese sergeant in his sights.

He was sure that Mr. Suey felt the same way and would have likely shot him or beat him to death if the officer had not intervened. Next time, if Eyeglasses wasn’t around to keep the lid on things, there was no telling what the sergeant might do. Deke understood that it was even more urgent than ever for them to escape the camp. Clearly Mr. Suey meant to kill him.

All the prisoners had seen what happened, and so the rest of the afternoon passed tensely. It was as if a brooding storm cloud hovered over them all. The other men had been here longer and had seen just how brutal the Japanese could be. They probably understood better than Deke that Mr. Suey was just biding his time.

Later in the day, the commandant himself appeared to check on the progress of the work. Colonel Yamagata arrived on foot, carrying his bow and quiver slung across his back, which Deke found to be an odd sight. Even more than other men, Deke understood that he had one foot in the past and was more than a little old-fashioned. But even he recognized that it was the twentieth century. There were airplanes and submarines, radio waves, and motion pictures. Yet here was a Japanese officer who armed himself with a bow and arrow. But instead of eccentric, Yamagata managed to appear menacing.

The colonel stopped to confer with Eyeglasses. Judging by the pointing that the commandant did and the earnest nodding from the subordinate officer, it appeared that Yamagata was making a few suggestions.

Meanwhile, the attention of some of the prisoners had been drawn to that brightly colored tropical bird sitting high up in a tree, some distance from where they were working in the streambed. Even a tired prisoner could be momentarily awed by the bird’s bright plumage. Its feathers seemed to span all the colors of the rainbow. The bird appeared as a bright point in an otherwise tense and backbreaking day.

Deke didn’t know what kind of bird it was, but if he was going to guess, he would say that it was a parrot. The bird even cried out a few times as if to say, Look at me! Look at me! A few of the prisoners even dared to pause in their work and lean on their shovels to gaze in wonder at the phenomenal creature.

The commandant apparently saw the bird as a distraction. Consequently, Colonel Yamagata was determined to deny the prisoners even that small pleasure.

He glared at the bird, then took the bow from his back, fitted an arrow to the string, and drew it back to his ear. It was an unfamiliar weapon to Deke, but he was impressed at seeing how deftly the colonel handled the bow. He also guessed that you had to be quite strong to draw a bow like that. The razor-sharp tip of his arrow did not waver as he held his aim steady. Clearly the commandant was very experienced with his weapon.

Deke took a moment to study the colonel. Before, he had only seen him sitting down, or standing from a distance. In his spotless uniform, the colonel had a rather commanding presence. He was well-built and taller than even some of the American prisoners. He was certainly better fed — where the majority of the POWs looked skeletal, Yamagata looked chunky by comparison.

Standing off to one side, the sergeant gazed at Yamagata with something like admiration in his dark, beady eyes. Deke noticed that the corners of Eyeglasses’ mouth were turned down in a disapproving look. Like the men, he evidently admired the colorful bird.