Savage Sniper

Now what? He raised his eyebrows at Faraday but got only a blank stare in return. Apparently the man was at as much of a loss as Deke.

Surrounded by enemy soldiers, Deke had no choice but to allow himself to be herded into the cramped hut where he had first been held. This late in the day, it remained uncomfortably warm in there. The prisoners hadn’t nicknamed in the “hot box” for nothing.

There was very little daylight left to seep through the cracks and gaps. The door closed, and he was plunged into almost total darkness.

Deke felt as if he had just been buried alive.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Trapped in the dark confines of the hot box, Deke wondered what to do next. He wasn’t one to panic or give up easily, but even he had to admit that his situation wasn’t good. In just a few hours, he was supposed to be leading the POWs through a gap in the fence. How he was supposed to do that while imprisoned inside the hot box was anybody’s guess.

It wasn’t just his own fate that concerned him, but the lives of all those other men. Some were so thin and worn out that they clearly didn’t have much more time.

However, he was locked up tighter than a nickel in a miser’s fist.

For several minutes, he felt a rising panic, as if the walls of the cramped box were closing in on him, creeping closer in the darkness. He knew it was all in his head. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep, even breaths, mastering his mind until he felt the wave of panic recede.

When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed. He was still stuck in the hot box.

He reckoned that it was time to do something about it.

In his previous stay inside this place, which he had to remind himself had been only yesterday, he had given it only a cursory inspection. That stay had been relatively brief. With more time on his hands, he now made a more concerted effort to explore his surroundings.

This time he pushed against the walls, scratched at the boards covering the floor, even poked at the dense thatch to see if he could tunnel his way through the roof. Instead of finding a way out, he got a few fleabites and a face full of dust that irritated his already dry eyes. He was testing the limits of the place, hoping to find a weak spot somewhere, but the hot box was sturdier than it looked from the outside.

If he’d had his bowie knife, perhaps he could have levered some of the boards apart. But all that he had were his fingernails. Nevertheless, he stubbornly clawed at the edges of the boards until his fingernails were broken and even bleeding. It was a sign of his desperation that he kept going even as he began to leave bloody fingerprints on the dusty boards.

It was no use. It didn’t help that he was damn near blind in the darkness, fumbling around like a mole.

He even tried the door in a last-ditch effort, but it was solid, without any give to it. Inside the cramped space, he couldn’t build any momentum for a good run at it.

After what he guessed was an hour of desperate effort, trying everything that came to mind, it was time to face facts.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

He realized that he had expended his last bit of energy in the futile effort to escape the hot box. Exhausted, he allowed himself to slump down against the wall and stretch out his legs in front of him, or at least as much as the cramped space allowed, once again feeling every ache and pain from the day.

Not only was he exhausted from the day’s labors, but Mr. Suey had given him one hell of a beating.

Some hero you make, he thought, full of disgust for himself.

Deke wasn’t used to being without options, so he sat there and brooded in the dark.

The only interruption came when a guard entered with a small bowl of food. Deke thought about rushing the guard, but the Japanese were one step ahead of him. Another guard stood right behind the one with the food, jabbing a rifle with a bayonet in Deke’s direction. Any attempt to break out would only get him shot or stabbed. Deke slumped down again.

To his surprise, the officer that he had nicknamed Eyeglasses appeared. The man’s actual name was Lieutenant Ryota Osako, a graduate of the elite Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Osako had been far more idealistic until being sent to Leyte to serve at this prison camp — he sometimes wondered if there had been a mix-up in his orders. Day by day, his idealism had been worn down by the dull duty. His goal now was simply to survive. But some ember of humanity still glowed within Osako, the spark of which had brought him here to the hot box.

Also, if he was going to be entirely honest, he hoped that by showing the prisoner some kindness, the man might reveal important information that Osako could then share with Colonel Yamagata, thus currying favor with the camp commandant. He couldn’t help but suspect that the man was more than a simple prisoner.