Savage Sniper

Mr. Suey held the grenade up triumphantly, shouting something unintelligible in Japanese. His eyes widened in recognition when he spotted Deke pointing the rifle at him.

“Aw, shut the hell up,” Deke said, and shot him.

The impact of the bullet knocked Mr. Suey backward. He tumbled back out through the door, and the grenade went off. The blast knocked away a few more boards so that the broken door hung in its frame like a lopsided, gap-toothed smile.

A momentary quiet settled over the bunker and clearing as both sides tried to figure out what to do next.

Once again, the quiet did not last long. One of the former prisoners decided that he’d had enough. He’d had enough of being hungry and thirsty. He’d had enough of fearing death at the hands of the enemy. After so many long months of cruel captivity, who could blame him? Freedom had seemed so close, only to be denied again at the hands of the enemy. Unable to take any more of it, the man simply snapped. The open door left by the grenade attack beckoned.

The man leaped up with a burst of energy that would have seemed impossible only minutes ago. After all, he was little more than skin and bones, what remained of his ragged uniform flapping around his skinny arms and legs.

Deke recognized him as one of the quieter captives who had kept his head down, seemingly intent on survival. The man’s name was Truslow.

“I’ve had it!” Truslow shouted. “I’m getting out of here!”

To his credit, Faraday tried to stop him. He jumped up and tried to get between the man and the door. “Hold it, Truslow! Just hold it! Where the hell do you think you’re going? We’re surrounded!”

“I can’t take it anymore!” Truslow shouted, then managed to dodge around Faraday and head for the door. Looking on, Deke and the others were too stunned to act.

A split second later, the man was out the doorway. He jumped over the heads of the startled Filipino fighters in the foxholes and began running for all he was worth across the open clearing.

The man’s sudden appearance in the open seemed to have taken the enemy by surprise, because they held their fire.

Where Truslow hoped to escape to was hard to say, because the clearing really was ringed by Japanese troops hidden within the cover offered by the encroaching forest. His escape attempt was somewhat helped by the fact that it was starting to get dark, and the dusk was growing thicker. With any luck, his momentum might carry him clear through the enemy perimeter.

Alas, it was not to be. A lone figure stepped from the forest into the clearing. The figure was instantly recognizable as Colonel Yamagata because of the bow he brandished. He already had an arrow nocked. In the time it took to take a breath, Yamagata’s powerful arm drew back the string and released an arrow.

The arrow’s fletching made it visible like a white flash in the dusk as it sailed straight and true, burying itself in Truslow’s chest cavity. Truslow threw his arms wide like a man beseeching the heavens, then tumbled to the ground, ending his run for freedom a few feet short of the edge of the clearing.

Yamagata. Deke had his rifle up once he had recovered his wits, but by then the archer had faded back among the trees.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” Faraday was muttering, staring out through one of the firing slits at Truslow’s lifeless figure in the distance. An enemy rifle cracked, and he was forced to duck down.

“That’s it,” Lieutenant Steele announced. He had positioned himself in front of the bunker door to block the exit, just in case anyone else got the idea to make a run for it. “One way or another, we are getting out of here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Trapped. It was how they all felt, Deke included, as they peered out through the firing slits at the ring of forest surrounding the bunker.

One hell of a place to make a last stand, Deke thought. Lieutenant Steele might not want to call it that, but that was what it was shaping up to be.

Our very own Alamo,

he thought, right here in the jungle.

A weary quiet settled over the men in the bunker. Truslow’s desperate bid for freedom had left them all shaken. His attempt had been doomed from the start, but they could all understand why he had at least tried. The truth was that they all felt the same way. Truslow simply hadn’t been able to take it anymore.

Meanwhile, they were all just waiting for the next shoe to drop. It felt as if the Japanese held all the cards.

“How well did you know Truslow?” Deke asked Faraday, once an uneasy calm had returned.

Faraday shrugged. “You know, it’s funny. I lived right alongside the man for months but didn’t know that much about him. Hell, you could probably say the same about any of us.”

“Sometimes it’s best not to get to know the other fella too well.”