Savage Sniper

From the fact that the corpse was riddled with bullet holes, it was easy enough to guess the enemy soldier’s fate. He must have thrown his grenades and then been cut down by rifle fire. He didn’t even seem to have been carrying a rifle of his own, unless someone had nabbed it as a souvenir. Given the average GI’s propensity for souvenirs, that was entirely possible. Deke judged that the soldier was in his late twenties or early thirties. What had he been in civilian life? Deke wondered. Maybe a factory worker, a teacher, or a farmer like Deke had once been.

He pushed any further speculation from his mind. It was better not to think of the enemy as anything but the enemy.

The dead man’s lone attack had successfully burned two trucks, vehicles that the division couldn’t spare. There simply weren’t any extras to be had.

They had even pressed a few captured Japanese vehicles into service, covering them with hastily painted white stars to avoid confusion. Even a truck driver who had proudly driven an American-made Chrysler had to admit that the Japanese vehicles were sturdy and even more reliable than the US vehicles.

The blackened hulks of the trucks were still smoking, filling the air with the stench of burned rubber and charred automotive paint. Their steel frames had blistered with heat, burning down to the bare metal, as if the fires of hell had exploded on its surface. Oddly enough, the only markings that had survived were the white stars painted on the doors, although these were smudged with soot and ash.

The reek of the burned trucks wasn’t the only offensive smell.

Nearby, the body of the Japanese soldier was also starting to stink in the growing heat, but nobody made any effort to move it.

Dead Japanese were not a priority, although the living ones certainly were.

Lieutenant Steele soon explained that they wouldn’t be staying in Ormoc for long. He had received new marching orders for Patrol Easy.

“Take a good look,” said the lieutenant, who went by the nickname Honcho around his men. It came from a Japanese word that meant something like “boss.” Anyhow, it was better than being addressed as “lieutenant” and drawing enemy sniper fire as a result. “This may be our last glimpse of what passes for civilization for a while. We’re heading back out.”

“Gee, I was hoping to maybe catch a movie and get a haircut,” Philly said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steele said. “What you really might want to do is find some hip waders. We’re about to slog through some rice paddies.”

Philly groaned, summing up how they all felt. Nobody enjoyed rice paddies. They were muddy, crawling with snakes and occasionally land mines, and there were few places where a man was so completely exposed as a target. But it didn’t sound as if they were going to get much choice.

Gathering them around, the lieutenant spelled out the situation. Now that Ormoc had been taken, the next target for the division would be Palompon. Although smaller than Ormoc, the coastal town provided the Japanese with their last operational port on Leyte. A few Japanese supply vessels and troop transports still managed to come and go, dodging American planes by operating under cover of darkness.

“It’s a straight shot right up Highway 2 from Ormoc to Palompon,” Steele explained.

“Straight shot? I like the sound of that, Honcho. Sounds like there’s nothing to it,” Philly said. “It’s about time we got an easy job.”

“If only it was that simple,” the lieutenant said. “The Japanese have every mile of that road locked up tighter than a farmer’s daughter.”

“I knew there was a catch.”

“There always is, or what would they need us for? Not only is the road well defended, but the Japanese have wired the bridges for demolition. The ones that aren’t ready to fall down, anyhow. Rumor has it that they’ve set up ambushes whenever there is a sharp bend in the road.”

The designation of Highway 2 was overly optimistic, considering that in places it wasn’t much more than a wide dirt road through the rice paddies and forests. Steele added that intelligence reports indicated there were at least forty-two bridges to cross, though most spanned relatively small rivers or streams. Unfortunately for the advancing American troops, each bridge might prove to be a substantial obstacle.

You had to hand it to the Japanese, Deke thought. Having lost Ormoc, they had simply pulled back and planned to defend every inch of the path that US forces would have to take to reach the next objective. By demolishing bridges, and perhaps by planting land mines, they could certainly roll up the carpet behind them.

But the GIs weren’t going to cooperate by marching right into the enemy guns. Instead, Lieutenant Steele went on to explain that the plan was to cut across the highway and come at the Japanese farther up the road, where they might not expect an attack.