The targets on the ridge had been far, but the officers were even farther. At this distance, it was impossible to target one man, but the Japanese had helped him out by standing close together. They probably weren’t concerned about a sniper at this range, but Deke had a little surprise for them involving the heavier rifle bullet.
He made some adjustments, raising the rifle slightly, and then squeezed the trigger. To his satisfaction, one of the distant enemy officers toppled to the ground. The others hurried for cover. It wasn’t much payback for what the Japanese had done to these poor civilians, but Deke figured it was a decent down payment.
Finally, Deke ran for the ditch and dove in next to Philly just as another shell exploded nearby. The bottom of the roadside ditch had a foot of water in it from the recent rains, but that didn’t stop him from crouching down and getting soaked in the process. The body of a Filipino lay half in and half out of the ditch, killed either by shrapnel or having been a victim of Japanese bayonets. Deke didn’t investigate too closely.
“I was watching through the binoculars,” Philly said. “You got him, all right. That was some shooting.”
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then,” Deke replied.
Philly shook his head. “You and your damn hillbilly sayings. Did you see how those Japs were standing up there like they ruled the roost? These Japs all think they’re a bunch of samurai.”
“I’m no samurai, I’m just a sniper,” Deke said, nodding toward the distant hill where the Japanese officer lay dead. “Then again, which would you rather be?”
The 305th’s gunners were giving as good as they got, and maybe even better. The roar was deafening as the crews worked frantically to load a shell, do a quick check of their aim, yank the lanyard, eject the shell, and then do it all over again. They had done this so many times that their motions looked smooth and easy. A cheer went up when they scored a direct hit on one of the enemy’s gun crew.
Deke grinned. “Well now, it’s good to know I’m not the only one around here who can hit something.”
But the Japanese were far from beaten. A Jap artillery round landed in the road, toppling a howitzer and showering the soldiers with dirt and shrapnel.
Shells tore through the air and great geysers of muddy earth erupted all around Patrol Easy as the American and Japanese gunners duked it out. Deke huddled in a ditch, shoulder to shoulder with Philly and Honcho, feeling the ground quake. Overhead, hot shrapnel hissed through the air. The sound sent a shiver down Deke’s spine, and he pressed himself deeper into the ditch. There was a time to fight back and there was a time to take cover — which was
Mercifully, the firing began to slow. The duel finally ended when the guns of the 305th had scattered the Japanese troops on the ridge and wrecked most of their artillery.
“Cease fire!” an officer shouted. Slowly, the howitzers fired their last shots and fell silent. The only sound now was the ringing in everyone’s ears.
Through binoculars, the artillery officers studied the damage. Deke borrowed the binoculars from Philly and did the same.
Many of the Japanese guns had been destroyed in the exchange. The American gunners had clearly gotten the upper hand, with more accuracy and a higher rate of fire. Smashed and broken equipment littered the slope.
The Japanese infantry that they had seen earlier was now under cover or had withdrawn into the forest lower down on the ridges. This meant that the Americans would only have to fight them later. It was a bit unnerving that the size of the Japanese force they had seen earlier outnumbered their own. The Japanese might be hidden for now, but all those enemy troops were still out there.
New orders arrived from headquarters, and while the orders were not unexpected, they were not what the soldiers wanted to hear.
“We’re being told to pursue the enemy,” Lieutenant Steele announced. “And that’s what we are going to do.”
The column moved out. As the road climbed deeper into the hills, it became clear that the field artillery would not be able to continue. The road became more like a muddy track as it rose steeply. The forest pressed in closer, and in places tree limbs reached out and waved in the breeze as if to snatch at the soldiers. Although the ridge where they had seen the enemy was still some distance away, it was hard to shake the feeling that they were walking into an ambush.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Philly muttered.
“We can agree on that,” Deke replied. “I don’t like the looks of this place at all.”
