Lieutenant Steele filled them in. “It’s just another kind of jungle, boys,” he said. “Except this one has concrete instead of palm trees.”
They soon found out what he meant, spending the night in an abandoned house. The place had once been grand, with a walled courtyard, but the inhabitants had long since fled — or possibly had been killed or incarcerated by the Japanese. All the furniture was gone or smashed, so they slept on the cold stone floor. There wasn’t any electricity in this part of the city due to the fighting, so they lay listening to the sound of gunshots punctuating the darkness. It was hard to say who was doing the shooting and who was doing the dying, but to Deke’s ears, most of the shots sounded like the lighter crack of the enemy’s Arisaka rifles. They were of a smaller caliber, but just as deadly in capable hands. Starting in the morning, it would be their job to take on those Japanese snipers.
The truth was that Patrol Easy was late to the game. US troops had crossed the Pasig River into Manila in early February and had been engaged in bloody street fighting ever since. General MacArthur had urged the Japanese to make Manila an “open city” just as he had done when they had invaded in 1941. Basically, this would have meant that Japanese troops would have withdrawn and spared the city from destruction. But the Japanese were having none of that.
Consequently, Manila had been dubbed “the Stalingrad of Asia,” an allusion to the bitter fight between the Soviets and Germans for that city. The Japanese had turned nearly every major intersection into a fortress, meaning that US troops often had to demolish the surrounding buildings just to get at the enemy. The Japanese had also fortified several of the taller buildings, turning them into pillboxes and using the higher floors to their advantage as they fired down upon advancing troops.
Because the Japanese had been there for years, they had the home team advantage and knew every street and alley better than the Americans who had come to reclaim Manila. They’d also had the opportunity to turn the city into a maze of defensive positions intended to thwart the American advance at nearly every street corner or storefront.
“Do the Nips really think they can hold Manila?” Philly asked. It was a good question, given the forces arrayed against them. More Army troops were pouring in all the time. The hope of any reinforcements or supplies making it through from Japan also had diminished rapidly.
“They know they can’t win,” Honcho replied, his tone bitter. “But for the Japanese, it’s not about winning. Not anymore. It’s about making us bleed as much as possible in the process of beating them.”
There was no doubt that it would be a bloody battle, both for the Americans and for the city itself. Again, the Americans were left with little choice except to use their artillery to turn these buildings into rubble. The conquest of Manila wasn’t even being measured block by block, but rather by each building and intersection that was leveled or captured.
In the morning, Patrol Easy ate a hurried breakfast and thought about getting to work.
Even so, that work turned out to be different from what was expected and involved an old ally from the past.
During the night, a runner had come looking for Lieutenant Steele. That wasn’t all that unusual because runners were how the command post kept tabs on the patrols. Honcho hadn’t mentioned what the message was about, which was his prerogative as an officer, but it was about to become clear. He called his men together in the courtyard of the grand house.
“An old friend tracked us down last night,” he announced. “It turns out that he wants to pay us a visit.”
He then stepped aside as a figure emerged from a doorway. He was a broad-shouldered man wearing the simple brown frock of a priest.
“Father Francisco!” Deke said in surprise, genuinely pleased at the sight of the priest who had fought alongside them on Leyte. He had been a parish priest in Palo, outspoken against the Japanese, until the enemy had forced him to flee for his life into the hills, where he had become a guerrilla leader. They had made his acquaintance not long after they’d hit the beach near Palo.
“It is good to see you, Deacon Cole,” said the priest, who shook hands all around, calling each man by name. “It is good to see all of you, my old friends.”
“We can always use the help, Padre,” Deke said.
“Oh, it is not just me,” the priest said. “I alone would not be of much use to you. I have brought along some help.”
