Samurai & Snipers полностью

Using the trucks for cover, Deke ran toward the rear of the column, with Philly and Danilo following him. The small bridge back here had been shattered by the blast, but the debris had fallen in such a way that a single beam remained stretched across the narrow waterway. Brown floodwater tugged and pulled at the beam, making it bob more like a bit of straw than a heavy wood stringer. It was dicey, but it was the only way across.

Here goes nothin’, Deke thought, then raced across the beam without waiting for the others. He was moving too fast to lose his balance, carried across by sheer momentum. His boots got wet where the current washed over the beam, but he managed to dash across and reach the far bank. He dove for cover as first Philly, then Danilo, followed him. Lucky for them, the Japanese were so intent on picking apart the convoy that they scarcely paid any attention to the three men, other than sending a few random shots in their direction.

“What the hell are you up to?” Philly asked, once he lay panting in the jungle underbrush.

“I’m making it up as I go along,” Deke said. “C’mon.”

The three men pushed their way up the steep riverbank. The mud and dense undergrowth made it tough going. They had no choice but to bull their way through the thick weeds and tangled branches. Something slithered past Deke’s boot and he thought, Snake. He ignored it. At the moment he had bigger worries.

At the top of the bank, they were rewarded with the discovery of a narrow dirt track that ran parallel to the river. The trail was likely used by animals, but someone else had been through here — the telltale prints left by Japanese boots were visible in the mud. The Japanese were using this trail to move parallel to the convoy and harass the Americans on the other side of the river.

Deke motioned for the others to follow him. Up ahead, it was clear from the sound of firing that the enemy was tearing up the column. There wasn’t a moment to waste.

He broke into a run, sprinting down the narrow trail. Palm fronds and pendulous tree branches sodden from the previous night’s rain tore at him from the edges of the trail, thorns and sharp leaf edges cutting deep enough to scratch out blood, but he ignored the sting. There was no point in being quiet anymore. As Deke charged, a visceral sound came from deep within him, a keening wail that was Deke’s bloodcurdling version of a rebel yell. Deke leaped a tree limb and found himself face-to-face with the enemy.

His rebel yell startled the first Japanese soldier that Deke encountered. The man turned to him, wide-eyed, and Deke threw the rifle to his shoulder and shot him down.

He kept going. Philly was shouting now, and even Danilo let loose with something that could only be described as a jungle roar.

Screaming their battle cries at the top of their lungs, they rolled up the Japanese positioned along the trail. Deke couldn’t fire the rifle fast enough, so he switched to his pistol. Behind him, Danilo used his wicked bolo knife to finish off any Japanese who still had any fight left.

It was all over in a few seconds. Their madcap attack had worked. It was hard to say how many Japanese had been part of the ambush, because the ones that they didn’t kill had scattered into the forest. The only fire now came from the American side of the river. Bullets tore through the greenery, the so-called friendly fire too close for comfort as Deke, Philly, and Danilo hugged the dirt.

“Stop shooting, dammit!” Philly shouted. “Honcho, tell them to stop!”

On the other side of the river, they heard Lieutenant Steele give the order. Once the shooting stopped, they retraced their steps along the trail to the bridge and crossed over again.

The lieutenant was waiting for them. “You crazy bastards,” he said. But he was grinning with pride. “You three saved this whole damn column — or what’s left of it, anyhow.”

Slowly, they picked up the pieces left by the Japanese ambush. Several of the trucks had been shot to pieces. Two men had been killed and a half dozen were wounded. It was likely that the damage would have been far worse if Deke, Philly, and Danilo hadn’t been able to cross the river and blunt the attack. Oddly enough, the front half of the convoy that had made it across the first bridge had mostly been spared.

But the destruction of the bridges had left the divided convoy in a quandary. The bridges could be repaired — to a point. “There’s no way we’re getting these trucks and that M8 across,” Steele said. “We’ll have to take what we can carry, plus the wounded. We’ll have to leave the vehicles, including that armored car. Hopefully, we can get some engineers back here to make those bridges operational. We’ll have to — this is the main road between Valencia and Palompon.”

“Those Japanese knew exactly what they were doing,” Deke agreed. “They hit us right where it hurts.”