“All they need is a marching band,” Philly agreed. “Just who the hell do they think they are?”
“They’re proud bastards, I’ll give them that,” Deke replied.
With the Japanese now formed up in marching order, Patrol Easy and the Filipinos formed a loose ring around them, and both groups moved out into the city. Tanigawa had not announced his destination, but from the pace he set, it was clear that he knew where he was leading his men.
The surrounding city was a mess, a labyrinth of burned-out cars everywhere, along with broken buildings and scattered bodies, mostly of Filipino civilians, not to mention a few dead dogs. Overall, it was far from a pleasant or encouraging sight. The smell of the dead in the warm sun mixed with the odor of raw sewage and the acrid stink of burned rubber. It all made Deke long for the greenery of the jungle. This manmade jungle was far worse.
As the soldiers moved through the city, the only living beings they passed seemed to be other combat troops, mainly American soldiers and a handful of Filipino guerrillas. They watched the procession with curiosity and puzzled expressions. For the Japanese, having an American escort forming a loose ring around them had proved to be very smart, because they would not have lasted long otherwise, surrounded by trigger-happy GIs. Even with the hostages, their chances of making it so much as a block wouldn’t have been very good.
“Ain’t this a hell of a thing,” Deke said as they walked along beside the Japanese. “Who would ever think we’d be babysitters for a bunch of enemy troops?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Philly agreed. “You know that we’re just going to have to fight these sons of bitches later, and if not us, then some other poor bastards will.”
“I don’t think we have much choice,” Deke said, nodding at the prisoners. They walked with their heads down, picking their way through the rubble. If any of them slowed down too much, Inaba or one of the other Japanese was quick to shout at them. So far they had refrained from jabbing the prisoners with bayonets. Even Big Mike appeared cowed, walking along with his head bowed. They could see him plainly because he was literally a head taller than the surrounding Japanese.
Tagging along with Patrol Easy was the prisoner’s son, who had insisted on following them. The nightmarish cityscape they passed through was no place for a young kid.
“I wish to hell that kid would go home,” Deke said. “He doesn’t have any business being out here.”
“If that was your father being herded along, would you go home?” Philly wondered.
“I don’t reckon I would.”
“There you go. What makes you think that kid is any different?”
The boy appeared to sense his tenuous position because he kept well away from the soldiers. He seemed to be afraid that if he got too close, they would yell at him to go home. However, the shattered streets they were passing through wouldn’t have been safe for him to travel alone. They began passing more and more civilian bodies, including women and children. Several of the injuries to the women and their torn or missing clothes indicated that they had been molested. They passed the body of a young woman, her shirt ripped open, revealing that one of her breasts had been cut off.
“Who the hell does that?” Philly wondered.
Nobody had a good answer for him. Juana went over and tugged the young woman’s shirt closed, then put a handkerchief over her face to keep off the flies. It was as much dignity as she could give the young woman in these circumstances.
It was becoming clear that the Japanese were killing anyone they could, including Westerners. Not all the bodies belonged to Filipino civilians. One of the dead appeared to be a heavyset middle-aged Caucasian man wearing linen suit pants and a dress shirt sliced to ribbons by bayonet cuts. The shirt had once been white but was now soaked in uneven stripes of blood. This victim appeared out of place alongside the others.
“Another American?” Philly wondered aloud.
“If he was running free around the city, instead of being a prisoner, he must be a German,” Honcho said. “Allies with the Japs. They’ve corralled everyone else.”
“Good riddance, then,” Philly said.
There had been a surprising number of Germans in Manila, most of them there in some kind of business capacity. There were also a small number of German Jews who had escaped Nazi Germany just in time, scattering to whatever far corner of the world would take them. The Japanese had not cared about their religion and consequently considered these refugees to be on equal footing with the other Germans. The presence of a German population was a problem that would have to be dealt with once the city was secure. Right now, US forces had more immediate concerns.
