Deke glanced at Danilo, but their Filipino guide didn’t meet his eyes. This was uncharacteristic of Danilo, who was usually up for anything. However, it was clear that the city unsettled him. Danilo preferred the mountains and jungle to the dusty rubble and the stinking burned wreckage of vehicles and buildings. His element was the natural world, not these choked city streets. Deke knew just how he felt, but a soldier couldn’t always choose his ground. Besides, how terrifying it must have been for that boy to be out there on his own. If he was out there, Deke knew that he had to at least try to get him back.
Juana pointed them in the right direction. “This way,” she said. As it turned out, she had been one of the last to see the boy, just when he had taken off on his own. Fortunately, the machine gun on top of the legislative building remained silent. Even the snipers they had spotted before in the windows seemed to be giving them a break.
Then again, nobody thought this was going to be easy. There was a lot of ground to cover if they wanted to find the boy. Deke just hoped that the boy wasn’t already dead.
What the search party — and Roddy — couldn’t have known was that at that very moment, the Japanese inside the legislative building were preparing a patrol led by Sergeant Inaba to counter any attacks on their flanks or rear — the exact approach routes that the boy’s mind had conjured. Ideally, Inaba would be able to leave pairs of soldiers in the outlying rubble as forward observers, or the equivalent of outposts, to detect any approaching threats.
Sergeant Inaba carried his submachine gun again, while one of his men carried an Arisaka rifle with a telescopic sight. Inaba was hoping against hope that his sniper would have a chance to use it against the American sharpshooters. Such was his confidence in the superior abilities of Japanese troops that he had no doubts that his sniper would prove to be the better shot. He took twelve experienced soldiers with him, more than enough to handle any enemy patrols they encountered.
“Move!” he admonished his men.
Major Tanigawa stood nearby, looking on with approval as Sergeant Inaba organized his men. The major’s samurai sword hung from his belt, and he held his prized double rifle in his hands. Although it was not a military weapon, it was perfect for this kind of urban fighting, able to get off two quick shots that would pack quite a wallop, considering that he was using a cartridge designed for big game.
“I feel like I am about to go on a hunting trip!” he said, a rare grin touching his face.
Inaba nodded at his superior officer, then led his patrol into the smashed ruins surrounding the building where the Japanese were planning to make their last stand.
The battle had reached the point where it went without saying that they didn’t plan on taking any additional prisoners, whether they were American GIs, civilians, or boys. As for the hostages they had taken, they were still alive, but at a command from Major Tanigawa, that would no longer be the case.
Inaba looked forward to that moment.
“We will split up,” the major said. “That way, we will cover more ground. Take some of the men and make sure that the
Not that far away, Roddy picked his way through the ruined square. He wore gray dungarees and a red-and-white-striped shirt, which hardly helped him blend into the strewn rubble and debris. He passed wrecked vehicles and a handful of bodies. He knew better now than to look at them too much, but he couldn’t resist staring with fascination at the bodies.
Most were dead Filipinos, although a few were Japanese. The clothes of the dead Filipinos were shredded and sometimes pulled open as if they had clawed at themselves in pain. It was hard to know how they had died. Some of the bodies of the women were bloody in places that his innocent mind found hard to fathom. One thing for certain, whether the dead were Filipino or Japanese, the buzzing flies had found them all. As for the smell — he walked away quickly, gagging. He didn’t know it then, but it was an odor that he would never be able to forget. He hoped that he wouldn’t end up the same way. It seemed a horrible way to be dead, lying out here in the open.
