Samurai & Snipers полностью

The end of the alley loomed, a partially collapsed brick wall that created a dead end. Cautiously, they looked out over the open ground between the end of the alley and the steps of the legislative building in the distance.

Deke motioned for Juana and Philly to stay put as he climbed the broken wall. He reached his destination — a shattered window near the top level that had been previously boarded up with wooden planks. He quickly pulled out his bowie knife and began to pry them off one by one, doing it as quietly as he could under the circumstances. He was still worried about where that Japanese patrol that they’d heard earlier had gone. He just hoped to hell that they hadn’t managed to circle back and were coming down on Patrol Easy through the alley.

He was soon at a point where he could look over the square. Peering out, he saw several Japanese soldiers standing guard on the upper floor of the building. His finger itched to get on the trigger and take some of them out, maybe wreak a bit of havoc, but what he saw next made him freeze. The Japanese patrol that they had heard was almost directly beneath him, having a smoke break. He could plainly see Inaba, the only one of the bunch who was looking cautiously around them, clearly on high alert.

Deke glanced back at the others, signaling that he had seen something. He quietly made his way back down the crumbling wall to his fellow soldiers and whispered his plan. They would throw a few grenades and hope for the best. There was no way for them to climb the wall quietly enough to bring fire to bear on the Japanese.

And so they did just that. Rodeo had the best arm, so he threw the first grenade, then Philly, and finally Honcho following up with a third grenade.

Three blasts in quick succession followed. Crump, crump, crump. The wall didn’t do much to muffle the blasts, explosions echoing through the alley and shaking loose bits of mortar from above. The mortar pattered on their helmets, the sound as loud as the inside of a drum. Deke wore the bush hat as usual, so the chunks rained down across the brim, though he scarcely noticed because of the terrible ringing in his ears. Those grenades had packed a wallop, that was for sure.

“Go! Go!” Honcho shouted, the need for any kind of quiet gone, and their group swarmed up the pile of bricks, ready for anything, aware that the Japanese were on the other side.

Taking advantage of all the chaos caused by their grenades, not worried about how much noise he was making, Deke led the charge up the broken wall. As he scanned for movement from their vantage point on top of the ruined wall, Deke looked down and saw just what he had hoped for — the torn bodies of Japanese soldiers on the ground. However, there should have been more dead Japanese.

Deke lowered himself down the other side of the wall. Philly was just behind him, and Juana behind him. Honcho and Rodeo stayed on the wall, ready to offer covering fire. So far there hadn’t been any sign of any surviving Japanese.

Deke darted out from behind cover without giving it a second thought, rifle at the ready. He stepped over one of the dead Japanese, the shrapnel from the grenade having eviscerated the man. He didn’t waste time looking, other than to ascertain that the Jap was dead. Deke’s eyes went everywhere at once, looking for targets. It seemed as if the grenades had been grouped a little too close together, the shrapnel missing some of the Japanese patrol. There weren’t enough bodies, and Inaba wasn’t among the dead.

“Where the hell did the rest of them go?” Deke wanted to know. “There were more than three Japs, I can tell you that.”

“Look awake, everybody!” Honcho shouted.

They soon got their answer. The dust shifted as if the rubble was coming alive. Sergeant Inaba suddenly appeared. He and two more Japanese had managed to camouflage themselves in the rubble. Armed with his submachine gun, Inaba sprayed bullets at the American snipers. Deke quickly took aim and was about to fire a shot at Inaba’s chest to bring an end to this episode, when something stung him in the upper arm, above the elbow. That was what it felt like — a sting, as if a hot, metallic hornet had found him. Somewhere in the back of Deke’s mind, he realized that he’d been shot.

He didn’t have time to assess how badly he’d been hit — at any rate, his arm still worked, which turned out to be a good thing. He was going to need it. He swung his rifle up, trying to get it into play against the Japanese sergeant.

But he didn’t have time. Another danger had appeared.

A figure emerged from behind Sergeant Inaba, looming out of the drifting dust and debris left by the grenade blast. It was Major Tanigawa himself, armed with his double rifle. He was leading a handful of troops toward the fight.

Where the hell had he come from with those other troops? Deke wanted to kick himself for not spotting the major earlier — and those reinforcements.