It was no secret that Japanese officers despised prisoners, whom they saw as having no honor. Tanigawa was no exception. In their view, a good Japanese, even a civilian, would do the honorable thing and kill him- or herself rather than be taken prisoner. In fact, Japanese soldiers who allowed themselves to be captured were reported as killed, mainly for the benefit of their families, so that they did not have to live with dishonor.
By the time MacArthur’s troops landed, the thousands held at Santo Tomas were starving, pure and simple. The Japanese military did not really give a damn, not when they were themselves fighting for survival.
Food rations were cut and given to Japanese troops instead — or sold on the black market, which was exactly what Tanigawa had been doing. Of course, he was sure that his supply officers were already taking their cut before the weekly supply inventory even reached his desk.
Out in the corridor, they heard the muffled cries of a young woman. The prisoner delegation looked over their shoulders in alarm, but the Japanese in the room seemed unperturbed because this sort of incident was now an almost daily occurrence.
Through the door, he saw that some of his men had brought in a Filipino girl. He’d gotten a glimpse of her — young, frightened, her shabby dress torn. Her piteous cries echoed through the halls.
“Aren’t you going to do anything about that?” MacGregor demanded, looking out into the hall. He appeared upset enough to run out and try to put a stop to whatever was happening, but the guards at the door moved closer to block his way. His tall frame seemed to shrink in defeat.
“There is nothing to be done about the food,” Tanigawa said. “Ration it as best as you can.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Sergeant Inaba shouted. “Out!”
MacGregor drew himself up to his full height and glared down at Tanigawa as if he would like nothing better than to tear him apart. However, they both knew he was utterly powerless to do anything. The woman looked just as angry but kept her mouth shut. The third prisoner just looked afraid, wringing his hands.
Inaba shoved MacGregor through the door and the meeting was over.
Echoing through the halls, the girl’s cries continued for twenty minutes while the men had their way with her, some laughing as they urged the others on. They ignored the girl’s sobbing. Finally, there was an angry shout, a gunshot that echoed throughout the building, and the girl’s cries were heard no more.
There was no doubt that the prisoners had overheard the girl’s treatment and her ultimate fate, but Tanigawa thought that it should serve as a warning to them. Their guards’ latest victim had been Filipino. So far the female prisoners had been off limits to the depredations of the guards, but for how much longer as the troops grew more wanton and desperate?
It was something for the prisoners to contemplate. Maybe next time, Tanigawa thought, they would think twice before complaining.
CHAPTER TEN
Tired and exhausted, the snipers reached Manila. Most of the division was not being sent into combat but was training for the invasion of Okinawa. It wasn’t exactly a vacation, but at least they were getting a much-needed break from the front lines.
Deke and the others weren’t so lucky. The fight for Manila was going to involve sniper battles, so Patrol Easy was being sent to do what it did best.
Getting to Manila hadn’t been easy. First, they had endured crossing the San Bernardino Strait to Luzon, half expecting to be torpedoed by a Japanese sub or strafed by a stray Zero. The sea had been choppy, churned by a strong southerly wind. Yoshio and Honcho were the only ones who hadn’t gotten seasick. Deke would always be farm boy first and foremost, so ships never agreed with him. It was a relief to reach dry land again. What followed next was a long truck ride over rough roads to the capital city of the Philippines. The roads closer to the city were paved and had once been decent, but war and neglect had left them in bad shape.
“I wonder what the girls are like in Manila?” Philly said.
“I reckon they’re hiding, if they’re smart,” Deke said.
“Aw, you’re no fun,” Philly said with a snort. “If you come across any Filipino girls, you be sure to send them my way. They’ll thank me later.”
Deke didn’t reply but gave Philly a sideways look. It was a sore point with him that he’d never been with a girl. He couldn’t admit as much to Philly, of course. He never would have heard the end of it. After all, Deke had proved himself to be the tough guy, the hard man, the crack shot, the one who got things done when push came to shove. But it was Philly who’d had all the women, even if you only believed about half of his bragging.
Just about every young soldier had done his level best to lose his virginity before going off to war and possibly getting killed. Even the religious ones sometimes made an exception under the circumstances. Most young men felt that it would have been a shame to die and never know what it felt like to make love. The memory of the event itself would get many a soldier through a dark and lonely night. The topic of conversation among most soldiers alternated between home, good food, sports, and women — they longed for all of them.
Deke felt embarrassed about his lack of experience and wondered if there was something wrong with him. He supposed that his scarred face scared off the girls. Meanwhile, he held on to his secret like it was a gold nugget.
A distant thump of artillery interrupted Deke’s thoughts, reminding him that he had bigger problems to worry about.
In the light of the setting sun, they had their first glimpse of the sprawling city. The rich hues of the tropical sun made the white walls of the city sparkle, although the sight was marred here and there by rising columns of smoke. What Manila lacked in height — most buildings outside the city center were only a few stories tall — it made up for in breadth.
Because Deke was a country boy and his experience of cities was limited, Manila seemed to him like a very large city. He wasn’t wrong — the prewar population made it bigger than Richmond but smaller than Rochester. At the heart of Manila was the historic walled city known as Intramuros, which dated back to the earliest days of Spanish colonization. Now the whole place was going to be a battleground.
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.