The Filipino snipers had shown themselves to be quick learners when it came to hunting the enemy. Also, they seemed motivated by revenge in a way that was hard for the average GI to grasp, because it was the Japanese who had occupied their country, after all. The enemy had ruined their fields, taken over their homes, stolen their freedoms. Simply put, they hated the Japanese with every fiber of their being.
So far, just one of the Filipinos had been killed when he had tried to run between buildings and had been picked off by a Japanese marksman. Since then, his countrymen — and women — had paid back the Japanese many times over.
The battle for the stadium promised to be a difficult fight, but the Japanese there had to be eliminated. The stadium could not be left as an enemy stronghold while the American advance encircled it.
“Deke, I want you and Juana to get to third base,” Honcho said. “See if you can find some cover in those weeds and start picking off the Japs in the stands on that side of the stadium.”
Philly laughed. “That’s a good one, Honcho!”
“What’s so damn funny?”
“I’m not sure that Deke has ever gotten to third base before.”
Honcho did not appear amused. “You’re a regular comedian, aren’t you, Philly? Just for that, you can take the outfield. There are enough bushes growing out there to give you some cover.”
Nobody but Philly seemed to have much of a sense of humor considering that they were about to face at least a hundred dug-in Japs. Deke glanced at Juana, who made no sign of having picked up on Philly’s joke about third base. He wasn’t about to explain.
Besides, he and Juana had barely exchanged more than a few words during the last few days. In the field, they had made do with hand gestures and nods. It was the only communication they needed, and they had made a good team. After that Japanese sniper had taken out one of the Filipinos, Juana had rigged a helmet on a stick to draw the Jap’s fire, enabling Deke to spot his hiding place and put a nice fat chunk of lead into him.
There wasn’t time for much conversation when you were busy fighting and trying to stay alive. Deke wondered if he even wanted to get to know Juana any better. In his experience, combat situations could lead to a very short life expectancy. Maybe it was better not to get attached, but it was getting so that he trusted Juana almost as much as Philly, Yoshio, or anybody else from Patrol Easy.
He pushed any stray thoughts from his mind to focus on the task at hand, which involved shooting the enemy without getting shot himself.
Deke scrambled forward, crawling on all fours. Juana moved behind him, a little off to his left. Somewhere off to his right, he reckoned Philly would be moving into position. A couple of days ago, it might have felt strange being teamed up with Juana instead of Philly. But they seemed able to read each other’s minds. She was a natural and a much better shot than Philly.
Deke was developing a theory that women made better snipers, in the same way that female cats were better at catching mice than tomcats. Everybody back home knew that if you had a barn overrun by mice, the thing to do was to get yourself a mama cat and put her in there. Then again, Deke mused, you didn’t want to mess with a mean tomcat.
Thankfully, the machine guns that they knew to be in the dugouts did not open fire, perhaps not wanting to waste ammo on the sparse targets presented by Patrol Easy. Instead, they were going to let the Japanese snipers in the stands pick them off.
The weeds were tall enough to reach above him, but he worried that the snipers in the stands had a good view of anything moving on the infield. The crack of a rifle and the snap of a bullet overhead verified his concerns. He pressed himself lower to the ground and moved more slowly to create less of a disturbance in the sea of weeds. Another bullet whined overhead, and Deke wished that he could burrow like a box turtle into the infield.
After a few minutes of crawling, he reached the vicinity of third base. Fortunately, there was more than brush to provide cover out here. The wing of a downed plane lay in the weeds, having been there long enough that a few vines crept over it. He could see a chunk of the fuselage in the outfield, which might give Philly some cover. Deke couldn’t tell if the plane was Japanese or American, and he didn’t much care. In addition to providing decent cover, the broken wing also made a good bench rest.
Juana joined him, and they both rested their rifles on the metal skin of the plane’s wing, searching for targets in the stands. Deke had the advantage of having a telescopic sight on his Springfield, although Juana had proved herself more than capable with the iron sights on the Arisaka rifle.
Through the scope, the details of the stands sprang closer. A long, deep overhang protected the stands from the elements, but in this case it created shadows that hid the enemy. The baseball stadium had mostly been constructed out of concrete, which is what made it an appealing defensive position for the enemy. The stands themselves were mainly filled with plain wooden benches, draped with patches of weeds and ivy that had grown up during the wartime years of disuse. A small Japanese soldier could worm himself under a bench while having a commanding view of the baseball field. The entire baseball field spread below him, like a shooting gallery. With a rifle in his hands, that commanding view made that soldier a very effective sniper.
The challenge was finding him. Or them. There had to be several Japanese hidden away. Maybe even dozens of them. Deke wondered, Where the hell are these Nips?
Finally, one of the Japanese got trigger happy and fired. Deke spotted his muzzle flash.
“Got him,” he whispered to Juana.
He squeezed the trigger and saw the figure of the enemy sniper go limp.
One of the Jap snipers got the bright idea to shoot back and received a bullet from Juana for his trouble.
Beside him, he heard the slip-snick of Juana working the bolt of her rifle. The sound brought a grin to his lips.
By now the rest of Patrol Easy and their Filipino friends would be in position, facing off against the Japanese snipers.
Bases are loaded, Deke thought.
Both sides held their fire, hoping for a target. Deke had to hand it to the Japanese snipers, who had more discipline than he had expected. Maybe they really all were a bunch of damn samurai.
The tense impasse did not last for long. The attack that had been prepared against Japanese positions now began, with soldiers advancing like angry outfielders rushing the mound after a pitch had hit the batter.
Unfortunately, the Japanese had been waiting for this moment. Machine guns opened fire from the dugouts, red tracers slicing the air. A couple of GIs spun and fell into the deep weeds, not moving again. Still more went down, helmets flying off, rifles falling from lifeless fingers. Those who hadn’t been cut down kept running forward, but it was a hopeless situation. The intent of the frontal attack had been to rush the Japanese positions and overwhelm the enemy, but it soon became clear that this strategy was mostly based on wishful thinking.
The Nambu machine guns in the dugouts kept up their ruthless tap, tap, tap until not a GI was standing. Those who weren’t dead lay with their heads buried as deep into the weeds as they could go. Meanwhile, enemy snipers fired from the stadium heights at anything that moved on the baseball field.
From behind the airplane wing, Deke watched it all with a growing sense of rage. The Japanese had turned the dugouts into pillboxes by piling sandbags in front of the entrances, offering just a slit for the machine guns to shoot from. His rifle felt useless against those defenses. Instead, he concentrated on picking off the snipers in the stands. He fired again and again. Beside him, he could hear the sharp crack of Juana’s rifle as she did the same.
Normally, each of the snipers had trained to work with a spotter who could call out targets seen through binoculars while also watching out for any threats coming at them from their flanks or rear. But in this case, the two paired off and work like a team, alternating their fire.
They fell into a steady rhythm, Deke firing, then Juana shooting while he worked the bolt of the Springfield. It was like a one-two punch. Any snipers in the stands who made the mistake of revealing themselves paid dearly. The sniper fire from the stands slackened. Back in the day, vendors might have been selling cold beer up there and tossing out bags of peanuts. Now, the Japanese were tossing out lead.
The sun felt warm and he could smell Juana sweating beside him, the honest clean smell of work sweat. It reminded him of toiling in the fields alongside Sadie.
The frontal attack having been neutralized, the Japanese now turned their machine guns on Patrol Easy. Bullets and tracers sizzled overhead, forcing them to keep their heads down. Deke and Juana had to duck behind the airplane wing to keep from having their heads shot off. The situation had gone from bad to worse.
Now what?
Deke tried to take a shot at the machine gunners in the nearest dugout, but that only provoked a burst of fire that raked the length of the airplane wing. They were pinned down, good and proper.
Like an answer to a prayer, Deke heard the rumble of a tank, then another. The cavalry had arrived.
For the Japanese, the tables had turned. The machine guns peppered the steel sides of the Sherman tanks, but the bullets bounced off. Tracer rounds slid off the armor and went flying through the air. The tanks lined up their main guns and fired at the dugouts. Surprisingly, the sandbags had been piled so thick that they absorbed the first few rounds. But the tanks rolled closer and hit the dugout defenses at nearly point-blank range, demolishing the wall of sandbags. The echo of the muzzle blasts and explosions was deafening within the confines of the stadium.