1942:
In the war-torn jungles of Luzon, two soldiers scout the landscape. Under
ordinary circumstances, they might be friends, but in the hostile environment of
World War II, they are mortal enemies.
Leal
Baldwin, a US Army sergeant, writes sonnets. His sights are set on serving his
country honorably and returning home in one piece. But the enemy is not always
Japanese…Dooley wants Leo’s job, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get it…Leo
finds himself fighting for his reputation and freedom.
Lieutenant
Tadashi Abukara prefers haiku. He has vowed to serve his emperor honorably but
finds himself fighting a losing battle. Through combat, starvation, and the
threat of cannibalism, Tadashi’s only thought is of survival and return to his
beloved wife and son. As Leo and Tadashi discover the humanity of the other
side and the questionable moral acts committed by their own, they begin to ask
themselves why they are here at all. When they at last meet in the jungles of
Luzon, only one will survive, but their poetry will live forever.
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EXCERPT
ASSAULT
FORCE
The sea is calm; upon its boundless
deep
Our troopship glides, lost in infinity.
Beneath her decks two thousand soldiers
sleep,
Or, waking, wonder what their fate will
be.
From my assigned position here on high
I peer ahead, and in the east I see
The dawn’s pale fingers clawing at the
sky,
And then, a speck of land. The enemy
Will not be sleeping.
Now the troops are out
And stand in little groups beside each
boat.
The gunship’s roar drowns out the
sergeant’s shout.
Rope ladders fall, the LCIs, afloat,
Receive two thousand men in war array.
Each boat, full loaded, quickly moves
away.
CHAPTER 18
PHILIPPINE
SEA—JANUARY 31, 1945
Leo
sat against a pile of life rafts, his knees bent to support the letter he was
writing. Dooley perched on a pile of rafts next to him with a handful of Aussie
sailors. Their ship, the Australian transport Westralia, was part of a large convoy escorted by agile destroyers.
…
“I could spend the rest of the war
right here.” Dooley patted the life raft. “Whatcha think, Yankee boy?” Ever
since they’d left New Guinea, Dooley had acted like his outburst at Leo’s
promotion had never happened.
Leo set down his pen and took a moment
to stretch his arms. “I think I’d rather be almost anywhere but on a ship.”
Dooley took a last, deep drag on his
cigarette. “With our luck,” he said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils,
“we’ll get sunk by a submarine before we get to Luzon.” He flicked his
cigarette into the water.
“Not
funny.” Leo growled.
“More likely some crazy kamikaze,” an
Aussie sailor said, “locked into a bomb-loaded plane they call an Okha. But Baka is more like it: a bloody fool.” His fellow seamen snickered.
“Those mates are crazy.” The sailor
propped himself up on one elbow. “One of ’em nearly sent us to kingdom come a
couple months ago.” He glanced at his fellow Aussies. “Ain’t that right,
mates?”
“Yeah,
up in Leyte,” said another. “Missed us by a wallaby’s tail.” He held up his
thumb and forefinger, an inch apart.
“About eight of them just dropped from
the clouds.” The Aussie launched into his story. “Before you could blink, one
of them crashed head-on into one of our carriers. Our mates couldn’t do
anything but watch.”
Sitting on the open deck, Leo felt
exposed. He subconsciously scanned the sky for enemy planes, strained to hear
their engines. His brain struggled with an indistinct image of planes impacting
with ships—something he’d really rather not imagine.
“Instead of cats and dogs, it was
raining planes and bodies, machine-gun fire and bombs. Seemed like those bloody
bastards were hell-bent on dying.”
One of his mates picked up the story.
“The ship next to us got clobbered. Bloody Baka
took out half the crew. Men flyin’ through the air like rag dolls, others
stuck with shrapnel. They said the deck was covered with Jap guts and brains,
all kinds of body parts and plane wreckage.”
That was something Leo couldn’t begin
to imagine, and he was grateful for that. He dang sure didn’t want to get
obsessed about being split into pieces by a kamikaze. “Sitting ducks” was a
perfect description of their situation out here in the middle of the ocean.
Except a duck was a lot harder to hit than a troopship.
The Aussie storyteller looked at
Dooley. “You should’ve seen it, Yank. Helluva mess.”
Dooley bristled at that last remark.
“Don’t call me a Yank.”
One of the Australian soldiers
snickered. “Well, that accent of yours sure ain’t Brit.”
Dooley jumped to the deck, fists
clenched at his sides. “You can call Sergeant Baldwin here a Yank cause he’s a
northerner. But I’m from Loo-siana, and where I come from, calling a southern
boy a Yank is fightin’ words.”
The Aussie held up a hand. “Don’t go
getting your civvies wrinkled, mate. It’s just what we call Americans.”
“American’s full of goddamned mongrels,
and I ain’t one of them,” Dooley growled. “We got Russkies and Polacks,
Wops—and Yankees.” He spat out the
word as if it was the sourest bit of vomit. “We got so many Nips they had to
build prison camps to keep ’em outta our hair. And that don’t even count the
spics and ni—”
Leo had about enough of Dooley’s
bragging and bigotry. He held his hand out for Dooley to stop. “Yeah, we get
it. You southern boys are some kind of special all right.”
Dooley glared at Leo and started
pacing. “All’s I’m sayin’”—his deep southern drawl thickened as he stopped and
pointed an accusing finger at the Aussie—”is don’t put me in the same kennel
with the mutts.”
The sailor put up his hands in a
defensive gesture. “Slow down and speak English, mate. Whatever language you’re
talkin’ sounds more like Chinese.”
“Ain’t no goddamned Chink, mate.” Dooley put up his fists, took a step toward the rafts.
The Aussie jumped off the raft, ready
to fight. “You ain’t winnin’ this fight, Yank.”
Dooley snarled and lunged toward the
Aussie sailor, who raised his fists and took a step toward Dooley.
“Come
on, fellas.” Leo didn’t want any part of this fight. Dooley was being a jerk,
and it embarrassed Leo. He stepped between the two men, cautiously put a hand
on Dooley’s chest. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it oughta be. Step
back and cool off a minute.”
Dooley glared, but what Leo noticed was
beyond Dooley: a cloud of smoke bursting from a destroyer escort in the near
distance. In seconds, the air boomed with the report of multiple firing K-guns.
The harsh tones of the General Quarters
alarm sent the men on the life rafts scrambling. As troops en route to the
front lines, they weren’t much more than cargo—there was nothing for them to do
but hide.
Adrenaline surged through Leo’s body as
his brain went to work. K-guns fired depth charges. Depth charges meant enemy
subs. Enemy subs meant torpedoes—likely the ones the Japs called kaitens,
manned suicide bombs not unlike the kamikaze planes. They were notoriously
inaccurate, but how accurate did a danged torpedo have to be? His mind was
spinning out of control even as he fought to stay calm.
“Leo!” Dooley shouted from under the
pile of life rafts and gestured for Leo to join him.
Dooley’s shout got his attention.
Leo’s instincts took over. He looked
across the ship’s deck, crowded with frantic soldiers trying to find their way,
being pushed and shoved by the ship’s crew trying to do their jobs.
“Come on, Yank.” Dooley’s voice was
strained and insistent. “Get in here.”
Leo scrambled under the life rafts,
pushing his way well back into the pile.
All sound was muffled now, the
incessant alarm, the boom of exploding missiles, the shouts of men who hadn’t
yet found cover. The skirmish sounded deceptively far away.
Leo’s heart pounded. Every breath took
effort in the suffocating enclosure created by the life rafts. Was that a plane
he’d heard? He struggled to shut out the noise and concentrate. His body
tensed, waiting for the explosion that would collapse the deck underneath him.
He struggled to breathe.
This was too soon. They
weren’t supposed to fight until Luzon.
Leo thought about his future, his
belief that hard work and ethics were all it took to be a success. He hadn’t
counted on random things like kamikaze and kaiten. He hadn’t faced the fact
that life and death didn’t take sides. He wiped the sweat from his forehead,
forced himself to slow his breathing.
I’m
not ready to die. Not yet.
At last, the battleships went quiet,
the General Quarters alarm stilled, and the order came to stand down.
Leo pulled himself from his hiding
place, watching as soldiers slowly emerged from where they had taken cover.
Many of them had merely lain prone on deck with their hands covering their
head.
“Holy shit.” Dooley slipped out from
under the life rafts. “What in hell was that?”
Leo’s
hands still trembled as he brushed off his fatigues. “Too close is what that
was.” He scanned the ships in the convoy. “Doesn’t look like anyone took any
damage.”
Dooley
stood and turned in a slow circle as he surveyed the ships. Leo noticed that
Dooley’s hands trembled almost as much as his own. The sea was quiet now, the
sun bright on the water as each ship sailed on its own reflection. Neither Leo
nor Dooley felt compelled to disrupt the calm.
At
last, Dooley completed his rounds and turned to Leo. “Yankee boy, I think we’re
at war.”
Susannah Willey
Susannah
Willey is a baby boomer, mother of four, grandmother of three, and a recovering
nerd. To facilitate her healing, she writes novels. In past lives, she has been
an office assistant, stay-at-home-mom, Special Education Teaching Assistant,
School Technology Coordinator, and Emergency Medical Technician. She holds a
Bachelor’s Degree in Instructional Computing from S.U.N.Y. Empire State
College, and a Master’s Degree in Instructional Design from Boise State
University.
Susannah
grew up in the New York boondocks and currently lives in Central New York with
her companion, Charlie, their dogs, Magenta and Georgie, and Jelly Bean the
cat.
Author Links:
Website: https://www.utterloonacy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writerSusannah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susannahwilley
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Threads: https://www.threads.net/@susannahwilley
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Susannah-Willey/author/B0C349ZF1V
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