Chapter 12
The shots of the men searching for the sniper engrave
a random motif in the texture of jungle growth as
soldiers penetrate the dubious uncertainty of each puff of verdure
and cross-examine the shrubs that cannot offer
mmma satisfactory accounting.
Excitedly one of the stalkers calls out, "I see him!
I see the lousy monkey! Up there in that tree!"
You thrash toward the voice and you see Private Simmons
gliding intently across the trail with rifle at shoulder level.
While the others remain in concealment to cover his approach,
he kneels and raises his piece and takes aim and
fires and the noise reverberates in whirlpools of expanding echo.
There is a crash of twigs and a camouflaged figure
hurtles along an irregular chute of foliage, arms helplessly flailing,
and lands face down with a hollow thump of finality.
Private Simmons follows the body's fall with his rifle barrel,
then fires again and again into the impotent, desolate enemy.
He runs forward, stitching the air with his weaving bayonet
and pinions the supine figure, twisting it on its back.
He is rigid with consternation. "Dammit, this ain't no Jap.
It's a dummy! Look — there's a rope tied to it!
It's a dummy!" He turns around in puzzlement. "A dummy!"
Simmons does not hear the report of the Jap 6.5-mm
and his mouth is still wide with speech and mystery
when the bullet rips into his chest. He half turns
and pitches in an inert fold across the decoy carcass.
Graham comes charging out from under his covering of grass
and his lips are a thin slit of bitter fury
as he sights his BAR at a wreath of smoke
and empties his clip in a falsetto of hysterical laughter.
A rifle slithers to the ground. It's a Jap 97.
Graham starts for it, but Lt. Nixon suspects another trick.
"Get back! Get back!" he calls. Graham doesn't stop. He
indicates the weapon and he says, "There's blood on it,
fresh blood. By God, he's hanging by his blue balls!"
You look up at the spectral outline of a form
smudged with gore and bent double in an ungainly caricature,
and suspended by a belt lashed to the palm trunk.
"Cut it down, somebody," says the Lieutenant, and Pfc. Chapman
draws his trench knife and prepares to climb the tree.
The sniper's firearm is lying with its butt partially imbedded.
A metal tube with fluted baffles, about eight inches long
is fixed to the muzzle, and you think to yourself,
So that's why the blast was so chopped and scattered.
Sgt. Lindstrom picks it up and examines it with curiosity.
He thumbs back the bold and takes out a bullet.
"Man, oh, man! These are explosive. When they hit anything
they sound like machine-gun bursts. Why, he could have
fired these things at rocks and logs all around us
and we'd swear to high heaven that we were ambushed!"
You wonder about the dummy. How was it let down?
Your eyes follow the twisted rope up into the tree
and then over across to the sniper's nest. A pulley!
And if the squad had passed after it was lowered,
it would have been drawn right back up into place.
Chapman warns, "Look out below!" and the body tumbles down
in a rattle of equipment. There is a gas mask,
mosquito netting, sacks of rice, concentrated food,
mmmwater-purifying chemicals,
some spare socks, gloves, roll and triangular bandages,
mmma rotating-lens
flashlight, a wire eye screen, and a messkit — all blood-soaked.
Some Japs are good losers. Others go right on living.
