Chapter 30
The jungle growth is becoming too heavy for adequate visibility.
Every minute it gets thicker, and now it's like tomorrow.
Lindstrom signals for the patrol to abandon its diamond formation
and reform behind him at close intervals in single column.
He unslings his Tommy gun and carries it at port,
while behind him moves Egan, observing ground to the right,
followed by Whitney, who covers the area on his left.
You maintain your position in the rear, frequently looking back.
Give careful scrutiny to terrain that might offer tactical possibilities.
Watch out for newly barked roots or a broken twig
or bent grass or scuffed tree trunks or malformed branches.
If you find anything that might indicate the enemy's presence,
tap trice on your rifle stock to warn your buddies
to break the file and get set for all-around defense.
Don't expect to see a Jap unless, by accident, you
bump into one face to face. He's too well hidden.
And don't think you'll hear anything, either. All jungle noises
are confined, as though they are from inside of a
bottle. Sounds travel slowly, and the crack of his rifle
will reach you only after the bullet has struck home.
He knows you're coming. He's waiting for you out there.
He's an expert in counter-patrolling and skilled in
mmmpreparing ambushes.
He's got an instinct for camouflage, and patience and
mmmtrigger-discipline
and he'll wait all day, if necessary, up to his
waist in swamp slime for a single shot at you.
He's counting on you to underestimate his toughness and spirit
and the quality of his weapons and accuracy of fire,
and he wants you to think he's stupid as hell
when all the time he's a resourceful, wily little bastard
who knows more about you than you know about him.
His command of English is considerably better than
mmmyour knowledge
of Japanese, and he has been schooled in Phrases for
Combat, learning such useful military deceptions as
mmm"This way, fellows,"
"Don't shoot, pal, it's me," "Hey, buddy — got a smoke?"
"Help, I'm wounded!" — all with the accent on hot lead
and conjugation into past tense of the verb, to be.
His physical conditioning and battle hardening began in early youth.
Obstacle courses, wall scaling, extended drill, swimming and
mmmdouble-time marching
kept him in trim while judo, bayonet practice and fencing
produced a sharp fighting edge. The military phases of education
were preferably carried out under the most adverse weather
mmmconditions
and simulated actual battle problems as realistically as
mmmcircumstances permitted,
while officers kept him on the move around the clock
on the assumption that he already knew how to sleep
and that he needed training on how to stay awake.
Don't figure him to give you any breaks. He won't.
It's hard for you to realize that someone hates you,
but if that someone is anywhere, you'll find him here.
Before being detailed to active duty in the Pacific theatre,
he served a period of indoctrination in China, and the
smell and the sight and the feel of battered torsos
are nothing new to him. He kills with reflex action
And he does it dirtily, viciously, with no quarter given.
You can rely on him to fight to the last.
And remember. He's tough and tricky and sneaky and treacherous.
He shows a sacrificial devotion to duty, and he says,
"If my arms are broken I will kick my enemy.
If my legs are injured, then I will bite him.
If my teeth loosen, I will glare him to death!"
But right now he's just as scared as you are.
