Once Inaba had left to carry out his orders, the major reached for his double rifle and balanced it over his shoulder, as he might have done if going out for some hunting.
When they left the university where he had been living for more than a year, he knew that he would not be returning and that where they were going, there would be no use for the few more-precious items that he owned, such as his radio and his books. He had not taken much more than his weapons and the uniform on his back. It had been his best uniform, at least. One way or another, he planned to die in it. All that remained unsettled was the when and how, but he knew that it would be soon.
The morning sun had risen, orders had been given, the die was cast.
Meanwhile, the hostages were making their own plans.
Mike MacGregor looked around uneasily at the room where they were being held, a dozen of them, the female nurses alongside the men. The thought of being nothing more than a bargaining chip felt demeaning.
He was not a man who was used to being told what to do. Before the war, he had been one of Manila’s leading businessmen, managing both a stock brokerage and an import-export business. Of course, the connections offered by his wife’s family had helped establish his business, but ultimately he was a capable businessman known for his honesty.
If he was sometimes abrupt or drove a hard bargain, he blamed it on his Scottish roots — his grandfather had immigrated to the United States just in time to serve in the Confederate army and had ultimately settled in Texas after the Civil War, looking for a bit of peace and wide-open country, giving rise to subsequent generations of tall Texans with odd Scottish names. However, MacGregor had also inherited his grandfather’s restlessness and wanderlust, eventually finding himself in the Philippines, seeking to make his own name. He had found success and started a family.
Now here he was, a prisoner of Imperial Japan. But not for much longer, if he could help it. MacGregor had reached his limit.
“How much longer do you think they’ll keep us?” one of the nurses wanted to know.
“As long as they want to,” said one of the men, who looked haggard and gray. Clearly, all the fight had gone out of him, and the man had resigned himself to his fate.
They all looked worse for wear, not having been fed properly since their arrival in the legislative building. They’d barely had enough water to drink. Their latrine facilities consisted of a filthy bucket in the hall. A single soldier stood guard beside the door. Judging by the shooting outside, the other two guards normally posted there had been needed to help defend the Japanese position.
The guard was a middle-aged Japanese, stocky and heavyset. He seemed to be one of the lowest-ranking soldiers, which, given his age, indicated an indifference toward military life. At this point in the war, the Japanese were rounding up every man that they could up to age forty-five for the regular army. Rumor had it that males between the ages of fifteen and sixty were being drafted in Japan, at least for national defense duties. Barely much older than Roddy, he mused. The draft apparently included young women. In Japan, with the Allies slowly closing in, there were no longer any civilians, only soldiers.
Anyhow, this guard had probably been judged too old for the physical activity of combat. Even so, MacGregor knew better than to underestimate the man. His appearance was typically sloppy, but he always managed to have a gleaming bayonet on his rifle. He was a mean son of a bitch who treated the American prisoners like dogs. In fact, guarding prisoners appeared to be his singular military talent.
The only Japanese who was worse to them was Sergeant Inaba. Fortunately, they had not yet seen his ugly face today. MacGregor wasn’t in any hurry to see him. Having grown up in Texas, MacGregor was convinced that lately Inaba had taken on the air of a cattleman sizing up steers for slaughter.
They didn’t know what the Japanese ultimately had in store for them, but it didn’t take a military strategist to figure it out. Some wanted to take their chances and hope for the best, but MacGregor didn’t plan on giving them a choice. He stood, drawing himself up to his full considerable height.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get home to my family. If we don’t try something soon, we might not get another chance.”
MacGregor hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down. One benefit of this particular guard, at least from the prisoners’ perspective, was that the man didn’t know a word of English. Consequently, they could plot to their hearts’ content within earshot of the guard. A few of his fellow prisoners stirred or looked up at him in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here, that’s what.”
“The Japanese might have something to say about that,” Nurse Rooney said. Her prim appearance signaled that she was a rule follower, even if those rules came from their captors.
MacGregor nodded at the window, toward the sound of gunfire. Clearly, an attack was taking place against the Japanese stronghold. “It sounds to me like they have their hands full right now.”
“But for how long?”
“Look, there’s one guard in the hall,” he replied. “You know as well as I do that the Japanese plan to shoot us. It’s now or never.”
“We don’t have any weapons,” Nurse Rooney pointed out.
It was true that the Japanese had taken the precaution of emptying the room of anything that might make a handy weapon. They had, however, left behind several heavy, rather uncomfortable wooden chairs for the prisoners to sit in. Based on their own physical dimensions, the Japanese probably hadn’t considered these chairs to be weapons, but MacGregor was far bigger than your average Japanese soldier.
“Get up,” he said to the nurse, who was sitting in one of the chairs.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, Get up, woman!” MacGregor barked.
Promptly, the nurse jumped to her feet.
MacGregor was surprised when Littleton stood and went to the door. The balding, middle-aged man had always come across as too timid in MacGregor’s book, but he seemed to have reached the same conclusion that this might be their last chance.
“I’ll call our friend in,” Littleton said.
“All right. Get ready, everyone.”
MacGregor stood against the wall closest to the hallway, just inside the door. He hefted the chair over his head.
His fellow prisoner went out in the hallway and made some fuss, gesturing for the guard to come into the room. From the angry noises made by the guard, it didn’t sound as if he was eager to comply. Finally, he shouted something irate and stomped into the room, bayonet at the ready.
Too late, he either sensed MacGregor behind him or felt the rush of air as sixty pounds of hand-carved chair descended in his direction. The guard started to turn, but not before MacGregor hit him with the chair.
The man went down as if he’d been poleaxed.
MacGregor sprang on top of him and delivered two swift punches for good measure. They hadn’t been necessary, but they sure felt good.
Littleton picked up the guard’s rifle. Clearly, it wasn’t his first time holding a weapon. He no longer looked so tired or defeated. It was amazing how holding a rifle gave a man hope and power over his destiny.
“Let’s go,” MacGregor said.
He started toward the stairs, his plan being to lead them down, but just as quickly he realized that wasn’t going to work.
They could hear the Japanese on the stairs below, sounding as if they were coming up, maybe hauling ammunition to the machine gunner on the roof — or coming to finish off the prisoners. MacGregor glanced down and spotted Sergeant Inaba coming up the stairs.
The only way to go now was up. “Follow me!” he said.
He didn’t have a plan. Maybe, just maybe, they could overpower the machine gunners and barricade themselves up there, hoping that the Americans could finally somehow overwhelm the Japanese defenses.
They ran up the stairs, MacGregor taking the steps two at a time, the group getting spread out because some of them were weak from the lack of food and water.
There was a shout from below — they had been spotted. A bullet cracked up the stairwell, then another. Littleton fired back and, judging by the shout of pain that followed, had managed to hit one of their pursuers, buying them precious minutes.
MacGregor’s long legs quickened the pace, taking the stairs three at a time.
More shots came from below.
Deke and Philly needed to improvise, now that their plan to get around behind the legislative building had been blocked by the Japanese outpost.
Deke looked around and saw the bank building where the patrol had found cover yesterday. An idea began to take shape. Without any sort of heavy weapons, they would have to do what snipers did best — pick off Japs. There was no time to waste. He looked over toward the rest of the patrol, who were being kept pinned down by the relentless fire from the Nambu machine gun on the roof of the legislative building. The machine gunners had gotten smart and piled up more sandbags, making them a difficult target from ground level in the square. If he and Philly could take out that machine gun, the rest of Patrol Easy might just have a fighting chance. To do that, they were going to have to get up higher.
“Come on,” Deke said. “Let’s get up on the roof of that bank building.”
Philly had also seen that the chances of their original plan working had fallen apart. He nodded, seeming to have read Deke’s mind. “If we can get up there, it’s gonna be like a shooting gallery for us.”
“That’s the idea.”
They scurried away through the rubble, shots chasing them. Some of the Japanese jeered, evidently thinking that Deke and Philly had turned tail and run — which in a sense they had. However, Deke was a strong believer in living to fight another day.