Free Dragon of the Mangrooves by Yasuyuki Kasai Page A

Kasuga found Hirono frowning at him. Then behind Hirono, he saw some of their ammo bearers sleeping at the bottom of the trench, where the sun was relentlessly blazing down. The men showed clear signs of total exhaustion on their faces, which were smudged with sweat and dirt.
    Kasuga could enjoy the cool filling the trench when he came off sentry and went to sleep in the early morning. But now it was gone, replaced by stifling heat.
    No wonder he’d had such a nightmare. Even his trousers were wet with sweat.
    “Sorry, but Sarge told me to wake you up and set you on the gun.”
    “Right now?”
    “No need to hurry. Hey, you sweat a lot. Are you all right? If you’re hungry now, I’ll give you some noodles. Let’s eat.”
    Hirono took out his mess kit and served boiled noodles on the tray. Kasuga gave thanks and ate them with his hands. He had lost his own chopsticks long ago in the confusion. The noodles were lukewarm and only seasoned with salt but tasted good because he had lost some salt by perspiring.
    “Hirono, is there any sign of enemies?”
    “I don’t know,” answered Hirono.
    Kasuga asked again. “I’ve heard those riflemen were storming toward tanks when the enemy smashed HMG Arakawa Squad in the last battle. Why didn’t they use antitank guns?”
    “How can I know that? I didn’t hear any of the friendly artillery, though I didn’t watch the battle myself. Even if we have any guns, that humongous tank is too much for our thirty-seven-millimeter gun. Engli don’t give a shit about it.”
    “Where are our antitank guns then?”
    “How am I supposed to know that? Maybe HQ saves them somewhere.
    Somebody says they sent one or two toward Myinkhon Creek.”
    “Why there?”
    “It may be fighting against Engli gunboats there. Those damned enemies are going to cut our line of retreat and make us mice in a trap.”
    “I see…”
    “If they break through our line here, it’ll be terrible. Maybe a banzai charge or something worse is waiting for us all,” Hirono said as he slurped his noodles.
    Kasuga had to understand how the enemies carried out their advance after they had completed the landing operation. According to Sergeant Tomita, this was a modern war, utilizing aircraft, battleships, artilleries, armors, and infantries in three-dimension tactics.
    Airstrikes always reached their height when accompanied by the naval bombardments from destroyers sailing down the Bay of Bengal. Confronted with this ferocity, Japanese outposts made from palm logs were quite insignificant. Thus the enemy destroyed almost one-third of the defenses Kasuga and others had toiled to set up during their occupation, which would be a year and a half sometime this week. Artilleries opened fire, and a land force advanced on a full scale.
    Struck by the heavy rain of bombs and shells, all Japanese soldiers, including Kasuga himself, could do nothing but bear it in the bottom of half-wrecked trenches. If the enemy had charged with bayonets, they might have stood a fair chance of having a good war. But the enemy’s first charge was with tanks, and the Japanese had no weapon able to contend with them.
    After the Battle of Ondaw, Sixth Company pulled out of Hill 353 and continued moving southward. Casualties were relatively minimal. It was natural because the Japanese repeated retreats under cover of darkness every time strong enemies came up.
    Kasuga had once been taken aback to hear Sergeant Tomita say delightfully just before one of those retreats, “How smart the Sixth Company commander is!
    There’s a big difference between him and that shit-faced Binchoku, though both are officers of this same battalion.”
    Tomita was a man with a reputation as a combat-hardened veteran. He had taken part in the Battle of the Great Wall, Rehe-sheng, China, and had been up against the ruthless attack of Chiang Kai-shek’s Regular Army there. While all others were retreating, Tomita had held the machine gun position alone and had kept