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Deke peered through his rifle scope and immediately felt less confident, despite his bold words. Sure enough, he could make out the barrel of a Nambu machine gun jutting from the tower. The platform at the top of the tower was surrounded by a low railing lashed together out of bamboo, which wouldn’t offer the machine gunner much protection. However, it did provide enough cover to make it a difficult shot. Philly was correct that the interior of the platform was deeply shaded, so it was hard to make out any target.

Deke was sure that he could neutralize the machine gunner if he had to, but it might take a few shots. Meanwhile, the Nambu would be hammering away at targets below.

More troubling than the compound itself was what lay behind it. On the northwest side of the compound, beyond the fence, was a patch of open ground with several fresh graves marked by roughly made crosses. It seemed likely that this graveyard was the only way that anyone had managed to escape the confines of the camp.

To make matters worse, a quick count revealed that the contingent of camp guards was twice the size of their own patrol. They would have to watch the camp for a while to determine how many more guards might be off duty in the barracks shacks or even out supervising a work crew.

The way things were shaping up, this wasn’t going to be an easy job.

The sight of the prisoners was tantalizing. On the other side of the fence, they could clearly see the men whom they were supposed to rescue. If they could just free those men, they could all go home. And yet the prisoners remained out of reach.

“Look at those poor bastards,” muttered Philly, watching the prisoners through the binoculars. “They’re nothing but skin and bones. I’ve seen skid row bums that were dressed better.”

Deke didn’t have much experience with skid row bums, but he had seen plenty of scarecrows guarding farm fields. To his mind’s eye, the scarecrows were exactly what the prisoners resembled, right down to their tattered clothes flapping around sticklike arms and legs. A strong breeze might blow them over. In comparison, the Japanese guards looked beefy and well fed. Whatever food the enemy soldiers had at this point as the noose tightened around the Japanese, they were clearly reserving it for themselves.

Indeed, the handful of POWs they could see appeared thin and ragged. One thing for sure, Deke thought, they would not be able to rely much on the prisoners for help in overthrowing their Japanese guards.

He knew that Lieutenant Steele had been hopeful that the POWs would help to turn the tide once they joined the fight. However, the prisoners that they could see looked too weak to wrestle a kitten, let alone stage an uprising.

It was hard to believe that the decrepit men within the camp had once been proud American soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. They were truly shadows of their former selves thanks to their treatment at the hands of the Japanese.

“Goddamn bastards,” Philly muttered.

He didn’t have to explain — they all knew what he meant. Deke kept looking through the scope, feeling a slow burn of anger building. It was more than clear that the Japanese were starving the American POWs.

With an effort, he took his finger off the trigger. He lowered the rifle. There would be time later to exact a price from the captors. For now, the priority was to liberate the prisoners from this camp.

Fortunately there were no sentries on the road, and the Japanese seemed oblivious that anyone was watching the camp. The last thing that they seemed to fear was an attack from the outside. You couldn’t blame them, considering that the camp was far off the beaten track. Between the fence and the machine gunner in the tower, all the Japanese efforts seemed intent on keeping the prisoners contained rather than on defense.

As they watched, a work party approached the camp, making their way across a clearing. The men were stripped down to loincloths in the Japanese style, the skin of their arms and shoulders tanned the color of dark leather by the tropical sun. These men were clearly shadows of their old selves, their bones showing in a way that was painful to look at. In fact, it was a wonder that some of them were still on their feet.

Each man had a pole across his shoulders, with a bucket hanging from each end of the pole. The buckets were loaded with rocks, a burden so heavy that many of the men staggered under the weight.

One of the guerrillas had spied previously on the camp and said something to Father Francisco, who relayed to the rest of the patrol that the men were hauling the rocks from a riverbed up the side of a steep jungle hill. According to the guerrilla’s observations, the work crew went out at first light and labored until dark. It was believed that the rocks were going to be used to construct either a road or an airstrip.

No matter the intended use, it was backbreaking work.