Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto

continuing on course, their eyes on the trees on the other side of the clearing. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Instinctively, he gripped the Bren gun a little tighter. No, there it was again. Ralph took a knee and scanned the sky. The sun was bright. He squinted hard. If he was right, he had only a few seconds more to act. And there it was, getting louder and closing in, the incendiary Zero. Its green-tipped wings with the red Rising Sun were the last thing many Canadian men saw before dying.
    “Plane!” Ralph yelled.
    The whole squad hit the ground, each man on his belly, eyes frantically searching the sky. They were smack dab in the middle of the clearing, too far out to run back to the grass, too far from the treeline to make a dash for it.
    “Hold, men,” the CO warned.
    One man could not contain his fear and jumped up and tried to run. Another tackled him immediately.
    “Stay the hell down!” someone else yelled.
    Their only hope was that the pilot of the lone plane would not spot them. Ralph loaded the Bren gun and readied himself. He looked at his watch. It was 6:32 a.m. Back home, his mother would be cleaning up from Christmas dinner.
    The plane did one loop high above the clearing. Maybe they were in the clear. Ralph could hear one man whispering to himself, “Just go … just go.” The plane’s engines accelerated and it began to descend. It was bearing down on them. The CO screamed a life or death order: “Ralph, keep him off!”
    Ralph scrambled off his belly, braced his knee into the dirt, and hoisted the Bren into position. The plane opened up on them and a hail of bullets tore into the ground. Ralph took dead aim at the plane, drew a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. The gun released a burst of angry little angels into the sky. Ralph fired until he ran out of bullets. Fourteen lives depended on him and that Bren gun.
    Through his scope, he saw the plane bank to the right. The pilot was veering away from the clearing, away from them.
    “Move! Move! Move!” screamed the CO.
    All the men heard the terror in his voice.
    Ralph grabbed the ammo, threw it over his shoulder, and ran as fast as he could. He was the last to hit the treeline. He collapsed beside two men, both scanning the sky.
    “I think it’s gone,” Ralph said, too tired to join the two others in their search. He leaned against a tree, head back, mouth open.
    The CO crawled over to them.
    “Have a drink of water, Ralph. That was some fine firing. You gave it to that S.O.B.,” he said as he unscrewed his water canteen and passed it over.
    “I thought he had our number,” one of the guys nearby stated matter-of-factly.
    “Okay, men, we can’t wait here for that pilot to radio in our location. Let’s move out.”
    The group trudged up the hill overlooking Stanley Fort. They could have sworn the mud had hands that pulled their boots in deeper. They could see the fort and the surrounding village through the breaks in the forest. Steep hills ringed it on all sides; the sunlight glistened off the sea. From their vantage point, they could see several unattended fires raging. The men set up a perimeter defence, which consisted of seven men forming a small semicircle around the remaining seven, spaced a few paces apart. They had begun digging their own foxholes when three shots rang out. Everyone hit the ground.
    The three men on the left flank returned fire. Ralph saw two Japanese soldiers run down the hill. They had light, mustard greenfatigues and hats with tails. Their rifles were long and each had a bayonet attached. The men were short and had black hair. They were the first Japanese soldiers Ralph had ever seen. Fortunately, they were going the other way, running back to the new base of Japanese operations: Palm Villa.
    “I can’t get any response from the base. The line is just dead, Captain,” the radioman reported.
    Ralph was sharing a can of corned beef with two other guys. As he leaned over to take his next turn