Short Story: Under the Silent Guns

Leyte, Philippines, 18 December 1944
Interviewee: Pfc. Gerard Rogers
Interrogator: Lt. Charles Munroe. 

Pfc. Rogers shifts in his chair. He does not look at the interviewer. He is dressed in filthy, but standard-issue, fatigues. His face is covered in small scratches. Occasionally he fingers a cross around his neck. 

Pfc. Rogers: “Jim Fulton found the first one. We were patrolling pretty far afield. There’s a thick patch of jungle north of Valancia Airfield. Forward camp there kept getting hit by artillery from the area, so they sent us out to shut the guns down.  About two miles in, the jungle just...opened up. Ten feet back in the jungle, you couldn’t see a thing. We stumbled right into it—really stumbled. Frankie Calloway had point and he fell flat on his face.”