Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury Read Free Book Online

was charging us, not stopping, not running away.
    Cobra and I shot at the same time.
    Bam! Boom!
    A moan jarred the night. Then a heavy thump, followed by the sound of escaping air.
    I bolted another round into my rifle, my hands shaking so bad I could hardly get my finger back inside the trigger guard.
    “I think we got him,” Cobra whispered.
    “We should wait till morning, when we can see,” I said. “He could be playing dead, waiting for us to make a noise so he can find us and shoot us.”
    Barely breathing, we waited.
    Dawn came on slowly, long hours later. My whole body ached from not moving. I squinted into the oily morning light, my mouth dry as chicken feathers.
    The jungle turned to shadows, then shapes—trees, vines, ferns.
    Pieces of sky.
    We peeked up over the weeds at the body.
    A cow.
    We'd shot a cow.
    Cobra groaned. We creaked up and walked over to it with our Springfields crossed over our chests. Its mouth was frozen in a gape, a purple tongue with dirt stuck to it sagging to one side. A dark puddle of blood soaked the earth just below its neck from a single bullet wound.
    I felt sick to my stomach.

    A half hour later we were back down in camp. All around us other soldiers emerged like ghosts out of the trees and bushes.
    Lieutenant Sweet sat in a truck, drinking coffee.
    I threw down my field pack and took off my boots, keeping quiet about the cow, because Cobra thought we'd never hear the end of that.
    Lieutenant Sweet got out of the truck. “All right,” he said, hitching up his pants. “Looks like the paratrooper thing was only a rumor. Go back to your tents and eat. The mess truck will be coming down shortly. After that, try to get some sleep. You'll hear from me again at ten hundred hours.”

    Later that morning I stumbled into formation, foggy and confused.
    “Remember these?” Lieutenant Sweet said, sweeping his hand toward the tool truck. “Grab something.”
    We dug trenches.
    We carried sandbags.
    We strung barbed wire.
    After evening chow we staggered back to our tents and fell asleep in our own stink.

On the afternoon of December 10, Sweet hit us with another bombshell.
    “Form up!”
    We scrambled into position. “All Japs move over to my right,” he said. “The rest of you stay where you are.”
    I hesitated, stunned again by how ugly that word sounded coming from his mouth.
    I glared at Sweet, getting angrier and angrier about how the army was treating us, like we couldn't be trusted. Just Japs. Burn their sampans. Separate them from the real soldiers, the loyal ones.
    “Now!” Sweet shouted.
    Slowly, I fell in with the rest.
    Sweet dismissed the other troops and turned back to us. “Get your rifles and bayonets and bring them and anyammunition you have over to these trucks. The supply sergeant will check them in. Then gather your belongings and take down your shelters and relocate them over there.”
    He turned and pointed to a weedy patch of red dirt on the other side of the field.
    “You are not to leave the immediate vicinity of your shelters for any reason without permission, not even to go to the latrine, is that understood?”
    No one answered. Not one man.
    “Is that
understood
?”

    For half the night I listened to men standing just outside the flaps of their tents relieving themselves. Never in all my life had I heard a sound as lonely as that.

    Reveille woke us at five the next morning.
    I stepped out into the warm air… and froze.
    A sick, sour taste rose in my throat. Because what I saw were eyes.
    Eyes behind sandbags.
    Eyes behind machine guns.
    Eyes all around us.
    Other soldiers came out of their tents, yawning and stretching.
    Waking to those eyes.
    Sweet was leaning against a truck parked just inside thering of machine guns. “Rise and shine to a new day, miserable grunts, and listen up. You will each receive a supply of field rations, but you will do no work. You will remain here. When you need to use the latrine, you will ask permission to be