Soldier Dogs #3 Read online

  Dedication

  For the people of Guam and the Dobermans of World War II

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Picture Insert

  Did Dogs Like Stryker Really Serve During World War II?

  Timeline of Guam and the Pacific Front

  Q&A About the Second Battle of Guam

  Who Were the Dobermans of World War II?

  Top Ten Facts About the Dobermans of World War II

  Pacific Front Q&A

  Excerpt from Soldier Dogs #4: Victory at Normandy

  About the Author

  Books by Marcus Sutter

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Enemy soldiers ran toward the field hospital. Bullets whined past the hiding spot where Stryker the war dog was crouching.

  A mortar shell exploded nearby, digging chunks out of the earth. Stryker nudged the boy deeper into the hiding spot as dirt pelted his furry coat.

  Stryker felt the urge to fight in his chest. He wanted to growl, but he’d been trained to stay quiet. His hackles raised as the enemy soldiers raced closer to him and the boy—and to the hospital behind them—but he didn’t move.

  He stayed with the boy called Bo.

  Bo hadn’t been trained. He didn’t know about enemies or sneak attacks. The boy wasn’t armed with a weapon—or even with teeth and claws. That’s why Stryker needed to keep close.

  Stryker felt his muscles tense. He’d wait here, hidden behind the fallen tree, until the enemy came near enough. Then he’d leap at them and show them what a war dog could do.

  He felt Bo trembling beside him. That was okay. Humans got scared. Even marines got scared. Fear made humans’ hearts beat faster and their eyes widen. It made their senses sharp and alert—almost as sharp and alert as a Doberman’s.

  Stryker was afraid that Bo would stand and fight despite his fear. He needed the boy to run. That was the only way he’d survive. The moment Stryker threw himself at the enemy, the boy needed to flee.

  He needed to live.

  Stryker nudged Bo’s arm, telling him to get ready to move. Bo could scramble through the hospital behind them, past the sickbeds and the bandaged patients—if he left now.

  “Don’t worry, boy,” Bo whispered. “I’m right here.”

  Stryker nudged him again. He didn’t know what those words meant, but he knew the boy wasn’t getting ready to run.

  “I-I’ll take care of you,” Bo said in a shaky voice.

  Gunfire ripped into the other side of the tree, shredding the wood into splinters. Bo ducked his head, his black hair short and silky.

  Pain stung Stryker’s muzzle. He narrowed his eyes and gathered his rear legs to leap, tracking the enemy’s position with his pointy ears. Rifles cracked and big navy guns boomed from the US ships offshore.

  Stryker heard a scuffle and gasp of hand-to-hand fighting. He smelled bitter smoke and sweet gasoline.

  The enemy was ten strides away before Stryker let himself make a sound. He snarled at the boy, telling him to run!

  Bo grabbed a branch from the ground. “W-we almost made it,” he said. “We almost made it.”

  Stryker growled. Get moving!

  “You and me,” Bo said, tears in his eyes. “Together till the end.”

  Chapter 1

  TWO DAYS EARLIER

  Bo hacked through the jungle undergrowth. His machete blade sliced through stalks and stems and vines.

  Then it stuck in a thick branch.

  Bo grunted in frustration. Sweat stung his eyes in the damp heat, and hunger flared in his empty stomach. Bugs buzzed his ears, but he was too tired to brush them away.

  A beefy soldier barked at him in Japanese and a jolt of fear gave Bo strength. He jerked the machete free from the branch. His arms trembled, but he raised the blade again.

  Up.

  Down.

  Up.

  Down.

  The rich scent of jungle vegetation surrounded Bo as the crash and boom of fighting rolled toward him from the western side of the island.

  The American navy had started attacking more than two weeks earlier. Bo had heard thousands of shells exploding onto Guam every day, as the Americans fought to kick out the Japanese army that had taken over the island.

  At first the huge ships and the buzzing airplanes slammed the Japanese positions for fifteen or twenty minutes every hour, softening them up before the invasion. Now the bombing never seemed to stop. Which meant the invasion was happening very soon—if it hadn’t already started.

  The Japanese forces were scared. Bo could tell. For the past week or so, soldiers had forced every male Chamorro between the ages of twelve and sixty to work for them. The Chamorros lived in labor camps; they dug trenches and cleared jungle paths to prepare for the fight against the Americans. Anyone who disobeyed was tortured or punished with death.

  Bo was a Chamorro—a native of the Mariana Islands—and he’d turned twelve the previous month. Lucky him.

  His uncles and father had been sent to the west somewhere, closer to the action. His mother and older sister had been brought to a labor camp on the eastern side of the island, to provide food and material for the Imperial Japanese military. Bo wasn’t exactly alone—he knew some men from his village—but being separated from his family scared him even more than the sound of bombs.

  The big Japanese soldier lurking behind him didn’t help. He was the one they called “Two Ears.” Bo didn’t understand the nickname, but for some reason it frightened him.

  So he hacked through the jungle, ignoring the pain and the fear. His heart pounded. Sweat covered his skin as the sun lowered through the jungle canopy.

  Two Ears walked away from him—but he kept returning, like a schoolyard bully.

  Every time he returned, Bo’s skin crawled. When he couldn’t stand it any longer, he turned toward the soldier—and smiled. Trying to seem friendly and unthreatening.

  “What are you smiling at?” Two Ears bellowed.

  “N-nothing!” Bo said.

  Two Ears stepped closer, grabbing Bo’s shirt in his fist.

  Bo saw the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the scars that ran along both ears. He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, please!”

  Chapter 2

  With the breeze ruffling his fur, Stryker loped along beside Boomer, another war dog. Spent bullets littered the beach at the base of the thick jungle. The two Dobermans darted past fallen coconut trees, avoiding the craters left behind by bombs. They had a mission to complete.

  Behind them, the ocean was packed with American warships. A few piles of metal lay in the shallow water, and Stryker could tell that Boomer didn’t like the scent of them.

  The twisted lumps of metal were the remains of the car-boats that had carried marines onto the island. When the marines first landed, the Japanese had been waiting for them. They’d blown up many of the marines�
�� car-boats.

  Now that the marines had taken over this stretch of beach, things weren’t so bad. But Boomer had lost some of his humans on the first day of fighting. He’d come through without injuries, but he still whimpered in his sleep and moved his paws, trying to outrun the enemy shells.

  When that happened, Stryker licked Boomer’s ears to calm him. It was the least he could do for a fellow warrior.

  The enemy soldiers had been pushed back from the beach. They’d retreated past the hills into the jungle. Every inch of distance had cost the marines blood and tears. And the daily battles never let up.

  Stryker picked up the pace when he caught a whiff of his pack of marines. That’s where he was headed. He led Boomer past the demolished beach, toward the battlefront in the jungle. They were on a mission.

  In the distance, gunfire sounded along with the faraway whoosh of a flamethrower. Boomer must’ve sensed they were safe, because he shot ahead, his stubby tail wagging in a dare.

  Boomer wanted to race, did he?

  Stryker and Boomer zigzagged toward the jungle. They’d been trained to run like that, so the enemy sharpshooters couldn’t shoot them.

  Stryker knew that he’d never beat Boomer in a fight . . . but Boomer would never beat him in a race. And sure enough, Stryker soon overtook the bigger dog. It was all about speed, not power!

  Stryker barked in triumph as they split up. He veered to the left while Boomer raced to the right.

  Stryker was heading deeper into the jungle to bring his person, Dawson, a response to a message. Boomer was delivering ammunition to his person, Ramirez, in a different part of the jungle. They were both running closer to the battlefront.

  Stryker sniffed the air as he zigzagged into the jungle path. Finding Dawson’s scent was easy for a Doberman. Even back when he’d been a house dog, Stryker could’ve tracked a mouse through a herd of horses.

  He didn’t hesitate—even when a shell exploded behind him. He kept running until he found Dawson and the other marines sheltering behind a thick stand of trees.

  “Good dog,” Dawson told him, giving Stryker’s head a quick scratch before removing the message from his collar pouch.

  Stryker leaned against Dawson’s leg. Good human.

  When Dawson read the message, his shoulders stiffened and his jaw clenched. Apparently Stryker had raced through enemy fire to bring his marines bad news. Either that, or a dangerous mission.

  Chapter 3

  Bo froze. His throat was dry, and his heart was pounding.

  Two Ears shook him and laughed, enjoying his fear.

  Bo wanted to run away. To scream or curse or fight. But he just stood there shaking, his shirt crumpled in the Japanese soldier’s fist. He’d seen what happened to brave resisters. He’d seen what happened to anyone the Japanese even suspected of opposing them.

  So he didn’t move, too afraid to do anything except pray.

  After a few seconds, Two Ears shoved Bo aside and snarled at him to get in line with the others.

  Usually after a day’s work, the soldiers would order the Chamorro men and boys to return to their camp, where Bo would hug his knees and try not to cry. But things were different today. Today, the soldiers made them march through the jungle for no reason.

  Which made Bo even more afraid. Everyone knew that if the Japanese took you into the jungle, you might never come back out.

  “Keep moving!” one said in Japanese, gesturing roughly.

  “He wants us to keep going,” Bo translated.

  Most of the other Chamorros didn’t speak much Japanese. Bo knew a little. After the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Guam a few years earlier, they’d made every child on the island take classes with Japanese teachers. The teachers had made the kids learn the language, along with patriotic songs. And they’d made them praise the Japanese emperor every single day.

  But Bo was Chamorro. Guam had become a US territory a long time ago: back in 1898, after the Spanish-American War. Bo had grown up reading American books and listening to American music, but even so, Bo was Chamorro through and through.

  Then on December 10, 1941, just three days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops landed on Guam. They’d imprisoned the US Marines stationed there and ordered two Chamorro men to lower the American flag and raise the Japanese one.

  The men refused.

  So the Japanese executed them. And they made sure no Chamorro would forget it.

  Bo hadn’t forgotten. He’d never forget that.

  “Get moving!” the Japanese soldier snapped. “You’re not heading back to base tonight!”

  “We’re not going back tonight,” Bo explained to the others.

  “Where are we going?” a guy named Luis asked him. He was a broad-shouldered eighteen-year-old with a sweet face.

  “I don’t know,” Bo said. The truth was, he was afraid to ask. If you asked the soldiers anything they didn’t like, they would beat you—or worse.

  The Japanese soldiers shouted commands and threats, forcing the Chamorros farther into the jungle along a narrow dirt path.

  After ten minutes, Luis quietly asked a soldier where they were going.

  The soldier slapped Luis’s face hard enough to make his mouth bleed.

  Then Two Ears pointed his rifle at Luis. His finger shifted to the trigger, and Bo’s heart stopped. He wanted to do something, he wanted to say something. He wanted to be brave and unafraid, but the Japanese killed anyone who was brave.

  Two Ears’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  His knuckles whitened.

  He was about to fire!

  Chapter 4

  Stryker listened for the enemy while his person, Dawson, read the message. “We need to take the next hill, through the trees. They say the Japanese already abandoned their position.”

  A scruffy-cheeked marine peered into the distance. “I guess we’ll see if they’re right.”

  “C’mere, boy.” Dawson clipped the leash to Stryker’s collar. That meant it was time to patrol.

  Stryker led his pack forward. He padded through the jungle, sniffing for land mines and listening for any motion or danger. The nine humans formed a ragged line behind him.

  Then a small, crater-scarred field opened between him and the jungle hill where Dawson was heading. Open spaces were dangerous. There was no cover except for a half-fallen wooden fence.

  Stryker continued forward, every sense alert.

  The pack followed. Not exactly scared, but . . . tense.

  Stryker heard a man in the trees at the far end of the clearing. Two men. Maybe more, hidden in the branches.

  Stryker alerted silently, pointing his snout and pricking his ears. Danger! A threat to the pack! Enemy soldiers!

  Dawson knew exactly what he meant and gestured crisply. The other marines threw themselves sideways, taking cover behind the fence.

  At the same moment, the enemy soldiers fired!

  Bullets ripped through the air. An enemy soldier shouted, and Stryker scrambled to safety behind the fence.

  Dawson pulled him close and pressed his forehead to Stryker’s. “You keep saving our lives.”

  Stryker licked his chin.

  “Except now we’re pinned down,” the scruffy-cheeked marine said.

  “We can crawl along the fence into the jungle,” said the marine who led the pack. “Take them from the flank.”

  “That won’t work. They’ll know we’re on the move.”

  Dawson looked toward the enemy hidden in the trees. “Not if some of us stay here and make noise.”

  “Too obvious. You think they won’t know why some of us are here flapping our lips?”

  “Who said anything about lips?” Dawson asked, and gave Stryker a silent hand command.

  Stryker barked.

  “Oh!” the marine said. “You’ll stay here with the dog?”

  Stryker barked again and then growled, but Dawson kept gesturing, which meant he wanted something else. Stryker whimpered and yelped. Yea
h, that’s what Dawson wanted! Whimpers and yelps.

  “They’ll think they hit him,” Dawson said. “And I’ll give ’em something to shoot at.”

  “Good plan,” the leader said. “Stay here. Keep your head down and your mouth open.”

  The other marines started belly-crawling along the fence, their scraping and jangling muffled by the battle sounds.

  “What’m I supposed to say?” Dawson asked Stryker, giving him another hand signal. “Well, here we are on Guam. It’s a long way from Minnesota. I guess being a marine’s not so different from being a fireman, though.”

  Stryker yowled a little.

  “Putting out fires all across the world.” Dawson glanced at Stryker. “You remind me of my German shepherd a little. That’s why they put us together. I trained Chief, so they picked me for a dog handler.”

  Stryker yelped sharply.

  “What, you want me to stick to the point?”

  Stryker yelped again.

  “Fine. Guam. Uh, it’s a tiny island in the Pacific.” Dawson poked his rifle barrel over the top of the fence—and enemy bullets chunked into the wood on the other side. “Never thought you’d end up here, did you?”

  Stryker whined.

  “Me either.” Dawson crawled a little farther and raised his rifle again. He was making it look like the whole pack was still here, not just two of them. “But Guam is important. For two reasons.”

  Stryker gave two yelps, keeping one ear cocked in case the enemy came closer.

  “That’s right. Two.” Dawson fired a wild shot toward the jungle. “One is that Guam is a little over sixteen hundred miles from Japan. This is just a little island, but it’s a big deal. Once we get an air base here, we can bring the war to the Japanese home islands.”

  At Dawson’s hand gesture, Stryker whined.

  “And the second reason is, when the Japanese invaded Guam, they took over a marine barracks on the island.” A hard note entered Dawson’s voice. “Now we’re taking it back.”

  Stryker barked.

  “Though first we—” A barrage of enemy gunfire interrupted him.

  Bullets slammed into the other side of the fence.