Cryptonomicon

The Huks are elated. Shaftoe stands in the street brooding while the padre administers last rites to the dead and dying Nipponese. Obviously, discipline has completely broken down. The Nips know they are trapped. They know MacArthur is about to run right over them, like a lawn mower plowing through an anthill. They have become a mob. For Shaftoe, it's going to be easier to fight mobs of drunken, deranged looters, but there's no telling what they might be doing to civilians farther north.

"We're wasting our fucking time," Shaftoe says, "let's get to Malate and avoid further engagements."

"You are not in command of this group," says one of the others. "I am."

"Who's that?" Shaftoe asks, squinting against the light of the burning liquor store.

It turns out to be a Fil-American lieutenant, who was sitting way back in the boat, and who has been of no use at all to this point. Shaftoe knows in his bones that this guy is not going to be a good combat leader. He inhales deeply, trying to heave a sigh, then gags on smoke instead.

"Sir, yes sir!" he says, and salutes.

"I am Lieutenant Morales, and if you have any more suggestions, bring them to me, or keep them to yourself."

"Sir, yes sir!" Shaftoe says. He doesn't bother to memorize the lieutenant's name.

They work their way north through narrow, clogged streets for a couple of hours. The sun comes up. A small airplane flies over the city, drawing ragged fire from exhausted, drunken Nipponese troops.

"It is a P-51 Mustang!" Lieutenant Morales exclaims.

"It's a fucking Piper Cub, goddamn it!" Shaftoe says. He has been holding his tongue to this point, but he can't help it now. "It's an artillery spotter plane."

"Then why is it flying over Manila?" Lieutenant Morales asks smugly. He enjoys this rhetorical triumph for about thirty seconds. Then the first artillery rounds begin to bore in from the north and blast the shit out of various buildings.

They get into their first serious firefight about half an hour later, against a platoon of Nipponese Air Force troops holed up in a stone bank at the vee formed by a couple of intersecting avenues. Lieutenant Morales comes up with an extremely complicated plan that involves breaking up into three smaller groups. Morales takes three men forward into the cover of a large fountain that sits in the middle of the square. There, they are immediately trapped by heavy fire from the Nipponese. They squat and huddle behind the shelter of the fountain for about a quarter of an hour, at which point an artillery shell glides in from the north, a black pellet easing downwards in a flawless parabolic trajectory, and scores a direct hit on the fountain. It turns out to be a high-explosive shell, which does not blow up until it hits something--the fountain, in this case. The padre gives Lieutenant Morales and his men last rites from a safe distance of a hundred yards or so, which is as good a place as any, since there is nothing left of their physical bodies.

Bobby Shaftoe is voted new squad leader by acclamation. He leads them around the square, giving the whole intersection a wide berth. Way up north somewhere, one of The General's batteries is doggedly trying to zero in on that fucking bank, blowing up half the neighborhood in the process. A Piper Cub banks overhead doing lazy figure-eights, offering suggestions over the radio: "Almost there--a little to the left--no, too far--now bring it in a little bit."

It takes Shaftoe's group a whole day to make another mile's progress towards Malate. They could get there in no time by simply running up the middle of major streets, but the artillery fire is coming in heavier and heavier as they head north. Worse, much of it consists of antipersonnel rounds with radar proximity fuses that blow up while they're still several yards above the ground, the better to spray shrapnel all over the place. The air bursts look like the splayed foliage of burned coconut palms.

Shaftoe sees no point in getting them all killed. So they take it a block at a time, sprinting one by one from doorway to doorway, and scouting the buildings with great care in case there are any Nips lying in wait to shoot at them from the windows. When that happens, they have to hunker down, scout the place out, count windows and doors, make guesses about the building's floor plan, send men out to check various lines of sight. Usually, it is not really difficult to root the Nips out of these buildings, but it is time-consuming.

They hole up in a half-burned apartment building around sunset, and take turns getting a couple of hours' sleep. Then they push on through the night, when the artillery fire is less intense. Bobby Shaftoe gets the whole remaining squad, nine men including the padre, into Malate at about four in the morning. By the time dawn breaks, they have reached the street where the Altamiras live, or lived. They arrive just in time to see the entire apartment block being systematically blasted into rubble by round after high-explosive round.