Cryptonomicon

Terrified by the barrage, a bunch of Nip soldiers stagger out of a side exit of the hotel, almost too drunk to stand, some of them still pulling their trousers up. Shaftoe disgustedly throws a grenade at them and then gets the hell out without bothering to examine the results. It is getting to the point where killing Nips is no fun anymore. There is no sense of accomplishment in it. It is a tedious and dangerous job that never seems to end. When will these stupid bastards knock it off? They are embarrassing themselves in front of the whole world.

He finds his men in Rizal Park, beneath the shadow of Intramuros's ancient Spanish wall, disputing possession of a baseball diamond with what is left of the Nipponese squads that pursued them here. The timing is both good and bad. Any earlier, and Nip reinforcements in the surrounding neighborhood would have heard the skirmish, flooded into the park and wiped them out. Any later, and the American infantry would be here. But Rizal Park is in the middle of a deranged urban battleground right now, and nothing makes any kind of sense. They have to impose their will on the situation, the kind of thing Bobby Shaftoe has gotten fairly good at.

The one thing they have going for them is that the artillery is pointed elsewhere for the time being. Shaftoe squats down behind a coconut tree and tries to figure out how the hell he is going to reach that baseball diamond, which is a couple of hundred yards away across totally flat, open ground.

He knows the place; Uncle Jack took him to a baseball game there. Wooden bleachers rise along the left and right field lines. Beneath each one is a dugout. Shaftoe knows how battles work, and so he knows that one of those dugouts is full of Nips and one is full of Huks and that they are pinned down in them by each other's fire just like Great War troops in their opposing trenches. There are a few buildings under the bleachers, containing toilets and a refreshment stand. The Nips and the Huks will be creeping through those buildings right now, trying to get into a position from which they can shoot into the dugouts.

A Nipponese grenade flies towards him from the direction of the left field bleachers, making a stripping noise as it passes through the fronds of a palm tree. Shaftoe ducks his head behind another tree so that he can't see the grenade. It explodes and tears the clothing, and a good deal of the skin, from one of his arms and one of his legs. But like all Nip grenades it is poorly made and miserably ineffectual. Shaftoe turns around and uncorks a spume of .45-caliber rounds in the general direction the grenade came from; this should give the thrower something to think about while Shaftoe gets his bearings.

This is actually a stupid idea, because he runs out of ammunition. He has a few rounds in his Colt, and that's it. He also has one grenade left. He considers throwing it towards the baseball diamond, but his throwing arm is in pretty bad shape now.

Besides--Jesus Christ! That baseball diamond is just too far away. Even in peak condition he could not throw a grenade from here to there.

Perhaps one of those corpses out in the grass, between here and there, isn't really a corpse. Shaftoe crawls towards them on his belly and establishes that they are most definitely dead people.

Giving the field a wide berth, he begins working his way around behind home plate toward the right field line, where his people are. He would love to sneak up on the Nips from behind, but that grenade thrower really threw a fright into him. Where the hell is he?

The firing from the dugouts has become sporadic. They have stalemated now and are trying to conserve ammunition. Shaftoe risks rising to a crouch. He runs for about three paces before he sees the door to the women's toilet swing open and a man jump out, winding up like Bob Feller getting ready to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Shaftoe fires his .45 once, but the weapons' absurdly vicious recoil jerks it right out of his lamed hand. The grenade comes flying towards him, perfectly on target. Shaftoe dives to the ground and scrambles for his .45. The grenade actually bounces off his shoulder and falls spinning into the dust, making a fizzing noise. But it doesn't explode.

Shaftoe looks up. The Nip is standing framed in the women's room door. His shoulders slump miserably. Shaftoe recognizes him; there's only one Nip who could throw a grenade like that. He lies there for a few moments, counting syllables on his fingers, then stands up, cups his hands around his mouth, and hollers:

Pineapple fastball-– Guns of Manila applaud-– Hit by pitch--free base!