Captain James Mallory stood knee-deep in the jungles of Eastern Visayas, rain pouring down in thick sheets that blurred the world into shifting green and gray.
The water was warm, filthy, choked with rotting leaves. Every step felt like wading through blood-warm soup. Mosquitoes clung to his neck and shoulders, biting straight through sweat and wet skin.
Behind him, his men slogged forward in a broken line, no helmets, no jackets, no insignia. Their frogskin tunics had been torn apart, the camouflage strips tied into headbands or wrapped around rifles to keep the tropical rust at bay.
Half of them were shirtless, skin sunburnt and bitten raw. Their weapons were held above their shoulders to stay dry, cradled across the back of their necks as they moved through the black water like ghosts of a defeated nation.
After the evacuation of Manila, Mallory and his company had fled. They were the first to do so, and Command had branded them deserters and traitors, but Mallory disagreed.
