by Don DeNevi
“So,” interjected Brigadier General William H. Rupertus, “this Mad Ghoul, or Charlie the Choker, has to be a Jap straggler hiding out there in the jungle.”
“Or,” added Chief of Staff Colonel Amor LeRoy Sims, “a Jap or two or three infiltrators.”
“Impossible!” responded Del Barbra. “We have the island secure. No one can get through or across our beaches or dry areas without being noticed. Can’t be a Jap. And, there are no natives on Pavuvu. They abhor this real estate more than we do. They have all retreated across to the more livable Banika Island.”
“You say a Marine did this?” demanded Rupertus. “I don’t believe it, Captain!”
“Maybe, sir, maybe you’re right. Up to last night, not a single prick or scratch occurred on a sleeping man. I, too, refused to believe it’s one of our boys committing such a heinous act. But the three events this last night will certainly disquiet everyone. I’ve already given the orders for more guards to be posted, formed into patrols, for the island, both islands, all the islands of the Russells to be searched again for any clues whatsoever.”
After a brief pause, Captain Del Barbra continued, “Let Lieutenant Guidi, my immediate subordinate, talk about the crime scene. He knows more about conducting malicious, wanton murder investigations than anyone else in our Military Police out here. He’s all business when it comes to systematic, brutal, senseless butchery.” Del Barbara concluded with finality, “Listen carefully, men, listen carefully.”
“Yes, sir,” said second Lieutenant Guidi, as he rose from the circle and walked into its center. “If I know so much about solving homicide, how come I failed the five murder investigations I was assigned to stateside?”
Everyone chuckled, as the Captain turned and glanced at him with an affectionate smile.
“Gentleman, as we all know, there are no Jap straggler or infiltrators on the island. The island is too small and too populated with too much movement for so obvious an enemy to hide out. And, the Rising Sun’s Navy is not stupid enough to allow one of their prized submersibles to ground itself in order to allow one or two infiltrators to sneak ashore and seek out a single Marine, especially when that submarine can attack a carrier. No, neither Jap nor native from our neighbor islands did these killings you’re looking at in the photos being passed around.”
“And,” he continued, “We’re together, I’m certain, that none of us can think of a greater treachery, disloyalty, faithlessness, indeed, personal treason, than a fellow member of our armed forces murdering a buddy, a tent mate, one of his company or battalion or division member, in short, one of his own.”
“But, it is my opinion that’s exactly the case here. The killer is one of us who has gone over the edge. Just being here makes you nuts. All of us have our own name for this abyss. Mine is, ‘The Island that the Good Lord forgot’. And with good reason. The daily summer of ’44 downpours followed by long bouts of sweltering, steamy heat make our rest and relaxation and refitting odious. But regardless of how unendurable the torrid temperature or drenching water and suffocating mud, strong minds adapt and tough it out. The fragile mind can’t, in my opinion. He breaks down and turns into a murdering elusive creature who stalks at night. Choker or Ghoul, he’s one of us. And, now, with his first murder, he’ll strike again. Just look around in your units, your companies, your battalion, and use your intuitions to identify anyone you suspect as eerie, mysterious, strange, bizarre,” continued Guidi, gravely.
“Why, Lieutenant, you’ve just described every private, senior NCO, sergeant, lieutenant unit commander, and every officer at Division Headquarters, including old Commander Major General Vandegrift,” someone couldn’t resist interrupting and blurting out. After the loud laughter diminished, the interloper added, “But not our beloved Major General William Rupertus and Brigadier General Lemuel Shepherd sitting yonder!”
After the second volume of laughs simmered down, someone asked, “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Yes. It’s not much, but here it is. In my opinion, the Ghoul or Choker began his insanity out here in the Russells, not on Canal. He began by just thrilling, pretending to be a strangler, enjoying watching everyone scurry after touching their throats. As he dashed about hither and thither, he enjoyed that too. We’ve seen men like that, throwing them into our brigs, they being proud of even that. No, he started imitating strangling here on Pavuvu as he was slowly going over the edge. We know he simply walked into the tents and fondled the nearest throat to the entrance. When someone woke up, he ran like hell, enjoying every moment.”
After a pause, Guidi continued. “The three killings last night probably made him feel like he bagged a trophy of some sort; animal, human, who knows? He may have enjoyed the puncturing of a man so much he’s decided he’s going to do it again. He’ll act out his joys, growing stronger with every murder gratifying his fantasies that’ll continue until he’s caught or killed. We can call each death a lust murder, and him a lust blood-splatterer. It has to be all about excitement. In the planning, in the doing, in the pretended ‘killing’, in the getting away, and in the chase. He is unique and distinguished from the sadistic murderer. He doesn’t mutilate. He is methodical and cunning. He is smart. He committed each slaughter in a frenzied attack. The planning was methodical, but the killing was not. He’s among us now, premeditating the next murder of one of our men based on some obsessive fantasy. Then, his desire will build up and sometime soon, he’ll act on an urge, triggered by a stimulus of who knows what.”
“What about when he killed Japs?” someone shouted.
“Whole different thing. No hate, no vengeance, no enemy, there. Just a job to be done, efficiently, business-like. We never heard of his odd behavior on Guadalcanal. No, it didn’t start until he got here, and it’ll extend until we leave. Then, it will follow him to whenever else we land, rest or occupy. That’s all I know, gentlemen, and I have no idea whether I’m right or wrong. Hell, for all I know, the Ghoul could well be Alexander Vandegrift or Bill Rupertus. Or, Lemuel Shepherd. For that matter, the way he behaves at times, it could be Captain Oscar ‘Slim’ Del Barbara.”
With everyone laughing, the second lieutenant noticed the raised hand of Navy Commander Everett Keck of the 1st Medical Battalion.
Guidi smiled, and asked, “Yes, sir. If anyone can help us solve this, it’ll be the Navy. What have you to say?”
“Just a question, Lieutenant. I commend you for your effort at offering a psychological autopsy of a murderer. But it’s just a beginning, as you acknowledge. No one can identify a specific perpetrator, or suspect. But some conjectures and mind games are better than other conjectures and mind games. Being able to look at a murder scene and say what the killer is like is uncanny. You just offered us a side view of a full face. But it’s a wholesome start, an outline, a contour. But a contour or outline will never specifically identify. All it can do is direct you to a clue to the behavior he left behind. Can a criminal hide the clues to his behavior of murder? I don’t think so because it’s harder to do than wiping fingerprints off a murder knife, or remembering not to leave behind a hair or spot of blood that can be analyzed somewhat to yield a clue. The mind of the murderer is not only the cause of his killing, but how we determine who he is. I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept. After the war, I’d like to propose it to the homicide divisions of state and police departments across the nation. Maybe even the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigations. If anyone can turn the murderer’s own mind, own personality, own body, against him, revealing who he is by combining science, art and intuition, it’s the FBI. So, lieutenant, you are to be commended for touching the frontier of criminal investigation in the future.”
“Why, thank you, Dr. Keck. Coming from you, that’s a supreme compliment. As you all know, Everett runs the 1st Division’s Medical Battalion, which is the first our unit ever received. Navy Captain Bruce Logue is his division surgeon. Everett is from Wisconsin and has already seen considerable action on Guadalcanal.”
“The thinking I just introduced you to isn’t mine, Lieutenant Guidi. It’s a vague consonance of thoughts from the likes of commander Stanley Wollin, Commander Emil Napp, and the surgeons and doctors of ‘C’ Medical Company which established a field hospital shortly after landing here as an expanded clearing station. These fellows would all sit around at night and try to understand the minds of our battle-exhausted men, and how to help them through their pains. But not one figured on a murderer of fellow Marines. But all these thoughts have to be pulled together, chronicled, then tested, researched, and debated.”
“Is there anyone on your staff, Commander, to lead such an inquiry, as to who might have committed such an heinous killings? What contours we should aim for? What clues these contours may yield? In short, can you lend us one of your psychiatrists until we catch this monster?”
“I’ll lend you three—three of the finest minds we have in the medical services in our war against Japan. All of you know Colonel Franklin Hallam, in my office; Nurse Helen Weant of the 13th AAF 801st Medical Evacuation Squadron, assigned to the 17th field hospital, and a comer from stateside on board a troopship scheduled for arrival in three days. They will find your killer for you, trust me.”
“How soon can we assemble?”
“I’ll have Colonel Hallam and Nurse Weant in the jeep, then pick up Lieutenant Toscanini and come right over.”
“Meanwhile,” interrupted Division Commander Major General William Rupertus, standing up, “We’ll put more additional work parties out this morning gathering every empty 100-gallon drum and large cylindrical box, tub, can or the like, anything for packing or storing good and fill then pack each item with sand like you did the oil drums. We’ll place one every 10 or 15 yards throughout the base in Tent City half that distance, and at dusk, saturate each one with gasoline and set it afire. Three hundred to five hundred, plus what you’re doing now, should light up the place. Lemuel, you handle this. Put a thousand men on work details now. LeRoy Sims, as chief of staff, have your D-1, Major Meyers, check with Naval Intelligence in Pearl if there are any elements of the Japanese Navy or Airforce anywhere in the vicinity. If so, all is postponed. Pavuvu is too exposed when approached by the Western Coral Sea. Unit Commanders, post sentries every five tents by four. No one, not even a shadow, will penetrate the area without being seen.”
After a short pause, the 1st Division Commander sat down. Captain Del Barbra stepped into the middle of the circle and said, “Well, gentlemen, unless there are any questions, or anything anyone wants to say, we’re concluded. You must inform everyone what photographs you saw and heard here this morning. We have a vicious murderer on the loose. The Mad Ghoul, or Charlie the Choker, is now pure evil. He’ll undoubtedly kill again. Major General, will you issue an order to shoot to kill?”
“Within a minute of returning to headquarters.”
“We should meet again within a few days, whether there are any killings or not.”
What no one foresaw was two additional murders would take place late that night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
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Three Friends
Tuesday, August 1
“My God, how stunningly beautiful,” reflected Lieutenant Peter Albioni Toscanini.
Standing alone in the fading twilight near the long rugged coral coastline at Renard Sound on Banika Island across from Loun Island, the young naval medical officer steadily gazed upon the calm waters of Masquitti Bay, then past Pavuvu to the eastern mountains of New Guinea.
“Sunset on the South Pacific! How much more colorful can the sea and her countless islands be despite all the death and destruction?”
A humid fog began to stealth its way in from the southern Solomons, gracefully settling over the Russells, engulfing the 50 smaller islands, gripping the two larger ones. Increasing its density by the hour, it soon enveloped Pavuvu’s coconut plantation groves, then crept slowly over the gloomy dense jungles, to the rolling barren hills and sharp mountain slopes, before proceeding across Sunlight Channel to the Banika airfield, hospital and various medical facilities and sick bays, tank farms, advanced base construction depot, piers, docks, wharves, piers and the all-important floating pontoon bridges connecting the two main islands.
“Nothing like a gloaming Coral Sea evening fog after all afternoon teeming, torrential showers,” Peter concluded.
Just then, Lt. Toscanini turned behind him, clutching his .45. Rapidly approaching from a low coral ridge along a fringe of palms was Private William Lundigan, a Reising submarine gun strapped around his back.
“There you are! They said you came this way to waste your time watching the sun go down!” he said jokingly, a twinkle in one eye.
Lundigan walked past several squads of riflemen setting up the ordered bonfires along the beach, 100-gallon drums torched-cut in half for sand doused with gasoline and lit afire. The gray sand was littered with the relics and remnants of invasion, i.e. rusted weapons, machinery of sorts, light vehicles, palm tree splinters, strands of barbed wire, and abandoned gear and equipment; all the debris left over from both the 1942 Japanese and the mid-February 1943 seizure of the Russell archipelago as a forward operating base. Instantly, he lifted his cocked Reising, with the clip fully loaded, until he saw it was his closest friend, his “buddy”, in the Division.
“Was told you were out here staring at the clouds again, dreaming of Joan. Glad to see you with a submachine gun. Sure it’s loaded? And quit dangling it near your foot,” PFC Lundigan teased. “The Mad Ghoul may have paddled over to this side tonight searching for a fourth victim.”
“You should talk,” chuckled Peter. “Glad to see you fully armed. With a Tommy, no less! Are its magazines large enough?”
“Would rather be carrying a Browning Automatic Rifle. Either way, just let him try to place his fingers on this nice-looking throat of mine! If he crosses the channel and surfaces over here, he’ll feel an uncomfortable sting.”
“And, to accompany your grand entrance as our South Pacific sun disappears below the western horizon, the OP’s speaker over there is blaring ‘Mairzy Doats’.”
“Much rather have those guys with binoculars in the observation post play ‘Maori Love Song’ and pay attention to any Jap battleships sneaking up to shell us.”
Peter grinned from ear to ear, nodding in full agreement.
Now, as squads of the Marine riflemen were igniting their night fires, total darkness enveloped all the Russells, the refrains of the most popular song of America’s Hit Parade of 1944 wafting lightly over the northeastern shores of Banika. The two friends, sitting quietly gazing at the bonfires, relished each other’s company while deep in thought about the events on Pavuvu across the narrow channel.
“Still unloading the latest transport arrivals down at the dock, I see,” Lundigan said quietly.
“Yes, 24 new Amtracs, from the troop ships to the barges, then lifted up to the pier and lined up in two rows on the warehouse lot. And, the hospital ship out there. What a beauty. Never saw one so large, so white, with such a huge red cross. Think the Japs will honor the Red Cross or eventually sink her,” asked Peter.
“Of course, they won’t sink her. If they did, every ounce of energy we have as a nation would be unleashed so that the whole nation would evaporate.”
“I agree. Weren’t those amphibious tractors used on Guadalcanal?”
“Getting new paint and refurbishing for our new assault, I bet,” Lundigan explained.
“Look, you can still see the cardboard signs of boat numbers, and assault wave letters our boys were assigned to on the sides of the Amtracs. Those numbers meant life or death when approaching the beach,” responded Toscanini.
“How so?” queried Lundigan.
“Russell Davis, you know him, he’s part of the Second Battalion of the First Regiment. He said in our chow line a few weeks back that as an old veteran in the 1st Division he was taught in basic training before Pearl that if you’re in the first wave of an invasion, you jus
t might make it to, and beyond, the beach because of the shock of the Japs to see tanks, amphibious or not, coming right at them. But God help the unfortunate Marines in the second, third, and fourth waves. By then, the Japanese had pulled themselves together, regained their bearings, and easily fired their beach artilleries and mortars right at you.”
“Damnable enemy,” muttered Lundigan.
After a long, quiet pause, and a dwindling of the popular homefront tunes of 1943 and 1944 from the nearby Observation Post, Lundigan suddenly burst out, nodding toward the sand dunes near the pontoon bridge to Pavuvu, “Look who’s coming to join us! Oh, sweet, pretty, fresh, south Pacific purple flower of three red-blue hued petals!”
“Why, it’s Ellen,” smiled Peter. “Poor thing looks so disheveled from nursing.”
“Yeah, but darned if her beauty, brilliant, so full of color, doesn’t match the most breathtaking of all the ocean’s orchids,” responded Lundigan slowly, softly, as if weighing every one of his words.
“My goodness, Bill. I didn’t realize until this very moment, you’re way beyond just liking her. You’re crazy in love with her!”.
“Oh, gosh, I confess. But not a word about it, or our friendship ends, unless I shoot you first. She’s not to know. My problem, what I fear more than a Jap bayonet, is that she’s crazy in love with you! Homely, plain you, a nobody with nothing to offer. You’re in love with, and will marry, a Nisei 4,000 to 5,000 miles away in an internment camp and care for nothing except your Joan, and me, every time I stand before Ellen, I pee all over myself. . .!””
“Shhhh, here she is,” whispered Peter.
“One last word: Doesn’t that beat all?” uttered Lundigan. “My situation is the same damn exact situation as in my favorite comic strip, ‘Krazy Kat’ by cartoonist George Herriman, who just died a few years ago. The mouse, ‘Ignatz mouse-fool’ hates Krazy who’s in love with him. He rewards her love by throwing a brick at her head every chance he gets. Meanwhile, Offisa Pupp, the dog cop, tries to prevent this because he loves Krazy, who won’t have anything to do with him. But the mouse hates the cat, who loves him. She hates the dog who loves her, and the dog hates the mouse who loves him! What a crazy world they live in, that Coconino County. And, that’s what my situation with Ellen is all about! Crazy!”
