Pacific Nocturne, 1944

by Don DeNevi

  “Well, hello there, young lieutenant!” the major general exclaimed affectionally. “You on track to catch the monster tonight?”

  Peter smiled, acknowledging the 1st Division Commander’s sincere feeling toward him.

  “Sir, more than anyone can possibly know, how I wish that was the case, especially after spending the afternoon at the morgue with the five victims,” Peter said gravely.

  With steady, unwavering eyes, then a fierce expression of anger, Rupertus said,

  “Soon, our bewilderment will be over. We’ll catch the son _ _ _. Then, very quietly, I’ll shoot him in the head myself,” he smiled softly.

  Where some of the major general’s staff felt he was often indecisive, even flawed in strategic combat planning, Peter like the man he unconsciously regarded more as a father - figure for not only himself, but also the other Marines of the 1st Division. Bronzed, lean, clear-eyed, individual, and unafraid, William Henry Rupertus was all of 54 years of age.

  Peter, as well as every Marine in ‘Rupert’s Old Breed outfit’, knew the major general’s biography. Amid the man’s remarkable military achievements, there was enormous personal tragedy as well.

  After participating in jungle warfare in Haiti, following World War I, he was assigned to command the 4th Marine Brigade in Peking, China, in 1929. There, within a year, a terrible scarlet fever epidemic broke out, resulting in the deaths of an appalling number of Chinese civilians, including Marines of the 4th. Especially anguishing was that William Henry’s wife and two sons perished.

  Soon, thereafter, Rupertus became the CO of the Marine Barracks in San Diego, There, in his off-duty administrative work, he became an expert marksman and wrote, “The Marine Corps Rifleman’s Creed” to encourage recruits in all branches of the Armed Forces to always place trust in their weapons.

  After Pearl Harbor, Rupertus was assigned to the 4th Marine Regiment of the 1st Division as commander. When General Vandegrift left the 1st Division in July of 1943, William Henry assumed temporary command until six months later, in December of 1943, he was promoted to Major General and led his 1st Division to victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Cape Gloucester.

  Now, during the heat of a murder - mad Marine multi-murdering fellow Marines, he was planning, and preparing, for the invasion of the Palau Island group, specifically Peleliu.

  “Well, young man,” the major general smiled, “catch him tonight before the Bob Hope Show arrives and I’ll see to it, personally, that you’re named commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Admiral Chester Nimitz reduced in rank to Assistant Commander.”

  “Well, sir, you’ll have him by daybreak, and I’ll be happy to borrow and use your .45. But, may I nap for just an hour or two, that is, if I can find a cot somewhere in here. It would take too much time to return to my quarters at Banika.”

  “Well,” Rupertus responded, “We are just on our way to tour the Ghoul defense arrangements on Banika, but you sleep until sunup, breakfast here, get fresh underwear from Colonel Sims, who will let you in my office where there’s a cot and blankets in the back room.Amor, see to it, now. We’ll wait. And, as we do, tell me your thoughts. Will he kill tonight?”

  As Colonel Sims hurried to his office bunk for fresh underclothing and the key to the major general’s office, Peter, William Henry, and Lemuel Shepherd huddled.

  “I suspect he will strike again tonight, too much notoriety to pass up. I so pray I’m wrong. But the prestige of murdering another Marine on the eve of an important entertainment event will make him famous throughout the Pacific. Then, if he can kill Bob Hope himself, he will enter the Assassin Hall of Fame, joining the evil likes of John Wilkes Booth and others. The Ghoul lives in an organized world of madness that is fed by publicity, acknowledgement, repute and renown.”

  “You think he’ll kill on Banika tonight, then?”

  “Yes, sir. I thought for sure it would be an assault on Pavuvu since the Ghoul undoubtedly lives in Tent City. But after spending a few hours browsing the roads and alleys and observing all the preparation for safety and security, I believe he wouldn’t risk murdering among such activities and measures. Best to engage in killing where few preparations have been made.”

  As Rupertus and Shepherd pondered Peter’s thinking, the lieutenant added,

  “And, one more reason, sir, why I feel he’ll strike on Banika. His latest murder occurred in a medical facility. He apparently knew how to get around in, and make his escape from. My intuition tells me that he’ll go back, simply because it’s easy picking for an unsuspecting, probably wounded, Marine.”

  “Well, he hasn’t struck yet. And, the hospital area is triple-picketed. He can’t worm his way through that string of sentries,” Rupertus said calmly, glancing over his shoulder as Colonel Sim hastened back.

  “Besides, Lieutenant,” echoed Brigadier General Shepherd, “We have a kerosene lamp every 10 feet. The whole medical unit, including the general headquarters is lit up like a carnival, except with only one color, white.”

  “Yes,” grinned Peter.

  “Lieutenant, there’s a small cooler where the cot is. Orange juice, Coca-Colas, cold-cuts, and the like. Help yourself. In the toilet room, you’ll find an extra toothbrush and shaving kit. Make sure you don’t oversleep. No brass bugle to awaken the drowsy. Meeting starts at 0700 in the conference room down the hall from my office. You must be there. The only item on the agenda is Bob Hope.”

  Everyone laughed, including the escorts.

  “I won’t embarrass you, sir. I’ll be the first to take a seat.”

  With that, Peter turned and headed for a much-needed hour or two of slumber. He would be up by 0500, breakfast, shower in the major general’s back room bathroom, and seat himself before all the other participants arrived.

  Alone in the back room of the 1st Division Commander’s office, with the door slightly ajar, Peter, as exhausted as he was, again felt that dull, strange sensation that’s bothered him since earlier that day. Mechanically, and virtually asleep standing up, he began removing his clothing and placing them atop a nearby chair. He noted the cooler next to small sink adjacent to a box cupboard in the first of three rooms. Each had a single window, its shade pulled down, facing the Solomon Sea. Although all three had well-polished floors, the rooms were bare, with the exception of rude tables, a few chairs. One wall of each room held a medium-sized gun rack with M-1s, Thompsons, Reisings, and other light weapons.

  After helping himself to a Coca-Cola, Peter laid back on the well-blanketed cot and tried to make himself comfortable. Despite all the splendor of quiet and peace, the few hours remaining in his night promised to be bitter, perhaps the bitterest of his life.

  “I’m so played out, that even the air seems difficult to breathe,” Peter thought to himself.

  Something, a thought or thoughts, words either imagined or actually heard, body languid on the part of someone, something triggered pounding in his heart, mocking and challenging his intelligence, battering and beating him, left him sleepless. For the next hour and a half, Peter lay awake. Half a dozen times, he went into the bathroom to pee. Unable to, he returned to his blankets. Finally, with his inner struggle beginning to subside, and with one hand clenched until the nails bit into the flesh, he began to slip into sleep, weighted with the restlessness of a brain trying to decipher what was a strange intuition about the murder - mad marine who was multiple murdering his own. Deep, sound, sleep, he knew, would come quickly, as it normally does for the extremely weary. And, not long after, hopefully, pleasant dreams of his Joan Ikeda. As he drifted into oblivion, he smiled, realizing that here, in the back room of the major general’s office, there was an absence of rots, land grabs, mosquitoes and mosquito nets, and, above all, the putrid smell of rotting coconuts and their milk.

  Within a moment, it seemed, Peter was abruptly startled back into consciousness. A large, human-like figure breathing heavily was in the dense darkness of the room, Peter sensed, lumbering straight toward him. The odorous two-legged
monster appeared to be raising a large, sharp instrument over his head as if to plunge into his face. With his .45 in its holster attached to his belt draped over the chair where his clothing was, Peter panicked. Death was inches away, his only protection a navy blanket. As the large knife-like weapon thrust toward his eyes, the scene instantly changed.

  A face suddenly appeared on the smelly, wild man-like beast within an army pyramidal-issued tent as he repeatedly struck a hapless Marine in the stomach as he slept. It was the face of Major General William Henry Rupertus, the Commander of the Old Breed 1st Division. Then, just as suddenly, as Peter, slightly aside, watched motionlessly as Military Police Captain Oscar Del Barbra, with a tray of scalpels and other razor-sharp knives used in surgery was slicing in long, deep cuts the legs of the murdered nurse in the morgue. Just as abruptly, the scene changed for the fourth time, and Peter found himself at dusk buried up to his shoulders in the sand at his favorite hideaway beach near the observation post facing the Coral Sea. A faceless man was poised behind him holding a small hatchet over his head as the trapped lieutenant awaited his decapitation in paralyzed terror. He could not see who his executioner would be, although he sensed the khaki-dressed man was an officer and a friend. No one was on the beach and the world’s sounds and activities seemed to have vanished. Then, unusually stark sneering and snickering utterances were heard as the Marine, with hatchet still in hand, walked around to face him. Although he remained faceless, the man’s stature was familiar. Then, his face slowly faded into that of his best friend, Bill Lundigan, who, without a word, swung the hatchet down upon his head.

  A gentle tap on his partially-opened door awakened Peter from his nightmare, although the violent pounding of his heart continued. Sweat had coagulated every vein and vessel in his body. He wanted to remain motionless, but the tapping grew louder. A voice, cold, loud and hard, demanded,

  “Peter Toscanini. Are you all right? Urgent news. I’m entering.”

  With that, an officer with a flashlight entered, searched for the light-switch and turned the lights on. Peter, up on one elbow, bewildered, asked,

  “What’s up? Who is it?”

  “You’re needed right now, lieutenant, at the Base Hospital. The Commander personally sent me over to get you out of the back room. Two more murders tonight, a nurse, around 2300 was discovered after the sentry’s body was found around 2150. General Rupertus is waiting. Let’s go. And, by the way, if you don’t recognize my voice, I’m your Number One mentor, Brigadier General Earl Maxwell.”

  Peter was stunned beyond movement or words - - two more murders; a nurse involved, possibly Ellen; summoned by the major general, personally; and Earl Maxwell, his favorite teacher himself standing next to his cot.

  ”I’ll dress, sir,” he said, stumbling out of bed. “Do you know who the nurse is? Was she on duty in one of the wards? I have a friend there, a nurse.”

  Maxwell said gravely,

  “Helen, Lou Ellen, Anne, some name like that. They’re doing a lot of soul-searching over there, because apparently, she was very vulnerable, being left alone on the ward. Stabbed frontally, but not fatally. She screamed, was struck with probably a butcher knife or bayonet or a “Ka-Bar”. She died on the spot. The nurse who rushed over from the next ward was sliced on the upper arm near the shoulder. She’s being treated there.”

  Sitting on the bed, slipping on his socks, Peter asked quietly, “Could the murdered victim have been named ‘Ellen’?”

  Putting a hand to his chin, Maxwell whispered hoarsely,

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Peter felt his heart sink.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  -

  “Ellen, You Live?”

  Both Lieutenant Peter Albinoni Toscanini and Brigadier General Earl Maxwell of the Medical Corps were exhausted by 5:00am Monday, August 7th, 1944, and the day hadn’t even seen sunup yet. Maxwell hadn’t slept since the night before, and Peter less than two hours since midnight.

  Now, while being driven by jeep back to the hospital annex on Pavuvu, each was lost in thought, Maxwell on the security measures for Bob Hope and his entourage that afternoon and evening, Peter about Ellen’s death and his resistance to falling in love with the young nurse. Underlying their silent meditations was a premonition of trouble that day.

  “Is the meeting still scheduled for 0700?” Peter inquired without glancing at his mentor.

  “No. With this development, it’s postponed for two hours. It’ll still be in the new conference room of the annex. Try to get a little breakfast before it begins at 0900. You may not eat again until Hope and his crew leave, or are put to bed tonight.”

  “A cup of hot coffee would be welcomed, but as for food or breakfast, I can skip a morning. The way I feel this morning, I’d rather single-handedly extract two dozen Japs from a deep cave than continue the day with the madness tearing my mind apart - - the certainty of my friend Ellen’s murder; the series of horrific scenes in a two-hour long nightmare in which different Ghouls stab me, if I’m to believe Sigmund Freud who says we are everyone in our dreams; and, my intuition screaming that the world’s funniest and most popular laugh-maker is going to be assassinated on my watch.”

  “Oh, my God,” responded Maxwell, continuing to drive without taking his eyes off the road, “but I have the same dream, the sense there will be some kind of an attack, not by a fired weapon, but in a way the others were murdered, close, up front, the plunge of a razor-like blade into Mr. Hope’s abdomen. It means an officer is the only one allowed to get that close, and it means the Ghoul will have to get Hope alone so that after he kills him he can slink away.”

  “Like I say, it’s madness, sheer unmitigated madness--to have to go through what we’re going through,” Peter said, brokenly. “And, after having studied the stab wounds of five unfortunates in the morgue yesterday afternoon, I now have two more of the victims to study. How I hate this part of my work.”

  Not another word was spoken between the two for the rest of the drive. Maxwell was drained, emotionally and physically. Yet, he tried to seem relaxed, but could only do so mechanically, stiffly, without any physical movements.

  Peter was struggling, too, under some kind of spell or shock or despair, which was consuming him. Something was laboring, indeed, masticating, in his entire cardiovascular system that he simply couldn’t interpret. Someone did something, behaved in a certain manner, or said something that at the time seemed so innocuous, so harmless that it “was like water off a duck’s back”. But, what was it? Whatever it was, it must have somehow resonated in his subconscious, or he wouldn’t have dismissed it. But, why, then, is he so forlorn and vexed? Something didn’t make sense, and no amount of rest, no number of hours of sleep could change the dark outlook of the day that was just beginning. A few minutes later, slightly before 6:00am, with the jeep parked on the far side of the joint general headquarters-hospital annex parking lot near the small coconut grove that fringed the hillside, Peter, with Maxwell at his side, walked up the green slope toward the hospital entrance. Both officers were amazed by the number of armed Marines stationed around the perimeters of the two virtually connected units.

  Dawn was breaking over a cloudless sky, and already a suffocating heat with near 90% humidity promised an oppressive, body-drenching day.

  “Hopefully,” said the brigadier general, “the discomfort will be relieved by humor and entertainment.”

  At the hospital entrance, two empty ambulances with flashing red lights had backed up to receive the deceased. Over by the entrance was a neatly painted sign, in capital letters boldly black and evenly bordered, that read,

  “IF YOU SIT, YOU RUST!”

  Every time Peter walked under it into the hospital, he smiled, as any knowledgeable doctor or nurse would. No one knew who painted it or put it up. But no one took it down.

  “Truth was never truer,” commented Peter. “To live a long life, move, and keep moving. And, to help you move some more, eat anything green, the darker the be
tter. And every vegetable there is, in every color nature has given us. And, when not moving, sit quietly and read or create something, or anything. Even when stationed in places like miserable Pavuvu.”

  “You learned the secret to longevity, did you now?”

  “Yes, sir, partly from your teachings.”

  Watching the two officers maneuver through the sentries and arriving medical personnel and staff officers investigating the murder victims and scenes, a lieutenant verifying identifications for entrance, walked up and said,

  “Brigadier General Maxwell, the major general is where the nurse was struck down, next to the malaria ward, D, outside the first exit in the small garden patio.”

  Hurrying through the hospital lobby and down the main corridor past the wards to the patio of death, Peter and Maxwell heard faint strains of “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” sung by Bing Crosby and the three Andrew Sisters.

  “So early in the morning to hear love songs in the wards? The men haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  Maxwell chuckled,

  “It’s therapy. You know that. We keep it soft and play only the like early in the morning. Sort of a ‘to-wake-you-up music’. Later, during the routine of day, we play ‘big band’. After dinner, from 0600 to 0800, we allow, even encourage, the recovering men and off-duty nurses to dance together. That kind of activity is good for the heart and mind. No mildewed atmosphere here. Depression is almost nonexistent. When the wounded, sick, afflicted dance and sing, only good things happen; the most important being they heal faster.”

  Peter nodded,

  “I know.”

  Standing with a group of military police officers in the corridor alcove nearest the nurse’s murder patio were Captain Del Barbra and Sergeant Guidi. Walking past them, Peter’s gaze met Oscar’s, as he glanced toward the two passing officers. Peter had never before seen such graveness on the face of an officer of the armed forces. Grimly, and downcast, Captain Del Barbra simply shook his head negatively.