Colonel Najima was surprised Yamamoto still had any say in the matter of Australia—his first two invasion plans had been unceremoniously rejected by Prime Minister Tojo. At least Tojo…an army man, a general…is ultimately in charge of our destiny, Najima reassured himself. The mission on which they embarked tomorrow—dreamed up by this insufferable civilian sitting across from him—left him little room for cheer, however. It mattered little to Colonel Najima how vigorously this insolent little man—who spoke English fluently and boasted of being called Bob among westerners—tried to defend it. He is barely 30 years old, the colonel said to himself. What wisdom could he possibly offer the War Council?
“I still would have preferred a landing near Brisbane,” Najima said. “That would be the most expeditious way to neutralize American reinforcements.”
“Ahh, but there was no practical contingency plan,” Sato replied. “It was simply too far to support by sea and would have required far more troops than we have available. But by building airbases all along Cape York—”
Najima interrupted, saying, “Cape York is nothing but a vast wilderness. Another jungle.”
“My good colonel, all of Australia is a vast wilderness! But Cape York is a nearby vast wilderness. Less than a day’s sail! Should our enterprise fail to meet its objectives, we can easily recover back here to Papua.”
Colonel Najima bristled. “Our enterprise, as you call it, will not fail, Mister Sato.”
“Excellent,” Sato replied. “We make a fine team, Colonel. You find and secure the suitable airfield locations, and I’ll procure the indigenous labor to construct them. Trust me…the Aborigines will prove quite supportive of our efforts. After centuries of being considered subhuman by the whites, they will greatly appreciate the opportunities the Empire has to offer them.”
Najima’s face expressed nothing but skepticism. “Cape York…we might as well be going to the moon. I would have even preferred a landing at Darwin.”
Sato shook his head vigorously. “Colonel, you can’t be serious. We’d be further away from the eastern coast of Australia at Darwin than we now are in Papua! All that talk of a Darwin invasion…that was a figment of the Australian imagination. We are far more clever than that.”
Najima responded with a snort of sarcastic laughter. “You’re sure we’re more clever, Mister Sato?”
“Absolutely,” Sato replied. “Very soon, all of the cities on Australia’s eastern coast…Townsville, Cairns, Brisbane, even Sydney…will be in easy reach of our land-based aircraft. Our planes can then join the submarines sinking the ships that try to bring the Americans while they’re still at sea.”
Najima was still not convinced. “I doubt this undertaking will be quite as easy as you suggest in that wild and inhospitable land. Besides, the Germans tried the strategy of submission by aerial bombardment against the English…and they failed miserably.”
Sato replied, “Ahh, Australians are nothing but displaced British lowlife, lacking the fortitude of their mother country…however hopeless that fortitude will prove…and lacking the defensive shield of the Royal Air Force. Toppling Cape York will be easier than Singapore, Colonel. Your troops easily raced through a jungle wilderness on bicycles to accomplish that.”
“True, it was a jungle,” the colonel said, “but at least there was an actual road through it. Unlike the Cape York Peninsula.”
Sato’s bravado would not be deterred as he said, “This is a golden opportunity for the Empire. Our victories have been so great, so rapid, and so widespread, we can no longer occupy all the territory available for conquest. We have simply been too successful, Colonel! But the Australians are easy pickings…See how they flee their northern territories like frightened rabbits! Their enthusiasm for this war evaporated quickly, just as I told the War Council it would. They resent being bled dry by Britain, with their manpower drawn off to defend European interests on the other side of the world. They actively subvert the feeble American efforts against us. Their dockworkers would rather go on strike than unload American supply ships! Mark my words, Colonel…in the next few months, once we have a firm footing, however small, on its soil and dominate its skies, Australia will surrender without the need for a massive invasion…an invasion we lack the resources to mount, anyway. Then the Americans will never be able to oppose us. Your regiment will lead the way to another glorious conquest for the Emperor.”
Colonel Najima stroked his chin pensively as he asked, “So the War Council thinks we can bring Australia to its knees on the cheap, before the next rainy season turns the airfields we build into quagmires, to boot?”
Sato raised his glass of saké as if making a toast. With supreme confidence, he replied, “Would such a victory be diminished because your opponent never fired a shot?”
Chapter Nine
The little Aborigine girl raced up the path to Jillian Forbes’s Victorian house, a tiny bearer of ominous news. Seeing Jillian tending to her horse in its stall, the girl darted toward her while yelling, “MISS JILLY! MISS JILLY! THE BOATS…THEY COME BACK!”
Jillian couldn’t hear the words; the girl’s approach had startled the horse and he was making a fuss. Trying to soothe the beast, she said, “Sorry, Nellie. What did you say?”
Now standing next to Jillian and gasping for breath, little Nellie said, “They come back, Miss Jilly. The fishing boats come back. We see them in the bay.”
Something’s wrong, Jillian knew. It’s not even nine a.m. My boats have only been out a few hours. They wouldn’t come back yet, unless…
She had no idea what that unless might be. Oh, God…please don’t let any of my men be injured. Dreadful accidents on fishing boats were not uncommon, although her crewmen had never suffered more than the usual cuts and sprains. Or maybe they tangled with sea-going bandits. That would be rare in these waters but not unheard of: That’s why we carry rifles onboard…bandits and crocs. And please, please, please…don’t tell me somebody got lost overboard. Whatever it was, something well out of the ordinary was happening, and she needed to get to the Mission docks right now.
After swinging into the saddle of her horse, she reached down to haul up the little girl. “Come on, Nellie,” she said. “Let’s get you back to your mum.” They were barely out of the paddock when a flight of four single-engined airplanes passed noisily overhead, low enough to see the goggled faces of the pilots, low enough to see the large red circles painted on their wings and fuselages.
Nellie asked, “Is that the Yanks, Miss Jilly?”
Jillian felt the knot in her stomach tighten a little more. “No, little one,” she replied, “they’re Japanese.”
By the time Jillian rode onto the dock, her five boats were within hailing distance. There were many airplanes droning high and low in the morning sky, some lazily circling the bay, others making their way quickly inland. She could not see their markings, but whoever they were, they owned the sky.
The lead boat reached the dock. Old Robert called to Jillian from the helm. “Many ships on the horizon, coming down from the north, Miss Jilly. Some warships and many barges. A Japanese airplane fired across our bow, so we turn back. They don’t chase us.”
Low, gray shapes on the water were materializing far out in Albatross Bay. Those must be the barges, Jilly thought. She hitched her horse to the icehouse rail and ran back to the dock as the other four boats tied up. The Aborigine crewmen milled about on the dock, unsure what to do next.
“Go to your families,” Jilly told them. “If they do land here, keep everyone calm, like nothing’s wrong. And whatever you do, don’t show any weapons.”
Old Robert looked at Jillian with great concern and asked, “But what about you, Miss Jilly? What are you going to do?” The unspoken subtext—what are you going to do when they rape you?—was subtle as a locomotive.
She watched as the low, gray shapes on the sparkling blue water loomed larger. They were indeed barges, and over the rails of each were clearly visible the heads of many men, each weari
ng a soldier’s helmet. Some of the vessels were heading straight for the Weipa Mission. Others fanned toward the thin beaches of Albatross Bay or the mouths of the mangrove-lined rivers that bracketed the settlement. Glints of sunlight reflected from objects on board, objects otherwise invisible at this distance: bayonets, Jillian surmised.
Suddenly feeling very mortal but strangely not afraid, she turned to Old Robert and answered his question. “I’m going to stay right here…and hope for the bloody best.”
“The war is here now, Miss Jilly,” Old Robert replied. “Nothing will turn out for the best.”
Chapter Ten
The barges unloaded their human cargo with startling speed and cruised sedately back into Albatross Bay, toward the horizon beyond. Looks like several thousand men, Jillian estimated, minus the poor buggers who’ll fall victim to crocs as they slog through the mangroves. A contingent of about 50 soldiers quickly passed through the Mission, poked tensely around the buildings but found nothing more threatening than the Mission’s short-wave transmitter. They heaved the radio from the building and smashed it with rifle butts; the twin poles at each end of the long wire antenna high above the ground were quickly toppled. Then, responding to the shrill whistles of their unit leaders, all but a few vanished inland into the scrubland. Those remaining behind in the Mission strolled about, seemingly relaxed and unconcerned as they chattered among themselves. Rifles slung over shoulders, they reveled in their victory, unopposed on sea, land, or in the sky. Their only adversaries were the army of flies they continually swatted away. Not a shot had been fired.
For Jillian Forbes, the events of the morning had taken a most bizarre turn. Here she was, sitting on the veranda of her icehouse, making polite conversation with this Japanese man seated next to her—this Japanese civilian—under the watchful eyes of two soldiers, one on each end of the veranda. The civilian cordially introduced himself: “The name is Sato, but please call me Bob.” He spoke English fluently, sounding just like the Yanks in the movies. A conventional wisdom on Japanese language skills was promptly shattered; when she told him her name, he repeated it, pronouncing the “L” sound in Jillian without a hint of difficulty. He even handed her a calling card, printed in English; it announced The Honorable Saburo “Bob” Sato, Civil Administrator, Australian Occupied Territories. No matter how relaxed and informal their discourse seemed, though, the word occupied seemed to jump off the calling card. Jillian could not help but feel the yoke of a prisoner was slipping around her neck.
“And you are the only white person remaining in this area?” Bob Sato asked.
“As far as I know,” Jillian replied.
“How many Aborigines reside near this mission, Miss Forbes?”
“A few hundred within a hour’s ride of here, most of them working the stations the missionaries set up. Many more the farther you go.”
“Stations?” Sato asked.
“Ranching plots, mostly, raising livestock,” she explained.
Sato checked a page in the notebook on his lap. “Yes,” he said. “That would agree with my research. We will, of course, be very interested in the livestock from these stations, as you call them, once adequate port facilities have been established for their shipment.” He leaned closer to Jillian and asked, “So you are in charge of these blacks?”
He was startled as she threw back her head and roared with laughter. “No,” she replied when the laughing was done. “I’m not in charge of anyone but myself. Like I said, some of them work for me—”
“On your fishing boats?”
“Yes, on my boats. But nobody’s in charge of them. Not anymore.”
“How many do you employ, Miss Forbes?”
“Thirty-four, most days,” she replied. “Four or five to a boat…the rest here in the icehouse. Just about every able-bodied man in the Mission.”
Sato considered her words for a few moments as he patted the nose of Jillian’s tall, chestnut brown horse. Finally, he broke the silence and said, “This is a fine animal, Miss Forbes. What breed is he?”
“Hard to say. He’s a brumby.”
Sato was confused by her answer. “Brumby? Isn’t that a feral horse?”
“Not after the breaker got done with him.”
“I see,” Sato said. “What is his name?”
“Franz,” she replied.
His eyebrow raised in curiosity, he said, “That sounds very Germanic, my dear.”
“I named him after Franz Liszt. He was Hungarian, you know. Not German.”
“So you’re a lover of fine music?”
“Bloody right I am.”
“Then we must discuss the great composers some time,” Sato said. “But for now, back to business. I would like you, Miss Forbes, since you are so thoroughly knowledgeable of the area, to introduce me to the local Aborigine leaders. I have a business proposition for them.”
“What kind of business, Mister Sato?”
“Please…call me Bob! I wish to employ them in a construction venture. The armed forces of the Empire need roads, airfields, port facilities—”
Jillian raised a finger to interrupt. “Employ, you say. How do you intend to pay them, Bob?”
Sato reached into a satchel and removed a handful of paper money, displaying it proudly before handing it to Jillian. “They will be paid in the Imperial Japanese Pound of the Occupied Territories.”
Jillian inspected the bills with great skepticism. The printing on them was concise. It stated the denomination as one pound. The issuing agency was The Japanese Government. “And what exactly can they buy with these?” she asked.
Proudly, Sato threw open his arms and replied, “They can buy all the goods the Empire of Japan has to offer. Welcome to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere!”
Still unimpressed, Jillian had another question. “Most of the land around here belongs to the blacks. Do you intend to pay them for its use, too?”
Sato laughed and shook his head. “Does anyone really own the land, Miss Forbes? Don’t we all merely borrow it from nature?”
“That’s bullshit, Bob. Let’s step back into reality for a minute. You haven’t mentioned what’s in it for me yet.”
“I’d very much like to do business with you, too, Miss Forbes. I’m sure the soldiers would love having their rations spiced with some fresh fish. Nothing but rice can get so…tedious.”
“And you’re going to pay for my fish with this Imperial shit paper?”
“Very soon, my dear, this shit paper, as you call it, will be the legal tender all across Australia.”
“A lot of good that’ll do me,” Jillian replied. “Now that you’re here, the supply boat won’t be coming anymore. I’ll be out of petrol for my boats and my generator in a week.”
Sato smiled reassuringly. “No need to worry,” he said. “The Imperial Japanese Navy will supply you with all the petrol you need, Miss Forbes. At no cost.”
She stared quizzically at Sato, not quite believing what she had just heard. At that moment, a Japanese plane buzzed low overhead, startling her horse. Sato began to soothingly stroke Franz’s head.
“I was wondering,” he said, as if talking to the horse. “You wear a frock. Do you ride side-saddle?”
A chill shot down Jillian’s spine. She had usually worn dresses around the missionaries; they grumbled she was not a normal young woman when she wore trousers. She had never seen any point in alienating them: I needed their money and those bible thumpers were crackers enough to go hungry rather than do business with someone they considered a deviant. Hell, even as a kid, those bloody idiots said I was more a savage than the blacks. It had all worked out; in the stifling heat of tropical North Queensland, a woman grew to appreciate the comfort a simple dress afforded. Riding in a dress or skirt had always posed a problem, though: even when side-saddle, you stood a good chance of showing off your knickers. Funny...I never worried about showing off my knickers before…but now, there are all these little Japanese buggers walking around…
Sato took his leave, explaining he must consult with the Japanese commander. The two soldiers who had stood guard departed with him, leaving Jillian alone on the icehouse veranda. She breathed a sigh of relief; the feeling of being a prisoner in her own world had dissolved. Life would go on just as it had before, maybe better than before. The Japanese seemed to care far more about Cape York than the government of Australia ever did—at least for the time being.
Her train of thought was broken by the faint sound of distant aircraft engines far out over Albatross Bay. These did not sound like the planes that had been passing overhead all morning. There was an urgency in these sounds she had never heard before—more shrill wails than drones, like machinery being pushed beyond its limits.
Jillian could see them now, a group of airplanes—ten, maybe twelve—climbing and diving in crazy corkscrews. She thought of monkeys frolicking in a palm tree, twirling round and round the trunk as they chased each other’s tails. But it quickly became clear these planes were not at play. This was a dogfight—to the death. Some of those planes were not Japanese; whether they were Australian or American, she could not tell. She could hear no gunfire, but one plane seemed to suddenly disintegrate in a bright flash to dozens of little pieces, each piece fluttering slowly down to the water. Then another plane began to trail thick black smoke, painting a gentle downward arc that soon became vertical and ended in a geyser of white water on impact. She had no idea the nationalities of the combatants who had just met their deaths.
Just as quickly as it began, it was finished. The wail of overstressed engines settled back to the more familiar drone. The planes retreated—some north, some south—until the silent dots they had become vanished from sight. The impersonal yet deadly drama of the dogfight caused a new fear to grow in Jillian’s heart: there might be an armed force—Australian, American, or both—that was determined to contest the Japanese on Cape York.
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 5
