So I’ll need a courier I can trust implicitly…
Briley gazed across the lounge to the bar. His aide, Captain Scooter Brewster, looked forlorn as he leaned against the counter, nursing his beer. The woman he had been trying to chat up for the better part of the evening had just walked out the door, ditching the mere captain for a lieutenant colonel.
Rank does have its privileges…
The general summoned his aide to his table. “Have a seat, Scooter,” he said.
Once Brewster was settled in, Samuel Briley asked, “Captain, how would you like to make an indelible contribution to the war effort? Maybe even pick yourself up a medal you can brag to the ladies about?”
Chapter Forty
Penicillin and real food had started to work their magic on Bogater Boudreau. The radio men, McGuire and Savastano, had made provisions to transport Boudreau on one of the Radio Flyers as Task Force Miles moved to the new position, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He walked proudly, fully alert to any threat, carrying his weapon and pack without a hint of the weakness that plagued him yesterday. Even Doc Green was amazed how fast the Cajun trooper was bouncing back. “Your recuperative powers are amazing, young man,” Doc told him.
“Couldn’ta done it without you and them needles, Doc,” Boudreau replied.
Every man walking in that column wondered if they would ever see Botkin and McMillen again. Even those who had been off watch and catching some coveted sleep were jarred awake by last night’s explosion from the direction of Weipa. They joined their on-watch comrades already gawking at the fire’s glow lighting the sky. No one had any idea what had blown up or that Botkin had caused it. They could only hope whatever just happened in Weipa hadn’t claimed him and McMillen.
As they reached the new position and began to dig fighting holes, their fears were put to rest. Stu Botkin and Mike McMillen ambled out of the forest, moving like very tired men but radiating a cocky, triumphant attitude that said we just won the war all by ourselves.
McMillen was gushing as he asked First Sergeant Patchett, “Did you see that fucking radio truck go up, Top?”
“Y’all did that?” Patchett replied, genuinely surprised. “You think they know it was the US Army that blew them up?”
“I don’t think we’d be alive to talk about it if they knew that, Top,” Botkin said.
Patchett took a good look at McMillen and Botkin’s drawn faces and bloodshot eyes. “You two take the morning off and catch some shuteye.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Y’all did real good, you know.”
Jock Miles patted Botkin on the shoulder and asked, “Did you know that sabotaging the radio would be so…”—he fumbled for the right word—“…spectacular, Sergeant?”
“Hell no, sir,” Botkin replied. “I figured it would just fry the transmitter. But I’ve been thinking…don’t you suppose they’ll just use the radio on one of those ships offshore now? At least until they can get a replacement unit?”
“Maybe,” Jock said. “But with any luck at all, that’ll be the least of their problems pretty soon.”
PFC Savastano approached with a radio message form in his hand. “This just came in, Captain,” Savastano said.
A smile spread across Jock’s face as he read the message, but when he got to the last line, the smile faded.
“Bad news, sir?” Patchett asked.
“Yes and no, Top. The bombing raid’s going to happen after midnight tonight, around oh two hundred hours. That’s the good news.”
Patchett girded himself for the rest of the message.
“They want us to supply a damage assessment,” Jock added, “and await further orders.”
Patchett frowned. “So it says nothing about pulling back and coming home?”
Jock shook his head and said, “Not yet.” He heard Patchett mutter something. It wasn’t very distinct, but it definitely included the words sons of bitches.
Melvin Patchett went back to supervising the defensive preparations. “Dig them holes good and deep, boys,” he said. “The Air Corps is gonna be laying some eggs tonight.”
Chapter Forty-One
At the moment, no soldier in the US Army was more upset and disoriented than Tech Corporal Grover Wheatley. He couldn’t understand why he had been the only man awoken in his Brisbane bivouac tent in the middle of the night, told to grab the horseshoe field pack he never had the occasion to use, and draw the M1 rifle he had never fired. He was then hustled into a jeep and driven to Archerfield airstrip. There, he was issued a hand-held radio receiver/transmitter—an SCR-536 “walkie-talkie,” just developed for the Army. Its transmitter’s range was only about one mile, but it could receive any signal strong enough to reach it and was small and light enough to be carried by a foot soldier. The radio came complete with an accessory loop antenna for radio direction finding, a set of replaceable tuning coils which enabled the operator to change frequencies, and a box-full of spare batteries. He was then thrown onto a C-47 transport plane with some stick-up-the-ass captain from headquarters he didn’t know named Brewster. The captain announced only this: Grover Wheatley had been detailed to be Brewster’s radio operator for a very special courier mission.
They were airborne before the dawn, heading northwest to someplace he had never heard of, whose name he couldn’t even pronounce. The only thing he fully understood was the workings of the walkie-talkie. He had been trained at the factory producing them and was an expert on that brand new marvel of American engineering.
Once the C-47 landed, they were driven to a tiny anchorage on the lower end of the Gulf of Carpentaria—wherever the hell that is—and put onboard a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat. Patrol boat seemed a bit grand as a description of this vessel, Wheatley thought. It was nothing more than a pleasure boat—a big cabin cruiser captained by an aging petty officer—with a Bren Gun bolted to a stanchion on the foredeck. Her crew consisted of three of the most slovenly sailors Grover Wheatley had ever seen. The patrol boat didn’t cast off from the dock until darkness began to fall. It then motored north making surprisingly good speed, hugging the eastern coast of the Gulf, bound for a place called Archer Bay. Only then did Captain Brewster reveal to Wheatley the barest outline of their mission. Grover Wheatley was no longer disoriented. Instead, he was incredulous.
He voiced his displeasure over the loud rumble of the boat’s engine, the necessary volume of his words masking their insubordinate tone. “Let me get this straight, Captain,” Wheatley said. “I’ve got to find some guy with this crummy hand-held direction finder…in the middle of nowhere…so you can deliver him that sealed envelope? And with Japs supposed to be crawling around, too? This has got to be a joke, right?”
Scooter Brewster decided the best way to handle this cranky corporal was to ignore his complaints entirely. He knew well the old Army game Wheatley was playing: the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. If you bitch all the time, they’ll back off giving you shit to do just so they won’t have to listen to you. That’s probably how I ended up with him…his CO wanted to get rid of him.
“It’s no joke, Corporal,” Brewster said, without a hint of annoyance. “You’re eminently trained for the job at hand. You come highly recommended.”
“I’ll bet…by someone who wants to see me dead, probably.”
“Just try to catch some sleep, Corporal. We’ll be back on shore before dawn. Then we’ve got a bit of walking to do.”
“Sleep? On this noisy old tub? I wouldn’t count on it, Captain.”
Scooter Brewster said nothing in reply. He handed Wheatley a booklet with the transmission schedules and frequency assignments used by Task Force Miles.
“Let me ask you something, Captain,” Wheatley said, dismissively thumbing through the booklet. “What happens if we can’t find him?”
“In that case, I’m authorized to abort the mission and destroy the envelope and its contents.”
Wheatley latched on to the ray of hope that statement seemed to contain. “Who decides when i
t’s time to do that?”
“I do, Corporal.”
Jillian arrived at the task force’s new position a few minutes after 1700 hours. Once again, two black men accompanied her with the donkey cart loaded with seafood for dinner and fresh water. This time, Jillian was on foot, with her rifle slung from her shoulder.
“No Franz tonight?” Jock asked.
Jillian shook her head. “He’ll be better off in his stall,” she replied.
First Sergeant Patchett took a look at the food on the cart and said, “If we keep eating like this, pretty soon we’ll be spending most of our time just burying our own shit.”
Doc Green added another concern. He asked Jillian, “Any chance of bringing some toilet paper next time? We’re going to run out at this rate. We don’t want these lads to be wiping themselves with leaves. That leads to all sorts of irritation.”
“Amen, Doc…Amen,” Patchett added.
Jillian looked surprised. “Wait a moment,” she said, “there’s going to be a next time? I thought you blokes would be gone once the bombers came.”
“The bombing raid is scheduled for oh two hundred,” Jock replied. “About nine hours from now. But we’re not done, it seems. We’ve been ordered to stick around and assess the damage…and await further orders. So we’re not out of your hair yet.”
A smile spread across Jillian’s face. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, Jock,” she said. Her hand touched his arm and lingered there for a moment.
It was Patchett’s turn to smile, for he was now certain: the captain’ll be puttin’ it to her before too long. The first sergeant noticed Doc was smiling, too. They exchanged knowing nods.
As the two black men prepared to depart, Jillian told them, “It’s tonight.” The men nodded and led the donkey cart away, vanishing quickly into the forest.
“They’ll make sure all the blacks are nowhere near the airfield,” she told Jock. “When do we go after Colonel Najima?”
“Let’s get into position around dusk,” Jock replied. “Maybe we can get a glimpse of the guy when there’s still some light. It’ll be you, me, Corporal McMillen, and Guess.”
“I suppose Guess will be the sniper?” she asked, cradling her rifle in her arms like she couldn’t wait to use it.
“Yeah…let’s let him take the shot, okay?”
She seemed truly disappointed as she replied, “Fine.”
It had been dark for several hours when the staff car rolled to a stop in front of the Weipa Mission House. The driver shut off its engine and extinguished its lights, then jumped out to hold open one of the back doors.
“That should be Colonel Najima’s car,” Jillian whispered to Jock and Guess as they crouched in the tree line 150 yards away. McMillen, a few yards away covering the rear, strained to hear her words. As she raised Jock’s binoculars to her eyes, she added, “Let’s see who gets out.”
In the dim light of the lanterns flanking the Mission House’s front door, she saw a Japanese officer exit the car and stand, cap in hand, facing the building. The lantern light framing the doorway was sufficient to illuminate his face. “That’s Najima…no doubt about it,” Jillian said.
Colonel Najima took giant strides across the short distance to the Mission House steps, as if he were marching in some parade. Guess followed his movement, the crosshairs of the sniper rifle’s telescopic sight centered on the colonel’s head. “Sure seems to be making a ceremony outta getting himself laid,” Guess said. “He’ll be moving a whole lot faster, though, when them bombs start falling. I’ll probably have to shoot him once he’s back in the car.” His finger began to gently caress the trigger. “It’d be easier if I could take him down now, Captain…”
“And tell the whole Japanese Army we’re here?” Jock replied. “Keep your drawers on, Guess. We wait until the fireworks start.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Climbing out of Cairns in darkness, the crew of the B-17 bomber Peggy V was growing more apprehensive by the minute. They were the lead ship in the 12-plane conga line that would make its way to Weipa—each plane separated by about five miles—and attempt to drop their bombs on the coordinates identified by Task Force Miles. Unfortunately, Peggy V’s crew found the prospect of this mission terrifying. This crew—like everyone else in the US Army Air Force—had little proficiency in night flying and even less in night bombing. Droning into harm’s way through the darkness of night was the most frightening thing they could think of doing right now. Even worse, they had been ordered to do it at a much lower than normal altitude—only 7,000 feet.
They were told there was little to fear from Japanese night fighters, whose pilots were supposedly less skilled in the dark than the Americans. Aside from straying into mountains, the sea, or the vast emptiness of Australia, anti-aircraft fire would be their greatest nemesis. Flying at only 7,000 feet made it easier for the gunners on the ground to hit them. The B-17 squadron at Cairns had been chosen for this mission for a single reason: they were the only one that had enough fuel on hand to mount a 12-plane raid. The other squadrons were still waiting for that sparse flow of seaborne tankers from the States to refill their tanks.
They flew northwest, homing on a signal from the US Army radio station at Mossman some 50 miles from Cairns. Once over Mossman, they turned a few degrees north, keeping the radio compass needle pointed straight at the tail of their aircraft while they flew a course of 320 degrees away from Mossman. They would fly that course until the Iron Range station signal, on a different frequency, showed a magnetic bearing of 90 degrees, an event that wouldn’t happen for about 95 minutes after passing over Mossman Station. There, they would drop their bombs. The plan was simple in theory, crude in practice, and guaranteed to be of questionable accuracy—winds aloft and anxiety-driven human errors would see to that. But bombing by radio beams was the best system available for locating a target in the dark. Headquarters at Brisbane had dictated the reduced altitude to shorten the bombs’ freefall and negate some of the inherent inaccuracies. There was a risk that steady signals from the two radio stations would allow Japanese bombers to home in on them, but an impatient Washington demanded a demonstration—any demonstration—of its Air Force’s prowess. There were high hopes: at least some of the squadron’s 48,000 pounds of bombs were bound to land on or near the target Task Force Miles had identified. Any success could be trumpeted as a major victory.
One hour past Mossman, the Peggy V’s navigator called to the pilot over the interphone. “We’ve got a problem, skipper,” the navigator said. “The Mossman signal is getting weak fast. The DF needle is spinning all over the dial.”
“Do you think it’s the mountains causing it?” the pilot asked.
“I don’t know, skipper. We aren’t that far from the station…only about one hundred eighty miles. I can’t update our drift correction without it.”
“Can you go celestial? Get us some star shots to keep us on course?”
The navigator laughed, but the irritation in his voice was obvious. “Sure I can…but down here at seven thousand…with all the clouds above us…I may not get enough good shots in time for a decent drift correction. We’re only about thirty-five minutes from target.”
The pilot asked, “How’s the Iron Range signal?”
“It’s pretty strong,” the navigator replied, “but one good signal’s not enough. How come the Brits and Krauts have better radio systems for night bombing than this Mickey Mouse setup we’ve got?”
“You’re preaching to the choir, my friend,” the pilot said. “I’m going to hold this heading until you tell me differently. Try to get some star shots.”
Peggy V’s radio operator chimed in, asking, “Skipper, do you want me to contact Mossman and see if they’re having problems?”
“Negative,” the pilot replied. “Maintain radio silence.”
Jillian couldn’t believe she’d dozed off. She awoke with a start, finding her head pressed against Jock’s shoulder. She looked around; they were still in the w
oods at the edge of the Mission. Guess was a few yards to their right, his Springfield trained on the front door of the Mission House. McMillen was still a few yards behind, covering for any surprises from the rear. Jock was quietly humming a tune. She recognized it instantly.
“Ahh, you’re back,” Jock whispered.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“About an hour. I was about to wake you. It’s nearly oh two hundred.”
Oh two hundred. The time the bombers were due.
“That tune you were humming,” Jillian said. “It’s Wagner…Ride of the Valkyries. That’s really what’s crossing your mind right now? Songs about dead warriors being carried to Valhalla? A bit fatalistic, isn’t it?”
“Maybe the dead warriors will be Japanese this time,” Jock replied. “It seems like a fitting musical score for all this. Do you hear something different?”
She thought about it for a moment and said, “I don’t know…but if you’re in the mood for Wagner, I was thinking Tristan and Isolde.”
“But that’s a love story, Jillian.”
“They’re all love stories, silly boy,” she whispered.
She wasn’t sure if he saw her knowing smile in the darkness. And he certainly wouldn’t know the thought behind that smile: it doesn’t matter what part of the world they’re from…all men are thick as bricks.
McMillen heard it first—the distant throbbing of engines from the sky. It took a few seconds to convince himself he wasn’t imagining it. He turned to alert the others, but there was no need. The sound had grown stronger, and now they heard it, too.
Jillian looked upward, seeing nothing but the silhouettes of treetops in the moonlight. “That noise,” she said. “Is it…?”
“Yeah,” Jock said. “It’s an airplane…with more than one engine. A bomber, I’ll bet.”
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 25
