Chapter Forty-Five
Making their way slowly through the forest, it took them almost an hour to reach the place Jillian had in mind. Guess and McMillen carried Colonel Najima—still naked and bound to the chair—the entire way, declining offers by Jock to alternate with them. When even Jillian offered to take a turn carrying the chair, Guess said, “No, thank you, ma’am. This little booger ain’t heavy at all.”
“Yeah, he’s no problem,” McMillen added. “Me and Killer could carry this guy all the way to Brisbane if we had to.”
Every five minutes—just like clockwork—there was another series of dull thuds from the direction of Airfield One. “The flyboys must still be at it,” Jock said. “I sure hope they’re giving the Japs a good pasting.”
They had traveled farther from the fire, and its glow had grown faint when shadowy outlines of huts, some emitting their own dim lantern light, appeared through the trees. “We’re here,” Jillian said. She pointed to a spot inside the settlement. “Go to that bigger shack standing off by itself. I’ll join you in a minute.” She raced ahead and vanished among the huts.
The shack to which Jillian had sent them was deserted. Its walls and roof were corrugated metal. There was a weathered sign over the door: Queensland Police. Jock pushed open the unlocked door and entered, shining his flashlight around the shack’s interior. The dust was thick and cobwebs reflected his light, looking like the lacy doilies that decorated his grandmother’s house back in Massachusetts. Manacles and leg shackles hung by their chains from pegs on a wall. There was a tall, iron-barred cage, big enough for several men, nestled in a corner. Its door was swung open.
“Bring him inside, men,” Jock called to Guess and McMillen, who soon trudged through the doorway carrying the colonel.
“Put him in the cell,” Jock said.
As they placed Najima, still bound to the chair, inside the cell, McMillen asked, “You want to untie him now, sir?”
“No. Not until we figure out who’s got the key,” Jock replied, tossing the colonel’s clothes onto the naked man’s lap.
“Wait a minute, Captain…let’s keep his uniform, too. More souvenirs,” McMillen said.
“No, we’ll let the man keep his clothes,” Jock replied. “Tell you what, though…you’ve already got his sword, so take his rank insignia, too.”
McMillen eagerly ripped the insignia of rank—three silvery-white stars on a background of yellow and red stripes—from the collars of Najima’s tunic. He tossed one to Guess and stashed the other in his breast pocket. “I’ll betcha we can get half a month’s pay from some rear-area rube for one of them beauties,” McMillen said.
Jillian reappeared with Old Robert in tow. He twirled a heavy key on a chain around his finger. His face broke into a triumphant grin when he saw Najima. “Constable Mick’s nick finally has another guest,” Old Robert said, “and this time it’s not a black man.” He made a scolding, cluck-cluck sound with his tongue and then asked the colonel, “How could a man of your high standing get yourself in such a predicament?”
“He doesn’t understand English,” Jillian said.
Old Robert replied, “He doesn’t have to speak English to know what I’m saying.”
“Cut him loose,” Jock said.
With his bayonet, Guess sliced through the ropes. Free of his bonds, the colonel wasted no time pulling on his trousers. There was a loud clunk—like the sound of a vault closing—as Old Robert swung the cell’s door shut and a softer clink-clink as he turned the key in the lock. “We’ll do our best to care for him in your absence,” he said to Jock.
Jock checked his watch. It read 0310. “It’s still over three hours to sunrise,” he said. “I was thinking of heading back now, using the light from the fire—”
“No, don’t,” Jillian said. “If that fire dies out, you’ll be in trouble out there until sunrise. Stay here and get some rest.”
“I guess you’re right,” Jock replied, then turned to McMillen and Guess. “I’ll take first watch. You two get some shut-eye.”
Jock, Jillian, and Old Robert stepped outside to the police station’s veranda and sat down on its wooden deck, their backs against the metal wall. Jock had a question for them: “What if the Japanese come and find you holding their colonel captive? It may be a few days before my men can take him back east.”
“If the Japanese come, they will not find us here, Captain,” Old Robert replied. “Everyone has gone bush except the ones who work Miss Jilly’s boats…and now she says the boats are gone.”
“I’m very sorry about that,” Jock said. “The bombers…they…I mean…destroying the boats and the icehouse was just an accident, I’m sure.”
Old Robert cast a skeptical glance Jock’s way as he said, “Accident, you say? It’s very hard to tell the difference from where I stand.” He paused, staring solemnly into the night before adding, “Did this accident at least end the problem of Mister Sato’s corpse, Miss Jilly?”
“Yes,” Jillian replied, “in a most dramatic fashion.”
“But the war has still put us out of business,” Old Robert said, his I told you so glance not lost on Jillian.
Eager to change the subject, she asked Jock, “So now will you tell me why you changed your mind and took Najima prisoner?”
“It’s simple,” Jock replied. “I got worried that the bombing might be a complete failure. Then, there’d still be plenty of Najima’s staff alive to run the regiment…and with him shot dead, they’d unleash retribution against everyone who lives here. But if he just turned up missing, there’d be a period of confusion while they tried to figure out what happened to him.”
“A wise decision, Captain,” Old Robert said. “Thank you.”
They let a few minutes of silence pass. Jock finally broke it by saying, “It’s been over fifteen minutes since we heard the last bombs fall. I guess the bombers are done.”
Not sounding terribly enthusiastic, Jillian said, “I can’t wait to see if they did any good…aside from burning down half the forest and nearly everything I own.”
“Those explosions from down south,” Jock said, “those weren’t trees blowing up.”
Still unconvinced, Jillian replied, “We’ll see.”
Another moment of silence passed before Jock said, “That man you shot…do you know who he was?”
“Yeah…I saw the limp, Jock.”
“That was some great shooting. You saved my life.”
“Let’s not get carried away, Jock. It was an easy shot…and I never gave you a chance to get off one of your own.”
“Still, how will I ever repay you?”
An impish smile spread slowly across her face as she draped an arm around his shoulders. “Oh, I’ll think of something,” she replied.
It was nearly 0800 when Jock, McMillen, and Guess returned to First Sergeant Patchett’s position. They wouldn’t have recognized it if not for the mangled remains of the radio set and two of the Radio Flyers. They walked the compact perimeter and found its fighting holes all but empty. A few of the holes showed dark, blackened splotches where soil and blood must have mixed. The perimeter, some 40 yards in diameter, was at the center of a line of destruction 100 yards wide that stretched east and west for hundreds of yards in either direction. At regular intervals along the line were eight saucer-shaped depressions in the ground, wide and deep enough to swallow a deuce and a half truck, the depressions stripped clean of all vegetation as if the earth had been tilled by some giant plow. Trees outside the depressions had been raggedly pruned, their broken limbs and shattered trunks littering the area. Some debris of an Army unit was scattered about—K ration boxes and wrappers, a well-dented helmet, a metal canteen crushed flat—but Patchett and his men were nowhere to be seen. What was once part of a eucalyptus forest now resembled a moonscape.
J.T. Guess tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “What caused this, sir?” he asked Jock. “Artillery?”
“Nah,” Jock replied. “This is bomb damage.
” He held his arms parallel to the line of destruction. “See the nice straight line of craters? That’s just how a stick of bombs would impact. None of them landed inside Top’s perimeter…but two of them straddled it pretty damned close.”
Jock’s explanation was a bit too cold and clinical for McMillen. Looking around in confusion, he asked, “So what the hell happened to our guys? They didn’t get…”
Jock finished McMillen’s sentence. “Vaporized? No, I doubt that.”
But that still didn’t explain where Patchett and the rest were. Mike McMillen’s bewilderment was turning to anger. He asked, “Our bombers did this, Captain?”
“Looks that way.”
“Son of a fucking bitch!” McMillen said, kicking what was left of a Radio Flyer. “Ever since we got here, the Japs have been the least of our fucking problems.” He wandered away from Jock and Guess, swearing a blue streak all the way to the edge of the perimeter.
His profane tirade ended abruptly, as if shut off by a switch. Someone—he couldn’t tell who—was approaching out of the woods. McMillen leveled his Thompson and tried to shout out the challenge word—but he couldn’t remember what it was. He stood there, silent yet open-mouthed, a panicky mute with a deadly weapon in his hands.
“Laverne, McMillen…the password’s Laverne,” First Sergeant Patchett said in his unmistakable voice, much too loudly considering there could be Japs within earshot. “Now stop pointing that fucking Thompson at me.”
Jock made an urgent hand gesture to Patchett that could only mean keep it down!
“Can’t help it, sir,” Patchett said. “My ears are ringing like church bells. Everyone’s are. Can’t even hear myself think, let alone talk quiet.”
Everyone’s are…that particular phrasing gave Jock a glimmer of hope no one had been killed. But surely his men had paid some price. He asked, “How bad are the casualties, Top?” He cringed as he waited for the first sergeant’s answer.
“Pacheco’s the worst,” Patchett said. “His leg’s broke bad. Tree fell on him. Everybody else is banged up, concussed, and half-deaf, but that’ll pass. Damn lucky thing these trees ain’t no stouter. We would’ve had tree bursts for sure then…and we’d all be fucking dead. No hole in the ground saves you when they’re blowing up right over your head.”
“Amen, Top,” Jock said, feeling very mortal as he scanned the line of bomb craters one more time. “Looks like the radio’s done for, though.”
“Yep,” Patchett replied, that single, clipped word sounding like a stoic, yet hopeless admission of defeat. “Leave it to the flyboys to fuck things up but good.”
Patchett started walking, motioning for Jock and the others to follow. “We set up over here a ways until y’all got back,” he said. “Looks more like an aid station than a combat perimeter right now. As I live and breathe, that Doc Green’s doing one hell of a job…for a lady doc.”
Jock smiled and asked Patchett, “See any Japs?”
“Nope. Don’t see no airplanes this morning, neither. Maybe they all burned up in that fire.” Patchett pointed in the direction of the airfield. “Still a lot of smoke from over yonder. Maybe they’re still burning.”
Patchett turned to Guess and asked, “Well, son…did you get your shot?”
“Negative, Top. The captain had another idea.”
Patchett stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to face Jock and, as if bracing for a blow, asked, “Another idea, sir?”
“We took the colonel prisoner,” Jock replied.
Now Patchett’s face looked as if he really had just taken a blow. “You did what, sir?”
“Captured him, Top. Probably the first Jap POW of the war…and he’s ours.”
Jock watched and waited as Melvin Patchett’s face wheeled through a variety of emotions. Disbelief, denial, and anger all took their brief moment, until his expression settled into one of resignation and acceptance. “So where the hell is he, sir?” the first sergeant asked.
“Jillian and the blacks are holding him for us.”
Jock wasn’t sure if Patchett’s sigh was one of relief or muted exasperation. “Well, that’s just fine and dandy,” the first sergeant said, and started walking again.
In a few minutes they reached the new perimeter. Patchett was right: it did look more like an aid station than a combat position. Everyone—even Doc Green—was wearing a field dressing somewhere. Teddy Mukasic and Frank Simms, both without helmets, were manning the machine gun, each with a bandage wrapped over his forehead.
McMillen walked over to them and said, “Hey, you guys look like the fucking Spirit of Seventy-Six.”
Mukasic and Simms responded in unison with dismissive scowls and raised middle fingers. “Let’s see what you look like when some fuck-up drops one on your head,” Simms said.
Jock gauged the condition of his unit. It wasn’t a pretty picture: Shit…they’re going to need a lot of rest just to walk out of this place, let alone do any combat patrolling. His gaze fell on Corporal Pacheco, lying on a makeshift stretcher atop the Radio Flyer that had survived the bombing. Doc Green was putting the finishing touches on the splint supporting his shattered leg. And Pacheco won’t be doing any walking, period. Not for a long time.
But somehow, I’ve still got to figure out if this bombing raid was a success…or just a colossal screw-up. And I’ve got to figure out how we’re going to talk to Brisbane without a radio.
Jock noticed a new expression on Melvin Patchett’s face, one he had never witnessed before. This time, his first sergeant seemed unnerved and searching, reaching out for some assurance that everything would somehow be all right. Even Patchett’s voice lost its usual, blustery confidence when he asked, “So what the hell do we do now, Captain?”
Chapter Forty-Six
It was almost noon before Jock was ready to move out again. He’d take McMillen and Guess with him once more; they were the only ones fit to go on a recon patrol. They hadn’t suffered the pummeling from American bombs the others had, and they had actually gotten some sleep last night.
After much deliberation, Jock selected one more man to join the patrol: Bogater Boudreau. He seemed amazingly fresh and fit, healed of the concussive battering still plaguing the others, although he confessed my ears were bleeding a little from them bombs. Even his shoulder wound—the only bandage he wore, obvious beneath his khaki tee shirt—was posing no problems. It seemed like ancient history now, having happened on the Catalina five days ago. Five days that seemed like a lifetime. When Jock asked Doc Green if he thought Bogater was medically fit to go on patrol, Doc said, “Look at him…the lad’s made of steel. Take him, if you must.”
But Jock’s mind wasn’t made up until Boudreau said, “C’mon, Captain…take me. It’s high time I got off my dead ass.” It was more than a request; it was a plea.
It didn’t take the four of them very long to reach Yellow Vermin Road. Hunkered down among the trees near the road’s eastern edge, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It looked like the entire Japanese Army—a few in trucks, most on foot—was staggering up that road, heading north. They looked disorganized. There didn’t seem to be any leaders, no senior officers at roadside viewing the ragged parade from staff cars or atop horses. This was just mobs of soldiers—lost, confused, and fearful—fleeing to safety.
Mike McMillen whispered to Jock, “What the fuck is going on, sir?”
Jock didn’t answer. He was deep in thought, trying to remember something Jillian had said. He couldn’t recall her words at first, but then those words came back to him loud and clear: Kill their commander and they’ll be running around like chickens without heads.
“I think we’re looking at a general retreat,” Jock finally replied. “Since we can’t cross the road yet…not without getting spotted…we’ll shadow them and see where they’re going.”
Bogater Boudreau had walked point the whole way as they paralleled the Japanese troops moving north up Yellow Vermin Road. He showed no signs of tiring, staying cri
sply alert. He seemed truly in his element: He’s getting one hell of a kick out of this, Jock thought. Their pace was steady, and they had no trouble remaining concealed among the trees and tall grass on the east side of the road.
Soon after Jock and his men started north, the forest on the opposite side of the road—the west side, the windward side—showed the hideous scars of the fire like a line drawn across Earth by some angry God. What was left of the trees looked like blackened, smoking toothpicks haphazardly stuck into the barren ground. The stink of combustion’s aftermath filled their lungs and made it difficult to breathe. The devastation extended west and north as far as they could see: Right to where Airfield One is, Jock thought. He struggled to keep his optimistic thoughts of a total Japanese rout in check until they had more evidence.
They continued their pursuit for almost an hour, until Boudreau stopped abruptly and crouched down in the grass, raising his hand—the signal for the others to stop. The hand signal was passed down the line, from Jock, to Guess, to McMillen. Jock crawled forward, joining Boudreau on point.
No words were necessary; the view ahead provided the answer why they stopped. They were about to run out of concealment. The forest beyond this point had been flattened, the barren ground now decorated with a line of bomb craters instead. The ragged stumps of trees still smoldered, the tall grass that once blanketed the soil burned away. Surprisingly, the wooden bridge the Japanese had built across the narrows of the Embley River had been spared. Vehicles and soldiers on foot streamed across it into Weipa. Less than half a mile ahead, the Americans could see through binoculars the Mission settlement, teeming with aimless Japanese troops like the ones they had been following.
“How many of them you figure there are, sir?” Boudreau asked.
“Between the road and the Mission? Hundreds…maybe a thousand,” Jock replied.
Bogater Boudreau said, “And it sure looks to me like they’re running away.” Then he asked, “So what do we do now, Captain?”
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 28
