The general’s face began to turn red. “It can also turn into an excuse to make a lot of noise but take no ground. The mission of Operation Easy Street is to seize Buna, not recon it, Colonel Molloy.”
“I understand that, sir. But until we know exactly what we’re up against—”
Hartman cut him off. “We already know what we’re up against, Colonel. MacArthur’s intelligence estimates are quite clear: there will be only a few thousand exhausted, disorganized Japanese troops in the Buna area. The terrain there is flat and wet—unsuited for defensive positions. Between the Aussie division and our own, you don’t think we can handle that in short order?”
Molloy couldn’t keep the ironic smile from his face. “Sir, I believe you were the victim of General MacArthur’s last intelligence estimate, right before you tried to take Port Moresby. That was supposed to be a cake walk, too.”
He watched Hartman bristle but the spoken truth was impossible to evade. The general needed a moment to compose his thoughts. Suddenly, he seemed very old—and very tired.
Finally, Hartman said, “Colonel, you’re a West Point man. You do still remember the priorities of command they taught you there, don’t you?”
“Yes, General. Of course I do.”
“Repeat them for me, please.”
“The first priority is my mission, sir. The second is my men. The third, the materiel under my command.”
It was Hartman’s turn to smile. “Very good, Colonel,” he said. “Don’t you ever forget that…the mission always—and I mean always—comes first.”
“I understand, General…but I remember something else, too: you won’t accomplish your mission if your men are outgunned and slaughtered.”
Hartman’s smile faded. Once again, he seemed to be searching for the right words. This time, nothing came.
“Dismissed, Colonel,” was all the general said.
No one was surprised when the argument quickly escalated to first punch. Sergeant Mike McMillen’s left hook sent the C-47’s crew chief sprawling to the ground.
“Enough of your flyboy bullshit,” McMillen said, standing over his stunned victim. “We get the whole damn cabin for our stuff…six thousand pounds’ worth…says right here on the load manifest. You don’t get to kick any of it off to haul your Air Force crap.”
The C-47’s pilot, a young lieutenant who looked barely out of his teens, jumped down from the airplane’s loading door to break up the fracas.
“I want to press charges against this man,” the crew chief said to his pilot. “He assaulted me, Lieutenant, plain and simple.”
“Go ahead…press all the charges you want,” McMillen replied. “I’m a lot better off in the stockade than where I’m going.”
Another voice rang out in the pre-dawn darkness: “At ease, Sergeant McMillen.” When the men who had gathered around saw it was Major Miles speaking, they snapped to attention. The crew chief quickly picked himself up off the ground to do the same.
Ignoring the young pilot eager to get his attention, Jock said to McMillen, “What’s the story here, Sergeant?”
McMillen reiterated what had just happened while pointing emphatically to the load manifest in his hand. “We can’t let them cheat us out of cargo space, sir. We need every ounce of this shit,” he concluded.
Jock now put the pilot in his sights, asking, “Was this your bright idea, Lieutenant?”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding.”
The crew chief glared at his pilot like a man betrayed.
“I’m sure it is, too, Lieutenant,” Jock said. Looking to the crew chief, he added, “Are you injured, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. I’ve been sucker-punched before.”
“Very well,” Jock said, “then there’s no need to set the wheels of military justice in motion just yet. Lieutenant, I hope this isn’t an example of the cooperation you winged heroes of Fifth Air Force are prepared to extend…cooperation we’re depending on in a big way.”
“Oh, no, sir. Not at all, sir.”
“Good. We’re in agreement. You two—shake hands.”
Swallowing their pride, McMillen and the crew chief did as they were told.
“Now,” Jock said, “let’s quit fucking around and get this airplane loaded…and every last piece of our gear rides. Is that clear, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely clear, sir.”
As the men went back to work, Jock pulled McMillen aside and said, “That was good work, Mike…but don’t push your luck with the quick hands. Next time, I might not be there to bail your ass out.”
McMillen asked, “You’re not gonna tell Lieutenant Pop on me, are you, sir?”
“No, Mike, you’re going to tell your company commander yourself.”
McMillen did a two-step of frustration as he said, “But he’ll want to take it out of my ass, sir. He’ll probably bust me. Maybe you could—”
“Sorry, Mike. That’ll be his call.”
The run-down building, just down a dusty street from the harbor, looked like any other sailors’ pub in Australia, right down to the sign over the door that read, No Boongs Allowed. Jillian Forbes could have recognized the place in the dark. This establishment, in Cooktown, on Cape York’s eastern coast, seemed to be the only game in town if you were in the market for alcoholic refreshment.
Behind her, two of Esme’s Aborigine crewmen were pulling a cart. “Wait here,” she told them. “I’ll get the grog out to the street; then you roll it back to Esme. Just make sure it stays covered, and don’t let a constable see you. We don’t have enough money on hand to buy lager and post your bail, too.”
One of the men patted the canvas tarp folded on the cart. “No worries, Miss Jilly,” he said.
Jillian expected to be the only female in the crowded pub who wasn’t a prostitute. When she stepped through the door, though, she got a surprise: seated at a table in the corner was a woman of late middle age. Dressed in men’s clothes yet unmistakably female, with a cap trimmed with faded gold braid on the table before her, this tall, sturdy sheila radiated an aura that said, Screw with me at your peril. Her gnarled hands told of a lifetime of hard work…
At sea, no doubt, Jillian surmised.
Sizing up Jillian’s workaday trousers and shirt in a quick glance, the woman called out, “Are you lost, schatzi? You may still be young and pretty but no man will pay for you dressed like that.”
The men in the pub—merchant seamen all—must have agreed, because they laughed out loud. So did the women slithering through the ranks of sailors, plying their trade.
That accent…she’s not Aussie, that’s for sure, Jillian thought. She sounds German…maybe Dutch.
The older woman said, “You’d better come and have a drink with me, schatzi, before the sharks in this sea eat you alive.”
Jillian strode over to the woman’s table and said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but nobody eats me alive.”
“Oh! A feisty one, she is! You must join me for two drinks, then.”
“Just let me take care of a little business, and then I’ll be glad to.”
Stacking the cases of beer on the wooden sidewalk outside the pub, the barman scowled when he saw the two Aborigines waiting with their cart.
“You didn’t say this was for no boongs,” he said to Jillian.
“That’s right, mate. I didn’t say,” Jillian replied. “What’s wrong? You don’t want my money?”
The barman spit on the ground, narrowly missing the stacked bottles. Then, he stomped back into the pub. Jillian followed him in and made straight for the older woman’s table.
“Buying spirits for the blacks, I see,” the woman said, pouring Jillian a glass of whiskey. “Can’t that be a bit dangerous for an Aussie, schatzi?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jillian replied. “I suppose introductions are in order. I’m Jillian Forbes. I captain the coastal trader Esme.”
“Good for you! My name is Beatrix Van Der Wegge. I’m
master of the good ship Java Queen.”
“So you’re Dutch, Beatrix?”
“Yes. I’ve been in the East Indies all my life. Where have you been running?”
“Port Moresby and back. But the next run is to Milne Bay.”
“Mine, too! We’ll be sailing together,” Beatrix said as they clinked glasses. “Jillian…what do they call you for short?”
“Mostly, they don’t. But the blacks call me Miss Jilly, and my man—and only him—calls me Jill.”
Beatrix took hold of Jillian’s hands, examining them closely. “Hmm, you’re not afraid of hard work, I see. You mentioned your man…but there’s no ring on your finger.”
“We’re not up to that yet. He’s a Yank soldier—a major—in Papua at the moment.”
Releasing Jillian’s hands, Beatrix said, “A Yank and an Aussie…a very dangerous coupling. Take my advice, schatzi…never get attached to any one man. Especially not a soldier.”
She held up her own hand, wiggling her fingers to show she wore no ring, either. “I’ve rid myself of three husbands already, one way or the other, Jillian. When you’re young, it’s all tongues and naked skin and sweat and sticky bedclothes. But once you’re old and drier than a nun’s nasty, they just become a nuisance, wagging their little willies in your face all the time.”
“Regardless—,” Jillian began to reply, until a drunken sailor stumbled and nearly upset their table.
“STEADY ON, YOU MONGREL,” Jillian commanded, while Beatrix coolly appraised her and the intruder.
The drunk staggered back a step, trying his best to shape alcohol-soaked facial muscles into a look of indignation. The best he could manage was a twisted grimace.
“The both of you can go fuck yourselves,” he said, “or fuck each other…or whatever it is you do. I don’t take me no orders from someone who squats to pee.”
He couldn’t react quickly enough to Jillian’s movements. In an instant, she was face-to-face with him, one hand holding her long, sharp seaman’s knife firmly against his groin. Her other hand held him by the throat. He didn’t—no, couldn’t—move.
“You know, laddie,” Jillian said, “I can fix it so you squat to pee, too. Would you like that?”
He shook his head.
“All right, then,” Jillian said, pushing him away.
He tumbled hard on his backside as the rest of the patrons roared with laughter.
“Well, schatzi,” Beatrix said, “that was quite an impressive display. Here, have another drink. That imbecile spilled your last one.”
As they clinked glasses once again, Beatrix said, “I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Jillian downed the whiskey in one swallow. “You know,” she said, “I never got to ask what they call you for short.”
Beatrix gave a tight-lipped smile and replied, “They call me captain.”
Chapter Twelve
Corporal Bogater Boudreau could see it coming: the man sitting next to him on the C-47—the BAR gunner in his squad—was about to throw up.
“C’mon, mon frère…suck it up,” Bogater said, snapping open a paper airsick bag with a flick of his wrist. “If you heave, the whole damn plane’s gonna start in. It’ll smell like a flophouse shitter in here in no time flat.”
Bogater was right: in a few minutes, the plane’s cabin reeked with the odor of vomit as the stomachs of GI after GI succumbed to the rough ride.
Standing at the cockpit entryway, Lieutenant Theo Papadakis, Able Company’s commander, said to the pilot, “For cryin’ out loud, pal…can’t you do something about these air pockets? My guys are puking their guts out. They’re gonna be useless once we’re on the ground again. Hell of a thing if we have to fight our way off the airstrip.”
“First off,” the pilot replied, “I can’t do anything about the turbulence. It’s from the mountains. Only two ways to avoid it—fly real high or fly all the way around—and we can’t do either one right now. And as far as having to fight your way off the airstrip—you won’t. We were in and out of there all day yesterday with your other battalion. We didn’t see a lousy Jap anywhere.”
Theo Papadakis took small comfort in that fact. “But they’re out there somewhere,” he said.
“Just remember the rule,” the pilot said. “If you puke, you clean it up.”
Someone tapped Papadakis on the shoulder. It was Mike McMillen, one of his platoon sergeants. “Lieutenant Pop, you got a minute?” McMillen asked.
“I’ve got until this fucking airplane touches down again.”
McMillen related the story of his fight with the crew chief.
“You mean that guy over there?” Papadakis asked, pointing to the crewman fast asleep against the cabin’s aft bulkhead.
“Yeah, him,” McMillen replied.
“I was wondering who lumped up his face like that. You say you did that with one punch, Mike?”
“Yes, sir. It was only one, I swear.”
“Then I’d say you did a good job, sticking up for your platoon and all, Sergeant.”
“But I don’t want to get you in Dutch with Major Miles, Lieutenant. You know…letting it slide and all.”
“Don’t worry about Major Miles, Sergeant. He’s got bigger things to worry about…and so do I. Do you know what a reprimand is?”
McMillen looked confused as he replied, “I suppose…it’s…umm…”
“Let me make it real simple, Mike. You just got one. Case closed.”
They had only been there a few hours, but already the men of Jock’s battalion had devised a nickname for the airstrip at Fasari: So Sorry. It seemed to fit: the field was nothing but a flat expanse of ground which natives had cleared of the high kunai grass and a few inconveniently placed trees. The soil was muddy but firm enough, despite the frequent deluges of rain. When airplanes were absent, the only clue to its purpose was the long streamer at the top of a high pole serving as a wind sock. There was barely enough room for the flight of eight C-47s to land and, squeezed wing tip to wing tip, unload their cargo.
In short, a sorry excuse for an airfield.
By mid-afternoon, the three rifle companies of 1st Battalion were on the ground, going through the motions of providing perimeter security for an airstrip yet to be threatened by enemy soldiers. There was always the prospect of marauding Japanese aircraft but they hadn’t appeared, either.
Now, they thought the sun was taunting them. This evening, it seemed to be in a bigger hurry than usual to hide below the horizon, giving relief from the broiling heat of day but plunging them into immobilizing darkness. Jock and Colonel Dick Molloy tracked that merciless orange star as they stood on the airstrip, awaiting the final airlift of the day, the one that would carry the weapons company and complete the movement of Jock’s battalion to So Sorry.
“At least we’ll get a later sunset,” Jock said. “The mountains don’t block the setting sun here on the north coast like they do at Port Moresby.”
Molloy didn’t seem to be listening as he scanned the empty sky. “The rain’s slowed them down,” he said. “If the Air Force doesn’t show up soon…”
There was no point completing the sentence. Everyone knew the rest: once the sun went down, the planes wouldn’t be able to find the place, let alone land. Jock’s battalion would face their first night back in the field—and many more, perhaps—shorthanded and undergunned.
The long shadows of dusk had begun their slow creep across the airstrip when the first whisper of airplane engines echoed off the mountains. In a few moments, the C-47s drifted into view, the setting sun glinting off their windshields. As the line of aircraft turned one by one to the runway’s heading, Jock grimaced:
“There are only seven planes, sir,” he said. “There should be eight.”
Once on the ground, the transports—with engines still running—wasted no time unloading. Sergeant Major Patchett jumped from the lead aircraft and ran straight to Jock and Molloy. “One of the planes had to turn back,” Patchett shout
ed over the rumble of 14 idling engines. “Motor trouble, they said.”
Jock asked, “Did they make it back to Port Moresby?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“What was on that plane, Top?”
“The two heavy mortar sections, a shitload of ammo, and Lieutenant Hellinger.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jock and Dick Molloy said, their words in almost perfect unison.
Jock blew out a chestful of frustration and added, “What the hell’s going on here? It’s like the gods and MacArthur are conspiring to take away all my firepower.”
Dick Molloy found that ironic—and funny. He asked, “The gods and MacArthur…is there really any difference, Jock?”
First Battalion bivouacked at So Sorry for the night. At first light, they hit the narrow, coastal trail leading to the regimental assembly area—a village called Dobodura—some 40 miles away and eight miles inland from Buna. The men had come up with a more easily pronounceable nickname for that place, too: Double-Dare.
“The Aussies say it’s a good place for an airstrip,” Colonel Molloy told Jock just before the battalion set out. “I got a message last night saying the native labor has already been lined up to start the land-clearing operation. Double-Dare Airfield...that has an audacious ring to it, don’t you think?”
They weren’t sure how far they traveled down the trail that first day. Division’s schedule for the forced march showed the battalion arriving by sundown of the second day on the trail.
“Ain’t no way, sir,” Melvin Patchett said. “This ain’t much of a trail…it’s a damn footpath, and it ain’t exactly no straight-line footpath, neither, like them dumbasses at Division sketched it on the map. All these twists and turns are adding the miles like crazy…and with getting slowed down by rain every couple hours and all, we’ll be lucky to drag our sopping wet asses into Double-Dare by sunset of Day Three.”
Jock replied, “Yeah, maybe…but at least we aren’t running into any Japs.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Patchett said, “but I’m kinda surprised we ain’t caught up with Third Battalion. They only got less than a day’s head start on us…and we know what a bunch of route-step fuckups they are.”
Operation Easy Street (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 3) Page 6
