Dive Beneath the Sun

by R. Cameron Cooke

  “How can you call me infidel, Oroyo?” Jones said light-heartedly while keeping his eyes on the harbor. “After all we’ve been through together.”

  “I tell you this only because you are my comrade,” Oroyo replied. “But when the Japanese have been driven from these islands, my brothers and I will turn on you and your kind – unless, of course, you convert to Islam.”

  “Not much chance of that, mate. I’m a Christian. Always will be. So, I suspect I shall always be an infidel in your eyes.”

  “That is correct, Major.”

  “I can live with that, I suppose,” Jones replied innocently, but inwardly he thought of how he planned to convert Oroyo to Christianity before the war was over. After all of the fighting and killing, nothing would bring him greater joy than to see this man, whom he had shared so many dangers with over the years, embrace Christ as his savior. It was, after all, Jones’s reason for being in the Philippines in the first place. He was not a soldier by trade. He was a missionary. Before the war broke out, he had attended seminary in his native New Zealand, and had subsequently pursued a life in the Presbyterian clergy. He had come to Mindanao intent on bringing the Gospel to God’s children living under the teachings of Islam. But when the Japanese invaded, and he found himself behind enemy lines, he had been compelled to exchange his Bible for a .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine gun. He was recruited by the American civil engineer, turned special operations colonel, William Fertig who had managed to escape from Corregidor and make his way to the Portugal-sized island of Mindanao to start a guerilla movement. Jones became one of Fertig’s fighters, and his education quickly coined him for promotion to officer. For the past three years, as Fertig’s ranks had swelled to the tens of thousands, Jones had fought beside men like Oroyo, Moros who had temporarily put aside the bad blood of the Moro Rebellion – a brutal struggle against the U.S. Army during which the Muslim warriors had earned a reputation for their fierceness – and had joined the American colonel to fight against the Japanese. With men like Oroyo filling his ranks, Fertig had exacted a terrible toll on the Japanese occupying forces, employing hit-and-run tactics, isolating and annihilating small groups and convoys. The guerilla army had been so successful that the Allied headquarters in Australia had started sending it regular shipments of small arms, mortars, and ammunition by way of submarine. They expected Fertig’s men to play a crucial role in the re-conquest of the islands, and to that end Fertig himself now took orders from the Allied headquarters, such as the mission Jones and Oroyo now carried out.

  Jones returned the camouflaged binoculars to his face. He had been watching the harbor at Davao all morning, as he had nearly every morning for more than a fortnight. Behind him and slightly beyond the crest of the hill, Oroyo fidgeted to find a more comfortable position from which he could continue to transcribe Jones’s dictation into a small, canvas-covered field notebook.

  At the behest of their Allied overlords, Jones’s team had been ordered to monitor the activity around Davao. They were to pay particular attention to arrivals and departures from the airstrip and the harbor, and to be on the lookout for any cargo bearing German markings. At first, Jones thought it all absurd, another notion of the spy agencies in the United States who seemed to jump at every fantastical story, as if the war were one big adventure game. Often it seemed they were as naïve to the real work of subterfuge as Jones himself had been three years ago. It seemed they cared little for the supply depots the guerillas had destroyed, or the countless convoys they had ambushed. Instead, they wanted the coasts watched for shipping, or the local brothels seeded with spies to learn of strategic Japanese movements. These were probably important to the overall war effort, but they did little to placate the Filipino guerillas’ thirst for revenge. Jones had expected this mission to be more of the same, but he had been surprised when it had turned out quite different. His own men had mixed amongst the inhabitants of Davao and had spoken with several of the imported Korean laborers, many of whom worked on the docks. They had confirmed the arrival of a massive cargo of crates of every shape and size bearing the unmistakable swastika emblem of Nazi Germany. The cargo had arrived over a week ago in the middle of the night, carried aboard two German U-boats that had successfully navigated ten thousand miles of contested waters to make their delivery. Where the U-boats went after that, or what was being done about them, was someone else’s problem. Jones’s task was to identify the German cargo, if possible, and to keep track of its location. He had been unable to accomplish the first task. The Japanese had placed an especially heavy guard of Kempeitai around the fenced-off warehouse containing the mass of crates. None of the locals were allowed near it, neither were most of the Koreans. Jones’s team had radioed this information back to the guerilla headquarters in northern Mindanao, and they in turn sent it via low frequency transmission to the Allied theater command who came back with a demand that Jones remain in place and keep the cargo under observation. They had asked for in-depth details about the location of the warehouse, which Jones had thought puzzling – that is, until yesterday. He was lying in the same position he was at this very moment when the dive bombers had suddenly appeared overhead and began dropping incendiary and fragmentation bombs in an obvious attempt to blow the warehouse to smithereens. He had watched as the mass of flak and machine gun fire followed the American planes in their steep attack runs. A few had come close to scoring hits, one even making a suicidal second pass to strafe the warehouse with its wing cannons. The incendiaries had started a fire that had burned fiercely for a while, churning out a thick pall of black smoke that had obstructed Jones’s view. But, less than an hour after the raid, the flames had been extinguished, and the smoke cleared to reveal the warehouse still intact.

  Now, it appeared the Japanese were not taking any more chances. Overloaded trucks were moving from the warehouse to the pier where a large merchant ship sat moored and waiting. Two cranes incessantly swung from the pier to the ship, lowering crates into its hold.

  “Take this down, Oroyo,” Jones said, after waiting for the Filipino scout to get situated. “Cargo is being transferred from the warehouse to a freighter.”

  “Can you tell which ship?” Oroyo asked, waiting with poised pencil.

  “Hard to tell, but it looks like the Kenan Maru. Wait. Yes, I’m sure of it. She’s got two red stripes on her smokestack. Jot that down, will you, Oroyo? Might help the Yanks pick her out.” Jones had not memorized the entire ship recognition manual, but he had become familiar enough with the shipping in Davao’s harbor over the past weeks to know the names of the larger vessels.

  He saw another stream of trucks coming from the tank farm, presumably loaded with fuel-oil to fill the freighter’s fuel tanks.

  “There’s a bee-hive of activity down there, Oroyo. They’re getting her ready for sea. They’re trying to get those Nazi goods out of harm’s way before our chaps hit them again.”

  “Do you think the Americans will send another air attack?” Oroyo asked.

  “No way to tell, mate. They don’t share these things with us.”

  “Perhaps they do not trust us, Major.”

  Jones paused before answering, “They trust us, Oroyo. They don’t tell us these things because the Japs are monitoring our communications.”

  Jones heard Oroyo chuckle softly behind him. Of course, that was not the reason. Oroyo had been right – the Allies did not trust a band of guerillas who could easily jump between camps and share intelligence with the enemy. Many had been discovered doing that very thing after the Japanese had threatened to harm their families. There were just too many fighters to keep a proper watch on them all.

  “I suspect she’ll slip out tonight,” Jones said, steering away from the uncomfortable subject. “There may not be time, but if the Americans can hit her today, while she’s next to that pier, she’ll be a sitting duck. This can’t wait, Oroyo. We’ve got to get this to HQ. We’ve been here long enough. Let’s go.”

  The two men inched away from t
he crest of the hill, and once they were well hidden from the bay below, they slung their sub-machine guns and headed out across the jungle. They had taken only a few steps when a sudden flight of birds to their left sent both of them ducking behind trees. After scanning the surrounding jungle through the sights of their weapons, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they set off again, moving swiftly but warily, Oroyo using his bolo only to hack away insurmountable obstacles. They descended into a shady valley where the dense jungle nearly swallowed up the light, and it was here that Jones first began to feel uneasy.

  Something was not right. It was only a notion at first, but eventually Jones realized it was the absent noise that had prickled his ears. The millions of bird songs that made up the jungle cacophony every moment of the day were still there. They were, however, slightly diminished, as if an entire section of the massive chorus was missing. Oroyo sensed it, too, the alarm evident on his face, but neither man said anything. They pressed on, stopping every so often to listen for any noises out of the ordinary.

  It took them the better part of an hour to reach the camp, where the rest of the squad sat huddled under lean-tos made to blend in with the jungle. Jones waved once to the sentries perched in the nearby trees and glanced once around, taking a mental count of the men to ensure they were all accounted for. He had been with these same fighters for months, some of them for years, but experience had taught him to be cautious.

  A pair of pale feet stuck out of the end of one shelter, the snores of their owner audible above the chirping birds. After a few gentle kicks from Oroyo’s boot, the man began to rustle out of his slumber. A shaggy, bearded, red-headed man emerged, groggy-eyed and squinting.

  “Blazes, you’d think a bloke could get a few winks in the middle of the ruddy jungle,” the man said in a thick Australian accent as he grudgingly glanced up at Jones.

  “I didn’t think you had the night watch, Sterling,” Jones said crossly. “What are you doing passed out?”

  “Cut a bloke some slack, will you?” Sterling said, his tone thick with annoyance. “There’s nothing out there. We haven’t seen a soul in over a week. No sense in slapping at mozzies all day.”

  Upon seeing the impatience in Jones’s expression, Sterling finally nodded in resignation and got to his feet. He threw aside a canvas tarp to reveal a radio set, which he quickly brought to life with the aid of a small field generator. The noise seemed outrageously loud, but it could not be helped.

  “Are you sure you want to send all of this?” Sterling asked with surprise after reading the notebook page given him by Oroyo. “It’ll take me some time to encrypt it.”

  “Yes,” Jones replied with forced certainty. He had always been uncomfortable giving the Australian orders. Especially since they were about the same age, and neither of them were professional soldiers. Like Jones, Sterling had found himself on the wrong side of the lines at the start of the war. He had been working on a project in Manila as a construction supervisor and had joined the resistance rather than surrender to the Japanese. When it was discovered that the outspoken Australian had some recreational experience with radios as a youth, he had been dubbed a radio expert and had been tasked with building radios out of any material he could find. While Jones himself was officially a major and Sterling a captain, the observance of the rank structure was often ignored. Their ranks had been bestowed on them mostly in the interest of receiving better treatment from the Japanese should they ever be taken prisoner, but experience had shown this precaution to be ineffective, since captured guerillas were often beheaded by samurai sword or served as the target at the next bayonet drill.

  Jones watched as Sterling transcribed the message onto a separate sheet where it appeared as a meaningless jumble of letters. This was the code of the day, the alphabet of which existed only in Sterling’s head, and in the codebooks referenced by the radiomen back at USFIP headquarters. When Sterling had finished, he struck a match and burned the paper containing the plain English version of the message until it was nothing but blackened ashes.

  “Are you sure about this, mate?” Sterling said again, glancing up at Jones skeptically. “This is a long one. You know our procedures. Every second I’m transmitting is another second the Japs have to nail down our position. We sent a long one two days ago. I’m sure the Japs noticed it. They’ll be looking for more activity from us. We’re giving them a present with this. Are you sure it can’t wait until we’ve moved further inland, or at least until this evening, when there’s more radio traffic in the air?”

  “It cannot wait,” Jones replied simply, thinking of the Japanese freighter that might put to sea at any moment. Was it really worth it? Was it worth risking all of their lives for a chance to stop the cargo, whatever it was, from reaching its destination? But then, that was not his to decide. There were bigger heads making those decisions. His job was simply to carry out orders. “It’s critical, Sterling,” he added reassuringly. “Time is of the essence. Even waiting a few hours might be too late, and then all the risks we’ve run these past weeks will have been for nothing.”

  Sterling smiled. “When you put it that way.”

  The Australian then turned on his haunches and began lining up the radio equipment for transmission. When he finally began tapping out the series of dots and dashes, Jones silently prayed that the information would make it through. It had a long way to go from Sterling’s fingers before it reached the eyes of someone who could act on it. The message would first have to be received by Fertig’s headquarters unit, some fifty miles inland over mountainous terrain. From there, it would be relayed by a more powerful transmitter to travel across thousands of miles of ocean to hopefully be picked up by one of the Allied radio monitoring stations. Once there, it would need to be successfully decoded and then forwarded to the correct headquarters, and hopefully to the right commander with the right authority to order a second attack. It was indeed a long shot.

  Every man in the squad gazed at the Australian as he worked. The long series of beeps seemed amplified amidst the sounds of the jungle. When the message had finally been sent once in its entirely, Jones accepted a cup of lukewarm coffee from one of the scouts and allowed himself to relax, content in the knowledge that his squad had at least done everything they could do to fulfil their mission objectives. He lighted on a moss-covered log and wiped the sweat from his brow as the message was sent a second time. He did not expect an acknowledgement from headquarters. That would have been too risky.

  Jones leaned back against the rough bark of a tree and closed his eyes, trying to capture a few moments of rest as he listened to the beeping radio and Sterling’s finger tapping on the key as if it were a percussion instrument. Jones tried not to think of the long, arduous day ahead of him. Once Sterling finished, the squad would have to pack up and move camp, for the Japanese would surely comb the surrounding hills and valleys over the next few days, seeking out the source of the transmission. The squad would travel inland under the cover of darkness, plodding up the leech-infested streams with gear on their backs until they reached the safety of one of the dozen caves they used whenever the enemy was on high alert. It would be a long night indeed. If his senses were to be attuned tonight, when he most needed them, he must get some rest.

  “Oroyo,” he said. “When Sterling’s finished sending that communique, tell him to start packing his gear. We’ll move out at sundown.”

  “Yes, Major,” the scout replied.

  “I’m knackered. I’m going to get some shut-eye. Wake me in two hours, will you?”

  No sooner had Jones tipped his fedora over his eyes than a sharp crack echoed through the trees. He instantly snatched up his Thompson and scurried behind the cover of a large tree trunk. Every man in the squad did the same, all looking out warily at the direction from which the noise had come. The report had been that of a rifle, Jones was certain of that, but he could see nothing in the jungle surrounding the camp. The maze-like vines and trees were thick enough to conceal a pink
elephant, let alone an enemy sniper.

  “Was it one of ours?” Jones called to Oroyo who crouched behind another tree.

  The scout answered with a shrug.

  As Jones turned to check on the rest of the squad, he saw Sterling still sitting in front of the radio. The Australian had not taken cover and appeared to be listening intently to his headset. His finger had stopped tapping and he did not move.

  “Take cover, Sterling!” Jones shouted harshly. But, a moment later, his mind registered the Australian’s slumped shoulders, the dark spot in his matted hair, and the splatter of blood adorning the radio stack before him. Sterling was dead, killed instantly by the sniper’s bullet. “They’ve found us, Oroyo.”

  Jones tried to reconcile the reality of it. They had been followed, of that he had little doubt. Whether the Japanese had chanced upon their observation post only that morning, or had been watching them for some time, Jones had no way of knowing. He and Oroyo had led them directly back to the camp, and now the chances were good that they were surrounded and outnumbered.

  At that moment, Jones realized that Sterling had not yet finished sending the second transmission when the sniper’s bullet killed him. One transmission would have to be enough. There would be no further transmissions coming from this squad. If he and his men were to pay the ultimate price for that intelligence, then he prayed to God that someone acted on it.

  The sharp staccato of gunfire erupted fifty meters to Jones’s front. The sentries had engaged a target that was still hidden from the rest of the squad. Muzzle smoke spat into the air from above and below as the scouts in the trees engaged the enemy on the ground. Jones recognized the reports of several Arisaka 7.7 millimeter infantry rifles, and at least one Type 11 light machine gun. Large fronds, tree dust, and fibers rained to the ground as the enemy projectiles tore through them like a sawmill. Jones saw both of his sentries fall from their perches, each man caught in mid-air by his lanyard. Their lifeless bodies dangled there like two piñatas as they were further riddled with bullets.