Another man, not ten feet from Jones, crumpled to the ground clutching his neck. A fountain of blood pulsed down the front of his shirt overtaking and masking the sweat stains there. Oroyo dashed into the open and began dragging the gurgling man to cover, but the man’s body went limp before they reached the safety of the tree. Moments later, another scout spun around unnaturally, revealing a mass of blood where his left eye should have been. He collapsed into the mud and did not move again. The sniper had claimed yet another victim, but the placement of this last victim allowed Jones and the twelve remaining men in the squad to unmistakably identify the direction from which the shot had come. They quickly adjusted their defensive positions accordingly.
The Japanese rifle and machine gun fire stopped abruptly, and Jones could only surmise that the enemy was preparing to move in. Either that, or they were getting ready to bombard the position with mortars.
He nodded to Oroyo, who pulled grenades from a satchel and tossed them individually to each of the other scouts. At a hand signal from Jones, each man pulled the pins on two grenades and hurled them into the distant brush. When Japanese voices suddenly shouted in alarm, the scouts immediately opened fire, shooting blindly into the foliage in the hopes of catching the enemy troops as they ran for cover. The grenades detonated in rapid succession, rocking the forest with a series of ear-splitting blasts interlaced with the screams of their victims.
“Let’s move!” Jones shouted to his men while the cloud of dust still hung in the air.
They all broke cover and relocated several dozen meters to the rear, but not before the enemy sniper dropped another scout, killing him mid-stride, like a hunted deer. In spite of this loss, the movement of the squad had not come a moment too early. From the relative safety of their new positions, Jones and his men watched as multiple grenades landed where the squad had crouched only moments before. The ensuing explosions tore apart the bodies left behind and demolished Sterling’s radio equipment.
Again, the squad moved under the cover of the dust, darting further down the valley. Jones goaded them to keep moving and to ignore the hidden sniper. They dashed in pairs at irregular intervals from one cover to the next. Two separate times, Jones heard the whiz of a bullet slice the air above him and smack into the trunk of a tree. The marksman’s aim was getting worse, which told Jones they were moving away from him.
A commotion of Japanese voices sounded far behind, and then two more distinct explosions as the unfortunate enemy soldiers discovered the mines buried around the camp’s perimeter.
That would hold them up for a while, Jones thought. With any luck, the enemy would now move too cautiously to follow with any kind of speed.
Jones kept his men moving, glancing only occasionally at the field map to confirm the next path they would take. They had run from the enemy before, and had lived to fight another day. So it would be this time. He had lost six good men, but the squad would recover, and it would persist. They would reconstitute the unit with new recruits, and start over again.
The squad reached a wide confluence where the stream joined with a larger rock-strewn creek. The creek was largely flat and afforded little cover between its jungle-lined banks. A millennium of erosion had transformed the waterway into a mass of smooth rocks and boulders of every shape and size, through which the pure, clear waters curled and gurgled as they had for time immemorial. It felt unnatural to leave the cover of the trees, but Jones knew they had no choice if they were to reach the safety of the interior. Jones ordered them across two at a time, each pair waiting for the previous pair to reach the cover of the opposite bank before starting across. This took longer than Jones had expected, and only half the squad had managed to cross by the time he began hearing Japanese voices in the distance behind them.
“They’re right on our heels,” Jones said to Oroyo. “We’ll have to risk it and cross all together.”
No sooner had he said this than a flurry of gunfire rang out. In the middle of the creek, the pair of scouts that were still making their way across, recoiled and collapsed into the shallows, spray and ricochets dancing all around them. Muzzle smoke appeared along a high ledge a hundred meters down the creek. A cluster of shadowy helmets peered over the edge. As Oroyo and the others opened fire on the distant attackers, Jones marveled at how the Japanese had managed to reach such a position so quickly. The cliff had complete command of the creek bed, and the remainder of the squad could not cross without being riddled.
“Cease fire!” Jones commanded. “Save your ammo!” He saw that the fire was largely ineffectual and could no longer help the two men whose blood now mingled with the pure waters of the creek.
The Japanese on the cliff continued taking pot shots, but these were more of a nuisance than a threat, since the squad was well hidden behind large boulders lining the bank. As Jones contemplated their predicament, mentally mapping out the miles of jungle the Japanese on the cliff would have had to cross to reach their present position, assuming they had been with the group that had attacked the camp, he came to the only conclusion that made sense, and with it a chill overcame him. These were not the same Japanese that had attacked the camp. This was a different group. But why would they be here, of all places, unless…
“They were waiting for us!” he said out loud. “We’ve walked into a bloody trap!”
As if to confirm his hypothesis, the rattle of machine guns echoed from the foliage on the other side of the creek. He heard a few reports from the Thompsons carried by his scouts, but these were quickly drowned out by the woodpecker-like reports of a Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun – the platoon killer, and the equivalent to the American .30 caliber. His men over there were hidden from view by the thick brush, but he could hear their shouts of alarm interspersed amongst the gunfire. He could only imagine the horror of the scene, as he listened to his men being chopped to pieces by the deadly weapon. He had sent them directly into a carefully laid ambush, a massacre. Within seconds, it was all over. The gunfire ceased, except for sporadic bursts from the Type 92, presumably peppering the corpses of the four dead scouts, just to be sure.
Shots now rang out behind Jones and his remaining six men. Their pursuers had already caught up with them, and now they were faced with attackers on all sides. The squad scrambled to find spots among the boulders shielded from both the cliff and the jungle. In the process, another one of his men was hit. The squad fired back into the dense foliage where only muzzle smoke and Japanese voices afforded any sign of the enemy. A scout’s head jerked back as an enemy bullet found its mark, entering through his mouth and exiting the back of his neck, spraying Jones and Oroyo with blood and brain matter. The Japanese fire was increasing, and Jones knew it was only a matter of time before the heavy machine gun across the creek would relocate and force them from their current positions.
There was no escape, and Jones cursed himself for leading them into this trap. He had taken a risk in sending the long message two days ago. As Sterling had warned, the Japanese had undoubtedly been waiting for today’s transmission.
“What do we do, Major?” Oroyo said between bursts of his Thompson, ducking as shots ricocheted off the boulders.
Jones did not answer. What now, he thought, as he looked back at the steadfast scout who had been his comrade for so long, since the beginning. What should he tell them? That their lives were now forfeit, all over a scrap of information that someone at Allied headquarters might or might not find useful? Jones felt responsible, and yet the circumstances that had placed him in this spot at this moment could never have been anticipated. He had never wanted to be here, and he had certainly never dreamed of dying in some nameless jungle alongside a people that were not his own.
“Major!” Oroyo shouted, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“Cease firing!” Jones yelled to the rest of the squad.
They complied with some reluctance. Soon after, the Japanese also stopped firing, and the jungle fell ominously silent. Although Jones could not see the
m, he felt that the enemy was closing in now, moving closer in the hope of taking prisoners.
“Yankee!” A voice shouted in English laced with a thick Japanese accent. “You surrender now! You surrender now, or you die! Surrender, and you will be treated well!”
Jones snuck a look over the boulder to his front and saw a young Japanese officer standing less than twenty meters away. He was a lieutenant of the Kempeitai, wearing an immaculate olive drab uniform with knee-high riding boots. He held a sword in one hand and a Nambu pistol in the other. His men were nowhere to be seen, but they were most certainly hidden in the brush nearby.
“You do not have to die!” the officer said abruptly. “Surrender, and we give you food and warm bed.”
The man was brave, although foolish. His age, and his naivety indicated he was not long in the field, probably a new arrival fresh from a Japanese military academy, eager to impress his commanders, who had probably instructed him to take prisoners, if possible. To a Japanese officer, if possible meant do it or face dishonor.
“How much ammo do you have left?” Jones asked his four surviving men.
“Two magazines,” answered Oroyo.
“Four,” said another.
“Two,” said the last two men.
“We cannot be taken prisoner, gentlemen,” Jones said succinctly. The scouts looked back at him uncertainly, but then each one nodded in turn as his meaning was comprehended. They had all known the risks when they joined the resistance, and they all knew the consequences of capture – torture of an unspeakable nature and eventual capitulation that would lead to the deaths of more guerillas.
“Throw down your weapons and surrender!” the Japanese officer intoned, growing irater with each passing second. “Do so, at once!”
Jones smiled to his men. “It’s suicide or the Japs, boys. I don’t know about you, but the thought of blowing my own brains out, or one of yours, turns my stomach.” He held up his own weapon and changed out the old magazine for a fully loaded one. Oroyo and the others understood his meaning and did the same.
The brush rustled to the left. The Japanese were working their way around on the flank while that fool of an officer shouted his lungs out. Soon, they would be among the guerillas.
“Been a pleasure marching with you, mate,” Jones said, extending a hand to Oroyo. “We gave’em hell for a while there, didn’t we?”
Oroyo took the hand and met his eyes fervently. “It has been my privilege, Major. I only regret that I will not see your heretic Christian soul in paradise. Have you been reading your Koran?”
“No,” Jones chuckled, patting the rectangular lump in the pouch on his field blouse. “I can’t say as I have, mate, but I keep it here as a cherished memento from you.”
“I will pray for you, Major,” the scout said passionately.
“And I for you, mate. By the way, what did you ever do with that Bible I gave you last year?”
Oroyo looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I lost it some time ago, Major. I did not wish to tell you.”
Jones smiled warmly and shrugged. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
They moved apart as each man shed their encumbrances and checked their weapons one last time.
“Surrender now, dirty yankee!” The Japanese officer screamed again.
“I don’t care what the rest of you do,” Jones said to the three men as he advanced a round into the chamber of his weapon. “But that squawking bastard is mine! Ready, mates?” They all crouched, poised to leap at the enemy. “Now!”
The five men leapt from cover with every gun blazing. The Japanese officer was killed instantly, his body thrown backward with four shells from Jones’s Thompson buried in his chest. The next moment the jungle came alive with the flashes of dozens of rifles. Within seconds, the guerillas were down, each one pierced by multiple shots. Their bodies were continuously peppered until none of them moved.
When the gunfire finally ceased, and the Japanese troops closed on the area, they began searching the bodies.
Colonel Rikishi Matsumoto lit a cigarette as he stood staring down at the body of the dead lieutenant. He shook his head at the young fool. The lieutenant had been ordered to wipe out the guerillas without delay, not take them prisoner. Any valuable documents they carried had probably been destroyed in those final moments while the young idiot tried to negotiate.
Matsumoto sighed. At least he could take heart from the fact that the guerillas’ radio had been destroyed before they had completed their last transmission. Hopefully, they had not had the chance to relay any information about the Kenan Maru or its cargo. Matsumoto took a long drag on the cigarette knowing he had done all he could to see that his nephew’s voyage was a successful one.
“Excuse me, Colonel,” a soldier interrupted his thoughts. The soldier held up a small book with a plain cover. “We found this on the white man.”
Matsumoto took the book and recognized it immediately as a copy of the Koran. It was not uncommon to find such things in the pockets of the guerillas, since so many of them were Muslim, but it was odd to find it on a European. Matsumoto walked over to the bloody body of the white man. The mouth hung open with flies already starting to light there. The unseeing eyes stared up at the jungle canopy. He could be American, British, Australian, or any one of a number of nationalities, but whoever he was, Matsumoto concluded that he had been a complex man, since around his neck hung a cross which Matsumoto knew to be a Christian’s crucifix.
Another soldier was rifling the body of a dead Moro that had fallen a few steps away. Matsumoto watched as the soldier checked each pocket and then began searching the man’s ammunition pouch. The soldier looked puzzled when he removed an object from the bottom of the pouch. The object had been carefully wrapped in canvas and had obviously been something of value to the dead Moro, since he had taken such care to protect it from the elements.
“Bring that to me, corporal,” Matsumoto commanded, curious to discover what had been so valuable to the dead man.
The soldier handed him the object, and Matsumoto slowly began to unwrap it, watching its rectangular shape take form as each strip of canvas came off. When the canvas finally fell away, and Matsumoto realized what it was, he gasped audibly. He had fought in a hundred battles, seen many odd things in this war, but he had never encountered anything like this. He marveled at the odd coincidence that had placed a Koran in the pocket of a white man, and this item in the pouch of a Moro.
For Matsumoto held in his hands a copy of the Holy Bible.
CHAPTER XIV
The flagship USS Antietam steamed westward at full speed after completing a long, arcing turn to place the wind before her deck in preparation for flight operations. She was surrounded by the other ships of her task group – the Reprisal, an Essex-class carrier like herself, the heavy cruisers Salem and Newport News, the light cruiser Vicksburg, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts – each leaving long white curls behind them as they kept station with the flagship. It was an impressive armada, hundreds of thousands of tons of war-bent steel and nearly ten thousand men. The Antietam’s ninety planes could drop enough ordinance to obliterate a small town, not to mention what destruction could be wrought by the heavy guns of her consorts.
Rear Admiral Theodore Giles leaned against the flag bridge rail as he watched the flight deck below, where dozens of sailors in different colored shirts prepared a squadron of dive bombers and a squadron of fighters for takeoff. Within the mass of humming propellers, the air crews sat with canopies open, making final checks as they waited their turn to be rolled to the catapults. A few of the helmeted heads looked up at the low gray clouds with uncertainty. It was late in the afternoon and the weather was changing fast. The western horizon had faded to a misty gray blur. Some of the pilots cast doubtful glances up at the bridge, as if expecting the admiral to scrub the sortie at any moment. They were not looking at Giles, although, Giles mused, they probably should have been, for he was truly the one responsible for this hastily p
lanned mission. The pilots instead looked at the task group commander, Rear Admiral David Packard, who stood further down the rail from Giles. Packard seemed oblivious to the stares of the aviators as he reviewed a stack of reports and messages just handed to him by the flag lieutenant. The irritation in Admiral Packard’s manner was apparent as he hurriedly initialed each message, and Giles knew that he was responsible for that. He and Packard had spent the better part of the day arguing about the mission on which the Antietam’s fliers now waited to debark.
Giles had won the argument, of course. A quick communique sent off to CINCPOA had decided that, as Giles knew it would, and now Packard had been scolded through encrypted radio waves that had materialized into an impersonal type-written message that stated simply “PROCEED WITH THE MISSION.”
Packard was not happy about it, but then, Giles considered, the field commanders never were. Giles often had to temporarily commandeer naval resources to be used in his arena of the war – the clandestine arena – and he seldom encountered unit commanders that had an appreciation for his unique contribution to the war effort. His “special missions” often required a level of faith that bordered on insanity. In many ways, he pitied men like Packard. They were the work horses of the fleet, the club at the end of the arm, and while it was true that Packard was endowed with a great responsibility in being lord of this massive battle fleet, he and his ships were merely pieces in the giant chess game of the Pacific War. If the marines and soldiers of the ground forces were the pawns, smashing one island garrison after another as they hopped across the board, Packard’s task group, and others like it, were the bishops, swooping in with their might and brawn to counter the moves of the Japanese Combined Fleet.
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