by Peter Watt
Fuji heard the words and wondered why he should feel regret for the prisoner’s fate. After all, she was one of the enemy.
‘Yes, sir,’ Fuji replied and left the hut to do his duty.
TWELVE
Lukas had been lucky enough to locate an anchorage in the mouth of a swampy creek hidden amongst mangroves. The rain that pelted down raised a mist, further concealing the Riverside. Lukas had sent the crew and PIB men ashore to cut saplings to hide the boat, and when they had finished she was almost invisible to those ashore and at sea.
Lukas ensured all weapons were stripped, cleaned and made ready for action, and he was pleased to see his father nod his approval at such careful preparation.
‘Rabasumbi and I will go ashore and conduct a recce,’ Jack said, arming himself with his Owen gun and spare magazines of ammunition. He strapped a large knife, honed to a razor’s edge, to his webbing belt, along with a couple of Mills bomb grenades primed for use. ‘Corporal Gari will be in charge of the boys while I am gone.’
Private Rabasumbi armed himself with a Bren gun, grenades and a deadly sharp-edged machete. On top of his personal weapons, the PIB soldier carried a cumbersome radio. It was one of three that Mel Jones had been able to barter from a marine unit months earlier. The radios only had a range of around three miles with the aerial fully extended, but they could be carried by one man. At thirty-eight pounds it was a considerable load for a soldier, but Private Rabasumbi had carried heavier loads in the past.
‘Take it easy, old man,’ Lukas said with a grin as his father and the PIB soldier clambered over the side of the boat and splashed into the shallow, muddy water of the creek. The rest of the men scanned the waters, rifles ready, for any sign of the big saltwater crocs that inhabited these mangroves.
‘Just remember the tide,’ Jack said over his shoulder. ‘You don’t want to be hung up in the creek.’
Lukas felt a little annoyed that his father would remind him of something so simple. He felt like a little boy being taught how to handle his trading schooner. Then he realised from the expression on his father’s face that he was only worried for him and he regretted his irritation. He was worried for his father, too. Who knew what the recon mission would find – there could be a platoon of Japs out there, just waiting for his father to step into their ambush. Lukas shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.
*
Jack and Rabasumbi began squelching their way through the tangle of mangroves, the glutinous mud sucking at their boots. They fought their way inland, the rain showing no sign of letting up, and eventually encountering solid ground. They trudged on, following a compass bearing that would take them towards the Japanese outpost. According to Jack’s calculations they would arrive at the village midafternoon, when they still had light to observe the enemy dispositions and plot an effective means of assault.
Both men moved cautiously in the thick underbrush, thankful that the weather would help muffle the sound of their movement.
Private Rabasumbi was at home in the jungle. As a boy and young man he had hunted wild pig and cassowaries for food. Stealth had been the secret of success, and now he used the same principles to hunt his enemy. Just before they reached their target, Rabasumbi stopped and signalled the enemy was ahead.
Jack froze. Now Rabasumbi pointed them out he could see two heads under capes, just above a well-concealed parapet of fallen logs. Both men watched carefully, identifying a Nambu machine gun post. This enemy was well prepared, Jack thought, and was pleased to have decided on this careful reconnaissance before deploying his small section of men for an attack.
Jack and Rabasumbi carefully made their way to another position, slithering on their bellies until they were certain they were out of sight of the Japanese crew manning the machine gun. From here they proceeded to observe the southern flank of the cluster of thatched buildings. Japanese soldiers were scuttling between huts in the rain, capes over their heads, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched by their enemy.
*
Even as Jack settled into his OP with Rabasumbi, Mel Jones heard something that had brought terror to him years earlier, when he was on the Atlantic convoys. It was a sound he would never forget, and now he leaned against the bow, scanning the flat grey sea through a veil of steady rain, trying to find the source.
‘Get over here, Luke,’ he said quietly.
‘What is it, Mel?’ Lukas asked, assuming a position beside the burly American and taking the binoculars from him.
‘See if your one good – and young – eye can spot anything out there . . . about a quarter mile away.’
Lukas took the glasses and adjusted the focus, peering as best as he could through the sheets of rain. Then he saw it and his blood froze. It was just the dimmest outline of a surfaced submarine.
‘Yank or Jap?’ he said softly.
‘Neither,’ Mel replied. ‘It’s a Kraut U-boat. I know that sound anywhere. I heard it once too often in the Atlantic, when the goddamned sons of bitches would surface at night to shell us.’
‘German!’ Lukas exclaimed and remembered that the Germans were still active in the Pacific, albeit in very small numbers. ‘What in hell is it doing out there?’
‘Just pray that it doesn’t spot us,’ Mel replied.
‘You sure what we’re looking at is a U-boat?’ Lukas queried. ‘What if it’s a Yank sub?’
Mel leaned back from the bow railing. ‘If you look carefully you will see that its deck gun is manned by three sailors, and I know the outline of a German 88. At least it hasn’t got one of those goddamned 105s mounted.’
Lukas strained his eye and could see that his engineer was right. The distinctive outline of the dreaded German 88 gun was apparent, and it was manned. Off the U-boat’s bow he could see a small dinghy, rowed by two people, making its way towards the beach. When Lukas swung his glasses to the deck he noticed that people were moving around, but he could not make out what they were doing.
Lukas knew he had the element of surprise on his side, and to bag a U-boat would be the pinnacle of his fighting career. If the Germans were firing the deck gun from a rolling deck, the sub would have to be close to their target to get an accurate shot in, and if they did so it meant they could not dive. If he opened fire on the surfaced sub the commander would have to choose between fighting or diving for safety. Lukas knew the sub was in shallow water, and the U-boat commander would probably have to remain surfaced until it could reach deeper water. He would naturally have to order his deck gun crew below if he were to make a crash dive to run for deeper water.
On the other hand, Lukas could simply remain hidden in the creek without exposing his boat to the German submarine. After all, his mission was to support his father’s rescue attempt, not bag a U-boat.
Mel had already signalled to the men on the Riverside to remain absolutely silent, lest the sound travel across the water and alert the gun crew to their presence.
‘We have to give it a go,’ Lukas said quietly. ‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Mel exclaimed. ‘We can’t take on a U-boat with just a .50 cal as our heaviest weapon!’
‘We have a mortar, and just one hit on the hull would either destroy or cripple the sub,’ Lukas said.
‘You don’t have any real experience with the mortar,’ Mel reminded him. ‘Besides, we’re rolling against the tide and the balance for the tube would be out of whack. I say that we just sit it out and radio a report to the fly boys. Let them hunt her down.’
‘I’m going to take the mortar ashore. We’ll set up on firm ground away from the Riverside,’ Lukas said, quickly working out the details of his impromptu plan. ‘That way the location of the boat won’t be compromised, and my guess is that a mortar fired from shore will be hard to spot. From what I know of U-boats, they don’t even have a range finder and have to rely on line of sight to engage a target.’
‘You’re crazy, you know that?’ Mel grunted, then added, ‘I
can act as your forward observer – if you take a radio.’
Lukas turned to his engineer; he could see the resignation in his face, but there was excitement too.
‘I always wanted to get even with those Kraut bastards,’ Mel said with a determined smile. ‘I saw a lot of good Joes die in the freezing seas of the North Atlantic, and we never once had the chance to fight back. Now we have one of those sons of bitches sitting out there, charging its batteries, without any clue it might be mincemeat in a few minutes. This is a chance to get our own back.’
Lukas slapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Good on you, cobber,’ he said, watching the dim outline of the enemy submarine. He quickly selected two of the heftiest of his father’s soldiers for mortar duty and informed them of his plan. He gave orders for all mortar bombs to be brought on deck and their charge bags protected against the rain. Lukas personally grabbed one of the two remaining radios and clambered overboard, followed by his men with the mortar, who were in turn followed by others carrying the precious ammunition.
Lukas prayed that the sub would not move away as he fought his way through the mud until he found a spot in the mangroves where the sand had packed hard. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a huge croc slither into the water but his adrenaline was pumping so hard he did not pay it much heed. The most dangerous creature he was focused on right now was the commander of the German U-boat.
Lukas quickly set up the tube on its base plate and bipod support, realising that the sub would most probably steam out of range as soon as the first bombs began falling. He remembered just a few critical elevations related to ranges and ammunition type. He had a plentiful supply of high-explosive shells, so he did not need to be concerned about conserving ammunition. He quickly traversed the tube and elevated it to calculate the distance he figured the sub was offshore. Squatting by his mortar, Lukas established radio contact with Mel, who had a good view of the target.
‘Firing now,’ Lukas said, dropping the first bomb down the tube. With a loud popping sound and a puff of smoke, the mortar bomb was launched into the rain-sodden sky, barely missing overhanging branches of a mangrove tree. Lukas waited, preparing a second bomb. He hardly heard the mortar round explode on the surface of the sea.
‘You were around three hundred yards high and about the same wide of the sub,’ Mel’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘The sons of bitches are running around on the deck like chooks with their heads cut off.’
Lukas quickly made corrections to the mortar barrel and dropped the second bomb down the tube.
‘Going the wrong way with your fall of shot,’ Mel’s voice came over the radio. ‘And it looks like the sons of Nippon are going to make a run for it. The gun crew are leaving their post.’
Lukas made a quick calculation in his head and fiddled with the ranging devices on the mortar traversing and elevation adjustment. Down went another bomb, and long seconds later Mel’s voice came over the radio. ‘That was closer. You were around twenty yards short, and about the same wide.’
Lukas made another adjustment, dropped a bomb and waited.
‘Short and wide again,’ Mel said sadly. ‘The Kraut looks like he’s going to dive for it. I think we’ve lost this one.’
Lukas sighed. It had been worth a try and at least he had got in some practice with the mortar. Now it was time to return to his boat and await his father’s return.
*
Hours earlier Ilsa had been shaken awake by a grim-faced Fuji.
‘You must prepare yourself to go,’ he said, standing over her.
Ilsa rose, wiping down her ragged clothes in an instinctive way as if she had been informed she were going to a party, not to an uncertain fate.
‘Where am I going?’ she asked.
‘I am to take you to the beach, where there is a boat to take you on a German submarine. After that, I do not know.’
So she was not being taken to her execution, as she had resigned herself to, but instead conveyed to a German submarine.
Two guards appeared and Ilsa’s hands were tied behind her back. They gestured with their rifles for her to leave the hut, and then marched her along a trail winding through groves of scrub until they reached a small beach where a native canoe with an outboard engine was waiting. Through the sheets of rain, Ilsa could see the dark shape of a submarine at anchor in the small inlet. The canoe puttered out to the submarine, where Ilsa was helped up the side and into the hands of a couple of very young German sailors.
‘This way, miss,’ one of the sailors said, and Ilsa turned to Fuji, who sat in the canoe looking up at her.
‘I wish you well, Miss Stahl,’ Fuji said as he pushed away from the hull of the U-boat.
Ilsa found his farewell strangely touching, and nodded her appreciation. Despite his being the enemy, she had come to know him as a sad and lost man who had ensured she had been treated as well as possible. She turned to the German sailors and was escorted to a hatch on the sub’s deck.
One of the German sailors untied her wrists and helped her climb down the ladder to the interior of the U-boat. She was immediately assailed by the familiar stench of men living close together in cramped conditions.
Ilsa could see in the expressions of the sailors she passed a certain amount of sympathy for her physical condition. She had lost a lot of weight, and her face was gaunt with the shadows of malnutrition and fever. Her hair was matted but her large eyes still burned with a luminous defiance. Ilsa knew it was her duty to keep alive and face each situation as it arose.
The sailors took her to a cabin, which she guessed must have belonged to the captain, as it had a single bunk and the tiny room held a photo of a young woman with two beautiful children at her side. Ilsa sat down on the edge of the bunk and a sailor stood by the open door until a lean young man with short-cropped blond hair appeared in the doorway. He wore a clean uniform decorated with an iron cross, and a well-worn and battered naval cap turned down at the sides.
‘I am Commander Michael Schmidt,’ he introduced himself. ‘This is my boat.’
‘Ilsa Stahl,’ Ilsa said without attempting to rise from the bunk. ‘I am an American war correspondent and a prisoner of war.’
‘I know who you are, Miss Stahl, and we do abide by the Geneva Convention, despite the fact our enemy attempts to discredit us by saying otherwise. You will be afforded all privileges accorded to a prisoner of war, and I think our cook will be able to prepare you a good meal. I am sure that a bowl of sauerkraut and sausage will be to your liking.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Ilsa replied, realising that she was speaking in her mother tongue of German. ‘It has been a long time since I had such a meal.’
‘Coffee?’ the U-boat commander asked.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Ilsa replied.
‘When you have eaten I will have you escorted to another section of my boat to be your quarters for the duration of the journey. I will ensure that you are well treated by my crew and—’
Suddenly a slight shudder passed through the sub’s hull. The captain immediately left the room, shouting orders. Ilsa could hear the boat’s engine go to full power and, after a few minutes of moving, felt the incline in the room. It was obvious from the clanging of metal and running footsteps outside the cabin that the men of the German sub were going to action stations.
Seconds later a stronger shudder rocked the boat, and Ilsa began to think that maybe they were under attack, but from what, she couldn’t begin to guess.
*
Jack was confused. He could hear the crackling conversation between his son and Mel Jones over their radio, and realised that his son was receiving artillery-like corrections. What in hell was Lukas firing at?
When it appeared that the fire mission was over, Jack broke in to question what had happened. Lukas gave a scant report.
‘We have to get back to the Riverside,’ Jack whispered to Rabasumbi, who informed him that he had heard the distant sound of explosions, muffled by the constant soaking rain.
Checking carefully for any enemy around them, both men slithered a safe distance on their bellies, then got to their feet and began their trek back to the Riverside. Whatever had happened was sure to alert the Japanese outpost to their presence in the area, and Jack had a sick feeling it would jeopardise their mission.
*
Fuji raced back to the village as fast as he could. He had barely returned to shore when unidentified mortar fire had rained down on the U-boat. The German sub was lucky the fire had not been accurate and it had been able to escape – for a moment there, Fuji had thought it was doomed, and Miss Stahl with it.
Back in the village he briefed Lieutenant Yoshi on the attack. The commander listened carefully and then issued his orders. They would send out a large patrol to locate the mortar base plate.
A surge of exhilaration went through Fuji as he contemplated returning to the war that seemed to have passed them by. It had become obvious to him that HQ in Rabaul had forgotten them, and no longer needed them for whatever behind the lines operation they had originally planned. At least now Fuji and the other highly trained men could track down their enemy and kill every last one of them.
*
‘Why on earth did you think you would have a hope in hell of hitting a German sub with indirect fire?’ Jack demanded of Lukas, barely restraining his rage. ‘You had more hope of finding a needle in a haystack.’
Lukas poured his father a hot coffee laced with a generous tot of whiskey, and then did the same for himself. They sat forward away from the crew, under the protection of groundsheets that hardly kept them dry. The night was pitch black and no lights shone from the Riverside, which rocked gently on the incoming tide.
‘I had to do something,’ Lukas answered sheepishly. ‘The target rated as a high priority. If we had sunk her we might have prevented a lot of people from being killed by her torpedoes in the future.’
Jack knew his son’s actions had been impulsive but he could not maintain his anger at him. Maybe he would have chosen the same course of action if he had been in Lukas’s shoes; his son was right – a submarine was a deadly weapon and the good of many must be balanced against the good of one.
