The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  Lloyd could only hope that Langdale and the others had made it to safety; having received no word from anyone, he was faced with the very real possibility that they too had been either captured or killed. That he’d seen nothing of Eileen since they’d been separated the night before and had no idea of her whereabouts or whether she was even still alive was also weighing heavily on his heart.

  He’d never been a supporter of allowing women into combat roles within the armed forces. It had never been about male superiority or any such ludicrous notion: he’d known many women that were perfectly capable of being as tough, as strong or as proficient using weapons as any man. The problem for him was something far more visceral and rooted deep within his psyche.

  Right or wrong, Lloyd believed that women could be better than men... better than the kind of base, brutish creature that any army ultimately wanted their combat soldiers to become. He knew well enough that beyond all the education and training, the lectures and the study groups on tactics and effective application of firepower, in the end there was just one thing that an army needed its soldiers to do: to willingly walk into harm’s way and kill other men exactly like themselves for the good of their country… to protect an unknowing, unseeing populace that by-and-large, would at best prefer not to acknowledge their sacrifice at all and at worst – such as with the Vietnam veterans he recalled from his own childhood – would turn on them the moment the victories either stopped coming or were won at too great a cost.

  He knew his own personal moral standards weren’t entirely in line with those of his own generation, and could probably be classed as old fashioned in any sense of the word, yet he unequivocally believed what he believed all the same: that there was something wrong with a world where women weren’t treasured for bringing life into the world rather than being proficient at taking it.

  Lloyd didn’t know where that kind of sentiment actually came from. He had no idea if it were perhaps merely the chivalrous upbringing of a young man with old parents, who’d still believed in such things as politeness and common decency toward others. Perhaps it all stemmed from some genetic race memory, handed down since the time when a caveman’s only vital tasks were to provide for his family and to protect it at all costs; with his life if necessary. None of that mattered to him much. Those kind of philosophical arguments were ‘above his pay-grade’, as Langdale fond of saying, and he cared little for such deep thoughts in the end. Lloyd knew what he believed was right and he knew what he thought was wrong, and that was all that mattered to a simple soldier blessed with the unwavering certainty of his own convictions.

  Yet he’d let Eileen be captured… taken prisoner by the only military on the face of the earth with the potential to be more brutal than the Nazis… and regardless of the fact that no one – not even Eileen herself – would have blamed him for it, Evan Lloyd was filled with the certainty that he’d failed her: that he’d almost certainly condemned her to death as surely as if he’d turned around and put a bullet in her himself… something that might even have been merciful compared to what the Japanese were likely to do.

  Already shockingly weak and with morphine coursing through him, Lloyd’s usually-high levels of confidence and resolve were flagging badly. Hurt and aching and with almost no sleep whatsoever over the last two days, he was also bone tired and already finding it difficult to keep his eyes open. Instinctively, he knew it was only left over adrenalin that was keeping him awake as it was, backed up to some extent at least by his training. His body was worn out and drained, but he knew in the end that it would be on a mental level that his battle would be won or lost. The SAS had trained him to survive; to push through pain and exhaustion and forge on with the mission no matter what.

  Evan Lloyd’s entire adult life had been spent with the military, and prior to his secondment to the Hindsight Team, his extensive special forces training had been bolstered by plenty of combat experience during a 12-month deployment to Afghanistan with the Australian SASR. But all of that experience had been during a time when there’d never been any doubt that some kind of support was no more than a radio or satellite phone call away. No matter how deadly the engagement or how dangerous the mission, satellites, GPS and 21st Century C5I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Collaboration and Intelligence) meant that generally-speaking, some level of support – be it guided weapons, gunships or CAS (Close Air Support) – was almost always available… and his commanders had always known exactly where he and his unit were at all times.

  None of that applied now. Much as he hated to admit it, Lloyd had to concede that although the average special forces soldier of the 1940s might not be so widely trained in more complex forms of combat, strategy and tactics, there was an incredible toughness and resolve in knowing full well that once you were dropped behind enemy lines during 1940s wartime, in most situations there was very little prospect of rescue or support, particularly if a mission went wrong.

  At that moment, Evan Lloyd was feeling about as alone as he ever had in his entire life, and a nagging doubt at the back of his mind was eating away at him over the possibility that without all that 21st Century support and technology to back him up, perhaps he wasn’t tough enough in body or spirit to hold it together now in the face of such desperate adversity… particularly in light of the terrifying fact that due to an active interest in history during his school years, he knew exactly what was likely to happen to every man currently being held prisoner in that Soewakoda school house.

  Staring through the nearest open window, he looked out sullenly upon the armed guards surrounding the building and, with a far darker unease, he also took note of a platoon of Japanese soldiers being marched off through some coconut plantations to the west. The fact that at least half of them were carrying shovels or entrenching tools hadn’t gone unnoticed. Any doubt he might have had regarding what was not likely to happen dissipated in that moment, and futile as it might prove to be, he knew he had to at least try to do something.

  Wincing with every movement, Evan forced himself to his feet and limped down toward the other end of the building. Stepping carefully around overturned chairs and tables and other wounded men lying about, he used the room’s central pillars for support as he made his way toward Major Newbury at the opposite end.

  “Major…” he croaked softly, trying to come to attention as best he could and swaying slightly as a faint wave of nausea and dizziness swept through him as a result.

  “Captain… Lloyd, isn’t it?” Newbury ventured, attempting a forced smile. “What can I do for you?” In tropical shorts and battledress tunic, the man’s right arm was bandaged and splinted from wrist to elbow, while an uncovered burn scar on the right side of his face had scorched away his hair and part of his earlobe on that side.

  “Sir…” he began, reaching out a hand and leaning on a nearby windowsill for support. “We need to get out of here…”

  “Really, captain?” Newbury replied with a raised eyebrow, in too much pain to put as much sarcasm into his words as he might otherwise have been tempted. “Prisoners of the Japanese with no hope of rescue in the near future…” he threw a sideways glance at the nearby company sergeant-major, something that wasn’t missed by Lloyd. “What on earth gives you that idea?”

  “Sir…” he forged on, forcing his own frustration out of his tone. “You saw those bastards that just marched off into the jungle, right?”

  “I did…” Newbury confirmed in a wavering voice, not sure where the man was going with that question.

  “You also noted, perhaps, that nearly half of ‘em were carrying shovels…?”

  “What of it, man?” The major demanded angrily. “So they’re sending some unlucky sods out to dig latrines or something similar. If you’ve something to say, then out with it for Christ’s sake: stop beating about the bloody bush!”

  “Sir, they’re going to execute us!” Lloyd blurted in the end, too tired and feeling too much pain of his own to control the outburst. “They’re g
oing to take us from this bloody school house one-by-one, walk us out into the bloody jungle over there… and chop our fuckin’ heads off…!”

  He knew that he’d spoken far too loudly. He knew that a statement like that wasn’t likely to accomplish anything other than fear and/or ridicule. What he also knew was that time was running critically short and the men held prisoner in that school house needed to do something, and do it fast if there was to be any chance of even one of them surviving to see another sunset.

  “Are you insane, Lloyd?” Newbury snarled, taking hold of his shirt by one shoulder and pushing him back up against the wall near the window. “You make ridiculous claims like that and you’ll start a bloody panic! What the hell as Jones pumped you full of? You’re not making any sense!”

  “Major, I’m serious…!”

  “Captain… I’m serious…!” Newbury snapped in return, cutting him off. “These men are all that remains of the entire bloody company left to defend Laha. They’re hurt, demoralised and exhausted, and the last damned think they need right now is some lunatic spreading wild rumours about these bastards wiping us all out! You’ll start a bloody panic and maybe frighten them to the point they do something stupid, like attempting a break out, and all that will do is definitely get them all killed!

  “Sir…” he persisted “…the Japanese will take us from this place one at a time and march us over to the coconut plantations, through the trees over there to the west. You know the plantations are there… sir…” he added, fixing the officer with his fiercest, most serious stare. “They’re already digging mass graves, and when they’re done, they’ll take us all out there and make us kneel down over the bloody holes the bastards have dug for us…” There was bitterness in his words now as the true reality of his own situation began to seep into his consciousness, and a single tear left the corner of one eye and made its escape down the side of his cheek as he spoke. “Do you know what they’ll do then… sir…?” He added with a hollow, humourless bark of nervous laughter. “Do you? They’re going to line up… line up for the chance to play at being samurai! The ones who don’t have swords will use their bayonets instead...” A shudder ran through him as almost lost his grip on reason for a moment. “We’ll be watching each other while they do it… watching as our mates’ heads come off and what’s left falls into the hole. We’ll look down and see the ones they haven’t finished properly… the ones still kicking and gurgling out their last…” More tears now as whatever strength he still possessed abandoned him. “We’ll be pleading and crying… begging them for mercy… and they’re gonna laugh at us! Cheer and laugh their fuckin’ arses off, and jeer at the buggers who don’t manage to take our heads off clean with one stroke…!”

  An historic atrocity he’d learned of as a young man – faded and more remote with the passing of so many years in between – had become something brutal and horrifying now that he was caught right in the middle of it, and in spite of all his training and professional experience, the inevitability of it was beginning to fill him with abject terror.

  “That’s what they’re gonna do, sir…” he spat finally, not for a moment shifting his steely gaze from the eyes of the officer before him, “…and we need to get out of here while we still can, ‘cause there won’t be a God damned thing we’ll be able to do to stop ‘em!”

  “Is it true, sir…?” One private asked in a fearful voice, laying against a wall nearby with both legs splinted and bandaged. “Are they really gonna do that?”

  “They couldn’t… could they, Mark…?” A junior lieutenant chimed in from the other side of the room, upright but shaky on his feet and forced to steady himself against the wall as Lloyd had earlier, a blood-stained bandage covering most of his bare upper chest.

  “You bloody fool…!” Newbury snarled softly, glaring at Lloyd darkly as his warnings of panic were born out in another half-dozen terrified questions of a similar nature from all around the room.

  “No one’s going to get bloody executed today!” He snapped, turning to address the rest of the men. “We’re unarmed prisoners, for God’s sake! Even the Nazis don’t do that…!” That the statement was patently untrue was of no consequence; it had the desired effect of settling the men somewhat, much to Newbury’s relief.

  “I thought it was every man’s duty to try to escape…?” Lloyd spat venomously in return, preparing himself for some kind of fight now as the sergeant-major and another tall, broad-shouldered non-com took up station on either side of him and reached out to gently but firmly force him back against the wall.

  “Yes, captain, it bloody-well is,” the major shot back with equal disgust, “but only when there’s actually some chance of success! Once everything’s settled down and we’ve a chance to take stock of our situation, perhaps then we can look at what options we have… find a boat perhaps and make for one of the other islands. Right now, my job is to keep my men here safe and alive until either than happens or relief arrives.”

  “Major, every single one of us will be dead by morning…!”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Newbury exploded, his own frustration finally getting the better of him. “What magical bloody crystal ball have you been looking into that somehow tells you everything that’s going to supposedly happen here in the next few hours? What, captain? Now you’ve tried to scare the living shit out of the rest of us, I think you at least owe us an explanation as to how you’ve come by all this horrifying information!”

  “I…” Lloyd began, then halted almost immediately. There was no way he could possibly know any of this without being from the future, and he knew exactly how completely and utterly he would lose any hope of convincing any of them if he admitted anything of the sort. “I – I can’t say, sir…” was all he could come out with, strength draining from his sagging body. “It’s… it’s classified… top secret…”

  “How surprising,” Newbury muttered, shaking his head as the rest of the men turned away, their attention and Lloyd’s credibility both completely lost in that moment. “Captain, I’ll ask you kindly – just once – to refrain from any further outbursts of that nature. If I hear so much as a peep out of you, I will have you bound and gagged and thrown headfirst into a bloody latrine the moment one is made available! Do I make myself clear?”

  At that moment, the very walls and foundations of the schoolhouse itself were shaken by a deafening, thunderous boom that sent dust and pieces of palm leaf cascading down onto the heads of the prisoners from the roof above. It was immediately followed with the ear-splitting shriek of a high-powered turbofan engine as something hurtled past overhead from west to east. Reacting in fright and surprise, many of the men around him dived for the windows, craning their heads in search of the cause. Lloyd didn’t bother: the sonic boom had been enough to tell him that the aircraft above –certainly the F-35E – was already long gone.

  The incident had at least served to draw everyone’s attention completely away from him for the time being, and as the others excitedly debated what those terrifying sounds might’ve been, he slid to the floor, staring off into the middle distance with unfocussed eyes, the hint of a smile almost flickering across his features for the first time that morning. They’d not been forgotten, and the appearance of the Lightning overhead was a clear indication that Max Thorne was seeking reconnaissance images, taken via the aircraft’s Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS). That could only mean one thing – rescue – and recognition of that was enough to fill Evan Lloyd’s heart and mind with enough hope to renew his strength and resolve.

  Sitting with his back against that wall, Evan took care not to look anyone in the eye for a long time, making it quite clear – he hoped – that there was no strength left in him to argue. He doubted they’d follow through on the latrine threat, yet neither could he afford to be bound and gagged in any case: he couldn’t afford to allow himself to be restrained in any way. If any other opportunity for escape was to present itself, he needed to be free and ready to act at
a moment’s notice.

  Standing silently up against the outer wall of the school house and not far from the open window nearest to Lloyd and Newbury, Ikeuchi Masakiyo had been forced to beat a hasty retreat, hands clasped uselessly over his ears, as prisoners appeared at every window in reaction to the deafening explosion overhead and the subsequent, chest-rattling roar that had followed.

  “I want reports!” He bellowed angrily, not at all pleased that something strange and clearly not Japanese – almost certainly some kind of aircraft – had been allowed to approach the island without any advanced warning whatsoever. “I want to know what that thing was, and I want to know now…!”

  Classed by the IJA as a ‘non-regular officer’ and dressed in a standard-style officer’s uniform of cheap cut and manufacture, Ikeuchi had been brought to Ambon in the role of interpreter. A small man with long features and a closely-shaven scalp, in Realtime he would eventually become a high-level administrator whose brutal running of the prison camp on Ambon would see him executed by war crimes tribunals following the cessation of hostilities.

  “Nagakawa-san…!” He called out softly, directing the words at a lieutenant standing nearby and drawing the man quickly to his side as others ran off in all directions in response to his earlier orders. “There is an officer inside… the strange one they brought in this morning who was captured with the Germans and the woman down near Larike…”