The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “That’s cool, mate – you guys rest for a while: we won’t be asking you to move again until after sunset. Try to get some sleep if you can…”

  “Sir…” Langdale began, his voice quavering as his mind replayed the horrific images he’d seen as they’d looked down over that plantation as they’d started leading the prisoners in. “Sir, they were killing everyone… shooting… beheading… using bayonets…” He swallowed hard, staring unfocussed into the jungle as he fought against the memories whirling around in his thoughts. “Prisoners, sir… defenceless prisoners who’d already surrendered!”

  “I know, mate… I know…”

  “Why…?” The sergeant moaned softly, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the trunk.

  “Because…” he halted for a moment, not sure what answer he could possibly give that could give reason to something so senselessly barbaric. “…Because they can, mate… I could give you all sorts of historical and cultural explanations: that in those days they didn’t value life the same way we did… that they considered any man dishonourable enough to surrender to be dead already in their eyes… but the fact is that these bastards are cold and callous and downright fuckin’ brutal, and they do this kind of shit to enemies and civilians alike simply because they can, plain and simple, and some of the bastards straight up fuckin’ enjoy it…!” There was a short pause then, the hatred and acid bitterness of his tone dripping from every word. “Learn to hate them… it helps…”

  “We’re gonna get some rest,” Langdale drawled, words starting to slur now as inaction conspired with his exhaustion and began dragging him inexorably toward sleep.

  “Sounds like a plan, mate… you got enough food and water?”

  “Water’s okay, but we’re low on rations. I got a couple of packs left but they’ll be gone by tonight.”

  “That’ll be enough. We’re gonna sort out a supply drop for you after dark: we’ll make sure there’s plenty of food and water is thrown in. Save your battery now… get some rest, and I’ll be waiting for your next report at eighteen hundred… Phoenix-Leader out…”

  “They’re going to rescue us…? Rescue my father…?” Victoria asked as she crouched beside him, her tone less urgent than it had been as she too fought against her tiredness.

  “Not tonight… tomorrow, maybe…” he muttered, managing to open his eyes enough for a little longer. “They want us to move tonight – dunno where, yet – but we’re gonna rest up here until then.”

  “I – I’m sorry… about your friend…” She ventured carefully, reading the pain in his expression all too clearly. “If you want to talk about it…”

  “I’m good…” he answered, the response a little too quick to be convincing as he forced a thin smile “…but thank you…” he added, nodding his appreciation of her effort. “Get some sleep: I’ll keep watch.”

  “Of what – the inside of your eyelids…?” She shot back with a wry smile. “You can barely keep your eyes open as it is – I think you need it more than I do.”

  “Need to keep watch…” he muttered, struggling to force the words out.

  “I can keep watch first,” she suggested with a grin, seating herself beside him against the same tree trunk. “You’re the expert soldier after all: we need you as rested as possible.”

  “But… but you’re tired too…” he mumbled, fighting the exhaustion sweeping over him and barely able to keep his eyelids.

  “I’m a nurse: I’m used to it.” Watson explained glibly with a wry grin. “Come on… rest now. We’re surrounded by thick jungle… I’ll hear anyone coming long before they get near, and I can wake you up if I need to…”

  Her voice trailed off then as she realised that Langdale was already out like a light. Leaning back against the tree beside him, she glanced across once, just to make sure he really was asleep, and with that certainty confirmed, Victoria Watson finally allowed herself to relax for the first time since the invasion had started. Tears began to stream down her face and her body was wracked by silent sobs as she buried her face in her hands, knees bunched up to her chest, as she allowed the horrific experiences of the last two days to pour out of her.

  It was a good ten minutes or so before she was able to compose herself once more, wiping self-consciously at her eyes with a sleeve as she shuddered through the aftermath of it all, her body still heaving occasionally as a few left over sobs coursed through her. It was of at least some small consolation to her that the sergeant beside her had slept throughout the whole thing and was still snoring ever so softly, head hanging off to one side.

  “Is it possible?” Trumbull breathed softly, standing beside Harry Murray in the base radio room as the colonel shook his head silently in a combination of anger and disgust. “Just execute them out of hand… for no reason whatsoever…?”

  “You know what the Nazis are doing to the Jews, right? You don’t need a reason when you’re a pack of brutal, inhuman bastards,” Thorne snarled in return, and the pilot realised in that moment that his friend, standing over the radio in front of him, was so stiff with anger that he was actually shaking faintly and unable to move.

  “This happened ‘before’, didn’t it?” Murray asked softly, controlling his own rage over what he’d just heard. “Back in that ‘Realtime’ you fellows told me about…?”

  “Hatakeyama was the bastard’s name,” Thorne growled softly, eyes staring unfocussed at the wall before him. “Rear admiral in charge of one of the SNLF units. It started out as a revenge killing for the loss of a minesweeper in the bay, the day before, with the survivors coming down to start of the bloody show. Every other bugger joins in after that, not wanting to miss out…” He continued, recalling every detail he’d ever learned about the massacre at Laha. “Cheering… jeering… applauding their mates as they hacked away with their bloody swords and bayonets. Fifty or so the first day… another sixty the second… more still in the days after: over three hundred altogether.” An involuntary shudder rippled through him, his voice hollow and lifeless. “The reports I read…” he shuddered again. “Mass graves… bodies piled in together… but not everyone was killed outright. Some of the sword strokes weren’t clean… there were some lying there on top of their dead mates with their heads half hanging off, still gurgling or moving feebly while the bastards just stood there, joking and laughing as they lined up their next victims…”

  A single tear forming at the corner of one eye as the histories he’d read in his youth came flooding back to him in terrible, vivid detail, so much more real now as the events were suddenly happening right around him.

  “The ones who survive that won’t fare much better either,” he added, releasing a long, low sigh as his frustration surged. “Between the dysentery, the malnutrition and the bloody Japs, three quarters of ‘em ‘ll be dead within three years…”

  “We need to get as many out as we can.” Trumbull observed solemnly. “As many as we can…”

  “As many of whom as we can…?” That question came from Solingen, standing in the open doorway to the corridor beyond with hands on hips and looking equal parts triumphant and suspicious. “What exactly is going on here without my knowledge?”

  “Are you dense, colonel?” Thorne hissed venomously without making any effort to turn around and address the man directly. “All we’ve been talking about the last few days is the situation on Ambon… who do you think we’re talking about?”

  “Oh…” Solingen countered, eyes narrowing at the insult and perfectly ready to retaliate in kind. “A bunch of layabouts commanded by officers who – combined with the useless bloody Dutch – were so shockingly incompetent they couldn’t even hold one small island for more than a day with a combat force of almost three thousand?”

  “Leave it, Francis…” Murray suggested softly, turning toward his fellow officer with a warning glance. “Not now…”

  “Mind your place, colonel,” Solingen snapped tartly, flashing a cold, reproachful glare in return as he pulled seni
ority. “Under orders of the general, nothing is supposed to be going on here without me knowing about it, and I damn well want to know what’s going on right now…!”

  A visceral, almost atavistic roar of frustrated rage rose up from Thorne, and Solingen was barely able to throw himself out of the way as a green-painted metal chair came sailing through the open door and slammed into the opposite wall of the corridor outside. The colonel careened against that same wall as he evaded the flying furniture, severely bruising one arm and sprawling onto the floor in a tangled heap.

  He recovered quickly, embarrassment an excellent motivator as several lesser ranked officers at the far end of the hallway stopped and gaped in open-mouthed shock at what had just occurred, and had barely regained his feet once more as Thorne launched himself through that same doorway, following closely behind the errant chair and clamping his right hand around a very surprised Solingen’s throat. Using his superior height and weight, he slammed the man hard up against the wall, leaving him slightly dazed from the impact. Trumbull immediately moved to intervene but was halted momentarily by Murray, the man stepping quickly into his path with a raised hand and a pointed stare.

  “Listen to me, you little shit…!” Thorne hissed in fury, no more than inches away from the face of a man whose expression showed genuine concern for his own safety for the first time. “You may think you’re ‘all fuckin’ that’ just because you strut about the place, hiding behind Bennett’s orders, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret right now: you… are… nothing!”

  He spat the words directly into Solingen’s face, the man flinching with every syllable and writhing against the hand at his throat, its grip growing tighter with every movement. The colonel tried to struggle, lashing out with his feet in an attempt to dislodge his attacker or at least break the man’s hold, but Thorne was too clever for that and kept his body off to one side, too close to the wall for the man to get a foot around his legs or tip him over.

  “I just lost a man today worth ten of you, and there are hundreds more dying on that bloody island as we speak,” he continued with venom, squeezing a little tighter and gaining all of Solingen’s attention as the man ceased his struggling momentarily. “There’s not one of ‘em I wouldn’t trade you for in a fuckin’ heartbeat, and I don’t give a flying fuck whose orders you’re operating under… Hide behind whoever you like; you’re not worth the steam off their piss on a cold morning…!”

  “You’ll… be… court-martialled for this…!” The colonel croaked, fixing Thorne with a death stare and managing to muster a show of defiance now despite the hand at his throat.

  “Oh, please… please get that sorted, would you…?” He snarled in return, digging his nails into Solingen’s neck and drawing a shocked, wheezing gasp as he leaned in so close that his lips were almost touching the man’s left ear. “Maybe they can charge me with murder…! It’d be worth doing you, just to get some peace and fuckin’ quiet…!”

  “Max, that’s enough…!” Trumbull shouted finally, stepping past Murray finally as both men recognised that things had gone far enough. “Let him go…!” He ordered sharply, taking a handful of Thorne’s shirt at the shoulder and dragging him forcefully backward. As his hand finally released its grip, Solingen immediately slid to the floor, grasping desperately at his own throat and wheezing heavily as he gasped for breath.

  “Touch me again and I’ll kill you…!” Solingen croaked, afraid he might not appear steady and knowing better than to try standing under such circumstances, for fear of appearing weak.

  “Bring friends…” Thorne countered coldly, not intimidated in the slightest “…if you can find any...”

  “Enough…!” Trumbull roared, channelling every ounce of his experience and training as a commanding officer into that single word. “Enough, all of you…! Colonel…” he added, directing his next words at Solingen. “I suggest you take yourself off to the infirmary and have yourself checked out… we’ll discuss this incident shortly, when everyone’s had a moment or two to calm down.”

  “I’m fine, damn you.” He growled in return, murder burning in his eyes.

  “Go, colonel,” Trumbull repeated firmly. “That’s wasn’t a request. Get out of here now, before you do need the bloody infirmary!”

  “Are you insane…?” Trumbull snarled at Thorne, backing him up against that same wall the moment Solingen had gone. “Have you gone completely mad?”

  “I’m not going to be sneered at by pen-pushing little pricks like that…!” Thorne snapped in return, flinging a pointed finger in the direction of the colonel’s departure.

  “You’re already on a bloody warning! Blamey will have your hide for this!”

  “Blamey has been out to get me since we arrived in this bloody time and country!” He replied drily with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “I highly doubt that… and even if it were true,” Trumbull continued, cutting off Thorne’s move to defend his earlier statement, “that’s still no reason to go out of your way to give him ammunition against you. Assaulting a fellow officer? Solingen was absolutely right: they will court-martial you!”

  “Fuck ‘em if they did,” he grumped petulantly in return, making far too much of an effort to sound as if he didn’t care. “They’ve spent the last two years doing their best to marginalise me anyway; I might as well be out of it altogether!”

  “You really mean that? You…? Be away from all this…? Away from where everything is happening with history unfolding around you?” Trumbull was almost forced to hide a sneer of his own, trying to force its way across his features. “Max, I’ve known you the whole of that two years, and I’ve had the misfortune during that time to call you a friend,” he added, managing a wry smile instead. “It’s me you’re talking to. What’s that phrase you use sometimes about ‘bullshitting a bullshitter’…?” He asked pointedly. “Go and get some rest, and I’ll look to organising what still needs to be done. I’ll talk to bloody Solingen and sort him out.”

  He just said ‘shit’… twice…! The voice in his head chimed in, sounding as shocked as Thorne had been.

  “If I’m any judge, he won’t croak to Melbourne about any of this…” Murray offered from the doorway, drawing both men’s attention. “You just humiliated him in front of a crowd, and FX isn’t the type to go trumpeting back to HQ about that: he’s more the kind to settle his own scores, if you ask me.”

  “That’s as may be, colonel, but I’ll need to have a word or two with the man regardless. You think you can look after this one and keep him out of any more trouble?”

  “I’m right here…”

  “I think so, sir,” Murray chuckled softly. “I’ll do my best, anyway…”

  “Very good, colonel… I’ll leave him in your capable hands then. Make sure he gets a shower and a rest: he’s had nowhere near enough sleep, and I think perhaps it might be clouding his better judgement.”

  “You know how to make friends, sir,” Murray observed with a lop-sided smile as Trumbull marched off down the hallway in the same direction that Solingen had, moments earlier.

  “I have a particular knack for pissing people off…” Thorne admitted, forcing a grin of his own and rubbing a right hand that was now sore and aching from the exertion. “I suspect you’ve noticed. It’s not often I manage to get two ‘bloodys’ out of Alec, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say ‘shit’ before.”

  “Really…?” Murray actually sounded surprised. “Hmmph…” He shrugged. “He said ‘fuck’ in the radio room, early this morning…”

  “The hell he did…!”

  “Sure did… heard him clear as a bell…” the colonel insisted casually, nodding faintly for emphasis.

  “Do you have any idea how much mileage I can get out of this?” Thorne demanded, seeing a small opportunity to take a moment cheering himself up and deciding to run with it. “You cannot be messing with me right now, Harry…” He warned. “You saw what I just did to your mate, right…?”

/>   “Scout’s honour…” making a half-hearted attempt to raise his right hand in a matching three-fingered salute.

  “Cross your heart and hope to…?”

  But the words trailed off before he could finish the sentence, pain and sorrow flaring into his consciousness once more as Thorne began to think how excited Evan would be to find out, only to be struck full-force by the reality of the situation once more.

  “I’m gonna go get a shower,” he muttered abruptly, the mood completely shifted now. “Maybe some sleep would be a good idea.”

  “Understood, sir,” Murray nodded simply, recognising when it was a good time to let well enough alone. “I’ll be about if you need me.”

  “Good man,” Thorne managed, forcing a thin smile and nodding in reply before turning and shuffling off alone, shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

  Ambon Island

  Dutch East Indies

  “How is he, doctor…?” Those were Ritter’s first words as he met John Watson inside Tan Tui hospital’s main doors that same mid-morning.

  “You’re the other bloody Nazi from last night…” Watson observed sharply, turning and wiping his hands down the front of his blood-stained medical scrubs and throwing an evil glare at the two armed, Japanese privates standing at the doorway.

  “Forgive me: Colonel Carl Ritter, Luftwaffe…” Ritter acknowledged formally, coming to attention momentarily in greeting. “Your patient is one of my commanding officers…” he continued in perfect English as Watson stared at him with hands on hips.

  “Thought we’d enough bloody trouble without the bloody Jerries getting involved as well,” the doctor grumbled, regarding Ritter with an extremely suspicious eye as he recalled the unexplained interaction the man had had with Eileen the night before.

  “They would not let the others visit, but they have allowed me to come in their place,” Ritter ventured, hoping perhaps a different tack might have the desired result. “All are concerned for your patient’s well-being: General Schiller is someone I would consider a friend…”