But the luck all seemed to be with the Japanese tankers. When the dust settled, none of their armored vehicles appeared to be damaged in any way. Worse, Colonel Billingsley had refused Papadakis’ request for tank support. “First, the dumb son of a bitch says the tanks can’t climb this gradient,” the Mad Greek fumed to Patchett. “So I ask him how the hell did these Jap tanks get up here? But it didn’t matter a damn bit to him. Says he needs the tanks on the Mokmer road…and them little Stuarts we got ain’t designed for fighting other tanks, anyway. So what the fuck good are they? Maybe he just wants to watch them get picked off one by one while they’re all hemmed in playing follow the leader down there.”
Patchett was fuming, too: I swear on my mama’s grave…the longer that golden boy hangs around, the dumber he gets. MacArthur’s little parade ground soldier’s getting good men killed, that’s what it amounts to. I’ve got a mind to tell—
But he stopped himself. He hadn’t survived a lifetime in this man’s army by spouting insubordinate remarks and he wasn’t going to start now. Instead, he said, “I’ll go try and change his mind, Captain Pop. In the meanwhile, you got enough of them bazooka rounds to cover your ass if push comes to shove?”
“Yeah, I think so, Top.”
Since he wasn’t getting the tanks from Colonel Billingsley, Boudreau did the only thing he could think of: call for more artillery fire. The odds it would do any good were slim, and he knew it. With indirect artillery fire, you’d have to score a direct hit on the tank…and even then, you might not knock it out.
Sure give those sumbitches inside a headache, though.
He couldn’t believe the reply that came over the radio from the artillery battery: “Unable. Engaging higher-priority targets. Out.”
Now it was Boudreau’s turn to fume: Ain’t nothing higher priority in my book than something about to shoot my ass…and just where the fuck are these “higher-priority targets?” Probably those assholes at Third Battalion using them to clear trees outta their way. All we get to stop real live tanks with now is a couple of fucking bazookas…which we ain’t never used against a tank, since we ain’t never seen one before. Not even sure where to hit the sumbitch so that puny little rocket’ll do some damage. The guy tells me he’s gonna aim for that split where the turret meets the chassis. Or maybe an engine vent. He better be damn good…I watched enough of them silly things bounce right off log bunkers back on New Guinea.
The tanks’ turrets began to traverse. Their engines revved.
Ah, shit…here we go.
Theo Papadakis figured the terrain gave his company a big advantage: the cliff on the tanks’ right flank prevented them from moving in that direction. All he had to do was bottle them up on the other three sides, get his three bazooka teams in close enough to finish off the tanks from the sides or rear, and this obstacle would be breached.
But it was going wrong from the start. There were still Japanese infantry protecting the tanks: Plenty of ’em, too, dammit…too close to us to call in mortars or artillery.
We’re gonna have to root ’em out like weeds.
The tanks had begun to move, pinwheeling toward the approaching GIs like wagons being circled, adding their machine gun fire to that of their infantry.
If my guys ain’t behind a sturdy tree, they probably got hit already…
And sturdy trees seem few and far between around here.
The screaming of the wounded and dying confirmed Papadakis’ fear.
But still, dammit…we’ve got ’em surrounded! A tree or a tank hull only protects you from one direction. Just gotta pop our heads up long enough to get a fix on ’em.
He tried: the bullet that glanced off his steel pot knocked him senseless for a moment.
Bad fucking idea.
One rifle platoon had circled completely behind the tanks. The bazooka team with them would have easy shots at the sides of two tanks—if they could just get a little closer.
They couldn’t. The Japanese infantry had set a trap and they’d crawled right into it. Grenades and gunfire took a terrible toll. Among the dead GIs were the two men of a bazooka team. Their weapon was just a mangled, worthless pipe now.
Another bazooka team thought they had a chance: a difficult head-on shot, with a low chance of success…
But they took it.
It glanced off the tank’s glacis plate, exploding harmlessly in the air.
And then the tank’s machine gun mowed them down.
We’re getting creamed, Papadakis told himself.
Bogater Boudreau was thinking the same thing: Those guys are getting creamed.
His small recon platoon wasn’t supposed to help take on the tanks. Their job was to be the lofty lookouts for the rest of the battalion down on the road. The one bazooka team Captain Papadakis had left with him was strictly for last-ditch defense.
But if them damn tanks keep cutting up Captain Pop’s company and break out, they’re gonna roll right over our asses. Ain’t gonna be much “defense” about it—it’ll be a fucking slaughter.
I gotta do something.
From Bogater’s position, three of the four Jap tanks were presenting their right side, the fourth its rear. He called the bazooka team over.
“You got a clear shot at every one of those bastards,” he told them.
“We’re too far away, Sarge,” the team’s corporal said.
“Then get closer, numbnuts.”
Bogater could tell right away neither man was thrilled with that prospect. He jerked the bazooka from the corporal’s hands.
“Then I’ll do it the fuck myself.” He turned to one of his platoon and added, “Simms, take their rockets. You and me gonna go do a little tank hunting.”
Simms wasn’t reluctant, just skeptical. “You sure you know what you’re doing with that thing, Sarge?”
“What’s to know? You point it, shoot it, and it’s got two wrong ends. That’s why you, Corporal Simms, are gonna make damn sure there’s no touchholes behind me to get burned up by the rocket blast when I fire.”
“I dunno,” Simms replied. “I just think this would be a whole lot easier if those cannon-cockers took a little more interest in what the fuck’s going on up here.”
“Too late for that now, mon frère. They’d just kill more of Captain Pop’s men, probably.”
They started to low-crawl toward the tanks, dragging the bazooka and the satchel of rockets along with them. The hard ground was tough on their knees and elbows. The only cover was the spindly trees that seemed to be getting farther and farther apart.
“I’d feel better about all this crawling,” Simms said, “if there was at least some fucking concealment down here. Some high grass…some scrub…anything.”
“Stand up if you like,” Bogater replied, “and get your ass shot off.”
Simms stayed on his belly.
A bullet zinged off the ground right next to Boudreau. Then another.
He rolled behind a tree trunk. So did Simms.
Just one problem…
They were behind different tree trunks. Boudreau had only one rocket—the one already loaded into the bazooka. Simms had the rest.
A bullet smacked into the tree protecting Bogater.
He asked Simms, “Can you see who the fuck’s shooting at us?”
“Yeah…he’s about fifty, sixty yards ahead, shooting prone. Kinda in the open.”
“That fucking far? I’ll never hit him with this fucking Thompson. Take him with your M1.”
Gingerly, Simms leaned around the tree trunk and drew a bead on the Jap sniper. He had a clean shot. No trees in the way.
The SPLAT of another bullet against the trunk made him pull back.
Simms said, “How about you spray him so he keeps his fucking head down for a second?”
Bogater stuck the Thompson around the tree and fired a short, wild burst in the sniper’s general direction.
That was all it took. The bullets went nowhere near the Jap, but they made him stop fir
ing just for a few moments…
And in those few moments, Simms shot him right through the top of his helmet.
“Those fuckers gotta get stronger helmets, Sarge. Way too flimsy.”
“Ours ain’t a whole lot better…not for a straight-on shot like that.”
A tank rumbled and clattered straight for them. But suddenly, it wheeled left, bullets bouncing harmlessly off its hull and turret. It answered those bullets with machine gun bursts of its own.
“Some GIs are in deep shit over yonder,” Bogater said. He was fixated on the tank, watching it turn. “We gotta get closer…and fast.”
“We won’t get close enough for a shot,” Simms replied. “The fucker will be gone.”
“Nah…he’ll be showing us his ass. Just what we want him to do.”
They didn’t bother crawling now, just running as low to the ground as they could manage.
One Japanese soldier popped out from behind the tank, more surprised to see them than they were to see him.
Bogater knocked him down with a short burst from the Thompson.
“HERE,” Bogater said, dropping to one knee, raising the bazooka to the firing position on his shoulder. “I make it thirty fucking yards…I’m gonna put one right up his ass.”
He squeezed the bazooka’s trigger.
Nothing happened.
He looked at the back end of the tube, then straight down its bore.
He saw nothing but daylight. The rocket was gone.
“THE FUCKER FELL OUT! GIVE ME ANOTHER ONE!”
Simms didn’t want to believe it. “COULDN’T YOU FUCKING TELL?”
“COULDN’T YOU FUCKING SEE THE SUMBITCH FALL OUT?”
Simms ignored him and slipped another rocket into the tube.
“Make damn sure you lock down the lever this time,” Bogater said.
“I did the first fucking time,” Simms replied, indignant. “You must’ve snagged it on something. There, it’s in…wires are hooked up.” He stepped clear of the blast zone. A tap on Boudreau’s helmet: “READY.”
Bogater pulled the trigger again.
This time, there was a deafening WHOOSH as the rocket sped away…
And vanished into an engine vent grill.
A small flash, a dull pfoomf… and nothing more. The tank kept rolling away from them, straight toward Captain Pop’s men.
Another tank began to pivot, as if looking for a path through the trees to reach the one they just shot.
“Hurry up…another fucking rocket,” Bogater said. “Gotta get him while he’s still broadside to us.”
A clank as Simms slid the rocket into the tube. A few moments of fumbling with latching lever and wires…and then another tap on the helmet: “READY.”
Bogater squeezed the trigger at the exact instant the first tank exploded in a fog of thick black smoke. It made him flinch and ruined his aim.
The rocket streaked away, glanced off the ground yards short of the second tank, and struck its drive wheel with a surprising loud POOM.
The damaged track separated from the wheel and became mangled beneath the tank, now pirouetting on its one good track. After half a revolution it came to a stop, its turret traversing, spitting fire from both its machine guns. It was wounded, immobile, but not dead yet…
At least not until Captain Papadakis’ surviving bazooka team put a rocket point blank into its engine compartment. In seconds, it was smoking as furiously as the first tank.
Simms asked, “Those Nips inside even gonna try and get out?”
“Maybe they’re already dead,” Bogater replied. “Probably choked to death on that burning diesel.”
The other two tanks wheeled north and, with engines roaring, raced away. Neither Bogater nor the last of Papadakis’ bazooka boys had a clean shot at them. The few rounds fired were Captain Pop’s survivors mopping up the last of the Japanese infantry—no more than a squad or two at this point. Abandoned by their tanks, they were surrounded, outgunned, hopeless…
And soon dead.
As the echo of the last shots died out, two GIs approached Boudreau and Simms. One was a captain. He wasn’t Theo Papadakis.
“I’m from King Company, Third Battalion,” the captain said. “What outfit are you boys with?”
“Recon Platoon, First Battalion,” Boudreau replied, “and Able Company’s around here somewhere. Or at least what’s left of them.” Then he saw Papadakis in a clearing still thick with smoke and raced to him. The captain from 3rd Battalion followed.
“Nice dent in that steel pot of yours, sir,” Bogater said when he reached Papadakis.
“Yeah…remind me never to stick my head up in that shit again. Man, my neck’s killing me from getting jerked back like that.”
Bogater asked, “How bad are your guys banged up, sir?”
“Bad. Real bad. Don’t know how many for sure yet.”
Papadakis gave the other captain a stern once-over and asked, “Let me guess. You’re from Third Battalion, right?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to link up with—”
“Save it, pal. Thanks a shitload for all your fucking help.”
“Wait a damn minute,” the captain replied. “I couldn’t exactly tell where the hell you were supposed to be on this shitty map.”
Theo Papadakis walked away, shaking his head, trying to take stock of the dead, the wounded, and those who could carry on…
Because he knew the battle for this island had only just begun.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Squall’s coming, sir,” the courier pilot told Jock. “If we wait until 1600 like you want, we might not get out of here today.”
Jock checked his watch: 1440. He thought it over for a moment.
“We’ll wait a little longer, Lieutenant.”
The pilot didn’t want to hear that. He was as keen to get back to his hammock on Wakde Island as Jock was to stay in Hollandia. But he replied, “Yes, sir. Whatever you want. I’ll be in Operations if you change your mind.”
Jock went back to the feverish work of getting out the new maps—the ones that incorporated every last detail he’d learned during his unintended stay on Biak. He knew the GIs on the ground needed all the info about the Mokmer airfields and the surrounding terrain he could provide:
Published intel updates are all well and good, but a picture is worth a thousand words.
He cursed luck, the Japanese, even himself that those maps weren’t in the GIs’ hands already.
They would’ve been…if we hadn’t gotten our asses shot down.
He handed over his last page of notes. His part was done now, but the maps still weren’t ready for printing. These final bits of information would have to be collated, correlated, and plotted by the team of intelligence officers and NCOs who’d been his constant companions for the past five days, ever since returning from Biak. The information on the maps had to be dead-on or they were no better than the obsolete fishwrappers being used right now. Close enough wouldn’t be good enough. Once printing began—tomorrow, hopefully—it would still be days before they were in the hands of the troops whose lives depended on them.
A voice boomed from the far side of the room. “Miles, what in God’s good name are you still doing here?” Every man in the room snapped to attention. Jock spun off his stool, tried snapping to attention, and nearly fell over as his bad leg buckled. Catching himself against the work table, he braced and saw General Willoughby, MacArthur’s G2, striding toward him.
A testy wave of the general’s hand sufficed for at ease and the intel staff went back to their work. His eyes boring into Jock, Willoughby added, “I thought your shop was on Wakde, Major, not here in sunny Hollandia.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but my orders are to return to Wakde not later than tonight.”
“Shouldn’t you be leaving, then?”
“I just finished my work here, sir. My flight leaves at 1600.”
“Cutting it a little close, I’d say, Miles, especially with weather moving i
n…”
The general paused for a moment, thinking—and then his face lit up with sly revelation. “Oh, I get it. You want to get in that last one with the little Aussie spitfire you’ve been shacked up with.”
“With all due respect, sir, that lady is my wife.”
If this was a fucking barroom, I’d put this pompous sack of shit on his ass so fast, stars or no stars.
Willoughby replied, “Well, isn’t that hot shit? That’d make you and General MacArthur the only two men in the US Army lucky enough to have their wives in theater with them. I understand the Supreme Commander’s privilege…but what makes you so fucking special, Major?”
“Not special, sir…but like you said, just lucky.”
“Hmm…well, give her my love, Miles. By the way, what’s the story with your leg?”
“Been sitting too much, sir. It stiffens up.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t need two good legs for a desk job, Major.”
Willoughby turned to leave, adding, “Good luck, Miles. Don’t miss your flight, now. This war’s not going to wait for you.”
At the door, he had one more piece of cheerful advice: “Don’t knock her up now, son, because if you do, we’ll ship her pregnant little ass back to Australia so fast your head will spin.”
Jock’s leg had loosened up by the time he walked to the airfield’s operations shack. He could hide the limp fairly well now, adopting a tender, stiff-legged stride, like a cowboy who’d spent too much time in the saddle.
Maybe I’m even fooling other people besides myself…
But I’ll never fool Jill.
Where the hell are you, baby?
He checked his watch, just like he’d done every few minutes for the last hour. Now it read 1545.
The coming storm rolled off the jagged mountains that formed New Guinea’s spine as it advanced steadily toward Hollandia. Soon, the airfield would be enveloped in treacherous winds and blinding rain. A takeoff at 1600 was pushing it as far as any sane aviator dared.
Operation Fishwrapper (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 5) Page 15
