Operation Fishwrapper (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 5)

by William Peter Grasso

  “I’ll go around and take him real quiet-like,” the Cajun whispered, patting the handle of the bayonet on his web belt. “I won’t let him give us away.”

  “You sure there’s only one?” Jock asked. “It’s not like Japs to put just one man on an outpost.”

  “One’s all I’m hearing, sir. If there’s more, I can come back for help…if I need it.”

  “No,” Jock said. “Too risky going alone. Take a guy with you. Your pick.”

  “Okay, I pick Simms. He done stuff like this before, too.”

  It didn’t take long. All Jock heard was a muffled cry, a rustling of brush, and a soft thump.

  Simms emerged from the darkness and told Jock, “You gotta see this, sir.”

  When they got to Bogater, he was sitting on the ground, hugging his legs against his chest, rocking slowly back and forth. The lifeless body of an islander was lying beside him, the blood from his sliced throat a glistening black pool on the ground.

  “Tell me I didn’t just fuck up, sir,” Bogater said, his voice low and hoarse.

  Simms twirled a Japanese Army cap around his forefinger. “What the hell is a native doing with a Nip hat and a Nip rifle, sir? How come nobody told us we’d be fighting the darkies, too?”

  Jock rolled the body onto its back. He knew what the man was: gekken.

  Simms scratched his head. “What the fuck is a gekken, sir?”

  Jock told them the story as Andreas Dyckman had told it to him. His closing line: “Gekken means crazy in Dutch, by the way.”

  “So who was this crazy guy fighting? Us or the Japs?”

  “Both, probably,” Jock replied.

  “Well, ain’t that hot shit,” Simms said. “I tell you what, sir…any darkie I see with a rifle, I’m dropping him on the spot.”

  “Not so fast, Frank,” Jock replied. “Like we talked about in the briefing, some of the people we’re about to team up with are islanders…and they’ll be toting weapons. Their lives depend on it.”

  “Dammit, sir…this war ain’t confusing enough, and now you’re telling me there are good darkies and bad darkies on this fucking island and they all look alike?”

  “I managed to figure it out, Frank…and you will, too. Just keep your eyes open.”

  Bogater looked up, his hopeful eyes shimmering in the dim light. “So I didn’t fuck up, sir?”

  “No, you didn’t, Bogater. And you kept it good and quiet. Now let’s get this show back on the road. Grab that Arisaka, too.”

  Bogater brought the column to a halt once again. “I reckon this is the rendezvous point, sir...or at least damn close. So where’s that Dutchman of yours?”

  Before Jock could answer, there was the sound of rifle shots.

  “What the hell kind of weapon is that, sir?” Bogater asked. “I ain’t never heard me nothing with a pow like that.”

  “It’s a Mannlicher, Bogater. German rifle.”

  “Ain’t we in the wrong theater of war to be hearing one of them, sir?”

  “No, that’s what the Dutchman and his people carry.”

  Bringing the machine gun to the front, Jock moved his column slowly in the direction from which the shots had come. They didn’t have to go far before a voice, in heavily accented English, called out the challenge: “Luxembourg.”

  Jock replied with the password: “Licorice.”

  Hans emerged from the darkness. “Good to see you again, Major Miles,” he said as they shook hands.

  Bogater said, “It’s Colonel Miles now, mon frère.”

  “Forgive me,” Hans replied, “and congratulations, Colonel. But you have Frenchmen in your Army?”

  “Sergeant Boudreau is an American,” Jock said. “He’s acadie…a Cajun from Louisiana.”

  Bogater added, “Bonsoir, y’all.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Hans replied.

  “We’ll explain later,” Jock said. “Where’s Mister Dyckman?”

  “Meneer Dyckman will be here in a moment. He’s making sure everyone is accounted for.”

  “What was that shooting about, Hans?”

  “I’m not sure…one of our people trying to kill phantoms, perhaps. If it had been Japanese, they would surely have fired back.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Jock replied. “You have much trouble with the gekken lately?”

  “Perhaps. Two of our islanders went missing last week. It might have been the gekken.”

  “Well, we just killed one a ways up the trail.”

  “Only one?” Hans replied, sounding disappointed.

  “Yeah, just one.”

  “Good for you, anyway, Colonel.”

  Andreas Dyckman stepped from the shadows. “Ah, you are a colonel now, Jock Miles! That is very good.”

  As they shook hands, Jock said, “Thanks for your help with the submarine. We had to take back all those nasty things we said about you when the transmitter turned up missing.”

  “You’re very welcome, Colonel. As you’ve come to learn, my way was much better. I still have your transmitter…and now it’s allowed you to return the favor.”

  “Okay,” Jock replied, “then we’re even. Hans told me you’ve lost two of your people. That leaves how many—thirty-eight men and women, counting you?”

  “Correct, Colonel.”

  “How many are armed?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  Jock calculated silently for a moment, and then said, “You and I will stay together. Put one of your armed men with us. Split the rest of your people into four equal groups of nine, keeping the number of weapons and women in each group roughly equal. One of my guys will be in charge of each group. Can you be ready to move in five minutes?”

  “Yes, Colonel. But I have a question.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your leg…will it carry you? You’re limping badly.”

  “Don’t worry about my damn leg, Mister Dyckman.”

  “Of course. But one more question, if I may?”

  “Make it quick, please.”

  “Can you tell me when I will see my Greta?”

  “If all goes well, you’ll see her in about an hour.”

  Those words stunned Dyckman. “You mean…you mean she’s actually here? On Biak? I didn’t realize…”

  “She’s here, in the flesh, Mister Dyckman.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Lee Grossman was right about the Japanese wanting to break out. They made their move just minutes before 2100, in the pitch dark of the forest floor at night. It began with a diversionary probe at the right side of 1st Battalion’s line, quickly and soundly repulsed by a platoon of Theo Papadakis’ Able Company.

  The main thrust of the breakout, however, was at 1st Battalion’s left side, and injected the might of the trapped Japanese battalion between Grossman’s Charlie Company and Jock’s patrol bringing in Andreas Dyckman and his people.

  “We got a fucking herd of elephants headed this way, sir,” Bogater Boudreau told Jock as he took up a firing position. “A pretty damn fast herd, too.”

  In the ghostly glow of Jock’s blackout flashlight, Dyckman looked petrified. “We’ll be decimated,” he said. “I must tell my people to run!”

  “The fuck you will,” Jock replied. “They’ll stay and take cover just like the rest of us. It’s the best chance they’ve got to come out of this alive. Now keep your fucking head down and shut up.”

  Grossman—call sign Cleveland Six—was on the radio calling for artillery fire. “Oh, shit,” Bogater said. “Incoming rounds in the fucking dark…and we ain’t got time to dig a hole deep enough.”

  Jock plotted the coordinates of Grossman’s fire mission on his map. He breathed a sigh of relief—they were exactly the coordinates he would have called. When Grossman’s transmission ended, Jock picked up his walkie-talkie and added, “Cleveland Six, this is Papa Six. Make it Danger Close, buddy. I’m just west of target. Over.”

  His body pressed hard against the ground, Bogater’s fa
ce peeked out from beneath his helmet like a turtle’s head from its shell. “These maps from that lady better be as all-fired good as you say they are, sir…or our goose is cooked for sure.”

  The night sky suddenly lit up with illumination rounds from GI mortars. The rainforest was no longer opaque as a shroud; they could see the shapes of the Japanese darting through the ghostly light and quivering shadows, pushing toward their breakout point…

  And headed straight for Jock and his patrol.

  The GIs remembered the rule of thumb they’d learned long ago: if you can count more than five enemy, you’re facing a major unit.

  There was no need to count this time…

  Fuck. It looks like hundreds of them.

  The forest came alive with an uproar of gunfire. The heavy machine gun from Jock’s team dealt its mechanized mayhem as it riddled row after row of silhouettes like pop-up targets on a gun range.

  The first artillery rounds impacted in a blinding flash…

  Right where Grossman had called for them…

  And right where Jock hoped they’d be.

  “Grossman called it dead on,” Jock said. “What do you think of those maps now, Bogater?”

  “I’m thinking pretty kindly toward them at the moment, sir,” the Cajun replied as more artillery came crashing down like rolling thunder, right on target.

  This close-quarters fight became like every other one these combat veterans had been through: a maelstrom of gunfire, explosions, curses, shrieked commands, and the screaming of the wounded. It seemed to take a lifetime but was finished in moments, leaving a caustic stillness in its wake. The lingering, random shots punctuating that stillness sounded like nothing more than a futile venting of frustration. The darkness of night took back the battleground from the garish glow of ordnance, seeking to erase the carnage for at least a little while…until the rising sun would force you to behold it once again.

  “Where the hell is your Dutchman, sir?” Bogater asked.

  “Damn good question.”

  Dyckman hadn’t gone far. Jock found him twenty yards away, being held down by one of his soldiers.

  “He was running around like a crazy man,” the GI said. “Figured I’d better hang onto him before he got his ass blown off.”

  “Good thinking, Marino,” Jock said. “Let him up.”

  Even in the darkness, Dyckman’s eyes glowed like a man possessed. Jock gripped his arm so he wouldn’t run off again.

  I don’t think he’s afraid, Jock thought. But he just seems so damn determined….

  Jock suddenly realized what the Dutchman had been trying to do. “You wanted to get to your daughter, didn’t you?”

  He was calming now, his breath more even, the fierce look in his eyes softening. In a voice little more than a murmur, Dyckman said, “Of course I was. After thinking she was dead the past two years, and then to find she’s here…almost close enough to touch…and the war suddenly close enough to lose her again, maybe forever this time. You cannot blame me, can you?”

  “I’m not blaming anyone, Mister Dyckman. But running around like a lunatic isn’t all that bright in the middle of a battle.”

  “I realize that, Colonel.” His head sunk into his hands. “I need to see her so badly.”

  “Then follow me,” Jock said. “We might almost be there.”

  Bogater Boudreau could feel the commo wire they’d laid as a trail marker on the outbound leg going slack in his hand. In a few more steps, he reached its frayed end.

  “The wire got cut, sir,” Bogater told Jock. “Probably by all that artillery, I reckon.”

  Somewhere out in the dark, laying invisible and useless on the ground, was the rest of the wire that was supposed to guide them back to 1st Battalion’s position.

  “I could go crawl around and try to find it,” Bogater offered. “It couldn’t have gone too far.”

  “Don’t bother,” Jock replied. “Let’s see if we’ve got a bearing off Grossman’s radio.” He summoned the GI carrying the walkie-talkie fitted with a direction finding antenna.

  “When Cleveland Six transmitted a minute ago,” the radioman said, “they were at about one-seven-zero degrees, sir. They gotta be close. Signal’s so strong it’s hard to get an exact fix.”

  “We haven’t moved too far since then,” Jock said. “That ought to get us in the ball park. You get that azimuth, Sergeant Boudreau?”

  “Yes, sir. One-seven-zero. We can’t be more than a couple hundred yards out.”

  “Affirmative,” Jock replied. But he knew a couple hundred yards could seem like a thousand miles in the dark.

  At least his leg was holding up.

  Each step raised their hopes a little further. Walking more quickly now, they cast to the winds the caution they’d employed walking the forest at night. The stumbles and falls that resulted were many, each a noisy circus of clattering weapons, free-rolling helmets, and groans they tried to stifle without much success.

  But they were almost home. They were sure of it…

  Until the cruel rhythm of a Nambu machine gun shattered that certainty, telling them they weren’t home at all. Bullets zipped through the column from back to front, each on a mission to ensure Jock and his people would never go home again.

  “THEY’RE ON OUR ASS,” a voice screamed from Jock’s radio. “I GOT GUYS DOWN. WHERE’S THE FUCKING THIRTY CAL?”

  “That’s Mulcahey,” Bogater said, identifying the voice as the sergeant whose group was the tail end Charlie of the column. “He should know damn well where the machine gunners are at. They’ve got their faces planted in the fucking ground just like the rest of us. What the hell we gonna do now, sir?”

  Jock was already speaking into his walkie-talkie, telling Cleveland Six to relay his fire mission: “From last target, left one hundred, add two hundred, fire for effect, danger close, over.”

  Bogater let out a soft whistle. “Cutting it pretty fine there, ain’t we, sir?”

  “Better than calling it in on our heads.”

  “You so sure we ain’t, sir?”

  They heard the distant poom of the guns a second after an artilleryman’s voice crackled from the radio: “Shot, over.”

  “We’re about to find out, Bogater,” Jock said.

  “Splash, over,” the artilleryman said.

  One one thousand…two one thousand…three one thousand…

  They heard the rounds crash into the forest, so close they could feel the shock wave of their detonation. The Nambu kept right on firing.

  Shit! I either put it too far out…or I just killed a bunch of my own people.

  “What do you think, Bogater? Which way do we move it?”

  “I’m thinking we’re long, sir…but not by much.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” He keyed the radio: “Danger close, direction zero-two-zero, drop five-zero, fire for effect, over.”

  Ten seconds later, the artilleryman’s voice spilled from the radio again: “Shot, over.”

  If I’m wrong, Jock thought, I’ve just killed the rest of us.

  “Splash, over.”

  The rounds hit, the sound of their impact closer this time, the shock wave strong enough to ruffle their tattered, filthy uniforms. The echoes of their explosions quickly subsided, making way for the sweetest silence Jock though he’d ever heard: the Nambu had stopped firing.

  There wasn’t a second to lose. Jock keyed the walkie-talkie and said, “Get everybody moving.” Eager to prevent another stumbling rush, he added, “With all due caution. Let’s maintain noise discipline and security this time.”

  Melvin Patchett’s voice came out of the darkness: “You’d better keep them people quiet, sir. We heard y’all a hundred yards out. Japs did, too, I reckon.”

  Jock replied, “Son of a bitch…the cavalry’s here. How close are we to Charlie Company, Top?”

  “A couple of yards. Good thing we knew y’all were there, though. Otherwise you’da got caught up in the crossfire. Pretty good call with that artillery, t
hough, sir. Couldn’t’ve done better myself.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot easier when you know exactly where you are. We can thank Missus Christiansen for that. Pretty amazing, considering she drew these last maps from memory.”

  “They were close enough, that’s for damn sure, sir.”

  Patchett watched as Jock’s GIs and Dyckman’s people filtered by, most on their own feet. The few wounded—all Americans—were being carried by Dyckman’s islanders.

  “I plan to thank that lady personal-like, believe you me, sir,” Patchett said. “Where’s her pa, anyway?”

  “Oh, shit…don’t tell me he’s missing again.”

  “I saw him headed toward the back of the column, sir,” Bogater said. “Maybe he was gonna check on his people?”

  “Top, get these casualties taken care of. Bogater, you come with me. Let’s go escort our Dutch friend out of harm’s way once and for all.”

  “Watch your step, sir,” Patchett said. “No guarantee some live Nips still ain’t out there.”

  Jock heard the sound first. He dropped to one knee behind a tree, trying to get a good fix on its direction while he stretched his aching leg.

  Bogater crawled to him and asked, “What’s going on, sir?”

  Jock pointed into the black gloom of the forest. “There’s something—or someone—out there. Listen. It’s pretty close.”

  The Cajun strained to filter something other than the usual noises of birds and insects. After a few moments he shook his head. “No, sir, ain’t hearing a damn—”

  Then it happened again: a loud snap and crunch of underbrush. Footsteps, without a doubt. Probably human, too.

  Struggling to his feet, Jock said, “You sure as hell heard that. C’mon…it’s this way.”

  They moved as fast as they dared through the darkness—ten paces, twenty paces, fifty—but found nothing. They heard nothing more, either.

  “You notice we’ve been going up a rise?” Jock asked, repeating out loud what his leg had been silently complaining about for the last few minutes.

  “Yes, sir, I surely did.”