“Yeah, that’s her. She was a POW until a few days ago. The Japs tortured her…both her shoulders need medical attention real bad.”
“How’d she manage to get herself captured?”
“A real long story, sir…but she was a ship’s captain in the Allied Merchant Navy. Got captured during the Buna Campaign last year. Let’s just say a whole bunch of us owe the fact we’re still alive to her.”
The doctor took another long look at Jillian. “A sea captain? No shit?”
“No shit, sir. And I’d owe you one…a real big one…if you’d take care of her.”
The old doctor was nobody’s fool. “She means a hell of a lot to you, doesn’t she, son? Maybe a whole hell of a lot?”
“You’ve got that right, sir.”
“Well then, Major Miles, you have my word—my people will fix her up with whatever she needs. But she walked in here under her own steam, too…and you didn’t. The rules around here say the worst first…and that’s you, son. I can smell that leg of yours from ten feet away…and it don’t smell good.”
“Ahh, there you are, Jock,” Colonel Dick Molloy said as he burst into the ward tent. “Sorry this glorified supply dump wasn’t ready for you. The idiots running this place could fuck up a wet dream. How long have you been here?”
“A couple of hours, sir,” Jock replied, quite surprised his regimental commander turned up out of nowhere. “But how’d you get here from Milne Bay so fast?”
“I was already on a plane, Jock. The rest of the division’s on its way. This is the staging area for our next campaign. In fact, your battalion’s on a boat that should be dropping anchor any minute.”
“That’s real good news, sir. It’ll be great to get back with all my men again.”
The smile faded from Colonel Molloy’s face. “Not so fast, Jock. From what I hear, you’re out of action for a while…maybe a long while.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay, sir. Doc Lewis says I’ll have to live with a big dent in my thigh, and a bit of a limp, too. But they scooped out most of the dead tissue already. They’ll be doing more later.”
“Well, you know I’ve got my fingers crossed. By the way, I got quite a wonderful surprise a few minutes ago…”
“I’m guessing you ran into Jillian, sir?”
“Yes, I did! Our Miss Forbes…back from the dead! And feisty as ever, too. Quite a story you two have to tell.”
Jock turned serious and asked, “The Hollandia assault, sir? It is going okay, isn’t it?”
“It’s going pretty well, Jock. The Japs didn’t know we were coming until we were right offshore. You and your boys did one hell of a job on Manus…not to mention liberating POWs while you were at it, too. Now, the general will be here in a minute to begin the debrief, just as soon as he’s finished reading the riot act to the deadbeats who dropped the ball and left you hanging like that.”
“The general, sir? Which general?”
“Ted Stanley…a brigadier from MacArthur’s G2 shop.”
“I’ve heard the name, sir, but I don’t know him. What’s he like?”
“He’s just like everyone else on the Supreme Commander’s staff, Jock—a complete asshole.”
Jillian’s arms were in slings when she returned to Jock’s ward tent. The tattered rice-sack shift she’d worn was now discarded. She was scrubbed clean and wearing a fresh set of GI khakis a few sizes too big, cinched up with a belt. On her feet was a brand new pair of GI boots, which fit surprisingly well. “I suppose I have very big feet by Yank standards,” she said, proudly showing off her new footwear.
Colonel Molloy excused himself to give them a precious few minutes alone before General Stanley arrived.
“The doctors say I’ve got torn ligaments in both shoulders,” she told Jock. “No big surprise, I suppose.”
“How long are you going to be in those slings?”
“A month, maybe. My arms need to be immobile as much as possible. They wanted to wrap me up in plaster but I told them they could go straight to Hell.”
Gingerly, she pulled one arm free of its sling and stroked his hair. “I wouldn’t be able to do this if I was in plaster, would I?”
There was a shout of ATTEN-HUT from the far end of the ward tent. General Stanley strutted in like a peacock with Colonel Molloy and two other officers in his wake.
As she watched the parade approach, Jillian muttered, “Bloody hell, did the wanker lose his brass band?”
Colonel Molloy handled the introductions. When he was done, General Stanley pointed to Jillian and asked, “Is this woman one of the freed POWs?” He made woman sound like a dirty word.
“Yes, sir,” Molloy replied, “she’s—”
Stanley cut him off. “Well, get her the hell out of here, Colonel. No civilians in this debrief.”
Surprised but not flustered by the rude, shortsighted remark, Molloy replied, “Sir, I think you’ll find Miss Forbes has valuable—”
“Get her out, Colonel. Now.”
One of Stanley’s lackeys, an eager lieutenant, took the initiative to usher Jillian from the tent, but made the mistake of laying his hands on her. Putting those new boots on her feet to good use, she kicked him squarely in the knee.
The lieutenant toppled over like a table suddenly missing a leg.
“Keep your bloody hands off me, you stupid knob,” she said, and then strolled leisurely out of the tent.
“Get up, you imbecile,” the General told his lieutenant, still on the floorboards clutching his knee. “A woman couldn’t possibly hurt you that much.”
Jock and Colonel Molloy tried not to smirk; they knew Jillian Forbes’ capabilities far better than any general.
“Let’s get down to business,” General Stanley said. Turning to the major standing next to him, he added, “Ask the questions, Major Billingsley.”
Major Billingsley: Kit Billingsley, the officer who led that first briefing where Operation Blind Spot was set in motion. The politically well-connected bonehead Jock had known since West Point was apparently still basking in the good graces of The Supreme Commander.
“First off,” Billingsley began, “I want to assure both you, Major Miles, and you, Colonel Molloy, that Supreme Allied Headquarters had nothing to do with the foul up over the recovery phase of your mission. That was strictly a local command failure here in the Buna area. It’s being dealt with as we speak.”
“That comes as a great relief,” Jock said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “Nothing like returning from the gates of Hell to be told you’re not welcome. But never mind. What do you want to know, Kit?”
“Well, first off, Major, we’d like your estimate of the number of Japanese troops on Manus.” He’d made the word major sound as if the man being addressed was somehow inferior to him, even though they wore the same gold leaf on their collars.
“Can’t really tell you, Kit. Our mission was to deny the Japanese observation of the convoy en route to Hollandia, not count heads.”
“But you were in contact with the Japanese, weren’t you?”
“Yes, we were.”
“How many of them did you encounter, then?”
“No more than two companies.”
General Stanley held up his hand to silence Billingsley. He’d take over the questioning himself. “Only two companies, Major Miles? Our photo recon leads us to believe the Japs have at least a regiment on Manus.”
“That may be, General, but like I said, the total number of Japs we tangled with never exceeded two companies.”
“So you can’t confirm the photo recon estimates?”
“No, sir, I can’t…and we were never asked to do so in the first place.”
Jock’s answer left General Stanley dissatisfied. “Major Miles,” he continued, “I understand you deviated from your mission to rescue POWs. Is that true?”
“No, sir. When our mission objective—the OP on Mount Dremsel—was secured well ahead of schedule, I took advantage of the extra time to follow up on intel we got from two impressed Kor
ean soldiers who surrendered to us.”
Stanley’s face twisted into a scowl. “Korean soldiers, Major? How can you be sure they were Koreans?”
“I had two Nisei with me, sir, who debriefed the prisoners in Japanese.”
Stanley’s scowl grew tighter. “You actually trusted these Nisei?”
“With my life, sir.”
“And the lives of all your men, too, I might add, Major. Very foolish, if you ask me…a Jap’s a Jap. But let’s get back to this intel. What was it?”
“That the Japanese were preparing to evacuate Manus, sir. Part of those preparations involved executing the POWs they were holding there as well as the Korean troops being used as guards at the prison camp. We were able to at least partially confirm some of that intel, sir—we witnessed the execution of two Australian flyers while observing the camp.”
“So, are the Japanese evacuating Manus, Major Miles?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Why not, Major Miles? Why don’t you know? You were on the goddamn island, weren’t you? On that goddamn mountaintop.”
Colonel Molloy couldn’t hold his peace anymore. “Sir,” he said, “in all fairness, the mission was to—”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Colonel,” Stanley said. “I want to hear this major of yours explain himself.”
“Very well, sir,” Jock replied. “If the Japs were pulling their people out, they’d be embarking at night, with the ships all blacked-out, just like all the other sea movements they’ve been doing for the past year. We wouldn’t have been able to see any of it, even from the mountaintop. We all know their fleet can’t afford to be caught standing still in daylight. Our planes will eat them alive.”
“Don’t presume to lecture me on the operating procedures of the Japanese, Major Miles. But speaking of planes, did you see any Japanese aircraft during your time on Manus?”
“Not a one, sir…in the air or on the ground.”
A half-smile crossed Stanley’s face. “Finally, some intel we can use.”
Dick Molloy took another shot at speaking up. “With all due respect, General, the—”
“I thought I told you to be quiet, Molloy. And I know full well what with all due respect really means, so you’d be wise not to say it again.”
Returning to Jock, the General continued, “Now, Major Miles, I’m told by Colonel Molloy that you’re having a relationship with one of those POW women you rescued. Is that true?”
There was no point in Jock denying it. “Yes, sir. I’ve had a relationship with Miss Forbes since Australia in ’42. But after she went missing a year ago, I grew to accept that she’d been killed. I had no idea—”
“No idea of what, Major? That she was on that island? Of course you didn’t. But I’m guessing when you heard there was a POW camp and that it contained women…”
“Sir, we never knew the camp contained women until we got there and saw for ourselves.”
“But there was always that hope, wasn’t there, Major Miles, that maybe—just maybe—you’d find her there. Was there not?”
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t, sir.”
The General’s face grew stern, like a reproachful headmaster about to deliver a caning to a misbehaving schoolboy. “This is how it looks to me, Major Miles. When given the opportunity to show some initiative that could’ve really helped The Supreme Commander, you chose to go looking for your girlfriend instead. And that little search cost you two dead and four wounded—two very seriously—out of a ten-man unit. That’s a pretty shabby state of affairs in my book. Some might call it a dereliction of duty.”
Jock tried to speak but Dick Molloy’s gesture was unmistakable: Shut up…don’t say a word you’ll regret later. If there was any regretting later to be done, Molloy had made up his mind he’d be the one to risk it. “General,” he said, “that’s bullshit and you know it. Major Miles accomplished the mission he was given, and more. Your Hollandia operation is off to a great start because of what he and his men did.”
The General looked decidedly unimpressed. “Just doing what you’re supposed to do isn’t enough. The Supreme Commander expects more from his officers…something you should remember, too, Richard.”
“All the same, sir,” Molloy replied, “none of us have a crystal ball that can read General MacArthur’s mind.”
General Stanley didn’t bother with a reply. He was halfway out of the tent when Jock asked, “Excuse me, General, but I’m a little confused about something. You said two very seriously wounded. Sure, Sergeant McMillen’s lost a leg…but the rest of us are going to be okay. What makes you think there’s another seriously wounded man?”
For once, the general’s face seemed to show some small amount of empathy. He shook his head sadly and replied, “Didn’t you know? It’s you, Major Miles. The surgeon tells me you’re going to lose that leg.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The men of Jock’s 1st Battalion had been ashore at Cape Sudest only a few minutes when Colonel Molloy’s jeep roared into their assembly area. “I need a detail, on the double,” Molloy told Captain Lee Grossman, the battalion’s senior company commander and the first officer he saw. “And I mean right now, Captain.”
Disembarking a battalion from ship to shore was a difficult enough project, full of plans changing on the fly, missing equipment, frustrated troop leaders, and thoroughly confused troops. The last thing Lee Grossman needed right now was the regimental commander tapping his manpower for some circle-jerk of a work party. When he heard what the detail was all about, though, he wanted to lead it himself.
“It’s simple, Captain,” Molloy said. “We’re going to kidnap Major Miles out of that butcher’s shop of a hospital he’s stuck in before they hack off what just might be a perfectly good leg. We’ll turn him over to our regimental docs, now that they’re here, and let them take care of him…the right way.”
Sergeant Major Patchett was the one who talked Lee Grossman out of leading the kidnap detail personally. “You’d better not go, Captain,” Patchett said. “I shouldn’t, neither. Things are fucked up enough as it is at the moment. We gotta stay and keep this circus rolling. We got plenty of others up to the task of rescuing the major.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Sergeant Major. I think I’ll put Theo Papadakis in charge.”
“Now you’re talking, sir. The Mad Greek’s just the guy we need for this job, I reckon. He broke the major out of that hospital back in Australia, too.”
“That’s exactly why he’s getting the job…superior qualifications.”
Captain Theo Papadakis thought there were entirely too many MPs hanging around this hospital, especially since it had only a handful of patients. “It’s those damn nurses,” the Mad Greek said to Tom Hadley and Bogater Boudreau, fresh out of that hospital themselves. “Those nightstick-swinging assholes got nothing better to do than hang around the skirts. We gotta divert their attention.”
Hadley replied, “So how’re we going to do that in broad daylight, sir? We can’t afford to wait until dark. They may have whacked off the major’s leg by then.”
“Damn right,” Papadakis said, “so this is how we’re gonna play it.” He turned to the four privates they had dragged along as just in case manpower. “Okay, you guys, listen up. Go over in front of that tent with the flag pole and start fighting each other. Make it look like a real good brawl…lots of pushing and shoving, but don’t land any roundhouses, okay? All those idiot MPs will come running. Just do me a big favor and don’t kill each other…I’ll never get replacements for you. And for Pete’s sake, make damn sure none of you hit an MP. Do I make myself clear?”
“Sure, sir, “ one of the privates replied, “but what happens when those bastards start cracking our heads with those nightsticks?”
“Not to worry, Private. I’ll step in and take charge of the situation before it ever gets that far. And while I’m pretending to give you all a real good ass-chewing, First Sergeant Hadley and Sergeant Boud
reau will snatch the major, sneak him out to the colonel’s jeep…and mission accomplished.”
Another private asked, “So we won’t spend the night in the stockade, sir?”
“Nah. You came with me…you’ll leave with me.”
“Dammit,” the private mumbled, “a good night’s sleep in a jail cell sounded like the cat’s ass right about now.”
“Forget about the cat’s ass,” Papadakis said. “It’ll be your ass if you fuck this up. Now get moving…and start swinging.”
The fake brawl erupted exactly as Theo Papadakis planned it. As his four actors scuffled and tumbled, the MPs came running from all corners, blood in their eyes. He told Hadley and Boudreau, “I think it’s time I go save their bacon.”
With Captain Papadakis gone, Hadley said, “Bogater, I believe it’s showtime for us, too.”
They ducked under the rolled-up side of the ward tent and headed to Jock’s cot. He didn’t seem to recognize his two sergeants, just gave them a vague smile like you’d give to someone whose name had slipped your mind.
His voice barely above a whisper, Jock said, “Can I help you guys?”
Hadley replied, “No, sir, we’re here to help you.”
He nudged Bogater toward the other side of the cot and said, “He’s really doped up, like they’re going to cut on him any minute. We got here just in time. Lay that IV bag in his lap. We’ll do a two-man carry. Lift when I count to—”
A woman’s stern voice interrupted their efforts. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Sergeant?”
Hadley turned to see an Army nurse—a major in gleaming white—standing a few feet away. She didn’t look happy in the least.
“We’re just visiting our C.O., ma’am,” Hadley replied. “Good thing we’re here, too. I think he’s got to pee something fierce. We’ll just bring him to the latrine and come right back.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Sergeant. That man needs surgery immediately. What’s your name?”
Hadley didn’t bother to answer. With Jock cradled between them as if sitting in a chair, they were already headed out of the tent.
Operation Blind Spot (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 4) Page 21
