W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines

by Behind The Lines(Lit)

"That's it, McCoy," Everly said.

  "Can you paddle a rubber boat, Captain?" McCoy asked. "I mean, if we can get you into a rubber boat, could you paddle it out to the submarine?"

  "I think so."

  "How much do you know about Fertig's operation?"

  "Here you go, Mr. McCoy," Koffler said, handing him a carbine. "Care-ful, it's loaded and not locked."

  "What the hell is that thing?" Everly asked derisively. And then, "He called you 'Mister McCoy'?"

  "You can call me 'Sir,' Percy," McCoy said. "It's a carbine. Fires a real-hot.30 caliber pistol cartridge from a fifteen-round magazine. Good little weapon. We're going to try to bring one hundred of them ashore."

  "You know I don't like being called 'Percy,' " Everly said.

  "Then don't call me 'Killer,' or I will make you call me 'Sir,' Percy."

  "Mr. McCoy is a lieutenant," Koffler furnished helpfully.

  "You're in charge, here, Mr. McCoy?" Weston asked.

  "I am," McCoy said simply. "I asked you how much do you know about Fertig's operation?"

  "I'm the G-2," Weston said.

  "That OSS guy is in the first boat, Mr. McCoy," Koffler said. "Him and Mr. Lewis."

  McCoy turned to look at him. He was peering out to sea through binocu-lars.

  "Give me those," he ordered.

  Koffler somewhat reluctantly handed them over.

  "Police up that plastic," McCoy ordered. "Jesus Christ, Steve! You know better than to leave stuff like that for the Japs to find!"

  "Sorry," Koffler said contritely, and immediately dropped to his knees to pick up the shredded plastic in which the radio, the binoculars, and the carbines had been wrapped.

  "What I want you do to, Captain," McCoy said, "is go out in the surf until you're up to your waist. Koffler will go with you. Leave the Thompson. When that first boat gets here, help unload it. The stuff will float, and Koffler will see it doesn't get away. Then get in, and go out to the submarine."

  "What for?" Weston asked.

  "My orders are to send the highest-ranking officer I can find out with the Sunfish. You're it."

  "Why? I'm not sure-"

  "Don't argue with me," McCoy said coldly. "Just do it!"

  "You better do it, Mr. Weston," Everly said.

  Weston looked at McCoy, confusion in his eyes. McCoy felt sorry for him.

  "I think you're going to brief General MacArthur on what's going on around here," he said with a smile. "I know you're going to brief General Pickering."

  "MacArthur?" Everly said. "No shit?"

  "No shit, Everly," McCoy said. "And, Captain, don't shave off that beard until General Pickering sees it."

  Everly still looked confused and hesitant.

  "Go, goddamn it!" McCoy said. "By the time you wade through the surf, the boat'll be there."

  Weston looked at Everly, who nodded.

  "Have a cold one for me, Mr. Weston," he said, and put out his hand.

  "Take care of yourself, Everly," Weston said, aware and surprised that he wanted to cry again.

  "Yeah," Everly said. He held out his hand for Weston's Thompson sub-machine gun. Weston gave it to him, then walked to the edge of the water and waded in.

  "Where can we stash the stuff we're bringing ashore?" McCoy asked, turning to Everly.

  "How much stuff?"

  "What's in those two boats for now," McCoy said. "More stuff tomor-row, if we get away with this."

  "I think you can forget tomorrow," Everly said. "There's going to be Japs over here sooner or later, and I think sooner."

  "Tell me about the Japs," McCoy said.

  "Four-man patrol," Everly responded. "I think they got off a truck down there a ways, and were supposed to be picked up by another a couple of miles down that. When they don't show up, I think somebody will come looking for them."

  "How much time?"

  Everly threw up his hands helplessly.

  "If we're lucky, nobody heard the Thompson. That may give us a little more time. If they did, we could have Japs anytime."

  "What about stashing this stuff?"

  "There's jungle for maybe half a mile from here to the road, in a straight line. Any place between here and the road would be as good as any."

  "How far away is Fertig?"

  "Sixty miles. But he's moving."

  "What do you mean he's moving?"

  "He figured maybe one of us would be captured. He didn't want us to tell the Japs if we got captured. If we don't know where he went, we can't tell the Japs."

  "Oh, Jesus!"

  "But no sweat, McCoy. He'll find us, if the Japs don't find us first."

  "What do you think of Fertig?"

  "He's a little weird," Everly said. "He's got a little red goatee, and I guess you know he's not a real general. He was a light colonel, I think. But he's smart, and he's got balls."

  That's about as close to high praise as Everly is likely to give, McCoy decided.

  "OK. Here's the drill. The first thing we do is get Koffler and one of the radios to Fertig. How do we do that?"

  "I know where to meet Captain Hedges and the patrol...."

  "How many men on the patrol? Enough to carry this stuff?"

  "Enough to carry a lot of it. You won't believe how much crap these Flips can carry. But I don't know how many men. Probably fifteen, twenty, any-how."

  "Can a couple of them take Koffler to Fertig? I guess he's got about a hundred pounds of gear."

  "I got a motorcycle stashed a ways back," Everly said. "If I can find the sonofabitch. Can we strap what he has to take on the motorcycle?"

  "What about Japs on the road?"

  "I don't know," Everly said. "And the General didn't say anything, but like I said, he's smart. He'll probably do something the other side of Boston to have all the Japs running around up there."

  "Fertig, you mean?"

  Everly nodded.

  "Or I could carry-what did you say his name is?"

  "Koffler."

  "-Koffler and his stuff to the motorcycle and wait until tonight to move down the road."

  "Your call," McCoy said. "Just keep in mind, getting Koffler and that radio to Fertig is the most important thing right now."

  "Just one radio?"

  "I got another one here. And there's two more on the sub, if we can get more stuff off."

  He looked out to sea. The first boat had reached Koffler and Weston, and Lewis was shoving black plastic-wrapped parcels over the side. Captain Rob-ert B. Macklin, USMC, was kneeling in the center of the boat doing, as far as McCoy could see, absolutely nothing.

  The second boat, carrying Zimmerman and two sailors from the Sunfish, was approaching them.

  The sun was fully up now. If a Japanese patrol boat appeared, or worse, an airplane, the Sunfish would be in trouble.

  McCoy scanned the horizon, and then the skies, with the binoculars. There was nothing.

  Zimmerman's boat passed Lewis's and kept coming.

  "If they don't go over the side now, it'll turn over in the surf," McCoy mused aloud.

  A minute later, his prediction came true. The boat flipped over on its side, dumping the three men and the stack of plastic-wrapped parcels into the sea.

  "Come on, we better get those people some weapons," McCoy said, and led Everly to the boat they had dragged off the beach into the jungle. He reached into the boat, pulled a plastic-wrapped parcel of carbines from it, and slit the plastic.

  "That's the knife you had in Shanghai, right?" Everly said.

  "So what?"

  "Just curious, is all," Everly said.

  "Let me show you how this works," McCoy said, picking up one of the carbines. "The safety and the magazine release are here on the trigger assem-bly. You flip the little lever horizontal to take it off safety. You push the button and the magazine falls out." He demonstrated. "Fifteen shots. You shove it back in until it clicks. Then you work the action-he demonstrated again-and it's ready to go."

  "Pistol cartridges, huh?" Ev
erly said scornfully, taking the weapon.

  "Hot pistol cartridges. They'd blow up a pistol."

  "Will they kill anybody?"

  "Yeah," McCoy said. "If you hit him, and he's not five hundred yards away."

  "You know that?" Everly asked dubiously.

  "I know that. They're not a real rifle, but they're a lot better than a pistol."

  "Most people can't shoot a pistol to save their ass," Everly said.

  "That's the whole idea," McCoy said.

  "You've got ammo, I hope? We're fucking near out of ammo, ours and Japanese. We're making our own fucking bullets from curtain rods, and load-ing the cases with powder from Jap rounds. I'm down to thirteen rounds for this." He shifted his Thompson on his shoulder.

  "There's ammo for these, and a couple of hundred.45 ACP and.30-06 rounds. If we can get it off the sub."

  "Grenades? We could really use some grenades."

  "Not on this shipment," McCoy said. "Maybe the next."

  "Is there going to be another shipment? More submarines?"

  "In twenty-one days. If we can keep ourselves from getting killed before then," McCoy said. He slit open a second parcel containing four U.S. Car-bines, Caliber.30 Ml, slung three of them around his shoulder, and started back to the beach.

  Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis, dragging two plastic-wrapped parcels be-hind him, came out of the water.

  "Good morning, Mr. McCoy," he said. "I see the Marines have landed, and the situation is presumably well in hand?"

  "You weren't supposed to come ashore," McCoy said.

  "I knew how important it was to you that Captain Macklin join your beach party," Lewis said. "And I could not, I found, just go sailing away without proving to you that I could paddle a rubber boat as well as you."

  McCoy looked over his shoulder. Macklin was moving as quickly as he could through chest-deep water toward the beach. So far as McCoy could see, he was not towing anything behind him.

  And then he laughed. "Oh, Christ, look at that."

  Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, water streaming off his body, looking very distressed and annoyed, plodded heavily through the sand toward them, dragging four obviously heavy plastic-wrapped parcels. Behind him came the two sailors, each dragging two plastic-wrapped parcels.

  "Why didn't you get out of the boat, the way I told you?" McCoy asked.

  "I couldn't see how deep the water was, and I didn't want to drown, for Christ's sake. I can't swim!" He recognized Everly. "Hey! What do you say, Everly? How they hanging?"

  "Can't complain. McCoy told me they made you a gunny."

  "Yeah. How about that? You going to lend a hand with this crap, or just stand there with your thumb up your ass?"

  "You may get stuck here," McCoy said to Lewis. "The place is liable to be crawling with Japs anytime now. The Fertig guy-what's his name, Ev-erly?"

  "Weston, Sir," Everly said. "Captain James Weston."

  He called me "Sir," McCoy realized, surprised. I'll be damned.

  "... Captain Weston took out a four-man Jap patrol as we were coming ashore. Everly thinks other Japs will come looking for them."

  "That would be best," Everly said.

  "Best?" McCoy asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Worst is that they did hear Mr. Weston's Thompson and went off to tell somebody. Best would be if they didn't hear the gunfire, but send a couple of people looking for the first patrol. Better would be we could find the truck they're in-"

  "We don't know there's a truck," McCoy interrupted.

  "-and take that out, hide the truck and the bodies in the bush someplace where they won't be found for a couple of days. That would make it less likely that the Japs could find the stuff we're going to stash here."

  "Or find the truck and take it five miles, ten miles from here," McCoy said thoughtfully.

  "Even better," Everly agreed.

  "What's wrong with your ankle?" McCoy asked.

  "I fell out of a tree and sprained it," Everly said.

  "Then how are we going to find the truck?"

  "I could get a tree limb, and make a crutch or something."

  "You tell me where you think this truck is, Everly, and I'll find the fucker," Gunny Zimmerman said matter-of-factly.

  "You're going to have to go with him, Everly," McCoy said. "There's no way around it. We'll get the stuff into the jungle and wait here for you."

  "Zimmerman, are those little rifles any good?" Everly asked.

  "For what we're going to use them for," Zimmerman said.

  "Well, you better give me one, then. All I have is thirteen rounds for the Thompson. Unless... Where's that.45 ammo, McCoy?"

  "I don't know where it is right now."

  "Then hand me one of them little rifles. We don't have much time."

  "There is, of course," McCoy said, looking at Lewis, "one other option."

  "You want me to go with them? Why not?"

  "That's not what I meant," McCoy said, and then, pointing out to sea, went on. "Captain Weston is almost at the Sunfish. I could radio them to get the hell out of here the second he's aboard and... Maybe that's what I should do."

  "The U.S. Navy has gone to considerable expense and effort, Mr. McCoy, to place that vessel where she lies," Lewis said. "I don't think anyone aboard would want to leave until they unload the cargo, or a Jap destroyer appears."

  McCoy looked at him thoughtfully.

  "Whichever comes first," Lewis added.

  "You really are liable to get stuck here with us," McCoy said. "You un-derstand that?"

  "I had that unpleasant thought shortly after I got in the rubber boat," Lewis said. "Shall I pass the Sunfish the word to start unloading cargo?"

  "The radio's right inside the bushes, over there," McCoy said, pointing.

  Captain Robert B. Macklin waded the final steps ashore and then threw himself flat on the sand, as if exhausted.

  "He hurt, or what?" Everly asked, concerned.

  "Fuck him, let him lie there," McCoy said.

  "We have to get those boats back into the water," Lewis said, and then bellowed "Macklin!" in a surprisingly loud voice.

  Macklin raised his head to look at him, then moved his arms in a helpless gesture.

  "Get your ass moving, Macklin, start helping us get the boats back through the surf, or I'll shoot you myself!" Lieutenant Lewis called.

  Captain Macklin continued to make gestures implying helpless exhaustion until Lieutenant Lewis took one of the carbines from Lieutenant McCoy, chambered a round, and put the weapon to his shoulder. Then, his strength having miraculously returned, Captain Macklin scurried down the beach, grabbed the line on a rubber boat, and started to drag the boat toward the water.

  Lieutenant Everly's eyes grew wide, but he said nothing.

  "Were you really going to shoot him?" McCoy asked, a smile on his face.

  "I don't know," Lewis said wonderingly. "Fortunately for both of us, neither did he." He then had a second thought. "Why don't we just let him paddle out to the Sunfish and go aboard?"

  "He stays," McCoy said firmly.

  Lewis nodded, turned away, and trotted toward the radio.

  "Who's he, McCoy?" Everly asked.

  "He's a dog robber for an admiral at Pearl Harbor."

  "I meant the asshole on the beach."

  "It's a long story, Everly. I'll tell you later," he said.

  [FOUR]

  United States Submarine Sunfish

  126ø 48 East Longitude 7ø 35 West Latitude

  Philippine Sea

  0527 Hours 24 December 1942

  "Skipper?" Lieutenant Amos P. Youngman, USN, asked, leaving the second part of the interrogatory-"Do you see that?"-unsaid.

  "I see it," Lieutenant Commander Warren T. Houser, USN, replied.

  Both Commander Houser and Lieutenant Youngman were on the crowded conning-tower bridge of the Sunfish, binoculars to their eyes, alternately watching the rubber boats close to shore and scanning the skies and horizon for si
gns of Japanese activity.