TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite (The South Pacific Trilogy)

by Timothy James Dean

  Reader Raves

  "TEETH has more hooks than a fisherman’s tackle box. Get ready to make some new ‘best mates’ and go reeling with them on a wild, wild ride! I am always in transit, and I devour at least three bestsellers a week. Because I have to carry it, I rate each book on whether it was worth carrying. I must tell you, TEETH was worth every ounce! I have a special love of fiction that entertains, while informing me about real events and places in our world. TEETH is the work of a master storyteller."

  —Sharon Noe, Executive VP, USA

  "TEETH is a fascinating read. A monster crocodile, soldiers, surfers, cannibals, headhunters, alluring women, mortal enemies and best of friends. It’s an epic story, brilliantly conceived and executed. It’s set primarily in New Guinea—a real place. Our heroes fight for their lives against the sweep of world events at the close of WW2. TEETH informed, enthralled, and moved me. Mr. Dean’s research is voluminous, insightful and meticulous. Before TEETH, I did not know much about the ‘Cargo Cult,’ MacArthur’s ‘forgotten war,’ or Catholicism in Japan. TEETH has everything going for it."

  —David Williams, Reviewer, Canada

  "I must say, TEETH is a masterpiece. It is one of the greatest books I have ever read. The whole thing is gripping. The beautiful language helps the reader envision every scene. This is the trait of a great novel. Timothy has visited Japan and studied our culture. I do not know of another novel that shows American and Japanese soldiers learning to respect and appreciate one another, and become friends. Healing the wounds of war goes on to this day. Now I want to see the movie!"

  —Yasuyuki Kasai, Samurai Descendant,

  Author, “Dragon of the Mangroves”

  Dedication

  To Deborah,

  who made this book possible.

  For my parents,

  Jim and Glady Dean,

  who took me to New Guinea

  and let me roam free.

  And to the native people

  of the Island of

  New Guinea

  — may you remember the face

  of your mother and father.

  Prosper, “one-talks,”

  and live long!

  TEETH—The Epic Novel with Bite, is a work of fiction.

  Apart from well known actual people and major events and places that occur in the narrative, all characters names, places and incidents are figments of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to current places and persons living or dead is unintentional and coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Timothy James Dean

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced, used or stored in any manner whatsoever without explicit prior written consent of the copyright holder, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Published by

  Readr Books

  An imprint of

  Readr Publishing, LLC

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Save a tree! Please do not use snail mail.

  All inquiries:

  www.readrbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9825398-0-4

  World War 2, 1945, South Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Saltwater Crocodile Attack, Fiction

  Printed in the United States of America

  By Bookmasters, Inc., Idaho

  Cover design: Dwight Kirkland ö www.BlackleafStudios.com

  First Edition

  PROLOGUE

  It begins as a stream that leaps laughing from the mountains and bounds down through the canyons, chuckling in wide rapids. A torrent at last, grown in silent strength, it loops across the tropical wilderness. Mighty as it is, the river is swallowed whole by the mangrove swamps, but oozes forth again in fat fingers across the delta. At last the café au lait waters stain the sultry blue South Pacific Ocean, forming a plume visible far out to sea.

  The largest delta waterway is sixty yards across. Its banks are choked with jungle, except where the vegetation has been worn away by huge claws and dragging bodies.

  A brilliant blue butterfly dances down the foliage. A fish jumps at it and falls back in the shallows. The butterfly flits over a clearing and flutters down to perch on a stone. It is newly cracked from its cocoon, and flares its wings to harden in the sun.

  A tongue flicks out and the wings fold sideways and jerk into a cave that opens in thin air. A bullfrog galumphs forward, detaching from the background, the wingtips a gaudy fringe around its lips. One gulp and another, and the butterfly’s brief life is done.

  Its erstwhile perch begins to shake. The frog cocks its head and watches cracks web across the surface. This, it seems, is no rock. An end falls off, trailing mucus. A snout shoots from the gel. Yellow eyes with vertical irises fly open. The frog pulls its head into its chins while the newcomer struggles to birth itself.

  With only its tail stuck, four clawed legs raking the mud, the hatchling attempts to walk away, but the past is not yet done with it. The infant pauses and pants while the frog grows sleepy.

  At last the little one goes into a paroxysm of lashing and flings the shell off. The bullfrog sees a scaly olive back, creamy throat, and jaws lined with sharp teeth. It does not perceive this as food, and it turns on its haunches to leap into the river.

  Its movement attracts attention. The hatchling comes at it on unsure legs. The frog dips its head while the other lifts its snout.

  They sniff.

  The baby leaps up, rising on its tail, and bites across the frog’s head, sealing its nostrils. Needles sink through green flesh and agony blossoms in the amphibian brain. Now how it bucks, but its rider hangs on. Again and again, the two somersault up and crash to earth. The frog cannot breathe, and in mounting panic, it tries to shake its tormentor off. The baby whips but will not let go.

  The frog gathers its hind legs and makes its most prodigious leap. The combatants cartwheel across the sky. They fall together and the hatchling strikes its head on a sharp ridge of rock, the full weight of the frog hammering down on it. The baby is slashed across an eye to the bone. But still, it will not let loose.

  The bullfrog walks toward the river, dragging its terrible appendage. Its throat spasms continually and it stares at the water, so close, but forever out of reach. Its jade eyes bulge and the world goes dim. It topples on its side. The hatchling is dragged with it and rolls hard, which flops the amphibian on its back. The baby embraces the frog until the long legs scissor out, tremble, and go still.

  Only now does the hatchling release its grip. It trots down the corpse’s flank and stops where a leg attaches. It positions its jaws and bites again. Blood gurgles down its throat and the baby achieves its first ecstasy. It jerks its head from side to side, mewling, as the frog belly slops. The leg pops off, trailing tendons. The hatchling turns it in its mouth. In the way of its kind, it does not chew, just chomps and swallows. The limb slides down its gullet. When one end is in its stomach and a webbed foot droops from its snout, the infant rests again.

  A basso rumble comes from the sky. It is so loud, the puddles tremble. The hatchling is terrified as a head a thousand times its size descends. A great fence of teeth settles on the mud. But once more, instinct comes to its aid. The little one is staring into the eye of its enormous mother. It sees her with stereoscopic vision. The slice across its head has not hurt its eye.

  For a time, the two are lost in reptilian love.

  At last the baby chokes down the frog foot, and in the aftermath of the kill, it turns to the river to bellow its triumph. It opens its jaws, but only a squeak emerges. Then its mother joins
in, a guttural roar that makes storks defecate and mount the air. For this is the call of Crocodylus porosus, the giant saltwater crocodile, and the largest reptile on Earth.

  Upon hearing this sound the bones of all animals, including man, turn to water, for this predator feeds on their kind. It is the sly hunter that spies on them from the river, and the nightmare that surges up, seizes them in pitiless teeth and drags them down to their doom.

  But at this moment, the female belies that reputation. Her twelve-foot body draped on the riverbank, she is the epitome of fond motherhood. Behind her stands a nest, a mound of clawed up mud and foliage. In it are scores of pale eggs, some whole, others in shards. This morning, upon hearing the chorus of chirps and taps from within, she gently nuzzled and scraped away the covering.

  Across the clearing, a dozen miniature crocodiles take their first steps. Curiously, every one is male, but this, too, is the way of the species. The precise temperature at which they incubated determined their sex. A degree or two either way, and the entire brood would have been female.

  Of them all, only the largest has killed and eaten. The baby bull still rests beside its mother. A sibling approaches, lured by the reek of death, and begins to tug at the corpse. Its brother is consumed by new sensations—rivalry and territorial rage. It charges the interloper and bites, and the two twist across the mud. The mother raises her head and grunts approval, for in her world, all is as it should be.

  In the nearby jungle, her call makes the bristles rise on a wild boar. It snorts and charges off, tossing its tusks. An arrow flashes across the light and skewers the pig. It topples squealing on its side and the projectile stands. This is long as a spear, featherless, with a hollow bamboo point. The boar roots at its torment while its life-blood pumps through the tube.

  A brown man steps from the foliage. He is brawny and young and carries a black longbow and a clutch of pig arrows. White beads are woven in his kinky hair, and in the hole punched through his nasal septum are two crocodile teeth, bound together, points out. He is naked except for the cucumber-size gourd that encases his genitals, tied around his waist with bark string. A stone knife presses against his side.

  The pig hunter places a foot on the boar and pulls out his arrow. He crouches with his knife and cuts the throat from ear to ear. The boar thrashes, and the man speaks soothing words until it dies. Then he grasps the trotters and slings it around his neck. He takes his weapons and stands. Hog blood spills and he looks down at it.

  An arrow slams into his chest and emerges from his back. The hunter’s features contort as he sees the hardwood tip, carved in backswept barbs. His own blood flows with the boar’s.

  Five more Negroid warriors step from the jungle. These look so different than their victim, they might almost be a different species. Their facial features are broad, and their bodies shine coal-black. Patterns in red, white and yellow mark their faces, torsos and thighs. Through their noses are paired pig tusks, turned up towards the eyes, signifying war. Floating over them are headdresses of white egret feathers, incongruous in their delicate beauty.

  These men carry longbows, but with arrows of the kind for killing men. Some wield stone-headed axes and cudgels. They, too, are naked but for their penis gourds, but these are yellow and long, leave the testes exposed, and curl in outlandish shapes.

  Two of the newcomers wear especially grisly trophies. Freshly cut human heads dangle from their necks. The dead faces resemble the pig hunter—the same beads in the hair and crocodile teeth through the noses. The stricken man’s eyes fix on his kin while his knees buckle. The attackers seize his arms to hold him up. One jerks the boar off his neck and runs an admiring finger along a tusk.

  The most powerful of the headhunters steps to the victim. This is the Mambu-ato, the war chief, and it is his arrow that skewers the man. He reaches a finger to the place where it punctures the ribs, dips it in hot blood, and sucks it. He flashes a grin of ebony teeth.

  He grabs the knife from his victim’s fingers and carves a slice off the shoulder. The hunter jerks back, but is held firm. The chief folds the meat into his mouth and smacks his lips. His warriors shout with cruel laughter. The last thing the pig hunter sees is his own body being consumed. He jitters as his eyelids close.

  His killer nestles the skull into his armpit and saws at the neck. His warriors hold the body while the chief removes the head. They chatter lightheartedly, as men will do after a successful hunt.

  The mother crocodile rests near the river, jaws agape. Her son guards his kill as he stares at the muddy swirling water. A crust of blood has dried across his eye in the shape of a crescent moon.

  The river spills endlessly into the sea.

  Part 1

  Operation Teeth

  “Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,

  even so I will endure…

  For already have I suffered full much,

  and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war.

  Let this be added to the tale of those.”

  – Homer, The Odyssey

  “They died hard, those savage men—like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk.

  And I loved them.”

  – General Douglas MacArthur

  "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

  – Leon Trotsky

  CHAPTER 1

  PORT MORESBY ON THE SOUTHERN COAST OF NEW GUINEA

  - July, 1945

  “Operation Teeth” is a good name.

  The sixty-seven year old Commander stared through the window at the sunlight winking on the harbor. We will show the Japs when they threaten Americans and our Allies—especially priests—they do so at their peril! His own war was in its final days. In less than a month he’d be on the family estate halfway around the world.

  Charleston, South Carolina. Put out to pasture like the old warhorse I am, he thought ruefully. But before I go, I will see this last action through. Now, who can I send with the Major?

  Dingo Hawsey, a senior Australian officer, had volunteered to lead the Colonel’s mission. He’s the ideal man. He ran his plantations before the war and he can handle the locals—speaks several of the barbaric languages. He’s a veteran of the Kokoda Trail, some of the fiercest fighting seen in New Guinea. And he’s as tough as a hickory axe handle.

  “Two man crew. One of ours—that’s me, Henry,” Dingo had said in this very office, “and one of yours. A proper Allied operation. Just make sure the bloke’s not too wet behind the ears. Give me someone who’s been in a scrap or two in the bush, will you?”

  So who do I have? Henry asked himself. He went through a mental list, but for one reason or another, was not satisfied. Here in mid-1945, the battle had moved further and further from Port Moresby. The best of the American soldiers were gone. Certainly, hundreds of thousands of enemy remained on the vast island, but it would be up to the Aussies to round them up. Most American fighting men had departed with the Colonel’s famous predecessor, Supreme Commander and five-star General Douglas MacArthur.

  Hard though it was for Henry to believe, only two months before, the Germans had surrendered. America’s “Operation Overlord” had prevailed, and the Nazis had been put down. In May, a stunned peace settled across war-numbed Europe. But here in the South Pacific, World War Two beat on, hammer-and-tongs. Still, the Japanese were being driven ever closer to their homeland.

  At this moment, Supreme Commander MacArthur was in Manila. He had made good his promise to liberate the Philippines. Henry Chambers pictured the General, face fierce as the American eagle emblazoned on his cap, staring north across the Pacific. The scuttlebutt was that MacArthur’s “Operation Downfall,” the invasion of the Japanese islands, would begin within months.

  And it was thinking about the Commander that gave Henry the answer to his own, more modest, challenge. The soldier’s hell-bent on getting back to the General in time for the invasion. He might only be twenty, but he�
�s no greenhorn. He’s been fighting in these hellish jungles since he was seventeen. Dingo will like that. He’s a sniper, an ace with a rifle, and that will be useful.

  The soldier was only in Port Moresby because he’d been wounded. He’d been shot through the chest and almost died. But as soon as he was mobile again, he’d started clamoring to get back in the fight.

  As if the Jap Invasion is his personal war! All right, Henry decided. I’ll give him the chance to show he’s fit. If he can rescue these priests, eliminate the Japs, and stay away from the crocodile—well, I’ll ship him back to MacArthur. He’ll get his fight.

  A beetle whizzed at him through the window. Metallic green wingcases spread wide, it struck the glass and bounced down. Unfortunately for the bug, it landed in a web. A black spider hung there, abdomen as big as a fifty-cent piece. Henry often watched these arachnids. They liked the harbor-side windows of the American compound. They wove a lacy “x” into their webs that marked dead center, where they waited. The instant the beetle tangled, the spider ran at it. As Henry watched, faintly appalled, the predator loomed and the bug redoubled its efforts to break loose. But the spider pounced and sank in its fangs. The beetle’s wings drooped. The hunter touched its abdomen to it and a strand of web glistened. It spun the beetle until it was wrapped like a mummy.

  This country! Something is always eating something else. Henry shuddered and returned to his desk.

  “Operation Teeth” will kill two birds with one stone. I give the Major an experienced fighter, and get the gung-ho boy out of my hair for a few days. The Colonel had a flash of inspiration. On top of that, I just may get a personal anecdote for the Foreword to my book. I have been a man of action!