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

by Timothy James Dean

  Sometimes the Army and Navy guys didn’t get along, but a free drink helped. The newcomers mixed with the others, sitting wherever there was a free chair. The skipper ended up beside Johnny. Still standing, he said in a loud voice his name was Jack, and he launched into a joke about a Texan, a Mexican, a Longhorn bull, and a big-chested blonde. Now, Johnny came from a tight-laced family. Early on, his father warned him that swearing was an indication of a poor education and even poorer imagination. He said the only educated men who used foul language were bores who substituted words for fists in order to beat those around them into submission. Language like this was acceptable from his Navy cohorts, but he would not tolerate it in his home.

  Johnny’s mother took it a step further. She promised her boy that if she heard a ‘potty mouth’ from him, she’d clean it with soap. Johnny made the mistake only twice of using the words around her that he heard every day at school, even from his football coach. He remembered each occasion with absolute clarity, because both times he’d found himself suddenly going sideways, his usually benign mother dragging him by the ear. At the sink, he’d been ordered to stick out his tongue. She’d lathered her hands and smeared on the suds. Even in the Army, surrounded by men who turned the air blue with their language, Johnny didn’t like to cuss. If he did, he tasted Lifebuoy.

  A story as graphic as the one the skipper spun would have been beyond the vale. But Johnny had been in the Army for years now. He figured he’d heard it all, and then some, but he hadn’t heard this one. The looey built to the punch line and delivered it well. The men roared with laughter, Johnny included.

  After that, Jack sat down, turned with an easy smile, and they started talking. First topic was the gunboat, and Jack seemed impressed by how much Johnny knew. Johnny explained he was a Navy brat, and they moved on to various warships. Johnny named a few his forbearers had sailed on. He found himself describing the Pennsylvania-class Super Dreadnought that had been his father’s last ship. Jack whistled and asked for his name.

  “Johnny Willman.” Jack asked if Lieutenant Commander Jeremy Willman was any relation.

  “My father,” Johnny said shortly, suddenly regretting the tack the conversation had taken. That made retired Rear Admiral Horace Willman his grandfather? Johnny nodded. Jack paused and said he knew what had happened to Johnny’s old man, and he was sorry about it. Johnny didn’t reply. His throat was too tight.

  Jack gave him a look, then got them each another beer. He changed the subject, and Johnny was grateful. The skipper said he’d found an anti-tank cannon that was sitting idle. He planned to “redeploy” it, he grinned. He pointed at his boat, now a dark line on the waves. He would mount the big gun there, near the bow. Then he’d really blow holes in the side of the “Tokyo Express,” he enthused. Johnny knew that’s what they called the flotilla of enemy ships that delivered troops and supplies through these islands. In order to avoid being sunk by Allied fighters, the Japanese convoys ran at night. And that’s where PT boats like Jack’s came in.

  “We’re like those huge crocs out here,” the skipper grinned. “We’re fast, and we’ve got big teeth.” He went on to talk about racing sailboats in Florida. Johnny described surfing the huge waves at Waimea Bay and Sunset on Oahu’s north shore. Somehow, every topic came back to girls. Jack described a drive he’d made around Europe in a sports car, and some of his romantic conquests. Johnny realized that the looey had “known” a lot more women than he had, in the biblical sense.

  At 22-hundred, Jack said he had to get back aboard his PT-109. He’d grab some shuteye and at midnight, he and the boys would head “into the slot to find Japs.” Johnny said he had his own to hunt in the morning, and explained he was a sniper. He watched his new acquaintance closely, watching for a sign of revulsion, but Jack only nodded. He asked if Johnny would mind if he took a look at his rifle.

  Johnny had the Springfield over the back of the chair. He always kept it close at hand, and he generally didn’t like anyone to touch it. But somehow, he didn’t mind with Jack. He handed it over and was pleased to see the looey took it carefully, in both hands. Jack put his eye to the scope and panned the coconut trees silhouetted against the fading sky.

  “If I can ask, how do you look at a man, see his face I mean, and shoot him? I don’t know if I could do it.” Again, Johnny had his ears tuned for a hint of criticism, but there was none and he thought it through.

  “At first it was hard. But you get used to it.”

  Jack nodded and handed the Springfield back. For a minute, there was silence, then the skipper said it was time to go. He stood and called to his sailors. Grumbling good-naturedly, they got up. Johnny hung his rifle over his shoulder and walked them to the water. The sailors waded in and swam out. Jack stepped into the waves and turned back.

  “Let’s get together after the war,” he said. “Have a few be-ahs.”

  “I didn’t get your last name,” Johnny told him.

  “It’s Kennedy,” the voice came from the darkness. “Jack Kennedy.” There was the ghost of that smile and the looey dove and followed the voices of his men.

  Sure, we’ll get together after the war, Johnny thought. More likely, neither of us will make it home.

  Now, on the Port Moresby harbor, the PT boat disappeared in the distance. My number could have come up a thousand times, Johnny thought. So far I’ve made it. I wonder about Jack? He flicked away the butt and stood, bracing against the pain. The meeting to decide if I can rejoin my unit is at 9-hundred hours. He took a few strides and broke into a jog, retracing his route along the harbor.

  Keep on point, he told himself. Do what you need to do to get back in the fight!

  That’s the problem with Gwyn, it occurred to him. I’d like to get to know her, but the Jap invasion is coming right up. The sun blasted down and he really wanted that shower, as cold as the water could get.

  The natives stared as the tall man flew by, undershirt pasted to his chest. Why do they do it? they wondered. Why run in a circle, then stop and walk away? The white man, as always, was a mystery.

  What could I even offer a knockout like Gwyn? Johnny asked himself. The killer-soldier was quick to reply. Nothing. You’ve got nothing but heartache to give her. That you’ve made it this far is sheer blind luck. You’re not likely to survive the battle in Japan. And that means, leave her alone. If you care about her at all, that’s the best gift you can give her! His heart hammered like a loose piston and each breath burned.

  And while Johnny knew the hard case was right, some part of him still hoped he’d see her today.

  CHAPTER 6

  As Gwyn and Ruthie approached the entrance to Acute Care, they paid little attention to the staring men. The medics and natives were stopped in their tracks by the stunning pair. Gwyn was tall, with long legs, her lovely face dominated by wide green eyes, her wavy chestnut curls cut in a bob. Then there was Ruthie with her voluptuous curves and merry blue eyes, her cap barely hanging onto the red riot of hair.

  Neither young woman fully realized how, in this male domain of organized death, they shone like beacons of a better world. The men who saw them drank in their passage with admiration, and a pang of something like desperation.

  Gwyn found her thoughts racing away—to him! Get a grip, she chastised herself. You’re the one who put the boycott on military men. He only cares about more fighting. Most guys have a one-track mind, but his is on the wrong one. Still, she found herself hoping she’d see him today.

  They pushed through the swinging doors of the huge Quonset hut, assailed by the odors of disinfectant and disease. Injured men were laid out on forty beds. The nurses went behind a partition and scrubbed their hands and forearms at the sink. They continued to the nurses’ station and exchanged greetings with four Australian counterparts going off duty.

  Their eyes roved the ward. Doctors moved among the beds, administering medicine and encouragement. Nurses changed bandages, sheets and bedpans. The kitchen staff of whites and natives wheeled around t
he breakfast trolleys.

  Gwyn was struck, as she often was, by the profound aspect of her work. In spite of everything she did, some of these men would die. Others would recover. And all of them would count on her to get them through the next minutes, hours, and days.

  She saw an older physician in a clutch of doctors. This was Doctor MacClure, Director of the Hospital and Head of Surgery, presiding over his realm. “Doc Mac” was a gruff man with a shock of white hair. He was seventy years old, and still a formidable intellect. He did not bear fools or the inept lightly—he bore them not at all. Dressings down by the Chief were legendary, and to be avoided at all cost.

  Some feared him, but Gwyn admired Doc Mac. If you did your job competently, you had nothing to fear. Gwyn knew he would always do the sensible thing. When some poor soldier was beyond help, Doc moved out of the fellow’s hearing and said so. The patient was given kindness and painkillers and turned over to the chaplain or priest. But if, in Doc’s opinion, the man could be saved, he wasted no time getting him to surgery. He was a master of the deft amputation.

  In addition to their injuries, he treated his patients for the gamut of tropical ailments. In complex cases—men with infected wounds, and suffering from everything from malaria to dysentery, Doc commenced treatment and ordered tests. If one approach did not work, he tried another, and another, until the man either improved or succumbed.

  This morning, Gwyn could tell that once more, Doc had spent the night on the ward. He owned a fine home in the Moresby hills, but as often as not, he slept on a cot right here, behind a curtain.

  Now, eyes tired but still sharp, he waited for Gwyn and Ruthie. He launched into a rapid-fire briefing on the night’s developments and gave them their instructions. There had been a skirmish somewhere inland, and at first light this morning, aircraft had brought in eleven new wounded Australians. Doc Mac departed to amputate a leg. The nurses went about their duties.

  Gwyn brought her mind to bear on her tasks. For the time being, at least, thoughts of the two men were pushed away.

  Doctor MacClure was one of the best medical minds Australia had produced. He had been head of surgery at the Royal Sydney Hospital for decades. In 1940, at the age of sixty-five, he retired. The lifelong bachelor returned to his house on the river in Parramatta, and tended his garden. He concocted homemade tonics for his prize roses, stocked his wine cellar, and went on walking tours in the Blue Mountains and Broken Hill.

  When it became clear in 1942 that the Japanese were on their way, sites clearly set on Australia, Doc Mac could not remain on the sidelines. The authorities were only too grateful to have a man of his caliber. He was sent up to Papua and New Guinea. It was there that the military intended to stop the Japanese juggernaut. It was the last line of defense before Australia herself.

  In fact, the enemy actually got as close as bombing the Australian city of Darwin. That occurred only two months after the Yanks were hit at Hawaii, and it was known as “the Australian Pearl Harbor.” Doc Mac pointed out that more bombs had fallen on Darwin than had on Pearl. In fact, in ’42 and ’43, “the Japs” made more than a hundred raids against his homeland.

  In the same month as the attack on Aus, February of ‘42, the medical administrator arrived by ship in Port Moresby, accompanied by numerous crates of equipment. He organized and added onto the hodgepodge of edifices that made up the hospital compound. He established surgery tents, installed X-ray machines, and built a lab. This he outfitted in part with captured Japanese microscopes, the only enemy medical equipment up to his standards.

  Doc Mac and his staff could now order urine and stool analyses, malaria smears and typhus agglutinations. Experienced as he was, the physician found there was much to learn. The New Guinea ailments were exotic and voracious. He devised a number of breakthrough therapies that saved lives and limbs.

  In early 1945, Doc Mac’s success rate improved dramatically with the arrival of what he called “one of the highlights of human history.” A few years earlier, a Scotsman, Alexander Fleming, discovered that Penicillium mold stopped other bacteria in their tracks. But it was an Australian, Doc Mac liked to point out, his old mate Howard Florey, who developed penicillin as a usable treatment for human infections.

  By 1944, America was churning out the miracle drug in significant quantities—all derived, Doc Mac heard, from green mold on a single pawpaw. But with the extraordinary demands of war, penicillin remained virtually impossible to come by. Doc Mac took advantage of his connection with Florey. At last, in March of ’45, several cases of the precious drug were offloaded in Moresby.

  That was how it came to pass, when a dying soldier was rushed off a ship, Doc Mac was ready. With remedies new and old, he prepared to do battle for the young chap’s life.

  Johnny was comatose when he came in. His wound had been spewing poison into his bloodstream for too long: he was losing the fight. Gwyn took his temperature while he was still on the stretcher and found it 106ºF. Doc cut away the soiled bandages and the stench made them gag. The whole chest was red and swollen. Much worse, the tissue surrounding the dark lesion was green and black.

  “Necrotic,” Doc Mac said. Dead flesh. “Gangrene,” he continued, and it sounded like the death sentence.

  Gwyn helped Doc roll the soldier on his side. They saw the scarred shoulder blade where the bullet had exited. It was purple, but healed over. They lay him on his back again, and Doc probed the wound, while Gwyn wiped the patient’s face with a wet towel.

  His eyelids fluttered and his lips moved. She brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. His forehead felt like cold clay, in spite of his raging fever. She was worried Doc Mac would pronounce him a hopeless case, but he did not say the words. At least, not yet.

  “To surgery!” he ordered. Native orderlies hoisted the stretcher and trotted after Doc Mac and Gwyn to a tent. They transferred the man to the operating table, while Gwyn and the surgeon scrubbed up. The anesthesiologist joined them at the sink. Gwyn knew he could not use ether—it was too volatile in the extreme heat. Instead, he had sodium pentothal and nitrous oxide at his disposal. But as long as the soldier remained unconscious, no drug was needed.

  Doc selected his instruments while Gywn prepared the site. She clamped a wad of cotton, dipped it in iodine, and liberally swabbed the entire pectoral muscle. Doc Mac took his scalpel and carved a smooth cone in the flesh, going to the bone. Gwyn and the other physician used clamps to pinch each curl of black flesh and dispose of it.

  “Wide edges,” Doc murmured, “to lessen the chance of gas gangrene.” If that infected the tissue, the man would die. Gwyn applied hemostats to the severed blood vessels until Doc could tie them off. She used a hand suction to remove the blood. The wound looked better, but she saw that the black patches continued deep into the cavity.

  “Move him to an isolation tent and put him under a mosquito net,” Doc Mac ordered. “Leave the lesion uncovered. Inject him with penicillin. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

  Gwyn followed instructions while Doc drove his car to his house. As he strode through, he greeted the Mount Hagen man who was his caretaker and cook. Doc exited onto the back veranda and crossed the lawn. He came to an odd looking shed. The roof was corrugated metal, but the walls were netting stretched around posts, a screen door in one. A buzzing grew as he approached, and he held his breath against the reek of rotting meat. He unlatched the door, slipped inside, and fastened it.

  The place swarmed with green flies. On a rough table rested chunks of well-decayed pork that seemed to move. Doc picked up a glass jar and unscrewed the lid. The meat was smothered in maggots. With a paintbrush, he swept twenty or thirty writhing larvae into the jar. He screwed the lid down and rushed back to the hospital.

  Gwyn was at the patient’s bedside when he returned. Doc Mac ducked under the netting and took the soldier’s pulse. He found it dangerously fast and irregular. He unscrewed his jar and spilled the maggots into the open wound. Even though she’d seen the doctor do this before, Gwyn’s
stomach lurched. Still, she knew the purpose. These particular fly larvae ate only dead tissue, and left the healthy alone. Doc came back under the netting, picked up the chart, and made a note.

  “Maggot debridement begun,” he said. “We’ll know soon if our patient—what’s his name?”

  “John Willman,” Gwyn answered, having read the report that came with him. “Twenty years old. American.”

  “We’ll soon know if young John Willman will survive the crisis.” Doc assigned Gwyn to the boy’s care, with her regular duties. As the day went by, she found herself frequently by Willman’s side, peering at the writhing grubs. It was both fascinating and disturbing to watch them feed. Encouragingly, the black patches were shrinking. Every three hours, Gwyn administered another shot of penicillin and checked the saline drip. He absorbed three liters of fluid that day.

  Finally, at one in the morning, hours after her shift was over, she dragged herself to bed. First thing in the morning, she stuck her head into the tent and saw the soldier was still insensate, but breathing calmly. His pulse had slowed to a hundred and twenty. The swelling was beginning to subside. Best yet, the wound was clean and pink. The maggots were lethargic, but still twitching.

  She gave the patient a dose of Penicillin and took his temperature: 104º.

  Another day, and it was 101º, his pulse a mere ninety. She and Doc concurred that the man stood a fighting chance. Two mornings later, Gwyn arrived to find a squadron of shiny green flies circling inside the mosquito net. She opened the tent door, lifted the netting, and gave them their freedom. After what they had achieved, it was the least she could do.

  When Gwyn turned around, she found the patient’s brown eyes open and staring at her.

  “I’m John Willman,” the soldier rasped. “You call me Johnny.” She hastened to give him water from the glass she’d placed by his bedside. He tried to sit up and fell back. She sat beside him, lifted his head and helped him get a drink. It struck her that, shaved and cleaned up, he might be a decent-looking fellow. Of course, he’d have to be fattened up.