Jock was exhausted, but he wasn’t insane. Any further tirade would help no one.
His psyche wasn’t quite finished speaking, though. “Sir,” he said, “I have no choice…I request to be relieved.”
He wanted to take those words back the moment they escaped. He hated the sound of them. From some still-lucid corner of his weary mind, a voice explained why:
I’ve heard so many officers say that, and it always comes out the same—like an ultimatum. One they don’t have the right to offer…like they’re putting their pride above the mission and the men they lead.
And now I’m talking like one of those assholes.
It’s still about “Duty, Honor, Country,” isn’t it? Just like they taught us at the Point?
This is still the Army. You don’t get to pick and choose which “duty” you perform. You just do what’s handed to you.
The man is still my boss…even if he is an incompetent ass.
I just need some sleep. Maybe this will all seem much different then.
Hailey’s reply provided Jock the easy way out. “Denied,” the colonel said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Day 13
If this was a dream, Jock never wanted to wake up. It featured Jillian—slightly older, just as beautiful—presiding over some outdoor social gala at a scenic, seaside venue. He wasn’t sure of the setting. It could have been Brisbane or perhaps Hawaii. Maybe even southern California. She was dressed, for once, in a lovely frock, hat, and gloves, like the women of wealthy families always wore in public. As usual, her air of total command seemed effortless.
A commentary of questions by an unseen narrator began. Jock recognized the speaker’s voice. It was his own:
Where the hell is the marching band? I can hear drums…bass drums, lots of them. How many bass drums does a marching band need, for cryin’ out loud? Jillian’s going about her business like nothing’s wrong, paying them no attention at all. Can’t she even hear them?
He awoke with a start, still immersed in the sound of drums; their continuous rumble was shaking his cot. The sweet dream dissolved into the murky turmoil of his conscious mind, and he descended back to war’s reality: Those aren’t drums. It’s drumfire—the artillery battery down the road firing like crazy. In fact, it sounds like every battery on Papua is firing like crazy.
Duty was calling once again. The hour of sleep it had allowed him would have to suffice.
As he stepped from his tent, an eerie white glow in the sky to the west greeted him. Damn, he thought, not only are we shelling the shit out of somebody, but we must be firing every damned illumination round we’ve got. It looks like the Fourth of July out there.
The scene greeting Jock at Regimental HQ looked like a carbon copy of the night before; only the downpour was missing. All along the division’s line, the Japanese were probing again. The only unit that wasn’t reporting contact at the moment was Charlie Company, high on Astrolabe.
But once again, the line units facing the Japanese believed they were being subjected to a major offensive. Surprisingly—and unlike last night—Colonel Hailey actually seemed interested in exercising some command authority, though still from a safe distance. He was on the phone, dressing down the commander of 3rd Battalion:
“Do not, Major…I repeat, do not allow your units to pull back. The Japs are only probing, looking for an opening. Don’t fall for their tricks and give them one.”
Hailey listened to the reply for a moment before cutting off the battalion commander: “Do I have to come down there and run your battalion myself, Major?”
The old operations sergeant snickered. He mumbled to Jock, “That would sure be a first, sir.”
Jock was intrigued by the sergeant’s candor. It wasn’t like old school master sergeants to make disparaging comments about officers to other officers. Not when they were sober, anyway.
“What do you mean, Sarge?”
He wouldn’t have been surprised if the sergeant clammed up, pretending those words had never passed his lips. But the old master sergeant was in a talkative mood. And like Jock, apparently, he was fed up with their regimental commander.
“Until the other day, sir, the only thing our Colonel Hailey ever commanded was a warehouse in the peacetime army.”
“What about The Great War, Sarge? He’s old enough…he must have served.”
“But he never set foot in France, sir. I don’t believe he ever got closer than New Jersey.”
Jock smiled; that explained a great deal.
“Funny thing, sir,” the old sergeant continued, “Colonel Murdock had no choice but to take him on as XO. There wasn’t anybody else. He didn’t know Hailey from Adam…and when he asked a buddy what sort of officer Hailey was, I’m told his buddy replied, ‘He’s a good golfer.’”
The thunder of artillery hadn’t slackened at all. It seemed to be doing its job, too, even if providing nothing more than moral support for the GIs. No American unit seemed to be unraveling like 2nd Battalion had last night. Maybe even Colonel Hailey had shown some command presence at last, dissuading 3rd Battalion from retreating. The regiment’s—and the division’s—line was holding fast.
But the requests for artillery fire kept pouring in from all across the division’s front. Busily updating the situation map, the operations sergeant muttered, “Hell of an expensive way to kill a couple of Japs running around in the open. We ain’t doing shit to the ones holed up in those bunkers.”
“Keep giving them all the fire they ask for,” Colonel Hailey said. “Better safe than sorry.”
They did just that for the better part of an hour. Then, the first call for fire from OP Charlie Able came in. Jock could tell it was Lee Grossman’s voice, but he had never heard the man sound so unsteady. The first words of the fire mission request were Danger Close.
Danger Close: standard terminology for friendly forces in close proximity to the target.
Grossman was still talking, giving the target description as Jap infantry in open, as Jock plotted the coordinates on the map:
Shit…the Japs must be right on top of them. Those coordinates are just short of the peak.
No sooner had Grossman’s fire request ended, 3rd Battalion was on the air again, screaming the coordinates for a new target. The target description: mass of infantry with vehicles and heavy weapons.
“Mother of God,” Colonel Hailey said, his face plainly ashen even in the tent’s dim electric light. “Probe, my ass! They’re getting hit with a mechanized attack.”
Jock tried to protest: “Sir, we haven’t seen a Jap armored vehicle since we got here. They can’t be under a mechanized attack.”
Second Battalion added their shrieking voices to the radio traffic. They, too, were suddenly being hit hard: “They’re all over the place,” the voice on the radio shrieked, rising in pitch with each hysterical word. “Thousands of them…they’re coming out of nowhere!”
From the other side of the tent, the flustered fire direction officer yelled, “I’ve got more shit to shoot at than I’ve got guns. Give me a target priority.”
Jock was already doing just that. Still hunched over the map, he called out, “Shift Baker Battery to OP Charlie Able direct support…High-angle, over the mountain. Do that first and do it fast!”
“NEGATIVE, MAJOR, NEGATIVE,” Hailey said, exerting his command presence once again. “The priority of fires goes to the regiment’s front, not that fucking outpost on the mountain.”
Jock’s reply was anything but courteous: “That fucking outpost as you call it is all that’s preventing this regiment…this division...from being enveloped. If they fall, we all fall.”
Hailey wasn’t buying it. “My immediate concern is preventing a breakthrough of our front line, Major. If that happens, we’ll fall a hell of a lot faster.”
“For God sakes, Colonel, there’s enough artillery raining down to kill every Jap in Port Moresby twice. Those battalions on the line are panicking again, just like last night.”<
br />
“How the hell would you know that, Major?”
“Because I was there, sir. Those troops are green and leaderless from the top down, and they’re proving it again.”
Hailey glowered, trying to figure out if from the top down was meant as an evaluation of his abilities, too.
Jock added, “The only troops you’ve got who are worth a shit are on that mountain right now, Colonel…and they need our help.”
The argument might have continued, but the next call over the radio stifled it: OP Charlie Able was calling for final protective fires.
Jock fully expected Hailey to continue his intransigence, but the colonel surprised him by saying: “Fuck it. Do what you think is best, Major.”
PFC Bucky Reynolds was alone in the fighting hole. Until a few minutes ago, Frank Simms had been there with him. Lieutenant Papadakis had come out of the darkness like a man possessed and snatched Simms away, telling Reynolds, “Cover this sector by yourself until I can get someone else. Stay alert…shoot anything that moves. The Nips are real close.”
What does it matter how close they are? Bucky asked himself as that all-too-familiar panic took control again. I can’t see shit, anyway. A Jap could be in the hole with me and I wouldn’t know it. This is crazy…fighting is crazy. It’s like that night…that night Lieutenant Wharton died. Did I kill him? I don’t know…It’s not my fault…How could I know?
For once, the dreams of home were not clouding his mind, whisking him away from the fear and paralyzing confusion of combat. He was still terrified, but he hadn’t pissed himself. Not yet, anyway:
Maybe I’m learning how to do this shit, like those guys in the outfit who think killing’s such a natural thing. They don’t fool me, though…I know they’re scared out of their fucking minds, too. I don’t want to die—that’s never going to change. But maybe now, if it’s going to happen, I want to see it coming. I’m not going to close my eyes anymore.
It still doesn’t seem fair, though. One second a guy has the world on a string, people who love him, a whole life ahead of him…and he’s suddenly erased, like he was never there. Like he never mattered. You get a couple of notes from a bugle and a hole in the ground.
A hole in the ground…just like this one.
There was so much screaming: some in Japanese, some in English by GIs, and some in crude English by Japanese soldiers, offering promises of death to the GIs. Whatever language they were speaking, the Japanese sounded right in their midst. Bucky Reynolds could hear it all so clearly, when it wasn’t being drowned out by volley after volley of gunfire.
But Bucky Reynolds hadn’t fired a round in this clash yet.
Shoot anything that moves, Lieutenant Pop told me. Easier said than done—anything I do get to see is just a quick shape, here and gone before I can get a bead on it.
He could hear the first sergeant’s voice screaming its warning: “Y’ALL CRAWL INSIDE YOUR FUCKING HELMETS! FPF ON THE WAY! FPF ON THE WAY!”
The sound of running footsteps, coming from behind Bucky…
It’s got to be Lieutenant Pop, right? It’s got to be! He’s bringing me help…or looking for cover from the FPF…
Reynolds rolled to his back and caught the thrust of a fixed bayonet squarely in his gut. He stared—surprised and unbelieving—at the faceless silhouette looming in the darkness above the hole, pushing the blade deep into him.
In an instant, that faceless silhouette vanished, he and his rifle erased by the artillery round landing just feet away, leaving behind nothing but the Japanese bayonet run through Bucky Reynolds’s body.
Everything changed in the instant the final protective fires hit their mark. What had been a confusing, chaotic struggle in the dark, with the lives of hundreds of men offered up to the turmoil, was suddenly swept away by some giant steel broom. A great and deathly stillness settled across OP Charlie Able. The stench of high explosives hung heavily in the light mountain breeze.
At the company CP, Lee Grossman regained a groggy consciousness in the bottom of his fighting hole. He ached from head to toe, as if his entire body had been run over by a steamroller. His ears rang with a disorienting whine, like machinery running at high speed.
Nothing’s moving out there. The Japs…where’d they go? Where the hell are my guys?
He tried to pull himself to his knees but a bolt of blinding pain stopped him cold. A small, jagged piece of metal—still hot to the touch—protruded from his forearm. Gritting his teeth, he pulled out the shell fragment.
If Lee Grossman screamed, he didn’t hear it. The ringing in his ears saw to that. At least the arm and hand were useable, even if they did hurt like crazy.
He felt around the hole for his walkie-talkie. All his hand found were some twisted shards of metal.
I’ve got to get to Commander Shaw’s radio…
Favoring his wounded arm, he clambered from the hole and promptly tumbled over something on the ground. His fingers explored what his eyes couldn’t make out:
It’s rough cloth…it’s laced up, like a legging...not a GI’s, though…AHH, SHIT!
Grossman recoiled from the object. Even in the dark, he knew what it was:
Fuck me! A Jap soldier’s leg, or what’s left of it, from the knee down…Now where the hell is that radio bunker?
A voice boomed from the darkness, loud enough for even Lee Grossman’s ears to hear it. “WHO GOES THERE?” the voice asked, in an unmistakable Aussie accent.
“It’s Grossman, Commander. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”
Finding his feet, Grossman scrambled toward the sound of Trevor Shaw’s voice. After just a few steps, he fell into the Aussie’s bunker.
“At least there are four of us still alive,” Shaw said in greeting, his voice much too loud. Like Lee Grossman, he, too, was half-deaf at the moment.
“We’ve got to call a new fire mission…get it shifted downslope,” Grossman said. “Catch any Japs still alive while they retreat.”
“The first sergeant has the same idea,” Shaw replied, “but my radio’s finished. Blasted to smithereens.”
“What about the landline?”
“It’s dead,” Shaw said. “Probably cut in the bombardment. Patchett and Virginia are trying to trace the wire now.”
Lee Grossman decided not to join them in the search: two people were more than enough to chase one broken wire. He told himself, Patchett can handle calling the fire mission on his own. I’ve got to find my men.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Day 14
It was nearly two in the morning before the American artillery fell silent across Papua. The last fire missions were called by Melvin Patchett as he walked artillery rounds down Astrolabe’s backslope. At Regimental HQ, Jock jumped on the landline to talk with his old first sergeant.
“How bad are you beat up, Top?” Jock asked.
“Pretty bad, sir,” Patchett replied, his voice sounding as if it was at the end of a long tunnel. “I’m guessing about twenty dead and a shitload wounded. Won’t know for sure until daylight.”
“How about the Japs, Top?”
“Don’t know that for sure neither, sir…but you can’t take a step around here without tripping over a dead Nip.” There was a solemn pause before Patchett added, “Bad enough the Air Force fucked us, but we’re real pissed with them cannon-cockers, too, sir. If they’d shot the danger close mission like we asked, it would’ve never come down to an FPF.”
“Don’t blame the flyboys or the artillerymen, Top.” He wanted to come right out and say it: it was the colonel who fucked you on both counts. But Hailey was only a few steps away and could hear Jock’s every word. The night had been contentious enough and the danger the GIs faced was far from over; antagonizing this incompetent commander further wouldn’t help anyone.
Additional explanation was unnecessary, anyway: an old soldier like Top would need no help getting Jock’s drift.
“You can’t talk, can you, sir?” Patchett said.
“Affirmative.
”
“So it was Regiment that put the screws to us?”
“Affirmative.”
“By Regiment, I don’t mean you, of course, sir.”
“Roger, Top.”
Patchett’s words of reassurance weren’t necessary. It had never crossed Jock’s mind the first sergeant might hold him responsible for the lack of timely fire support.
Patchett asked, “I suppose that son of a bitch expects us to thank him for the FPF?”
Jock took a look at Hailey. The colonel seemed quite pleased with himself, standing triumphantly, arms folded across his chest, as if presiding proudly over a great victory.
“I’m sure you’re right about that, Top,” Jock replied.
On the lowlands, the sunrise brought few surprises along the division’s front line. A handful of Japanese bodies were found, just like the night before. Casualties for the GIs were light once again.
In 81st Regiment’s sector, there was one bizarre find: just in front of their forward positions was an American ¾-ton truck, scorched and still smoldering. The unit markings on the bumper were still barely legible: the truck belonged to a wire team of 82nd Regiment, the unit on the left flank of the 81st. The team had apparently gotten lost as they went about their wire repair duties, ending up in front of 3rd Battalion of the 81st. Unfortunately, their errant journey occurred during the night’s Japanese probes. The riddled and charred bodies of the team’s four men were found in and around their devastated vehicle.
At Regimental HQ, Jock let out an exasperated sigh when he heard of the wire team’s demise. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I believe we’ve found the remains of our Japanese mechanized attack.”
Colonel Hailey bristled at the inference. “Are you saying, Major, these brave men were killed by friendly fire and not the Japanese?”
“I’m saying it’s very likely, sir,” Jock replied. “We certainly called enough artillery on them.”
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 24
