If they come up Astrolabe, only my boys in Charlie Company stand in their way.
He looked across the HQ tent; the naval liaison officer shook his head: no news from the convoy.
Jock stepped outside the tent for a breath of fresh air. His soul felt as dark as the night sky greeting him. The lives of everyone he held close—Jillian, the men of Charlie Company—all seemed to be dangling from the thinnest of threads. One quick slash by the Japanese and they’d all be gone.
He stepped back into the HQ tent. The G3 was at the situation map planning the next phase of the operation. It would commence at dawn, still three hours away.
The G3 turned to address the assembled staff. Speaking with an optimism which seemed oddly out of place in this assortment of lost opportunities, he said, “Gentlemen, the Japanese can’t have gotten far in the night. At first light, we’re going to find them, pursue them, and kill them.” Pointer in hand, he turned back to the map. “This is how we’re going to do it…”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Day 17
General Hartman’s orders to Lieutenant Colonel Hailey made the telephone wires sizzle: “Despite your regiment’s total and inexcusable lack of forward progress, Colonel, you are still closest to the valley known as The Notch. You will secure that valley not later than oh-nine-hundred hours this morning. You’ve got a couple of hours to get your asses in gear. If you start moving by oh-six-hundred, you should have no trouble keeping that schedule. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Flustered by the general’s harsh words, Hailey replied, “Yes, sir…but—”
“Don’t bother with the fucking buts, Colonel,” Hartman interrupted. “The book on yesterday has already been written, and your chapter is not a pretty story.”
Indignation crept over Hailey as he hung up the phone. Just my luck, he thought. The general has it in for me. He refuses to acknowledge just how tough we’ve had it in this sector. He thumbed the silver oak leaf on his collar—the rank insignia of a lieutenant colonel—as a confident smirk crossed his face. But just let him try to stop my promotion to full bird. We’ll see what MacArthur has to say about that.
Hailey’s regiment pushed off a few minutes before sunrise. They moved slowly at first, expecting Japanese snipers in every tree and machine gun nests atop every hill. But there were none—not even dead enemy bodies from the artillery duels of the days before. Gradually, their confidence and pace improved. They might actually make it to The Notch—almost six miles away—by the ordained time of 0900.
Colonel Hailey put his own deluded interpretation on their easy passage: My regiment gave no quarter. It struck the fear of God into those Japanese. They ran away like scared little girls.
A mile from the mouth of The Notch, the chatter of gunfire brought Hailey’s regiment to a screeching halt. The gunfire died out quickly, and shortly thereafter, the commander of the lead company was on the radio to Colonel Hailey.
“Ahh…I think you’d better come up here, Colonel,” the captain said.
“What’s the problem, Captain?” Hailey replied, quite content to stay well back in the column.
“Really, sir…you need to be here. In person.”
It took Hailey a good 15 minutes to present himself at the head of his regiment’s column. When he arrived, he was startled to find the lead company’s captain being berated by an aged Australian officer. American and Aussie soldiers milled about in angry groups, ready to come to blows. They would have, too, if it wasn’t for their junior officers keeping them apart. As he climbed from his jeep and walked closer, Hailey realized it was not just any Australian officer: the short, fat old man doing the berating was a general.
“My name is Blamey,” the Aussie bellowed at Hailey. “And who in this cocked-up Yank circus might you be?”
Hailey introduced himself, trying to be respectful while not showing how intimidated this blustery little general made him feel. He extended his hand; Blamey refused to shake it.
“Your jumpy wankers just shot two of my best scouts, Colonel,” Blamey said, spraying Hailey with spittle as he spoke. “Do we look like bloody Japanese to you? And speaking of Japanese, you haven’t seen any, have you? We certainly haven’t. I’m betting they’re halfway to Buna by now.”
Halfway to Buna was a bit of an exaggeration. The leading elements of the Japanese division were approaching the village of Sogeri, some 12 miles past The Notch. Once beyond Sogeri, they would soon be on the Kokoda Track, the footpath through the passes of the towering Owen Stanleys. It was a difficult slog, often more vertical than horizontal as the trail rose to over 7,000 feet at its highest. The journey could take a week or more; it could take much longer if you had to fight your way across, as the Japanese had done once before on their way to Port Moresby, pushing back the Australians before them. Once over the peaks, though, it was downhill all the way to the town of Buna, on the coast of the Solomon Sea.
On Astrolabe, the men of Charlie Company were breathing a collective sigh of relief. The Japanese hadn’t come in the night. In fact, the Japanese didn’t seem to be anywhere.
“They’ve got to be down there somewhere,” Lieutenant Theo Papadakis said, pointing down the backslope. “I’d be glad to lead a recon patrol and smoke them out.”
“Not a good idea, lads,” Trevor Shaw replied. Turning to Lee Grossman, he asked, “May I explain why, Lieutenant?”
“Be my guest, Commander.”
“The Japanese are trying to escape to the north coast,” Shaw said. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense. They haven’t been resupplied since you Yanks arrived, so they must be low on everything—food, ammunition, petrol, medical supplies...”
Ginny Beech added, “If they stay on this side of the Owen Stanleys, they’ll wither and die. They must be headed for the Kokoda Track. Considering when they passed through The Notch…and if they marched all night…they’d be about here.” She pointed to a spot on the map some 12 miles from their location on Astrolabe. “Once they get past Sogeri, they’re going to have to abandon their vehicles. The track is a footpath only, and a devil of one at that. The diggers that fought the Japanese there said the climbing was worse than the combat.”
Lee Grossman took a long, hard look at the map. “Twelve miles, huh?” he said. “Theo, that’s way too far out to patrol. All you’ve got for commo is walkie-talkies. You’ll be way out of range.”
Melvin Patchett added the words that slammed the door on Lieutenant Pop’s idea for good: “We’ve had enough good men not come back, sir. Let’s not add to it.”
The buzz of a light airplane began to softly float on the breeze. As the sound grew louder, the olive drab profile of an L4 came into view, cruising as if in no great hurry down the backslope toward Sogeri.
“Maybe that’s Major Miles up there,” Patchett said. With a nod to Ginny and Commander Shaw, he added, “And it looks like he’s got the same idea about where the Japs are as y’all.”
John Worth was beginning to worry they were flying too high to see anything on the ground. He reckoned they were five miles beyond Astrolabe’s peak and they had yet to see a trace of the Japanese exodus. As they flew farther north, the towering Owen Stanleys were looming larger before his airplane with each passing minute.
“Do you think we’re too high, sir?” he called to Jock in the back seat.
“I don’t think so, John. You remember what they looked like yesterday? Like some parade of ants that wound its way for miles. If they keep to the road that runs through The Notch, they’ll parallel the Laloki River. That’s still about five miles ahead. And if they’re on that road, they’ve got to be headed to the Kokoda Track.”
“But don’t you think they might split up and try to hole up in the forest, sir? We’d never see them, then.”
“Let’s assume they stayed together for now. If we’re right, we’ll stumble into them in a few more minutes.”
“Yeah,” Worth said, “but what if we find them, sir? There are no GIs or Aussies within
miles of here. The Japs’ll even be out of artillery range, won’t they?”
“Yep.”
“So if there’s no one from the Fifth Air Force hanging around, waiting for targets of opportunity…”
Jock filled in the rest of the sentence: “We just wave at them and mark the map.”
“I was thinking, sir,” Worth said. “If we keep a little reserve fuel, we can make a pass of the harbor on the way back. Maybe see if your girl’s ship is there?”
There was nothing Jock would rather do at the moment than search for Jillian. But as much as I want to, that’s not what we’re up here for, he told himself.
“Great idea, John,” Jock replied, “but the mission comes first. We’ve got to find the Japs. Once we’ve done that, we’ll see if we can go ship-hunting.”
“Okay,” Worth said, “but I’ve got to hand it to you, sir. If I had a girl out in the middle of this war, I think I’d be going out of my fucking mind with worry.”
He wished he hadn’t said those words the moment they spilled from his lips. “I didn’t mean any disrespect, sir…I mean—”
“It’s okay, John. I know what you meant. And I’m here to tell you…you’re absolutely right. You do go out of your fucking mind.”
“Holy shit,” Worth called out. “Dead ahead…let me give you a better look, sir.”
He banked the L4 sharply, turning to give Jock a broad view of the ground below. They had made it to the Laloki River. The road which paralleled it was crowded with Japanese troops.
“Ahh, there they are,” Jock said, checking their quarry through binoculars. “They still look like a trail of ants, don’t they?”
“Yeah, they sure do. Is this close enough, sir? I don’t want to get us right over the road. They’ve probably got some anti-aircraft guns with them.”
“Yeah, this’ll do. Keep paralleling the road, though. Let’s see if their vehicles are up ahead.”
In the forest beyond the village of Sogeri, just before the trail began a steep mountain ascent, were the Japanese vehicles. A few hundred of them.
“It looks like a giant motor park with trees,” Worth said. “Are they just going to leave them there?”
“They’ve got no choice, John. The Kokoda Track is for men and goats only.” Jock took a good look through his binoculars. “Hey, look…they’re spiking their guns and wrecking the trucks.”
“Wrecking? What do you mean, sir?”
“Rendering them useless. Shooting out the tires, taking axes to the engine compartments…”
“Why don’t they just burn them, sir? Oh wait…I just answered my own question.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you did. That would leave quite a smoke marker for Fifth Air Force, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, better they shoot at their trucks than at us,” Worth said. “So I guess they’re definitely going over the Kokoda Track, then?”
“Without a doubt, John.”
“Are our guys going to chase them?”
“That’s not up to me,” Jock replied, as he plotted the locations of the Japanese on his map. “Let’s call this in and see if we can get the Air Force to do their stuff. If they’re available, we can hang around and spot for them.”
“And if they’re not, sir?”
“Well…then I guess we’d be free to do whatever we want, John.”
Jock radioed the information on the Japanese. The reply wasn’t encouraging: there would be no planes of the Fifth Air Force over the target locations for at least an hour; too much time and not enough fuel for them to loiter in the L4.
Venting his frustration, Worth asked, “And who the hell knows where the Japs will be then? Do you think our pilots will be able to figure out where an hour down the trail is? If they can even find the damned trail?”
The radio squawked to life again. It was Division HQ calling with new orders.
“Oh, you’re going to love this, John,” Jock said when he was done copying. “We’ve been given a top-priority mission. Headquarters has just renamed the old Jap airfield. It’s now Seven Mile Airfield.”
“That figures,” Worth said. “It’s about seven miles from Port Moresby town.”
Jock continued, “We’re ordered to fly over to Seven Mile Airfield and be an airborne scout for the GIs securing it. We’ve got important company going to be landing there this afternoon.”
“Who’d that be, sir?”
“MacArthur himself.”
Chapter Fifty
Day 17
The L4 was on its fifth, uneventful orbit over Seven Mile Airfield. There was nothing to see on the ground but GIs, Aussie diggers, and the burned-out hulks of Japanese airplanes. Jock hadn’t seen an enemy trooper since they flew away from Sogeri.
John Worth was fixated on the fuel gauge. “If we’re going back to Twenty Mile,” he said, “we’ve got to go NOW, sir.”
Jock radioed the request to leave the area. The reply was rapid and blunt: Negative. Stay on station as long as possible. If fuel exhaustion imminent, land at Seven Mile.
“If?” Worth said, trying not to laugh. “It’s not a question of if. This engine’s going to quit in about twenty minutes.”
Fifteen minutes and a few more orbits later, Worth announced, “Okay, that’s it. I’m declaring a fuel emergency. Tell them we’re coming down at Seven Mile.”
Three minutes later, they were on the ground. As they climbed from the airplane, a jeep from 83rd Regiment pulled alongside. The sergeant behind the wheel said to Jock, “I’m supposed to take you to the division commander, sir.”
“Where is he?”
The sergeant pointed south. “About half a mile yonder, sir.”
“Okay, fine,” Jock replied, “but we need some fuel for the plane.”
“Yeah,” Worth said. “Can you fix me up with some eighty octane?”
The sergeant replied, “I can run you over to the motor section, Lieutenant. Maybe they can help you out.”
As they piled into the jeep, Worth said to Jock, “Sorry we never got over the harbor, sir.”
Jock replied, “Yeah…me, too.”
At Division Headquarters, all thoughts of pursuing the Japanese were on the back burner. There was a new boogeyman driving the place to a frenzy. Jock could see it in every man’s face: MacArthur is coming! MacArthur is coming!
That the headquarters had been on the move only added to the disorder. No circus tent had been set up to bring the command and staff elements together under one roof. They would wait to see if they’d actually be staying at this location before dragging out all that canvas. The separate staff sections were operating out of vans and utility trucks scattered in a circle at proper tactical distance throughout a thickly wooded area. In the middle of the circle sat General Hartman’s jeep. There, he held court with his staff officers as a constant stream of runners carried information to and from the outlying vehicles.
Jock found the chaos amusing: Maybe it’s easier for me. I’ve been around the Great Man before. There was only one person Jock was interested in seeing at Division, however. He asked the operations sergeant, “Where the hell is the naval liaison?”
Pointing to a truck some distance away, the sergeant replied, “I think he’s over that way, sir.”
Jock was running in that direction before the sergeant stopped talking.
“Here’s the deal, Jock,” the naval liaison said. “The lead ships are coming into harbor now.” His voice dropped: “We don’t know by name which ships they lost…but there were five of them, all freighters.”
“Out of how many?”
“Twenty-two, they said.”
Jock did the math: Hmm…better than a three-to-one chance she’s okay.
At five minutes before its appointed arrival time, MacArthur’s personal B-17, with a flight of P-38 escorts, droned into view above Seven Mile Airfield. Jock was pleased to find out he, as a mere assistant G2, was not required to stand in the supreme commander’s receiving line with Generals Hartman, Blamey, and their st
aff. He sought out John Worth instead, who was busy pouring gasoline into the L4’s tank from five-gallon cans.
“I see you found some gas,” Jock said.
“Turns out there’s plenty of gas here, with His Majesty coming and all,” Worth replied. “The whole shebang at Twenty Mile is getting moved up here on the double, too. I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t go back there, eh?”
“It was a pretty crummy airfield, anyway,” Jock said. “Hell, MacArthur’s plane is too big to land there.”
“Oh, she could probably land there,” Worth said, and then, with a devilish grin, added, “but she might never take off again. You need a lot more runway for that.”
He set the last of the gas cans down. As he screwed on the plane’s filler cap, he asked, “Any news, sir? You know…about your girl?”
“Nothing concrete, John.”
The B-17—with the name Bataan painted in big letters on her nose—rumbled onto the ramp. She pivoted majestically about so MacArthur would exit facing his welcoming party and, more importantly, the combat photographers poised to record the event for posterity. The door in the aft fuselage opened and out stepped the man himself.
On the opposite side of the plane, the two engines were kept running. Only then did Jock realize the escort fighters hadn’t bothered to land. Instead, they circled high overhead. MacArthur had no intention of staying.
The supreme commander gathered the men on the ramp around him. “You have done a great thing here,” he began. “Soon, we will do more great things to drive back the Japanese menace, and we will do it together.”
Jock noticed the skeptical expression on General Blamey’s face brightened at the word together.
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 33
