"Killed last month. Never got a replacement."
"I see. Well, that's all."
"Major?" asked Ingram.
DeWitt darted an owlish glance.
"I'd like a chit for diesel fuel."
"For what?"
"To top off the shoreboat’ s tanks for our trip Saturday night. Also, we're thinking of making a break for it when the Rock falls. I'd like to use one of those boats."
"You what?" yelled DeWitt.
"What's wrong, Major," Ingram asked.
"You said you were going to try and escape?" squealed DeWitt.
Ingram stood. "That's right."
"Negative. You'll do no such thing. When--if we surrender, we surrender as a cohesive unit. We're American servicemen, damnit. I can't afford mavericks running around the countryside making the Japs angry."
"Major DeWitt, I--"
"Shut up, damn you." DeWitt slammed a fist.
Ingram couldn't help notice the surrounding activity continued. This was no General Moore interlude.
DeWitt said, "The Japs will take hostages while tracking you down. Innocent civilians--maybe even our own people will be tortured. Shot as reprisals."
"General Moore is my commanding officer," Ingram said. "I'd like to take this up with him." He looked around the command center. Moore was not in sight.
"Let me remind you I'm the general's adjutant. You'll do as I say."
"But--"
"No chits. Every drop of fuel is precious. We need it more for our diesel generators then for your yachting foray into the South China Sea. Where the hell were you thinking of going, anyway?"
"Not sure, yet. China. Mindanao. Maybe Australia."
DeWitt's lips twisted into a demented grin. "That's preposterous. Permission denied. You'll have enough fuel for the submarine rendezvous and that's it. Now. You are to report to Captain Plummer at Battery Craighill tomorrow morning on Caballo Island. Is that clear?"
"Major, I--"
"I'll hear no more of this. I don't have time. You may bunk and feed your men here tonight. Then tomorrow, Plummer will take care of you. And make sure you're here on time Saturday to take the evacuation party. Is that clear?"
Ingram looked around the room. The men quickly averted their eyes. "Yessir," he said.
DeWitt spun and walked away.
Epperson muttered in a low voice, "See what I told you?"
Ingram's hands were on his hips as he watched the major. "I'll say."
Epperson said, "What the hell is Battery Craighill, anyway?"
Ingram turned to Epperson and gave a long exhale. "Mortar pits, Dwight. Four big, stupid, obsolete mortars."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
29 April, 1942
Fort Hughes, Craighill Battery Command Center
Caballo Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
It had rained and the late afternoon heat was oppressive. Steam rose off Caballo Island with the thermometer shooting to ninety-five degrees.
Inside the command center, Ingram wiped sweat from his brow while looking through a jagged hole in the three-foot-thick concrete bulkhead. It was the result of a direct hit last week, killing all inside the command center and destroying much of the equipment. This is what happened to Doctor Taft, he mused darkly.
As promised by Tokyo Rose, the bombardment's tempo had increased to a vengeful, unending, hideously rhythmic, concussive level. An unofficial noon tally radioed from Corregidor reported 7,500 rounds had fallen on the Rock since midnight.
Midnight, Ingram remembered: Wednesday April 29, 1942. Thus began the birthday of the Divine Ruler of Japan, Emperor Hirohito.
Seven thousand, five hundred rounds since midnight. That's fifteen thousand a day, and they were taking the same medicine here on Caballo. Except, with all the thunderous rumbling and bouncing and tearing and dust and anguished screams, it felt like 150,000 rounds.
Yes. Happy birthday Your Highness.
Battery Craighill was one of the last intact batteries where defenders of the fortified islands could serve up a defiant round or two against Homma's artillery. With heart-stopping explosions, the twelve inch smooth-bore, M-1912 mortars belched enormous projectiles ten miles into the Bataan Peninsula. But over the months, Japanese spotting improved keenly taking in the tell-tale smoke or muzzle-flash to summon immediate retribution in the form of merciless, counter-battery. Thus, the pit crews died quickly if they weren't in their shelters as soon as a round was launched.
Two days ago, five loaders had been killed as they ran for the shelter. Dead among them was Saunders, a third class gunner's mate from the Pelican.
Every ship had a kid that looked like Saunders: He was the one with long, sandy hair, glasses, and a stupid, lopsided grin from Olathe, Kansas, or Sharon Valley, Connecticut, or Walla Walla, Washington. The Pelican's Saunders was just a little different. A new arrival, he'd been a semipro baseball pitcher. Last spring, the crew challenged the wardroom to a baseball game and put Saunders on the mound. The crew trounced the officers eleven to three. But it didn't matter. It rained that day, and everyone returned to the ship, covered with mud and full of beer. A grinning Saunders, his once white T-shirt now soaked with muck, sat weaving and cheering atop their shoulders, his fists in the air. One of the men carrying Saunders, so covered with muddy slime as to be unrecognizable from the others, was a shouting Ensign Oliver P. Toliver, III.
Saunders. They had dragged his broken body into the shelter and had to wait two hours for a lull so the burial detail could take him away.
Ingram winced with the thought. Pelican gone. Saunders gone. What's next? When does my number come up?
Now, he peered through the hole, deeply hurt to see the kids out there loading that damn mortar. Except they weren't kids. They were twenty years old, terribly thin, half-starved skeletons, whose eyes were gaunt with terror and lack of sleep. They trudged like mechanical erector toys, ignoring a sergeant who bellowed at them in a hoarse, tunnel voice. Trapped in emaciated bodies with no hope for the future, they cursed the steaming heat, swatted flies, and wrestled their projectile onto the loading tray, knowing full well a shell could erupt among them at any moment.
This crew finished loading without incident, then did a quickshuffle to the far side of the mortar pits. One loader moved among them, his gait a little slower, and his head hung further than the rest. He was third in line as they ran to their bunker entrance, but at the last moment stood aside, letting the others dash inside to safety. He paused, looking at the sky for a full twenty seconds before someone pulled him inside and shut the hatch. This was the third time in as many days Ingram had seen him linger like that, defying the artillery. Or perhaps, did he beg for an enemy shell to euthanize him, excusing him from the misery and privation and hunger of the others?
Could be. The man was Ingram's former gunnery officer, Oliver P. Toliver, III.
Pugnosed Sergeant Bruno La Follette stood on a platform above Ingram peering out of one of the command bunker's slits. He turned and yelled, "Okay. Mount Three is loaded and they're clear. We ready to shoot, yet?"
A sweating Gordon L. Plummer, captain, U.S. Army, sat shirtless at the firing console. Badly in need of a haircut, he constantly brushed long blond hair from his eyes. "Still no power to the panel. We'll have to shoot locally," he said.
"Getting close, Captain," shouted Sunderland, his voice distant.
La Follette swore in exasperation. Nothing had worked right since the Japanese shell had blown the place apart. But, he had to admit to himself, it was good having these Navy guys, Ingram and Sunderland helping in the bunker, patching things up as best as they could. At the moment, they were trying to set up Mount Number Three so they could again aim and shoot it from the control panel.
"Okay to test the firing circuit?" Sunderland's voice echoed. The Pelican's first class gunner's mate was jammed almost upside-down in a combination air-conditioning and cable duct.
"Permission granted," shouted Plummer. "Shake a leg. The major wants to get this o
ne off. Says there's a Jap convoy on the--"
KARRUMPFF! Dust blew through the hole. Ingram found himself sitting on the floor wiping dirt from his eyes. The mortar had fired, making his ears ring from the impossibly loud muzzle blast. La Follette tumbled to the floor beside him. Plummer rocked back in his chair as dust and papers swirled about.
With a wisp of a smile, La Follette climbed to hands and knees and yelled at the air duct, "Sunderland! You-stupid-son-of-a-bitch. You fired the fuckin' thing."
"I hope you had it aimed right for once." Sunderland's voice seemed more distant.
"Fat chance. You just sank a hospital ship steaming into Manila Bay. It went down with six thousand GIs, doctors, and nurses. Part of a thirty-ship relief column. Now, they've all turned back. How do you feel about that?"
"Not my fault. Wires were crossed. Either that or some jerk out there closed the firing key."
"I wasn't even close to it," protested Plummer, brushing concrete chips off the console with a dirty rag.
"Just the three of us up here, Sunderland. Where'd you Navy guys learn your gunnery? In ice-cream school?" yelled La Follette. He and Ingram rose, dusted themselves off, and walked over to the duct, finding Sunderland had slid down and become wedged again. This was the fifth time. Unlike the first, Sunderland no longer panicked. Now he waited patiently to be pulled free.
They grabbed his legs and feet, and hoisted.
"Hold on a minute," Sunderland's hoarse echo was muted. "There's a junction box here. It's under a ledge. Yeah, hold on. Damned thing is ripped open. Everything is all screwed up. Looks like a typical Army wiring job."
Ingram and La Follette widened their stance to hold Sunderland in place. Soon sweat rolled down their faces and chests.
Tools clanked in the duct as Sunderland muttered, "...put together with the cheapest shit. Third-rate insulation. Lookit this! Can't tell one wire from another. Things are all brown. Just like your damned clothes. Is that why your uniforms are brown, La Follette? To disguise the fact you guys are so scared you shit your pants twice a day? Even your toilet paper is brown. You guys save money reusing it?"
La Follette rolled his eyes and yelled, "I'm surprised you know about something like that."
"Meaning what?" asked Sunderland, clicking a ratchet wrench.
"Word around here is you don't use toilet paper," croaked La Follette.
Ingram glanced at Plummer who spread his hands with an I-can't-control-La-Follette look.
Ingram nodded back with a look saying I-can't-control-Sunderland-either.
Sunderland's voice echoed up, not missing a beat, "True enough. But you must admit I'm discrete."
Silence. La Follette looked at Ingram who shrugged and sweated, holding half of Sunderland's weight in the duct. La Follette exhaled knowing he'd lost. "Okay, bright boy. Discrete about what?"
Sunderland squeezed his voice to an aristocratic falsetto, "I refrain from using toilet paper, Bruno," he rolled the "r" delicately, "when I know I'm going to be shaking hands with Army sergeants."
La Follette jiggled the man's feet.
Sunderland bellowed, "Hey, hey! Almost done. Shit! You want your mortars to fire?"
Plummer, at the fire control panel, jumped in his chair as red, yellow, and green lights blinked on and off. "Yay! We have power."
La Follette shouted into the duct, "Panel's working, Sonny."
"Shrapnel ripped up the junction box," said Sunderland, as more tools clanked.
"Right," said La Follette. "Everything looks normal. You almost done? You're getting heavy, fatso."
"I wish I was," the gunner's voice echoed.
They held on. Sunderland's weight seemed to increase by tens. "Sunderland, damnit!" yelled Ingram.
"In a second, Skipper...there! Okay."
"We ought to leave his ass in there," La Follette said loudly, pulling on the gunner's feet.
A profusely sweating Sunderland, naked from the waist up, slid out easily. He pulled with him a dirty canvas bag of tools and wrapping tape. Raising an eyebrow to La Follette he said, "Okay, I've fixed your precious mortar. You ready now for me to teach you how to shoot straight?"
La Follette turned and walked to the water barrel, snatching a paper cup from the rack.
"Where's my cigar," said Sunderland.
La Follete shrugged his shoulders.
There was an edge in Sunderland's voice, "You promised, Bruno."
With a grunt, La Follete reached over and raised the lid of a wooden box trimmed in intricate patterns of inlaid ivory. Realizing the others were watching, he reached in his humidor with a flourish and produced a cigar wrapped in cellophane secured by a gleaming silver band. "Just for you, Sonny," he said, with a mirthless smile.
Ingram counted five remaining cigars just before La Follette quickly slammed the lid.
Sunderland closed his eyes and slowly drew the cigar under his nose. "Ummm. It really is a Don Ortega."
"Damn rights," growled La Follette.
Sunderland carefully put the cigar in his shirt pocket and buttoned it. "Tonight, after chow," he said, with a smile. Then he wiped his face with a greasy towel and called after La Follette, "We can start winning the war, now that the place is wired properly."
"Shiiit."
Sunderland asked Captain Plummer with innocent eyes, "You want me on the panel, Sir?"
Plummer rose from his chair saying, "Take a seat." He looked at Ingram and they walked to an observation slit. "What time do you take off?"
"What?" Ingram weaved for balance as the floor bounced. A series of explosions sprinted the length of Caballo Island. Another bombing attack, Ingram supposed, like the one that got the Pelican. His teeth jiggled. The constant artillery shelling felt like an enormous creature out there at work with a gigantic jackhammer.
Plummer stepped closer. "When do you go?"
Ingram supposed Plummer meant the submarine rendezvous. He checked his watch. "In an hour. You have anything else for me?" A stick of bombs roared overhead, spilling dirt through cracks in the concrete, making them reach out to steady themselves.
"More sandbagging tomorrow. We have to get that wall plugged."
Ingram looked at the hole in the concrete bulkhead and groaned.
"You better grab some sleep." Plummer had to shout. "DeWitt said to make sure you're fresh."
Suddenly the bombardment let up. It was strangely quiet. Ingram rotated his index fingers in his ears and said, "I'd love some shut-eye but this isn't exactly the Mayo Clinic."
"Try anyway." Plummer trudged to a cabinet and fished for a clipboard. He kept his voice low, "You want us to get rid of that guy?"
Ingram froze, knowing Plummer referred to Toliver. "What are you talking about?"
Plummer nodded toward the mortar pits. "Mr. Long Island yellow streak."
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Everybody's talking about it."
"What do you want me to do? Shove a .45 in his ear and pull the trigger?"
Plummer looked down saying nothing.
"He has a right to live just like everybody else, doesn't he?"
"Don't like cowards around my mounts. Those are brave men out there."
"We were strafed and bombed many times, and Ollie stood his post in the open just as bravely. He has lots of Jap planes to his credit. That's more than I can say for you. So who the hell says he's a coward?"
Plummer looked from side to side. Sunderland and La Follette were hunched over a wiring schematic at the firing panel. They were quiet and it was hard to tell if they were listening.
"Your guys say so, Todd. And keep your voice down, damnit. Didn't five people die when your ship rolled? Didn't they--"
"It was three."
"Yeah. Three guys. Froze didn't he? All he had to do was untie a rope or something. He's yellow. My people don't like it and yours don't either. Let's face it. The guy's miserable. Doesn't eat. He wants to die."
"He's an officer, and he helps load your dammed mortars," Ingram hissed.
>
"That's all one of your officers can do?"
"Better than those slouches you have hiding in tunnels counting paperclips."
"At least they want to live. This guy's askin' for it." Plummer slowly shook his head. "Okay, Todd. Let it go. Sorry I mentioned it. Go get some sleep."
Suddenly, it didn't seem to matter: Toliver, Epperson, Corregidor. Nothing.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter. Toliver, Epperson, Corregidor. Explosions rumbled. He headed for a lower bunk in a cramped alcove. “Okay.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
29 April, 1942
Navy Radio Intercept Tunnel, Monkey Point
Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
The bombardment's tempo was the worst Radioman First Class Cyrus L. Portman had endured. Distractions were harder to find, as round after round thumped overhead, shaking the tunnel, and rattling equipment and light fixtures. Malinta Hill, to the west, seemed to be taking most of it. But the Naval Radio Intercept Tunnel, burrowed under Monkey Point, also received its measure.
Without knowing why, Portman had shaved and bathed as best he could before going on watch this evening. Everyone was surprised as he relieved Henderson, dressed in his last set of clean dungarees, shirt, and polished shoes. He even wore a white hat. Just like the old days on the Arizona, he told them as he took his seat next to Skinner, his third class assistant. Why didn't anybody laugh or snicker? And Lieutenant Hadley looked as if he were nodding appreciatively. They seemed to know something Portman didn't and it was connected to his dressing in clean dungarees.
A series of thuds rattled the tunnel, and Portman did his best to look nonchalant, tweaking radio dials. He checked the black-faced twenty-four-hour clock, which miraculously held to its wall mount. Damn! 1909. The Japs had been at this for over nineteen hours.
The floor heaved with another shellburst. Popping noises rippled up and down the tunnel, as Portman and Skinner fiercely gripped the table.
"Wha-wha the hell's that?" Skinner looked from side to side, as the lights dimmed, and then went bright again.
THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1) Page 14