by Rory Marron
She smiled up at him warmly. ‘I think you’ll do well at whatever you do.’
They were in the final patch of shadow on the driveway before the gate. Their steps faltered again. A few yards from them figures were scurrying down the main path with lanterns, mattresses and boxes.
Gently, Ota slipped his arm from out of hers. She looked at him accusingly.
‘It’s better for you this way,’ he said quietly.
‘I don’t care what they—’
His fingers went to her lips. ‘Please listen to me. I don’t want to cause you problems, here or in Holland. For many people Japan is still the enemy. I am still the enemy!’
Tears ran down Kate’s cheeks. She sniffed and shook her head. ‘Not to me! But I understand… I owe you so much.’
‘Perhaps one day it will be different.’ He swallowed nervously and reached into a pocket. He pulled out a thin package wrapped in oiled paper and placed it in her hand. ‘I might not see you again before you leave Java… These two envelopes are addressed to my home. Will you write to me in one year’s time to tell me you are safe?’
‘Oh, yes, of course!’ Kate replied quickly. Her eyes were bright and moist. ‘But a year?’
‘I don’t know what’s happening in Japan. Your letter might be lost. If there is no reply, please try again after two years.’
‘Two years? Oh, God, I’ll be so worried about you!’
Her head fell and he raised her chin up gently with his fingertips. ‘Kate, nothing means more to me than knowing you are safe. Please be very careful until you have left Java.’
‘And you, Kenichi. Please don’t risk your life…’
He smiled. ‘We say our karma—our fate—is foretold. We cannot change it. Ki-wo tsukete—be careful, Kate.’
She melted against him and for a moment he thought she had fainted. Then he felt her hands on his back and the back of his neck. She pushed up, meeting his kiss, her mouth open and moist.
Finally he broke from her embrace and walked back to the hotel. He did not look back. Head down to hide her fresh tears, Kate left the shadows.
Chapter Twelve
The Second Day at Ambarawa
Kudo ducked instinctively as the shot whistled harmlessly off the top of the brick wall inches from his head. ‘That was a bit too close,’ he said.
Ota did not reply. He sat with his back to the wall, staring across the road. Private Kondo, sheltered by a burnt-out car, was dragging the limp body of his friend, Yano out of the line of fire. He had been shot dead an hour earlier. The pace was slow and deadly. They fought street by street, house by house, in the face of determined resistance. Now they were waiting for their own predator to strike.
‘Harada’s got his work cut out on this bastard,’ Kudo said pessimistically.
Ota’s face broke into a tired smile. ‘Maybe not, Major!’ he said pointing behind them.
An F-47 Thunderbolt was skimming the rooftops. The men ducked as the plane zoomed towards a neat crescent of two-storey shops where the sniper had his lair.
Two 1,000lb bomb-blasts merged into one. Ota felt the wall shake and his ears pop painfully. Brick dust filled his nose and mouth. He sneezed then gingerly peered over the wall. One end of the crescent had been reduced to rubble.
‘Right on target!’ he said in awe of the RAF pilot’s precision.
Kudo wiped his face and spat. ‘Now you have an idea what it must have been like in Saipan and Okinawa. Day in day out, only enemy planes in the sky….’
Ota watched with mixed emotions as the Thunderbolt climbed away to return to base and rearm.
‘Aka Fuji!’
Seconds after the shout Harada rolled over the wall next to Ota, rifle in hand. He was covered in brick dust. Only his piercing eyes were free of grime. Already he had five kills to his tally in Ambarawa.
‘Whose side are they on, Major?’ Harada moaned. ‘They nearly got me as well as the Indo sniper!’
Ota nodded, his ears still ringing from the blast.
‘Complain to London!’ Kudo said sarcastically.
Harada laughed and began scanning the roofline for his next eyrie. His gaze settled on a blown-out, three-storey town house some fifty yards away. He pointed. ‘I’ll be in there, Sir. I should be able to cover most of the crescent. The hotel is just beyond it.’
A heavy, clanking sound made them turn. A Stuart tank was rounding a street corner. It trundled forwards spraying the crescent with random bursts from its machine gun. There was no answering fire: the pemuda were retreating. A second Stuart followed the first. The Japanese cheered.
From the Hotel van Rheeden’s colonnaded main entrance Colonel Edmunds watched the Japanese moving up to positions in the houses around the hotel. Duncan, Miller and Rai were standing nearby.
‘Well,’ Duncan said under his breath. ‘I never thought I’d ever be pleased to see a Jap column!’
Miller laughed. ‘We’ll never live it down!’
Kampong Ambarawa had been abandoned hurriedly by its residents. Washing hung on lines and food had been left over cooking fires. Ota’s platoon had spent three hours in the maze of narrow, twisting alleys, abrupt junctions and dead-ends. Four of his men had been wounded in hit-and-run ambushes.
Ota was peering around the corner of a hut when two shots tore out chunks of the wooden corner post inches from his face. He jumped back. ‘Behind a low wall,’ he shouted to the men with him. ‘At least four. It looks as though they are going to make a stand. Beyond the wall it’s open ground.’
‘Ara! Aka Fuji!’
Nagumo emerged, waving, from out of one alley with several men. Ota acknowledged him and pointed round the corner, holding up four fingers. Nagumo nodded and signalled he would attack from the side. Two minutes later there was an exchange of fire.
‘Let’s go!’ Ota ordered. He rushed down the alley to find the wall deserted and Nagumo’s men firing at three pemuda sprinting across the field and back towards the town some three hundred yards away. Cautiously the Japanese followed, fanning out into a skirmish line. In the middle of the open ground was a roofless, dilapidated brick building.
There was no firing as they advanced. As they reached the ruin Nagumo suddenly halted, peering at the sky. Then Ota heard it, too.
The Thunderbolt closed on them at incredible speed at just eighty feet off the ground. Its eight .50 calibre machine guns opened up at four hundred yards.
Ota threw himself down as bullets punched into the earth on either side of him. Men screamed as they were cut in half.
‘He’s going to bomb us!’ Nagumo bawled, scrambling towards the ruin.
As the Thunderbolt came around for a second pass, Ota saw the large pod under its wing. He dived into a small depression, clamped his hands over his ears and forced open his mouth to try and save his ear drums. The pressure wave sent him head over heels, sucking the air from his lungs. He landed on his back gasping for breath. Tiny pieces of earth were raining down on him.
He sat up, his chest heaving and spitting out dirt. ‘Let’s get back to the kampong!’ There was no answer.
Ota turned. Only one truncated wall of the ruin was left standing. Beside it was a deep shell crater.
‘Nagumo!’ Ota yelled. Anxiously he ran forward. Two dead pemuda lay at the bottom of the crater. ‘Nagumo!’
‘Oh…shit!’ The voice was weak but instantly recognizable. Ota ran to the wall. Nagumo was on his knees. He was dazed and swaying. His right hand was clutching at a mass of shattered bone and flesh that had been his left arm. Dark, arterial blood was cascading onto the ground. Before Ota could reach him he pitched forward and rolled limply to the bottom of the crater, coming to rest next to a decapitated Javanese.
Ota clambered over the rubble. As he knelt he saw Nagumo’s back was peppered with small, smoking holes. Nearby he noticed a plate-sized piece of bomb casing glowing a dull red.
Quickly, Ota untied the muddied bandanna from around his own neck to fashion a tourniquet above Nagumo’s left bi
ceps. Then he hauled him on top of the corpse. Nagumo’s smashed arm swung uselessly; held only by tendons, blood still gushing. He groaned in pain and opened his eyes.
Ota took a step back, then dropped on to on his left knee and drew his sword.
Nagumo saw the raised blade. ‘Do it,’ he croaked. ‘Finish me!’
Ota's sword flashed downwards and wedged deep in the abdomen of the corpse beneath.
‘Huh?’ Nagumo’s head lolled to his left. He stared in bewilderment. ‘What’re you…?’
Where there had been ripped flesh and jagged bone there was now a neat but bloody four-inch stump. ‘Don’t move!’ Ota snapped. Hurriedly he pulled off one of his boots, folding over the calf section. Using it as a makeshift glove, he reached for the hot shrapnel. Instantly the leather began to smoulder.
He sat astride Nagumo, pinning his chest and good arm. ‘Hold on!’ Flesh, bone and blood sizzled as he pressed the hot metal against the stump, bracing it with a clump of brick.
‘Aargh!’ Nagumo twisted and bucked, then he passed out.
When Ota finally let go the stump was charred and raw but the bleeding had stopped. Exhausted, he lay back, blowing on his blistered fingers.
The Third Day at Ambarawa
A Stuart tank and the Mahrattas’ own anti-tank guns had pounded Fort Prins Willem I for over an hour. Its massive, turreted, 17th-century stone walls seemed impervious to the explosive shells. It was the last stronghold of nationalist resistance at Ambarawa.
Inside, five hundred besieged pemuda jeered. Outside, the Gurkhas were biding their time, waiting at the base of the steep, star-shaped earthworks. With the arrival that morning of a second relief column of Mahrattas and Rajrifs the outcome was no longer in doubt.
Two Stuarts rolled forward, machine guns firing, covering the crew of a 25-pounder as they man-handled the gun up to almost point-blank range. Five shells slammed into the gatehouse, blowing the great wooden doors to matchwood. Before the last echo of the guns had faded, the Gurkhas were charging forward, their long, heavy kukri daggers drawn.
Sarel, Lamban and Kerek stood on the rear wall watching the soldiers surge through the gate. Lamban held a Thompson sub-machine gun in one hand and a coiled rope in the other.
‘Stand and fight! Kill the infidels!’ Sarel screamed hoarsely. The defenders were forced back, many turning to flee. Gurkha kukris were making short, bloody work of those defenders who tried to hold their ground.
A Stuart began firing just ahead of the advancing Gurkhas. Shells burst in the courtyard, exploding among the more modern brick buildings that had been added by the Dutch.
‘Time to go,’ Sarel said quietly.
Lamban nodded and tapped Kerek on the shoulder.
‘We fight another day. Come on!’
Kerek tried to protest. ‘But Lamban—’
Lamban grabbed his arm. ‘Now!’
They made their way along the ramparts. Around them pemuda and militia alike were scrambling to escape over the walls and lose themselves in the mazes of the kampong. From there they could slip out to the surrounding hills during the night.
Lamban tied the rope to an iron step-ladder set into the ancient stonework and let it drop over the wall. He was helping Kerek over when several panicking youths rushed for the rope barging him and Sarel out of the way.
Sarel drew his pistol and was about to shoot them when a tank shell hit the wall only thirty feet away, shaking the parapet. Lamban clung on to the rope but Sarel lost his balance, dropped his gun and fell backwards onto the angled roof of a storehouse twenty feet below. He sprang to his feet. ‘Quick, the rope!’
Lamban tried to haul up the rope but two youths were still climbing down. He turned and saw three Gurkhas closing in on Sarel. He pointed urgently. ‘The steps!’
Sarel nodded then ducked as a Gurkha came around the side of the storehouse. The Gurkha saw Lamban and fired a burst from a Sten gun. Lamban threw himself down on the parapet as a bullet ricocheted off the wall above.
Sarel, sword drawn, leapt off the roof and landed feet first on the Gurkha’s neck and shoulders. The man crumpled. Sarel rolled off him, stabbed him in the back and sprinted for the steps. At the far corner of the storehouse he ran into a second Gurkha.
Lamban saw Sarel slash quickly at the Gurkha’s head but the soldier did not check. Instead, he used a Tommy gun as a shield, catching the blade in the right angle between the barrel and cylinderical magazine. At the same time, he darted in, slamming a knee into Sarel’s belly and sending him reeling.
Sarel was briefly aware of a silvery blur before the foot-long, quarter-inch-thick kukri struck him horizontally across the mouth, slicing through the jaw muscles on both sides of his face and smashing most of his top teeth. His head rocked back as choking blood gushed out of his useless, hanging jaw.
A second blow cleft Sarel from the left collarbone to the base of his sternum. Lamban watched stone-faced as the Gurkha withdrew the blade with a quick, bone-snapping twist. Sarel fell backwards, blood frothing in his severed windpipe.
Rai looked up, saw Lamban and fired from the hip. Three more Gurkhas appeared, making for the steps. Lamban fired a quick burst from his machine gun to dissuade them, then slid quickly over the wall.
Willem I Station
Movement in the night-time shadows made Mac tense. He had already raised one alarm that had proved to be a scavenging dog. Even so, he tapped Miller’s arm and pointed. Miller signalled to Ota and the rest of the patrol—six Japanese—suddenly came alert.
They were in position behind a low wall that ran alongside the railway line a few hundred yards from the Ambarawa level crossing. The tracks marked the southern limit of the British-held zone. Dozens of pemuda were still at large in the town. Most were trying to escape to the nearby hills.
Mac peered but saw nothing. He was wondering if he had called another false alarm when Miller held up four fingers. A few feet away from them, Ota nodded. Silently his men readied their rifles.
Miller let his quarry get halfway across the tracks then switched on the jeep’s headlights. Four pemuda froze momentarily then bolted. A second set of headlights stopped them. They dropped their weapons and stood staring nervously, hands raised.
Miller had not expected surrender. He, Mac, Ota and the Japanese soldiers moved forward to take their prisoners unaware that a fifth, cat-like figure had already crossed the tracks, worked behind the ambush, and chosen his ground.
A burst of bullets sprayed the illuminated targets. Miller and Ota rolled out of the line of fire but three Japanese were cut down. On cue, the other youths grabbed their weapons and began firing. Two more bursts from the shadows shattered one jeep’s headlights.
Mac flung himself behind a stack of thick rail sleepers. Bullets from the Thompson followed him, punching out chunks of wood. He crawled around to the shorter end of the stack trying to orientate himself. Mac lay still, waiting; the lessons of Burma not lost. Hasty footsteps on gravel made him turn and he glimpsed three figures running down the tracks past the abandoned fort.
Two minutes passed and then he heard the Gurkha bird-call some distance to his right. Relieved, he wished he knew how to answer Miller. Still, he waited. Another long minute passed before he eased up from his crouch behind the sleepers. Six feet away and half-facing him was a Javanese holding a rifle. Both of them fired simultaneously. Mac felt the draught of the bullet against his cheek. The Javanese fell.
Carefully Mac went forward, his vision patchy after the close muzzle-flash. The youth lay on his back, dead, a dark patch of blood spreading under his white shirt.
Mac sighed, turned then gasped in pain as something slammed against his forehead. Dazed, his rifle slipped from his fingers. He staggered, grabbing for his bayonet.
His attacker, a lithe and bare-chested figure with long, coiling hair was staring at the dead Javanese. A Thompson hung by its strap from his hand. Mac assumed the gun’s magazine was empty. His own rifle was by his feet. He went into a defensive crouch re
ady to spring for the gun. His attacker seemed unconcerned. Mac saw he wore Japanese army boots and trousers and remembered the similarly dressed youths in Surabaya.
Slowly and quite deliberately the Black Buffalo drew a straight klewang sword. Mac dipped for his gun but a foot struck his lower chest and he went sprawling across the rail tracks.
Once again his enemy gave him time to recover. Mac took a quick step towards him and lunged with the bayonet. He stabbed at thin air. The klewang flashed and Mac felt a stinging pain across his right shoulder. Blood began trickling down his arm.
Shouts came from nearer the level crossing. Momentarily the youth was distracted and Mac tried to circle around. He took just three paces before his effortlessly quicker enemy sprang and landed a thrusting side-kick to his thigh that knocked him down into a drainage gulley. Mac rolled to a stop. His leg was almost numb. Desperately he looked for a way of escape. His only option was the old fort. Mac made his move. Even as he did so he knew it was a mistake to go further away from the patrol. As he ran he heard Miller shouting from what seemed miles away.
‘Mac! Where are you?’
‘Fort!’ Mac yelled, half-swallowing the word.
Up on the crossing, Lamban squatted beside Kerek’s body and pressed his palm to the bloodied chest. Then, his face impassive he set out to hunt the killer of his best friend.
Mac footsteps rang heavily on the stone pathway to the fort’s inner courtyard. Corpses from the day’s fighting lay as they had fallen, but stripped of their weapons. He dodged behind a burned-out building and waited, pressing himself against the brickwork, trying to quieten his breathing and straining to listen at the same time. His fist gripped the bayonet point down, ready to strike. What seemed like minutes passed and he began to wonder if the Black Buffalo had given up the pursuit.
He lowered the bayonet and let his head loll back against the stone. His breath caught in his throat. The Javanese was staring at him from the roof of the next building. Mac watched him jump down with barely a sound, sword in hand, his gaze never leaving him.