Considering General Short got the ax less than two weeks after the disaster on Oahu, he sure didn’t waste any time sticking me with a rotten report. You’d think he would’ve had bigger things to worry about. He really put the screws to me when he wrote, “tends to favor personal pursuits over duty.” What a crock of shit...and all because I was too busy helping the Navy fight Japs to wipe some general’s ass. With the war on, all the guys from my class are getting bumped up to major or light colonel and getting battalions to command…but I’m still stuck as a captain, and back as a little ol’ company commander, a job I’ve already done twice, back in nineteen thirty-six and thirty-seven…to glowing reports. No more fast track to my first star now…more like a slow boat to nowhere. Hell, I’d get out of this damned Army if I could…but with a war on, even someone on the bottom of the promotion list isn’t going anywhere.
To add insult to injury, Trudy Judd had dumped him, too. He had come to a decision as he wasted time in Honolulu, waiting for orders: he would ask Trudy to marry him. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Here he was, still a bachelor at 28 years of age, on the Army’s shit list, and facing untold years at war. Maybe knowing you had a wife to come home to when it was all over would make the whole ordeal easier to bear. Armed with a far-too-expensive engagement ring, he popped the question in the sitting room of her father’s house. She replied with an indifferent, Oh, Jock…I need time to think.
In other words, No, thank you, soldier.
On the deck below, the shellbacks were pouring buckets of a greasy, green fluid over the heads of the wogs. Their faces contorted in revulsion as the thick concoction dripped downward, coating their bodies. Jock thought there was a good chance the wogs would be puking their guts out any second.
Well, at least they’re learning a valuable lesson: shit runs downhill.
He didn’t know many of the names and faces of the men under his command; he was handed the job only a week before marching them onto this ship in San Francisco. He thought he recognized a few of his troopers among the hundreds watching the antics on the main deck, but there was no glimmer of recognition from the men when they glanced his way.
If they’re even mine, they probably don’t recognize me, either. It’s going to be a long, hard road making something out of this unit. By the time we get off this overcrowded tub, you’ll need a microscope to measure their morale.
A man elbowed his way to the rail beside Miles. In a gruff drawl of the American South, the man said, “You know, Captain, they’re all queer fellas in the Navy. Probably be corn-holing each other any minute now.”
Jock smiled; the voice was one of the few on this ship he would recognize in an instant. It belonged to his company first sergeant, Melvin Patchett. “How’re our boys doing, Top?” Miles asked.
“Usual stuff, Captain. Russo got hisself thrown in the brig again.”
“What’d he do now?”
“Fighting over some card game. Your Lieutenant Brewster’s fixing to make a federal case out of it, though.”
Your Lieutenant Brewster, meaning the company executive officer, First Lieutenant John Joseph Pershing Brewster, West Point class of ’39. Latest in a distinguished line of military officers dating back over a century. A regimental commander in the Corp of Cadets. This young officer firmly believed he was on the fast track to general, just like his father and grandfather before him. Jock smiled again as he thought, Old school NCOs like Melvin Patchett don’t think much of us West Pointers, especially ones like Brewster, who think stars will fall on their shoulders just for showing up. But Jock knew full well that Melvin Patchett was a good man to have around: he was a gruff, tough-as-nails combat veteran—a doughboy of World War One—and Army through and through. He had never bothered to take a wife, citing the old maxim, If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one. Even though Patchett was an “old man” of 42, his 24 years of service had made him most wise in the ways of the Army. Unlike Lieutenant John Joseph Pershing “Scooter” Brewster.
Before Jock Miles could ask his first sergeant to elaborate, Scooter Brewster himself came bustling down the upper deck, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“Captain Miles,” Brewster said, “I’ve prepared summary court martial charges against PFC Russo—’’
Miles interrupted, asking, “What are the charges, Lieutenant?”
“Drunk and disorderly, sir.”
“Did you confiscate the liquor?”
“Yes, sir. I found quite a stash.”
Jock took the papers from Scooter Brewster’s hand and gave them a cursory glance. Then he folded the papers and stuffed them into his shirt pocket.
Brewster looked perplexed. “Aren’t you going to sign them, sir?”
“No, I don’t think so, Lieutenant. If we locked up every dogface who got a little rowdy, half of them would be in the brig by the time this tub docks. That might put quite a crimp in our unit readiness. Tell you what…give Russo a night in the can to sober up, then release him. That sound okay to you, First Sergeant?”
Melvin Patchett nodded in agreement, trying hard not to snicker at the flustered Lieutenant Brewster.
“Was there anything else, Lieutenant?” Miles asked.
Crestfallen, Scooter Brewster replied, “No, sir.”
“Then carry on, Lieutenant.”
After a crisp exchange of salutes, Brewster scurried away. Jock settled back against the rail to watch the festivities on the main deck with Melvin Patchett. The hazing seemed to be winding down—if you could call being knocked down and propelled across the deck by a powerful, “cleansing” spray from a fire hose winding down. Soon, the wogs would rise to the status of shellback—provided the process did not kill them first.
“The way this thing is looking, the Japs are going to beat our asses to Australia,” the first sergeant said. “I’ve just heard they bombed Darwin again and pretty much kicked the Aussie Army out of New Guinea. Those who ain’t already POWs are trying to escape back home across the Torres Strait on anything that’ll float. It’s like a Dunkirk down under, they’re saying. The Japs have taken the Solomon Islands, too…wherever the hell they are. They sure ain’t wasting much time.”
Melvin Patchett turned and gazed at the three huge crates lashed to the afterdeck, each containing a disassembled American fighter plane. “And how the hell are we supposed to stop them yellow bastards? With a trickle of route-step dogfaces and three li’l ol’ fighter planes?”
“There’ll be other convoys, Top,” Miles said, “with more men, more equipment—”
Patchett’s burst of laughter stopped Jock cold. “Meaning no disrespect, sir,” the first sergeant said, “but at this rate, we’ll all be dead and gone of old age before The US of A starts kicking any Japanese ass. Seems to me we’re part of a show of force that ain’t no force at all.”
A loud, repetitive gong began to sound from the ship’s public address system. The Navy men ceased their ceremony and sprinted to their battle stations, the old shellbacks still in costume, the new ones still soaking wet in skivvies, even before a booming voice from the speakers commanded them to do so. A destroyer off the troopship’s starboard side let loose several whoops of its horn and, pouring thick, gray smoke from her stacks, turned hard to starboard, making maximum speed toward some submerged menace thought to be stalking the convoy.
“Probably just s’more fucking whales,” Patchett said, pulling bright orange life jackets from a bulkhead rack.
“Maybe,” Jock replied as he took the life jacket his first sergeant offered. “Let’s just hope we don’t get torpedoed and meet the real King Neptune.”
Chapter Six
April 1942
It was late afternoon and the day’s downpour had made its exit, but, as always, the heat and humidity remained. A strong wind pushed the storm clouds, still flashing their lightning bolts, away from the west coast of Cape York Peninsula and out over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Jillian Forbes walked briskly down the Weipa Mission d
ock, her riding boots making their familiar clomp clomp on the wet wooden planks. The wind-whipped hem of her old cotton dress flapped about her knees like a faded, flowered flag; her long, dark, untamed hair swirled crazily about her head. She was growing worried. All her fishing boats were back but one: her biggest, Mangrove Queen. The other five boats had already unloaded their day’s catch. The boats’ Aborigine crews—black men in the tattered work clothes of white men—had already gone up the road to their families in the Mission settlement. But there was something on the water, well offshore, growing larger quickly. That’s probably the Queen, she thought, more a prayer than a certainty.
She heard the sound of another pair of boots on the dock. Constable Mick Murray was striding toward her, a very serious look on his weathered face. He looked exhausted, like he had been riding all day. The constable started speaking when he was still 20 feet away.
“Jilly, I’m going to tell you one more time…all whites are to evacuate south. That means you, too, young lady.”
Jillian’s eyes remained glued to the approaching speck on the water. “And I’ll tell you one more time, Mick…go to hell.”
Mick was now right next to Jillian, but she still wouldn’t turn to look at him.
“The Japs are coming, Jilly. The wet is almost over…a perfect time to invade.” The wet: the summer months of frequent, torrential rain in tropical North Queensland.
“This isn’t a child’s game we’re playing,” the constable added.
“And I’m not a child, Mick. Aussies don’t even want anything to do with the Cape…why in bloody hell would the Japs want to come here? Besides, I’ve got Dad’s business to look after. I won’t leave.”
“The Cape could turn into a battlefield before you know it, Jilly.”
“I doubt that,” she replied. “The only diggers I’ve seen around here were headed south as fast as they could go.”
Frustrated, Mick pulled off his slouch hat and mopped the sweat from his balding head. Jillian Forbes had been obstinate since the day she was born. Clearly, he needed a stronger argument to convince this headstrong young woman. He tried a more ominous tack: “You know what the Japs will do to a white woman, Jilly.”
She laughed and finally turned to look at him. “Mick, you may scare the Mission ladies with that talk, but I grew up here in the wild. I don’t need the King of England or his lackeys in Canberra to decide what’s good for me.”
The constable shrugged, reached into his pocket, and produced a document. Jillian took it from his hand, read it, and tore it up.
Mick Murray sighed and said, “Ripping it up doesn’t change a thing, Jilly. The government has commandeered your vessels for the national defense. Have them ready to sail first thing in the morning. I’ll be using them to evacuate the Mission folks. Why don’t you plan to be onboard, too?”
Jillian’s attention had turned elsewhere. She looked back over the water; Mangrove Queen—all 55 feet of her—was coming into clear view. She noticed something out of the ordinary right away—there were three more souls on board than when she had departed. Army green uniforms differentiated those three from the five Aborigine crewmen, even at this distance. As the Queen drew closer, it was clear the soldiers—the diggers—had seen rough times. Their uniforms were torn and soiled; their gaunt bodies had been abused by wind and sea. Once the boat was secured to the dock, the soldiers were so wobbly her crewmen had to help them disembark. Only one still had his boots. None had a weapon. They all had the same glassy stare, fixed well into the distance, as if watching a calamity from afar only they could see.
“We found them in a little boat, Miss Jilly, way out in the Gulf,” Old Robert, the Queen’s captain, called from the helm. “They rowed from Papua. It’s a miracle the current in the strait didn’t get them.”
Mick Murray asked, “How long were you adrift, lads?”
His voice a parched croak, the one still with his boots answered, “Six days.”
With the dismissive air of a know-it-all, Murray said, “From Papua, you say…you should have just gone over to Horn Island. The Navy’s been shuttling diggers like you from there down to Cairns for weeks.”
Anger flared in the haggard faces of the three soldiers, but they seemed incapable of mounting a reply. Old Robert offered a rebuttal on their behalf: “Oh, no, Constable Mick…the Japs are on Horn Island now. We watch their planes come and go from the airfield there.”
The soldier with the boots began to mumble, his words slow and halting: “Everything…all fell apart…the Japs…they had everything…even whores…we had nothing.” His focus snapped back from that distant horizon; a look of indignation crossed his face. “The Yanks,” he said, “they never came…never came.”
Old Robert had more to say. “We see Jap planes flying very low all the time now over the Gulf. We can see their faces. They smile and wave at us.”
Mick Murray scowled, pointed his finger at Old Robert, and said, “Let’s see how friendly you think they are on dry land, when you’re stuck on the end of their bayonet. Now, you blacks take these diggers up to the Mission—”
Jillian interrupted the constable. “Hang on, Mick. Don’t be giving orders to my crew. They’ve got a catch to unload. Why don’t you take these lads up to the Mission yourself? You’re not doing anything useful here. Go ahead and use one of my wagons.”
Murray threw up his arms in resignation. There was no point arguing with Jillian Forbes while these poor lads needed attention. After tomorrow he would be gone from here, and she would be out of his hair one way or the other. He led the three soldiers away.
Jillian’s icehouse was the coolest place in the Weipa Mission, if you could stand the odor of fish that permeated its corrugated iron confines and the racket of the petrol-fueled generator that powered the place. Jillian tied her horse to the railing of the building’s veranda and then looked to her six boats nestled against the nearby dock.
I’ll be damned if I’m giving those boats away, not to anyone, she thought as she settled into a wicker chair on the veranda. Dad worked too hard for them. But she had known the government would try to take them; the Navy had been appropriating vessels all over the northern Australian coastline. She stretched her legs out and propped the heels of her riding boots on the railing. As she did, the hem of her dress slid halfway up her thighs. Unperturbed, she bunched the hiked skirt between her legs and relaxed into the chair.
The only whites left in this settlement were the Presbyterian missionaries, who were very keen on leaving, and Jillian Forbes. Less than a dozen of the missionaries remained; 50 or more had already fled on the trading schooners that worked the Gulf before they, too, had been commandeered. Six half-caste orphans remained at the Mission; they would be evacuated as well. The Presbyterians told terrible stories of what happened to missionaries in China at the hands of the Japanese. Jillian was skeptical of those stories: Sure, they probably have a kernel of truth in them…but I’ll wager they’ve been blown up into hysterical old wives’ tales.
Mick Murray was right, though; it didn’t matter if she ripped up the government order commandeering her boats. As the sole remaining arm of government left in this area, he would just take them anyway. The only way she could stop him was to shoot him. As appealing as that idea sounded, she knew that killing Mick Murray would eventually result in a trip to Brisbane Women’s Prison, probably for life.
Old Robert emerged from The Mangrove Queen’s cabin, jumped to the dock and walked toward the veranda where Jillian sat. “All done?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Jilly.” He looked cautiously around, then asked, “Is Constable Mick really leaving with the big boats?”
“That’s what he thinks.”
“So we all go bush…or we starve?”
“Nobody’s going to starve, Robert. Trust me.”
“But the constable is leaving?”
Jillian nodded. Old Robert smiled, staring wistfully into the icehouse.
“Help yourself,” Jillian said, m
otioning toward the door. “Bring me one, too.”
Old Robert walked into the icehouse, patting the nose of Jillian’s tethered horse on the way. When he emerged a few minutes later, his skipper’s hat was cocked jauntily on his head, and he held two bottles of cold beer in his hands. He gave one to Jillian. As he took a sip from his bottle, he came face to face with Constable Mick Murray.
“Put that beer down,” the constable said. “You know the law. You boongs can’t be drinking alcohol. I can lock you up and throw away the bloody key.”
Mick turned to Jillian. “You shouldn’t be letting your blacks at the beer—”
“They’re not my blacks, Mick,” she interrupted. “Old Robert works for me, just like he worked for my father. Dad didn’t own him, and neither do I.”
Robert took another sip of the beer. Mick, his hand resting on the revolver at his hip, took a menacing step forward and said, “Don’t be pushing me, boong.”
Like a child in a schoolroom, Old Robert raised his hand to ask a question. “Constable Mick,” he said, very politely, “who’s going to lock me up if you’re not here?” An angelic smile remained on his face as he awaited an answer.
For a moment, Jillian thought Mick Murray’s head might actually explode. Surely, Old Robert had pushed the constable too far. Mick’s eyes bulged; his face was beet red. So upset was he by this insubordinate yet completely logical question that his entire body seemed to vibrate with rage.
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 3