Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1)
Page 7
As he took the few steps to Jock Miles’s office, Scooter Brewster fantasized that the real big thing the company commander needed to discuss was the replacement of Melvin Patchett as company first sergeant. That insubordinate old cracker needs to be put out to pasture, anyway. Now we can court martial him…let him rot with a few less stripes in some pencil-pushing job with all the other fossils while the new breed goes out and wins this war. His chest puffed proudly when the words new breed passed through his head.
As soon as they were inside the office, Jock said, “Shut the fucking door, Brewster.” Like a punctured balloon, the air escaped from Scooter’s chest—and from his fantasy—as soon as Jock’s irritated words were spoken.
“Sir,” Scooter pleaded, “you’re not going to tell me it’s okay for an NCO to chew out an officer like that?”
Jock settled into his chair and held the officer before him in a stern gaze. “Did First Sergeant Patchett call you a disrespectful name or use disrespectful language or tone of voice in front of the men?”
“No, sir, not really, but—”
“I didn’t ask for any explanation, Brewster. Just yes or no answers will do. Now, from the little I’ve heard here, the First Sergeant corrected some point of tactical instruction you were giving the men. Do I have that right?”
Brewster hesitated before answering, “Yes, sir.” He wanted to say so much more, to plead his case, one West Point officer to another. But something told him he’d better not.
“Do you have any reason to suspect, Lieutenant Brewster, that your rather limited…no, make that nonexistent combat experience might have more validity than that of a man who, when you and I were still having our asses wiped by our mothers, actually had to lie down and crawl across no man’s land under grazing fire?”
There were a few moments of awkward silence before Scooter Brewster replied, in a voice barely above an embarrassed whisper, “I suppose not, sir.”
Jock rose from his chair. “So,” he said, “let me get this straight. You want me to court martial the most experienced and valued man in my company because your pride was hurt?”
There was another moment of silence before Scooter said, “I guess not, sir.”
“We should all be thanking our lucky stars Melvin Patchett had the good sense to lie down on that battlefield in France,” Jock said. “Now I’d like you to suck it up like a man and apologize to the first sergeant.”
Bristling, Scooter Brewster asked, “Apologize for what, sir?”
“How about mistaking pride for wisdom, Lieutenant?”
It took Scooter Brewster several seconds to shake off the waves of revulsion that passed through his body. His face contorted into a grimace as if he smelled some terrible odor. This was not the way things were supposed to go in his promising military career. I’m a Brewster, goddamn it! We don’t “suck it up” for anyone, especially not subordinates. What’s this Army coming to when another West Point man will shit all over you like that?
Scooter would put in for a transfer to another unit first thing in the morning, and he would get it; the general commanding the division was an old friend of the family. Before he did that, though, he would wait and see what this company meeting—with its promise of a real big thing—was all about.
Brewster snapped to attention, but before he could say anything, Jock added, “By the way, Scooter, when the phrase with all due respect is aimed at you, it means you’ve already made a complete jackass out of yourself.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jillian watched them march in step up the path to the icehouse veranda: a tiny Japanese Army officer carrying a satchel, with two equally tiny soldiers two paces behind. The officer was so short the tip of the sword hitched to his belt nearly dragged across the ground; the bantam soldiers seemed strangely unencumbered by the absurdly large rifles they carried at shoulder arms. As they made their way forward with serious faces, rigid postures, and synchronized limbs, they looked more like children playing warrior than conquering heroes of the Empire.
She did not bother to rise from her armchair as the officer bowed, deposited the contents of the satchel at her feet, snapped to attention, and fell back in step with his escorts as they marched away as if in some comic opera. Jillian bent over and scooped up the money at her feet—the week’s accounting of Imperial Japanese Pounds of the Occupied Territories, payment for the fresh seafood her boats had supplied. She began to count it, then thought better of it: They’re not interested in short-changing me…at least not yet. She carried the money into the icehouse, spun the dial on the safe she had never bothered to lock before, and placed the Japanese money inside. It nestled on top of the many bundles of Australian pounds no one had any use for at the moment. And if this Japanese money turns out to be worthless…well, I guess we can always use it to wipe ourselves.
Jillian settled back into her chair on the veranda and waited for her boats to return with the day’s catch. They would be flying those oversized white flags on which the Japanese had insisted. Don’t think of it as a symbol of surrender, Bob Sato had told her. It’s for the safety of your boats and their crews in these transitional times. We must assume vessels such as yours, flying the Australian flag, have hostile intent, just as the Allies will assume the same for anything flying the Japanese flag. Grudgingly, she had conceded his point. The waters of Albatross Bay had never been so busy, with the daily landings of Japanese barges on the shores in and around Weipa. They brought construction vehicles, fuel tankers, artillery pieces, and supplies under the protection of warships and the usual flock of aircraft. It would only take one trigger-happy soldier or sailor to cause a tragedy of mistaken identity. And when all this is over, she thought, I wonder what the flag of the Occupied Australian Territories will look like. A kangaroo on a white background? The thought depressed her: I need a bloody drink.
Jillian fetched a beer, allowing herself a bottle of Australian from the chiller. She had taken to rationing the last of the Australian beer, for once it was gone there would be nothing to drink but Japanese beer. She had tasted a bottle of the stuff soon after they had landed last month; Bob Sato had brought a case as a goodwill offering. Aussies always referred to their beer as piss—but Sato’s gift had brought a new, quite literal meaning to the term.
She had barely sat back down when a small utility vehicle with Japanese Army markings drove up. Vehicles seemed to be multiplying like rodents as more and more roads were cut through the eucalyptus forest into the bush beyond. Bob Sato popped from the passenger’s seat as the driver shut off the engine. “May I join you, Jillian?” Sato asked.
“If you like,” she answered.
He eyed her bottle of Australian beer. “Would you fancy one?” she asked.
He nodded eagerly, and she disappeared into the icehouse. When she returned a few moments later, she handed him a bottle of Japanese beer. He took the proffered bottle, his face registering abject disappointment. Jillian managed—just barely—to mask the smirk trying to spread across her face.
“You’ve been bridging the river, I see. So how many of your soldiers did you lose to the crocs today?” she asked.
The question—and the reality it reflected—made Sato uncomfortable. He squirmed in his seat as he answered, “Oh, I suppose the usual number…one or two, perhaps.”
Jillian relaxed into her chair. “Did you ever notice,” she asked, “how your black laborers rarely get eaten by crocs? It’s usually the crocs getting eaten by the blacks.”
“Yes,” Sato replied, “It’s been duly noted.” After a long pull on the beer bottle, he said, “There is something I must discuss with you, Miss Forbes.”
She turned in her chair to face him and instinctively began to cross her legs. Then she realized there was no need for modesty: she was wearing trousers. She propped the heels of her riding boots high against the veranda’s railing instead.
“I’ve taken great pains to establish a stable currency here, just as I have done in the other occupied territories,” Sato sai
d. “But I fear you’ve been undermining my efforts…unintentionally, of course.”
“I’m doing what?”
“Undermining the stability of the occupation pound.”
“And how the bloody hell am I doing that, Mister Sato?”
“Please do not misunderstand, Miss Forbes! I appreciate that you don’t realize the results of your actions…”
Jillian was becoming hot under the collar. “Are you calling me stupid?”
“No, no! It’s just that…you…you don’t appreciate the economic impact of your actions.”
“WHAT BLOODY ACTIONS, MISTER SATO?”
Sato sighed. He had meant this conversation to be enlightening, not adversarial. “The wages you pay your crewmen, Miss Forbes…they’re much too high. I hear many complaints from my black laborers, who are paid much less.”
“What business is it of yours…or theirs…what I pay my crewmen, Mister Sato?”
“Please…call me Bob!”
“I don’t bloody think so.”
“Please, Miss Forbes…can we be businesslike?”
“Not when you’re sticking your arse into my bleedin’ business, we can’t.”
“That’s just my point…our businesses are very connected now. The Weipa Mission is a microcosm of Australia’s future economy.”
Jillian glared at him and took another pull on her beer, prompting Sato to ask, “You do understand what I mean by microcosm, Miss Forbes?”
She nearly spit the beer in his face. “Of course I know what microcosm means. Insulting my intelligence is a bloody awful way to talk business, Mister Sato. Get to the fucking point, already.”
“Very well, Miss Forbes. The exorbitant wages you pay your crewmen are putting inflationary pressure on the occupation pound.”
“Excuse me?”
“Inflation, Miss Forbes. You’re paying them more than their labor is worth, which drives down the currency’s value.”
A light went on in Jillian’s eyes. She was ready for battle. “In other words,” she said, “you think that my pay rates are putting upward pressure on the pay of the blacks you employ as laborers.”
Sato clapped his hands with delight. “Yes, Miss Forbes! That’s exactly it!”
“Well, Mister Sato, there’s just one problem with that. We’re fishing in different ponds. I already employ all the men I need. I’m not looking for any additional help. Since I have no interest in hiring men away from you, I have no impact on what you pay the laborers you employ. And since there is a more than ample supply of blacks for you to employ on Cape York, you have no need of the men who work for me. Like I said…different ponds.”
Sato was flustered. He began to sputter, “But that’s academically incorrect! That’s not how the value of money works!”
Jillian smiled, settled back into her chair, and said, “It’s how it works around here.” She paused before adding, “Unless you want to catch your own bloody fish.” She drained what was left in her bottle as Sato shifted nervously in his chair, struggling to compose a rebuttal.
“Besides,” Jillian said, “outside our little world, in the macrocosm, we still don’t know if this funny-money of yours is really worth anything. We may all be paying our men absolutely nothing.”
“Perhaps, in time, Miss Forbes, you’ll better understand the economic workings of the Empire. But now, there is another issue we must discuss.”
An amused smirk on her face, she said, “Oh, wonderful! There’s more?”
“Yes, Miss Forbes, there is. Tomorrow, a ship will arrive bearing a contingent of what the Army calls comfort women.”
Jillian thought back to the bedraggled diggers her crew had rescued at sea, only days before the Japanese landed. She remembered clearly something one of them had said about the Japanese in Papua: They had everything…even whores.
“These comfort women,” Jillian said, “they’re whores, right?”
“We prefer to think these women provide a service which is very beneficial to the morale of our troops, Miss Forbes. Colonel Najima has kept a very tight rein on his men. There has been none of the unfortunate abuse the other occupied territories experienced. The troops have earned some…shall we say, recreation.” He paused, looked straight into Jillian’s eyes, and said, “Surely, you wouldn’t want them turned loose on the local females.”
As those words came off his lips, Jillian saw the change in Sato’s demeanor. For the first time in the weeks she had known him, the tone of his voice made no attempt to be friendly and conciliatory. She heard in that voice a transparent threat, something he had always been so careful to conceal behind a veneer of partnership and fairness until that moment. Those were the words of a man who knew he held all the cards and could do whatever he pleased.
But those words were met with nothing but Jillian’s impassive glare. Stupid little man, she thought. As if it was some big secret that they could rape and kill every one of us in this bloody place if they wanted to.
After a few more moments of expectant silence, Bob Sato smiled; the spirit of cooperation and friendship had made its return. “Since it’s no longer in use, we plan to billet the ladies in the main Mission House,” he said. “Do you think the community would find that acceptable?”
Jillian found that riotously funny. “Acceptable?” she said, trying to catch her breath between howls of laughter. “Whores in a church house? That would be the most acceptable thing anyone around here has seen in quite a while.”
“Excellent!” Sato said, joining in the laughter. “Now, the ladies will require substantial quantities of ice from your facilities to cool themselves during their labors. Let’s negotiate a price per pound.”
“I’ll tell you what, Bob,” Jillian replied. “I’ll give them the bloody ice for free. It’s the least I can do to help keep your lads happy…” She finished the sentence in her head: …and out from between the legs of every female around here.
Chapter Fourteen
Jock Miles reckoned he had never been so busy in his life—or had so much on his mind. He’d hardly slept last night and hadn’t even found time for breakfast yet. The plans for the mission Colonel Snow had given him yesterday had been drawn. He had followed the KISS doctrine to the letter: KISS—Keep it simple, stupid. But even simple plans can have a thousand details that do not solve themselves.
Let’s see who we’ve got, Jock thought, as he reviewed the roster of those selected for the mission, now known as Task Force Miles. Besides me and the first sergeant, there are two five-man scout teams with a decent sergeant in charge of each one. Everyone’s in great physical shape…we should be able to handle a week or two of walking our asses off in the middle of nowhere, eating nothing but these new-fangled K rations and D bars. All we need now is that three-man radio section that’s coming from Division and a medic.
Melvin Patchett had given him some bad news right before last night’s cadre meeting: the company medic had gone to sick call with a drip.
My medic, of all people, caught the clap! You’d think he’d know better, at least. Shit…we’ve got to find somebody to replace him, fast! I’m not taking my men into the bush without a doc.
Jock lingered over two names near the bottom of the mission roster: Russo and Guess. I looked kind of cross-eyed at the first sergeant when he picked them…but they haven’t been at each other’s throats lately, and Top is right: they’re the best men for the job. Guess is the finest sharpshooter in the company, maybe the division. And Russo, since his assignment to Weapons Platoon, has all of a sudden become the proudest, most proficient machine gunner I’ve got. He’s a wizard with the air-cooled thirty caliber…and we’ll sure as hell need a good machine gunner if we have to fight our way out of a jam or fend off some airplanes, just like we had to do at Pearl. As good a weapon as those Thompsons are for a close-in fight, they’ll be next to worthless for hitting anything more than fifty feet away. The air-cooled thirty is a lot heavier than a BAR, but its better sustained rate of fire is worth it.
But I still can’t get out of my head that thing Patchett said to me after the meeting:
“Anybody who gets handed a mission like this has already been designated expendable. What do you say we don’t give them sons of bitches the satisfaction and actually pull this damn thing off?”
The cocky Australian Army captain giving the briefing was fast getting on Jock’s nerves. The rest of Task Force Miles found the Aussie just as irritating. Melvin Patchett’s whispered comment to Jock was especially telling: “The little prick acts like he’s doing us a goddamn favor letting us clean up their shit.”
If the Aussie sensed their annoyance, he wasn’t showing it. He digressed from his tactical presentation for a moment to boast of his credentials. “I am a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst,” he said, his nose in the air. “It’s like your captain’s West Point, only quite a bit better.”
At the back of the room, PFC Nicky Russo mumbled, “You’da been better off going to the Jap military academy, numbnuts.” The men within earshot began to snicker.
The Aussie captain did not hear Russo’s comment or at least pretended not to. As he continued the briefing without missing a beat, Melvin Patchett slipped behind Russo and whispered icily in his ear, “One more peep, son, and you and me gonna lock asses.” The sound of the first sergeant’s voice, even at a whisper, caused the snickering to cease as if a switch had been thrown.
“The Catalinas will drop you off here, at Temple Bay,” the Aussie continued, pointing to a spot on the map far to the north on Cape York Peninsula’s east coast. “You’ll land at first light—”