“My friend…a coast watcher…he didn’t make it,” Doc Green said, his voice detached and emotionless, as if this rote recitation was the only way to relate a nightmare. “The Japs cornered him. We found his decapitated body while we were running for our lives.”
Sergeant Hadley had a question. “Doc, those Aussies who went in before us…the Nackeroos…do you think we’ll find them with their heads cut off, too?”
“Maybe,” Green replied, “if we find them at all. I wouldn’t expect much from the Nackeroos, though. They’ve never left Australian soil, and they’re very lightly armed. They’re nothing but coast watchers with somewhere to run.” He paused, and then added, “I wasn’t too thrilled to hear they’ll be the ones driving us into the bush. Bloody stupid name, too, if you ask me.”
The mood was getting too somber for Doc Green’s taste. He shrugged, put a smile on his face and said, “I’ve got to be getting back. I’m supposed to give you blokes a class later. Everything you need to know about crocs and snakes and such…”
After the doc had gone, J.T. Guess confronted Nicky Russo. “That was a damn stupid thing to do, lying on the ground like a buncha women. You coulda got us all in deep shit, you Yankee moron.”
Russo responded with an extended middle finger. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, cracker. All you rednecks should get slow stomach cancer.” Then he pushed J.T. Guess hard in the chest.
Guess did not yield his ground. They stood nose to nose; their old animosities had never really healed. They had only been in remission. It was a blessing all the ammunition for the Thompson submachine guns they carried had already been expended.
It was Guess who broke the tense silence: “Touch me again, Yankee, and I’ll—”
Sergeant Hadley jumped between them. “KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF, BOTH OF YOU,” he yelled in a command voice of surprising power from a man so short. “SAVE THAT SHIT FOR THE JAPS, YOU KNUCKLEHEADS.”
A man’s size didn’t matter if he had three stripes on his sleeve; ignore him at your peril. As Guess and Russo shuffled back to their respective duties in prudent silence, Tom Hadley, with his voice now barely above a whisper, added, “You’re going to need it.”
In the commandeered office building that served as American Forces Headquarters in downtown Brisbane, this was Scooter Brewster’s third visit to the latrine in an hour. He hadn’t needed to answer the call of nature on any of the visits; he just wanted to stand before the mirror and admire the new insignia that adorned his collar: the eagle-on-shield of a general’s aide had replaced the crossed rifles of an infantryman. He smiled proudly, straightened his tie, and headed back to his desk outside the office of his new boss, Major General Samuel Briley, the division commander. Very soon, the general had promised, Brewster would be trading in the single silver bar of a first lieutenant for the double bars of a captain, too. Life is good, Scooter thought as he began to whistle Glenn Miller’s In the Mood.
He found several packets in his “in” basket, fresh from the morning mail delivery. Most contained documents on administrative and logistical issues already acted upon by division staff officers; they merely required General Briley’s signature, which he usually affixed without even bothering to read them. The packet at the bottom of the pile caught Brewster’s attention. Within it was the paperwork to process a soldier for a decoration.
For an army that had not yet done much in the way of fighting, processing decorations was a rare occurrence. Especially decorations being awarded for extraordinary heroism while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States. True, MacArthur’s soldiers and airmen in the Philippines had fought bravely in a losing battle, and no doubt some of them deserved to be decorated, but there was little urgency in the Army to process that paperwork. Those who had not been killed in action were, for the most part, dying a slow, miserable death in POW camps.
So who the hell in this command is up for a medal? Brewster wondered as he spread the documents before him on the desk. The intended recipient’s name practically jumped off the page in capital letters: MILES, MAYNARD CAPTAIN USA. Seeing that name rubbed salt in a wound that still felt very fresh to Scooter Brewster.
With disbelieving eyes, he read through the oldest document, signed by an admiral and stamped US NAVAL PACIFIC FLEET HEADQUARTERS, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII. In the narrative block used to justify the decoration, those eyes fell on the phrase:
…showing conspicuous gallantry and leadership under fire, Captain Miles rallied an undirected group of Navy personnel into an effective ad hoc anti-aircraft unit, successfully downing at least two of the attacking Japanese aircraft…
“What a bunch of horseshit,” Brewster mumbled as he scanned down the page. He came to the block listing the recommended decoration:
Distinguished Service Cross
“A DSC?” Brewster said, his tone incredulous and loud enough to make the Aussie secretaries in the office cast curious glances his way. Lowering his voice so no one would hear, he said, “Fucking swabbies blow everything way out of proportion.” The secretaries went about their business with knowing smiles on their faces. Brewster had only been in their midst a day, but they had already dubbed him Lieutenant Douchebag.
There were two more documents, each processed by a different stateside Army command. According to the date stamps, each had languished on some staff officer’s desk, or been in transit halfway around the world and back, for months at a time. Both documents rejected the recommended decoration of its predecessor and kicked the award down a notch without explanation. The current request on Scooter Brewster’s desk proposed to award Jock Miles a Bronze Star. Now it was up to the division commander to approve or reject entirely; there was no lesser award for combat heroism to pin on a soldier’s chest.
Looks like there’s no rush on this nonsense, Brewster thought as he scooped up the documents and stuffed them into a desk drawer. General Briley’s got far more important things on his mind at the moment.
Chapter Nineteen
Jillian was struggling with an eerie feeling of vulnerability as she tottered with uneasy steps from the icehouse to the Mission House. Maybe it’s the way I’m dressed, she thought. She had ridden Franz down from her house, put him away at the icehouse paddock, and splashed on a dab of perfume from a bottle that had sat on her dresser, unused, for years. She then changed from her usual trousers and riding boots into a dress and what she called her funeral shoes. They were cloth pumps with thick, two-inch heels, the only high heels she owned. She had only worn them once prior to this evening, at the funeral of a white missionary woman who had died suddenly last year. Maybe I should call them my “white funeral shoes,” she thought, since at funerals for the blacks, you don’t need shoes at all. Somehow, going to dinner with Sato and the Japanese colonel seemed very much like going to a funeral. A white funeral. Her white funeral, perhaps.
She towered over the two sentinels who stood like toy soldiers at the Mission House door. They snapped to attention as she approached. The waning light of sunset glinted for an instant off the cold steel of their rifles’ long, thin bayonets. Her steps began to falter, not because of the unfamiliar heels she wore or the tools of violent death on display but the sounds she heard coming from within the Mission House. A performance on piano of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 played softly from some sort of record player deep within the house. The scratchy quality of the recording and the somberness of the piece’s minor key added to the funereal feel in her soul. But she thought she heard another sound, far more chilling and not quite masked by the music: the muffled screams of a woman. Jillian’s forward progress slowed to a stop as if wading through molasses.
Bob Sato appeared in the doorway, smiling broadly. “Come, Jillian,” he urged her. “Dinner is about to be served.” The woman’s screams trailed off into moans and sobs, barely audible, as if she had abandoned any hope of mercy from her tormentor. Hesitantly, Jillian climbed the stairs and stepped across the threshold into the flickering lantern lig
ht of the Mission House. Bob Sato continued to pretend nothing was out of order.
In the entrance hallway, Jillian could hear more than just the woman’s moans beneath the music. A man’s grunt, followed a split second later by a sharp thwack, preceded each moan, the sickening sounds of a beating administered with some sort of stick. She had seen and heard men beat animals—and sometimes their women—with sticks before. Her steps faltered once again; it was impossible to ignore the sounds of the beating or hide the distressed look on her face.
“Listen,” Bob Sato said, “I’ve played Liszt for you!”
A particularly emphatic thwack and moan escaped from the depths of the house.
“You didn’t play it loud enough, I’m afraid,” Jillian replied, her eyes searching but failing to find the hidden source of the distressing sounds.
“Oh, that woman? Don’t concern yourself. The colonel is displeased with one of the comfort women. It’s a routine matter.”
The sound of the beating ceased, replaced by the steady clomp of an object on wooden floors, growing nearer. Sato offered his arm to Jillian and escorted her to the candlelit dining room. As they reached its threshold, Sato removed his boots. Taking his cue, Jillian removed her funeral shoes.
Colonel Najima appeared, already shoeless, wearing a kimono and carrying a large bamboo stick in his hand like a walking cane. He was red in the face; perhaps administering the beating had gotten the better of him. The cane made one final clomp as the colonel stopped, gestured graciously for Jillian and Sato to go inside, and then followed them, setting the bamboo stick upright and prominent in a corner of the room. The three comfort women fluttered silently about, waiting to attend to the colonel and his guests, casting furtive, fearful glances at the stick.
Jillian had been in this room many times before, but it was arranged quite differently now. The long dining table and its chairs had been removed. In its place was a low table, its top only a foot or so off the floor, surrounded by cushions on which to sit. The music was coming from a Victrola—the old, wind-up type, with a large horn sitting on top to project the sound—that sat on a sideboard in the corner of the room. The colonel settled onto the cushion at the head of the table. He spoke something gruffly in Japanese; Jillian understood not a word. She found the sound of the language harsh and guttural, like the speaker was always clearing his throat. One of the comfort women quickly silenced the Victrola before following the other two into the kitchen.
“The colonel wishes to converse without the distraction of the music,” Sato said.
Sato picked up a small pitcher and poured Jillian a cup of saké—Japanese rice wine—and then did the same for the colonel. The colonel, in turn, poured a cup for Sato. With a lengthy torrent of words as he held his cup high, the colonel seemed to be proposing a toast. Jillian’s hapless smile made it plain she had understood not a word once again.
Sato provided the translation. “The colonel wishes to express our regrets for the unpleasantness at the airfield earlier today. He hopes we can renew our spirit of cooperation.”
“Why is he telling me this?” Jillian asked. “He should be talking to Nathan Gooreng…and that poor lad Jonathan who took the beating.”
As Sato repeated her words to Colonel Najima in Japanese, Jillian wondered how close his translation actually was. She watched the colonel intently, trying to gauge his reaction. She was relieved—and a bit surprised—he did not seem in the least upset. The colonel responded with another lengthy dissertation.
Sato smiled knowingly as he provided the translation. “He’s telling you, my dear Jillian, because there is no one the Aborigines respect and trust more than you. They hold you on a pedestal. Whether you realize it or not, you are their leader.”
Jillian furrowed her brow. “I told you before…I’m not anyone’s leader. And if I was, do you really expect me to help you justify cutting their wages?”
“That was merely an empty threat, Jillian…ill-considered and made in haste.”
“So you have no intention of cutting their wages?”
Sato took a moment to relate the dialogue to the colonel, who, after a moment’s reflection, merely nodded in agreement and made a gesture with his hand, an unmistakable directive to continue.
Sato did just that. “The colonel believes cutting the wages of the Aborigine laborers would be a terribly counterproductive thing to do, don’t you agree?”
Now it was Jillian’s turn to nod in agreement and make the same continue gesture the colonel had just made.
“The colonel shares my concern, however, about inflationary pressure on the occupation pound…”
Here we go again, Jillian thought. In about two seconds, they’re going to ask me to cut the wages of my crews again.
“It is important we keep prices well under control,” Sato said. “I’m alarmed at the rise in price of many goods at the general store…goods the Empire was pleased to supply at less than wholesale. It seems the store’s Aborigine management—”
“Aborigine management? That’s a bit grand, isn’t it, Bob? You’re talking about one person here…Alice Tookurra, who was only the shop girl when the Mission people ran the place.”
“Yes, and your Alice seems to have graduated from shop girl to profiteer very quickly.”
“Alice doesn’t keep the money. It all goes to their country.”
Sato looked confused. “Country? Do you mean Australia?”
“No, Bob…Weipa, their Aboriginal community…that’s what they consider their country. The concept of Australia means nothing to them.”
“It makes no difference where the money goes, Jillian. It’s still profiteering and will lead to inflationary pressure on the occupation pound.”
Sato held up a finger, demanding her silence so he could translate the conversation for Colonel Najima. The colonel’s response was terse; he looked irritated now. Before Sato could relate Najima’s comments to Jillian, the comfort women reappeared with plates of food for the table. The meal looked sumptuous: a variety of seafood served on beds of rice. The centerpiece of the offering was large slabs of broiled shark steak.
It took Jillian several tries to get that first bite into her mouth as she struggled to master the art of eating with chopsticks. Sato began to speak again, this time in those chilling tones of transparent threat she had heard only once before, the last time she and Sato had discussed wages. “Quite simply, Jillian, the colonel and I feel we have been more than generous with the people of Weipa. But we feel a certain lack of…shall we say gratitude?…for the warm welcome we have extended into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. We would appreciate a gesture from you, as the leader of this community, to show our generosity has not been wasted effort.”
Jillian’s appetite had vanished. The bamboo stick stood in the corner as a reminder of how life around Weipa could become something very different: a brutal prison—or a slaughterhouse. She realized she now had no choice but to assume the mantle of leadership being thrust at her. The peace of the Weipa community—and the lives of everyone in it—depended on her.
Glancing down at the shark steak on her plate, a great calm came over her. That piece of fish had inspired the answer she so desperately needed. Bursting with confidence, she said, “You know, gentlemen…I can solve your money problems very easily. And I’m not talking about lowering the wages of my men. You know as well as I the effect of that would only be a drop in the bucket…but I can do two things that will have tremendous impact. First, I’ll get Alice to lower the prices at the store. Believe me, she had no intention to do any harm…and her actions haven’t yet caused any real harm to the occupation pound.”
She pointed with her chopstick to the shark steaks on the serving platter. “And second, I’m going to cut the price of the fish I provide to you in half.” For graphic emphasis, she sliced one of the tender steaks right down the middle with the chopsticks. She let her proposition sink in for a moment before asking, “What do you think of that?”
The exchange in Japanese between Sato and Colonel Najima was brief. Smiles spread across the faces of both men. They turned to Jillian, bowed their heads, and then began to applaud her.
“Now,” Sato said, “the colonel would like us to enjoy both this delicious meal and our renewed spirit of cooperation.”
As great as Jillian’s relief was, Sato’s was greater. One of the things the colonel had told him in the conversation leading up to Jillian’s concession was this: Get this foolish girl and her lazy primitives to do my bidding without question before this entire venture falls apart…and I scatter your ashes in this wasteland along with theirs.
When dinner was over, Sato walked Jillian back to the icehouse. Two soldiers—Sato’s bodyguards—marched behind at a discreet distance. The saké had made him glib and his gait unsteady. Perhaps a bit amorous, too. He offered her his arm; she did not take it. “No, thanks, Bob. I’ve been standing up by myself for a long time.”
Not so sure about you, though, you little sot. Can’t stand a man who can’t hold his grog.
“That’s a very generous and noble thing you proposed, Jilly.”
“Don’t call me Jilly. Nobody calls me that nowadays but the blacks. It’s an expression of affection…and you’re not black.”
Sato chuckled tipsily at the rebuff. “Okay, fine, Jill-ee-un. But seriously, to sacrifice profit for the general good is a generous and noble thing.” He had made the comment so effusively he nearly toppled over.
“Don’t get all wobbly, Bob,” she said without offering a steadying hand. “It’s not that big a deal. Profits are the last thing on my mind at the moment.”
The saké had not affected Jillian’s balance or thought processes in the least. She unhitched Franz and mounted him side-saddle, taking great care not to flash her knickers at her inebriated admirer.
“So what is on your mind?” His drunken leer turned the question into a sexual overture.
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 10