With a blast of differential engine thrust, Wells pivoted L for Love eastward, pointing down the inlet toward the sea. Then he pulled the throttles back to idle and took one long, last look across the moonlit water. When it was done, Tim Wells, looking like a man not enthused about what would happen next, turned again to Jock and said, “I need you back with your men in the bunk house now, Captain. Tell them everything looks fine, then all of you hang on for dear life until she’s in the air. And take that bloody milk crate with you. We don’t need it bouncing around up here right now.”
When Jock joined his men in the dimly-lit bunk compartment, he was surprised how relaxed and confident they all seemed. No one had the wide-eyed look of apprehension that punctuated their first flight. Not even Nicky Russo.
I wonder how relaxed they’d be if they just saw what I saw up in the cockpit.
“Hang on good and tight, men,” Jock shouted over the roar of throttled-up engines. “It might get a little bouncy.”
He knew those words were probably unnecessary; all the men were seated, their feet braced against the catwalk, their hands holding onto anything that was well nailed down. He was not ready, though, for the look they returned en masse. That look could only mean one thing: Gee, Captain…No shit!
They could see nothing but the blackness of night through the small cabin windows, but they could tell they were accelerating across the surface of the water. The Cat seemed to be evolving as a vessel as it picked up speed: first, it was a slogging launch; then an eager but encumbered motorboat, gently bouncing off the ripples. Now, she had become a sprightly speedboat, going fast enough for her hull to rise on step. What had been gentle bounces were now quick, harsh jolts that made you flinch. Jock looked across the faces of his men, each with an expression of joyful excitement unmistakable even in the dim lighting. They were trading boisterous comments he could not hear above the din, looking no different than kids enjoying an amusement park ride. All the fear of what they might shortly encounter in the bush was forgotten for the moment.
These are the shared experiences that bring a unit together, Jock thought. Only one flight under their belts, but my guys consider themselves seasoned airmen now…
Suddenly, it was all shattered. PFC Rex Billings and Nicky Russo were in an awkward shoving match, each trying to use the other to pull himself upright and get in position to throw a punch. A particularly wicked bounce on the water thwarted their efforts and landed them both back against the sidewall, still clutching each other by the life vests.
“I DON’T SEE NO FUCKING STRIPES ON YOUR ARM, YANKEE,” Billings yelled over the roar of the engines. His high-pitched, North Carolina drawl became all the more shrill at high volume. “YOU CAN KISS MY REBEL ASS.”
“KNOCK IT OFF, YOU TWO,” Jock bellowed. “SIT YOUR ASSES BACK DOWN. I DON’T NEED ANYONE BANGED UP BEFORE WE EVEN GET AIRBORNE!” A different thought flashed through Jock’s mind, too: Some of these southerners are never going to give up fighting the Civil War, are they?
It took them another moment to realize they were already airborne. The jolting had stopped; they were now floating on air instead of water. They had been too distracted to appreciate that sweet moment when earthbound mortals begin to soar with the eagles.
“All right, men…at ease,” Jock said. Sliding across the catwalk to Billings and Russo, he asked, “Now what’s the problem here?”
“I ain’t got no problem, Captain,” Russo said, still coiled like a spring. “He’s got the problem.”
“Damn straight I got a problem, sir,” Billings said. “He ain’t got no rank on me, so he can’t be giving me no orders. Sure, I’m toting ammo for him…but that don’t make him in charge of nothing.”
Jock asked, “What kind of orders are we talking about here, Private?”
“He’s telling me…no, ordering me…that when we land, I’m gonna tote the machine gun. Well, sir, I say bullshit on that. He wanted to be the hot-shit gunner, and with that honor, you get the gun…that big, heavy old gun. All thirty-two pounds of it.”
There was no mistaking the looks on the faces of Hadley, Pacheco, and Boudreau: they agreed completely with Billings.
So did Jock. He took a deep breath. Here we go again, he thought. It’s time to play nursemaid, priest, judge, and jury all rolled into one.
“Listen up…and listen good,” Jock began. “Like I said before we ever left Brisbane, you’re carrying the thirty cal as an individual weapon, Russo. That’s why it’s on the bipod and has the stock attached. We left the tripod behind because we don’t need to be carrying the extra weight. Now…you got the job because you’re the best at it. When we need that gun, we’re all counting on it being in your hands. It better be in your hands. Do you understand?”
As expected, Russo had the look of a child who had just been spanked. He took a moment before answering, “Yes, sir.” There was no rancor in his voice. Jock allowed himself to think Russo even sounded contrite.
“Shake hands, you two,” Jock said. Coming from the captain, that was an order, not a request. Russo and Billings complied quickly, if not wholeheartedly.
Their little world began to tip sideways as L for Love banked, beginning a slow turn to the north toward Temple Bay. There was nothing more to see or do for the next four hours, until they met the sunrise at their destination. Jock and his men took a cue from Doc Green and tried to catch a nap. Some were even successful.
M for Mother followed well behind and slightly below, just close enough to keep L for Love’s recognition lights in sight. Any closer, and the risk of a mid-air collision in the dark was just too great. Just like Tim Wells and his crew, M for Mother’s crew had breathed a mighty sigh of relief when their ship finally lifted off the water. Their takeoff run had been a good deal rougher than L for Love’s; they had to contend with remnants of the lead ship’s wake.
The bunk compartment of the trail ship was more crowded than the one in which Jock and his men were trying to sleep. There were the extra men from the radio section plus all their radio gear, including the three Radio Flyer wagons. First Sergeant Patchett had dozed off several times, only to be jostled awake by the restless stirrings of Sergeant Jed Roper, leader of the second scout team, who was seated next to him.
“Didn’t they learn you Texas boys to sleep when you can?” Patchett asked Roper. The question sounded gruff and fatherly at the same time.
“I tried, Top, but it ain’t no use. Got something on my mind.”
Patchett gave him a surprised look. “Well, there damn sure must be something on your mind, son. That’s the most I ever heard you say in one breath. You wanna talk about it?”
At first, Melvin Patchett thought the usually laconic Texan would not talk at all. He looked sorry he had even brought it up, perhaps. Jed Roper would probably get up and walk away rather than say any more, the first sergeant thought, but there was nowhere to go inside this airplane.
Finally, Roper said, “There’s been some talk, Top…about Captain Miles…that he’s a meatball…a real fuck-up. And to make himself look good and save his own ass, he volunteered us for this mission.”
Patchett’s stomach clenched at Roper’s words. From firsthand experience, he knew rumors like this could get out of hand quickly and destroy a combat unit, making it more of a danger to itself than the enemy. He’d have to set this nonsense straight, and right now.
“Let me tell you a little story, Jed,” Patchett began. “Back in the Great War, I was just a private in a rifle company. Our company commander, a real fine man, got killed in a barrage one night, and the next morning, we had ourselves a new one…a brand new captain, a West Pointer—”
Roper snickered at the mention of West Point. “And you got no use for West Pointers, right, Top?”
“That’s another false assumption you gotta get out of your head. Now don’t interrupt my story again…Anyways, that night, we got told we were going over the top. There was intel that Gerry had pulled back. We were to confirm that intel and ho
ld the new line until the rest of the battalion advanced. Of course, nobody was real eager to go over the top and out into no man’s land. If Gerry was still there, we’d be lambs to the slaughter. And we were doubly pissed because we’d been on the line for two straight weeks, getting our brains beat in daily, and it was our turn to come off. So, sure as hell, by supper time, the rumor started spreading like wildfire that our brand new captain had volunteered us for the job. How the hell else could we have gotten fucked over like that? This sound familiar so far?”
Roper nodded eagerly. “Yeah, Top. Real familiar.”
Patchett frowned. He did not think his young buck sergeant was listening in the proper frame of mind. At least not yet. He pressed on with his story.
“So, clever young bucks that we were, we decided if the captain wanted to get hisself a posthumous medal, we were gonna let him. When he blew the whistle to go over the top, we just all sorta stood there…just to see what would happen…and wouldn’t you just know? The captain climbs up the ladder alone, stands straight up…all exposed like a sitting duck…and yells, Come on men! Let’s go make history!”
Roper snickered again. He still didn’t have a clue where this story was going.
“And you know, he stood there for what seemed like a lifetime…and not one Gerry shot at him. So we all just sorta shrugged and thought what the hell...and over the top we went.”
Patchett paused to take a sip of bottled water. Before he began to speak again, his expression changed. It became less of an older man imparting wisdom to one younger and more of a man confessing something of which he was deeply ashamed.
“But we still figured the captain was showboating with our lives…so we advanced reeeeeal slow, stepping around the barbed wire and shell holes…and it being dark and all, pretty soon the captain was way out in front of us, so far we couldn’t see him any more. So we stopped…just stopped, right there in the middle of no man’s land…and hunkered down. It was so quiet…so unlike any other night in the trenches. We must have just sat there for four, maybe five minutes…when suddenly we hear some yelling and a couple of rifle shots…and we high-tailed it back to our lines. The rest of that night was quiet as quiet can be. No barrages, no gunfire, no flares…nothing. We kept peeking over the top of the trench to see if the captain was coming back…but he never did.”
Patchett was disheartened to see the smug look on Roper’s face, a look that said, Yeah! Serves the stupid bastard right. But there was still more story to tell.
“Next morning, some scout plane flies over and drops a message saying there were no Germans in front of us for miles. So this time, the whole damned battalion started walking across no man’s land…in broad fucking daylight…and when we got to the German trenches, all we found was our captain’s body. The Gerries must have left a couple of men behind at a listening post when they pulled back. He probably walked right into them…and they riddled his ass. We thought we were so fucking clever…at least for a little while, anyway.”
Suddenly not so sure of the story’s outcome, Roper asked, “Why, Top? What happened?”
“Well, later that day we got pulled off the line, just like we were supposed to. Back at the rest area, we ran into some old sergeant from HQ, and he told us the real story of how we got that mission. Turns out our captain hadn’t volunteered us at all…he was the one who got volunteered because the other company commanders, who had been in the battalion for a while, knew how to bullshit the battalion commander. So they got this walk in the dark across no man’s land volunteered to the new guy. This sergeant said our captain even tried to talk his way out of it, saying stuff like, He didn’t even know his men’s names yet, let alone what they could do as a unit. But that didn’t cut no ice. He had his orders. Once the captain was outside the CP, that sergeant said he saw the man break down and cry, that’s how frustrated he was.”
Roper was finally starting to get the point.
“Funny thing is,” Patchett said, “if we had all stayed together, one little ol’ listening post wouldn’t have posed no problem. They probably would have run away if they heard a whole company tramping towards them. And nobody would have died. Not that night, anyway.”
Roper slumped back against the cabin sidewall, his bravado totally deflated. “So you’re saying it was Captain Miles who got volunteered, Top?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Tex. Now listen good…you ain’t in some Waco gin mill no more, where a bunch of ignorant, liquored-up buttfucks think they get to make the rules in their little shithole of a world. This is the army, son…and you don’t get to make no rules. Captain Miles is our commander, and we follow him, no questions asked. And one more thing…he ain’t no fuck-up. Just the opposite. The way I hear it, he was a goddamn hero at Pearl Harbor but got hisself on the wrong side of some brass hat doing it. That happens to a lot of good officers…the ones who can think for themselves and don’t need to be sticking their noses up their commander’s asshole all the time.”
Patchett let those words sink into Roper’s head before adding, “And I’m making it your personal business to stifle those rumors, Sergeant. Without delay. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, First Sergeant,” Roper replied, wishing he could disappear into his helmet like a turtle into its shell. “Perfectly clear.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jock Miles knew it was a dream, but it confused him nonetheless. A friendly, attractive young woman sat behind a desk in an opulent office, sunlight streaming through grand windows. She possessed an effortless but unyielding air of command that he envied. Yet he felt threatened by it at the same time.
Wagner was playing from somewhere, another room, perhaps. He recognized it immediately as the finale of Götterdämmerung. But something was off in the performance. The soprano’s voice faltered; when she soared for the high notes, they came out flat.
He was telling the young woman about the Cape York mission—how he organized it, how it unfolded, and how he had totally succeeded: the Japanese had fled like terrified children. All the way back to Tokyo. He was flush with his victory, but behind her polite smile, she was unimpressed. Throughout his narrative, she would frequently interrupt with these words:
It’s time to move on, Jock.
In the dream, he pretended not to hear her words, but each time they were repeated he felt less sure of his victory, less sure of himself. Had he made some crucial mistake, not apparent at the time and only rearing its ugly head now? Had his success been only an illusion? And what the hell does “it’s time to move on” mean, anyway?
Suddenly, the young woman was gone, vanishing to the hidden lair where subconscious creatures dwell. The walls and ceiling of the office collapsed like a house of cards into a pile of splintered lumber and shattered glass. The sunlight that had lit the office was now trapped below the rubble. Its dim glow still lit the dreamscape, leaking from within the pile in dusty rays, like so many searchlights scanning the night sky. He was still seated amidst the destruction, untouched by its chaos. But his body was shaking…
Flight Sergeant Wilcox had shaken Jock three times before his eyes opened and let in the dawn’s light, now streaming through the cabin windows. His men were awake and anxious. They fussed with their equipment, their nervous hands needing to do something—anything—to ease the tension. They were almost there. Jock could not believe he had slept the flight away.
“The wing commander wants you in the cockpit, sir,” Wilcox said. “We’re coming up on the landing area.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jock said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I guess it’s time to move on.”
Flight Sergeant Wilcox replied only with a quizzical smile. Jock knew what that smile meant: He has no idea what I’m talking about…and neither do I.
When Jock got to the cockpit, the view out its windows startled him. They were so low—just a few hundred feet up—and flying just inland from the shoreline of a bay that formed a shallow horseshoe, curving gently for miles. Jock fel
t he could count the leaves on the trees beneath them.
“That lagoon off the right nose,” Tim Wells said, “that’s where the Nackeroos are supposed to meet us. We’ll pass over it…maybe we’ll even see them…then turn inland and circle back so we can land out to sea, into the southeast wind.” He took another glance to his right, looking out his co-pilot’s side window. “The swells don’t look bad. We shouldn’t bounce around too much. Just make sure your men are snug.”
Jock took in a quick lay of the land below. He was relieved to find what he saw agreed very closely with the impressions he had formed from map recon and aerial photographs. There was some high ground a bit farther inland but nothing like the mountains they had passed farther south. Through the gaps in the high ground, he could see flat, wooded terrain stretching toward the western horizon—and Weipa. The trees and foliage directly below were abundant but not dense, offering cover and concealment without impeding movement. For as far as his eye could see, there did not appear to be a structure of any sort. Or a living soul.
“Pilot to gunners,” Wells said into the interphone. “Five seconds to rendezvous point, one o’clock. Any sign of them?” He listened as the reply came into his headphones and then told Jock, “Yeah, we’ve found the Nackeroos. The man in the right blister saw them. They waved to us.”
They flew on for another minute, and then Wells began a tight left turn that traversed almost 270 degrees, first taking them farther inland and ending when they were headed toward the sea. They caught a glimpse of M for Mother as they came around, just beginning her turn to follow them. As Wells began the slow descent to the water, he said, “The only problem with landing out to sea like this is the long taxi back to shore. We’re ten times more vulnerable as a boat than a plane.”
With that comforting thought, Jock returned to his men in the cabin. As he passed through the hatch linking the compartments, their taut faces turned to greet him. Nicky Russo sat with the machine gun across his lap, its loading cover open, a belt of ammo in place, the first round ready to be chambered. All the others had a magazine of .45 caliber ammo for their Thompsons in one hand, their weapon in the other. As soon as Jock gave the word, the weapons would be ready to fire.
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 14