Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1)

by William Peter Grasso

  But it was not time yet. “Not so fast, men,” Jock said. “We have to land first...we’re going to bounce around a little…we don’t want any accidental discharges. Once we’re taxiing to the shore, then I’ll give the word. Not before. And we keep all weapons on safe until we’re out of the aircraft. Is that clear?”

  Reluctantly, they nodded as one. Somehow, having a round in the chamber makes one feel less vulnerable.

  “When are we going to be landing, Captain?” Sergeant Hadley asked.

  “Any second now. Everybody hold on tight.”

  They counted the seconds—five, ten, fifteen—and then there was that first, soft bump, followed by a gut-wrenching feeling of floating. Another bump—and then a thud and the sound of water coursing against the hull. They were down, riding the sea swells like a roller coaster.

  Russo yelled to the waist gunners, “Hey! We ain’t gonna fill up with water again, are we?”

  The response was less than reassuring: “There may be some water, mate. We are a boat, after all. Nothing like last time, though. No bullet holes down below now.”

  The gunners added to the collective sense of uneasiness by rolling open the blisters and deploying the .50 calibers. L for Love slowed to taxi speed. With a blast of differential thrust from her engines, made noisier by the open blisters, she pivoted in a wide arc toward shore. Halfway through the turn, the starboard waist gunner called out, “M for Mother just touched down.” Both gunners broke into an off-key rendition of Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here. Only Doc Green joined in.

  “Okay, men…now,” Jock said, and with a single, loud, metallic clack, the loading of weapons was completed in unison.

  It took fully 10 minutes to taxi back to the rendezvous point, riding the swells toward shore. A few of the crewmen were on top of the fuselage now, preparing to deploy a sea anchor from the bow. She turned in a semicircle, then coasted to a stop a hundred yards offshore. A large pram approached the port blister with three men onboard: two Aborigine oarsmen and, standing at the bow, a grinning, tanned white man. All three were shirtless, barefoot, and wearing tattered khaki shorts of the Australian Army. Other than large knives on their belts, none seemed to be carrying a firearm.

  “Welcome to the bloody Cape,” the white man shouted in an unmistakable Australian accent above the Cat’s idling engines. “I’m Corporal Cockburn of the Nackeroos, sir. How many to come ashore?”

  Standing in the open gun blister, Jock replied, “Seven on this ship, nine on the other. All with full equipment. How many boats do you have?”

  The Aussie seemed amused by the question, shaking his head with that bloody impatient American expression Jock had gotten used to in Brisbane. “Just this one, Captain,” Cockburn said. “Just this bloody one.”

  It would take four trips with that pram to get everyone and their equipment off the two planes. M for Mother was still a good five minutes’ taxi away from anchoring. It could be the better part of an hour before everyone and their gear was on shore. “Another typical Army cock-up,” Tim Wells said, standing next to Jock with a very disgusted look on his face. “That’s too long for us to be sitting here.” Turning to his gunners, Wells said, “Break out one of our rafts. Let’s get everyone ashore in one shot. Signal M for Mother to do the same. Use the blinker light.”

  Jock scanned the shore. It looked empty of men and equipment. He asked, “Where are the trucks, Corporal?”

  “They’re tucked back in the bush, sir. Real beauties they are, too...and pretty hard to come by in these parts.”

  Refusing to get swept up in Corporal Cockburn’s optimism, Jock said, “Let’s hope so.”

  An inflatable raft—one of two onboard the Cat, stowed no bigger than a steamer trunk—was shoved out the starboard blister and its cartridges fired. With a loud hiss, the raft unfolded and grew into a capable vessel.

  Well, at least the damned raft floats, Jock thought. He delegated Doc Green to skipper the raft, taking Sergeant Hadley, PFC Russo, and PFC Billings with him. In less than a minute, the raft was loaded and on its way to shore. Hadley and Billings were doing a competent job with the paddles. Russo sat at the bow of the raft, his machine gun at the ready. Jock couldn’t tell if the grimace on his face was one of fear or determination.

  Jock, Corporal Pacheco, and PFC Boudreau joined Cockburn and the black oarsmen in the pram. As they began to pull away from the Cat, Jock called back to Tim Wells, still standing in the blister. “What about the raft, sir?”

  “Keep it,” Wells replied, as his crew began hauling in the sea anchor. “We’re off, Captain Miles.” He snapped a salute and added, “Glad to have been of service. Best of luck to you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jock said, returning the salute. “You won’t forget about picking us up when we’re done, will you?”

  “Say the word and we’ll be here.”

  “They’d better be,” Corporal Pacheco mumbled, just loud enough for Billings to hear.

  “You got that right, George,” Billings replied.

  Pacheco rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Not George. Jorge.” He repeated his given name, dragging the syllables out: “Horrrrr-haaay. How many times do I have to tell you crackers? And that’s corporal to you, Private.”

  The pram handily won the race to shore. No sooner had it deposited Jock and his men on the beach than it was on its way to M for Mother, now waiting offshore with a bright yellow raft blossoming alongside. L for Love was already airborne and heading south.

  Corporal Cockburn, still standing at the prow like Washington crossing the Delaware, pointed back into the tree line as he yelled, “The trucks are right over there, sir, with the rest of my blokes. Be back in a jiffy….Oh! And don’t be cutting no holes in the raft. We can use it.”

  First Sergeant Patchett had it all under control on M for Mother. The radio section and all their gear—including the Radio Flyer wagons—had been loaded into the pram and were beginning their trip to shore. Patchett, Sergeant Roper, and his men climbed into the raft donated by the Cat’s crew. Roper did a quick head count: Corporal McMillen was there. So was PFC Guess and PFC Simms. But that made one man missing: PFC Mukasic.

  The first sergeant noticed Teddy Mukasic missing, too. He had already started to climb back into the flying boat to retrieve him. He found him, huddled in a corner of the bunk compartment, his knees tight to his chest.

  “I ain’t going,” Teddy Mukasic said, bracing for the blow he fully expected at the hands of the first sergeant. But Patchett just stood there, arms folded, looking down at him without a hint of violence in his gaze. If anything, the gaze was empathetic.

  “Suit yourself, son,” Patchett said over the steady rumble of the Cat’s engines, “But I’m here to tell you…these Aussies got no use for you. They’ll just throw you in the water and fly away. Wouldn’t it be better to stay nice and dry in that raft?”

  “I can’t move, First Sergeant,” Mukasic said, his lips trembling. He clenched his knees tighter to his chest. Patchett could see his hands trembling, too.

  The first sergeant squatted before the terrified private and put his hands gently on the boy’s shoulders. “Even if these Aussies took you back to Brisbane, they’d just be bringing you to a firing squad. And that’s no shit, son. If you think you’re the only one who’s scared, think again. The only difference between you and me is you’re afraid of what you don’t know, and I’m afraid of what I do know.”

  Mukasic looked into Patchett’s eyes. “You’re really scared, Top? You?”

  “Only a crazy man ain’t scared, son. So you see what you’re facing? Either the Aussies or the brass in Brisbane’s gonna kill you if you don’t get off this airplane. That’s guaranteed. You’re better off taking your chances with me and the Japs.”

  Patchett could see Mukasic’s defenses starting to crack. He added one more point to his argument. “Besides, we’re all depending on you, son. You’re not gonna let us down now, are you?”

  The tight ball of Mukasic’s body r
elaxed. He wiped away a tear and took a deep breath. “But what’re we going to tell them, Top? They’ll all think I’m yellow.”

  Patchett eyed the chain around Teddy Mukasic’s neck. “What’s that hanging there, son?”

  Teddy pulled the medallion out from beneath his shirt. “This? It’s my Saint Christopher’s medal.”

  “Good. We’ll say you dropped it down in the bilge when you were getting your gear together. It took you a minute to find it, that’s all.”

  Mukasic considered that for a moment. Then he stood, grabbed his gear, and headed for the open gun blister. “Sorry, Sarge,” he said to Roper as he dropped into the raft. “I couldn’t find my good luck charm there for a minute. But I’ve got it now.” He held out the Saint Christopher’s medal for all to see.

  Roper’s displeasure spread across his face like a storm cloud. “Oh, ain’t that just fucking wonderful, sweetheart. I was beginning to think you—”

  Melvin Patchett’s reproachful glare silenced Roper like a switch being turned off.

  “Pick up those fucking oars and let’s get moving,” the first sergeant said. “We’ve done enough dicking around for one morning.”

  The crew of M for Mother wasn’t much for dicking around, either. They were airborne long before their passengers reached shore.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jock Miles found two trucks parked in the tree line, just where Corporal Cockburn of the Nackeroos said they would be. He was having a difficult time, though, squaring the vehicles he was looking at with the requirements spelled out in the operations order. That order had specified two each wheeled vehicles of not less than one-ton capacity, capable of overland operations, able to travel no less than 160 miles without refueling.

  What Jock saw before him were two battered, very small trucks, no larger than what would be called a pick-up truck back in the States. Here in Australia they’d be called utes—short for utility vehicle. He couldn’t tell their vintage, but they closely resembled the model he had driven for his part-time job in high school, circa 1930. He knew from hard experience they could climb a steep hill at no more than walking speed if loaded with more than 500 pounds, a figure they were about to exceed by a healthy margin. They looked more like they had been abandoned there, rather than poised to take him and his men into the unknown. Doc Green made a whistling sound that could only mean oh, brother…you’ve got to be kidding when he laid eyes on the trucks.

  Sergeant Hadley’s men were dispersed in a loose perimeter around the vehicles. Jock was pleased Hadley had immediately deployed his team in proper tactical fashion without having to be reminded. He did not want his men wandering around like tourists with their thumbs up their asses, like they forgot they were in a combat zone.

  But, hell...my men tangled with Japs before we even got to Cairns, so they’d better believe they’re in a combat zone.

  Slack discipline could be contagious, and what little Jock had seen of the Nackeroos so far seemed to set new standards for slackness.

  Maybe Cockburn and his men have just “gone troppo,” like those Aussie troops who had been in the New Guinea jungle too long. But speaking of Cockburn’s men…where the hell are they?

  Sergeant Hadley provided the answer in short order. “Captain,” he called, “you’d better come see this.”

  Tom Hadley had indeed found the rest of Cockburn’s Nackeroos—all three of them. They were bearded, shirtless, and in shorts, just like their corporal, but at least they had boots on their feet and each man carried a Lee-Enfield rifle. They stood in a small clearing, in the process of having group photographs taken by a bearded man in civilian clothes. Each soldier grinned broadly, proudly brandishing his weapon for the camera as if he had just won the war single-handedly. Like the Nackeroos he photographed, the civilian had the rumpled dress and suntan of one who had been in the tropics for a long time. Too long, perhaps.

  “Just what the hell is going on here?” Jock asked, making no secret of his displeasure.

  “Ahh, the Yanks have finally arrived,” the civilian said in a thick accent that sounded decidedly German. He was older—in his forties, perhaps. The Nackeroos stopped posing and began to mill around, looking embarrassed, like kids caught playing hooky.

  “It’s nothing, sir,” the tallest of the Aussies said. “Just some pictures for the folks back home.”

  Ignoring the speaker, Jock turned his attention to the civilian. “Identify yourself,” he said, punctuating his question by pointing the muzzle of his Thompson at the man with the German accent.

  “There’s no cause for alarm, my friend,” the civilian replied, his hands in the air. “I am Heinrich Van Der Hoorst. I am a Dutch citizen and a correspondent for the BBC. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the American—”

  “Nobody’s answering any fucking questions, my friend, except you. How the hell did you get here?”

  “He jumped ship off a coastal trader, sir,” the tall Aussie spokesman said.

  “I didn’t ask you, soldier,” Jock snapped. “Let me hear it from Mister Whoever-The-Fuck here.”

  “I see there are just a handful of you Yanks,” the Dutchman said, brazenly clinging to his own line of interrogation, “and I see the rank on your collar. You are a captain of the US Army, are you not?”

  “Like I said, pal…you don’t get to ask questions.”

  “But if you and your men represent the sum total of your government’s response, Captain…coupled with the feeble Australian attempts at defense—”

  “Hey, wait a bloody minute,” a voice called from behind Jock. It was Corporal Cockburn, and he seemed mighty upset. “Who the hell do you think you are, giving us a gobful like that, after we—”

  “That’s enough, Corporal,” Jock said. Pointing his Thompson once again at Van Der Hoorst, he asked Cockburn, “Do you know this man?”

  “Not really, sir. He just showed up yesterday. He would have drowned getting ashore if we hadn’t pulled him out.”

  “Has it occurred to you, Corporal, that he could be a Jap spy? The Dutch bit could be a good act, too. He still sounds awfully German to me.”

  The Nackeroos’ rifles were now pointing at the Dutchman, too.

  “He did have that Jap funny money, Harry,” a Nackeroo reminded Cockburn.

  “I explained that,” Van Der Hoorst sputtered. “I got it from some of your diggers in Singapore.”

  One of Cockburn’s men walked over to a duffel and pulled out some green paper currency. He handed the money to Jock. It was a one pound note. The issuing agency was The Japanese Government.

  As Jock examined the money, Sergeant Botkin and his radio section approached from the beach, each man pulling one of the olive drab Radio Flyers. Van Der Hoorst burst out laughing. With derisive delight, he said, “There you have the American response to Japanese aggression…in children’s wagons, yet!”

  Cockburn was getting embarrassed and a bit flustered. “I didn’t think it would be any harm if he hung around, Captain. I—”

  Jock interrupted, asking, “Did your commander authorize any civilian to be hanging around?”

  “No, sir. But he’s a—”

  “Then what the hell were you thinking, Corporal? This guy could compromise the whole goddamn mission. And if he really was a newsman, he’d know damn well anything he tried to write about us would be censored straight into the trash can. We’ve got to—”

  The Dutchman, beside himself with sarcastic glee, said, “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a fine example of coordination between the Allies! The world has a right to know just how cocked up…”

  As he spoke, Van Der Hoorst reached impulsively into the rucksack hanging from his shoulder. That was his last living act. The lone shot that rang out rattled everyone; each man checked his weapon, unsure if he was the one who fired.

  A wisp of smoke from the barrel of a Lee-Enfield betrayed the shooter. It belonged to the tall Aussie—the spokesman. His eyes were wide as saucers, his mouth hung open. It lo
oked like he just might pull the trigger again and not even realize it. Cockburn gently pried the rifle from his hands.

  “It’s all right, Billy,” Cockburn said, his voice gentle, his arm around the young man. “It’s all right.”

  The rest stood and stared at Van Der Hoorst as he lay dead on the ground, arms and legs askew, a bullet to his head. A river of his blood flowed across the ground. Small drops of pink matter from his brain were sprayed across the vegetation at the edge of the clearing. After the briefest examination of the Dutchman, Doc Green turned to Jock and shook his head, confirming what everyone already knew:

  No use. He’s gone.

  Sergeant Roper’s team arrived from the beach raggedly dispersed in line abreast formation. Despite Melvin Patchett’s prodding, the pace of their advance was less than eager. The sound of the shot had terrified them and set their senses tingling. Patchett made a bee-line for Jock. No words were necessary between the captain and first sergeant. They both knew what had just happened was the best possible outcome for their mission. Even if it was a ghastly mistake. Secret missions weren’t a secret if the whole world knew about them.

  As everyone watched, Patchett carefully pulled the rucksack from the Dutchman’s body and peered inside. “Go slow when you do this,” he said as if giving a class. “Those Japs like to booby trap things.” He pulled a pistol from the ruck—a Webley revolver, typical British Commonwealth issue, all chambers loaded. There was a notebook and some documents, still a bit soggy. The notebook was full of text in a language that looked similar to the little bit of German Patchett knew. The documents purported that Heinrich Van Der Hoorst was a foreign correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation. They lacked any sort of official stamp. There was no passport.