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

by William Peter Grasso

  “That’s correct,” he replied, his speech now slurred.

  “Good. As you can see, I’ve divided the work force into six crews.”

  He squinted at the chart. It was obvious to Jillian he couldn’t see a blessed thing.

  “I’ve set up each crew on a four-day-on, two-day-off schedule. On any given day, two of the crews…exactly one third of your work force…will be off. Your problem is solved and nobody gets sacked.”

  And you won’t have about thirty angry blacks looking to rip your bloody head off, you stupid Jap bastard.

  Sato didn’t understand the chart, with its array of columns, rows, symbols, and arrows. He was much too drunk for any sort of mathematical reasoning. Now that the threat of physical violence seemed to have passed, all he could think about was what Jillian Forbes would look like without her clothes.

  “This is wonderful, Jillian,” he said. “A perfect solution.” He took her hand—she let him this time—and kissed it.

  “Ahh, that’s sweet, Bob. Now, it’s your turn to solve my problem.”

  A voice in Sato’s head screamed, Yes! She wants me to make love to her! I will solve your problem, my lovely white flower!

  Instead of peeling off her clothes, she began to write again on the pad. She was composing some sort of document. His euphoria sagged back to Earth like a punctured balloon.

  Jillian thrust the pad in front of him. “Sign it,” she said.

  To his bleary eyes, the words looked as indecipherable as the work schedule she had drawn. After trying—and failing—to make any sense of them, he said, “I cannot read this.”

  “It’s very simple, Bob. It affirms that you will not sack any of the black workers, and they will always be transported back to their countries to enjoy their two days off.”

  Sato tried to protest. “But the distances…the vehicles…we can’t…”

  “Oh, sure you can, Bob. You run trucks from the harbor here at Weipa down to your work sites all day and night. By the way, do you plan to move your whores down south, too?”

  “No…the comfort women will stay at the Mission—”

  “Excellent. The drivers who bring the blacks back to Weipa can spend the night getting comforted and then bring the new shift back the next morning. Everybody wins.” She thrust the pad at him again. “Now sign.”

  Sato took the pad and scrawled a rough approximation of his name across the bottom of the page. He leaned forward, trying to hand the pad back to her, but his sense of balance betrayed him. He toppled from the couch, and despite flailing efforts to arrest his fall, ended up face down on the floor.

  Without lifting a finger to help him, Jillian asked, “Steady on, Bob! Are you all right?” Somehow, she managed not to burst out laughing as she said it.

  He tried to get up, but for Bob Sato, the room was spinning crazily. The floor on which he lay was tilting back and forth, too. It felt so much better just to remain prone, his arms and legs splayed to grip the out-of-control gyroscope on which he was riding. He wouldn’t try to rise again, not for a long time. The dog was now standing over him, licking the upturned side of his face. Whether this was a show of canine compassion or simply curiosity, Sato didn’t know. But he was certain this was the most intimate act he would share with another living creature that night.

  Jillian bounced up from the couch, retrieved a blanket and draped it over Bob’s torso and legs. Smiling down at him, victorious once again, she asked, “How do you like your eggs in the morning, Bob?”

  The thought of food made his stomach lurch. He struggled to fight off the bile rising in his throat.

  “If you puke, you clean it up,” Jillian said as she headed to her bedroom. “G’night, Bob. Sleep tight.” She locked the bedroom door behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Walking carefully, Jock picked his way through the darkness to the radio set in the center of the perimeter. The red lens in his flashlight allowed little of its brightness to reach the ground before him. Twice he nearly stumbled over members of Roper’s team as they caught some sleep before their turn on watch. Without the red lens, though, his flashlight would be a bright beacon in the bush at night, advertising his unit’s presence for miles in all directions.

  He finally saw the boxy silhouette of the radio console. As he drew near, he could just make out Sergeant Botkin’s face in the dim, green glow of its dials. One of Botkin’s hands pressed a headphone to his ear; his other hand alternately flipped the pages of the codebook and wrote feverishly on a pad.

  It was strangely quiet around the radio set. PFC Savastano was poised at the hand generator cranks, but he wasn’t turning them now. He stood at the ready, waiting for Botkin to tell him when it was time to crank again.

  Before Jock could move any closer, the shape of a man holding a weapon at the ready stepped before him. “I challenge Duluth,” the man said just above a whisper, but the unmistakable Boston accent of PFC McGuire, the third member of the radio team, was still obvious.

  “Delicious, McGuire,” Jock replied. “I authenticate delicious.” Jock had selected passwords heavy with “L” sounds for this mission, in keeping with the folklore that Japanese could not pronounce the letter L. “Good job, McGuire. That’s the way to challenge.”

  Moving past McGuire, Jock asked Savastano, “How are the receiver batteries holding up?”

  “Pretty well, sir. The little we’ve been using this set out here, we’ll be changing batteries about every two days.”

  “And you’ve got five spares, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. Good thing we’ve got the wagons, because those bastards weigh about six pounds apiece.”

  “But you can’t transmit without using the generator?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  Botkin pulled off the headphones. “Okay, sir,” he said, “the Japs broadcast at twenty-two fifteen, just like clockwork. Their signal was strong as hell…almost blew my ears off…but what they’re saying is still Greek to me. But they’re not very far from here, that’s for sure.” He tore off the top sheet of his message pad and handed the decoded information from the American stations to Jock. “Here’s the azimuths the DF stations got on both the Japs and us, sir. They reported our signal as much stronger than it was this afternoon.”

  “That’s good news,” Jock said as he spread his map across the radio’s case. It took him a few minutes to plot the vectors in the glow of the red flashlight. He was mildly encouraged by what he saw as the lines converged on the map.

  “Well, we’ve gotten our location nailed a little bit better,” Jock said. While the vector lines to Botkin’s transmitter didn’t intersect in a single point, the triangle they formed was much smaller than before, only a few square miles this time. The lines to the Jap transmitter, with its much stronger signal, were far more precise. “That puts the Jap transmitter just about thirty miles west of us. Practically in Weipa.”

  “At least that’s where it is tonight,” Botkin said.

  “That’s right, Sergeant.”

  Perhaps it was just a trick of dim light and shadow, but the look on Botkin’s face had changed. Normally earnest, it now seemed skeptical. He raised his hand to ask a question, just like he probably did in a schoolroom not so long ago.

  “Something on your mind, Sergeant?”

  “How do we know the Jap headquarters is located anywhere near that moving transmitter, sir?”

  “We don’t…but it’s a pretty good bet they’re not too far apart. That’s what we’re going to figure out.”

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to take his after-supper coffee in the Oval Office. Exhausted and feeling unsociable, he wanted a few minutes alone to compose himself and organize his thoughts before General Marshall and Admiral King arrived for the nightly briefing. He very much wanted to seem upbeat and full of confidence to his war leaders. Lord knows he didn’t feel that way at the moment. This war his nation was still incapable of waging was wearing at his soul.

  By the time t
hey arrived 15 minutes later, the president had transformed himself. Grinning broadly, he launched the briefing with the gusto of a much younger, much healthier man.

  “The Australians are in a tizzy, gentlemen,” FDR began. “Three of their east coast cities were bombed last night…or was it actually today? I can never get these time and date differences straight.”

  “The reports of damage and casualties were light, Mister President,” Admiral King said.

  Roosevelt’s smile faded quickly. “That comes as little comfort to the people being bombed, Admiral. We can’t let our allies lose faith. Every day that passes without an offensive action by our military makes us look increasingly irrelevant. Did we at least shoot down some of their planes?”

  “We have no confirmed reports of that, Mister President,” General Marshall replied.

  “We’ll be on the offensive very soon, Mister President,” King said. “Our Navy’s counterattack in the Solomons is on schedule for the end of September.”

  FDR couldn’t help his sarcastic outburst: “Oh, hallelujah, gentlemen! Say a prayer that the Japs decide to stop where they are. In another month, they could be in Mexico.”

  “Unlikely, Mister President,” Marshall replied. “The Japanese simply don’t have the capacity to expand their defensive zone any further. They’ve captured all the resources they need…now they just want to hold on to them.”

  Roosevelt pressed his questioning. “And those interlopers on Cape York, General? Have they been expelled yet?”

  “Our commandos were successfully inserted and are moving into position, Mister President.”

  “Ahh, so now they’re commandos, are they? A few days ago, they were a crack recon unit, and before that, they were just ordinary soldiers. Was that MacArthur’s idea? Using escalating vocabulary as a substitute for concrete action?”

  “Mister President,” Marshall replied, “what we call them is of little importance—”

  “You’re damned right about that, General. What matters are results. Do we have any results yet?”

  “The mission is still ongoing, Mister President. We don’t know—”

  The president’s fist slammed angrily on his desk as he said, “That’s the trouble, gentlemen…we don’t know anything. We need a victory…any victory…to give to the American people. Do I have to remind you the next election is only two years away? A new president can pick his own generals and admirals, you know.”

  Neither Marshall nor King said a word in reply, but their expressions were telling. Marshall was imperturbable as always, absorbing the president’s dissatisfaction without a hint of emotion. King was sullen and irritated, chafing behind the bit of the one man on Earth who held authority over him.

  Calm once again, the president said, “So I ask you one more time, General Marshall…will they have success expelling this mere handful of Japanese from Cape York?”

  Marshall replied, “We suspect they will be successful, Mister President.”

  “I don’t need your suspicions, General. I need your assurances.”

  Jock found it impossible to sleep. It wasn’t the demands of his job keeping him awake or the fear that a Jap patrol might stumble into them. It was the sounds of the night, an incredibly loud assortment of diverse noises, shattering the impression they were alone in this pitch black wilderness: the calls of countless birds, the wind rustling the treetops, and the intermittent cries of unseen animals all played their parts in this natural symphony.

  But there was more. His men were doing their best to add their own sounds, most unnatural in this wild setting and quite capable of bringing death and destruction down on all their heads. Coughing seemed to be contagious; first one man coughed, then two more, and in a minute, everyone within the perimeter joined in. Jock could hear First Sergeant Patchett moving around the perimeter, his words softly hissed and undecipherable, but Jock knew their message: Keep fucking quiet, you morons!

  Someone had taken the first sergeant’s warning not to wander out of the perimeter to heart. Jock could hear the man urinating a few yards away, the steady stream sounding like a babbling brook as it anointed hard ground and foliage. Other man-made sounds were interspersed, too: the clack of bolts being driven home as men cleaned and checked their weapons; the crinkling sound of a K ration’s cellophane wrapper being torn open as some bored, hungry soldier—despite the need to make his rations last—helped himself to an unscheduled, late night snack; the loud snap as another snacker broke off a piece of rock-hard chocolate from a D bar. The occasional exchange of the challenge Duluth and the password delicious between comrades moving about in the darkness was made loud enough to be heard across the entire perimeter. Somewhere in the middle of the position, a soldier snored loudly.

  Our noise discipline is pathetic. Might as well just put up big fucking signposts pointing to our position.

  If Jock couldn’t sleep, he might as well check the perimeter. It was past midnight, so Roper’s team would be on watch and Hadley’s men would be catching some sleep. As Jock moved from point to point of the star-shaped perimeter, he found each of the first four points manned by a nervous but alert sentry. When he got to the fifth and final point, manned by Sergeant Roper, he found him dead asleep, his Thompson lying on the ground beside him. Jock picked up the Thompson before jarring Roper awake.

  Feeling around him frantically, Jed Roper said, “Is that you, Captain? Where’s my fucking weapon?”

  “It’s right here in my hand, Roper.”

  “That’s Sergeant Roper, Captain.”

  “You won’t be after the court martial,” Jock said. “You were asleep at your post. I’m relieving you as team leader, effective immediately.”

  His defiant words still slurred by sleep, Roper said, “You gotta be crazy, Captain. You can’t relieve me…not in the middle of all this. Not now.”

  “I just did, Roper. I’m putting Corporal McMillen in charge of the scout team.”

  Roper was wide awake now, shifting nervously in the fighting hole. Jock tossed the Thompson back to him. He caught it surely in one hand. “Stay alert,” Jock said. “Dying in your sleep isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  First Sergeant Patchett wasn’t too surprised when Jock told him about Roper. “That boy’s turned into quite a disappointment,” Patchett said. He had the change of scout team leadership sorted out in short order. When he reported back to Jock, he said, “Once this last watch is over, I’m putting Roper under Hadley and shifting Pacheco over to McMillen’s team. That okay with you, sir?”

  “Yeah…that’ll be fine, Top.”

  Patchett’s tone turned fatherly. “Maybe if Roper changes his tune and does good out here, we can go a little easy on him, sir?”

  “First Sergeant, he’s going to have to win the fucking Medal of Honor before I change my mind about the court martial.”

  They were interrupted by a breathless Corporal McMillen. “Roper’s gone, sir,” McMillen said. “Guess saw him beat it into the woods. Took his pack with him and everything…might have even stole some rations from the other guys.”

  “Now the son of a bitch deserts,” Patchett said. “Looks like the case for a court martial’s getting stronger by the minute.”

  McMillen asked, “Shouldn’t we go after him, sir? Suppose the Japs capture him and he tells them—”

  “Absolutely not, Corporal,” Jock said, cutting him off. “Nobody else is going anywhere. Top will get you another man for the perimeter.”

  A few feet away, the sleeping figure of Doc Green stirred and sat upright. “I’ll do it,” Doc said, reaching for his Thompson. “Let the other lads catch their beauty sleep. I’ve had more than anyone tonight.”

  Once Doc settled into the fighting hole Roper had abandoned, the ambient sounds of the night returned to their usual riotous melody. It stayed that way for five minutes, ten minutes, and maybe a few more, until the shrieks of a man in mortal terror sliced through the darkness, jarring even the sleeping soldiers awake. The shrieks w
ere coming from somewhere to the east, well outside the perimeter but not very far away. They were from the same direction in which Roper had made his escape. They didn’t last but a few seconds.

  Without being told, Hadley’s team joined McMillen’s on the perimeter. So did the radio team. Every set of eyes peered into the darkness, expecting the whole of the Japanese Army to materialize out of the void. Suddenly, it was dead quiet; even the birds had gone silent. A man’s whisper could be heard for 20 yards, a footstep in the crackling brush for a quarter mile. Yet they heard nothing. Only the dawn several hours later confirmed what they refused to believe in the darkness: they were totally alone.

  In the new daylight, it didn’t take long to find what was left of Roper’s body. It was in a thicket just a few minutes of backtracking to the east. One leg had been torn off, his torso disemboweled, his face hideously disfigured and unrecognizable. The dog tags still hanging from what was left of his neck confirmed his identity. The pack had been ripped from his back but was otherwise undisturbed. It was indeed full of rations he had pilfered before going AWOL. His Thompson lay half-buried in the sandy soil, still unfired.

  “Wild boars,” Doc Green said as he examined the wounds. “He probably stumbled right over them.”

  Nicky Russo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Fuck me!” he said. “It ain’t bad enough we’ve got crocs and snakes and God knows what else…but we’ve got fucking killer pigs, too? Get me the fuck out of here!”

  J.T. Guess said, “Pigs did us a favor.”

  “All right, men,” First Sergeant Patchett said. “Let’s get our heads out of our asses. Police up his weapon and gear.” He asked Jock, “What do we do with him, sir?”

  “We bury him right here,” Jock replied. “We can’t have the Japs finding his body. They’ll be doubly on the lookout for us then.”

  “Make the hole good and deep,” Doc Green said. “We don’t want any animals digging him up. We’ll be right back where we started.”