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

by William Peter Grasso

  A new concern popped into Jock’s mind. “Are you treating him with penicillin instead of sulfa powder?” he asked Doc Green.

  “Yeah, I’ve got no choice now,” Doc replied.

  “As little penicillin as we’ve got, I thought we were saving that for really serious wounds.”

  “How serious would you like his wound to get, Jock? The sulfanilamide didn’t do the job against the infection. Another day without penicillin and we’ll have to carry him everywhere…” Doc’s voice dropped to a whisper only Jock could hear to add, “…until maybe he dies. We knew we took a risk bringing him out here. We gambled…and lost.”

  For once, Bogater Boudreau didn’t argue and insist he could do the job. He sat sullenly against his pack, his face sallow, picking at the food in a K ration package. They hadn’t even met the enemy on the ground yet, but already nature had conspired to decrease their number by two.

  “This kind of screws up our plan for the day, sir,” Melvin Patchett said. “If you’re gonna take Hadley’s team with you, you’d better pick up another man from McMillen, too.”

  “Yeah…I’ll take Guess.”

  The look on Patchett’s face made it clear he didn’t think much of that idea. “Are you sure about that, sir?” he asked. “That’ll put him with Russo. Just a little while ago, they were ready to beat each other’s brains in.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure, Top. After what that Forbes woman said, I’ve been thinking about the Jap colonel’s nightly habits. We might need ourselves a sharpshooter…and we have no one better than Guess. I want him to see the target area in daylight first.”

  Nothing Jock said erased the disapproving look from Melvin Patchett’s face. If anything, the disapproval grew stronger. But all the first sergeant said was, “As you wish, sir.”

  The plan for today’s recon was simple: Patchett would set up camp at the abandoned Aborigine settlement Jillian had identified. He would keep the radio team and Doc Green with him and use McMillen’s team for perimeter security. Even Boudreau could help out by manning a perimeter fighting hole. Someone else would have to dig it, though.

  The camp would be a little over a mile east of Airfield One. Jock would take Hadley’s team—now with Guess replacing Boudreau—and advance farther, all the way to the edge of Airfield One. That would involve crossing Yellow Vermin Road—a potentially risky proposition in daylight—but what about this mission wasn’t risky? Once at the airfield, they’d get a map fix on the Japanese headquarters for the bombers, who would attack—hopefully—the next night.

  Something else had been on Jock’s mind ever since this morning’s discussion with Jillian. We’re supposed to pinpoint their headquarters…but what is a headquarters, anyway? Is it just the tent or building the commander works in? Or is it the commander himself? The bombers will come at night…but according to Jillian, the colonel will probably be shacked up with some government-issue whore in the middle of Weipa Mission, a couple of miles away. We can’t very well call in the bombers on the Mission…too many innocent black people will get killed. But when the bombs start to fall, that should draw the colonel out…and we get him, too, right there, with a sniper’s bullet.

  Then…we run like hell. Mission accomplished. In total. Ding-dong the colonel’s dead. Isn’t that what they really meant when they told me to “cut the head off?”

  Jillian was surprised to see all her boats still at the dock at nearly 8:30 in the morning. Old Robert offered the explanation: “We were worried about you, Miss Jilly. Theo went by your house at sunrise and saw Mister Sato on the veranda. He looked very drunk…and there was no sign of you.”

  “Well, he’s not drunk anymore,” Jillian said, looking around to make sure no Japanese were in earshot. “He’s dead. I killed him…and now I need your help.”

  No words were necessary from her black crewmen. It was obvious from their demeanor: as always, they were ready to do anything for Miss Jilly.

  “Listen,” she said, “When we’re done here, I’ll take out Mapoon Maiden. The rest of you, cast off now, just like nothing’s wrong.”

  As the other four boats cranked their engines, Jillian told the four-man crew of Mapoon Maiden, “Fill a wagon with some fish and ice. We’ll take it up to my place and swap the fish for the body, then we’ll bring it back here and hide it in the icehouse for the day. Tonight, after it’s dark, we’ll feed it to the crocs.”

  Yellow Vermin Road was more than just a dirt trail carved through the eucalyptus forest. It was a major thoroughfare, two lanes wide and heavy with traffic. Jock and the men of Hadley’s team heard the noise of the road’s traffic well before they saw it. Just beyond that thoroughfare lay Airfield One.

  “I wasn’t expecting the traffic to be quite this thick, sir,” Sergeant Hadley whispered to Jock as they crouched in thick undergrowth 50 yards from the road’s edge. Trucks of every type passed in both directions, kicking up clouds of thick dust in their wake. Some were heaped high with supplies and construction equipment; others towed artillery pieces or carried troops and Aborigine workers. Tanker trucks shuttled gasoline from lighters at Albatross Bay to the airfield.

  “I wasn’t expecting it, either,” Jock replied, swatting away a swarm of mosquitoes from his camouflage-darkened face with a similarly darkened hand.

  “These fucking flies,” Hadley said, doing some swatting of his own. “This insect repellant they gave us isn’t worth a shit, sir. We’re all going to get malaria.”

  “Ever the optimist, eh, Sergeant? Now let’s stay focused…We still can’t see the airfield from here. We’ve got to get closer. Got to find a way across this road.”

  Tom Hadley had an idea. “Maybe if we head south along the road, past the airfield, the traffic will thin out and we can slip across.”

  Jock liked that idea; he had been thinking exactly the same thing. “Sounds good, Sergeant. Let’s try it.” Hadley issued a flurry of hand signals, and the dark green shapes of Privates Russo, Guess, and Billings, their faces and hands blackened with camouflage, seemed to materialize out of nowhere and began to move south without making a sound.

  Hadley was right. After nearly an hour of creeping through the forest, they had moved past the airfield, and the traffic volume had dropped significantly. Those vehicles continuing south to the construction site for Airfield Two were fewer and farther between. Sometimes, there was no traffic at all for several minutes.

  Hadley, very eager to be on the other side of the road, asked, “Should we cross all at once, sir?”

  “Negative,” Jock replied. “We go one at a time.” His reasoning was simple: if there’s a shit storm waiting for us on the other side, we don’t die all at once.

  The last in a line of trucks passed. Guess crossed first, quickly vanishing into the thick trees. A minute later, he popped back into view and signaled all clear. Hadley went next, followed at intervals of several seconds by Russo, Billings, and Jock. They huddled to formulate the next part of the plan.

  Russo seemed perplexed by their good fortune so far. He asked, “How come these Japs ain’t patrolling, Captain?”

  “Good question,” Jock replied, “but they must have some kind of security. We just haven’t run into it yet. Listen up…we’ll push north now, towards the airfield. Judging by how quiet it is, most of the planes are probably gone. We may not see much through these trees until we’re right on top of it. Everyone stay alert.”

  As they started moving again, Jock scolded himself. Stay alert? For crying out loud, Miles…do you really think you needed to say that? Their eyes have been wide as pie plates all morning. They couldn’t be more fucking alert. Try not to sound like some jackass shave-tail. They deserve better than that.

  They had only moved a few hundred yards when Hadley, who was now walking point, signaled the team to halt. As Jock moved forward to Hadley’s position, the reason for the halt became obvious: there were 50 yards more of thick, shady forest before them, and after that, the world was suddenly much brighter. They were coming to
a clearing—a very big clearing. Big enough to be a runway.

  “I think we’re at the south end of the airfield, sir,” Hadley said.

  Jock took a look through his binoculars, then handed them to Hadley. “Look two fingers to the right of the split tree,” Jock said.

  “Holy shit,” Hadley said, looking at the nose of an airplane concealed among trees some 300 yards distant. “Looks like a Betty. I can see guys working on her.” He handed the binoculars back to Jock.

  Scanning the rest of the airfield, Jock said, “There’s a bunch of single-engined fighters parked on the other side…probably Zeroes. Some anti-aircraft guns, too. And there’s a tent city at the northeast corner. You getting all this?”

  Hadley nodded as he sketched the airfield layout into his pocket notebook.

  Jock focused the binoculars on the tent city. He shook his head in disbelief as he said, “Everything is all bunched together! Lots of personnel running around like ants. Their headquarters is probably in that second tent from the right. The sides are all rolled up so I can see inside. There are lots of Nips with swords and white shirt collars sticking out of their tunics…only officers dress like that. A lot of guys without tunics bowing to them, too. Only a headquarters has that many officers running around. You’d think they would have learned something about dispersal by now.”

  “Maybe they’re getting sloppy,” Hadley said. “They’re getting used to not being shot at.”

  “Well, that’s good for us…and too bad for them,” Jock said. “Now we’ve got to figure some good map coordinates on this place.”

  Hadley looked puzzled. “Can’t we just dead reckon them, sir?” he asked. “It’s not like there are any landmarks around…and we can’t bring the radio set here…”

  But Jock had already dropped his pack and his Thompson and was shimmying up the stoutest tree in the stand. “I’ll bet I can see the rooftops of Weipa Mission from up there, flat as this place is,” he said. “Maybe even those red cliffs Jillian was talking about.”

  Jock was right: once in the tree’s crown, he could see the rooftops clearly. Their tin roofs glistened in the late morning sun, even through the filter of dust being kicked up by the trucks on Yellow Vermin Road. The high ground of the red cliffs was impossible to discern; the terrain relief presented itself only as a continuous green carpet of forest canopy. One hand firmly gripping a branch that swayed beneath his weight, Jock pulled his notebook from his shirt pocket with the other hand and flipped to the diagram Jillian had drawn.

  That highest roof…that’s got to be the whorehouse. The long, low roof a little to the west…that’s got to be the icehouse. I make them both at about four thousand yards.

  Slipping the notebook back into his pocket, he shot the azimuths to both structures with his compass. Looking west-northwest, he realized he could discern where the waters of Weipa harbor met Albatross Bay. He shot the azimuth to that point, too, before sliding down the tree. Once back on the ground, he immediately recorded the azimuths before the numbers jumbled in his memory.

  Hadley asked, “What did the airfield look like from up there, sir?”

  “It looks pretty damn well concealed,” Jock replied, donning his pack once again. Even if we were running photo recon flights up this way, I’ll bet they’d have to catch a plane sitting smack out in the open to tell this was an airfield.”

  It was time to make their escape. But no sooner had the team formed up behind Hadley, he signaled for them to hit the deck. As they dove for concealment in the knee-high grass, they heard what Tom Hadley had already seen: the loud, high-revving sound of a vehicle’s engine to their left front. In a few moments, they could all see it, even with their heads only inches off the turf in the tall grass: a Japanese armored car, complete with machine gunner perched in its turret, moving very slowly in low gear. Well behind it walked a squad of soldiers—a dozen or more in column—scanning the forest around them, rifles at the ready. The slender bayonets at the muzzle of each man’s rifle flashed glints of reflected light, even in the forest’s shade, as if the devil was winking. The bayonets looked long enough to impale several men at once.

  A shot of panic coursed through Jock’s veins. They didn’t see me up in that fucking tree, did they? We’re way outnumbered…and they could drive that armored car right up our asses! And the only retreat is onto the airfield…

  But the Japanese soldiers didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular. If anything, they were engaged in a dull routine. Several of them showed outright disinterest, staring at their feet as they shuffled along when they thought their leader, a chubby sergeant toward the front of the column, wasn’t looking. As long as Jock and his men didn’t move a muscle, the Japs would pass about 30 yards to their front and be gone. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

  The only sound to be heard was the raucous throb of the armored car’s engine—until screams rose from the grass where Nicky Russo lay: “OH GOD OH GOD OH JESUS GOD! I’M BIT! A FUCKING SNAKE! OH GOD I’M BIT!”

  Jock and his men could hear Russo’s constant screams—and while the armored car crew would never hear them over their vehicle’s noise—the Japanese foot soldiers, once they were close enough, would hear the screams, too, no matter how much noise the armored car far to their front made.

  “OH JESUS GOD OH MAMA PLEASE I DON’T WANNA DIE!”

  Jock felt like he was crawling through a field of molasses, making no progress. He couldn’t see Russo but tried to home in on the sound of his hysteria. But that wasn’t working—the screams wrapped themselves in the noise of the armored car’s engine and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

  I’m going in circles…Why can’t I find him?

  Hadley and Billings looked over their shoulders at Jock as he crawled past. Suddenly they looked so much younger—so much more innocent—than they had just a few minutes ago. Their eyes seemed to say what their lips couldn’t: It’s okay, Captain. We don’t blame you. They held their Thompsons in one hand and a grenade in the other, ready to play the final act of their lives.

  But where is Russo? And where is Guess?

  Jock crawled a few more feet before those questions were answered. The sole of a G.I. boot protruded from a patch of tall grass, toe pointed up, twitching crazily. Russo’s screaming stopped abruptly. The sound of the armored car’s engine peaked, then began to fade as it crossed before them and moved on through the woods. Jock parted the grass with the muzzle of his Thompson. He wasn’t quite prepared for what he saw.

  Russo lay flat on his back, with Guess on top of him, face to face. Guess held a bayonet in his hand, its blade dripping fresh blood. Russo was still making some noises, but they were soft gurgles, inaudible more than a few feet away, as the last essence of life drained from him. There was a gaping incision across the front of his throat, still spilling a steady red flow that turned the brown soil black. The headless body of a brown snake lay beside them, its long, thick body in weakening convulsions, signaling its own death throes were nearly complete, too. “It’s one of them brown snakes, like Doc showed us,” Guess said, pointing to the two puncture marks on Russo’s cheek. “He must’ve fell right on it. Real deadly…ol’ Russo didn’t stand a chance.”

  The look on Guess’s face struck Jock as the most peaceful, compassionate look he had ever seen on another human being. “Somebody had to do it,” Guess said as he wiped the bayonet clean on Russo’s sleeve. “It’s kill or be killed, right, sir?”

  The sound of the armored car had faded to a distant murmur. It had gotten so quiet, Jock could hear the shuffling of the Japanese soldier’s feet as they walked past, oblivious to anything but their own boredom.

  They couldn’t leave Nicky Russo’s body to be found by the Japs. J.T. Guess had fabricated a stretcher from his and Russo’s fatigue shirts, using the sniper rifle and a fallen tree limb for poles. During the long walk back to the camp, Guess wouldn’t relinquish the spot of lead stretcher bearer and never seemed to tire. The other three
alternated often as trail stretcher bearer; about 10 minutes was all any of them could manage before exhaustion set in. No words were spoken; none were necessary. They moved as if of one mind. A glance or gesture conveyed as much as a torrent of words.

  No one had protested when Guess threw the dead snake—body and severed head—onto the stretcher with Russo. “I need to show it to Doc,” he said.

  As they lay concealed in the woods beside Yellow Vermin Road, waiting for a long line of trucks to pass before they could cross, Sergeant Hadley couldn’t keep the question bottled up inside him any longer. “Sir,” he whispered to Jock, “you’re going to court martial him, aren’t you? I mean…for murder? At least manslaughter, right?”

  Jock was truly surprised his young sergeant still seemed concerned about the military justice system when, for at least this moment, the cold realities of combat and nature had mangled the letter of civilized law so thoroughly. “Yeah, I’m afraid so, Tom,” Jock said, the slip to first name seeming not at all out of place. “But I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing myself if I’d gotten there first.” He paused, then added the question that left Hadley silent and squirming in its uncomfortable truth: “Wouldn’t you?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  She wasn’t sure how much more pain she could take or how much longer her shoulders would stay in their sockets. The rope binding her wrists behind her back had turned her hands numb as they hung from the block and tackle’s hook. With each question, a military policeman—a kempei—pulled the rope to the pulleys a bit more, raising Jillian’s bound hands slightly higher, bending her further forward, stretching her body even more and straining her shoulders to their limits. Now, only the toes of her fisherman’s boots had a firm purchase on the icehouse floor. It wouldn’t take too many more pulls on the rope before she would be off the floor completely, her entire body weight hanging from those arms pulled painfully high behind her back.