Perfect machine gun territory, Mike McMillen thought.
“I reckon this is about where Russo died,” J.T. Guess said. The statement was made so off-handedly, so matter-of-factly, that it took several moments before the full, horrific recollection of what had happened on this ground just two days earlier reared its hideous head in Jock’s consciousness.
As he struggled to shake off the memory, Jock thought, Has it really been just two days?
Oddly enough, Russo’s murder had crossed Jock’s mind right before Guess made his comment. It had nothing to do with the legal or moral implications of Guess’s act or what his fate might be in a court martial once this mission was over. There was no time for that sort of deliberation. Jock’s thoughts of Russo’s death had been just a geographic place marker, a tactical waypoint. From the tone of Guess’s comment, that’s all it meant to him, too. What else could they use for landmarks in the middle of this wilderness?
If they were right about the location, that meant they were nearing the southern end of Airfield One. Jock scanned ahead with binoculars. From the looks of the destruction he saw before them, what used to be Airfield One would be a more accurate description.
“I don’t see a living soul,” Jock said as he squinted into the field glasses, “but I do think I see a whole lot of burned-up airplanes. Let’s go check it out.”
Mike McMillen was in no hurry to get up. “Hang on, Captain,” he said, looking warily across the field of ash. “It could be a trap or something.”
Bogater Boudreau let out a laugh and said, “A trap? By who, Mike? If they ain’t dead, they’re all running home to momma.”
Bogater and Guess were already crossing the creek. Jock’s helping hand brought McMillen to his feet. “C’mon, Corporal Mike,” Jock said, “you’re second in command here.” Jock nodded breezily toward Boudreau and Guess. “If I buy it, somebody’s got to save those two.” He capped the sentence with a sly wink.
McMillen’s feet shuffled in place for a moment, taking him nowhere, until the delicate balance between paralyzing fear and doing what you were told swung back toward obedience once again. Son of a bitch! Maybe the captain don’t think he’s bulletproof after all, Mike McMillen thought as his feet took their first, hesitant steps across the creek.
“Do me a favor, sir,” McMillen said. “Try not to buy it, okay?”
“You do me the same,” Jock replied.
As the Americans stepped across the ash, it floated into the air with each footfall and clung to them. It coated their clothing, boots, and skin just like it had on so many of the Japanese survivors they had seen on the road.
They spread farther apart—in deference to the open terrain, so one mortar round don’t get us all—and walked deeper into the emptiness. It was all becoming clear now: this was, indeed, Airfield One. Burned-out skeletons of aircraft—scores of them, parked among the scorched remnants of trees at the runway’s edge—were collapsed on the ground like ruined and discarded children’s toys. Vehicles sat deathly still, axles terminally resting on the ground, their rubber tires burned away; paint stripped away from their metal chassis in jagged patterns by the white-hot flames of exploding gasoline tanks. Some still held the charred remains of their drivers and passengers, burned beyond all recognition, like so many badly overcooked lumps of meat.
There were more bodies to be found as they moved ahead, roasted to death by the hundreds—so many that they quickly lost count in the horror and stench of all the seared flesh. The Americans had to put cloths over their noses and mouths to breathe. There was no sign of all the tentage they had seen on the last recon of the airfield. The fragile canvas offered no defense against the wildfire and was now reduced to nothing.
A battery of anti-aircraft guns, their barrels still plainly recognizable, were scattered in various, seemingly accidental places across the airfield, most on overturned and mangled carriages. What powerful, unseen hand had flung them about was difficult to say, but Jock had a theory: probably their own ammunition cooking off.
They came to an area that was still smoldering. The ash was darker here, almost black. A line of bomb craters had traversed this part of the field, forming circular mounds of bulldozed earth that would have made ideal defensive positions, had there been any Japanese left to do the defending. As Jock and his men approached with cautious steps, testing how close they could get, they could feel the heat still in the ground through the soles of their boots. The fire had been more concentrated here, more intense; metal had been turned molten and then cooled into bizarre, blackened sculptures. Like ornaments in the devil’s playground, Jock thought. If there had been any humans here, they had been incinerated to dust, their remains indistinguishable from any other ash that littered the ground. They could approach no closer. It was simply too hot, like walking into an oven. Or hell.
Vivid déjà vu gripped Jock; he’d seen an inferno like this before: Pearl. This is just like Pearl. This was their fuel depot. Looks like they were dumb enough to put it all in one place, too...all neat and compact. So efficient…a supply officer’s dream…
And a bombardier’s dream, too. This is where the blaze that burned down the whole damned place started, I’ll bet.
I’ll bet something else, too…looking at these craters, one plane was all that hit this spot. Everyone else missed by a mile. What a stroke of luck.
They had pushed their own luck long enough. There was nothing left to see here. It was time to get back to Patchett and the others. Brisbane needed to know what they had seen today—and Jock had an idea how, even without a radio, they’d pass that intelligence along.
His men were all for going back—and as quickly as possible. “Hey, Captain,” Bogater Boudreau said, “why don’t we cut back straight to the road? Save us a lot of time.”
“Yeah, it would,” Jock replied, “but if there are Japs on the road when we get there, we’ve got no place to hide. Forget it.”
Boudreau, Guess, and McMillen looked disappointed, but the captain was right. They set off south again, back to the closest concealment on the circuitous path home. They moved quickly now, almost jogging, kicking up clouds of the choking ash around them. The cloths were no longer covering their faces, and they ate a good deal of that ash. As soon as they hit the trees again, they needed a water break badly.
Boudreau, still the point man, crouched into the tall grass. He didn’t even have time to open his canteen before something up ahead, some motion, some glint of sunlight on metal, caught his attention. The others saw his frantic hand signal—Down! Down!—and quickly dropped their canteens.
No more than 10 yards ahead was a Japanese officer kneeling in the grass. His tunic and shirt were opened to bare his midriff. The tip of his sword was pressed against his stomach. Both hands were held away from his body, clutching the sword’s handle. A look of anguish was on his face; his entire body trembled. Every few seconds, he would utter a loud grunt, jerking his arms as if to thrust the sword into his gut. But with each attempt to run himself through, the tip of the sword hardly moved. The blade would pulse upward but never forward. The only damage he had managed to do so far was a small laceration above his navel. A flesh wound, hardly fatal.
Guess whispered a dry observation: “The fucker can’t even kill himself.”
Bogater Boudreau raised his Thompson to his shoulder and put the Japanese officer in its sights. “Are we still recon, Captain?” he asked in a hushed, urgent voice. “Do we just crawl away…or do I grease this bastard right now?”
McMillen pulled the sword he had taken from Colonel Najima from his pack, swishing the blade back and forth like some cinema buccaneer. “If he’s set on doing it the old-fashioned way,” he said, not bothering to whisper, “I’d be happy to oblige.”
The Japanese officer jumped to his feet and turned to face the Americans. At first he looked merely startled, a split second later ashamed, and in another split second, full of murderous rage. He ran toward the startled Americans, the tip of his sword
leading the way, his continuous scream piercing the stillness.
Maybe it was the sword in his hand or maybe the Japanese officer just saw him first. Whatever the reason, he was coming straight for McMillen, who took several panicky steps backward before falling flat on his buttocks. Perhaps sword play wouldn’t be much fun, after all.
The shrieks of the Japanese man ended abruptly, punctuated by the bup-bup-bup of a three-shot burst from Jock’s Thompson. The point-blank shots caught the Jap squarely in the chest, canceling his forward motion in a vicious back-flip that sent the sword flying into the bush and ended with his mortally wounded body lying supine at Jock’s feet, his arms outstretched, his lower legs tucked beneath his thighs. He looked like a puppet that just had all its strings cut. They could see his insignia of rank clearly now: a lieutenant colonel.
Maybe he was second in command of the regiment, Jock thought.
“Oh, Jesus,” McMillen said softly over and over, nervously scanning to see if the shots had drawn attention their way. But there was nothing around them but trees and ash, and they paid the Americans no mind. He quickly slid Najima’s sword back into the straps of his horseshoe pack.
Guess retrieved the sword that had gone flying and brought it to Boudreau. “Here,” he said as he offered the sword, “I ain’t gonna be needing this.” Then, Guess stood over the Japanese officer, regarding him closely as life flowed from him. He touched the man’s chest, slowly circling the three bullet holes that formed a tight triangle there. Calmly wiping the man’s blood from his fingertips, Guess nodded to Jock and said, “Nice shot group, sir.”
Then J.T. Guess turned to McMillen, still flat on his backside, and hurled one harsh, judgmental word in his direction: “Asshole.”
McMillen looked to Jock, then Boudreau, searching for any hint of sympathy, but he found none. Their faces issued the same rebuke as Guess without having to say a word.
Jock had heard many old soldiers’ tales about the first time you killed a man, and they all ended the same way: you puked your guts out. Even Melvin Patchett affirmed that the first time he knowingly killed one of the Kaiser’s soldiers—hand-to-hand with a bayonet, at that—he had painful, debilitating dry heaves for an hour after. But Jock felt none of the signs of impending nausea—no churning of the stomach, no mouth flooding with saliva. It’ll hit me later, probably, when I’ve got a little less on my mind. Or maybe I’m just as strange as Guess. Killing Russo didn’t seem to bother him a bit, either.
One thing seemed pretty obvious to Jock, and he said it out loud: “One way or another, this guy…this light colonel…committed suicide.” Then he squatted next to McMillen’s ear so the others wouldn’t hear and hissed, “Don’t ever pull anything like that again, Corporal. This ain’t the fucking playground. Now get up off your ass and let’s go.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Doc Green needed a rest. Now that all of Patchett’s men had their injuries treated, checked, and rechecked, it was time for Doc to deal with his own wound. It would need a good cleaning, another dose of sulfa powder, and stitches. The wound was deep. There was a fair chance it would become infected out here in the bush, but he wouldn’t use any of the remaining penicillin on himself. Not yet, anyway. There was less than a vial left; first Boudreau’s burned shoulder and now Pacheco’s shattered leg had used up the lion’s share. Sewing up the gash on his own calf would be awkward, but he’d manage somehow. He’d have to. He just needed a bit of a break first. He sagged to the ground in the middle of the perimeter, rested his back against a tree that seemed relatively free of insects, and bit into a chunk of D bar. He knew Jock Miles would want to move the unit to a new location as soon as he returned from the bomb damage assessment. But at the moment, Doc couldn’t imagine taking another step.
At least everything had been quiet and peaceful since the bombing raid that came within a hair’s breadth of killing them all. It seemed almost criminal there was no one but afflicted soldiers to man the perimeter. If they wanted a decent chance of staying alive, though, they’d have to do it—patched up, brains rattled, ears ringing, and all. Only Corporal Pacheco was exempt from the ring of fighting holes surrounding their position. Groggy and uncomfortable, he laid on the makeshift stretcher a few yards from Doc. The last syrette of morphine he had been given was wearing off. He’d need another shot soon.
Doc Green pulled his slouch hat over his face. Just give me ten bloody minutes to close my eyes…
But there would be no rest. A burst from the .30 caliber machine gun jarred Doc awake. Something was happening on the south side of the perimeter. He grabbed his helmet, his Thompson, and his medical kit and started low-crawling that way, the rush of adrenaline blocking the pain in his leg. Halfway there, the machine gun stopped firing, and the voices of men, some yelling in English, some in Japanese, were engaged in a frantic, high-pitched dialog neither side understood.
Doc peeked over the cover of some fallen timber. There were the bodies of three Japanese soldiers stacked like cordwood about 10 yards in front of the machine gun. Beyond the bodies were a few more soldiers—six, Doc counted—in various poses of surrender. One, the closest, had dropped his weapon and fallen to his knees. The other five were still on their feet. Each held a rifle by its forestock in one of his raised hands, fingers nowhere near the trigger. Teddy Mukasic, his finger still wrapped around the machine gun’s trigger, was yelling, “HANDS UP! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” Frank Simms was trying to reinforce Mukasic’s commands with gestures the Japanese couldn’t see. Whether it was out of fear or wisdom, Simms kept his body down in the fighting hole, well out of sight, with only his hands visible over the edge.
Even Doc Green didn’t understand what the Japanese were yelling. Their faces seemed genuinely panicked, their body language anything but aggressive. But he’d seen Japanese troops in action before.
“THIS IS A TRICK,” Doc yelled. “EVERYONE STAY DOWN.”
Melvin Patchett scurried next to Doc in a rapid low-crawl that would exhaust a man half his age. He wasn’t even breathing hard as he asked Doc, “Trick? You seen this in New Guinea?”
“Yeah, Top. They’ll wait until we expose ourselves, then this lot drops to the ground and some gunners we can’t see open up on us.”
“I heard tell about that,” Patchett said, his eyes searching the forest before them. “Kinda strange when you see it up close, though. Sure looks like they’re wanting to surrender…especially with them three dead ones piled up over yonder.”
Melvin Patchett paused, then sighed. A look of resignation came over him, a bit sad but unmistakably determined. “EVERYONE STAY PUT AND COVER YOUR SECTOR,” he commanded. “MUKASIC, STOP YOUR YAMMERING AND CUT THOSE NIPS DOWN. NOW!”
“BUT TOP,” Mukasic replied, “THEY’RE FUCKING SURRENDERING!” His voice cracked as he said it, a man shouting on the verge of tears.
“I’M GIVING YOU A DIE-RECT ORDER, PRIVATE,” Patchett replied. “KNOCK THEM DOWN BEFORE I…”
His words were interrupted by the crack of a gunshot.
Doc saw it unfold: one of the Japanese soldiers had dropped his rifle. Maybe he released his grip on it; maybe it slipped from his sweaty hand; maybe it snagged on something on the way down; or maybe the soldier clumsily tried to catch it.
However it happened, the weapon fired. The bullet struck the top of the berm behind which lay Mukasic and Simms with the machine gun. The bullet shattered on impact, spraying fragments of soil, rock, and hot metal into the hole. Mukasic shrieked, squeezed the machine gun’s trigger closed and held it there. A strange tug of war for the weapon seemed to be going on between Mukasic and Simms, making the muzzle weave back and forth, fanning the gun’s deadly spray.
Every Japanese soldier was struck down. So were a few of the smaller trees, their trunks sliced in half by the buzzsaw of bullets. A few of the Thompsons on the perimeter joined in, whether the men on their triggers could see the Japanese or not. The machine gun didn’t stop firing until its belt of ammunition was used up, long after th
e last enemy soldier had been mortally wounded. Seconds after, the Thompson firing died out. The only sound left was Teddy Mukasic’s wailing:
“I’M HIT OH GOD I’M BLIND I CAN’T SEE…”
The words repeated over and over, not always in the same order, but always with the same message.
“Keep everyone down,” Doc said to Patchett. “If they’re still out there, we’ll probably get hit with knee mortars next.”
Doc crawled to Mukasic and pried the young man’s hands from his face. “Take it easy, Teddy,” Doc said in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Let me have a look.”
There wasn’t a hint of blood. Just a dirty face.
“You’ve just got some dirt in your eyes, Teddy, that’s all,” Doc said. “Here…I’m going to flush them clean. Just relax.”
Simms loaded another belt into the machine gun. “He kept yelling he couldn’t see shit, Doc,” Simms said, “but he wouldn’t let go of the frigging gun.”
“Ahh, I see,” Doc said. “That’s why it looked like you were wrestling him for it.”
“Yeah…it needed a little aiming.”
Doc wiped the last of the dirt from Teddy Mukasic’s face. “There you go, laddie…take a look around.”
Mukasic could indeed see again. The first thing his eyes fell on as he peered over the fighting hole’s edge was the slew of dead Japanese he and Simms had just killed. He sunk back down into the hole and began heaving up the little bit of food in his stomach. A few seconds later, Frank Simms was inspired to spew the contents of his stomach into the bottom of the hole, too.
“It’s okay, boys,” the first sergeant called from behind the fallen timber. “Happens to just about everyone the first time.”
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 30