When Brewster set the sheet of paper containing the orders alight, he recognized the faint glimmer of hope that came into Wheatley’s bloodshot eyes, a look that meant maybe he changed his mind after all…and we’re going back!
Scooter Brewster sneered and said, “Don’t get your hopes up, Corporal. Now, let’s move out. We’re still headed north. You take point.”
Brewster enjoyed watching the hope drain from Wheatley’s eyes. The corporal shuffled off like a man condemned to the gallows.
They hadn’t walked very far through the forest when they heard a loud voice. They couldn’t make out the words being said. It certainly wasn’t in English.
Brewster and Wheatley found themselves just a short distance—maybe 10 yards—from the edge of a wide, dirt road, running north and south. As they crouched in the undergrowth behind some sturdy trees, Brewster hastily checked his map. He was pretty sure where they were—about 15 miles due south of Weipa—and according to this map, there was no road anywhere near here. This wasn’t some trail carved by natives. It had been laid out by engineers, straight and true as an arrow, intended for large vehicles.
The Japs must have built this recently, Brewster thought.
They looked to the south, and the origin of the voice became clear. What appeared to be a company of Japanese soldiers, perhaps 100 or more, were marching in a column of twos. A man marching alongside the column—probably a sergeant—was calling what sounded like cadence. Trailing the column in a small staff car was a young officer who seemed very apprehensive, constantly looking around like he expected calamity to befall them at any second. Brewster couldn’t see the officer’s rank clearly, but he was a lieutenant or captain, definitely not higher. Neither he nor the troops who marched before him looked much like soldiers of a victorious army. The men looked bedraggled and dragged their feet as they marched. Their packs seemed very full and heavy, as if they were carrying everything they owned on their backs. Their uniforms were sloppy and varied from man to man. Brewster got the impression they had set out on this march in great haste. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was witnessing a punishment detail. They passed to the north quickly, leaving only a cloud of choking dust in their wake.
The dust drifted away, and another group of men became visible down the road. They, too, were heading north, but they were definitely not Japanese soldiers. They were not soldiers at all. They were Aborigines.
Brewster counted 16 of them. They were dressed like construction workers in trousers and shirts of sturdy fabric and hats of all varieties. A few wore sturdy boots. The rest were barefoot. Each carried a rucksack slung over a shoulder. Unlike the Japanese that preceded them, they seemed quite happy, laughing and joking as they made their way up the road. Some of what Brewster overheard even sounded like English. Occasionally, one of the Aborigines would make a gesture in the direction of the Japanese column and yell something—loud enough to amuse his companions but not for the Japanese to hear—and the others would laugh uproariously. Even though Brewster couldn’t make out the exact words, it didn’t sound as if a compliment was being offered to the soldiers. They were being mocked, plain and simple.
“We’re going to follow that group of Aborigines,” Brewster said to Wheatley.
Wheatley’s panic reached a new height. “You don’t mean we’re going to walk on the road, do you? Out in the open?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Corporal. Of course not. We’ll stay hidden among the trees.”
Jock had risen from slumber to find himself alone in the shack. It was well past sunrise, and he scolded himself for sleeping in. There was so much that needed to be done today.
He wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes as he stepped from the shack. In the middle of the camp, a number of his men were seated on the ground in a wide circle, being served breakfast, which they were consuming with great relish. It was like a big, friendly picnic—and it seemed totally out of place in the middle of a combat zone. They were being waited on by several Aborigine women. First Sergeant Patchett appeared to be in a place of honor, seated on a box that raised him higher than the others. One of the black women was apparently dedicated to serving only him. Jock was relieved to see they all had their weapons with them, at least.
Patchett saw Jock and gestured for him to join them. As he walked toward the circle, Jock noticed Jillian across the camp, talking with Old Robert and a few other black men. She was barefoot and still wearing the loose shift. She looked up and saw him, cast a shy smile his way, and went right on talking with the men.
“A little bit of paradise, Captain,” Patchett said as Jock grew close. One of the black women approached with another box and placed it next to the first sergeant. “Your throne, sir,” Patchett said. “Have a seat and dig into this chow. Not sure what it is, but it tastes just fine.”
Jock counted the men in the circle. Five were missing. Hadley, Boudreau, Botkin and McGuire were already gone, he was told, on their way to the Moreton telegraph relay station. The fifth, Corporal Pacheco, was still riding the Radio Flyer and being pulled across the camp toward the breakfast circle by two young black boys.
“Hadley and his men were on their way the minute the sun broke the horizon,” Patchett said. “They even got served a good breakfast before they hit the trail, too.”
“While they’re gone,” Jock said, “we’ve got to figure out where all those Japs are off to.”
Patchett pointed toward Jillian and the black men. “They’re already on it. They’ve got a scout network set up from here all the way to the tip of the Cape. They’ve got the whole damn indigenous population to work with, and they’ll cover a hell of a lot more ground than we ever could. From what they tell me, it looks like the Japs ain’t gonna stop walking until they hit the Torres Strait. They even tried to cover ground last night, the damn fools.”
Patchett shoveled another fistful of mashed fruit into his mouth before adding, “These blacks don’t plan on staying in this camp forever. Once it’s all clear, they’d like to get back to their homes in the Mission.”
“Those who still have homes, anyway,” Jock said, thinking of Jillian’s incinerated house.
“You know, Captain…assuming we get that message through, do you really think they’ll come pick us up at Weipa, right there at Albatross Bay?”
“I didn’t think it would hurt to ask,” Jock replied as he sampled from his plate, “especially after they know we’ve got a prisoner. I’d like to spare the men that long walk back, if I can.”
“That’d be real nice,” Patchett said, “but a couple days’ rest and they’ll be up to making long walks again.” His taut stomach was now full and content, and he rubbed it happily.
Doc Green ambled slowly toward them from across the camp. He still limped on his wounded leg, but he looked clean and refreshed. He had even shaved, the only man to do so since they’d entered the bush six days ago.
“Where’ve you been?” Jock asked the doc.
“Down to the creek. Got myself freshened up. It might be a good idea to get the lads cleaned up, too. Hygiene and all that. The water’s fine for washing…no crocs around…but no drinking without the Halazone first.”
“No problem, Doc,” Patchett said. “I’ve already got a bath schedule worked up. Maybe we get some of these filthy uniforms washed, too.”
Doc Green asked, “A word, Jock?” Jock rose and followed Green away from the circle.
“I can probably help Jillian with her problem,” Doc said.
“Problem? What do you mean?”
“The pain with sex…her dyspareunia.”
“Dyspurrr-what?”
“Never mind that,” Doc said. “It just means pain with sex. Lady-parts are what I used to do for a living, remember?”
Now Jock was embarrassed. “You heard us?”
Doc grinned like a Cheshire cat. “It was hard to miss.” He made the words sound like the understatement of the century. “Look, Jock…I’ll need to examine her. You know�
��a vaginal exam. But I can’t very well just walk up to her and say, Good day, Jillian…how about giving me a peek at your fanny?”
“So what do we do, Doc?”
“Make it your idea. Mention that I’m a gyno—”
“She already knows that.”
“Right. Of course,” Doc said. “So make the gentle suggestion that she pay me an office visit.”
“Can you really fix her, Doc?”
“Maybe not out here…but we’ll never know if I don’t look, will we?”
Chapter Fifty-Two
It was nearly 1100 hours as Scooter Brewster peered through binoculars at the Weipa Mission, over a mile in the distance. Grover Wheatley nervously scanned the other three quadrants around their position without benefit of binoculars, wondering if he’d be able to pull the trigger of his M1—or even find a voice to sound the alarm—if any Japanese approached.
The only Japanese that could be seen, however, were that same column from earlier on the road. They had stopped once inside the Weipa Mission, milling around aimlessly while its members took turns relieving themselves. Now re-formed into a column of twos, they continued their march north through and out of the Mission.
The behavior of the Aborigine group they had shadowed up the road was far more interesting. Once they reached the deserted Mission, they split up, peered into a few of the buildings, and re-formed for a brief group discussion. It didn’t take them long to arrive at a consensus. They walked straight into the woods, heading due east away from the Mission. They looked around as they walked, as if checking if anyone was following them. In a few moments, they had vanished into the forest. Scooter Brewster drew two arrows on his map: one for the direction of movement of the Japanese, the other for the Aborigines.
There was no point in Brewster seeking his quarry in the Mission. It was obviously deserted now. He put his finger on one of the details that had been sketched onto the map in the orders envelope. It was a crude drawing of a house. Next to it were the words Forbes house. Shooting an azimuth to the northeast with his compass, Brewster set out in that direction. “Get moving, Wheatley,” he said to his corporal. “I’ll be on point now, you cover my ass.”
They arrived in less than half an hour, but his quarry wasn’t there, either. The house wasn’t there, for that matter. Obviously, a structure used to be there, but it and the woods around it had been burned to the ground. As they viewed it from 50 yards away, in the shelter of unburned trees, the only things recognizable in the charred rubble were a bathtub, a few sinks, and the tin roof panels. The wildfire that ravaged the forest swept west, carving a channel a hundred yards wide that looked like it might extend all the way to the Mission.
Brewster settled to a seated position on the ground, his M1 vertical between his knees, the muzzle pointed skyward. He needed a minute to think:
If this was her house…and it’s burned to the ground…does that mean she died in this fire?
Or is she still someplace else...God knows where…in this big, empty wasteland?
That minute was all he needed. “Corporal,” Brewster said, “search what’s left of that house for human remains.”
“What would I be looking for, Captain? I’m a radio tech, not some ghoul from Graves Registration.”
“Oh, come on, man! Use your imagination! You’re looking for a burned corpse…a skeleton…maybe just some bones. Now conduct the search. That’s an order.”
Wheatley resigned himself to his task. After all, he had been ordered. He was just as afraid of walking into the burned-out area—completely devoid of cover and concealment—as he was of actually finding a charred corpse. To make himself as small a target as possible, he employed the only tactical skill he retained from basic training—he low-crawled out of the tree line into the void the wildfire had left behind.
“For crying out loud,” Brewster called after him, “is that really necessary, Corporal? We don’t have all fucking day.”
Wheatley pretended not to hear the captain and kept right on crawling. When he reached the pile of scorched debris that was once a house, he did a fairly thorough search, even peering under every fallen roof panel without ever rising higher than a crouch. It turned up nothing, though. There was no sign any living thing had died there.
Filthy with soot, he returned and reported his lack of findings to Scooter Brewster, who asked, “You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yes sir. Absolutely.”
“Well, that’s just fucking great,” Brewster said, as if this was somehow the corporal’s fault.
“So can we go back now, Captain?”
Brewster sighed and shook his head. “Sit down, Corporal,” he said. “It’s time I explained to you what we’re doing here.”
Scooter Brewster proceeded to relate every detail of their mission to a stunned and silent Grover Wheatley. Brewster talked for a solid 10 minutes, relating the orders from the sheet of paper he had burned earlier that morning, augmenting those words with references to the map and the photo of the young woman. He concluded the briefing by saying, “If she’s anywhere around here, we’re going to find this traitorous woman…and we’re going to carry out those orders, so help me God.”
It had taken his five years of service to convince Grover Wheatley the US Army was insane. But at this moment, he felt his understanding of that institution’s pathology had reached a new height. It was more than just insane; it was criminally insane.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Franklin Delano Roosevelt abruptly pushed his wheelchair back from the breakfast table and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. He had been in a good mood on this bright summer morning, enjoying the news his CNO, Admiral Ernest King, had just reported. The invasion of the Solomon Islands was definitely a “go” for late September, just three months from now. FDR’s beloved Navy was finally getting back into this war. Then his Army Chief of Staff had to go and ruin it all.
“So you’re telling me, General Marshall,” the president said, “we have no earthly idea how well our bombers did on Cape York?”
Marshall swallowed hard and struggled to keep his normally calm and collected demeanor intact. Inside, though, his stomach churned. There was no denying what the president just said. He really had no earthly idea what, if any, good the bombers had done. The cables from MacArthur’s headquarters in Brisbane had been silent on the matter.
“Yet, Mister President…We don’t know yet,” Marshall said, trying to stress the hope this lack of information was temporary in nature.
FDR pounded his fist on the wheelchair’s armrest. “When? When will you know, General Marshall? I’ve given up trying to figure out what day this is in Australia, but by my count, it’s been about thirty hours since those bombs were supposed to fall. How much time do you need?”
Marshall knew there was no answer to the president’s question. His only hope of escaping this meeting without a major ass-chewing was to deflect the blame. He knew just how to do it.
“Mister President, I’m sure General MacArthur is carefully assessing—”
As Marshall expected, FDR flew into a rage at the mention of the name and cut Marshall off. “MacArthur!” the President said, spitting the syllables out like they were poison. “That self-serving, deceitful son of a bitch! And insubordinate, too! He’s not assessing anything…he’s playing politics again, like he always does. It’s just like him to give us information when he, and only he, decides…and only after he’s tampered with it, so it makes him sound as good as possible.”
Roosevelt calmed himself and took a deep drag on his cigarette. His next words were a lament, a wish he had lost the power to make come true: “I should have left his pompous ass to rot in the Philippines.” Wheeling himself from the dining room, he said, “Good day, gentlemen,” abruptly dismissing his Army and Navy chiefs and leaving them in silence.
George Marshall tried not to smile; he had dodged the bullet. But across the table, Ernest King was smirking victoriously at him, for the Navy was on top once
again in the president’s eyes. Marshall had to fight the urge to scoop a knife from the table and stab King right in his smug face.
They were making great time across the flat plains of the eucalyptus forest, spread out in single file, keeping a brisk walking pace. Sometimes they even jogged. Sergeant Tom Hadley was on point. He and the three men following behind felt surprisingly good, despite the ordeal of the last five days in the bush. Hadley had a theory why that was so:
Because if we get this message through, it means we’ll be back in Brisbane before you know it.
They had little fear of running into any Japanese this far inland. Hadley checked his compass; it was important to stay on course. “If we can keep up this pace,” Hadley said over his shoulder, “and hit the telegraph road right near the station, I’m betting we’ll be there by late afternoon. We’ve got plenty of K rations, so keep drinking and eating, especially the D bars. Don’t let yourself get run down. We’ve still got a lot of walking to do.”
Sergeant Stu Botkin wasn’t as optimistic, though. “But Tom,” he said, “suppose we hit the road and the station’s nowhere in sight. Which way do we go?”
“That’s easy,” Hadley replied. “We’d have to be south of the station, so we’d go north. The only way we could hit the road north of the station is if we cross the Wenlock River, and I think we’d know if we did that.”
Botkin wanted to kick himself for forgetting that basic bit of geography. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I forgot about the river.”
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 33