“I forgot about something, too,” Hadley said. “I know we’re moving fast, but keep an eye out for snakes…and for God’s sake, don’t step on one.”
Bogater Boudreau found that funny. “If ol’ Russo remembered that,” he said, “he still might be here.”
“Shut up, Boudreau,” Hadley said, his irritation flaring. “I was there and you weren’t. You don’t know what happened.”
Botkin caught up to Hadley so the two sergeants could talk without the others hearing. “Tom,” he said, “what do you think is going to happen to Guess once we get back?”
The tone of Hadley’s answer was matter-of-fact, almost disappointed: “I think they’re going to go through the motions of a court martial…and Guess will be acquitted.”
“I take it you disagree with that,” Botkin said.
“We all know they hated each other, Stu. Nobody knows if Russo would have died from that snakebite. Maybe we could have shut him up and saved him. As it stands, it looks like murder to me, plain and simple.”
“That’s a lot of ifs, Tom,” Botkin said. “And in the heat of battle, at that.”
Before Hadley could say anything, Bogater Boudreau—who had heard every word—said, with unswerving conviction, “Makes no nevermind. All I know, Sergeant Hadley, is that you and Guess and Billings and Captain Miles would be pushing up daisies right now if Guess hadn’t done what he did. If them Japs didn’t shoot you outright, they would’ve cut your fucking heads off. One man for four sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me…and it being that fucking Yankee Russo who did the dying is just icing on the cake.”
“I’d go easy there, Bogater,” Botkin said. “The rest of us here are all fucking Yankees, too. You’re the only fucking redneck.”
“It is what it is,” Boudreau said with a shrug. “And I ain’t no redneck, Sergeant…I’m a Cajun.”
Hadley had nothing more to say. He had turned off the conversation and drifted into his memory of that fateful patrol, the one everyone survived but Nicky Russo. It had happened only three days ago, but it felt like an event from another lifetime. The words Captain Miles had said as they carried Russo’s lifeless body repeated over and over in his head, like a scratched phonograph record whose needle was stuck replaying the same few grooves for eternity: But I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing myself if I’d gotten there first.
Then Captain Miles had offered the question that really wasn’t a question at all, just a statement of undeniable fact: Wouldn’t you?
Tom Hadley finally had to admit it: Yeah…I probably would have.
Jock Miles and Melvin Patchett agreed this would be a day of cleanup and rest for the men but not one in which they’d let their guard down. As diligent about security as their black hosts were, they didn’t possess firearms, and until it was known for certain where the Japanese had gone, they all would have to assume at least some of Colonel Najima’s stragglers might still be wandering around the area. The arsenal of spears, arrows, and knives the blacks used for hunting and fishing wouldn’t offer much of a defense against machine guns and aircraft. The Americans were grateful for the protection offered them last night, when any of their men put on guard duty would, no doubt, have fallen dead asleep. Now, though, it was time to become more of a proactive partner in this newfound alliance with the Weipa blacks.
Old Robert welcomed the support the American manpower could provide. He laid out the early-warning and surveillance network his people had established to Jock and Patchett, and the Americans were quite impressed with its thoroughness. They seemed to have every angle covered. When Jock suggested augmenting one of the black outposts with the .30 caliber machine gun, however, Old Robert frowned and shook his head.
“You must remember, Captain Miles,” Robert said, “our plan is to locate and avoid the Japanese, not do battle with them. I thought that was your mission, as well.”
“Well, then…how about this? Let’s keep our firepower centrally located in the camp,” Jock said, pivoting effortlessly to the role of conciliator. “That way, we can respond immediately in any direction.”
Patchett and Old Robert nodded in agreement. The ground rules of cooperation established, Patchett stepped to the forefront to work out the manpower details. Unneeded now—only an observer in the first sergeant’s realm—Jock set out to find Jillian.
He found her outside the shack she shared with Alice Tookura and several other black women. Jillian was actually standing guard, making sure no one entered. Doc Green was inside, she explained, treating Alice, the young woman who had been sexually abused by Japanese soldiers the day before.
“Jill, about last night,” Jock said.
The look she gave him flashed from embarrassment to disappointed resignation. “What do you want me to say, Jock? I’m sorry. I can’t help it…”
She convinced herself she wasn’t going to cry.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “You know…just maybe…maybe Doc can help you, too.”
She looked at him quizzically, perhaps a bit suspiciously. “What does Doc have to…” She stiffened as if an electric shock had passed through her body. “Oh, bloody hell! Last night…did he hear us?”
His hesitation was all the confirmation she needed. “Bloody fucking hell, Jock,” she said, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. “I don’t want the whole damned world knowing my problems.”
He tried to take her in his arms but she jumped away. “But if it’s something medical,” he said, “we’ve got a gynecologist right here. Maybe he can help, Jill.”
“Why are you calling me Jill all of a sudden? It sounds ridiculous. Nobody calls me that.”
“Nobody? Good. It’ll be special if only I say it…because you’re special to me.”
He reached out for her again. This time she didn’t back away.
Without a hint of animosity, she said, “You’re so full of it, Yank.” She was looking down, so he couldn’t see her face. But he was sure she was smiling.
“Jock, why do you assume it’s a medical problem? Did Doc tell you that?”
“Why can’t it be medical?”
She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Oh, it could be,” she said.
“Then you’ll go and see Doc?”
It felt to Jock like she took an eternity to answer, but he didn’t mind. Not with her nestled against him like this.
“I suppose,” she said.
There was a commotion from the western fringe of the camp. By instinct, Jock unslung his Thompson and brought it to the ready position. In a moment, it was back on his shoulder; the noises were happy ones. It was a celebration.
He quickly checked that none of his men were poised to fire, but they, too, understood it was no threat. All across the camp, Thompsons were being slung over shoulders once again.
Jillian got caught up in the excitement. “It’s Nathan Gooreng,” she said, “and the rest of the men from Airfield Two. They’re safe!” She and Jock rushed to join Nathan and the 15 men with him—the same 16 Scooter Brewster had followed to Weipa Mission—as they were joyously reunited with their families.
Seeing Jock and his men, Nathan said, “So the Yanks have joined with us now. Good. They’ll want to hear what we have to say.”
With his three young children clinging happily to him, Nathan proceeded to tell his story. “The Japanese soldiers are terrified. They claim their enemies dropped fire from the sky. All their leaders are gone, they say…burned to death. There’s no one left to give them orders at the airfield except one lieutenant. He told them to stay, but they didn’t listen. They have no food…so they’re leaving, hoping their Navy will take them back to Papua. But all the ships are gone, too.”
“My God,” Patchett muttered, “it’s a rout.”
Looking past the euphoria of the moment, Jillian said, “We’d better hope they get to Papua somehow, or they’ll be wandering all around us, looking for something to eat.”
Jock, Patchet
t, and Old Robert found themselves nodding thoughtfully in agreement with her.
“One more thing, Captain,” Nathan said. “Your men don’t know how to hide very well.”
“What makes you say that, Nathan?”
“Two of them followed us for a time on Yellow Vermin Road. They tried to hide from us, but we knew they were there.”
“That can’t be,” Jock said, scratching his head. “All my men are either right here or on their way to Moreton.”
“Then the ones going to Moreton must be very lost, Captain, because the men following us wore helmets just like you. They must be Yanks.”
His story finished, Nathan and the men who traveled with him retired to be with their families. They were weary from their long walk. Once rested, they would be joining the others keeping track of the Japanese.
As delighted as Jock and Patchett were to get confirmation of the Japanese retreat, Nathan’s last words still left them puzzled. “He’s got to be mistaken, sir,” the first sergeant said. “Even if Brisbane decided to send more troops here, it wouldn’t be until they heard from us…or decided they’d never hear from us again. And it’s way too soon for them desk jockeys to have decided something like that, slow as they are to come around.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jock replied. “It just doesn’t make any sense there’d be another American unit in the area. But if there are more Yanks out there, I hope to hell they have a radio.”
“You think we should go looking for ’em, sir?”
“No, Top. If anyone’s out there, Old Robert’s men will find them long before we will.”
The young Japanese lieutenant was growing more fearful with each passing hour. Technically, he was leading the soldiers from Airfield Two as they fled north, but those men paid him no attention. Ever since they ignored his order to stay at the airfield and started their exodus, he knew he was no longer leading anyone. He had become just a follower, another traveler in the Cape York wilderness, alone, powerless, and feeling very vulnerable. He was on foot now, like the rest; his vehicle ran out of fuel a few miles past Weipa. Those outspoken ones who had provoked such disobedience would pay, he assured himself, once they got back to Papua—assuming, of course, he ever got back to Papua.
He needed a quiet place to relieve himself, away from the prying eyes of those jackals who used to be dutiful soldiers. He doubled back to a stream they had just passed, confident none of them would bother to follow him. His trousers were halfway to the ground when he saw the eyes of a crocodile rippling the surface of the water like tiny periscopes, staring right at him.
Perhaps this is not the best place, he thought, and turned to walk upstream.
He never got to take a step. Several soldiers rushed forward and pushed him into the stream. The croc—a very large one—wasted little time escorting the lieutenant to his underwater grave.
Chapter Fifty-Four
When they emerged from the woods at the dirt road that was Telegraph Track, they had only missed their destination by a few hundred yards. Up the road to the north, along the line of wooden poles carrying the telegraph wires high over their heads, stood the Moreton Relay Station, shimmering in the orange light of sunset. Nestled very close to the Wenlock River, the white structure very much resembled a typical Australian house, with a second-story veranda on all sides. Though it looked abandoned, just as they had expected, the house seemed to welcome these dog-tired travelers. They walked in the open on Telegraph Track, their journey moments from completion.
As they neared the station, something didn’t look right to Sergeant Hadley. “Get off the road! Now!” he said as he dove into the tall grass that bordered the track. His three men wasted little time diving for concealment right behind him.
“This place isn’t deserted,” Hadley said, pointing to the station some 30 yards away, “We’ve got company…and I think they saw us.”
What they couldn’t see from down the road was obvious now. There were two scruffy white men with heavy beards, dressed in rough, working man’s clothes and bush hats. Close by, two rifles were resting against the veranda railing. The two men were carrying a heavy object from the station.
“There’s got to be more than two of them,” Hadley said. “Look around back of the house. There’s a cart with a mule…and there are two horses with saddles. So there’re at least three of them. Maybe more.”
The two men placed the object they carried onto the mule cart, which was already loaded with equipment.
“That’s a storage battery they’re carrying,” Botkin said. “I need that stuff, dammit!” He stood and took one step in the direction of the station before Hadley pulled him back down.
“Stay the fuck down, Stu,” Hadley said. “Let’s figure out what’s going on here.”
“There’s nothing to figure, Tom,” Botkin replied. “If we’re going to send that message, we need that equipment.”
One of the bearded men called out to the Americans. “You diggers are on private property,” he said. “Go play your bloody army games some place else.”
“We’re Americans,” Botkin called back. “We need to send an urgent message to Brisbane.”
The bearded men didn’t seem impressed. “Yanks, eh?” the other said. “Makes no difference. This gear belongs to the telegraph company…and it’s out of commission. You can’t use it.” The pair picked up the rifles from the railing.
“Bogater,” Hadley said, “you and McGuire keep our ass covered. The others may try to slip behind us. And for God’s sake, spread out.”
“We got it, Sarge,” Bogater Boudreau replied as he guided McGuire to a good firing position.
Hadley asked Botkin, “You really think they work for the telegraph, Stu? They look like plain ol’ hillbillies to me.”
“I’ll give them a little test,” Botkin replied. He called to the bearded men, “So you’re telegraphers?”
“That’s right, Yank. We work for the telegraph.”
Botkin proceeded to shout a series of dits and dahs—a short message in Morse code, delivered verbally. It made McGuire laugh.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” Boudreau asked.
“He just told them fuck you in Morse,” McGuire replied.
There was not even the faintest glimmer of recognition on the bearded men’s faces. They had no idea they had just been cryptically insulted. Botkin shook his head and said, “They ain’t telegraphers, that’s for—”
His words were cut off by a single rifle shot and then the chatter of Thompson submachine guns. Boudreau and McGuire had been fired on, and they were firing back in spades. McGuire was screaming his head off: “THERE’S ONE OVER THERE! THERE’S ONE OVER THERE!”
Each of the bearded men at the station got off one shot from his rifle before a long burst from Hadley’s Thompson riddled both of them. They collapsed, lifeless, to the deck of the veranda. Hadley’s burst also managed to shatter every window on that side of the station, generously perforate the wall, and scatter the frightened horses. Only the mule stood its ground.
In the seconds it took Stu Botkin to get his head up and try to fire, it was all over. He never got a shot off. It wasn’t necessary anymore—and he was worried Hadley had already shot up the station beyond repair. There was no point adding to the damage.
“ANYONE HIT?” Hadley asked his men, his adrenaline-fueled voice raised nearly an octave.
Their voices breathless and reedy, Botkin and McGuire managed to say they were okay. Boudreau was okay, too. His voice eerily calm, he added, “We got the other two. You had that situation pegged real good, Sarge.” He scooped up the rifles from the bodies of the men he and McGuire had just killed. These dead men looked and dressed exactly like their now-deceased partners at the station. “Like Sarge said, they’re just a bunch of thieving, hillbilly scumbags,” Boudreau said as he nudged a dead body with his foot.
“You sure there were just those two, Bogater?” Hadley asked, struggling to get his voice under control.
“Sure as
I can be,” Boudreau replied. “Damn shame them two horses took off, though. We could have used them. That mule don’t do us no good. Slow us down too much. Might as well cut him loose.”
There was no time for regrets now. Pressing on, Hadley said, “We’ve got to clear the station…make sure there’re no bad guys still inside. Stu, you and Bogater approach it from the north, I’ll take McGuire and approach it from the south…stay in cover as long as you can…and for cryin’ out loud, let’s not turn this into a circular firing squad and shoot each other.”
They found no one else inside. It took Stuart Botkin all of five minutes to determine Hadley’s torrent of bullets had hit nothing of importance in the station and reassemble the components the bearded thieves had removed. In 10 more minutes, he had a confirmation from the Brisbane civil telegraph office his message was being forwarded to US Army Headquarters.
General Briley knew the message’s content sooner than anyone could have expected. The US Army liaison officer at the Brisbane telegraph office had the general on the phone within minutes. Briley was at a meeting of the American/Australian joint staff. The major acting as the general’s aide in Scooter Brewster’s absence interrupted that meeting, knowing Briley would want to know immediately of any communication with Task Force Miles. It was too late to worry about codes and message security now; everyone on the long telegraph line from Moreton to Brisbane knew what it said. Every operator at the telephone switchboard did, too.
Briley wasn’t buying a word of it. Fuming, he said, “One little bombing raid and an airfield totally destroyed? A Jap regiment in hasty retreat? The regiment’s colonel has been captured, to boot! All these improbable events described in a message sent in the clear, not by military radio but civil telegraph because they claim their code book was destroyed! Gentlemen, this is obvious Japanese trickery. A complete hoax.”
Wing Commander Tim Wells, one of the Australians seated at the conference table, found Briley’s dismissal hard to accept. “But if that message is true, General,” Wells said, “are you willing to ignore the victory it would signify?”
Long Walk To The Sun (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 1) Page 34