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

by William Peter Grasso

  The men couldn’t see Thaddeus, but he could see them. They were Yanks—two of them—wearing the same silly helmets but with longer rifles than the men of the captain Miss Jilly fancied. And these rifles had bayonets affixed to their muzzles.

  But they’re just more Yanks…and they look lost. I’ll help them get back to the camp.

  Thaddeus didn’t recognize the men even as they drew closer, but he wasn’t worried:

  Those helmets…they hide the face.

  He stepped from behind a tree into the path of the two Americans. With a smile of greeting, he said, “Hello, Yanks…I can take you back—”

  But the words caught in Thaddeus’s throat. The Yank closest to him had those same bars on his collar, just like Captain Jock—are there two captains?—and he was lunging forward toward Thaddeus, the tip of his bayonet leading the way.

  The smile was still on the black man’s face as Scooter Brewster’s bayonet sunk into his chest and pierced his heart. His knees buckled, and Brewster pushed him over, the bayonet still stuck in his ribs, the watery gurgle of his breath escaping his throat.

  In a few moments, Thaddeus was dead. He did not carry his smile into the afterlife. In its place was a look of innocent confusion, much like a child being punished but not knowing why.

  No matter how hard Scooter Brewster pulled, Thaddeus’s chest would not release the bayonet. Just then, he remembered a bit of wisdom Melvin Patchett had once dispensed to the troops: If it don’t come out, you gotta put a foot on his chest and twist the son of a bitch while you’re pulling it.

  Scooter Brewster did just that, and with the crack of ribs breaking, the bayonet pulled free. Rubbing the blade against Thaddeus’s trousers, he wiped the blood clean.

  “We’re very close to something,” Brewster said to the ashen-faced Corporal Wheatley. “Let’s try to find out what it is before dark.”

  Nobody knew J.T. Guess had been carrying a camera in his pack. He had yet to have a chance to use it, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any. He needed to hurry, though; soon the light would be completely gone and the Peppan Creek camp would be in darkness once more.

  First Sergeant Patchett was not thrilled to see the camera. He leveled his stern gaze on Guess and said, “Have you been carrying that fucking thing the whole damn time?”

  “Yes, First Sergeant.”

  “Did I not strictly forbid heavy objects in a man’s pack before we left Brisbane? We’re supposed to be traveling light, remember?”

  “Come on, First Sergeant…let me take a couple of shots. It’s my last chance.”

  It’s my last chance—those words hit Patchett like a brick. It literally could be J.T. Guess’s last chance. A few days from now, he just might be in the stockade, awaiting a court martial for murder.

  Patchett felt his anger softening, being quickly replaced by sympathy. “Go ahead, son,” he said, “take all the pictures you need to.”

  Guess began eagerly snapping the shutter; his first subjects were his comrades. The soldiers were posing—sometimes individually, sometimes in small groups—proudly brandishing their weapons. They were too preoccupied with their fun to notice the blacks had retreated in fright. When Melvin Patchett tried to include Old Robert in the photo with Jock Miles, he pulled away, terrified.

  With panic in her eyes, Jillian came streaking up to J.T. Guess and tried to grab the camera from the startled soldier. Guess would not release his grip, and they were quickly in a tug-of-war.

  “NO, J.T.,” Jillian said, as they danced in a small circle. “DON’T EVER TRY TO PHOTOGRAPH THE BLACKS. THEY’RE SUPERSTITIOUS. THEY—”

  For a second frozen in time, no one could believe a shot had rung out. It seemed incomprehensible that J.T. Guess had been thrown to the ground by some mighty, invisible force, his head split open, droplets of his blood and brains splotched all over Jillian’s face, arms, and torso.

  “SNIPER,” Patchett screamed, and time unstuck just as instantaneously as it had stopped. It was now racing to the future in fast-forward, with every man in Task Force Miles—and Jillian, too—hitting the deck, heads swiveling in search of the shooter. The blacks, confused and in shock by what they were seeing, stayed on their feet, retreating even farther from Jillian and the Americans.

  “HE’S GOT TO BE SOUTH,” Jock said. It was a deduction based on simple ballistics even mortal terror could not distort: the spray of Guess’s brain matter was fanned out to the north.

  “I THINK I SEE HIM!” Jillian said, pointing south. “HE’S CLOSE…AND HE’S RUNNING AWAY.”

  Jock had his men organized in seconds. Half went with Patchett, flanking the shooter to the east. Jock took the rest to flank west. Doc and Jillian were to stay in the camp with the blacks.

  Patchett’s team wasn’t 30 yards into the woods when a hysterical American soldier appeared from behind a tree, his hands in the air, screaming, “I’M AMERICAN…DON’T KILL ME…I SURRENDER.”

  They captured Corporal Grover Wheatley. Mike McMillen snatched Wheatley’s M1 rifle from the ground where it had been thrown and sniffed the receiver. “Top, this weapon ain’t even been fired,” McMillen said.

  Jock’s team plunged deeper into the darkening woods. The sun settled on the western horizon. Soon it would slip from sight, and the chances of finding the man who killed J.T. Guess would slip away with it.

  They could hear him running—but they couldn’t see him.

  The last shadows of a thousand trees backlit by sunset merged like a spreading pool of blackness. The footsteps they were following slowed and stopped. Jock imagined the man reaching some obstruction—and trying to decide which way to turn.

  He had to be close. Maybe just feet away. In a few more minutes, the sky above them would darken as the sun moved on to the other side of the world. He could be inches away then—and they would never see him.

  It was Teddy Mukasic’s voice that called out: “CAPTAIN! BEHIND YOU!”

  Jock whirled around to see the silhouette of a man—so close, he could hear him breathing.

  So close, he could smell the cordite from a recently-fired rifle.

  The dream flashed before Jock’s eyes again—the one in which he kept trying to fire and nothing happened. But unlike the dream, he knew he was firing this time.

  The forest lit up in the strobe light flashes from his Thompson’s muzzle. He heard nothing but the weapon’s bark and could only see a brief glimpse in each flash of the silhouette crumpling to the ground, like watching a movie a frame at a time. He released the trigger.

  Now, he could hear nothing but the ringing in his ears from his weapon’s noisy burst. He could see nothing; for the moment, the flashes had ruined his night vision.

  A new fear gripped Jock Miles: he had fired in the dark. He had no idea who he had hit. Was it an enemy? Or had he just shot one or more of his own men with that reflexive squeeze of his trigger?

  None of them had a flashlight. Working by feel alone, Jock was, at first, relieved as he took the rifle from the dead man’s hands. It was obviously an M1, with a bayonet at its muzzle. None of his men carried an M1 on this mission.

  But just about every other dogface in the US Army did.

  He commanded his men to count off—and they were all alive and well. At least he hadn’t killed any of them—just this mysterious GI who seemed to be playing for the wrong team.

  They stumbled back through the woods toward the camp with only the phosphorescent needle on Jock’s compass to guide them. They prayed they hadn’t gotten so turned around—even in the short distance this pursuit covered—that they would miss the camp completely. It was slow going—they were dragging the body of the slain American soldier, and it had grown so dark they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.

  They prayed for something else, too: that they wouldn’t get into a confused shootout in the dark with the first sergeant’s team.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  In the oil lantern’s glow, not one man believed what they were
seeing. Lying next to the dead body of J.T. Guess was the body of his killer—their old XO, John Joseph Pershing “Scooter” Brewster.

  As he stared down at Brewster’s body, Melvin Patchett asked Jock, “Just what the fuck is going on here, sir?”

  “Wish the hell I knew, Top,” Jock replied. He could not come to grips with any possible scenario, short of mental illness, that could have led to what had just happened.

  “That corporal you caught,” Jock said, “is he talking yet?”

  “Are you kidding? He won’t shut up,” Patchett replied. “Trouble is, he’s talking nonsense. Doc’s trying to calm him down.”

  What Grover Wheatley told Jock Miles and Melvin Patchett—even after Doc Green had calmed him—was so bizarre they couldn’t believe it, either. But Wheatley was insistent. “I’m telling you, Captain Miles,” he said, “when we couldn’t track you down, that lunatic took it on himself to kill that woman. What could I do to stop him? I’m just a little ol’ tech corporal…I do what I’m told.”

  At this moment, Jock was very glad Jillian wasn’t present to hear this. He asked, “So he was aiming for her…and he missed?”

  “That’s about it, Captain.”

  “But you never fired your weapon, Corporal,” Jock said. “Why’s that?”

  Wheatley seemed offended at the question. “Hey, I may be stuck in this man’s Army for the duration, but I’m not stupid. I’m a radio tech, not a sniper. And I’m definitely no murderer.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “It all seemed like some stupid Army game, but I never figured in a million years he’d actually find her. It was just luck we saw those guys of yours and followed them here.”

  Patchett squatted before Wheatley, looked him dead in the eyes, and asked, “You got any proof to back up your story, Corporal?”

  “Like I said, First Sergeant, he burned the orders. I never got to read them.”

  Patchett asked, “Do you know who signed them?”

  “Nope,” Wheatley replied. “But if you want some kind of proof, check his body…there’s still a picture of her and a map somewhere.” Glancing toward Old Robert, Wheatley added, “You might want to check the woods, too. Captain Brewster bayoneted some Aborigine kid out there.”

  That last, sad truth was the only thing Wheatley said that made any sense to Old Robert. He had feared such a truth, for one of his men was missing. “Thaddeus,” Old Robert whispered, solving the mystery.

  Jillian’s profane rant had been going on for a good five minutes. Jock, Patchett, and Doc Green looked on helplessly, surrendering any hope of calming her. Their only function now—until she grew exhausted—was to keep her from hurting herself. She had already launched Jock’s pack across the room with one powerful kick of her bare foot. Several times, she had to be restrained from kicking the metal walls in the shack. They already had enough people who couldn’t walk very well.

  After traversing the interior of the shack for what seemed like the hundredth time, she stopped in the middle of the floor, shot the three a withering gaze, and said, “Isn’t this fucking wonderful? That gentle lad takes a bullet because your bloody Army wants me dead. I suppose if I went back to Brisbane now, I’d be arrested and hung as a traitor?”

  “As far as a treason charge goes,” Jock said, “we only have some corporal’s word on that.”

  That came as small comfort to Jillian. “Why else would they want to assassinate a civilian in wartime?” she asked. “Or is helping your sorry arses suddenly an offense punishable by death?”

  Doc said, “It is a bit confusing, though. How the hell would anyone in Brisbane know anything about what’s going on up here, outside of the few wireless messages we sent?”

  “Yeah,” Patchett said, “and those messages never said a damn thing about Miss Forbes, one way or the other.”

  “Right, Top,” Jock said. “So who the hell would want Jillian killed…and why?”

  None of them had the answer to that question until revelation struck Jillian a leveling blow. Head in hands, she sank to a seat on the floor.

  “Oh, God,” she said, “my boat! Andoom Clipper! The one that never came back. My crew…the Navy seized them, I’ll bet. Somehow, they found them and seized them.”

  Jock and Patchett weren’t following. Jock asked, “So what?”

  Jillian’s words had struck a revelation in Doc Green, too. He sat down beside her on the floor, a show, perhaps, of Australian solidarity. “You Yanks don’t understand Australia quite like we do,” Doc said. “Can you imagine what their story will sound like to those who consider the blacks little more than feral animals…and are terrified they’ll join forces with the Japs?” He turned to Patchett and added, “Hell, Top…you were ready to call her a collaborator at first, too.”

  Jock wasn’t buying it. “You’re making her sound like she’s the Queen of Cape York,” he said.

  Doc replied, “To the blacks, she is. That’s why the Army…and the government…would consider her so dangerous.”

  Jillian was lost in her disturbing thoughts. She shook her head as she mumbled, “The flag…that bloody white flag on the boat. And the money…I’ll bet they had Jap money on them.”

  “This is starting to make some sense,” Jock said. “I really can’t see the US Army targeting a civilian unless the Australian government wanted it.”

  Patchett nodded in agreement. “I’ll go along with that, sir…I know a little something about MacArthur and his people. They like playing God.”

  The three men might have come to a consensus, but Jillian still seemed in another world. “I need my life back,” she said, talking to no one but the ceiling. “I need my business. It means something to these people…and it means everything to me.”

  Jock took a seat on the floor with Jillian and Doc, the three forming a tight circle. He put his hands on her shoulders and said, “And we’re going to help you do just that. We’re going to get you to Brisbane and fix all this.”

  She looked deep into his eyes and asked, “How?”

  “We’re going to tell the world just how heroic you are…how you saved our mission.”

  Again, she asked, “How?”

  He said nothing and kept holding on to her. He hadn’t thought his plan through that far yet. Jock’s proclamation had sent Doc Green’s mind racing, though. He was already filling in the blanks Jock couldn’t.

  “The newspapers,” Doc said. “That’s our answer. An old school chum of mine is editor at the Brisbane Telegraph, and this country is dying for heroes right now. I’ll get him to publish Jillian’s real story…and nobody will dare lay a finger on her after that.”

  Melvin Patchett was already finding the devil in the details. “How are you so sure he’ll publish it, Doc?” he asked.

  A coy smile came over Doc’s face. “Let’s just say he owes me, in a very big way.”

  Patchett smiled right back and asked, “Does it involve money? Or a woman?”

  “Both.”

  The answer impressed Patchett, and he nodded respectfully. But he had another question. “Once we get back,” he asked, “this’ll take a little time, won’t it? And while we’re traveling back to Brisbane, how do we explain why she’s with us?”

  “We don’t explain anything,” Jock said. “If anyone asks, she’s our prisoner.”

  “Prisoner?” Jillian said, snapping back to reality and not liking what she had just heard at all. “You’re going to sort this out while I’m in prison? I say bollocks on that, Jock Miles.”

  “Wait…hear me out,” Jock said. “The military mind will believe the prisoner story quicker than just about anything. This mission to kill you was Top Secret stuff, so nobody is going to know about it, anyway, except for us and the high-level assholes who thought it up. The cops won’t have a dragnet out for you.”

  Doc added, “And yes…Top’s right. This will take a little time, but I’m betting there’s someplace you can hide out until they’re ready to pin the Victoria Cross on you.”

  “
Perhaps your aunt can stash you away for a bit?” Jock asked.

  With a mixture of reluctance and blind hope, Jillian replied, “I suppose so.”

  “Good,” Jock said, “then it’s settled. You’re coming with us.”

  “Just one thing, though,” Doc added. “This article can’t mention a bloody thing about any plot to kill Jillian.”

  “Of course it can’t,” Jock said. “Then we’d all become targets, right? We’d know too much.”

  “Exactly,” Doc replied, as Patchett and Jillian nodded in agreement.

  The unsettling sound of shovels piercing earth drifted into the shack, numbing everyone’s mood. They filed outside to find a burial site being dug by lantern light.

  “I made them dig two graves,” Patchett said to Jock. “I don’t think Guess deserves to be in a common grave with that man.”

  “I agree,” Jock replied.

  “But I’ve gotta say, Captain…first Roper, now Guess…the men in this company do seem to find the damnedest ways to get out of court martials.”

  His voice just above a whisper so only his first sergeant would hear, Jock said, “I wasn’t going to court martial Private Guess, Top.”

  The slightest of smiles creased Melvin Patchett’s stolid face.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  A traveling circus…

  Those were the only words Jock Miles could find to describe what his charges looked like as they walked east across the bush to Moreton Telegraph Station. Having buried Roper, Russo, and Guess, they were down to 12 American members of Task Force Miles, one of whom—Corporal Jorge Pacheco—couldn’t walk. He rode the Radio Flyer, pulled by a rotating pool of men, two at a time. In addition, the circus now featured a small cart donated by the Weipa blacks, pulled by another rotating pool. On that cart rode Colonel Najima, secured in irons taken from the jail, and Doc Green, whose leg wound prevented him from walking at any decent speed. Jillian Forbes walked easily among the soldiers, her rifle cradled and ready in her arms. She had given up the casual dress and bare feet of the Peppan Creek camp for her trousers and sturdy riding boots.