“Son of a bitch,” Boudreau said. “And we thought our duds were in lousy shape.”
They grabbed his arms this time and pulled. The dead man didn’t budge.
“Lord, we’re getting weak,” Boudreau said. “This guy gotta weigh about next to nothing.”
It took four GIs to get the body out of the hole and carry it to the collection point. As they did, something fell from the dead man’s pocket: a small notebook.
Bogater Boudreau picked it up. As he thumbed through the pages, a photograph fell out: a picture of a young Japanese woman.
“Well, darling,” Bogater said, “better find yourself another lover boy.”
The notebook’s pages were full of neat writing. To Bogater’s eye, it seemed to be structured like the verse he’d read as a child, except it was in some strange, unfathomable alphabet.
Boudreau slapped the book closed and said, “Don’t look like there’s no documents in here worth worrying our heads over.”
He tossed the notebook into a burning pile of rubble.
It seemed anti-climactic when they reached the river bank, like the last play in a game decided long before the final whistle. A dozen Japanese soldiers huddled into a bunker little more than a child’s sand castle fought to their last bullets. All but two were then crushed beneath the tracks of the Stuart tanks. One tried to escape—despite being so weak he could barely walk—by swimming the river, only to be dragged under by a crocodile after several futile strokes.
The last Japanese soldier emerged from a mangrove and tried to surrender to a startled GI who promptly shot him to death, emptying his M1’s clip in the process.
Standing over the slain man, Patchett deadpanned, “Nice shot group, Quick Draw. Just remind me to never, ever sneak up on you.”
As the echoes of those last gunshots faded and died, the survivors of 1st Battalion sagged to the ground as one, sitting and staring silently into the sunset. No one dared express relief or joy—they just wanted to be still, to rest for a moment, without wondering if that moment would be their last.
Those whose first campaign was Buna now knew what the veterans knew:
The taste of victory is not sweet.
It’s bitter—a prized wine turned to vinegar.
The new dawn brought the sound of many trucks. The first thought in the head of every man in 1st Battalion: They’re bringing in hot chow!
The trucks didn’t come bearing food, though. They were carrying troops—men of the 41st Division, according to their shoulder patches. These men seemed happy—and they were much too clean and pressed to have been in Papua more than an hour or two. They certainly hadn’t done a lick of fighting.
“These sons of bitches came straight from the airfield,” Tom Hadley said, eyeing their spotless uniforms as he stood, filthy and unshaven, clad only in crumbling boots and tattered boxer shorts.
“Better than that,” Melvin Patchett added. “I’m betting about forty-eight hours ago, every swinging dick was up to the hilt in some Queensland sheila.”
A spit-shined, cocksure captain strode up to Patchett. “I’m looking for the commanding officer, Sergeant. I’m told his name is Major Miles.”
“The major’s in the hospital, Captain.” Pointing toward the latrine, Patchett added, “You need to speak with Lieutenant Grossman, he’s ranking officer around here at the moment…but hang on a minute, sir.”
He reached into his tent and produced several rolls of toilet paper. “Might want to bring these with you, sir…the lieutenant will sure appreciate it. Might want to keep a little for yourself, too.”
Glaring at Patchett, the captain asked, “Is that some kind of joke, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. Ain’t no joke at all.”
Not quite sure this grizzled old sergeant wasn’t trying to bullshit him, the captain set off smartly for the latrine. He had only taken a few steps when Patchett asked, “Begging your pardon, sir, but where the fuck y’all been?”
Chapter Forty-Six
C-47s were crammed into every available parking spot at the Dobodura airstrip. Waiting to board them were hundreds of GIs and Aussies. Some were wounded, some sick and feverish. A few, like Jock Miles, were unfortunate enough to fit both categories.
Up until a few minutes ago, he would have been considered one of the walking wounded, his arm in a sling which immobilized the collarbone fractured by the sniper’s bullet. A painful wound, but not life-threatening. But now, the grip of malarial fever was setting back in. A medic scrambled to find Jock a stretcher for the plane ride to the big hospital at Port Moresby. Melvin Patchett found his commander by the loading door of Nightingale 12—a C-47 identified with a big 12 chalked on its fuselage.
Patchett took a sobering look at all the troops waiting to be evacuated. He recognized so many of them as his own—the men of 1st Battalion, 81st Infantry. “Maybe I should’ve had roll call right here this morning,” the sergeant major said. “Damn sure looks like there’s more of us on this airstrip than back at camp. How you holding up, sir?”
“I’ll be okay, I guess, Top,” Jock replied, his voice beginning to waver, sounding definitely not okay. “But the malaria…it’s kicking my ass right now. The damn fever…”
“I know, sir…I know. You just take yourself a little time off in Port Moresby. You’ll be good as new before you know it. And don’t you worry about a thing. We’ve got everything under control here.”
“I’ve been hearing the Forty-First showed up to relieve us, Top. That true?”
“Yeah, they’re here…all full of piss and vinegar. They’ll learn, I suppose…but not before they gotta haul some of their own off to Graves Registration.”
Jock mustered a feeble laugh. “We all need that cat-list, don’t we?”
Colonel Molloy made his way through the throng of waiting GIs, finally spying Jock and Patchett by Nightingale 12. “Glad I caught you before you shipped out, Jock,” Molloy said.
He didn’t bother to ask how Jock was feeling. One look told him all he needed to know: This poor bastard’s in bad shape. Don’t make him lie to you again about how he’ll be okay.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re both here,” the colonel said. “Real quick question—what do you think we learned at Buna?”
Hurting though he was, Jock had an answer ready. “That’s simple, sir,” he said. “If I’m ever told to attack fortified positions without artillery and tanks again, I’m going to shoot myself in the foot right off the bat and be done with it.”
Molloy and Patchett waited for his laugh but it never came. He looked dead serious.
Jock had one more thing to add: “And that isn’t the fever talking, either, sir.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
As the clouds thickened around her, Nightingale 12 plodded east, searching for the low mountain pass that would take her to Papua’s south coast and the final, western flight leg to Port Moresby. The C-47s of Nightingale Flight were strung out now—each flying on her own—to reduce the chances of colliding in the poor visibility. The mountains that towered somewhere off their starboard wingtips, hidden behind that harmless-looking white mask of clouds, were enough of a danger; the planes didn’t need to be smacking into each other, too.
Jock’s fever was, at last, doing the talking. Over and over, he was mumbling the same word. The lead flight medic asked his assistant, “What’s he saying?”
“I don’t know…sounds like some woman’s name, like Jill, or Jillian, maybe.”
“Take his temperature.”
“But I did a half hour ago. It was one-oh-three. Typical…he’s got malaria.”
“Take it again.”
This time, the thermometer read 105.3.
“Holy shit! This guy’s on fire,” the lead medic said. “Start sponging him down, Private, right fucking now.”
As he worked the cool water over Jock’s body, the assistant said, “Don’t you dare die on us, Major. We’ll get you there real soon, I promise.”
The lieutenant barked the command: his
sergeant sliced through the coarse rope with his sword. The prisoner—who had been tied, arms spread, to a bamboo pole, suspended like a crucified Christ in midair by that rope—crashed to the muddy ground. Aching arms now freed from the pole, the prisoner was dragged by soldiers back to the barbed-wire pen.
Only one of the other prisoners in the pen came to help, a young Dutch nurse who—as near as she could tell—had been held in this prison camp for over a year. The rest of the captives skulked away. They were afraid any association with this rebellious newcomer would only get them tortured, too.
The nurse gently cleaned the new prisoner’s wounds with fresh coconut milk. With practiced hands, she checked for other injuries. When that was done, she whispered, “Did they rape you?”
In a strained voice, exhausted but still defiant, the prisoner replied, “No, and I’ll bloody well find a way to kill them if they try.”
The nurse sighed and shook her head sadly. She’d survived in this camp by making herself useful. This new prisoner seemed dedicated to the suicidal strategy of being a thorn in her captors’ side, an insect asking to be swatted.
Stroking the prisoner’s long hair tenderly, the nurse said, “Jillian Forbes, you silly girl…it’s a miracle they haven’t killed you already.”
It was well past 1500 at Seven Mile Airfield outside Port Moresby. The planes of Nightingale Flight had come and gone—all but one.
In the Operations tent, the duty officer was running out of places to call, alternate landing fields where Nightingale 12 might have set down. He held up a sheaf of radio messages for the squadron commander to see. “We know she didn’t return to Dobodura, sir,” the duty officer said, “and she’s not at Fasari, Kokoda, or Milne Bay, either. We got Twenty Mile on the horn, too—no dice.” He looked at the big map one more time and added, “And they sure as hell didn’t fly to the Solomons…or back to Australia.”
The squadron commander took a step outside the tent, taking a long, hard look at the afternoon storm clouds rolling off Astrolabe Mountain and the Owen Stanleys beyond. He shook his head—Nightingale 12 would have returned to Earth somewhere by now: She’d have been out of gas a while ago.
“There aren’t many choices left, then,” the commander said. “She’s either in the drink…or more than likely, she’s down in the mountains somewhere. You never had any transmissions from her? Nothing at all?”
“No, sir. Not a damn word. It’s like she just vanished.”
***
About The Author
History is a parade of chance outcomes, influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter Grasso’s novels explore the concept change one thing…and watch what happens. The results are works of fiction in which the actual people and historical events are weaved into a seamless and entertaining narrative with the imagined.
Focusing on the WW2 era, Grasso’s novels have spent several years in the Amazon Top 100 for Alternative History and War.
Retired from the aircraft maintenance industry, Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying radio-controlled model aircraft.
Contact the Author Online:
Email: William Peter Grasso
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https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso
More Novels by William Peter Grasso
Moon Above, Moon Below
A Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure
France, August 1944. In this alternate history WW2 adventure, American and British forces struggle to trap and destroy the still-potent German armies defending Normandy. But the Allies face another formidable obstacle of their own making: a seething rivalry between generals leads to a high-level disregard for orders that puts the entire campaign in the Falaise Pocket at risk of devastating failure—or spectacular success. That campaign unfolds through the eyes of two American brothers—one an idealistic pilot, the other a fatalistic tanker—as they plunge headlong into the confusion and indiscriminant slaughter of war.
Operation Fishwrapper
Book 5
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
June 1944: A recon flight is shot down over the Japanese-held island of Biak, soon to be the next jump in MacArthur’s leapfrogging across New Guinea. Major Jock Miles, US Army—the crashed plane’s intelligence officer—must lead the handful of survivors to safety. It’s a tall order for a man barely recovered from a near-crippling leg wound. Gaining the grudging help of a Dutch planter who has evaded the Japanese since the war began, Jock discovers just how little MacArthur’s staff knows about the terrain and defenses of the island they’re about to invade.
The American invasion of Biak promptly bogs down, and the GIs rename the debacle Operation Fishwrapper, a joking reference to their worthless maps. The infantry battalion Jock once led quickly suffers the back-to-back deaths of two commanders, so he steps into the job once again, ignoring the growing difficulties with his leg. When his Aussie wife Jillian tracks down the refugee mapmaker who can refine those fishwrappers into something of military value, the tide of battle finally turns in favor of the Americans. But for Jock, the victory imparts a life-changing blow.
Operation Blind Spot
Book 4
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
After surviving a deadly plane crash, Jock Miles is handed a new mission: neutralize a mountaintop observation post on Japanese-held Manus Island so MacArthur’s invasion fleet en route to Hollandia, New Guinea, can arrive undetected. Jock’s team seizes and holds the observation post with the help of a clever deception. But when they learn of a POW camp deep in the island’s treacherous jungle, it opens old wounds for Jock and his men: the disappearance—and presumed death—of Jillian Forbes at Buna a year before. There’s only one risky way to find out if she’s a prisoner there…and doing so puts their entire mission in serious jeopardy.
Operation Easy Street
Book 3
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Port Moresby was bad. Buna was worse.
The WW2 alternative history adventure of Jock Miles continues as MacArthur orders American and Australian forces to seize Buna in Papua New Guinea. Once again, the Allied high command underestimates the Japanese defenders, plunging Jock and his men into a battle they’re not equipped to win. Worse, jungle diseases, treacherous terrain, and the tactical fantasies of deluded generals become adversaries every bit as deadly as the Japanese. Sick, exhausted, and outgunned, Jock’s battalion is ordered to spearhead an amphibious assault against the well-entrenched enemy. It’s a suicide mission—but with ingenious help from an unexpected source, there might be a way to avoid the certain slaughter and take Buna. For Jock, though, victory comes at a dreadful price.
Operation Long Jump
Book 2
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Alternative history takes center stage as Operation Long Jump, the second book in the Jock Miles World War 2 adventure series, plunges us into the horrors of combat in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. As a prelude to the Allied invasion, Jock Miles and his men seize the Japanese observation post on the mountain overlooking Port Moresby. The main invasion that follows quickly degenerates to a bloody stalemate, as the inexperienced, demoralized, and poorly led GIs struggle against the stubborn enemy.
Seeking a way to crack the impenetrable Japanese defenses, infantry officer Jock finds himself in a new role—aerial observer. He’s teamed with rookie pilot John Worth, in a prequel to his role as hero of Grasso’s East Wind Returns. Together, they struggle to expose the Japanese defenses—while highly exposed themselves—in their slow and vulnerable spotter plane. The enemy is not the only thing troubling Jock: his Australian lover, Jillian Forbes, has found a new and dangerous way to contribute to the war effort.
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p; Long Walk to the Sun
Book 1
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
In this alternate history adventure set in WW2’s early days, a crippled US military struggles to defend vulnerable Australia against the unstoppable Japanese forces. When a Japanese regiment lands on Australia’s desolate and undefended Cape York Peninsula, Jock Miles, a US Army captain disgraced despite heroic actions at Pearl Harbor, is ordered to locate the enemy’s elusive command post.
Conceived in politics rather than sound tactics, the futile mission is a “show of faith” by the American war leaders meant to do little more than bolster their flagging Australian ally. For Jock Miles and the men of his patrol, it’s a death sentence: their enemy is superior in men, material, firepower, and combat experience. Even if the Japanese don’t kill them, the vast distances they must cover on foot in the treacherous natural realm of Cape York just might. When Jock joins forces with Jillian Forbes, an indomitable woman with her own checkered past who refused to evacuate in the face of the Japanese threat, the dim prospects of the Allied war effort begin to brighten in surprising ways.
Unpunished
Congressman. Presidential candidate. Murderer. Leonard Pilcher is all of these things.
As an American pilot interned in Sweden during WWII, he kills one of his own crewmen and gets away with it. Two people have witnessed the murder—American airman Joe Gelardi and his secret Swedish lover, Pola Nilsson-MacLeish—but they cannot speak out without paying a devastating price. Tormented by their guilt and separated by a vast ocean after the war, Joe and Pola maintain the silence that haunts them both...until 1960, when Congressman Pilcher’s campaign for his party’s nomination for president gains momentum. As he dons the guise of war hero, one female reporter, anxious to break into the “boy’s club” of TV news, fights to uncover the truth against the far-reaching power of the Pilcher family’s wealth, power that can do any wrong it chooses—even kill—and remain unpunished. Just as the nomination seems within Pilcher’s grasp, Pola reappears to enlist Joe’s help in finally exposing Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the passion of their wartime romance rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher down before becoming his next victims.
Operation Easy Street (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 3) Page 28