Corrigan's Run

by Colin Falconer

  The fetid stench of the swamp made him wince.

  He looked up and saw a white cockatoo high on the branch of an ivory nut tree, looking intently downwards, watching something. He stopped and listened. There were voices coming from the mangroves, directly ahead of him.

  He dropped on to the mud, and lay quite still, hardly daring to breathe. He could hear them now. Japs! He crawled towards a hollow log lying among the jumble of mangrove roots. Cautiously he raised his head and peered over the top.

  There were a dozen of them, at least, probably a landing party from the sampan in the bay. They were coming straight towards him. Their khaki uniforms were visible now through the mottled greens of the jungle. In a few moments they would be walking right over the top of him. Corrigan looked back and saw his own footsteps in the soft mud.

  Holy Mother of God and all the Blessed Saints in Heaven.

  ‘Those big feet of yours plastered all over the mud will lead them straight to you, Patrick my boy.’

  Desperately he looked around for escape. The only way was to wade back along the creek, covering his tracks, and then hide on the other bank. He slithered across the mud on his belly and lowered himself into the water.

  Then he saw it.

  There was a crocodile less than fifty paces away. Its small malevolent eyes watched him, unblinking.

  Corrigan felt the breath catch in his throat. He was trapped.

  He scrambled back out of the water, and crawled back behind the log. He raised his head a few inches and saw the first Japanese soldier coming straight towards him.

  ‘That's it, Patrick old son,’ Corrigan whispered to himself. ‘All roads lead to the Devil now.’

  Chapter 49

  There was a tiny ripple around its snout as it began to stir, edging closer to the bank. Its back glinted in the dappled sunlight as it emerged from the water, almost a ton of cold armored flesh. It was a big one, perhaps eighteen feet long, its bowed legs sinking into the stinking black mud. It opened its jaws, and Corrigan saw rows of yellow teeth. There was an overpowering smell, like dead fish.

  The soldiers were very close now. Corrigan could hear their boots squelching in the mud. One of them said something and the others laughed.

  Suddenly the crocodile started to run towards him, moving faster than Corrigan had expected. He braced himself against the log, and raised the rifle. In that instant he knew he had to choose between the crocodile’s jaws and a bullet in the back from the soldiers.

  ‘Better to die clean,’ Corrigan thought. He raised the gun, aiming between the beast's eyes. His finger squeezed the trigger. Nothing.

  He tried a second time.

  The trigger mechanism was jammed. The water must have got into it. He was defenseless. This was it.

  He was going to die.

  *****

  Corporal Hiroo Haniguchi had no warning of the attack. His lieutenant had put him on point and at that moment he was more concerned with negotiating the glutinous mud and the tangled mangrove roots. He did not even see the crocodile until it was on him.

  He heard a splash and looked up to see the beast slithering across the mud towards him at astonishing speed. He raised his rifle but the crocodile was on him too fast, the massive jaws snapping shut around his thigh. He screamed and fired at the same time, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly away among the mangroves.

  His comrades were slow to react. The crocodile began to drag the screaming man across the slick mud towards the creek. Finally his comrades overcame their surprise and opened fire. It released its hold on Haniguchi as it writhed under the impact of the bullets.

  Volley after volley ripped into the crocodile. It attempted to flee into the creek but a kill shot stopped it in its tracks halfway to the water, and it flipped over on its back, its huge tail slapping the mud in agony as it died.

  Meanwhile Haniguchi clawed at the shattered stump of his right leg. Half his shin had been torn off in the animal's jaws, and bright red blood was spurting onto the mud.

  Lieutenant Tashiro ran forward, stripping off the webbing belt at his waist. He held the screaming man down with one knee while he wrapped the belt around his thigh as a tourniquet.

  ‘Get him back to the beach!’ Tashiro shouted. There was a medical officer on the patrol boat, they should get him back there before he bled to death.

  Two of the soldiers lifted Haniguchi under his arms, another two took his legs, or what was left of them. They started to scramble back the way they had come. Tashiro stumbled after them, cursing this latest misadventure.

  *****

  Corrigan lay behind the log for a long time, hardly daring to move. He couldn’t believe his luck. He supposed the Japanese soldier at the head of the patrol had presented a far easier target than he had. Corrigan had not seen the attack but he heard the screams, and the terrible grunting noise the animal had made as it clamped its teeth round the poor bastard’s leg.

  He could still hear him screaming as they carried him back through the mangroves.

  Finally he peered cautiously over the top of the log. The wounded man’s shrieks faded away and Corrigan was left with the brooding silence of the mangroves.

  He got shakily to his feet. The dead crocodile lay on its back just a few feet away, the weed-green body ripped through with bullet holes. There were ugly gouts of dark blood pooled on the mud.

  Corrigan put a foot on the reptile's carcass, and shook his head, wondering at his own good fortune. ‘Well, Pat me boy, your old man was right. You’re a lucky man. Stay away from women and you'll live to be ninety!’

  *****

  That night his party huddled together in the jungle, watching the small fire on the beach where the Japanese were camped. Occasionally the sound of their voices carried to them on the breeze from the other side of the bay. They ate a few bananas and the flesh from a papaya and huddled together on the ground and tried to sleep.

  Manning’s breathing was ragged. Corrigan wondered if he would survive till the submarine arrived; he had the same smell about him as the priest had near the end.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Corrigan whispered.

  ‘I can't stop thinking about the girl.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  ‘You must go back for her. You can't leave her to carry on alone.’

  ‘You can go back if you like. I'm not stopping you.’

  ‘If you were any sort of man you wouldn't have allowed such a thing.’

  ‘I didn't force her to stay behind. If she wants to kill herself, I'll not have her drag me down with her.’

  ‘I cannot believe you could be such a coward as to leave that brave young girl to her fate.’

  ‘Look, it's her own stupid fault. I'm not responsible for her life or anyone else's. Christ knows I've done my best for you bunch of idiots. If she wants to commit suicide, that's her affair!’

  ‘You have to go back.’

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘My chest is on fire. I can't.’

  ‘Well, I can. So shut up.’

  ‘What are you running from, Patrick?’

  ‘Blokes like you.’

  ‘You cannot run forever. Some time you will have to stop and commit yourself to something, or to someone. Otherwise life is meaningless.’

  ‘It's meaningless anyway.’

  ‘If that's what you think, I feel sorry for you.’

  ‘So you've said. And I feel damned sorry too. Sorry I ever let myself get involved with this whole crazy mess. Now for Christ's sake, shut up and leave me alone.’

  Sergeant Lavella took first watch. Corrigan huddled under a blanket with Sanei and tried to sleep. But he couldn't. He stared up at the blaze of stars and two hours later, when he relieved Sergeant Lavella, he was still wide awake. He didn't know why.

  Chapter 50

  Rachel lay on Manning's narrow bamboo cot in the radio hut and prayed.

  Her uncle had taught her that prayer was a means of devotion, that it should be used for worship, and no
thing more. It had meant nothing to her then, and even less to her now.

  She was not even sure that there was such a thing as God. But now she prayed as she had never prayed in her life; not as Father Goode had taught her, but for her own deliverance.

  Already she was regretting her headstrong decision to stay. Every night owl calling in the forest, every falling branch, each boom and tonk of the tree frogs, jarred her nerves and made her curse her own impetuosity.

  She now realized the two native constables might not remain as loyal to her as they were to Manning. There was Silas Tenpound, the stocky little islander from the Rendells, with ‘£10’ mysteriously tattooed on his left forearm; and Corporal Solomon, a lanky slow-moving Malaitan, sullen-faced and silent. Since Corrigan had left neither of them had spoken to her, but occasionally she caught them muttering darkly to themselves under their breath.

  She was, in their eyes, just a woman. They might follow the kiap anywhere, but there was no guarantee whatever that they would still be with her in the morning. Corrigan was right, she had tied herself to her own cross. It was arrogance to believe she could survive in the jungle alone.

  Chomu had sent word from Vancoro that the Japanese had landed tracker dogs. The net was closing in around her. The worst of it was not knowing how it would end; it might come creeping in the night, the snap of a twig her only warning; or it might come in the heat of the day, as she sat hunched over the radio. A Japanese patrol could stumble across the clearing, or a patrol plane flying low over the trees might spot the aerial, one of the local natives might betray her. Every black face was a potential Judas.

  She tried to shut out the dark thoughts and will herself to sleep.

  As she closed her eyes she saw a submarine heading out of the bay; as the blue waters closed over the conning tower, Rachel whispered one word to the night, like a benediction.

  ‘Corrigan.’

  *****

  Patrick Corrigan put the field glasses to his eyes and scanned the white strip of beach. It had been a bad night. The mosquitoes had swarmed around them, and around midnight Manning had become delirious again; they had had to use blankets to muffle his shouts, so the sounds would not travel across the bay to the Japanese.

  Corrigan had not slept. He couldn't stop thinking about Rachel. What was it Manning had called him last night? A coward, Jesus! He had risked his damned neck for them time and time again. Now they wanted him to stay behind and make himself a martyr for a cause he didn't believe in.

  It was a hot morning, and the moist, thin air was scented by the sea and the musk of flowers. The trade winds had flung the clouds in a mackerel pattern across the sky, in grand sweeping strokes. A thin skein of smoke rose from the Japanese camp behind the first line of palms. There was a lot of movement down there this morning..

  ‘Come on, get going you bastards,’ Corrigan muttered as he focused the lens of the binoculars.

  The submarine might wait one night for them. If the Japanese didn't move off today, there was no chance the commander would risk a second night in enemy waters.

  He heard the faint chatter of an outboard motor and saw a rubber dinghy set off across the lagoon from one of the sampans. A few minutes later it beached on the white sand, and the Japanese began loading equipment aboard. Two soldiers carried a stretcher towards the dinghy, a blanket thrown across the shapeless bundle on top of it.

  Corrigan thought about the crocodile attack of the previous day. So the man had died.

  ‘Rather him than me,’ Corrigan said to himself.

  ‘What name?’ Sergeant Lavella whispered from Corrigan's side. ‘Japoni he go?’

  ‘Looks like it. Mean we’re still in with a chance.’

  Corrigan and Lavella crawled back through the undergrowth until they were out of sight of the beach. Then they began to trudge back through the twisting roots of the mangroves.

  As soon as the Japanese had gone, Corrigan decided, they would move Manning down to the water's edge and make camp there. They would have to wait till nightfall to discover if the submarine captain had kept his nerve.

  But with any luck it would soon be all over, all the sweating and hiding, eating watery rice and drinking foul water. This time next week he could be drinking an ice-cold beer in the front bar of the George Hotel in Circular Quay.

  He should have been elated. To his surprise he felt curiously depressed.

  *****

  Mitchell looked out of the cockpit and saw a squadron of Zeros many thousands of feet below, their silhouettes framed against the ocean by the cotton puff clouds. Mitchell followed them, leading his Grumman fighters into a thick cirrus haze. Rivulets of water trickled down the bullet proof glass of the windshield as they flew through the squall.

  A few minutes later, when they came out of the thick band of cloud, he looked over the port wing. They were still there.

  He saw his wing commander signaling thumbs up.

  ‘This is Arrow leader. Zeros at seven o'clock. Let's hit 'em fellas!’

  Mitchell pulled the Wildcat over on its port wing and started the dive, picking out the Zero at the neck of the 'V'. Mitchell felt himself being thrown against his seatbelt as the Grumman went into its dive. The roar of the engines rose to a deafening shriek as he closed on his target.

  He had kept the sun directly behind him, and the Japanese pilots didn't see them until it was too late.

  He waited till he had closed to within three hundred yards before firing. There were bright flashes as the Wildcat's cannons scored hits on the Zero's rudder and wings. Large pieces of the tailplane flew off, accompanied by bursts of black smoke; then the engine coolant blew leaving a white streamer of glycol pluming across the sky.

  The Zero spiraled out of control towards the sea. Mitchell watched, waiting for the blossom of the pilot's parachute but there was none. The Zero smashed into the sea, leaving a pyre of rich black oil-smoke.

  He heard a clamour on his headset. ‘Skipper, you've got a Zeke on your tail. Dive, dive!’

  Mitchell twisted round in the cockpit and saw the flash of red on the gleaming silver of the Zero and then the blinking flash of its machine guns. The Grumman lurched as shells punched holes in the wing and fuselage.

  Mitchell pushed the throttle forward, snapping away in a roll to starboard, one wing pointing directly at the sea far below, the port wing straight up at the sky. The Japanese pilot followed him.

  Mitchell heard the machine guns chatter again. Desperately, he rolled the Grumman three times then pulled up the flaps and dropped into a vertical spin to the left. It was a manoever that had saved his life dozens of times. But to his dismay, the Zero stayed right there on his tail. Whoever he was, he was good.

  Mitchell held to the spiral, the G pressures pushing him down into his seat, his head feeling as if it was being crushed by some enormous weight. His vision was clouded with grey film. The needles on the speedometer flickered towards four hundred miles per hour. Mitchell and the Japanese pilot were locked together in a deadly embrace, diving towards the sea below.

  He went round three times, four, five. Still the Zero clung to his tail. Both pilots knew that the first man to lose his nerve and turn was finished.

  Unless . . .

  Instead of swinging into the sixth spiral, Mitchell pushed the throttle forward and broke away to the right and looped. The Japanese pilot, sensing victory now, went after him, cut inside his arc, and came out on his tail.

  Mitchell kept flying loops, trying to narrow the distance of each arc but every time he went up and around the Zero cut inside the arc and reduced the distance between them. The Zero could outfly any other plane in the air in a fight like this.

  Mitchell looked over his shoulder. The Zero was within range again. Bright tracer shells flashed past his starboard wing.

  Now!

  Mitchell dropped his flaps, and chopped power to his engine. The Grumman shuddered and almost stalled. The Zero, closing from a hundred yards, overran him.

  As it flashed
past, Mitchell lined up the root of the Zero's starboard wing in his crosshairs, and fired a long burst from his machine guns. The Zero's designers had sacrificed armor for maneuverability. It disintegrated in front of his eyes, and the flaming wreck dropped out of the sky.

  Rachel Goode watched the dogfight too, from her platform in the trees high on Mount Teatupa. Minutes later she crouched over the teleradio, speaking urgently and rapidly into the microphone.

  ‘Good morning, Allies. This is The Weatherman. I'm afraid your regular weather reader has been taken sick. I'll try to do my best for you in the meantime.’

  ‘First, the weather. There are storm clouds over The Treasuries and Bougainville. We forecast rain from now till early afternoon. It's now ninety-five degrees.’

  ‘Now for the good news. You've really hit them hard! We counted eight Japanese planes go into the sea. I saw one American plane down a Zero right over our heads.

  ‘There will be more for you to do today. Three destroyers and a cruiser are steaming down the Slot. Perhaps another landing attempt tonight! Be ready for them! Good luck, Americans. Over and out!’

  *****

  Mitchell taxied his plane towards the lines of dun- coloured tents on the edge of the field. As the plane rolled to a halt he pushed back the Perspex canopy and peeled off his helmet and flying gloves. He ran his fingers through matted and sweat-soaked hair. He sat thee, exhausted, staring into the distance.

  ‘Captain Mitchell!’

  He looked down. It was Shoup. He had run across from the radio dugout on the other side of the field and his . face was flushed with excitement.

  Mitchell managed a smile. ‘The Weatherman?’

  ‘Yes, sir! They're broadcasting again. The Japs didn't get him.’ He paused and then blurted out: ‘It's a dame this time, sir! A goddam dame!’

  *****

  The black and jagged edge of the jungle was silhouetted against the purple of the night sky. A pale moon shone through the swaying fronds of the coconut trees. Silver flecks of foam hissed up the beach.