Operation Fishwrapper (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 5)

by William Peter Grasso

  Never give these bastards the benefit of the doubt. Even the half-dead ones try to kill you somehow.

  But he hesitated: Don’t waste the bullet. He’s as good as dead already.

  Richards’ hand clung to the forestock of the rifle nailing him to the earth, as if even its slightest movement might tilt the odds of living or dying even further against him. Jock slid next to him and said, “Just try to relax. I’m going to pull it out.”

  “NO! DON’T! IT’LL—”

  There was no point protesting further. Jock had already done it.

  “It’ll what, Steve? Hurt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does it?”

  “No…not yet.”

  “Good. Now just stay put.”

  Pulling a pack of sulfa powder and a roll of gauze from Richards’ musette bag, Jock stuffed a hastily fashioned dressing into the wounded man’s shirt.

  “I think you’re lucky, Steve. You didn’t get stuck anywhere serious.”

  Richards’ breathless reply: “Oh, man…you’re not going to tell me it’s just a flesh wound, are you, sir?”

  “Actually, I was. It’s a big one, but—”

  Two shots from a Dutch rifle cut his words off. A few seconds later, there was a third shot.

  “Sit tight, Steve,” Jock said, placing the .45 back in the flyer’s hands. “Doesn’t sound like this is over yet.”

  He stood and saw Hans not ten feet away. “No, Major,” the Dutchman said, his words as unsteady as his stance. “I think it is over. Come and see.”

  Twenty yards away—where Jock had pitched the grenade—were the bodies of two Japanese soldiers. “They were wounded,” Hans said, “and we finished them.” He pointed to the bullet wound in each man’s forehead in turn. Then he dropped to one knee and looked like he was going to vomit.

  Ten yards farther, Josiah stood over the body of a third Japanese soldier. Unlike Hans, he didn’t seem the least bit upset at having to take lives. “He was crawling away, Major,” the islander said. “But he didn’t get far enough. That makes six we killed.” He took a look all around and added, “I don’t think there are more.”

  “We can’t bet on that,” Jock replied. “Not after all the noise we just made. We’d better get the hell away from here…and we’re going to have to carry Mister Richards. Which way do we go to find Dyckman?”

  Hans wobbled to his feet. He looked terribly confused.

  “What’s the matter?” Jock asked. “Never had to kill anyone before?”

  Hans shook his head.

  “Don’t feel bad. It hits everyone like that the first time…unless they’re already crazy. But I’ve got to know, Hans…which way to find Dyckman?”

  “We shouldn’t have to go anywhere,” Hans replied. “They were supposed to be right here.”

  “Well, of course they’re not here, dammit. The place is crawling with Japs. Pull yourself together. I need your best guess where they might be, and I need it now, Hans. Don’t make me flip a fucking coin.”

  Josiah walked over to Steve Richards. He bent down to help the pilot to his feet but then stopped, straightened up, and returned to Jock and Hans.

  “What’s the matter?” Jock asked the islander. “Why didn’t you pick him up?”

  “He cannot live like that,” Josiah replied. “Better we leave him.”

  “Negative,” Jock said. “You didn’t leave me and we’re not leaving him.”

  “You weren’t bleeding like a speared animal, Major,” the islander replied. “He is.”

  Jock wasn’t sure what was infuriating him more: Josiah’s intransigent refusals, the fact that he was spewing doom easily overheard by Richards, or that Hans was now useless, unable to come to grips with having to kill other men to save his own life.

  “Look,” Jock said, “it’s bad enough we can’t seem to find our way out of a paper bag right now…” He walked over to Richards and, with great difficulty, lifted him to his feet and became his crutch.

  “You carried me all that way, Steve. Now it’s time I returned the favor.”

  At first, it was all Jock could do to keep his weak leg from collapsing under the strain.

  But anger—and adrenaline—were doing their work. He felt like a superman.

  And he must’ve sounded like it, too, when he asked Hans and Josiah, “Now, are you two going to get your thumbs out of your asses and give me a hand here?”

  Shame washed over Hans’ face. “Forgive me, Major, but I do not know which way to go.”

  Jock looked to Josiah. “What about you? Any ideas where Dyckman is?”

  The islander just shrugged.

  It didn’t matter now. Jock had made up his mind. “I’ll tell you what...we’ll head to the sea. That’s what everyone seems to do when they’re lost on one of these islands. Maybe it’ll work for us, too.”

  They began to walk east, toward the sea. All except Josiah.

  Jock looked back over his shoulder at the islander. He asked Hans, “What about our friend there? Is he with us, or what?”

  “Don’t fault him, Major. The island people are…how should I say?…very fatalistic in matters of life and death.”

  “That’s all well and good, Hans, but fate be damned: Mister Richards isn’t going to die. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  In a pained whisper, Steve Richards added, “Sure glad you feel that way, sir.”

  Jock gave the islander one more glance, adding, “So unless you have some other urgent business to attend to out here, Josiah, we sure as hell could use your help.”

  It didn’t seem like he was going to come. He stood in place, his face emotionless, as the three others kept walking east. Just when Jock was convinced Josiah really wouldn’t be joining them, he called out: “I think you’re all going the wrong way.”

  That was enough to stop them in their tracks. They turned to face Josiah.

  “I think I know where Meneer Dyckman will be, Major.” He was pointing north.

  Jock asked, “Why north, Josiah? Why that way?”

  “Because he, too, will go to the sea. The only way to get there without falling off a cliff is to go farther north.”

  “How much farther, then?”

  “Not far, Major. Before nightfall.”

  That didn’t give them much time. Josiah had already started his walk north. Jock and the others fell in behind him, all with the same hope and the same fear for Dyckman and his people:

  They’ll go north…if the Japs haven’t already gotten them.

  They hadn’t walked far when Josiah abruptly dropped to one knee and signaled Stop!

  For Jock and Hans, going to ground—and easing the wounded Richards down with them—was a much more delicate exercise. It seemed like an eternity before they got the flyer propped up behind a tree. Only then could they scatter to find their own cover.

  Whoever—or whatever—was approaching didn’t seem concerned with noise discipline in the least. They clomped through the underbrush like carefree animals—or careless men. Josiah’s finger tightened around his trigger.

  “No, don’t,” Jock told him, not bothering to keep his voice down. “We know who it is. Look…”

  A tall, burly white man, in light blue shirt and denim trousers and carrying a .30-caliber machine gun, US issue, was at the head of a small group of men some forty yards away.

  “That’s Sid Baum,” Jock said. “I guess they’re out looking for us.” He stood up and walked toward the Navy man.

  “Thank God you’re okay, sir,” Baum said. “We heard all that shooting a while back. Thought you might need some help.”

  “Yeah, we do, Sid,” Jock replied, pointing the big man toward Richards. “How far away is the rest of Dyckman’s party?”

  “A mile or two, sir…down the cliff toward the beach.”

  “Any sign of Mister Simpson?”

  “No, sir. He’s still gone.”

  “That’s a damn shame.”

  “You thinking about looking f
or him, sir.”

  “He’s the last thing on my mind right now, Sid.”

  “Yeah. Mine, too, sir. But you guys must be starving, right? Well, there’s great eating down there. Everyone’s chowing down—crabs and stuff.”

  “Outstanding! We polished off the last of those emergency rations a long time ago, so hell yeah, we’re starving. Now take off your shirt, Sid.”

  “How come, sir?”

  Jock was already taking his off. “With yours and mine, we’ve got enough GI shirts to make a stretcher for Mister Richards. First, we need some sturdy branches, about six feet long or so…”

  In just a few minutes, branches were found and slipped through the buttoned-up shirts; a stretcher took form. Two islanders from Baum’s party jumped in to become its bearers.

  Night closed in as they began their trek down to the beach. Jock said, “Sid, I hope you’ve got this trail marked.”

  “Way ahead of you, sir,” Baum replied as he blinked his flashlight into the darkness ahead. Glowing dimly in its beam was a white strip of cloth tied to a tree. Baum untied it and stuffed it in his pocket. “We’ve got it marked like this all the way home.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Did you get to see the bombing raid, sir?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d they do?”

  “Not so great, Sid.”

  “Speaking of not so great, sir…what’s gonna happen now with these Japs crawling all over the place?”

  “Wish I knew.”

  “They must be looking for that transmitter of ours…and you’re gonna transmit again, ain’t you, sir?”

  “I’m afraid we have to, Sid.”

  They were quiet for a few moments. Then Baum said, “Well, at least we’re all back together. Safety in numbers, right?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The ramshackle building was more an oversized tin awning with open sides. The sign out front glowed in the jeep’s headlights: it read OFFICERS’ CLUB. Jimmy Ketchum hit the brakes and said, “This must be the place, ma’am.”

  Jillian pivoted and slid from the passenger seat, stepping to the wooden walkway with high-heeled feet together like a lady gracefully dismounting a horse. She had no intention of giving the crowd of eager officers watching her arrival an upskirt peek. “Pick me up in an hour, Lieutenant,” she told Ketchum. “That should give me all the time I need.”

  He watched the growing crowd of men as they salivated over the prospect of this fine-looking woman joining them for a drink—and a lot more, perhaps, if their overheated imaginations had anything to say about it. “You sure you don’t want to carry that buffalo gun of yours, Missus Miles? You might need to fend off some wild beasts in there.”

  Jillian tossed off the warning with a laugh. “I grew up in the bush, Lieutenant. I’ve been fending off wild beasts my whole life.”

  She found Captain Hutchins right where the barman said he’d be, seated in a dark corner with nothing for company but a row of empty Australian beer bottles on the deck beside him. When she stepped up to him and began to introduce herself, the same thought crossed the mind of every other man present: How come that Section 8 lush gets so lucky?

  Hutchins cut her off halfway through the introduction with an unsteady wave of his hand. “I know who the hell you are,” he said, with all the slurred, impotent belligerence a belly-full of beer can provide. “I read the dispatches from HQ, you know.”

  “Then may I sit down, Captain?”

  In one abrupt motion—like a sagging marionette whose strings had suddenly been jerked tight—he shrugged and pointed to the empty chair next to him.

  She told him of the discrepancies she’d uncovered in the camp’s records.

  “You’ll have to talk with my sergeant about that.”

  “I already have, Captain…and he’s been most uncooperative. I’m quite sure he, and perhaps you, are hiding something.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I may be the C.O. of that place on paper, but I’ve got nothing to do with it. Knox takes care of business there.”

  “I heard those exact words earlier today, Captain Hutchins. From Sergeant Knox, of all people. But the question is, what is this business he’s taking care of?”

  At first, Hutchins’ face registered confusion, as if running the resettlement camp was the only possible answer to that question. Then the expression on his face changed. She couldn’t tell if it now displayed shame, guilt, ignorance…or all of those things put together.

  “I couldn’t prove anything in a court martial, ma’am, but Knox may have something going on with some guy. Some half-breed civilian scumbag.”

  “Does this scumbag have a name, Captain?”

  “Yeah…Van Flyss. Fritz Van Flyss.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Not much…but one look at him and you can tell he’s a slippery bastard. Probably as dangerous as the damn snakes around here, too. Or at least as dangerous as Knox himself.”

  Captain Hutchins slumped into his chair. His eyes seemed to shake off the unfocused glaze the beer had put there. What was left was the faraway stare of a shattered man.

  He’s broken, Jillian thought. What in bloody hell is he still doing here?

  Her voice softer and sympathetic, she asked, “Captain, I’ve seen so many like you before…and believe me, I understand. But why hasn’t the Army sent you home?”

  “Because those assholes say I’m not crazy and I’m sure as hell not wounded. I just need some time and rest, that’s all. So they stuck me in this backwater shithole.”

  “But why? What happened to you?”

  “Buna happened, ma’am.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Jillian replied, “It happened to all of us, Captain.”

  Belligerence returned to his voice. “Oh, yeah? What would you know about it, lady?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. I was there.”

  He scowled. “How the hell could—”

  “I was master of a coastal freighter, bringing supplies to you Yanks. To make a long story short, I was sunk and taken prisoner by the Japanese.”

  “But…how…but you’re here now. How could that be?”

  “I got rescued. I was very lucky.”

  “How long were you…you know…with the Japs?”

  “About a year.”

  His sodden mind wrestled with the simple arithmetic for a moment. “So you’ve only been back here a few…let’s see…a few months?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Jillian had a pretty good idea what he was thinking: The imprisonment…it’s made her damaged goods.

  The halting, incomplete question he spoke next proved it.

  “Were…were you…”

  “Raped? No, Captain. Tortured? Yes.”

  “Jesus…”

  “No, he wasn’t there. We were on our own.”

  Hutchins shifted uneasily in the chair. His eyes were focused on her now and not that illusory refuge of the mind where the war weary sought their escape. For just one moment of clarity, he realized whatever misdeeds Hard Knox had committed running that camp, he could be found equally guilty: Ignorance won’t be an excuse. They’ll call it dereliction of duty. A C.O.’s responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.

  “You’d better be careful, though, ma’am. Like I said, that Knox is a rough customer. Maybe you should just steer clear.”

  “Captain, I’ve been a prisoner of the Japanese. I think I can stay one step ahead of some redneck Yank sergeant.”

  A faint smile crossed his lips. He was beginning to have little doubt she could.

  “Could you do me just one favor, ma’am, one Buna survivor to another?”

  “And what would that be?”

  “If you figure out what kind of racket Knox has going on, give me a heads-up first, so I can maybe try and cover my ass before the shit hits the fan.”

  She offered her hand and they shook on it. “Agreed. But just one thing,
Captain…it’s not a question of if I figure it out. It’s a question of when.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Colonel Dick Molloy wouldn’t have been surprised if General Willoughby balled up the message he’d just handed him and threw it back in his face. He braced for the tirade he felt certain was coming.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  “I’ve got a squadron full of Fifth Air Force’s crack bombardiers telling me they BLEW. THE. SHIT out of those Jap airfields,” Willoughby said, his fist pounding the desk once for each syllable in blew the shit. “And then, Richard, we got that one little major of yours telling me quite the opposite.”

  “Sir,” Molloy replied, “you wanted eyes on the ground, and you got them. If you’re not going to believe what Miles is telling us—”

  “Oh, shut the hell up, Richard. I don’t need lessons in processing intelligence. Not from you.”

  Willoughby spun his desk chair around and stared out the window. The awkward silence that followed was as intrusive as a stick in the eye. It made Molloy aware of his every breath—every twitch of his muscles—as he stood rigid before the general’s desk. He was sure the clock on the wall had stopped. It seemed like a week passed before it clicked off another minute and Willoughby turned his chair to face him once again.

  “Even if the information Miles sent is on the money,” the general said, “I’m not going to worry my head about it. The Fifth Air Force thinks we wasted a whole lot of their precious gasoline and ordnance with that raid, and they’re quite confident that even in the unlikely event those airfields fill up with aircraft overnight, it’s nothing they can’t handle. As far as they’re concerned, the Japs have nothing but inexperienced pilots left, and they’d love to get what’s left of the whole damn Jap air fleet in one place so they can knock down those rookies all at once.”

  To Dick Molloy, that had the stench of wishful thinking and willful ignorance about it. But he said nothing. He knew he’d already lost this battle.

  “Besides,” the general continued, “the Navy is breaking my balls now that we didn’t mention to them about their aircrewmen still being with Miles. They had them listed as missing in action. Now they’re hot to recover their boys…and they’re planning on doing it tomorrow night.”