"I'm sorry I asked," Pickering said.
[Seven]
APPROXIMATELY 40 MILES SOUTH OF CAPE HANPAN
BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS
0550 HOURS 9 OCTOBER 1942
The call came in loud and clear over Pickering's earphone. He even recognized the voice: "Greyhound, Greyhound, this is Greyhound Base. Over."
"I'll be damned," Captain Charley Galloway said.
Pickering picked up his microphone.
"This is Greyhound. Read you five by five. Over."
"Greyhound, I have you in sight. You are approximately two miles south. Over."
"Shit!" Charley Galloway said and pushed the nose of the R4D down.
"Understand two miles. Winds, please? Over."
"The wind is from the north. About ten knots. Over."
"Understand north, ten knots. Over."
"I suppose if there was something wrong with the beach, he would have said so," Galloway said as he began to retard the throttles.
"Yeah, I think he would have," Pickering said. "But let's check."
"How's the sand down there, Killer? Over."
"Condition Two. Repeat Condition Two. Over."
"Thank you, Killer. Please make a piss call before boarding." Galloway glanced at him and smiled before ordering, "Twenty degrees flaps. Put the wheels down." A moment later Pickering said, "Twenty degrees flaps. Gear extended."
"OK, here goes," Galloway said.
Just before he eased back on the stick to put the tail wheel on the ground, two men with -arms waving jumped out of the foliage onto the beach. By the time Charley Galloway very carefully stopped the R4D, turned it around, and taxied back to them, they had been joined by what looked like twenty others; most of them wore loincloths and had bushy hair.
Less than five minutes later, Lieutenant K. R. McCoy came into the cockpit.
"Everybody is aboard, Sir," he said to Galloway, "and the door is secure."
"How goes it, Killer?" Lieutenant Pickering asked.
"Fuck you, Pickering, you know how I feel about that Killer shit!"
"I guess you two know each other," Charley Galloway said, as he put his hand to the throttle quadrant and shoved them forward to TAKEOFF POWER.
[Eight]
U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS B-17E TAIL NUMBER 11354 17,500 FEET
OFF WEST COAST, BOUGAINVILLE, SOLOMON ISLANDS
0805 HOURS 9 OCTOBER 1942
"What the hell is that down there?" Second Lieutenant Harry Aaronson, the bombardier, inquired over the intercom.
"Down where, for Christ's sake, Aaronson?" First Lieutenant Joseph Wall, the Aircraft Commander, replied.
"At maybe eight, nine thousand, two o'clock."
"I can't see it," Wall replied.
"It looks like a C-47," First Lieutenant Thomas Killian, the copilot, said.
"What the fuck would a C-47 be doing up here? That must be a Jap bomber or something." Wall banked the airplane to the right and put the nose down so that he could see.
"That's a C-47," he pronounced with finality and straightened the airplane up.
"Then it would have to be a Japanese C-47," Killian argued.
"Nobody on our side could be that lost. And the Japs don't have any C-47s."
"The Japanese have L2Ds," Lieutenant Wall announced.
"They stole the C-47 blueprints and they build them in Japan."
"Bullshit," Lieutenant Harry Aaronson said. "You couldn't get all the blueprints for an airplane in a boxcar."
"Well," Lieutenant Wall said slowly, having never considered that before, "the Japs had L2Ds that are C-47s, and that's one of them."
"Let's go shoot the sonofabitch down," Lieutenant Aaronson said.
Lieutenant Wall's orders-for the flight the day before yesterday, for the flight today, and probably for the flight the day after tomorrow-were to conduct an aerial observation of the west coast of Bougainville Island. During these observations they would take aerial photographs of a list of topographic features and of any naval activity in the waters adjacent thereto. They were not carrying any bombs-which frankly struck Lieutenant Wall as a pretty goddamned silly way to make war.
On the other hand, shooting down an unarmed Japanese airplane didn't seem right.
Fuck it, Remember Pearl Harbor!
"I don't want one shot fired until I say so, you got that?"
He put his hand to the throttle quadrant to take power off and pushed the nose of the airplane down.
"The sonofabitch is lost," Lieutenant Aaronson "That's one of ours. Shit! It says `Marines' on the fuselage."
"I didn't know the Marines had C-47s," Lieutenant Killian said.
"They don't, that's a mirage, you asshole."
"Tom, see if you can raise them on the radio," Lieutenant Wall said to Lieutenant Killian.
"Captain," Sergeant George Hart reported, "there's a B-17 behind us."
"A B-17?"
"Yeah. I think. I never heard of a Japanese plane with four engines."
"I have," Galloway said and unstrapped himself to have a look.
"Oh, shit!" Lieutenant Pickering said.
It was not possible to establish radio communication between the two aircraft, but the navigator of the B-17 made a sign with a question mark and an arrow on it and gave Lieutenant Killian. He held it in the window so the pilot of transport could read it.
He nodded, and in a moment a sign appeared in the pi window of the transport plane: MORESBY.
Another sign was prepared in the B-17.
ON OUR WAY. WANT COMPANY?
Whereupon the pilot of the Marine transport enthusiastically smiled and shook his head up and down in the affirmative
[Nine]
MERCY FORWARD
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
1130 HOURS 11 OCTOBER 1942
"Hello, Steve," Daphne Farnsworth said. "How are you feeling?" My God, he looks awful!
"I'm all right. How you doing?"
"I'm fine, thank you," Daphne said. She thrust a box of candy at him.
He's one ulcerous sore from his shoulders to his fingers!
"Thank you."
"I would have brought you some whiskey, but Barbara said they meant it; with the medicine they're giving you, it would make you sick."
"You mean the worm medicine," he furnished helpfully.
"I suppose."
"Doctor Whatsisname said-"
"Colonel Godofski?"
"Yeah. He said it was poison. That was the only way to get rid of them."
"He said you'll he well soon," Daphne said.
"So how come you're wearing a dress?"
"I'm out of the Navy," Daphne said.
"No fooling? How come?"
"It's not important," Daphne said, wanting to tell him.
"Just curious, that's all. I thought you had to join up for the Duration Plus Six Months, like you do in The Corps."
"I'm going to have a baby," Daphne said. Well, there, it's out.
"Oh," Steve said.
"That's why I'm out of the Navy."
"Yeah, sure. Who's the father? You married some Australian guy, right?"
"I'm not married, Steve."
"Why the hell not?"
Daphne shrugged.
"The sonofabitch won't marry you? What the hell is the matter with him? You give me a couple of days to get out of this goddamned hospital, and I'll fix his ass all right."
"He didn't know about the baby," Daphne said, "He was away."
"When did he get back?"
"Yesterday," Daphne said.
He looked at her for a long moment until she could bring herself to meet his eyes, and he saw the answer in them.
"No shit, just that once?"
"It wasn't just once," Daphne said.
"You know what I mean," Steve said. "Well, what do you know about that?"
Daphne averted her eyes.
"I don't want you to feel that you have any obligation, any responsibility," Daphne said.
There was no r
eply and she forced herself to look at him. He had his lower lip under his teeth, and his body was shaking, and tears ran down his cheeks.
"Steve, what's the matter?"
"I thought I was never going to get off that fucking island, and now I'm going to have a baby!"
And then the sobbing came, and she went to him and put her arms around him, and he put his arms around her, and it didn't matter that they were ulcerous from his shoulders to his wrists.
The End
W E B Griffin - Corp 05 - Line of Fire Page 55