She might have been the major’s woman…but they all loved her.
“Who do you think is playing that, sir?”
Jock shook his head. “I wish I knew, Tom.”
Hadley and Youngblood cursed their luck. A Japanese truck—led by a colonel on horseback—was moving up the trail toward the prison camp. It snarled in low gear as it slowly climbed the steep trail up the ridge, trying to keep a respectable distance from the horse walking before it. They were about to cross the trail when they heard the racket of the truck coming and threw themselves back into the undergrowth. There they lay, well concealed, waiting for this noisy little parade to pass just yards in front of them.
“How many trucks you count, Joe?”
“Just one. Troops in the back. Not too many, though. Maybe five. But there are two more on horseback bringing up the rear.”
That made a total of three horses—a grand white stallion for the colonel, a mottled brown one for a captain, and a black one for a sergeant.
“They’d make much better time if they got rid of the horses,” Youngblood said.
“Yeah, and we’d make much better time if they weren’t here at all.”
Within minutes, the Japanese colonel and his entourage had entered the prison camp’s gate. The officer who had presided over last night’s execution stood at attention, ready to greet them. In the daylight, his insignia of rank could be read with binoculars.
“He’s a captain,” Jock said. “I wonder who’s really in charge there…him, or this cowboy colonel?”
Bogater Boudreau said, “It probably ain’t considered much of a camp if it’s just a captain in charge, sir.”
As the colonel brought his mount to a halt, the captain stepped forward, speaking quite loudly.
Jock asked, “What’s he saying, Deuce?”
“He’s saying greetings, and welcome to the such and such camp...I couldn’t make out the name, sir. Now he’s telling him that accommodations have been prepared at Headquarters House.”
“Yeah,” Jock said, “he’s pointing at the house with the veranda. Figured that was the headquarters. I guess you’re right, Bogater…can’t be much of a camp with just a captain in charge.”
There was more talking between the Japanese officers but the volume was much lower now. Deuce couldn’t make any of it out.
“You know,” Jock said, “there isn’t a whole lot to inspect at the camp, either. What’s that colonel doing here, anyway?”
It was a quiet, sleepy morning on the Mount Dremsel OP. Sergeant Stu Botkin was tying to keep himself awake, listlessly spinning the radio dial. He made sure that every few minutes, though, he’d stop at Lorengau’s frequency to make sure they weren’t trying to raise the OP.
I can’t doze off, he reminded himself. It’s the sergeant major’s turn to take a nap. That means I’m in charge.
Ace Nishimoto was on lookout duty close by, his binoculars scanning east toward Lorengau for any signs of activity. Cotton Allred, the sharpshooter, was posted on the north side of the peak, with a clear view well down the spiral staircase. With that clear view came a clear shot at anyone trying to climb the trail to the top. The two Koreans—Park and Sung—sat near Botkin’s feet, waiting for something to do.
On the third pass through the Lorengau frequency, Botkin sat bolt upright. The OP was being called. With a frantic wave, he sent Park and Sung to the hand-crank generator. The Koreans scuffled over who would have the honor to turn the handles and power the transmitter.
“For cryin’ out loud,” Botkin called to Ace. “Tell them to stop jerking around and take turns, dammit. I need transmit power NOW.”
Patchett awoke as if summoned by some silent alarm. By the time he reached the radio shack, he was wide awake, watching over Ace’s shoulder as he translated the message.
“Get this,” Ace reported. “We’re having a command visit. A Colonel Yamagura and his party will arrive tomorrow around midday.”
“Ain’t that great fucking news,” Patchett said. “How many in this party?”
“Hang on, Sergeant Major. We’re just getting to that.”
As he scribbled the message text, Ace added, “You realize if they ever code this stuff, we’re fucked?”
Patchett replied, “How do you know it ain’t coded right now, son?”
“Hmm…good point, Sergeant Major…but I sure hope that’s not true. Anyway, the message says there’ll be three in the party…” He paused, struggling to translate a phrase, before adding, “And I think they’re saying these three will be on horseback.”
“Bullshit,” Patchett replied. “Ain’t no horse gonna climb that damn trail up this mountain. It’s too steep and narrow…they’ll spook. That colonel may gallop out here but he’ll be climbing this li’l ol’ hill on foot, just like everyone else.”
Ace asked, “What are we going to do when that colonel shows up?”
“Simple, son,” Patchett replied. “We’re gonna kill him…and anybody else who shows up with him, too. We’ve got to. We ain’t giving up this OP until we’re damn good and ready.”
That didn’t give Ace much in the way of reassurance. “But what about Park and Sung?” he asked. “What if they turn against us when the shit hits the fan?”
“Then they die, too, son. And how’d you find out them Ko-reans’ names, dammit?”
“I asked them, Sergeant Major.”
“Well, forget them names right now. I don’t give a shit who they are…and you better not, neither.”
Chapter Seventeen
It started to rain buckets. “Catch all you can,” Jock told McMillen, Boudreau, and Deuce. “It’ll save us a trip back to the river.”
On the north side of the prison camp, Hadley and Youngblood were catching all they could, too. Youngblood found a vine that allowed a fountain-like cascade to descend its length from one broad leaf to another. He inserted the canteens into the steady flow until all four were quickly filled.
“Of course,” Hadley said, “we could wring our clothes out at this point and probably fill those canteens, too.”
“But our clothes are filthy and mildewed, First Sergeant. Who wants to drink wash water?”
“Just making a little joke, Joe, that’s all.”
Damn…this Indian kid can be so serious.
The maddening hiss of jungle rain subsided as they neared the camp’s barbed wire fence. They settled into a natural hide amidst the undergrowth and began to record what they saw.
“What do you think of the watchtowers?” Hadley asked. “Where can you get the best shot?”
“Well, forget the east side, near the camp gate,” Youngblood said. “I’d get one tower but then they’d be all over me. And forget the west side, too. I’d have to set up on the riverbank. The crocs would probably get me before I could get a shot off. But from the north or south side, I could take out the two close towers…and they’d never know what hit them.”
“The two near ones…that’s the best you can do?”
Youngblood looked at him like that was the world’s stupidest question. “Yes, First Sergeant. I reckon the far towers would be about five hundred yards away. Low probability of a first-round hit.”
In the cooling rain’s wake, mist was rising off the camp’s buildings and the ground around them. To Joe Youngblood it all looked like a dreamscape…
And then that dream turned into a nightmare.
A white woman had emerged from one of the ramshackle structures near the edge of the camp. She bowed to the two guards outside, and then walked with purpose on bare feet to what appeared to be a vegetable garden. Her loose white dress—a tattered, shapeless shift, made from rice sacks, no doubt—fluttered with every motion she made. Her long black hair—curly, untamed—bounced with each stride.
She stood proudly amidst the garden’s plants as if she was Mother Nature herself, the giver of life. But Joe Youngblood knew her real title: The Woman in White…
And she wouldn’t be giving him life. She’d be
taking it.
“I knew she was here,” Youngblood said.
“Who? What do you mean?” Hadley replied.
“There. That woman. I told Major Miles back on the submarine.”
Hadley swung his binoculars her way and stared for a second…until his jaw fell open and he dropped the binoculars to the ground.
Quickly, he picked them up and looked again.
“Holy shit…that’s Miss Forbes! You knew she was here?”
“Yes, I saw it on the submarine. She’s here for me…to take me away.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Youngblood. She’s here because she got captured over a year ago—and all that time we thought she was dead!”
“No, First Sergeant. The story of my people has been told already. She’s here to take me. It’s the third time I’ve seen her. That means—”
“Oh, bullshit. She’s not taking you anywhere. We’re going to take her…take her away from this god-awful place. Come on, we’ve got to get back and tell Major Miles right fucking now.”
Hadley and Youngblood couldn’t believe how calm Jock was when they told him. All he said was, “Take me there.”
It was near noon when Jock and his men returned to the spot where Jillian had been seen. But the rundown building she had emerged from earlier now appeared empty. Aside from two guards lackadaisically patrolling the barbed wire fence, there was nobody to be seen in this part of the camp. All they heard was the rustle of leaves in the warm breeze until Bogater Boudreau said, “I hear something, sir.” He pointed to their right. “It sounds like…I don’t know…a bunch of girls singing?”
They struggled through the jungle in the direction of the voices, but those voices had gone quiet now.
“I know it was coming from this direction, sir,” Bogater said.
They didn’t have to move much farther to prove him right. Just the other side of the wire was a group of women, now in solemn silence, going about their work. They stood in a graveyard of makeshift wooden crosses—several rows, perhaps forty crosses in all. They were tending to the gravesites, pulling out weeds and vines, fighting back against the clutches of a jungle eager to reclaim every square inch of cleared land.
He heard her voice before he saw her face. “Anne Marie,” she said, “we need that hatchet over here.”
That voice. Unmistakably Aussie. Unmistakably Jillian’s.
She rose and turned to take the hatchet. Jock could see her now. His chest tightened as if clamped by a steel band. He couldn’t speak, not even a whisper. He wasn’t sure he could breathe.
Tom Hadley’s hand was on his shoulder now. “It’s okay, sir. We’re going to figure out how to do this. Let’s take it one step at a time.”
But it’s not okay, Jock thought. We’re here and she’s there, on the other side of that wire. But she’s okay…and still in charge, as usual, even in a group of prisoners.
Look at her…still tough as nails.
He felt his breath coming back. He dared to test his voice, too. “Tom,” he whispered, “how many guards do you think there are at this end of the camp?”
“I count six, sir…one in each tower, two standing guard over the women, and those two we saw walking the fence.”
“Deuce,” Jock said, “can you tell if those guards are Japanese or Korean?”
“Sure I can,” Deuce replied, Hadley’s binoculars still pressed against his eyes. “They’re all Koreans…except for that sergeant over there with the sword.”
“Even the ones in the towers?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jock counted the women at work in the graveyard. I see eight…Jillian and one other white woman, the one she called Anne Marie. The other six are Melanesian. It looks like there are no prisoners but these women at this end of the camp. All the male prisoners are on the other side.
“Oscar,” Jock said, “are these native women in here for the same reasons as the men?”
“Yes, Major Jock. They worked at Government House.”
Hadley asked, “Sir, how the hell are we going to get in there without starting a shootout that gets everyone killed?”
“I don’t know yet, Tom. But we’d better not hang around here. I don’t think much of this position—there’s only one way out. Let’s get back to where we were before and think this through.”
As they made their way through the jungle back to their old position near the camp’s gate, Hadley told Jock, “We may have a problem with Joe Youngblood, sir.” Then he related what Youngblood had told him when they first laid eyes on Jillian—the whole Woman in White business. “Did he mention all this to you back on the sub, sir?”
“Ahh, shit. He did, dammit. You sure he should be on point right now, Tom? I mean, if he’s in some kind of state…”
“Actually, sir, he asked to be on point. And he’s doing just fine right now.”
Joe Youngblood raised a hand—the Halt signal—and then dropped to the ground, out of sight in the undergrowth. The rest of the column did the same as Jock low-crawled forward to his point man.
“The trail into the camp is just ahead, sir,” Youngblood said. “I hear voices on it.”
Jock signaled for Deuce to come forward. “People are going to be walking by here in a minute,” Jock told him. “If they’re talking Japanese, maybe you can translate for me.”
Two soldiers came into view, walking from the camp toward Lorengau. According to their collar insignia, they were both privates. They were in no particular hurry and in very good spirits. Each had a rifle slung over his shoulder. One carried an oil lantern. They both seemed to be talking at once.
Once they passed, Deuce said, “I think they’re on their way to have sexual relations, sir. They were making jokes about each other’s abilities—or lack of—at intercourse.”
“Sure,” Jock said, “the comfort women must be in Lorengau. Were those two Japanese or Korean?”
“One of each, sir.”
“I’m guessing they get a day off now and then to go and get laid,” Jock said.
“Why do you think they need a lantern, sir?”
“Maybe they plan on being out in the dark, Corporal.”
Jock’s guess was correct. Later that night, as The Squad lay in their position outside the camp’s gate, two soldiers returned on foot, lighting their way up the dark jungle trail with an oil lantern. They strolled through the gate as if they owned the place. Neither of the two guards on duty bothered to challenge them…
And a plan began to form in Jock’s mind.
Chapter Eighteen
At sunrise, with Colonel Yamagura watching proudly from the Headquarters House veranda, the Japanese beheaded another male prisoner. “Shit,” Tom Hadley said. “Maybe he was the last white guy in that camp?”
The moment the body was hauled away, a new flurry of activity began in front of the house. The three fidgeting horses were brought forward to await their riders. The truck that had brought the rest of Colonel Yamagura’s entourage sat idling. After a round of salutes, the colonel, his captain, and his sergeant clambered onto their mounts and trotted out the gate. The soldiers who had tended to the animals hurried into the back of the truck, which then took up its lethargic, gear-grinding pace behind the horsemen.
Mike McMillen asked, “Why don’t those dumbasses just all ride in the damn truck?”
“I think the colonel likes his horse too much,” Jock replied. “Probably thinks he cuts a dashing figure in the saddle.”
Bogater Boudreau had a question, too: “Who the hell rides a horse in the jungle, anyway? They ain’t fit for that duty.”
In a few moments the colonel and his men were out of sight, leaving nothing but clouds of dust floating listlessly in the warm and humid morning air. Hadley asked Jock, “Are you ready to tell him, sir?”
“Yeah. Just him and me, okay?”
Jock sat back against a tree and waited. He was exhausted, running on pure adrenaline. Jillian was so close, yet still out of reach…
And he needed to keep reminding himself of the real reason he and his men were here on Papua: to deny the OP to the Japanese this day and tomorrow, while the US fleet sailed by. It wouldn’t matter a bit to the high command he brought Jillian home if the boys invading Hollandia were slaughtered by a forewarned enemy.
Taking the OP on Dremsel so easily and so ahead of plan…please tell me that didn’t lull me into a false sense of security…and I’ve foolishly sacrificed Patchett and his men as a result. And a lot of GIs on those ships, too.
I thought she was dead. I convinced myself of it. It never occurred to me she might be alive…and here…even after hearing that piano in the night. That had to be her playing it.
I can’t leave her here.
But how will I explain that to men who’ll be dead because of me?
Deuce joined him and asked, “You need to see me, sir?”
“Yeah, Corporal. Sit down.”
Jock started talking about his need to rescue Jillian. How it had to be done without starting a bloodbath…and as far as he could tell, there was only one way to do it.
But before he could say another word, Deuce replied, “I know, sir. You need me to masquerade as a Japanese soldier, go into the camp, and bring her out. Sure, I’ll do it. First Sergeant Hadley told me all about her. I understand what she means to you.”
Jock had been expecting to reason, cajole—even plead if necessary—but here was his Nisei trooper, the one Patchett had branded a washout as a fighting man, suddenly rising up larger than life.
Deuce asked, “Do you want me to go back to Dremsel and get a uniform off the Koreans?”
“No, there’s no time for that. In two days we need to be on that sub…and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover before then. We’ve got to do this tonight.”
“But I’ll need a uniform…”
Operation Blind Spot (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 4) Page 10