Operation Blind Spot (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 4)

by William Peter Grasso

  The terrain remained fairly level—a small gift to faltering legs—but Jock knew a new physical challenge loomed ahead. “We can’t be far from the ridge line,” he told Patchett. “The gentlest downhill slope is along the trail, but going anywhere near there will probably mean running right into the Japs.”

  Patchett took a look at the map in the flashlight’s dim glow. “No matter where we go down the ridge, it’s gonna be pretty steep. Remember what it was like when we climbed up it? And that was the best spot.”

  When they climbed up it—five days that seemed an eternity ago.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jock said. “We’re not even going to try it in the dark. We’re in no shape for that.”

  “So you wanna stop here until sunrise?”

  “Yep.”

  “Amen to that, sir. We could sure use the rest.”

  The sunrise brought a few surprises. First, they found they had camped less than twenty feet from the precipice—a steep cliff dropping over a hundred feet straight down. Mike McMillen, who’d been the point man on their journey to this spot, would have been the first one to step unwittingly over the brink in the darkness.

  “You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” Patchett told him. “If the major hadn’t stopped us when he did, we’d be scraping you and Lord knows who else off the valley floor right now.”

  “Yeah, swell,” McMillen replied, “but I still think he cut it too damn close.”

  “A miss is as good as a mile, son.”

  The second surprise was more troubling: a compass fix to Mount Dremsel’s peak confirmed their journey in the darkness had been well off course.

  “Dammit,” Jock said, “we’re way off to the north, half a mile, maybe more…and too damn close to the Lorengau trail.”

  “I don’t get it, sir,” McMillen said. “I stuck to that azimuth you gave me like glue. And you double-checked me a bunch of times. How could we be this far off?”

  They all knew the probable answer, but it was Tom Hadley who voiced it: “It’s got to be my fault. We really weren’t at Rally Point Charlie last night. We must’ve been well north of it.”

  “Y’all knock off that crying now,” Patchett said. “Ain’t no one spilled no milk yet.”

  Just then, the growls of vehicle engines pierced the stillness of the early morning air. They could only be Japanese vehicles.

  “Listen to that,” Jock said. “We could hit the trail with a damn rock.”

  Patchett asked, “So what’re we gonna do, sir?”

  “We’re going to walk south along the top of the ridge, until we come to the same place we climbed up on our way in. We’ll make the descent there.”

  Patchett scanned the cloudless sky. “We need water bad, sir. Only place we’re gonna get it is down on the valley floor. Ain’t gonna be no rain for a spell, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Of course we need water, Sergeant Major…but for all we know, there’s a battalion or two of Japs a couple of hundred yards away. Let’s bear with being thirsty for a little bit longer, until we put some distance between us and them, okay?”

  “Yessir. Didn’t mean to—”

  “I know you didn’t. Let’s get moving, right fucking now.”

  “How about we put Bogater on point, sir,” Patchett said.

  “Sure. It’s his turn, isn’t it?”

  As the sergeants quickly pulled the column together, Jock saw Jillian’s shoulders being ministered to by Anne Marie once again. “Jill,” he said, “we’re going to have to descend the face of this ridge going hand over hand down a rope. Are your shoulders going to be able to handle that?”

  “Anything you can do, I can do, Yank.” She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself, too.

  He shook his head. “No, never mind. We’ll lower you down first. We’ve only got so much rope left, and it’s got to get strung to the valley floor, anyway, so the rest of us can get down.”

  She was too tired to argue. “Whatever you say, Jock.”

  “But you’ll be down there by yourself for a couple of minutes,” he added. “Think you can handle that?”

  She patted the Thompson lying beside her. “You know bloody well I can handle it.”

  “Anne Marie,” he said, “how about you? Think you can handle a slide down the rope?”

  “I was rope-climbing champion in my gymnasium, Major. It won’t be a problem.”

  It didn’t take long to reach the planned point of descent down the ridge. Bogater Boudreau, the point man, spotted the Hansel and Gretel markings Hadley had carved on a tree trunk five days ago, when they first passed this way. He peered over the edge of the near-vertical drop, checking for Japanese on the valley floor below. There was nothing to see down there but more trees and the twinkle of morning sunlight reflecting off a stream winding its way toward the Warra River. He could taste its cool, delicious water already.

  A large loop was tied in the end of the rope for Jillian to sit in while being lowered down the cliff’s face. As she slid into the loop, Jock told her, “Remember, all you’ve got to do is hang on to the rope and use your feet to keep yourself facing the cliff. That way, you won’t spin and keep slamming into it on the way down.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” she said.

  He slung the Thompson across her back, adding, “Keep this thing on safe while you’re going down so it won’t fire if the trigger snags a branch or something.”

  Patchett approached with a necklace of six empty canteens strung together with wire. “Might as well take these down with you, too, ma’am. They’re light, and you can be filling ’em while you wait for the rest of us. He shook one of the canteens—it made a rattling sound. “This one’s got the Halazone tablets you’ll need in it.”

  Poised on the brink, Jillian said, “Lower away, lads.”

  Playing tug of war with gravity, the four men on the rope eased her to the valley floor, a trip that took almost three minutes. “Okay, she’s clear,” Jock said. “Youngblood, you’re next.”

  First, the top end of the rope had to be secured to the sturdiest tree in reach. That took a few minutes. Meanwhile, Jillian walked the short distance to the stream, set the Thompson down on the bank, waded in up to her ankles, and began filling the canteens.

  Once the rope was tied off, Joe Youngblood began an effortless descent, hands and feet churning smoothly and rapidly, keeping his body nearly perpendicular to the slope. He was on the valley floor in little over a minute. He looked up to see the next man, Bogater Boudreau, beginning his downhill run.

  Youngblood turned and began to walk toward Jillian, watching as The Woman in White filled the last canteen and then set it in line with the others. She began to drop the Halazone tablets into each canteen in turn.

  She prepared the life-giving water as if performing a sacrament, he thought. She seemed happy, content—there was a definite glow about her. Maybe it was just the bright morning sun playing off the white fabric of her dress. But maybe it was something else—something supernatural. She had never seemed more like a spirit—a worker of miracles—to Joe Youngblood than at that moment. Very soon, he would drink that sweet, refreshing gift she had taken so lovingly from nature for him and the other GIs.

  I can almost forgive her, he thought.

  When he saw the first Japanese soldier rise from the underbrush, time seemed to freeze around him.

  It felt like being in a dream paused by some god-like hand…

  A landscape in suspended animation…

  Yet he was still running.

  Then there were many Japanese—diminutive warriors who seemed larger than life—not thirty yards away…

  Now she saw them, too. Still on her knees, she looked to her Thompson, so near yet too far…

  And then she looked to Joe Youngblood, splashing past her, toward the Japanese.

  He gave her one last glance, his face resolute, without anger or fear...

  A look that said, Now I am a spirit, too.

  Then he turned away… />
  And met the bullet meant for her.

  He lay gasping, floundering in the blood-tinged water, as Jillian claimed her Thompson and spewed its hatred at the Japanese.

  Bogater flung himself from the rope, falling the last ten feet as enemy bullets pinged around him.

  He hit the ground hard. Oblivious to the pain, he rolled to a firing position and started shooting.

  The curses he screamed at the Japanese nearly drowned out the staccato roar of his submachine gun.

  The GIs still on the ridge let loose a torrent of plunging fire on an enemy still hidden to them by the trees.

  Hadley tried to take the rope next but Jock pushed him out of the way and cut Bogater’s time to the valley floor in half.

  But by the time he got there, the Japanese were pulling back into the shelter of the woods, dragging their dead and wounded with them.

  Jock raced to Jillian as she dragged Youngblood from the stream to safety behind a broad tree trunk. “He doesn’t need to bloody drown, too,” she said, her words and eyes ablaze with adrenaline.

  Hadley had come down now. Anne Marie was right behind him. She rushed to Joe Youngblood as the others, still on the ridge, took the rope in rapid succession.

  She worked quickly, silently—but once she had peeled his shirt away, her efforts came to a reluctant stop. The only thing she could do was cradle him in her arms, trying to lend some small comfort in his last moments on this earth.

  There was nothing else anyone could do.

  Jillian took Joe Youngblood’s hand in hers and clasped it tightly.

  He acknowledged her with a weak smile, a slight, reverent nod…

  And then he rolled his head toward Jock. In a voice barely a whisper, he said, “I told you so, sir.”

  Anne Marie gently released his lifeless body. Neither she, nor Jillian, nor Jock could find words to say or a voice with which to say them.

  Patchett’s voice filled that silence, dragging them back to cold reality: “Where the hell’s Bogater?”

  “I saw him cross the stream and go into the woods,” McMillen said. “He was firing the whole way.”

  Patchett asked, “When was that, Mike?”

  “Just when I came off the rope.”

  “Ahh, shit,” Patchett said. “Why the hell would that crazy Cajun go and do a damn fool thing like that?”

  “We’ve got to go get him, sir,” McMillen pleaded.

  “Damn right we do,” Jillian added, slapping a fresh magazine into her Thompson.

  “Let’s do this,” Hadley said. “I’ll take two guys and—”

  “No, we can’t,” Jock interrupted. “Knock it off, all of you. Nobody’s chasing after him. We stay together and fight together…let’s not make it easy for them to pick us off one by one. Now form up…we’re moving south on the double. I need two men to carry Youngblood’s body.”

  Confused and angry, McMillen said, “Why are we dragging him around and not helping out Bogater?”

  Patchett’s face registered pure displeasure. “Let me handle this one, sir,” he said.

  “Be my guest, Sergeant Major.”

  Patchett grabbed McMillen by a shoulder strap and roughly pulled him away from the others. The young sergeant didn’t dare resist. Once they were far enough away not to be overheard, Patchett got right in McMillen’s face.

  “I don’t never again want to hear one of my sergeants sound like some sniveling li’l sack o’ shit like you just did, McMillen. I didn’t say a damn thing when I heard you and Hadley left Deuce behind. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened…figured y’all had your reasons…and I hope to hell they were real good ones.”

  “But, Sergeant Major, I—”

  “Shut the fuck up. I ain’t finished yet. Now I may not have seen what happened with Deuce but I sure as shit saw what happened here. We’re gonna take care of that young man like decent human beings oughta.”

  “So you agree with the Major? We’re gonna cut out and forget about Bogater…just so we can bury some Indian?”

  Patchett’s eyes took on a sadness McMillen had never seen.

  “You got it wrong, Mike. Ain’t nobody forgetting about Bogater, but the major’s right. We can’t go chasing after him like a bunch of dumbass rookies. We got ourselves enough dead heroes already.”

  “That just ain’t right, Sergeant Major.”

  “Mike, the only thing just ain’t right at the moment is Bogater leaving us down another man when we’re already outgunned. Damn fool shoulda known better than to get all Sergeant York on us. Now you get yourself back over there and go help Ace carry that man’s body.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Somewhere to the north, not so far away, a war was going on in which they had no part. They could hear it clearly: intermittent doses of Arisaka rifles firing in what seemed a musical call and response to the rhythmic chatter of a Nambu machine gun. These outbursts had erupted with languid frequency for the past two hours—the time it took to move south to the headwaters of the Warra River, find the rubber boats unscathed in their well-concealed nest, and bury Joe Youngblood.

  “Who the hell’s fighting who?” Tom Hadley asked. “I don’t hear anything that sounds like a GI weapon or even an Aussie one.”

  Patchett replied, “Whoever it is, let them kill each other all they want. Better we just lay low here and keep praying we get left alone.” He checked his watch—it was just after 1200 hours. “All we gotta do is hold out until dark and then take ourselves a little boat ride.”

  “That’s pie in the sky talk, Sergeant Major,” McMillen said. “If you think we’re just going to sit here all day and not get hit, you’re dreaming.”

  “I didn’t say we wasn’t gonna get hit, son. I said we gotta hold out.”

  The forest had been mercifully quiet for nearly an hour, long enough to sow the seeds of false security in every member of The Squad.

  That’s why the two explosions—just seconds apart—made them all practically jump out of their skin. A few moments later, they could see a column of thick black smoke rising skyward some distance to the north.

  “I reckon that smoke’s coming from the Lorengau trail,” Patchett said. “That’d put it about two miles away.”

  “Looks right to me,” Jock replied. “Funny, though…that sounded like something just got bombed. You’d think there’d be airplanes flying around…”

  But when the echoes died, there was nothing but the silence of the forest once again.

  Another hour passed before blessed rain began to fall. Jillian had sensed it coming—she and Anne Marie were awaiting it with ground sheets strung to act as water collectors. Beneath those sheets, empty canteens were lined up. The deluge filled them all quickly.

  As Jillian passed the canteens out to the men along the perimeter, she got an idea. “Jock,” she said, “you don’t really need me and Anne Marie in the trenches. Your lads have the lookout duty covered…”

  “What are you getting at, Jill?”

  “Why don’t I go and catch us some dinner? There’s a river right there…and I do know a little about the fishing business, don’t I?”

  He had to admit someone who owned and captained a fleet of fishing boats back in Australia probably knew a fair bit about catching fish. “Of course you do,” he replied.

  “So what do you say, Yank? Shall I fetch us all a proper supper? Considering we’re down to our last crackers and all.”

  “Actually, Jill, that’s sounds pretty damn wonderful. Take the Thompson with you, though.”

  “Of course I’m going to take the bloody Thompson, silly boy. Oh, and I’ll need to borrow your bayonet, too.”

  Jillian swept her latest catch from the river, a huge catfish impaled on the spear she’d whittled from a fallen branch. Anne Marie sat nearby on the bank collecting the steadily growing catch, using Jock’s bayonet to sharpen more branches into spears. She was keeping a sharp lookout for crocs and water snakes, too.

  Stopping a moment to rub
her aching shoulders, Jillian gazed across the river. She was startled as a tree’s branch snapped off suddenly, as if cleaved by some invisible scythe.

  Before she could blink, she heard the rifle shot…

  And realized it was a bullet, faster than the sound of its own, distant firing, that had just pruned that branch.

  Before she could take another breath, what sounded like a thousand guns began to sing their terrifying chorus.

  “GET DOWN,” she screamed to Anne Marie, who was bewildered and still sitting upright despite the bullets zipping past her.

  She heeded the warning and threw herself to the ground. Jillian crawled to her, took the .45 pistol from the pocket of Anne Marie’s dress and placed it in the nurse’s hands.

  “Remember what I showed you,” Jillian said, “hold it tight with both hands or it’ll kick back and hit you in the face. Just stay here behind this log and lay low. Shoot any Jap that comes near you.” She began to crawl away toward Jock and his men but stopped to offer one last instruction: “But for pity sake, Anne Marie, don’t shoot Ace.”

  By the time she’d crawled to Jock, the fight had ebbed to random shots, each sounding like it was trying to get in the last word in a lethal argument.

  “They’re pulling back,” Jock told her.

  “How many were there?”

  “Sounded like a hundred…probably just a handful.”

  She asked, “Anybody hit?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Patchett scampered down the line, shouting, “If you got a grenade left, throw the fucking thing right now as far as you can. Then everybody stay the hell down. It ain’t over yet. This is when they lob mortars at you, while they’re breaking off contact.”

  Jock said, “Jill, get in that hole over there and keep your head down.”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “Right on top of you.”