W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines

by Behind The Lines(Lit)

  His mind then went blank.

  After a long moment, he said, "Into the deep we commit the bodies of our brother and sister departed. Amen."

  "Amen," Sergeant Everly parroted.

  They pushed the blanket-wrapped bodies through the opening in the rail into the sea.

  Thirty minutes later, they cut loose from the Yet Again and Weston pointed the bow toward the Verde Island Passage.

  He looked back once at the cabin cruiser drifting on the blue water, and was sorry he did.

  [FOUR]

  Headquarters, 4th Marine Regiment

  Fortress Corregidor

  Manila Bay, Republic of the Philippines

  0415 Hours 6 May 1942

  "You know what I know about burning the colors, Paulson?" Colonel S. L. Howard, USMC, who was the senior Marine officer on Corregidor, asked of Major Stephen J. Paulson, USMC, who was acting S-l, 4th Marines.

  "No, Sir."

  They were perhaps one hundred feet in a lateral tunnel opening off the main Malinta Tunnel. From their lateral, it was perhaps two hundred yards to the entrance to the now sandbagged entrance. The colors, the national flag, and the regimental flag of the 4th Marines were behind Howard's desk, unfurled, their staffs resting in holders.

  "Not very much," Howard said. "And I can't even remember where I learned-I must have read it somewhere in a novel-what I do know. I know that it is a disgrace to lose your colors to the enemy, and at the last possible moment before the enemy is to lay his hands on them, it is the duty of the senior officer present to burn them."

  "That's how I understand it, Sir."

  "I would say we are at that moment, Paulson, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  There was no question about that. Two days before, the Japanese assault on Fortress Corregidor had begun, with a massive, unceasing, around-the-clock artillery barrage. Someone had calculated that eleven explosive rounds were landing on the Fortress every minute. That translated to 667 rounds per hour, 16,000 rounds each twenty-four hours.

  The Japanese landed on the island the day before, at what was called the "Tail of the Tadpole," and suffered heavy losses. But they kept coming, and it was impossible to throw them back into the sea. To avoid firing on their own men, that portion of the Japanese artillery fire initially directed at the Tail of the Tadpole had shifted, and was now falling on Top Side-the Head of the Tadpole-where the barracks had once stood, and beneath which was the tun-nel complex.

  Japanese infantry was making its way up from the Tail to Top Side, slowly but irresistibly.

  There were approximately 15,000 American and Filipino men and officers defending Fortress Corregidor, very few of whom (approximately one-tenth) had training as infantry soldiers. The vast bulk of American military personnel, except for the regular Corregidor garrison-Coast Artillerymen-were techni-cians, staff officers, and clerks of one kind or another, who had moved to Cor-regidor when General MacArthur had moved his headquarters to the Fortress early in the war.

  Several hundred of the 1,500 military personnel trained as infantrymen were Marines. The vast bulk of these Marines were members of the 4th Ma-rines, which had come to the Philippines from Shanghai in November 1941, had participated in action against the Japanese on Luzon, on the Bataan Penin-sula, and had been ordered to Corregidor. There were also some Marines who had been stationed, prior to the war, at various U.S. Navy installations in the Philippines, then ordered to Corregidor.

  The Coast Artillerymen of the Corregidor garrison had done their job, and more than could have been reasonably expected of them. There was ample am-munition for their "disappearing rifles" (which were Coast Artillery cannon that rose on their carriages to fire, and then lowered into a protected position) and for their enormous mortars; and it had been a rare moment in recent days when the roar of American cannon could not be heard, or the concussion of their firing not felt.

  But it was not enough to stop the Japanese. And one by one, many of the guns and the gun positions, previously believed impregnable, had been de-stroyed.

  The clerks and technicians, pressed into service as riflemen, had done their duty too, performing it (in the private opinions of many Marines) far better than expected.

  But everybody was weak-they had been on half rations for more than six weeks, and half rations had recently been halved again-and exhausted; and they suffered from the ceaseless concussion of incoming Japanese artillery.

  "Somehow, I don't like the idea of burning them in here."

  "We could carry them outside, Sir."

  "Would that be a signal that it's over?" Colonel Howard asked rhetori-cally, and then, without giving Paulson a chance to respond, changed the sub-ject.

  "I took a look at the records yesterday, before ordering them burned," he said. "The personnel rosters. We seem to be carrying an extraordinary number, even under these circumstances, of personnel missing in action."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "You would know more about this than I would, Major. Would you say some of the missing personnel went-how do I say this?-went missing pur-posely?"

  "If you're asking if there has been an attempt to avoid hazardous service, Sir, I would say no."

  "Would you say, then, Major, that some of those Marines those now-burned reports carried as 'missing' absented themselves in the belief that they would thus be able to continue waging war against the Japanese in some other location?"

  "I believe that is entirely possible, Sir."

  "And how many of those who went purposely missing would you think made it through the enemy lines to someplace where they could indeed con-tinue to fight?"

  Major Paulson had a sudden clear mental picture of two Marines: First Lieutenant James B. Weston and Sergeant Percy Lewis Everly.

  "There's no way of knowing, Sir. Some, obviously, will have made it. And some, obviously, will have been killed or captured."

  "Purposefully absenting oneself, purposely going missing, ordinarily would be something disgraceful. At the very least, even with the best inten-tions, it could be considered AWOL; at the worst, desertion in the face of the enemy."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Right now, Paulson, if I had the opportunity, I think I would go over the hill myself. Burning the colors, hoisting the white flag..."

  "I thought about it, Sir," Paulson said.

  "But you stayed."

  "Disobeying an order is hard for me, Sir."

  "And for me," Howard said. "How would you propose we do this, Paul-son?"

  "I've got something," Paulson said, and produced a quart-sized tin can. "I don't know what it is, it's to clean a mimeograph machine. But it's highly combustible. I suggest, Sir, that we pour it on the colors and ignite it. I'll hold the staffs, if you like, or..."

  "There's enough for both the regimental and national colors?"

  "Yes, Sir. And they're silk, Sir. Once they're ignited, they'll burn."

  "I don't want to do it in here, in this goddamn tunnel, like a trapped rat," Colonel Howard said. "Would you be willing, Major Paulson, to go with me to the main tunnel entrance?"

  "Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir."

  Colonel Howard nodded. He stood up and went to the two flags behind his desk. He took the national colors from its holder, held it horizontally, and then twisted the staff until the flag was wrapped around the pole. He handed the furled colors to Paulson. Then he repeated the furling action with the red regi-mental flag of the 4th Marines.

  When he was finished, he preceded Paulson down the lateral tunnel, and then down the main tunnel to the entrance. As they approached the entrance, they could now hear small-arms fire, the solid crack of American.30-06 cali-ber rifle and light machine-gun fire, and the higher-pitched crack of Japanese small arms.

  They made their way past the sandbags.

  A Japanese artillery shell whistled in and exploded with a crash that made them both cringe.

  "The national colors first, I think, Paulson," Howard said. "They are never supposed to touch the ground."


  "Aye, aye, Sir," Major Paulson said.

  He held his flagstaff horizontally and twisted the staff so that the flag un-wrapped from the staff. Colonel Howard leaned the colors of the 4th Marines against the sandbags, took Paulson's quart can of mimeograph machine clean-ing fluid, and carefully poured half on the national colors.

  When he tried to ignite it with his Zippo cigarette lighter, it didn't work, and he had to dip into Paulson's pocket for Paulson's Zippo.

  The cleaning fluid ignited immediately, quickly igniting the silk material of the flag. But it took longer for the flag to burn than either Colonel Howard or Major Paulson expected. By the time it did burn, the flagstaff was smoldering, and here and there were other small flickers of flame.

  Paulson swung the flagstaff like a baseball bat against a concrete abut-ment, breaking it into two pieces. He picked up the top half, with the gold-plated American eagle, and smashed the eagle against the concrete.

  Then he picked up the regimental colors of the 4th Marines, twisted the staff until the flag was unwrapped, and held it out for Colonel Howard to douse with mimeograph cleaning fluid and ignite.

  When the colors had burned, he smashed the staff, this time ruining the gold American eagle first, and then breaking the staff.

  After that, Colonel Howard and Major Paulson went back into Malinta Tunnel. All other duties assigned to them having been performed, they then picked up their rifles and exited the tunnel to fight as infantry.

  Chapter Four

  [ONE]

  Gingoog Bay, Misamis-Oriental Province

  Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines

  0425 Hours 8 October 1942

  The military force that its commander privately thought of as "Weston's Weary Would-Be Warriors" made landfall from Bohol Island at daylight. The commanding officer, First Lieutenant James B. Weston, USMC, in addition to a full beard, wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and a baggy pair of white cotton pants. He was barefoot and bare-chested, and his skin was deeply tanned.

  In addition to Sergeant Percy Lewis Everly, USMC, the force consisted of twelve other servicemen. Senior among them was Chief Pharmacist's Mate Stanley J. Miller, USN, who with Seaman First Class Paul K. Nesbit had been the first recruits to the unit.

  For two weeks after leaving the Yet Again adrift off Lubang Island, Wes-ton and Everly had traveled very slowly and very cautiously, sailing for three or four hours a day and spending the rest hiding. On the afternoon of the fif-teenth day, they had come across the Chief and Nesbit in the Sibuyan Sea, drifting in a demasted sailboat. They had left Luzon with the same intention as Weston and Everly: making it to Mindanao and possibly to Australia, mean-while avoiding capture by the Japanese.

  They took them aboard, scuttled their boat, fed them from their dwindling stocks of canned foods from the Yet Again, and resumed their painfully slow voyage toward Mindanao.

  It took them six months, by far most of it spent on one small island or another, trying to stay alive and out of the hands of the Japanese. On the island of Panay, while moving through the hills in search of food, they encountered a group of five Army Air Corps enlisted men, under Sergeant Allan F. Taylor. Taylor had been sent to search for possible auxiliary landing fields under the command of an Air Corps lieutenant colonel, who had surrendered to the Japa-nese at his first opportunity, telling his command they could do what they wanted; in the circumstances it was every man for himself. None of the enlisted men had been willing to surrender.

  They placed themselves under Weston's command with the understanding that it was their intention to make it to Australia, and that they had no intention of trying to wage a guerrilla war against the Japanese.

  The force grew two months later on the island of Cebu by the addition of a sailor and a corporal. The corporal had been one of the few American enlisted men assigned to the 26th Cavalry, which had American officers and Filipino troopers. On Luzon they had decided that between them they had the skills (the sailor knew how to handle a small boat; and the cavalryman, a veterinarian's assistant, knew how to speak Spanish) to make it to Mindanao, and possibly out of the Philippine Islands.

  The last three recruits were Marines, Old China Marines, career privates of the 4th Marines, who had been captured and made a valiant effort to escape. Like Sergeant Everly, they were familiar with the practice of the Japanese Army to bayonet their prisoners when feeding or guarding them became a problem-or simply because it seemed like an interesting idea at the time.

  Everly knew two of the three. He told Weston that one was a world-class drunk, and the other had a room-temperature IQ but was tolerated in the 4th Marines in Shanghai because when he turned out for Guard Mount he looked like the pictures in the manual. The third had been a clerk in the S-4 (Supply) Office, who was pressed into duty as a rifleman just before the 4th Marines were committed to battle for the first time.

  "But don't worry, Mr. Weston. I can handle them, they're Marines."

  The 26th Cavalry corporal had an Enfield rifle and twenty-three rounds of.30-06 ammunition. The Air Corps contingent had three Enfields, sixty rounds of ammunition for them, and a.45 Colt 1911A1 pistol with twelve rounds. The Marines had no firearms whatever, but had picked up two machetes and an ax.

  The money was just about gone-the five thousand dollars Weston had begun with, plus the four hundred Everly had taken from the murderous Filipi-nos on the boat, plus the three thousand they had taken from the Yet Again. The price of anything was what the market would bear, and simply to have enough simple food to stay alive-rice, fruits, and a rare pig, or fresh ham-had been very costly.

  The notion of getting out of the Philippines to Australia now seemed un-real. And Weston privately thought that when they got to Mindanao, it wouldn't be very different from any of the other islands they'd been to. There would be no organized military force to which they could attach themselves. If they found any Americans at all, they would almost certainly be just like them-selves, desperately dreaming of getting to Australia but with no real hope of doing so.

  They had come to Mindanao because there was no place else to go, and because word had come to them on the grapevine that the Japanese were about to sweep Bohol Island and round up Americans once and for all.

  On making port, most of Weston's Weary Would-Be Warriors spent most of the day concealing their two boats, while a reconnaissance party consisting of Sergeant Everly, two of the three Marines, and one of the Air Corps PFCs investigated the area.

  When they did not return by nightfall, as Weston had ordered them to, he thought they had probably encountered Japanese. But he wasn't particularly concerned. They had, if nothing else, acquired a demonstrated skill in hiding from Japanese. If they didn't return that night, they'd be back first thing in the morning.

  If they had actually gotten into a firefight with the Japanese, it was un-likely that all of them would have been killed or captured. In case there was a disaster, the standing order was for whoever came through the encounter alive to return to "headquarters" and warn the others.

  No one came to Gingoog Bay that night, or during the day, or during the next night. And Weston went to sleep about midnight wondering if the ultimate disaster had happened, that everyone had been killed, or, worse for him and the men with him, captured. Given a few hours, the Japanese could force any infor-mation a prisoner had out of him. At that moment, the Japanese could be stag-ing an operation to surround him and to make sure that no one slipped out to sea.

  At daylight, after Weston decided no one was going to come at first light either, he tried to decide whether to lead a second reconnaissance patrol, leav-ing Chief Miller in command, or to send Chief Miller on the patrol. The Chief might be a marvelous pharmacist, but he was not a great leader of men. The only thing the Chief would probably be worse at than commanding "the unit" would be leading a reconnaissance patrol.

  On top of all that, Sergeant Allan F. Taylor, of the Army Air Corps, was a special problem. Without any justification that Weston co
uld see, he believed himself to be a professional military man on a level with Sergeant Everly. Tay-lor had been some sort of technician, something between a surveyor and a draftsman. Those skills were not very useful to Weston's Weary Would-Be Warriors.

  Weston could not leave Taylor behind to command "the unit," because it was clear that neither the Chief nor the remaining Marine would take orders from him-even if Taylor decided, in his own best interests, to assume com-mand. The same consideration applied to sending Sergeant Taylor to lead the reconnaissance. He knew a little less-which was to say, almost nothing- about how to run a reconnaissance than Weston himself. And it was likely that if he got out of sight (and, as important, out of range) of Weston's Springfield, he would decide that his best interests dictated taking off on his own and get-ting to Australia.