W E B Griffin - Corp 07 - Behind the Lines

by Behind The Lines(Lit)

  After what seemed like a very long time, the Buick stopped, as its front wheels rolled off the road and further forward movement was impeded. Wes-ton then became aware of the occupants of the vehicle. The driver was now lying against the steering wheel, causing the horn to sound. One of the rear-seat passengers was trying to raise himself off the floor; and the other-an offi-cer-was simultaneously trying to stand up and unholster his pistol.

  Everly's rifle fired again. As Weston heard the crack of the weapon firing, he thought he could also hear the whistle of its bullet passing close to him.

  Weston raised the submachine gun to his shoulder, got a sight picture, and pulled the trigger, immediately releasing it. He felt the three-round burst recoil against his shoulder. The face of the Japanese officer in the Buick seemed to implode. He sat back and then slid off the seat. The second man in the back of the car suddenly jumped out of the car and started running to the trucks behind him.

  Weston raised his Thompson to his shoulder and aimed it. As he was pre-paring to apply gentle pressure to the trigger, Everly's Springfield fired again, the running man's head seemed to explode, and he fell forward onto his face. His legs and arms twitched.

  Weston looked back at Everly, who was now on his feet, pulling the loop of the sling off his arm. He looked at Weston and made an impatient gesture for Weston to return his attention to the road, or,

  My God, he wants me to go out there! If I go out there, they'll be able to see me, and shoot me, and I'll be killed!

  Oh, shit!

  Captain Weston moved out of the foliage, holding the Thompson with one hand. He supported himself on the fender of the Buick and then made what he thought, for a brief moment, was a constructive act. He pulled the body of the driver away from the steering wheel. The blaring of the horn stopped.

  There, now they won't be able to hear us!

  Jesus Christ! How fucking stupid can I be?

  He looked into the rear seat of the Buick. The officer was on the floor, on his back. His eyes were a bloody mess.

  I shot him right between the eyes.

  I was aiming for his chest.

  He moved slowly to the rear of the Buick, then ran to the truck next in line behind it. As he ran, he realized that the intensity of the firing had slowed. And then it stopped entirely.

  There was the sound of moaning, and somewhere down the road a man was screaming, and then there was a shot and the screaming stopped.

  "Ceasefire! Ceasefire!" Everly called. Weston turned to see him running up the road. He ran past Weston to the rear of the truck next in line. All of a sudden, he had a machete in his hand, and Weston saw it slash viciously down-ward.

  My God, he's killing the wounded!

  And you're acting like a Boy Scout, not like a Marine officer!

  What did you expect, that this would be conducted in a gentlemanly fash-ion, with scrupulous attention to the Geneva Convention?

  He made his way through the convoy to the pickup truck at its rear, desper-ately hoping he would not come across a wounded Japanese and have to kill him.

  He did not. Taking their cue from Everly, the Filipinos quickly put their machetes to use, taking care of the problem of the wounded Japanese.

  Weston saw a Filipino climb one of the fragile-looking telephone poles lining the road, slash the copper wire with his machete, and then, holding a loose end between his teeth, climb down again.

  On the ground, he tugged unsuccessfully to pull the wire from the next pole, cutting his hand in the process, and then shouted angrily in a strange tongue-Tagalog? Weston wondered-which caused two other Filipinos to start climbing poles.

  Weston started walking toward the head of the convoy again. Now the Fili-pinos were stripping the Japanese bodies of their weapons, their boots, their ammunition, their bayonets, their leather accoutrements, and their watches, jewelry, and even their spectacles.

  The labor detail appeared, and Lieutenant Lomero began to load each man with the supplies and captured weaponry to be carried off. There were more supplies than men, and the attempt to carry off the fuel proved to be a disaster. There was no way to decant the gasoline and kerosene from the drums into the vessels they had brought with them except by putting the drums on their sides and opening the filler hole. More fuel poured onto the ground than into the bottles and barrels and canteens. And the wooden barrels leaked.

  Weston returned to the Buick, leaned into the backseat, and finally found the pistol he had seen in the officer's hand.

  It looks something like a German Luger, he thought, as he picked it up, then dropped it in horror. It's covered with blood!

  He forced himself to pick it up again, then to unfasten the officer's belt, which was also slippery with blood. A spare magazine was in a pouch on the holster. He was tempted to throw the belt and the holster away, but decided he was obliged to take it with him. When he tried to strap it around his waist, it was too small, so he looped it around his neck.

  He became aware then that the Buick's engine was still running. He reached over and turned the ignition key off and then removed it. Everly came up to him. "Anytime you're ready, Mr. Weston." "Ready for what?"

  "Torch the vehicles and go home," Everly said, and nodded toward the rear of the convoy. Two Filipinos were easily carrying one of the now nearly empty fifty-five-gallon gasoline drums. They stopped at the car, obviously waiting for Everly's permission to upend the drum into the car. "You search him?" Everly asked. "I got his pistol."

  "I noticed," Everly said, and then spoke in Spanish to the Filipinos. They got in the car, picked up the Japanese officer's body, and slid it over the side of the car. It landed on its face. Everly carefully went through the offi-cer's pockets, coming up with a wallet, some identification papers, and a pocketknife, which he tossed to one of the Filipinos. Then he removed the officer's wristwatch.

  "An Elgin," he said, tossing it to the other Filipino. "Do you suppose he bought it in Chicago, or took it away from some American?"

  He waited until the Filipino, who was smiling happily, had strapped the Elgin onto his wrist, and then signaled for them to upend the gas drum into the Buick. As the dregs of the drum gurgled onto the red leather upholstery, he took out his Zippo lighter.

  "Wait a minute!" he said. "Jesus Christ, how stupid can I be?"

  "What?" Weston asked.

  Everly shouted something in Spanish and then repeated it in English.

  "Get the people with the bottles and canteens back here," he said, and one of the Filipinos said, "Yes, Sir," and ran down the road. Everly turned to Wes-ton. "These fuel tanks are full. All we have to do is cut the fuel lines, and let it run into the bottles."

  "Why didn't I think of that?" Weston asked rhetorically.

  "Why didn't I?" Everly said.

  The translation of that, Weston thought, is, I didn't expect you to, you 're nothing but a useless fly boy I'm stuck with, but I, the professional Marine, cer-tainly should have.

  It took perhaps ten minutes-which seemed to Weston far longer than that-to fill the bottles and canteens from the fuel lines of the Buick and the trucks.

  Finally, Everly called, "OK. Torch them!"

  He stooped beside a small but growing pool of gasoline spreading from under the Buick.

  "You better step back, Mr. Weston," he said.

  "Right," Weston said, and took several steps away.

  Everly ignited the gasoline and then ran away, grabbing Weston's arm and dragging him into the jungle.

  There was a whooshing sound. When Weston looked back, the entire rear half of the Buick was engulfed in flames.

  "Sometimes it explodes worse than that," Everly said.

  "I suppose," Weston said, somewhat lamely.

  "That was a nice head shot you made, Mr. Weston," Everly said. "Right between the eyes. But next time, it might be better if you aimed for the chest."

  I am not going to give this sonofabitch the satisfaction of correcting me.

  "I knew I could hit him in the h
ead from that distance."

  "Yeah, and you did," Everly said, with a touch of what could have been reluctant admiration in his voice. "But it's sometimes better, Mr. Weston, not to take chances."

  "Let's get the hell out of here, Everly."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," Lieutenant Everly said.

  They headed into the jungle. They had gone perhaps fifty yards when Ev-erly had the last word: There was an enormous roar as the fuel tank of one of the trucks exploded.

  Chapter Seven

  [ONE]

  Office of the Kempeitai Commander for Mindanao

  Cagayan de Oro, Misamis-Oriental Province

  Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines

  1425 Hours 20 October 1942

  All but two of the seven officers of the Mindanao Detachment of the Kempeitai were gathered in the office of Lieutenant Colonel Tange Kisho to discuss the outrage on the Bislig-Caraga highway that morning. Present were Tange; Major Ieyasu Matsudaira, his deputy; Captains Matsuo Saikaku and Tokugawa Sadanobu; and Lieutenant Ichikawa Izumo. Lieutenants Okuni Sannjuro and Iemitsu Tokugawa were at the scene of the outrage supervising a ten-man de-tail searching the area.

  Lieutenant Hideyori Niigata, the signals officer, had been summoned in case he might be needed. He was waiting outside Tange's office, sitting on a wooden bench once used by citizens of the Commonwealth of the Philippines seeking audience with the Provincial Governor.

  It went without saying that the outrage had to be dealt with immediately and with the greatest severity. The question was how, and with what degree of severity.

  Major Ieyasu Matsudaira believed the action to be taken was self-evident. One senior Japanese officer, Major Shimabara Hara, and nineteen other ranks, had been murdered. Therefore, five Filipino males from the surrounding area should be hung in retribution for Major Shimabara's murder-a five-to-one ratio-and thirty-eight Filipinos-a two-to-one ratio-hung in retribution for the other deaths. The arrests should be made today, Major Ieyasu argued, the arrestees interrogated overnight, and the executions carried out first thing in the morning.

  Captain Saikaku disagreed with Major Ieyasu, and did so with less tact than Ieyasu expected. Neither Saikaku's disagreement, nor his lack of tact, sur-prised Lieutenant Colonel Tange.

  "It is the policy of the Emperor," Saikaku pontificated,"that we enlist the support of the people here by incorporating them into the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Hanging forty-odd innocent Filipinos is not the way to do that."

  "Nineteen of His Majesty's soldiers have been murdered, including a sen-ior officer who was a dear friend," Ieyasu snapped. "That cannot go unpun-ished. Moreover, the attack itself challenges our authority here, and that cannot be tolerated."

  "If we had the people who did this, I would put the rope around their necks myself. I would do so in the square here, with the people watching. But we don't have the people who did this-"

  "We know who they are," Ieyasu interrupted. "This so-called 'U.S. Forces in the Philippines.' "

  "No, Sir, we don't know that," Saikaku responded. "That is one possibil-ity."

  "And the others?"

  "Simple bandits. Mindanao has a long history of banditry."

  "We found U.S. Army cartridge cases all over the site, for U.S. Army rifles and submachine guns."

  "Which proves nothing. Before we liberated these islands, bandits-many of them members of the Moro tribe-frequently attacked U.S. and Filipino Army units, robbed them, and made off with their weapons. What I am saying is that the execution of forty-odd Filipinos on the questionable premise that they aided U.S. Forces in the Philippines would both unnecessarily antagonize the Filipino population and would lend credence to the idea that U.S. Forces in the Philippines is in fact a military force which threatens us. We don't want that to happen."

  "What makes you so sure U.S. Forces in the Philippines is not 'a military force which threatens us'?" Ieyasu demanded.

  "Well, for one thing," Saikaku said, "we have been reading all their com-munications traffic with the Americans in Australia. They keep asking for sup-plies, including such basic items as radios and radio codes; and Australia keeps replying that their requests are being considered."

  "I personally found that interesting, Major Ieyasu," Colonel Tange said. "If this man Fertig-and especially if he were actually a general officer-was sent here, or was left behind when the Americans surrendered, it would seem logical that he would have been provided with both good radios and a crypto-graphic system."

  "Exactly," Captain Saikaku said.

  "Perhaps, Captain Saikaku," Major Ieyasu said sarcastically, "you would be good enough to tell us how you would recommend the Colonel deal with this matter?"

  "I am sure the Colonel has already decided how to do that," Saikaku said smoothly.

  "Let's hear what you have to say, Saikaku," Colonel Tange said.

  "Sir, I would arrest all the able-bodied males within a five-mile area of the robbery site-"

  "Robbery and murder site," Major Ieyasu interrupted.

  "-robbery and murder site," Saikaku went on. "And subject them to intensive interrogation. A thorough and skillful interrogation, by which I mean there would be no evident marks on their bodies on their release."

  "On their release? In other words, before we arrest them, you don't think a 'thorough and skillful interrogation' will come up with anything?"

  "I doubt that it will, Major Ieyasu," Saikaku replied. "But I think we have to try. We may find some information, perhaps nothing useful now, but useful to us later. Then we release the prisoners. By arresting them, and then releasing them without serious physical harm, we will accomplish several things. First, we will establish our authority by the very act of arresting them. Second, they will learn-and may be counted on to pass on-just how uncomfortable a Kempeitai thorough and professional interrogation can be. And finally, by releasing them, we will prove that while we are firm, we are just."

  "Very interesting," Colonel Tange said. "I wish to consider that at my leisure."

  Everyone in the room understood that Colonel Tange's decision would look very much like what Captain Saikaku had suggested-either because that was what he had already come up with on his own, or because Saikaku's ideas seemed to be the best offered. But to make that announcement now would cause Major Ieyasu to lose face.

  "You said Lieutenant Hideyori is outside, Captain Saikaku?" Colonel Tange went on. "Has he something to report?"

  "No, Sir. I spoke with him at length before I came here. Should the Colo-nel desire, I am prepared to give a brief report on his failure. I ordered him to be here in case the Colonel, or Major Ieyasu, would like to talk with him person-ally."

  "Let's have the brief report," Tange ordered.

  "There have been fewer and fewer communications between Fertig and Australia. I alluded to this before. He asks for supplies; they reply that his re-quest is being considered, and give him a time for his next transmission. The time between such contacts seems to be growing longer.

  "This, however, makes Lieutenant Hideyori's efforts to locate the trans-mitter much more difficult, as Fertig seems to be moving his transmitter after every exchange with Australia. He moves the transmitter within an area thirty miles wide east to west and seventy miles north to south, and always where there are few roads."

  "In other words, he's no closer to finding the transmitter than ever?" Col-onel Tange asked.

  "I regret that seems to be the case," Saikaku replied. "Shall I send for him, Colonel?"

  "In your judgment, is he doing everything he should be doing?"

  "Yes, Sir. He is."

  "Then there's really no point in wasting my time talking to him, is there?"

  "I would not think so, Sir."

  "Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all," Colonel Tange said. "Major Ieyasu, would you please stay behind?"

  [TWO]

  Rocky Fields Farm

  Bernardsville, New Jersey

  1615 Hours 25 October 1942

  Mi
ss Ernestine Sage stepped out of her bathroom stark naked, in the process of toweling her hair, having decided it made sense to bathe now, while her father and Ken McCoy were trying to fit in an hour or so of hunting before supper, rather than before she went to bed.

  As soon as dinner was over, she intended to announce that she was tired, they all had a busy day tomorrow, and why didn't everybody go to bed?

  Thirty minutes after that, she planned to sneak as quietly as possible down the corridor past her parents' bedroom and into the guest bedroom. Ken would not expect her to do that, and it would be a pleasant, if discomfiting, surprise for him. And she had no intention of going back to her bedroom, no matter what his protests.