“But I don’t understand, Colonel. No air raid alarm has sounded.”
“It is not your place to understand, Captain. I am the regimental commander, am I not? I order you to open this gate to my troops. I have brought an auxiliary battalion from Division Headquarters to be deployed here as added security for the Emperor. You will not stand in my way.”
The captain of the guards responded to that with another sharp salute.
“Hai, Colonel-san!”
He snapped orders and the gate was raised. The convoy wended its way through the grounds of the Palace until the headlights of the lead car picked out a uniformed figure standing in the center of the road. The headlights reflected off the drawn sword of a man striking a dramatic pose.
The regimental commander stepped from the staff car as the officer in the road strode forward. They exchanged salutes.
“Colonel, it is very good to see you.”
“I pledged to you to commit my men, Major Hatanaka. Here we are.”
“Welcome, sir.” Hatanaka’s eyes shone with a religious fervor. “The Palace is now effectively sealed off and in our hands. It has begun.”
He could not sleep.
The events of the day weighed on his mind, as did the nagging sound of activity from outside the window of his private chambers. He heard the tramp of boots and excited voices issuing commands.
He had lived, since his enthronement in 1928, the cloistered existence, secluded and holy, that his subjects expected of their Emperor, generally awakening at seven to shave before reading the newspapers over a modest breakfast of black bread and oatmeal, followed by prayer. He would work through the day and end his day with a walk in the inner garden.
Today there had been the grueling meeting with his cabinet and the Supreme War Council, and preparation of the Rescript. He always looked forward to his stroll through the garden, but this evening he had not found respite from the turmoil ravaging his people, his country. This evening he and Chamberlain Irie had caught a glimpse of soldiers in the garden where they had never seen soldiers before.
Later, a car had taken him to the Household Ministry Building where he had recorded the Rescript which would be broadcast the following day.
It had been extremely uncomfortable, making the recording. It was made more so because a second recording had been requested for technical reasons. There had been much open sobbing during his reading of the admission of his nation’s defeat and acceptance of the enemy’s terms of unconditional surrender. He had returned to the Gobunko and retired for the evening.
He left his bed and crossed to a window. Not turning on his bedside lamp, he peered out.
Groups of imperial guards were posted at positions between the Gobunko and the Fukiage Gate. He saw machine guns with their muzzles aimed at the Gobunko.
He heard voices faintly from the room next to his bedchamber and recognized one of the voices as belonging to Chamberlain Irie. At first the words were muffled, but he could detect a hushed urgency. He crossed to the door of his chambers and placed an ear to the panel.
“The Imperial Palace is right now entirely in the hands of the insurgent guards,” a worried voice was reporting to Irie. “What of the palace police?”
“Disarmed. The grounds are surrounded, all entrances are blocked, all telephone wires have been cut.”
“But this is terrible,” a third voice exclaimed. “The recordings of the imperial Rescript?”
“Hidden. The recording crew was stopped and searched on their way out but they could tell the rebels nothing. The recordings have been safely hidden. They will not be found.”
“But the rebels will find us,” said Irie. “All doors to the Gobunko must be barred. There are the iron shutters to fasten over all of the windows.”
One of the other voices said doubtfully, “They are led by Major Hatanaka and a regimental commander of the guards. We are in very serious danger, gentlemen, as is the Emperor.”
“Should we awaken His Majesty?”
Irie said, “His Majesty has already had a most trying day, and it is late. There is no need to wake the Emperor. When he does awaken, I will see that he knows what has happened.”
Their war council continued in hushed tones.
The Emperor returned to bed and stretched out. He stared up at the dark ceiling.
The terrain curled down and away from the base, then started to climb again several hundred yards beyond the moonlit killing field that had been hacked around the perimeter. A short distance further was the tree line where the jungle began, where Ballard and the others crouched, taking it in.
Night brought no relief from the sweltering heat, nor the unending drone of birds and insects.
“There.” Ramone nudged Ballard with his elbow. “The two men leaving that hut.”
“I see them.”
“General Goro is on the left. The man with him is Captain Aki.”
Goro was average in every way except for his hair which was worn unusually long.
They watched the Japanese officers strut beneath a single light bulb strung overhead between the but they had left and the one next to it.
Several thatched-roof structures were clustered there, around a flagpole; Goro’s command center. Other huts across the compound were bigger, elongated; barracks for the troops.
Goro and Aki disappeared into a but from which an aerial rose. Two sentries were posted at the hut’s entrance. The hum of a generator could be heard across the clearing.
“Communications shed,” said Mischkie. “Wonder who the general’s communicating with.”
“We’re going in,” said Ballard. “Ramone, you and your sister and your men stay in position along this ridge.”
“We will give you all the cover fire you need,” Ramone assured him.
“If we need it. We’re going to try this one soft and easy. We’re going to get Goro out of there with him and us in one piece.”
Hanklin added, to Ramone, “Which ain’t to say we won’t be much obliged if you do pull our bacon out if things go haywire down there.”
“I think I understand what you say,” Ramone nodded. “We will be here if you need us.”
The Americans unlooped their dog tags from their necks. Each man taped his tags together and placed them in his pockets.
Evita watched this curiously. For the most part she only had eyes for Mischkie.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“Tags rattling together can make enough noise to give those Nips something to shoot at,” he told her.
She touched his arm lightly. “I would not want that to happen. You must take care of yourself, Wil. We will get to know each other better when tonight is finished.”
“You know, I sort of had that very same thing in mind myself.”
“Let’s go,” said Ballard.
He and Hanklin quit the tree line in low combat crouches, down the incline, not making a sound.
Mischkie put his arm around Evita in a hug. He gave the young woman a peck on the forehead.
“Stick around, kitten. We’ve got a date in Malolos tonight when this job is done.”
He broke from the tree line and joined up with Ballard and Hanklin. They hurtled through the dark, negotiating the incline, spreading out from each other at a distance of several feet, barely discernible to each other. Their commando clothing blended into the darkness, helping meld them with the night.
They gained the bottom of the rise and dodged across a level patch of ground before the terrain climbed again to become rockier near the machine gun placements. Ballard motioned with hand signals. Hanklin and Mischkie fell further away to either side. They slowed their pace slightly, following Ballard’s lead. Thirty yards below one of the machine gun nests, Ballard motioned again and flattened out on his stomach, his rifle gripped in both hands. Hanklin and Mischkie did likewise, and they commenced elbowing and kneeing their way up the final stretch of ground.
Two shadowy human figures loomed ahead in the n
earest machine gun nest.
More hand signals from Ballard. The other two nodded their understanding. Ballard and Hanklin hit the placement from opposite angles, coming in with knives to make quick work of the two men behind the machine gun. Mischkie remained crouched outside the gun placement, watching for trouble, but the scuffle behind the Nambu was too slight to draw attention.
Ballard and Hanklin propped up the bodies of the dead men to make it look as if nothing was amiss to anyone who might pass by.
The huts further along up the hill were inky smudges in the gloom. Shafts of light here and there and pieces of conversation barely heard emanated from the direction of the barracks, but at this end, to the rear of the communications but into which Goro and Aki had gone no less than five minutes before, all was peaceful, seemingly undisturbed except for the hum of a radio transmitter.
At a hand signal from Ballard, they advanced on the communications hut. Ballard and Hanklin stormed around the front upon the two sentries stationed there. Mischkie covered the action. Again, quick work: the left arm snaked around the neck to yank each sentry onto a blade that slid in beneath and behind the right ear. A twist to make sure, and the bodies went limp. Ballard and Hanklin each dragged a dead man around to the rear. Mischkie came over and picked up the sentries’ rifles. These kills too had gone silently enough to alert no one.
Only one other but in close proximity had a light on inside. A flag pole in front marked it as the general’s orderly room, two huts away.
Ballard and Hanklin rejoined Mischkie to crouch in the shadows to one side of the doorway of the communications shed. Ballard gave a curt nod which each man returned. They knew their parts.
Ballard charged in first with Hanklin on his heels.
Chapter Eight
To one side of the entrance inside the communications shed, a Japanese soldier, no more than seventeen years old whirled around in surprise, turning from a radio set. Goro and Aki stood beside the soldier. They wore holstered side arms.
Hanklin aimed his M-1 at the boy in uniform.
“Hold it right there, sonny, whether you speak English or not.”
The soldier held it right there. He even raised his hands. Goro spun so quickly that some of his longish hair fell across his forehead, but he made no further move.
Aki grabbed for his sidearm.
Ballard unsheathed his combat knife from mid-chest and flung it in one smooth motion. The blade glinted in flight through flickering lamplight and buried itself to the hilt in Aki’s heart. Ballard’s rifle was aimed at Goro before Aki hit the floor.
“Do you speak English, General?”
Goro stood with his arms at his sides. His expression was bland, oblique.
“I speak English,” he said with a precise accent.
“Good. Pull out that pistol, very slowly. Drop it to the ground. Use your fingertips. I won’t kill you if you do what I say. Kick it away from you.”
Goro obeyed.
“What is it you want?”
“We want you, General. You come with us or we’ll kill you.”
Goro said, coolly and without hesitation, “I think it would be best, then, if I accompanied you.”
Ballard used his rifle to gesture to Goro to move outside. Ballard looked at Hanklin and nodded at the young Japanese soldier.
Hanklin nodded back and said to the boy, “Turn around.” The kid just looked at him and started quaking.
Hanklin said, “Okey-dokey, sonny, if that’s the way you want it.”
He brought the butt plate of his rifle up in a short jab that connected with the soldier’s right temple. The soldier’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
“I must be going soft,” Hanklin muttered. He swung the M-1 around at Goro as the general passed by on his way out. “But that don’t go for Nip generals, General. You best bear that in mind. You even look the wrong way and I’ll blow your brains out. Got me?”
Goro lost none of his enigmatic blandness. “I understand. Where are you taking me?”
“Out of here,” said Ballard. “Just shut up and do as you’re told. Outside.”
Goro stepped from the hut. Mischkie was waiting, having shoulder-slung his rifle and unholstered his .45. He pressed the barrel of the pistol to Goro’s throat.
“Don’t even think about sounding an alarm, General.” Ballard and Hanklin emerged from the hut.
“He’s playing right along,” Hanklin said. “Aren’t you, General?”
“I have said I will cooperate.”
“All right, everybody,” said Ballard, “cork it. We’re getting out the way we came in. Right now.”
They moved out. Ballard took the lead.
Hanklin gave Goro a rough shove. “You heard the man.” Mischkie brought up the rear, moving backwards to cover their withdrawal. “The Sarge also said to cork it.”
They scuttled past the machine gun nest where the dead men remained propped up against the Nambu. From there they continued down the slope and rushed across the piece of level ground to where the clearing sloped upward.
“Looks like we’re going to make it,” whispered Mischkie.
“We’re not out of it yet,” said Ballard.
They gained the tree line. Evita and Ramone were waiting in the hazy moonlight, rifles aimed along the small group’s track. Valera and Castro would be nearby.
Goro suddenly broke, short of the tree line, and dashed madly down the slope away from them, screaming in Japanese at the top of his lungs, returning toward the base.
Ballard cursed and charged after him. He tackled Goro, taking the general down with Goro still screaming his head off. He rolled Goro over onto his back and kayoed him with a sharp pop to the jaw.
Too late.
Answering calls peppered the night from the direction of the base. Ballard shouldered Goro’s unconscious form and ran with him back toward the tree line.
The darkness exploded with the heavy throbbing of a Nambu from one of the machine gun placements. Everyone scattered, grabbing the ground for cover. A vicious burst of slugs lashed the tree trunks.
Ballard heard someone in the group cry out, “Oh!” and he heard the sound of a bullet popping something apart. He felt droplets of liquid splash across his hand and knew it was blood.
The machine gun fire tapered off.
“Shit.” Mischkie snarled. “The girl caught one. She’s gone.”
Luis moaned like a wounded animal.
“Evita!”
Goro groaned and started coming to. Ballard had let the general drop when the shooting started. He lifted Goro by his tunic and backhanded him across the face.
“Wake up, General. We’re moving out.”
Luis Ramone flung himself away from his sister’s body and at Goro, going for the dazed man’s neck with both of his hands.
“She’s dead! My sister’s dead!”
He poured out a stream of fiery Tagalog and got clutching hands around Goro’s throat.
Ballard stepped in with an upward cut from the butt of his rifle. He knocked Ramone’s arms away.
Hanklin, who was nearest and outsized Ramone considerably, wrapped his arms around the Filipino and whispered, “Hold steady, son. You won’t do your sister any good gettin’ yourself killed.”
Lights flared on all over the base. The clearing was flooded with a harsh, blinding, silver light that did not penetrate the wall of green at the jungle tree line.
Ballard said, “Keep your wits about you, Luis. There’s still the mission. Tell Valera and Castro not to return fire. Those gunners are dug in. We’d only give them something to fire at.”
Luis relaxed in Hanklin’s bear grip. He made a visible effort to regain his self-control. “You are right, of course.” He made a bird call into the night.
The high-pitched throbbing of more than one machine gun opened up with sustained bursts.
Mischkie said, “They don’t know what the hell they’re firing at.”
“Let’
s get the hell out of here and call in that air strike,” urged Ballard.
“They’ll be getting around to their communications but before long,” Hanklin said. “When they find the general missing, this jungle’s going to be running over with pissed off Japs and no mistake.”
Mischkie bent down and started to pick up Evita Ramone’s body.
“American, please,” Luis whispered. “I will carry her.”
Mischkie nodded. “I’m sorry, Luis.”
Hanklin took the point position. Ballard pushed Goro along with the barrel of his rifle. They moved swiftly back along the trail.
The terrain muffled the machine gun fire peppering the jungle behind them, and a few minutes later the Nambu fire ceased altogether.
“I expect they’ll be sending out those patrols right about now,” said Hanklin.
The trail dropped steadily for the last quarter mile toward the road where they were to rendezvous with Lieutenant Stilwell, their transportation back to Malolos.
Goro tripped on a vine and fell to his knees.
“I … must rest.”
Ballard hauled him onto his feet, barely slackening his own pace.
“You’ll get a nice long rest when we get where we’re going. Keep moving, General.”
They gained the ridge overlooking the road. A truck engine idled faintly in the night, not far below them.
They pushed on. Valera ran forward from the rear. He said something to Ramone in Tagalog.
Luis, carrying his sister’s body, translated. “A large number of men are closing in on us, very close behind!” He was short of breath.
Stilwell stood nervously beside the tailgate of the truck, waiting for them, smoking a cigarette. When they broke from the trail, rushing across to him, he threw the cigarette away.
“Nips on our tail,” Ballard barked. “Better call in that air strike.”
Luis carefully set his sister’s limp body inside the truck bed and hoisted himself aboard. Ballard, Hanklin, and the two Filipino guerrillas started to board.
A half dozen Japanese soldiers burst across the road from the trail and opened fire. Castro and Valera tumbled to the ground and did not move. Ballard saw the lieutenant at the front of the truck start to climb into the cab when the hail of fire cut him down, too.
Blood Red Sun Page 6