by Dean Ing
The old man gravely agreed, and said that it was very, very bad for the woman to be taken. It was his opinion that, whatever Jean-Claude Pelele might promise, he would try to capture all of them as opportunity arose.
He also pointed out something that had been a large question mark among the B.O.F. contingent: the lack of firearms among Pelele's people. In fact, Ohtsu claimed, they had a score of Japanese rifles but, unlike a trained Japanese soldier, had never known how to preserve them against the island's salt air. Naturally, they had given up on such finicky weapons, especially when they had used almost all their ammunition in earlier skirmishes. Then Keikano and his patriarch lapsed into a conversation that was not pleasant for either of them.
"The lad's making a case," said Reventlo softly. "Duffer doesn't fancy it. They're going too fast for me."
Presently, the old man came to some glum decision and, with a couple of head-bobbing had, had's Keikano turned to the others. "It would be unthinkable for Jean-Claude himself to be anywhere but the village on this special night; on that we are agree! But the council house will be guarded now, perhaps by men outside as well. Sirs, none of you has the experience you need to slip into the council house. I am the only one who could do that. My honored grandfather has taught me how to move quietly, and he agrees that you must not try.
Reventlo, with a wry smile: "But he doesn't half like the idea of your doing it, does he?"
FLYINO TI PIECES 36!
A hard swallow. "He does not like it, but he believes that only I can do it."
"He means we're all too goddamn clumsy and noisy,' Coop said. "But a little noise might help him, from the rio quarter.
"Diversion," Reventlo said, nodding.
"The kind that'll kill a flock of birds with one stone. I wa flying a Grumman Goose when it was just an egg, and I'ti not good for much else with this bum stump. If Keikaho cai get me through the jungle to the plane, then he can sneaj back to the council house and I'll goose the Goose. How mucl fuel's in her, Cris?"
"Enough for Yap plus reserve. Not enough to orbit ove Fundabora 'til dawn, and believe me, Coop, you do not wan to put her down in that bay full of stone mushrooms at night I've seen it."
"Weather's good. Hell, I can just taxi out past the breaker,@ shut her down, call for help, and wait for first light before taxi back to that bay. I'll be home free."
"Sure you will," said Lovett. "The damn plane is guarded Coop. You going to shoot your way in?"
A grin, and a shrug. "That's one option. There's other more friendly for a few tanked-up gomers. I'll take a bott il of booze, the.45, and a couple of Myles bombs; see whicl one rates the most respect. Way I see it, ol' Lady Luck want me in the air before she cashes me out. One way or another there's gonna be some prime noise from the Grumman an4 that's when the Twinkie here will have his chance." Hi looked around him.
"Well?"
"Well, you're fucking crazy," said Myles with a laugh "Tell you what, though. If you set fire to the fireworks shed you'd have a diversion for your diversion. Maybe I shoult go along, Coop."
Keikano had been looking earnestly from one of them t4 the other. Now he said, "Sirs? Please. I might bring one o you quietly by my own path. Not two."
"It oughta be me," Myles grumped. "Trouble is, I'vi never flown a Grumman.", moor
"Besides which, I have an idea we'll need you here, Vic," Lovett said.
Keikano softly translated these interchanges to the old man as Lovett went on. "Let's say everything works to perfection; Keikano helps our hostages sneak out, and Coop radios for help while he's floating around with a sea anchor waiting for dawn. What do you think Pelele will be doing before sunup?"
"Rounding up every poor runimy numbnuts who isn't too drunk to walk and hoping they can overrun the cave by sheer numbers if they can't talk us out, which they can't," said Myles.
"I never expected to say we think alike, but there you are," Lovett replied. "Even at best, we need you here, Vic."
"And at worst, Victor," Reventlo said, "we shall well and truly need you here, not plunging a. bout in the bush like some crazed survivalist."
"I'll say this once," Myles said, flushing darkly. "A real survivalist isn't some asshole who looks for ways to risk his neck. He's a guy who intends to pull through and avoids heavy risk when he can. Why the hell I catch myself taking voluntary risks now, when I'm surrounded by solid gold airplanes, is beyond me, maybe I am going nuts. Maybe that's it, but if there's one thing it's not, it's survivalism. So you talked me out of it, boys. Me, I'm gonna hunker down and wait for Coop to call in the Marines." For a long moment the only sound was Keikano, murmuring to the old man. Then, "Gotta go fiddle with my leg. How soon you think we should go," said Coop, easing his rump up on the workbench.
"Ask Keikano," said the Brit. "He's our expert, Qod save US."
tl Coop took the.45, a pair of Myles bombs, and a bottle of awful scotch when he limped off with Keikano around midnight. With some reluctance Keikano accepted a long Japanese bayonet from his grandfather. Other than that he was unarmed.
To avoid a case of jitters, Crispin Reventlo organized a work party. It was now possible to trundle another of the Tojo fighters-Ohtsu stubbornly refused to call it anything but Shoki-to the cave mouth as a gun platform without removing its wings. Sweating, panting, they were entirely ready for almost any suggestion when Ohtsu engaged the Brit in a brief dialogue.
Reventio chuckled and wiped his brow. "He wonders why we don't just start it up and taxi it outside. He's started it many times with only one helper."
"Oh yeah, sure," said Myles, in tones of a man claiming a belief in the Easter bunny.
"I'll try anything at this point," Lovett said. "Can't be harder than this."
The old man wasn't too happy with the way his hardware had been vandalized by these gaijin ruffians, but presently he stood on the wing with Reventlo at the controls, repeating a few instructions several times. He eased his spavined joints down from the Tojo's low wing, ducked around to a maintenance panel near the engine cowl, and sang out a phrase.
And the propeller jerked with a whine of protest, jerked again, now beginning to turn, and then Ohtsu called out once more and Reventlo, watching his instruments intently, did things with his hands and then a furious ka-chuff of white vapor erupted from the huge exhaust stack on one side, and another fuel-rich chuff from the other side, and then came a familiar beat of big pistons steadying into a rhythm, a few ounces of fuel urinating from the cowl onto the coral floor as though from Some great startled beast. Standing at attention near the wing, the impassive Ohtsu caught the eye of Reventlo and made the slightest bow toward him that just might have had a touch of mockery-told you so, round-eye-in it. Off to one side, Myles stood and stroked his beard. Lovett folded his arms, shook his head in disbelief, and grinned like a fool.
The brakes tended to grab but Reventlo coped with it, the propwash hurling bits of debris into the cave as the old fighter, wingtips jouncing, moved downslope a good fifty feet.
Reventlo did not chop the throttle until the craft turned to face across the strip, guns pointing into the jungle.
After another palaver with Ohtsu, the Brit helped his friends lift the tail wheel for a flatter trajectory. "Old fellow tells me these forty mike-mikes have very short range, only a few hundred meters. No possible way they'd reach the village. I suppose that's a blessing."
Myles, who had fired one of the little cannon already, sat in the cockpit and discussed the guns with Reventlo. Lovett made his way up around the low cliff through the tunnellike camouflage Benteen had created, carrying the rifle he had originally taken from Ohtsu. Without his flashlight, well past midnight, it would have been dark as the inside of a python. He sat peering out at the starlit night and tried to relax, imagining what must be happening across the jungle to his right.
When the first sign of a glow rose above the treetops, Lovett moved higher, wondering if Coop had managed to set fire to the fireworks shed.
He strained to sep
arate the faint sounds in some meaningful way without much luck. But when the muffled explosions echoed and, a long minute later, the fireball climbed into the sky, Lovett called below, "We've got some action!"
"We hear it," Myles called back cheerfully. "Music to my ears. But damn shame they had to use up all those goodies at once."
The glow diminished within minutes, finally fading out as Lovett sat above the cave trying not to enjoy Coop's triumph prematurely. If he were Jean-Claude, he thought, right about then he would be rousting warm bodies for a vengeance raid.
Ohtsu was first to hear Keikano's code whistle, and responded with another. Lovett nearly fell headlong getting down from his post, anxious for news of Chip. Little Keikano puffed into the cave sodden wet, bowed to his grandsire, and looked into the group of grinning faces.
Lovett: "Did you see Chip?"
Reventlo: "Did the plane get away safely?"
Myles: "We heard the fireworks go up."
"No, no," said Keikano, catching his breath. "Men around the council house. I could not see a way. Knew I must return tu report. I am-dishonored, sirs."
"Hey, it's okay," said Lovett. "How did Coop make out?"
"It was not the shed that burned," Keikano said, head down, adding something in Japanese for Ohtsu.
"Oh, Lord God," Reventlo whispered. "He says it was the Grumman."
For one thunderstruck moment, no one spoke, then everyone did. Keikano knelt before the old Japanese, who bent to touch the quivering shoulder.
Keikano struggled up again, hands waving before him as if to push the voices aside. In a halting voice he described the disaster.
Coop Gunther had moved among deep shadows with Keikano, near enough to the Grumman that they @saw a pair of beefy gomers sitting at the lagoon's edge with torches stuck into the turf. Keikano had slid into the water, severing cords that kept the plane against the shore, without alerting the men. When he reported back to Coop, the Alaskan asked him to try creating some kind of noise to draw the men off. This Keikano did, circling around, then calling out taunts in a child's falsetto.
When this merely made them rise and shout challenges, Keikano tossed stones. Only then did the gomers surge off with their torches in search of the truant, and Coop actually did make it to the plane-which by this time had floated a few feet from the shore. Coop finally managed to climb aboard and the gomers did not realize this until one of the twin engines coughed to life. Before Coop could get the second engine running, the guards were pounding back to their post, shouting and waving their torches. And when one of them hurled his torch out at the Grumman, now twenty feet from shore, the disaster was triggered.
"He over primed it," said Reventio, when he heard that the water below that engine had burst into flame. "All that high octane pissing out of the engine into the water. Go on, Keikano. That wasn't your fault.,, Keikano had hurled more stones to divert the men, rushing to a better vantage point, but soon others came hurrying to the lagoon and he melted into the shadows. Meanwhile the Grumman's props surged, evidently in an effort to blow out flames that now licked into the engine nacelles. When the fabric-covered trailing edge of one wing began to bum furiously, Coop had gunned both engines, trying to drive the floating bonfire onto Shore.
Because the cargo door was now hidden from Keikano, he could not say whether poor Coop Gunther had got out before the first of the fuel-fed explosions that had been visible across miles of treetops. Keikano had ghosted around the council house to find the place crawling with alert, if juiced-up, gomers. Then he had returned to report that the stalwart old Grumman Goose was no more, its parts spread flaming across the lagoon and its verge.
"I will shoot the first man who tells me our Goose is cooked," Myles said grimly.
No one smiled. Hands at his temple, Lovett said, "Oh, shit."
Reventio nodded. "Shit forsooth," he agreed.
"Bummer," Keikano added, borrowing from the missing Chip. Before Lovett could curse him, Reventlo's radio beeped.
Benteen's first words were, "Did you know Coop is here?"
"We knew they burned the plane," Reventlo told her. "Is he hurt?"
"I can only see through a little hole I've scratched through this damned door," she said, her voice low. "His shirt is half burnt, but-" and now she was sobbing softly, "that's not the worst of it, Cris. Give me a minute." And she tried to choke off her bleats of misery. "I don't think Coop is badly hurt. They were pretty rough on him. Kept shouting in pidgin, and he kept shouting back that it's MI his fault. He doesn't understand them. What he did understand was--oh, hell. They opened a door and flung him into another room and and oh, Cris," crying harder now, "I could see Chip's body lying on the bare floor."
"Chip? How is he," Lovett crowded near the radio, "Could you tell if-"
"Wade? I'm-you know how sorry I am, Wade. I wish you weren't there. How do I say this?" Now Benteen was gulping with the effort to speak. "Chip wasn't moving, and before they shut the door Coop dropped down beside him. He turned and tried to get up, and I've never seen a man look so wild. They slammed the door and Coop was pounding on it and he was-he was screaming, 'Dirty bastards, why did you have to kill an innocent boy?' Oh Wade, Wade, I'm so-"
And briefly, they heard only her broken sobs, and then her transmission ended.
Lovett's body went slack with a cold that was bone deep, and he knew, when the others turned to look at him, that he would lose consciousness if he did not do something right. And this was no time for weakness. He put his head on his knees, drawing deep breaths, willing himself to avoid passin out because there were people who needed his help and now, other people who needed a touch of extinction. He could hear Keikano explaining to his grandfather in tearful Japanese, and in his mind's eye he could see his own daughter Roxanne staring at him in speechless accusation. He sat up straight, stretched a hand out to Myles. "The burp gun, Vic. I have some unfinished business."
"We all do," Reventlo said sharply. "I understand how you feel, Wade, but-"
"Do you? You have any idea what it is to feel a howling cold black wind where your insides were? To know you let your only grandchild walk into a trap set by murderous savages?" Lovett's eyes were dry and hard, his gesture toward the stutter gun a silent demand.
Reventio placed both hands on his friend's shoulders. "Look at me, Wade; look at me. That's better. So far we've let our people saunter off by dribs and drabs, and that hasn't worked well. Ohtsu says his aircraft radios have been useless for dog's years, so now we have no way to get help. Melanie and Coop are prisoners, Chip is-lost to us, and we need to plan our next moves to make best use of everyone. Someone said revenge is a dish best served cold; that means you must remain cool. We came here as a team, and it's important that we act as a team. Are you with me?"
Lovett squeezed his eyes shut, and let a shudder of revulsion rack him.
Then he stared into the Brit's face and nodded. I
"So long as it means cutting off the head of this-this annex of hell, yes."
Keikano's murmured translation had kept the old Japanese informed. Now Ohtsu replied, and Keikano seemed caught up in horrified fascination at what he was hearing.
Reventlo patted Lovett roughly on the shoulder, frowning as he tried to follow the discussion. "Old boy says we have the best way there is to force Pelele to release the hostages. I'm not quite sure I get this;
'kokutai' is a naval squadron but none of us can fly a Tojo, which was an army plane anyway. I'll have no part of that; it would be suicide to try." He waited for a pause, then asked something in Japanese.
In answer, Ohtsu Yohei, late of the Imperial Japanese Naval Air arm, came to attention and raised his right arm. It pointed straight at the gleaming twin-engined naval Betty bomber. When he saw that Revendo understood, he began a dialogue in tones that had a noticeable note of authority, if not command.
To help his friends understand, Reventlo spoke in English and let Keikano translate. Yes, he'd told the truth when he said he had flown a G4M Betty
-a "cigar" in Japanese slang. But he'd had a flight engine@,-r to help. Ohtsu Yohei I could serve as both gunner and flight engineer? Well and I good; but how could they safely remove that dreadful thing under the plane before flight? I Ohtsu told him, and Reventlo's expression tipped Lovett off before he heard the Brit reply, "Take off with the sodding thing? You'd actually sit inside and careen down a rough airstrip hoping I could stay between those trees with a ton of high explosives ready to bounce loose beneath us! I doubt it would take off at all with such a load, let alone drop one. There'd have to be a third man to make sure the bomb shackles worked, too. You understand there's absolutely no question of landing again, with that-that thing slung under our belly."
Myles evidently imagined a vast fire bloom halfway down the runway.
"M@hoa, Jasper," he said, his eyes wide. And Vic Myles enjoyed explosions, as a rule.
"I like it," said Lovett, imagining a Concussion wave with its center on the council house. "But how do we get Mel and coop out?"
Reventlo gave Lovett a quick nod, then faced Ohtsu, who was responding to Keikano's translation. When the old fellow fell silent, Reventlo said, "Yes, Benteen could give them our ultimatum, imd with the tanks holding only an hour's fuel the gross weight should be manageable. But Pelele may simply dare us to drop that awful device on our own people.
He should know damned well we won't." He listened, and rubbed his chin, and looked doubtful as he replied, "Possible. I could fly while you strafe from the nose or upper turret; that would certainly get his attention, prove we're serious-assuming we haven't spread ourselves all over the island. In any case, the council house won't be a prime bombing target; we mustn't hit it with our people inside, and if they're released we're honor bound to leave it intact."
"Honor," Lovett snorted, but nodded grudging agreement.
Keikano had been translating this but now suddenly he broke off. "Sirs,"
he said, "the villagers would not remain in their homes after you passed low over them, firing guns. Especially if I slip in earlier to tell them you intend to destroy everything." He spoke quickly to Ohtsu, whose ghastly dentition showed as he made a smiling reply. Then to the other'rs Keikano said, "My honored grandfather wants to do this because he knows that Jean-Claude has always sworn he would let nothing unpleasant happen to his village. If an Ohka warhead struck the plaza, the honor of Jean-Claude would be lost forever."