The Guardhouse Murders

by Don DeNevi

  “Wow!” exclaimed Peter, “A whole lot of supplies, I’ll say.”

  “Yeah, but not the heavy hospital iron. That stuff is only in designated U.S. Army ‘Fixed’ Hospitals, for us, the nearest being Camp Pendleton. There, four general hospitals, including convalescent, evacuation, and surgical, are grouped into a single administrative and clinical organization known as a Hospital Center.”

  After perusing the contents of other wall cabinets in preparation for his initial infirmary assignment, Peter and Warrant Officer Campbell sat down at a small table near Dr. Fisherly’s office. For a long moment, both men remained silent as they relaxed, observing the normal sick-call activity, prisoners arriving and departing, and listening to the surmising and speculating of physicians and corpsmen of varying illness, aches and pain complaints. All the while, Peter reflected that the quality of medical attention and response left much to be desired.

  Just then, an MP walked up and without comment, handed the warrant officer a sealed envelope. Quickly tearing it open, and scanning it in seconds, he turned to Peter and said, “It’s about you. From Headquarters. It reads that for the rest of the day, you’re free to relax, settle in within our sick halls. You can’t enter the corridors or wander about. You violate those orders and you’ll be confined to your basement cell 23 hours a day. But later this afternoon, you’re to complete a full physical, then visit our barber shop before being escorted to the supply depot for the standard issue of Corpsman pants, shirts, socks, boots, and hygiene kit.”

  Peter responded as he continued to gaze at the infirmary activity, “Well, I’m here. No worries about me straying down hallways. I don’t do well in isolation cells 23 hours a way, one hour out to jump around. No, sir, that’s not for me.”

  “Well, smiled Campbell, “whether you’re who everyone says you are, or not, you’ve been delivered through the gates of a notorious, nefarious stockade. No, penitentiary is the correct noun. Plenty of guards, gates, barbed wire fences. Whether a stockade or prison or penitentiary or county jail, it’s all the same thing: Plenty guards, gates, and barbed wire walls and fences. An abyss for a young solider who’s committed a minor crime.”

  “Oh, Officer Campbell, I don’t know if I would refer to it as that,” Peter reproved mildly.

  “Oh, yeah,” waved Campbell, “even a Mad Ghoul murderer will see the extent of an abyss this place is.”

  Time passed so quickly that Peter all but forgot his stockade surroundings, and the purpose of being there.

  As Fall began to break, and winter beginning, the first rains began. On the prison yards, normal standing pools of water overflowed, and minor flooding was the excitement of dull gray days. The first cold snap of the approaching new year had arrived overnight, and the thermometer dropped throughout the Camp Elliott facility, turning the infirmary into a refrigerator.

  Peter’s enervating regime began to tell on him soon after being introduced to Dr. Fisherly and his Warrant Officer Campbell. For days, even weeks at a time, he worked in a state of semi-consciousness.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Peter repeatedly asked himself. “Does all confinement turn you into a state where dream and reality blend into each other, or is it only the result of being in this one?”

  Then, there occurred a chain of events that seemed so totally disconnected yet flowed so violently that he felt his undercover assignment was bearing fruition.

  To remain eagle-eyed focused, Peter carefully scanned the faces of all who entered the infirmary assembled in groups or individually escorted by an MP.

  His search for Sunny had commenced on the first day of his new position as Corpsman as sick-call. He had heard nothing of Sunny for more than a month now, other than a rare, occasional glimpse of him entering or exiting the stockade basement isolation cells. Of course, he was in no position to greet his friend, let alone talk to him. And, as the days passed, Peter’s undefined premonition of death for him, as well as himself, increased.

  Meanwhile, in both the sleeping quarters and infirmary halls, Peter and Warrant Officer Campbell were inseparable. Continual conversations and communications, where one sentence, questions, comments, and acknowledgements or long bulletins of sharing information, were obvious to everyone. Whether in the hour they spent together on the recreation yard, or during the minutes they lined up for meals, they talked. In fact, they lined their cots up in the infirmary staff sleeping quarters to debate, argue, agree and disagree, and simply share random thoughts about provocative issues. Two or three other corpsmen joined them in order to listen in. Everyone, including Dr. Fisherly and Captain Hofmeister, listened in, appreciating the lively and vociferous repertoires Peter and Campbell so obviously enjoyed performing.

  In short, Peter became almost a brother to Campbell, and vice versa. The warrant officer stared what war news was available, as well as all the gossip of the stockade. He criticized whom he considered was the worst MPs, and stockade administrative staff, and praised whom he felt was best. His contempt for Captain Hofmeister knew no bounds. Fisherly, he felt, was the only tolerable official in all of Camp Elliott. His admiration and indignation were irrevocable. And, of all that was shared, pointed out, and confided in, it was the escape routes from the facility that interested Peter the most.

  If questioned regarding the unusual screams emanating from the basement heard throughout the institution when the door to the lower stairwell was inadvertently left opened, Campbell suddenly angered, shaking his head decidedly, “NO! Off-limits! We don’t discuss forbidden subjects!”

  While a cold teeming rain pounded the Camp Elliott stockade late one afternoon, Peter and Warrant Officer Taylor Campbell found themselves together quietly taking inventory in the supply closet of the infirmary. But each bolted upright when two burly MPs, led by an Army Lieutenant, dragged in a bloody, virtually unconscious prisoner.

  For a long moment as Peter and Campbell froze observing the scene, the beaten prisoner sagged in the arms of the MPs who unceremoniously dropped him in a heap. An Army Lieutenant who followed behind them walked past them and shouted loudly, “Who in the goddam hell is in charge here?”

  Patients on cots, capable of ambling from their cots in the sleeping quarters leapt forward as best they could and hurried to the open waiting room. As Dr. Fisherly emerged from his office rubbing his eyes from a nap, he asked loudly, “Why bring that man here?”

  “Basement is flooding. He’s yours now,” answered the Lieutenant as he turned, and with the two MPs, exited the infirmary. In a high-pitched, but calm voice, Fisherly said, “I hope this doesn’t mean the lad has to sleep the everlasting sleep because of a few mean American boys!”

  Glancing at Campbell holding the inventory clipboard, he added, “Warrant Officer Campbell, take charge here. We know that Lieutenant and his MPs It’s likely they give this man their iron heels. Even the Nips aren’t this brutal.”

  The last of the three-man escort party exited the waiting room, one turned and glanced back, bellowing, “Wipe your nose, crybaby, and learn to behave. Good thing our work area in the basement flooded or you’d be on your way to Purgatory.”

  Kneeling before the young Marine withering in pain, Peter heard Campbell whisper, “The two omnivorous, almighty forces of the Elliott stockade at work: painful punishment and sadism.”

  Peter remained silent as he clutched the hand of the young Marine who so obviously appeared tortured. He thought to himself, ‘Such a frightened, pitiful boy.’

  Looking up at Peter, tears in his eyes, he mumbled hoarsely, “Why? Why? What did I do?”

  And with that, while clasping Peter’s hand tightly, he died.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  -

  Navaho Six-bits

  “Who is the poor kid?” Peter asked gently, sensitively, a tear welling up in his eye as he continued kneeling and holding the boy’s hand.

  Campbell, leaning over Peter to study the face, responded quietly, “Not sure. But whomever he is, the fellow took a hell of a beating. One o
f the sons-of-bitching MPs repeatedly smashed his fist into the side of his head. The second MP probably joined in using both, plus his baton. They beat him mercilessly. Such a sad death.”

  “Why? Why?” demanded Peter, angrily.

  “Who knows? But I’ve seen these kinds of beatings before around this place. At this Elliott hellhole, the only arbiter is the Almightiness power of the fucking fist. Some survive and leave here deranged. Others either disappear or die in here, in that spot on that floor,” Campbell relied calmly, his own fists clenched. “It looks like they even stripped off his clothes to better beat, no, torture him. Look at all the welts and cuts and bruises. They sure enjoyed themselves, the dirty bastards.

  Peter, remaining silent, finally looked away. Barely audible, he whispered, “No wonder our infirmary is given the sobriquets, ‘Death’s Favorite Depository’ and ‘The Carnival Satan Loves Most’”.

  At that moment, Dr. Fisher opened the door of his office, stepped out and yelled, “You two stay with the corpse! Hofmeister is on the way with MPs and a stretcher to get it out of here and over to Pendleton.”

  Peter turned back to the deceased Marine and asked “How old do you think he is? 18 or 19?”

  “Barely 17, I’d say. Undoubtedly, he got his mother to go with him to the nearest Marine recruiter and lie that he was 18 or 19.”

  After a slight pause, the warrant officer concluded, “He’s a Navajo Code-talker. Wasn’t too long ago when he arrived. Don’t know his name. Check his dog-tags. Will try to get word to Navajo Six-bits.”

  With that, Campbell walked over and knocked on the doctor’s office door. When Fisher acknowledged his officer, Campbell explained he and Peter would like to visit Navajo Two-bits in his cell to inform the leader of the Code Talkers of the boy’s death. Fisher readily agreed. Since Captain Hofmeister was due at any moment to retrieve the body for autopsy at Camp Pendleton, he would ask for permission for one of his MPs to escort the two to the Code-talker’s cell.

  As it turned out, Hofmeister consented to send Campbell and Peter to the stockade’s second floor attic where a dozen or so windowless isolation cells were housed. While waiting for the MP to be assigned to escort the two naval officers, Campbell took the opportunity to explain who the Code Talkers were and why they had been assembled at camp Elliott.

  “There are some 25 to 30 Navajos in classes at the camp. Here in the stockade we have their leader, Navajo Six-bits, and maybe two or three others, the boy, there, being one. Rarely do they come to the infirmary, because they never get sick. If they do, they suck it up. Anyway, all good men, I hear, never causing any problems.”

  “Why are there three or four in the brig?”

  “Real minor problems. Ignoring rules, restrictions, maybe some drunkenness and fighting, but small stuff. I have no idea what he did. Six-bits will tell us.”

  With the assigned MP pointing the way, Peter and Campbell were led up the flight of steps of the heavily locked stairway, then escorted then down a short corridor past half a dozen grim helmeted, rock-like sentinels.

  Campbell continued, “Weren’t you on Guadalcanal, Lieutenant? I heard the Ghoul didn’t begin his filthy business until he arrived for refitting on that Pavuvu. He and you were together on the ‘Canal’, right? You must have seen and comingled with the Navajos there. Right?”

  “As a young Navy Doctor, I had many duties. One of them was to handle dispensing the malaria pills containing atabrine. In my sector each evening at a designated hour, Marines reported to my tent for their routine pill. So typical, he walked up with his mouth open and I threw the pill as far down his throat as I could. The Navajos arrived as a group, polite, kind, patient good man. I knew of their work, but only by rumor.”

  “Yes, I thought so. Well, at Camp Elliott we’re very proud of them. The Code-talking program, the creation of the Navajo code took place here. The trial demonstrations in 1942-43 were impressive. Guadalcanal proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the Indians of the Southwest, specifically the Navajos and their unique non-translating language, would work. The Japs had no idea what they were listening to. We brought in hundreds of Navajos and they all became ‘specialists’ in the Signal Corps as Code Talkers. The original 29 Code Talkers were in the 382nd platoon.”

  Peter interjected, “I learned in one of my courses that during World War I we used Native American language to code secret messages.”

  “The idea of the Navajo language as a code for the Marine Code was conceived by Philip Johnson whose parents were Presbyterian missionaries. As a boy, he moved with his family to Arizona. He went to school with and played with Navajo kids and learned much of the language. Years later, after attending UCLA and working as an engineer for Los Angeles, Pearl Harbor saw him contacting the USMC signal office to explain the complexity of the never-before-recorded Navajo language. Its fluency could only come from exposure to it beginning at birth. He himself was one of the rare exceptions learning it. No went outside the reservation could speak or understand the language.”

  “Never knew any of this,” Peter murmured.

  “Very few do.”

  “How do you know so much of their story?”

  “Navajo six bits is a close personal friend of mine. He’s not fully Navajo. In fact, he’s a despised half-breed.

  His Navajo mother was from Northwest Arizona. His father, white, works for railroads. He was born on a reservation hospital. It’s a long, involved story I’ll tell you about later. But like himself, native speakers were easy to recruit within weeks of December 7. By March of ‘42, Major General Vogel, the Commander of the Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, among a number of other generals, lined up to watch the presentation of proof Code-talking could work. Some 200 Navajo young men were enlisted as Marines at Fort Defiance, Arizona. All were required to be fluent in English and Navajo. They were not informed of the reason for their recruitment, only that it was a ‘special’ assignment.”

  “I remember. Of the 200, the first 29 enlisted men, placed in the 382nd Platoon went through boot camp and were highly praised at graduation. That night, without the customary 10 days of leave, they were flown to San Diego from Fort Defiance, and from the Miramar Naval Air Station where they piled out of their C-47, lined up, and marched for hours to Elliott. They got here in late June 1942.”

  “Never heard any of this, and I rub shoulders with high Navy, Marine, and Army personnel.”

  “Well, that’s only part of the story. The following morning, the 29 were roused by 5:00AM, breakfasted, and still unaware of the status of their duty, were escorted to a classroom where they learned they would play a new but critical role in the war history of America.”

  By this time, the trio had reached the corridor to the darkened isolation cells on the second floor of the Administration Unit. The MP, who had remained silent on the ascent steps, yet listened intently to the amazing story, turned and said quietly,

  “My buddy was saved by the Code Talkers on Canal. Could you continue your account, Warrant Officer Campbell? It would mean a great deal to me personally.”

  “Of course, Sergeant,” Campbell smiled. “Well, in that first session it was explained the Marine Corps believed a code based upon the Navajo language could be created and utilized during battle. Therefore, the list of assembled men was super-secret and their forthcoming task, super, super task was to construct an alphabet and find accurate equivalents for military terms not found in the Navajo language.”

  “So, the 29 original recruits invented the code with limited direction from command. Meanwhile, Philip Johnson, who never developed a single word of the code, served as an administrator for the new language school, acting as a liaison between the Navajo instructors and the commanders.”

  Peter chuckled. After a few seconds of reflection, he said, “I remember hearing the field test of the code was conducted in mid or late 1942 and it shook up all the military post along the Pacific Coast! Apparently, the Coast Guard intercepted the field test transmission, and alerted everyone
they heard a new form of the Japanese language and an invasion was imminent. The entire California Coast was put on Red Alert! Well, it wasn’t long before it was all cleared up and a new policy was established required everyone up and down the coast to be informed before the Indian code was used during field exercises.”

  The MP and Campbell smiled in wide grins. The warrant officer added, “Yeah, that incident is well-remembered, especially around here where the Code-talking originated. The Navajos of that original team are still laughing about it.”

  Then, after a pause, Campbell said, “Well, let me continue the story.”

  “Six-bits will tell you that at least 250 young Navajo recruits have gone through the Code-talker program with another 100 scheduled for 1945. The original 29, as you may know, were assigned to the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions, including the famed Raider Battalion. They saw action on Canal, Bougainville, Peleliu, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Leyte, and other islands. As you can imagine, the Navajo code has saved, and is saving lives, of our men. It’s proving indispensable, allowing secret military message information to be sent and translated in minutes compared to the hours, even days, of the code machines.”

  “I suppose the boy who was beaten to death was going through the program when he was ordered into the guard house.”

  “Probably,” responded Campbell. “We’ll ask Six-bits.”

  After the MP thanked the two for the cogent history of the Navajo Code Talkers, the blond, colorless man with a tendency toward stoutness led the way to the far end to cell number 8. Peter had not visited this area of the stockade before, surprised the isolation cells were on a second floor rather than in the basement.