Sutherland’s gaze falls on Colonel Harris. “Colonel, we expect you to assign a team headed by Captain Worth to the sole mission of locating this object so we can destroy it by whatever means available, be it aerial bombing, naval gunfire, or both. Scientists tell us it could be rendered useless in this manner without fear of a nuclear explosion, so our forces would not be harmed. No doubt they’ll try to hide it until they’re ready to use it, so this might get a little tricky. Our scientists also tell us it can’t be most effective if it’s submerged, buried, or stashed in a cave. At some point, we would get to see it in the open, perhaps camouflaged. Your mission, Colonel Harris, will not end until that thing is neutralized, even if the invasion is already in progress. And, as I stated before, this info is top secret and not to be divulged. We don’t want to start a panic among our own troops. Am I understood?”
Once again, they nod and say: “Yes, sir.”
But Sutherland is not finished. “Gentlemen, I will also tell you, in the strictest confidence, that we have developed an atom bomb, and we’ll deliver it by aircraft wherever and whenever the President sees fit. Now, I’d like to introduce Lieutenant Commander Mark Colton, US Navy. Commander Colton is a nuclear weapons expert who will be working with you until this mission is successfully completed.”
John Worth sits stoically, viewing the vacant faces on the senior officers around him. All he can think is:
Bullshit. Just a handful of guys and planes, led by a junior officer, to find something supposedly this important? They don’t really believe this thing exists and they don’t care about finding it… they just want to look like they tried on the off chance this whole thing blows up, disturbs their precious invasion, and gets us all killed…they’ll need somebody way down the chain of command to blame. No wonder MacArthur isn’t even here.
But now I’ve got to care about finding the goddamn thing.
As they file out of the conference room, General Kenney pulls Colonel Harris aside and says, “See to it that young Worth gets promoted immediately.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Marge had just finished an unusually easy shift at the hospital. Since John was away in Manila, she had lingered behind to chat with patients as well as the nurses on the opposite 12-hour rotation. She did not feel tired yet. Very few soldiers and airmen had gotten injured or sick lately; even the number of air crewmen wounded over Japan was at low ebb. Most of the nurses’ time was being spent preparing the hospital for its planned move to Kyushu as part of the invasion.
After several animated conversations filling half an hour, tiredness finally overcomes her and she makes her way alone down the darkened walkway to the nurses’ tents. Halfway there, she is startled to come face to face with the shadowy figure of Harmon Mann.
Nervously, she greets him. “Hello, Harm. Nice night, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer.
Where the hell are the MPs? she wonders. They’re usually all over the place.
Smelling the alcohol on his breath, she tries to push past him, but he grabs her arm and half-shoving, half-dragging, propels her into a darkened, empty hospital tent.
“Harmon, stop it right now!” Marge shouts, not quite sure where the courage in her voice is coming from.
“C'mon, li’l Margie…I know you got a thing for Ol’ Harm. We’re birds of a feather, you know.”
“Captain Mann…I’m going to ask you once more to stop this! Let go of me!”
“So you’d rather spread your legs for that dirt-poor plow boy? C’mon, baby…you got more class than that! Ol’ Harm needs some lovin’, too.”
“Save that crap for your Mother!” Marge says, then rams a knee as hard as she can into Mann’s groin.
She has hurt him some but enraged him more. After staggering back, still gripping her arm tightly, he recovers and shoves Marge into a curtained-off section of the tent. As he pushes her against the edge of a desk, she tries to strike his face with her free hand. Mann blocks the blow, then lands a right cross squarely to Marge’s jaw. She falls backwards onto the desk, semi-conscious.
“All right, you teasin’ little slut…you’ve had this coming for a long time.”
Still standing, he leans over her limp form and undoes her fatigue pants. When he has pulled them down to her ankles, he begins to undo his own pants, slurring “I guarantee you ain’t never had it so good, you…”
But his words are cut off by a powerful blow to the back of his head from a pipe-wielding assailant. He collapses in a heap to the floor, below Marge’s dangling feet, his pants around his knees.
The two MPs who have been summoned are puzzled by what they find. Aside from the two groggy, semi-dressed officers, one a female with a badly bruised jaw and one a male bleeding from a scalp wound, there is a length of stout pipe on the floor a few feet away.
The MPs stand like statues, gawking at the half-naked Lieutenant Braden, until Major McNeilly rushes in, throws a blanket across Marge and commands the MP sergeant: “Arrest that man! He tried to rape this nurse!”
“Rape, my ass!” Mann groans from the floor. “She wanted it…she always wanted it!”
“Get this disgrace to the uniform out of here!” McNeilly bellows. The two burly MPs scoop Mann off the floor, repositioning his pants all in the same motion, and hustle him out of the tent.
On the way to the stockade, Mann mumbles, “Do you know who the fuck I am? Do you know who my daddy is?”
The MPs could not care less.
Major McNeilly holds Marge’s battered face gently in her hands and says quietly, “Don’t worry, Marjorie, he never touched you, aside from that wicked punch, of course. Now let’s get some ice on that chin.”
As Marge pulls herself together, McNeilly closes the tent flap and whispers to a shadowy figure lurking outside in the darkness, “Thanks for your help, Sergeant Jaworski.”
Chapter Forty-Three
For a moment, Colonel Ozawa thought he was dreaming. But no, the inscrutable face of the old man staring down at him was real. So were the sounds of Major Watanabe ranting as he beat the sentry who should have been guarding the cave mouth but had fallen asleep at his post. The sentry stood at rigid attention, tears flowing down his cheeks as his head and body absorbed the blows from Watanabe’s fists. He knew he deserved this discipline; he had failed in his duty. The responsibility for this mysterious but seemingly harmless intruder entering their cave was his alone.
Ozawa thought all civilians had been removed from the area. He had seen the dimly-lit processions in the night: miles-long lines of refugees on foot, leaving the coastal areas where the invasion was predicted, heading north, prodded on by soldiers. But no--here was a civilian standing before him, unimpressed by the colonel’s authority, as if he had every right in the world to be there. This was most infuriating. Worse, the visitor could compromise the secrecy of his all-important mission.
“What are you doing here, old man?”
The visitor regards Ozawa coolly. “I could ask you the same, soldier.”
“It is none of your concern. Be on your way.”
“I would prefer not,” the visitor says. “I hear airplanes approaching. I fear it is not safe to be walking these hills now. You hide from the airplanes, too, do you not?”
“Yes, we hide for now, but we will soon avenge the American air pirates.”
The old man’s indifference turns to outright skepticism. “And how will you do that? Does this giant barrel possess some magic power?”
“You ask too many questions, old man!”
“I fear you will bring death upon us all, soldier, and the Emperor will still kneel before the Americans…”
Ozawa has heard enough of this treasonous talk. But before he can say another word, Major Watanabe’s sword finds its mark in the old man’s belly. As the visitor sinks to his knees, mortally wounded, Watanabe withdraws the sword, then raises it high and beheads the old man with one quick stroke.
Ozawa stares at the severed head--the lifeless eyes s
eem to lock his gaze and bore into his soul.
Ozawa feels sure its lips have uttered the words You will fail in perfect English.
Chapter Forty-Four
General Kenney had had enough of Captain Harmon Mann. He hadn’t forgotten the questions surrounding the strange death of Mann’s section leader late last year, a death for which Mann was, quite possibly, responsible. He had initially chafed against the pressure from Washington to bury that incident but ultimately complied. It would have been politically foolish not to.
Then there was the unauthorized flight, the hot-dogging that ended with Mann destroying a P-47 and a ground vehicle, immediately followed by MPs finding him drunk and apparently engaging in a sex act at a field hospital with a nurse, which he claimed was consensual. The nurse’s superior has accused Mann of rape; the nurse herself has not yet pressed charges.
When first hauled in by the MPs, Mann claimed during the consensual encounter he was assaulted by one Captain John Worth, a recon pilot with the 8th Photo Recon Squadron with an outstanding record and an incredibly long time in combat. Kenney knew, however, that Worth was standing before him in Manila on the day of the alleged attack; so did Mann’s commander on Okinawa. When Mann was advised of this fact, he changed his story in an instant, reeling off a list of people who “have it in for me.”
When told that one Major Kathleen McNeilly, US Army Nurse Corps, claimed she witnessed--and thwarted--Mann’s physical attack and attempted sexual assault on her nurse, Mann’s response was, “She’s a lyin’ ol’ bitch!”
Kenney decided it was high time to get this dangerous incompetent with high-level political connections to a safe place until they could dress him up with some bullshit medal and send him home.
Chuck Jaworski is waiting on the ramp as the C-47 brings John and the two colonels back from Manila on a typically rainy afternoon. After saluting the brass, Chuck asks John for a moment of his time.
“What’s up, Chuck?” John asks, as they hurry to the Operations tent, out of the rain and out of the colonels’ earshot.
“I don’t know any easy way to say this, John, so here it is. Mann tried to rape Lieutenant Braden. She’s OK, nothing happened. Me and Major McNeilly put a stop to it.”
John’s face contorts into an expression of pain mixed with hatred. “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”
“Not so fast, John. He’s gone. Fifth Air Force whisked him out of here already.”
“Why? Can’t he be court-martialed right here?”
“Don’t know nothing about that, John.”
Chuck tells John how--two days ago in the early morning hours--he had followed Mann after seeing him skulking around the recon ramp, drunk and looking for trouble. Not finding John, Mann headed for the hospital. Chuck figured he was looking for Marge. Mann found her, too, walking back to her quarters alone. Major McNeilly had also seen him, summoned the MPs, and came running to help.
Then he lets John in on the secret to which only he and Kathleen McNeilly could bear witness. “I clubbed him with a pipe I found laying around. That knocked him out until the MPs got there and arrested him. He had punched her, but he never touched her down there. I could be in deep shit if they find out I hit an officer. Major McNeilly’s swearing that she’s the one swung that pipe. But you know how the brass can turn these things around.”
Putting his hand on Chuck’s shoulder, John says, “You won’t be getting in any trouble, believe me. We’re in debt to you for what you did, Chuck. Thank you…thank you very much.”
“Anytime, Captain.”
John finds Marge already at work at the hospital. Confronted by the ever-present Major McNeilly, he requests a minute of her nurse’s time. She fetches Marge, telling her in a stage whisper loud enough for John to hear, “I’ll give you five minutes to calm lover boy down, then I need you back in here.”
Marge comes out, sporting the bruised chin that is still quite sore. She starts to explain, but John takes her in his arms and says, “I heard all about it. Are you sure you’re OK?”
“I’m fine, baby. Nothing an ice pack won’t fix.”
“That son of a bitch is going to jail…if I don’t kill him first.”
She pulls away from his embrace. “Oh, John, stop it! Nothing is ever going to happen to him!”
“What do you mean? He attacked you!”
“Honey, you forget…my daddy is a lawyer. I’ve spent my whole life watching rich people protect themselves. They don’t accumulate all that wealth so that they can be held more accountable for their actions. Nothing will happen to him…no court martial, no jail…absolutely nothing…no matter what you or I do. He’ll tell the whole world something like our meeting was consensual, and everybody knows what sluts we nurses are, right? Let it go. Just be glad he’s gone.”
John is stunned by her attitude. “But that’s not right, Marge!”
“Oh, Farm Boy, you’ve still got a lot to learn. But please, just let it go. For my sake.”
That quiets him. But she can tell his need for revenge will not be extinguished quite so easily. She changes the subject.
“What happened in Manila, John?”
“Ahh, nothing big. We’ll talk about it at breakfast. But you will have to start calling me ‘Major.’ ”
“Oh, baby! That’s great! I knew it would be something like that!” she says, jumping back into his arms. “OK, gotta go. I love you, Major!” After another quick kiss, she runs back into the hospital tent, back to work.
Later, at breakfast, a cheerful Marge asks, “So what else went on in Manila? Surely they didn’t bring you there just to tell you you’re going to be promoted, right?”
She doesn’t like the look that comes across John’s face as he sits, not speaking, not answering her question. It takes a moment before the awful realization strikes her.
“OH MY GOD!!! OH NO!!! What did you volunteer for this time? I knew there had to be a catch! Oh shit, John, not again!”
“Baby, it’s OK. I won’t be doing anything I don’t already do every day.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better? What is it? What do you have to do now? Fly to Tokyo and present the surrender papers yourself, maybe?”
No, baby, don’t be silly. But I can’t tell you. Believe me, you don’t need to know… and I don’t want you to know!”
“Not comforting, John! Not at all! I must really love you, Farm Boy, because here I am, about to be nauseous, and I’m not even sure why!”
Seeing the panicky look that comes over his face, she quickly adds, “No, you idiot! I’m not pregnant!”
Chapter Forty-Five
Marge Braden and Nancy Bergstrom are creating quite a stir on Kadena as they walk to the Officers’ Mess dressed in their khaki uniform skirts and blouses, overseas caps perched on their heads, on their way to the promotion ceremony for John Worth and a few others. Officers and enlisted men in all directions stop dead in their tracks and watch the two nurses go by; they do not get to see actual female legs very often.
“We should have worn trousers,” Marge says, looking worried.
“Nah, this is much more fun,” Nancy replies, exaggerating the sway in her slender hips as she walks.
“Nancy! You are such a tramp!”
“Careful with the name-calling, sweetie. I’m not the only one who enjoys constant male company around here.”
“True, but you’ve probably set an all-time record for the sheer number of males.”
“Jealous, Margie?”
“Oh, shut up!” Marge says, playfully poking Nancy in the shoulder.
Nancy turns pensive. “You know, honey, if John was flying something with a trigger instead of a shutter, he would have been a full colonel a long time ago.”
Marge ponders that for a moment, until her mind finishes Nancy’s sentence…or maybe dead a long time ago. Then she becomes self-conscious once again from all the attention they are receiving. “I just hope we get there with our virtue still intact.”
“Hell n
o, honey! Let’s hope we don’t,” Nancy says as she blows a kiss to a group of admiring airmen.
The proceedings are quick and perfunctory. Colonel Harris says a few words about each of the officers being promoted: two second lieutenants to first, one first lieutenant to captain, and John, from captain to major. Details include their length of service, where they learned to fly, where they had been posted in their brief military careers. John has the longest combat career by far, and Harris appears overwhelmed by the details. The colonel gets so many of them wrong, his brief treatise on John’s history becomes almost a parody, even referring to his aircraft’s name as “f for farmer.” Maybe he means that to be a joke--but nobody laughs. The monologue has been painful enough to hear, as almost all assembled know far more of John’s exploits than his commanding officer.
But everyone in attendance agrees with one of the colonel’s points: John’s record of time in combat is exceptional, surpassed by few mortal men, and deserving of high decoration.
Although such decoration will not be forthcoming, Marge thinks.
Before the speeches had started, Colonel Harris pulled John aside and, referring to the special mission to which he had been tasked, said quietly, “I hope this shows you how much faith the big brass have in you.”
John nodded stoically, but in his mind nothing at all had changed: Big deal…they’re still just looking to cover their asses.
Harris hands John his new insignia of rank, the gold leaf. Marge, at John’s request, steps forward to pin it to his collar. She cannot help but beam while doing it.
When done, she says, “Congratulations, Major Worth,” and kisses him on the cheek.
A minute later, after a toast to all the promoted, John whispers in Marge’s ear, “Damn, you look great!”
“OK, happy now? I wore a skirt. It’s amazing we didn’t get mauled just walking over here.”
East Wind Returns Page 19