This time, it stayed higher as it flew down the ridge, maybe 100 feet above the treetops. There was a third collective sigh of relief from Jock and his men as the plane passed over the OP one more time. They heard nothing for a few seconds but the diminishing roar of engines…until a rapid series of sharp cracks and dull thuds drove every man face down into the dirt.
When they had the courage to lift their heads again, they found themselves and the ground around them littered with rice. A number of heavy sacks had been dropped from the plane. It was impossible to tell how many, since only a few were still intact. The rest had tangled with tree limbs and split open, causing the rice shower.
Patchett scooped up a handful of the kernels and said, “Did some touch-hole get hitched or something?”
Its mission apparently over, the plane was heading east once again, toward Milne Bay at Papua’s tip or, perhaps, the Solomons beyond.
The walkie-talkie crackled again as both platoons reported in. The news was good: no man had fallen victim to a sack of plummeting rice.
The look of doom had vanished from Gabriel’s face, replaced by a smile. Thanks to the rice bomber, that question from Japanese Headquarters he hadn’t understood was finally starting to make sense:
Kome...one of the words was kome. Japanese for rice. I’m sure of it now.
When Gabriel told Jock and Patchett what he thought had happened, they both smiled, too. The first sergeant patted him on the back and said, “You see, son? You did real good after all. Now, if only we were rice-eatin’ Nip bastards.”
Jock turned to Trevor Shaw and asked, “Maybe the natives could use the rice?”
“Oh, no, Captain,” Shaw replied, “They wouldn’t touch it. Anyone caught with Japanese supplies would be executed immediately.”
Chapter Eight
Day 2
PFC Bucky Reynolds was so anxious he thought he’d vomit right there in the fighting hole he shared with Frank Simms. He knew he wasn’t supposed to make a sound; any noise at all could tip off the Japanese before they were inescapably in the ambush’s trap. His stomach was trying to push its meager contents up his throat. He felt sure its rumblings could be heard a mile away.
Just lying in dirt among the underbrush was making Reynolds nervous. There seemed to be no end to the bizarre and terrifying insects joining them in the hole. There were those stories, too, about that guy from the unit who got bit by a poisonous snake and died back on Cape York. He’d been lying on the ground waiting for the Japanese to come, too. Funny how nobody who was there ever wants to talk about that. It must have been awful. I wish to hell I was back in Los Angeles, walking on the beach with my best girl.
“Hey, Frank,” he whispered to Simms, “do you really think the Japs are going to come?”
“That’s what Lieutenant Pop says. Any minute now. What do you think the whole fucking platoon’s hiding out here for, you nitwit?”
“Frank…I don’t know if I can shoot anyone. What we did last night at The Morgue…that was terrible. It was just slaughter.”
“Yeah, and with any luck, this will be a slaughter, too. Just so I don’t have to do it with no knife again. Now be quiet, for cryin’ out loud.”
Bucky Reynolds’s eyes grew even wider with terror. “A knife? You’ve killed guys hand to hand?”
“For the last time, shut the fuck up, Bucky.”
Frank Simms’s body tensed when he saw the first Japanese soldier, still far down the trail. He cradled his M1 rifle into firing position. “Here they come,” he whispered to Reynolds. “Remember your field of fire…you get from twelve o’clock to two o’clock. I’ll take from ten o’clock to twelve o’clock.”
Bucky Reynolds wasn’t paying a bit of attention. He saw that first Japanese soldier, too, and when he did, his eyes promptly slammed shut. Maybe he’d fire when he heard the others open up. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, he didn’t want to see what was about to happen.
Simms watched with cold detachment as the Japanese neared the kill zone. Hot damn! These Nips got their heads up their asses just like that bunch at The Morgue. Looks to be about twelve, just like Lieutenant Pop said, all close together like they’re in some fucking parade, rifles slung on shoulders. Look at these assholes! They’re even in step! Come on, come on…just a little farther...
And then someone in Papadakis’s platoon made a noise from across the trail, a clink of metal against metal that definitely wasn’t a natural sound of the forest.
The Japs took off on the dead run for cover in all directions. Rifles that had been shoulder-slung a split second ago were ready to shoot from the hip, the long, gleaming bayonets at their muzzles leading the charge.
It seemed like an eternity before the Americans began to fire. The two .30-caliber machine guns, whose interlocking fire was supposed to have formed an inescapable death trap, chattered pointlessly away, plowing up nothing but the deserted trail.
American M1s and Thompson submachine guns added their racket, but the wily Japanese riflemen were no longer where they were supposed to be. This ambush had devolved in an instant from a guaranteed killing field to a shooting gallery with pop-up targets that shot back.
Frank Simms had no idea if the shots he fired had hit anything—and he was pretty sure his partner, Reynolds, hadn’t fired at all.
Not 10 yards in front, three Japanese popped up and started running toward Simms. He squeezed the trigger once—twice—three times. Only the Jap in the middle went down.
“BUCKY, THE ONE ON THE RIGHT! TAKE HIM!”
Simms fired again—and the Jap on the left went down.
“BUCKY! SHOOT, DAMMIT!”
From the corner of his eye, Simms watched Reynolds wrap his arms over his helmet as he tried to flatten himself farther into the hole.
The last Jap was only feet away. Simms let loose a half-aimed shot that did nothing to slow his progress.
There was no ignoring that ping—the sound of an M1’s empty clip being ejected. Frank Simms was out of bullets.
He grabbed for Reynolds’s M1—he ain’t using it—but there was no time. The last Jap streaked over the hole, jabbing down at Simms with his bayonet as he ran.
A knife…a fucking knife, right in my fucking thigh…
Never breaking stride, the last Jap pulled the trigger as the bayonet unstuck. And then he vanished into the trees down the slope.
The platoon’s firing petered out, ending with one short, final burst of a Thompson. There was no one else to shoot at. All the Japs were dead but the one that got away. Blown ambush or not, the Americans had still outgunned them by more than two to one.
Sounding frantic, Lieutenant Papadakis shouted, “ANYONE HIT?”
Frank Simms was the only man who replied. “Yeah, me,” he said, sounding more annoyed than in pain. “But one got away, Lieutenant. He went down the hill.”
Bucky Reynolds had finally opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the warm, wet stain of urine in the crotch of his pants. The next was Frank Simms’s smoldering trouser leg. Reynolds did the only thing he could think of: he poured water on it from his canteen.
“I don’t see any blood, Frank,” Reynolds said.
“I don’t see any blood, either,” the medic added as he nudged Reynolds out of the way. “Let’s take a look here...”
The medic cut the trouser leg open with scissors and took a good, hard look. “Aside from a little powder burn, there isn’t anything wrong with you. The skin isn’t even broken. Whatever hit you went through a loose flap of your pants leg and into the ground.” He moved Simms’s leg, revealing the deep, smooth slit the bayonet made in the dirt.
Frank Simms flexed his leg. It seemed to work just fine.
Lieutenant Papadakis had already ordered their squad to pursue the last Jap. Frank Simms jumped up and pulled Bucky Reynolds to his feet. “Come on, Pisser,” Simms said, “we’ve gotta catch up with the squad. We ain’t done yet.”
At the OP, the sound of the firing from the ambush site erupted
as a thunderous roar, as if entire battalions were locked in combat rather than just a few squads. Every man in the OP’s perimeter was very glad to be where he was at the moment and not in the middle of all that flying lead. Each knew that but for the luck of the draw, it would have been his platoon—Lieutenant Wharton’s—on that ambush instead of Papadakis’s men.
A BAR gunner on the perimeter turned to his ammo man and said, “That asshole platoon leader of ours must have been born with a four-leaf clover up his ass. I’ll let The Wart flip a coin for me any day.” The gunner laughed as he said it. He imagined Lieutenant Wharton would be mightily pissed if he knew his men called him The Wart.
Masked at first in the racket of gunfire was a strange, high-pitched screaming. But as the firing died out, the screaming was painfully obvious. It was coming from the middle of the perimeter. The prisoner—Lieutenant Oshida—was its source.
Bound to a tree and blindfolded, Oshida still knew what all the shooting meant: the relief watch, inbound to the OP, was in a fight with the Americans. But maybe if I can alert my comrades that I’m here…
Corporal Bogater Boudreau stuck the muzzle of his Thompson against Oshida’s cheek. “I’m thinking you best shut the fuck up, Tojo,” Boudreau said, “before I blow your fucking brains out.”
Melvin Patchett strode over and said, “A little late to be killing him now, don’t you think, Bogater?”
“We should’ve killed him right off, Top,” Boudreau replied.
Patchett shook his head. “Nah…there’s no point. But give him a good butt-stroke to the head and shut his damn fool mouth.”
Boudreau grabbed his Thompson by the barrel and swung it like Babe Ruth. As Oshida collapsed against the tree holding him captive, only his faint moans made it clear the mighty blow hadn’t killed him.
The torrent of gunfire from up the mountain had terrified Virginia Beech and the native porters she led as they made their way to the OP. The silence that followed was just as unnerving: who had won the fight? Walking more cautiously now, they continued their trek, praying the Yanks had succeeded in what they set out to do.
It was hard to tell who was more startled: Virginia or the Japanese soldier who popped suddenly onto the trail before her. The porters following her froze in panic. They knew if they were caught by the Japanese, carrying that radio set and the boxes of supplies with the letters “US” stenciled all over them, they were as good as dead.
The Japanese soldier gave a quick, panicked glance up the mountain over his shoulder. The motion swung the rifle in his hands toward Virginia and her men.
It was just a simple reflex: she pulled the trigger of her shotgun.
Virginia was too close to miss, too close not to do some serious damage. The shotgun’s blast separated the Japanese soldier from his rifle and flung him to the ground like a discarded rag doll.
There, Ginny…you’ve killed a bloody Jap. Are you happy now?
Virginia Beech struggled to answer the voice in her head but no words would form. She didn’t need any words to know she was decidedly not happy.
The shotgun sounded like a cannon’s blast to the American squad racing down the mountain, alternately running, stumbling, and falling as they tried to keep their footing on the steep, rough slope. In a few moments, Virginia and her party came into view below—and so did their quarry, the last Jap, sprawled in a heap on the trail.
Still some distance up the slope, an American called out, “Miss Beech, are you okay?”
In a voice that sounded a thousand miles away, she replied, “Sure, Yank. I’m bloody brilliant.” She never turned to look at the Americans. Her gaze was fixed on the Jap lying bloody and motionless before her.
At last, the Americans could stop trying to run down this steep mountainside. The men of the squad weren’t sure which had been the more feared part of the pursuit: being shot at by their quarry or falling and becoming a rolling projectile that wouldn’t stop plummeting downhill until crashing into a tree.
Sergeant Brody, the squad leader, unwittingly chose the latter option. He might have tripped or simply lost his footing. Either way, he had turned into that rolling projectile, separated from his weapon and helmet, and, propelled by the steady and unforgiving hand of gravity, tumbled through the stunned and speechless line of porters. Brody’s plunge didn’t end until he bounced off one tree trunk—like hitting a bumper in a pinball machine—and finally came to rest wrapped around the trunk of another.
His thin plea drifted back up the slope: “Medic.”
Beginning their journey up the trail to the OP again, Virginia’s entourage had doubled. Besides herself and her 10 porters, there was now the 10-man squad from Lieutenant Papadakis’s platoon, 9 of them on their feet. Two carried a loudly groaning Sergeant Brody, sitting up on a makeshift stretcher made of rifles and GI shirts, clutching an arm to his chest. Two more carried the barely conscious last Jap stretched between them, his limp body swinging like a hammock.
They were still a five-minute walk from the OP when Papadakis and the medic caught up.
After quick examinations, the medic told the lieutenant, “Brody will live, but he’ll need to be evacuated once we can. He’s got a busted collar bone, probably a concussion, too. I’m betting the rest of him is sprained pretty bad all over.” The medic turned to Virginia Beech: “But this Jap…what the hell are you carrying there, ma’am? An elephant gun?”
“Something like that,” she replied.
“Well, he’s leaking like a fountain all over. I don’t think I can save him…not without blood to give him.”
“You’d bother trying to save him, Doc?” Papadakis asked.
“It’s not that I want to, Lieutenant. But I’m supposed to.”
Chapter Nine
Day 2
The last Jap died at the OP as the sun began to set. Travis Shaw directed two natives to carry his body to the common grave. Shaw told Jock, “Once we add this one, we’ll have buried them all.”
The natives had only taken a few steps with their somber cargo when Virginia Beech asked them to stop. They set the corpse down on the ground and took a few steps back, leaving her room to stand over the man whose death she had caused. To those watching, she seemed to be offering a silent prayer.
In a moment, she was done, and with a wave of her hand signaled the natives to continue their pallbearing duties. She didn’t watch them carry the body off; still cradling the shotgun, she turned and walked toward the spot she had placed her bedroll. Halfway there, she noticed Melvin Patchett watching her.
“What are you bloody looking at?” she asked. Patchett wondered whether she’d turn that shotgun on him next.
“Don’t mean no offense, Ginny,” Patchett replied. “I just thought you might need some talking.”
“Talking about what?”
“Like what you were thinking over that Jap’s body.”
“What do you care, Yank?”
“Because I know a little something about killing. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”
“You’ve got that right, Yank.”
Patchett laid his hand softly on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away from his touch.
“You’ll feel real bad for a while…but it’ll pass, Ginny.”
Her laugh startled him. “Oh, no, Yank,” she said. “I don’t feel bad at all about killing the little bugger.”
“So what were you saying all quiet like to his corpse?”
“I was telling him he let me down. I finally get my chance at revenge on one of those murdering little bastards, but it wasn’t the big whoop-de-do I was hoping for. It just feels like another chore got done.”
She took pleasure in his open-mouthed surprise. “Does that make me evil?” she added.
“No, I reckon not,” Patchett replied. “But revenge? For them killing your husband?”
She nodded.
Now it was her turn to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But we can’t have everything we bloody well want, can we
, Yank?”
Patchett smiled as he said once again, “No, I reckon not.”
Virginia smiled back. “Maybe there’s something I can have, though,” she said. “I’d like to call you something other than Yank all the time…and first sergeant is a little too bloody formal for my taste. What’s your real name?”
“My friends call me Patch, Ginny.”
She extended her hand. As they shook on it, she said, “Nice to finally meet you all proper, Patch.”
Theo Papadakis needed a moment alone with his thoughts. Everything he attempted this day had ultimately been a success—but crushing failure always seemed to be hovering an inch away:
Every screw-up that happened…the Jap who almost escaped at the bunkhouse, the one who almost escaped the ambush, Brody getting hurt…they were all my fault. I’m better than this. I know I am…
There’s one thing about the Army, though—you’re never alone. There’s no such thing as privacy when you wear the green. Bob Wharton was proving that right now; Papadakis could feel him hovering a few steps behind. He could sense the smirk on Wharton’s face before he turned to meet it.
“Great fucking ambush, Greek,” Wharton said. “One gets away and you get a squad leader hurt to boot. How very competent of you.”
“Nobody got away, Bob.”
“Still sounds like a pretty fucked-up deal to me. Oh, and by the way, Greek, don’t come looking for any of my NCOs to fill Brody’s slot.”
“I don’t need any of your NCOs,” Papadakis replied. “I’m moving a corporal up to squad leader. The captain’s already okayed it.” The Greek turned and began to walk away. “But there is a big favor you can do me, Bob.”
“Yeah? What’s that, Greek?”
“You can go fuck yourself.”
As darkness descended, the radio waves came alive. Trevor Shaw’s wireless was functioning as advertised. Task Force Blind Eye had made contact with Operation Long Jump’s command element, still over the horizon on the Coral Sea.
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 5