Shaw added, “For whatever it’s still worth…if we moved, we wouldn’t have the Japanese landline anymore.”
Ginny Beech’s voice, disembodied by the darkness, rang out some bad news: “The landline won’t be much of a bloody problem anymore, gents. Go ahead, Gabriel. Tell them.”
They couldn’t see the boy’s face, either, but his voice conveyed all the necessary dread by itself: “It’s dead, Captain Jock. The line’s dead. I ring and ring, but there’s no one at the other end.”
Chapter Twelve
Day 4
It might just as easily have been Japanese soldiers climbing the mountain instead of goats, and they all knew it. As the watch changed at 0300—with Wharton’s platoon replacing Papadakis’s on the perimeter—those coming on duty had at least slept a bit, until the thunderous intrusion of the goat slaughter put an end to it. Those coming off duty would catch no sleep at all, with one exception: Ginny Beech, having turned over the radio monitoring to Trevor Shaw, crawled into her bedroll and was snoring in a matter of minutes.
“I’m glad at least someone’s getting a little sleep around here,” Jock said, the dim light of the radio’s dials making his face seem all the more drawn and tired. “How are you holding up, Commander?”
Shaw was certain Jock’s question could easily be rephrased to something like this: How long before you collapse from exhaustion, old man? He found that amusing; he felt far better than this Yank some 30 years his junior looked at the moment.
“I’m doing quite well, Captain,” Shaw replied. “No need to worry about me.”
“That’s pretty amazing, Commander…I mean for—”
Shaw’s burst of laughter cut him short. “You mean for one so ancient, Captain?”
“Oh, no, sir…I didn’t want to…”
Shaw gave Jock a friendly pat on the back. “It’s all right, Captain. I guess to someone of your age…How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m twenty-eight, Commander.”
“Hmm…I would have thought you a bit younger. But still, at the ripe old age of sixty-three, I must seem like some relic of a bygone era to you.”
It was Jock’s turn to laugh, but in his state of exhaustion, it came out as more of a groan. “Oh, no, Commander,” he replied, “not anymore. That’s for sure….but can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Captain.”
“Why don’t you carry a firearm?”
“I’ve never been fond of the bloody things,” Shaw replied, “and I’ve never been much of a shot. Virginia has provided all the firepower I’ve needed. Quite competently, I might add.”
“Yeah, we’ve noticed her abilities. But still, sir, in a place as wild as this—”
“Captain, the natives have survived here for thousands of years without guns. I suppose I can manage the few years I have left without them, too.”
Dawn broke once again, marking Task Force Blind Eye’s fourth day on Papua. No Japanese soldiers had come in the night—and no American invasion fleet had come with the morning. Trevor Shaw had spent the pre-dawn hours combing the frequencies for any hint of radio traffic that might suggest the invasion was still on, but the airwaves were just as empty as the sea that stretched before them.
“That could be good news,” Jock said, struggling to sound optimistic. “Radio silence could mean they’re getting ready to invade again.”
Melvin Patchett seemed to be speaking to the vacant sea as he replied, “Or it could mean those bastards have given up on the whole damn idea.” His words were anything but disheartened, though. Quite the contrary, they sounded full of renewed purpose.
“Let’s not write them off just yet, Top,” Jock said as he headed off to tour the perimeter.
“As you wish, sir.”
Not far from the radio set, Ginny Beech was sitting up in her bedroll, her arms stretched skyward to greet the new day. She heard every word Jock and Patchett said.
“Tell me, Patch,” she said, “is your captain always so bloody optimistic when there’s no reason to be?”
“A fine good morning to you, too, Miss Ginny,” Patchett replied as he squatted next to her. “Let’s just say our captain can be a very determined man when—”
His words were cut short by the snarl of aircraft steadily growing louder. As all eyes tried to catch a glimpse of the planes through the trees, a GI standing near the radio’s tent-like shelter laughed and said, “Anyone order some more rice?”
The joke sagged like a wet balloon. They could make out the planes now: there were two of them—single-engined fighters in echelon formation—flying across the face of the mountain.
“THEY’RE ZEROES,” Jock called as he sprinted back to the OP, “EVERYONE STAY DOWN!”
Patchett nudged Ginny Beech into a fighting hole. “Stay put and keep your head covered,” he said. “If they drop anything, it ain’t gonna be no rice, that’s for damn sure.” He tapped the muzzle of the shotgun still cradled in her arms. “And don’t be shooting that blunderbuss at them, neither.”
Hurrying to Jock’s side at Shaw’s radio set, Patchett asked his captain, “Same rules of engagement, sir?”
“Yeah, Top. Absolutely.”
“Better remind them, then,” Patchett replied. He grabbed the walkie-talkie and spoke into it, his words flowing slowly and calmly: “All Blind Eye units, this is Six. Do not engage. Repeat, do not engage. Acknowledge, over.”
The voices of Wharton and Papadakis spilled from the walkie-talkie in turn, each offering a terse roger.
Staying in echelon, the Zeroes banked sharply, turning 180 degrees to line up for a pass down the ridge. They stayed high, a few hundred feet above the peak, and whizzed overhead without firing a shot. They passed close enough, though, to give those on the ground a good look at their undersides.
“At least they ain’t carrying no bombs,” Patchett said. “All we gotta do now is maybe dodge some bullets.”
The Zeroes flew a racetrack pattern over the mountain ridge, lining up for another run. This time, they flew lower, zooming down and pulling up sharply once they had passed the OP. They didn’t fire their guns this pass, either.
Patchett mumbled, “Ain’t we seen this act before?”
They flew the racetrack pattern once again and began their third pass. The lead plane dipped even lower this time, looking as if it would brush the treetops. As it bore down on the OP, Theo Papadakis, without his helmet and holding what looked like a rolled bundle of white cloth, jumped out on the trail that ran along the peak. Standing like a human flagpole, he let the bundle of cloth—a Japanese flag of the Rising Sun—unfurl and flutter in the gusty wind above his head.
The flag wasn’t the only thing fluttering in the wind. The Zeroes, like the rice bomber two days ago, had flown into the turbulent air swirling around the mountain top. But the lead plane was much too low. Thrown around like a child’s toy, it dropped suddenly, catching a treetop with a wingtip, and cartwheeled quickly to the ground, slicing through trees like a sawmill’s blade run amok. The trailing Zero pulled up sharply, its engine straining to pull itself from a similar fate. Theo Papadakis turned and stood motionless on the trail—the flag flapping around him like Superman’s cape—and watched the last Zero break free of the wind’s grasp and flee toward Port Moresby.
Papadakis was still standing there—stunned, mouth open—when Jock and Patchett approached. His voice more incredulous than angry, Jock asked, “Just what the hell did you think you were doing, Lieutenant?”
Hesitantly, The Mad Greek began his explanation: “I figured I was the smallest, darkest guy here. From the air, I’d look more like a Jap than anyone. Maybe I could fool them.”
Patchett asked, “Where the hell did you get that flag, Lieutenant?”
“One of my men found it in The Morgue. Thought he’d keep it for a souvenir.”
Jock put his arm around Papadakis and ushered him back under the cover of trees. He couldn’t help but smile as he said, “Theo, you’ve got to be the only guy who e
ver shot down a plane with a flag.” Then the smile vanished from Jock’s face and his voice turned military. “Now get a patrol together on the double and go see about that pilot, Lieutenant.”
As Papadakis scurried off, Patchett said to Jock, “How long you figure before them Japs send a search party up here, sir?”
“Not long, Top. Not long.”
Chapter Thirteen
Day 4
The patrol was back from the crash site in less than an hour. “The pilot’s dead, sir,” Lieutenant Papadakis said to Jock. “That plane’s twisted up like a ball of tin foil…it didn’t even burn. We cut him out of the cockpit…but he didn’t make it. Pretty sure his neck’s broken.”
Jock turned to Trevor Shaw and said, “I suppose your men can bury one more?”
“That won’t be until tomorrow, Captain,” Shaw replied. “It’ll take that long to deliver the goat carcasses to their village and return.”
“No problem,” Jock said, “the body isn’t going anywhere. How far is the crash site from the perimeter, Lieutenant?”
“I make it at two hundred yards, sir,” Papadakis replied. “Maybe a little less.”
“Good,” Jock said. “At least it’s far enough away we won’t smell it. Give the coordinates to the mortar section, so they can mark it as a target.”
Corporal Bogater Boudreau broke open his K ration lunch packet, scowling as its contents spilled into his lap. “Damn,” he said, “we fucked up, we did. Shoulda kept some of that goat meat and cooked it up.”
Sergeant Tom Hadley almost spit out his mouthful of canned pork. “Are you kidding, Cajun?” he said. “Those goats were so shot up we’d be picking lead from our teeth for days. No, thanks.”
Bogater frowned and shook his head. Tearing into the package of crackers, he said, “With all due respect, Sarge, you Yankees just don’t know what good is.” After a long, savoring chew on a cracker, he added, “But y’all realize if we’re stuck here much longer all by our lonesome, these K rations will get ate up…and them goats will look pretty damn good to y’all.”
The lunch conversation was doing nothing to soothe Bucky Reynolds’s frayed nerves. He doubted he could eat a thing; he hadn’t even bothered to open his K ration packet yet. It didn’t help that at mid-morning they had watched three Japanese warships sail majestically from the east into Fairfax Harbor. Bucky swore the huge vessels were battleships, but the others had laughed at him and said they were only destroyers. That old Australian gentleman, peering at the ships through his ancient telescope, had added the destroyers were pretty old ones, definitely not first line. In fact, two of them appeared to be quite damaged, but those words had done little to comfort Bucky Reynolds. Then there were the airplanes—constant streams of them flying around Port Moresby. And every last one of those airplanes was Japanese.
At least they stopped flying close to this mountain, Bucky thought. But that one did crash. They’re going to be looking for it…and we’re just sitting here, just half a company of us, waiting for them. When they come, it’ll probably be a battalion at least, with heavy mortars and artillery and maybe tanks and…
He didn’t realize he was shaking. Sergeant Hadley grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “Hey, Reynolds…you okay? I can’t have anyone in my platoon getting sick out here.”
Bucky tried to control the shaking, but it wouldn’t stop. “I don’t know, Sarge,” he said, “I’m just soooo nervous. I can’t help it.”
“Join the club, kid,” Hadley replied. “We’re all nervous. Scared, too. You wouldn’t be in your right mind if you weren’t.”
“There’s all different kinds of scared, though,” Boudreau said, as he eyed the unopened ration packet in Reynolds’s lap. “If you ain’t gonna touch that chow, Private,” he said, “maybe you wouldn’t mind sharing it with your buddies here.”
Gabriel Lakai had gone to his village along with the natives hauling the goat carcasses. It had been days since he was home, but with the Japanese landline no longer working, he wasn’t needed around the clock at the OP anymore. He hated to leave, though. When he was there with Commander Shaw, Miss Virginia, and the Americans, he had a sense of being in the middle of something very important. They were making history, and his eagerness to be a part of it showed.
That’s why Trevor Shaw and Jock Miles knew the boy would be back—but they hadn’t expected him today, a mere eight hours after he left. But here he was, in late afternoon, panting for breath and looking very distressed.
“They’re coming, Captain Jock,” Gabriel said, struggling to get the words out between breaths. “The Japanese…many of them.”
“No kidding,” Jock said, putting his binoculars down. “We noticed some artillery setting up near the base of the mountain. Looks like there’s infantry with them, too, but we can’t see them for the trees anymore. Are they coming up the mountain now, Gabriel?”
“Yes, Captain Jock.”
“And you ran all the way back up here?” Jock asked.
Still struggling to catch his breath and talk at the same time, Gabriel exhaled his answer: “Yes.”
Jock and Patchett shared the same thought: This kid just ran up a whole mountain. Sure, he’s out of breath, but he still doesn’t look half as exhausted as the rest of us.
Jock asked, “You said there were many. Do you have any idea how many?”
“I’m not sure, Captain Jock…but I saw the leader. He was riding a horse. I think he was a captain…like you.”
“Sounds like a company, sir,” the first sergeant said. “Some fucking OP this is. We can see stuff a hundred miles away, but we can’t see some Nips right under our damn noses.”
Trevor Shaw took another look through his telescope and asked, “Can that artillery reach us from down there?”
“Yep,” Jock replied. “Not much of a shot for them at all.”
“No shit, sir,” Patchett said, checking his wristwatch, “and that infantry can climb up here in about an hour or so, if somebody’s kicking them in the ass real good. They’ll bring their mortars with them, too.”
Trevor Shaw asked, “Can we hit those guns down there with our mortars?”
“Theoretically, yes,” Jock said, “but with this enormous vertical interval, God only knows where the first rounds will land. By the time we adjust them on target, they’ll move, if they’ve got half a brain. We can’t afford to waste ammo like that.”
Shaw wasn’t happy with that answer. “But we can afford to let them shell us at will, Captain?”
His voice cold and unwavering, Jock replied, “Listen, Commander, you’re free to leave whenever you like.”
“No, Captain Miles, that’s not what I meant at all—”
Jock cut Shaw off: “We don’t have time for this.” Turning to Patchett, he said, “Top, let’s sweep the perimeter one more time. Make sure every swinging dick is under the best cover he can get.”
Before Patchett moved off to the perimeter, he took Gabriel by the arm and said, “Son, get yourself into that nice, deep hole over there with Miss Ginny…and stay put until I tell you different.”
Just like Melvin Patchett surmised, it was one hour on the dot when the first Japanese probe approached the perimeter’s southern sector. Lieutenant Bob Wharton’s hushed voice hissed from the walkie-talkie: “We see them…about fifty yards down the slope. They haven’t seen us yet.”
The impulse struck Jock and Patchett simultaneously: that blindfolded prisoner of ours…he may not be able to see shit, but maybe with all this debating going on, he can sense something’s about to happen. We’d better gag him before that big mouth of his warns his buddies we’re here.
Patchett ordered the GI serving as the OP’s runner to take care of that simple task, but the soldier replied, “With what, First Sergeant? I ain’t got nothing to—”
Patchett cut him off with a withering glance. “You got some spare socks in your pack, numbnuts?”
Before the runner could sputter an answer, Ginny Beech was moving toward
the bound and blindfolded prisoner. “Never mind, you wankers,” she said. “I’ll bloody do it.”
In a matter of moments, she dazed Lieutenant Oshida with a butt-stroke from her shotgun across his face, stuffed a bandana from her pocket into his slack mouth, and then tied it all in place with the bandana from around her neck.
Stunned by her handiwork, Patchett said, “Geez, Ginny…we didn’t plan on suffocating the man.”
She just shrugged and replied, “Wouldn’t that be a bloody shame?”
On the southern perimeter, Lieutenant Bob Wharton’s hands were shaking as he peered over the edge of his fighting hole. He counted eight men—a squad of Japanese, more or less—advancing with slow, careful steps up the mountainside in a ragged V.
Wharton tried to calm himself: They’re just scouts…this can’t be an all-out attack. It’d be great if they walked right in without seeing us. Then we could jump up and take them out from behind with bayonets. No noise. Their buddies down the hill would never know what happened to them.
But the lieutenant knew that was just a pipe dream: One of my jackasses will get all panicky and start shooting. Come on, guys…I’m begging you, please: Just let ’em get as close as you can.
The jackass who fired first turned out to be Bob Wharton. What came next was a ragged fusillade of shots—all from the GIs. It was over very quickly. Every one of the eight Japanese was down.
Every Japanese soldier waiting farther down the hill heard it—all 120 of them.
He was close! He saw me…I know he did! Kill or be killed, right? Wharton was so busy trying to rationalize his panic he forgot he was in charge of a platoon.
Sergeant Mike McMillen jumped into the leadership void left by his lieutenant. He called out, “Anybody hit?”
After all squads reported no casualties, McMillen called out once again, “How about you, Lieutenant? You okay?”
Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Page 7