Operation

Easy Street

A Jock
Miles WW2 Adventure

By

William
Peter Grasso

Novels by William Peter Grasso:

Moon Above, Moon Below

A
Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure

Operation Fishwrapper

Book 5 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series

Operation Blind
Spot

Book 4 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series

Operation Easy
Street

Book 3 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series

Operation Long
Jump:

Book
2 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series

Long Walk To
The Sun:

Book
1 in the Jock Miles WW2 adventure series

Also
available in audiobook format

Unpunished

East Wind Returns

Kindle
Edition

Copyright 2014 William Peter Grasso

All rights reserved

****

Cover design by Alyson Aversa

Cover photo courtesy of United States National Archives

Map data: Google

Kindle Edition, License
Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like
to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for
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not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase
your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Operation Easy Street is a work of
alternative historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people,
events, and locales in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is purely
coincidental. Time lines of actual events depicted may be modified. Events that
are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point in time or
may not occur at all.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Novels by William Peter Grasso

Copyright

Author’s Note

Dedication

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

About the Author

More Novels by William Peter Grasso

Author’s Note

This is a work of alternative
historical fiction. American and Australian forces did, indeed, fight and die
to reclaim the Papuan villages of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda from the Japanese
in late 1942 and early 1943. In these pages, we explore a different path to the
eventual Allied victory—with a dramatically different pivotal event—while still
reflecting the underlying tactical premises, bloody miscalculations, and terrible
suffering of the actual campaign.

The designation of military units
may be actual or fictitious.

In no way are the fictional
accounts intended to denigrate the hardships, suffering, and courage of those
who served.

Contact the Author Online:

Email: William Peter Grasso

Connect with the Author on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso

Dedication

To my son Joshua, whose
literary knowledge and wisdom will always leave me in awe

Late November

1942

Chapter One

I’m gonna die, Mama.

The sailor couldn’t see any other
outcome. He was trapped below deck of the mortally wounded aircraft carrier.
One of the 500-pound bombs he was assembling had toppled off its cart when the
first explosion rocked the ship. Like an inescapable vice, it fell just far
enough to clamp his legs flat to the hangar deck.

They ain’t broke but I can’t
move ’em a damn inch. Over two thousand men on this ship…and I’m gonna die
alone. Everyone else must’ve gone over the side...or they’re dead already.

I shoulda listened to you, Mama.
I shoulda never joined the Navy. The bottom of the Coral Sea
ain’t a fit burial place for a Nebraska farm boy. I guess we lost
the battle to the Japs for sure. I heard our pilots talking before they
launched…they were scared. They said we were up against their whole damn navy.

Like a flickering ray of lost hope,
his flashlight beam faded to nothingness, leaving an impenetrable darkness.
Creaking and groaning like a giant, bellowing monster, the ship’s bulkheads
slowly collapsed one by one.

No vessel making sounds like
that gonna be afloat much longer.

The sailor strained against the
heavy iron sealing his fate, but it didn’t budge this time, either. Frustrated
and helpless, he pummeled the immovable object with his fists. A final shriek
escaped his lips. Then a strange calmness washed over his body. He lay back
against the cold steel deck and waited to die.

He didn’t know how much time had
passed before a beam of light appeared, bright and steady. It swept over the
compartment that was his tomb and came to rest on his face.

Am I dead already? The
light…Pastor always said there’d be a light. Go into the light.

“Take me, Lord,” the sailor
pleaded. “Take me now.”

It wasn’t God holding the light,
though. It was just an NCO from a damage control party.

“You don’t have to call me Lord,
son,” the NCO said. “Chief will do just fine.” He glanced at the
sailor’s legs and asked, “Are you in any pain?”

“No, Chief, I surely am not.”

“Then we’ll have you out of here in
no time. We’ve been ordered to abandon ship.”

The rest of the damage control
party, armed with pry bars and axes, materialized out of the darkness. In
seconds, they freed the sailor. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he asked,
“Chief, those Japs beat us pretty bad, didn’t they?”

“Hear me good, son,” the chief
replied, “you may think we’re in bad shape…but you should see the other guy.”

Chapter Two

A few miles north of Port Moresby,
Colonel Dick Molloy, US 81st Infantry Regiment commander, briefed
his three battalion commanders. “Gentlemen,” Molloy began, “General MacArthur
feels we’ve been handed an opportunity we must pounce on immediately.”

His battalion commanders grimaced
at the word immediately. They weren’t ready to fight—not yet, anyway.
And they all knew it.

Molloy smacked his pointer against
the big map of Papua. “MacArthur’s really hot to claim the north coast of Papua
while the Japanese Navy is still reeling from that whipping they just took in
the Coral Sea.”

His pointer pressing against a tiny
dot on the map, Molloy added, “Our regiment, gentlemen, along with the rest of
32nd Division, is going right here—a tiny place called Buna.”

The battalion commanders sat in
stunned silence: barely one week after the bloody fighting for Port Moresby had
finally ended, they were being thrown into action against the Japanese again.

Turning to Major Jock Miles, his
newest battalion commander, Molloy said, “Now, Jock, I know you’ve only had
First Battalion for a few days, and it’s nothing more than a skeleton right
now, barely at company strength. That’s why I’ll be holding you back until the
final movement by air to Buna.”

“When will that be, sir?” Jock
asked.

“Looks like about ten days.”

It could be ten months and it
wouldn’t matter a damn bit, Jock told himself. I’ve got over two
companies’ worth of green GIs still coming on a boat from Australia…and
I’ll have to lead them into combat with no training and no time to get
organized. I think I’m going to be sick…

“I’m sorry for the tight schedule,
Jock,” Molloy added, “but I’ve known you since you were a shavetail, young man.
I have no doubt you can handle it.”

Jock’s stoic expression belied his
inner thoughts: Gee, thanks, sir. I hope you’re still that confident in me
when the shit hits the fan.

Molloy laid his pointer on the big
map again, adding, “The Aussies have already pushed what’s left of the Japs who
fled Port Moresby back to here, about halfway across the mountains of the Kokoda
Track. Those Aussie diggers are giving them hell, and our Fifth Air
Force is giving them a pretty good pasting, too. Any Japs lucky enough to make
it all the way to Buna will be in real bad shape.”

So will any Aussies that make
it, Jock thought. They say the climbing is harder than the fighting.

Molloy rolled steadily on. “And
with the Jap Navy running back to Rabaul and Truk with their tails between
their legs, there’ll be little chance for them to land reinforcements around
Buna. There won’t be more than a few thousand exhausted Jap troops there, in
poor defensive positions.” He shifted the pointer to the extreme eastern end of
Papua. “Plus, now that the Aussies have kicked the Japs out of Milne Bay, all
of Papua will be under Allied control once we seize the Buna area. MacArthur
says this operation will be a piece of cake.”

A piece of cake: that was
the last thing the battalion commanders wanted to hear. A collective voice in
their heads screamed what they didn’t dare say out loud: Yeah…just like Port
Moresby was supposed to be. And we all know how well that turned out.
Three weeks of a bloody stalemate before MacArthur finally got his ass off that
cushy throne in Brisbane and sent enough troops to do the job
right.

“There’s one more thing,” Colonel
Molloy said. “There’s been a lot of bullshit talk that MacArthur’s given the
Aussies a raw deal, sending them to chase the Japs over Kokoda while we Yanks
cool our heels here in Port Moresby. So to show our Allies just how untrue that
is, this regiment has been assigned to support the Australian Seventh Division
on the Track. Colonel Blevins, your Second Battalion will march across the Owen
Stanleys parallel to the Kokoda Track here”—his pointer traced a path northward
across the map—“along what’s known as the Kapa Kapa Trail. Since you won’t be
slowed down by having to fight your way across, you’ll be able to cut off those
Japs fleeing Port Moresby before they get anywhere near Buna. Trapped between
you and the Aussies, they’ll be finished off.”

Lieutenant Colonel Blevins was less
than enthused with the assignment. This was painfully obvious even before he
opened his mouth. “Sir,” Blevins said, “that’s almost a hundred miles on
foot…and from what I can tell from this map, we’ll be climbing over peaks ten
thousand feet high! That’ll take a month, at least.”

“Not with good leadership, it
won’t, Colonel. A week to ten days to get into a blocking position, at the very
most.”

Blevins sputtered his next
question: “How are we going to be resupplied? The native porters can only carry
so much.”

“The Fifth Air Force will handle
that with air drops,” Molloy replied. “Food, water, ammo, medical
supplies…you’ll get it all. Don’t worry.”

Jock couldn’t help but feel bad for
Colonel Blevins and 2nd Battalion. Suddenly, his battalion’s
assignment didn’t seem so bad: At least my guys get to ride over the
mountains in airplanes.

But that brought up a new question.
“Sir,” Jock asked Colonel Molloy, “our men aren’t parachute infantry. These
airplanes that’ll take the rest of us to Buna…where are they going to land?
It’s nothing but swamps over there, isn’t it? And if there are any suitable
landing fields, won’t the Japs be occupying them?”

“Negative, Major Miles,” Molloy
said. “Division has good intel from the Aussie coast watchers up that way. The
areas we’ll be using for landing strips are high and dry…and unoccupied.”

Reading Jock’s mind, Molloy added,
“Let’s hope they stay that way, gentlemen.”

Chapter Three

It was like any other day since the
Aussies began their march on the Kokoda Track. They’d been chasing the Japanese
across this mountainous jungle hell for a week and were still nowhere near the
halfway point to the north coast. At the moment, they were climbing another
treacherous slope. On the peak, the Japs were dug in, peppering the lead
elements of the long, narrow Aussie column below with rifle and machine gun
fire. The diggers took cover anywhere they could, be it behind a scrawny tree
trunk or sprawled flat on the ground, burrowing into hastily prepared fighting
positions.

A captain scrambled through the
brush—half-running, half-crawling—to his pinned-down men. He joined a corporal
huddled behind a fallen log, which shielded them from the bullets sporadically
thumping into its opposite side.

Struggling to catch his breath, the
captain asked, “Can you see the bastards, Corporal?”

“Can’t see a bloody thing, sir.
They’re up there somewhere…that’s all we know.”

All along the stalled front line,
the captain’s men returned fire blindly but to little effect. There was no
let-up to the bullets raking their position from the peak.

“How many casualties, Corporal?”

“Two I know of so far, sir. One
poor bugger’s pretty bad, I reckon.”

“Bloody shame,” the captain
replied. “Well, there’s only one way to get those Japs off that peak…”

“I know, sir,” the corporal replied
with downcast eyes. “I bloody well know.”

The corporal was already signaling
the eight men of his section to move right. They knew the drill: they were
seasoned troopers and they’d done this very thing before. When they were far
enough off the trail, they’d turn uphill and hack their way through the thick
jungle growth with machetes.

Once alongside the Japanese on the
peak, they’d storm them with grenades and bullets in a flanking attack.
Provided, of course, the Japanese didn’t hear them coming.

The section was lucky: the jungle
growth wasn’t so thick on the route the corporal chose. There wasn’t much
hacking to do and not much noise to be made. The only problem the jungle caused
was the constant snagging of web gear and uniforms on prickly vegetation. After
a week in the steady heat, humidity, and frequent rain of the jungle, the damp
fabric had already begun to rot. Each snag tore off another swatch of material,
exposing more skin for the ever-present insects to feast on.

Their boots weren’t faring well,
either. It wouldn’t be long before the sodden, rotting uppers tore away from
the soles. The Aussies’ only consolation: the uniforms and equipment of
Japanese dead they came across on the Track seemed in even worse shape.

They were close enough to the peak
now to hear Japanese soldiers screaming their usual epithets as they fired at
the diggers downslope. Most were in Japanese and indecipherable. The rare ones
in fractured English all boiled down to the same theme: You Die! This be
last day at Earth for you! You not go home Australia!

Those taunts would have been
comical if not delivered with such deadly purpose.

But the voices were close. Very
close. The corporal lobbed the first grenade. Four more from his section
quickly did the same.

As soon as the grenades detonated,
the diggers charged, whooping like crazed drovers, firing their rifles from the
hip. The section’s Bren Gun laced a steady stream of lead that chewed up the
ground all along the peak.

They never saw the Japanese soldiers
until right on top of them. They were nestled in shallow fighting holes behind
low parapets made of fallen trees. All the enemy soldiers seemed to be dead.

The diggers bayoneted each one just
to be sure. They’d been fooled before by fakers lying among corpses who’d pop
up and shoot you in the back once you passed. You only needed to be fooled
once; after that, the bayoneting became routine and remorseless.

There were four Japanese. Only one
of them wasn’t dead before the bayonet plunged through his torso. They were all
barefoot. Two still wore uniforms, badly tattered. The other two had fashioned
tunics out of rice sacks.

“Only four?” the captain asked as
he joined the section on the peak.

The corporal replied, “Where they
were set up, sir, one man, with enough ammunition, could have slowed us down
just as well.”

The Aussie column could now slog
forward once again, over the peak and down the backside of the mountain. They
needed to make up time: an airdrop of supplies was scheduled for this morning. The
drop zone was still several miles away, at the base of the valley between this
mountain and the next.

They had only traveled half a mile
when the drone of American C-47s echoed up the slope. “Well, fuck me right up
the arse,” the captain said. “The Yanks are early for once…too bloody early.”

From their high perch, the Aussies
watched as a dozen planes dropped their parachute-loads of supplies to the
jungle below. For once, the targeting looked remarkably accurate: most of the
containers seemed to land within easy reach of the Track. Usually, the loads
floated down all over the surrounding jungle; the ground troops were lucky to
recover a quarter of it.

This drop’s rare display of
precision would have been beautiful to watch—if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Shaking his fist at the planes as
they flew off, the captain said, “Thank you, you bloody wankers. Thank you for
supplying the bloody Japanese instead of us.”

Lagging miles behind the head of
the Australian column, other men were fighting a different battle. Scores of
diggers and native porters struggled like chain gangs with long, thick ropes,
blocks and tackles secured to stout trees, and brute manpower to haul four
25-pounder artillery pieces up near-vertical slopes. Progress was sometimes
measured in inches: each howitzer alone weighed over 3,000 pounds. Men could be
killed, and a day’s work undone in a terrifying moment, if a load slipped its
restraints and careened backward down the trail.

They’d first tried using the pack
mules for this task, but quickly gave up on it. The beasts would balk and gave
up as much ground as they gained. The diggers had to put two mules out of their
misery after the animals slipped, fell, and, still tethered to the tackle, were
badly injured as a runaway load dragged them up the slope.

The Aussies were sure of one thing:
all this effort was well worth it. They’d need those four guns—and the eight
still well behind them on the Track—when they got to the north coast. Maybe
sooner.

Chapter Four

The euphoria Jillian Forbes felt to
be docking at Port Moresby again evaporated the moment she saw Jock Miles’s
face. He was standing on the wharf, slumped against his jeep, with what seemed
like the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even from the pilot house of her
ship, the Australian coastal trader Esme, she could tell there was bad
news waiting to be told.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asked
before even reaching the bottom of the gangway.

“Big change in plans, Jill,” he
replied. “We’re not going to be here near as long as we figured.”

She wanted to believe it was a
cruel joke. They thought they’d have months together here in Port Moresby as 32nd
Division regrouped and retrained. Even though she’d be captaining her ship as
it sailed back and forth from Australia, shuttling supplies to the Allied
forces, the young lovers would’ve still been together for a night or two on a
fairly regular basis. “What? Where are you going?” she asked, expecting him to
break into a sly smile any second, unable to play out the joke any longer.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t say
anything.

“Jock, this isn’t funny. What’s
going on?”

He told her about the plan to take
Buna. She wasn’t impressed. Horrified would better describe how she
felt.

“You Yanks aren’t ready to go
anywhere,” she said. “And you’re a battalion commander now? When did
that happen?”

“Right after I got my ass chewed
for being AWOL the last time you were in port.”

“My recollections of that night
tell me it was well worth an ass-chewing, laddie.”

Jock finally managed a smile. A big
one.

“You bet it was, Jill. But dammit,
nights like that are going to be hard to come by now.”

“No kidding,” she said. “In the
next ten days, I’ll only be back here twice at most. You are going to be
able to slip away tonight, aren’t you? Without getting nicked for being AWOL
again?”

He snapped her a salute. “All taken
care of, Captain Forbes. Command does have its privileges.” Climbing into the
jeep’s driver’s seat, he added, “Can you get away right now? They’re holding
supper for us.”

She bounced into the passenger’s
seat. “Of course I can, silly boy. My lads have the unloading under control.
Like you said, command does have its privileges.”

Jillian was stunned by the
sumptuous spread on Commander Shaw’s dining room table. “Bloody hell,
Commander,” she said, “isn’t there a war on? My crew and I have been living off
nothing but bully beef for weeks…and you’re offering a meal fit for a king!”

Trevor Shaw chuckled as he replied,
“My dear girl, MacArthur insists on living like a king. We could exist off his
scraps for months. That provides some small measure of consolation for me,
shunted to the servants’ house as he makes himself quite at home in mine. At
any rate, Virginia’s been doing a marvelous job looking after him. She’s kept The
Great One quite happy.”

Virginia Beech’s voice boomed from
the kitchen, “It’s easy if you remember the bloody wanker must have his
luxury.” She swept into the room toting another platter of seafood. “You ought
to see His Highness in the mornings, prancing around the veranda in his
dressing gown, downing crumpets and sipping his coffee while he reads his
dispatches. Son of a bitch farts through silk while his lads live out there in
the bush like filthy animals.”

Jillian looked to Jock and asked,
“Speaking of the lads, what are they eating right now?”

“At least they’re getting hot chow
and plenty of it,” Jock replied. “Of course, it’s not exactly being served on
fine china like this…” His voice trailed off: it would be no time at all before
he and his men would be in the swamps, subsisting on field rations again.

Jillian asked, “Where is MacArthur,
anyway?”

“In Australia,” Trevor Shaw
replied. “A high-level meeting in Brisbane. He’ll be back tomorrow.” Ginny
Beech added, “You didn’t think he was out in the jungle, did you?”

Jock threw up his hands in
surrender and said, “I can see I’m outnumbered here—the only Yank against three
Aussies. So go ahead, bash us GIs all you like.”

“Oh, we will, Jock,” Ginny said.
“We will.”

“Speaking of Yanks,” Jillian said,
“where’s First Sergeant Patchett? I figured if Ginny was here, he’d be around.”

“Oh, don’t worry, girlie…the old
boy will be around, all right,” Ginny replied, “but later, when I have some
time for him.” She pointed an accusing finger at Jock. “Didn’t this wanker tell
you? He’s not first sergeant any more. This man right here made him Battalion
Sergeant Major Patchett.”

“Good on Patch!” Jillian said. “A
promotion!”

“Don’t get carried away, lass,”
Ginny said. “It’s not really a promotion, just a new title the major over there
stuck on him. No extra stripes involved. Leave it to the bloody Yanks to give a
man more responsibility without something extra in his pay envelope. Not that
their pay envelopes aren’t fat enough to begin with, compared to our poor
diggers.”

Jock turned to Commander Shaw. “Sir,
there’s something I really need to talk with you about.”

The old coast watcher pushed his
plate away and lit his pipe. “Fire away, young man,” he said. “I’m at your
disposal, as always.”

Jock told them of the plans for
taking Buna. When he described 2nd Battalion’s orders to advance
over the Kapa Kapa Trail, their jaws dropped and their eyes went wide.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ginny
said.

“They’re dead serious,” Jock
replied. “I take it there are problems we Yanks don’t know about?”

“That’s an understatement, Jock,”
Shaw said. “Kapa Kapa is a trail in name only. It’s more like an imaginary line
through mountainous jungle—one you’ll have to hack through inch by inch.”

Ginny added, “And if you’re
counting on native porters coming with you, bloody well forget it. They’ll go
as far as Ghost Mountain but won’t cross it. As far as they’re concerned, it’s
a haunted, evil place. It won’t matter what you offer to pay them.”

“It doesn’t sound like a very
timely plan, either,” Shaw said. “You and your airlifted troops will be on the
north coast long before that unfortunate battalion emerges from the jungle…if
they ever emerge. Are you sure those men are up to such a trek? The diggers
have enough trouble crossing the Owen Stanleys…but the Yanks?”

“It’s not my call, Commander. Ready
or not, they’ll be on the trail in two days.”

Shaw and Ginny just shook their
heads. “Poor buggers,” she muttered.

“What about the landing fields they
say are there?” Jock asked.

Shaw replied, “Dickie Bennett’s
been our coast watcher in the Buna district since before the first Japanese
landings. I’ve known the man for years. If he says those fields are useable—and
unoccupied—you can bet your life on it.”

“Good,” Jock said, “because that’s
exactly what my men will be doing.”

Chapter Five

Jock would have loved to stand and
watch Esme sail out into the Coral Sea until she was just a speck on the
southern horizon. He couldn’t, though: this was the morning the replacement
troops for 1st Battalion would arrive. There would be a million
details to attend to and not nearly enough time to do them. One last, lingering
kiss with Jillian at the ship’s rail and he was speeding off in his jeep, back
to his battalion CP.

When he got there, Sergeant Major
Patchett had everything under control. First Battalion’s cadre—Patchett
especially—seemed chipper and ready to face this challenging new day with a
smile.

“I’m guessing every man jack in
this outfit got laid last night, sir,” Patchett explained.

Jock replied, “So the men’s field
trip to the Port Moresby hospitality center went well?”

“Well, indeed, sir. Well indeed.
Ain’t nothing like an evening with a fine Aussie lady…even the ones you gotta
pay.”

“Just so we don’t lose anyone to
the clap, Top…”

Jock fell into an awkward silence,
worried he had just breeched military etiquette: Patchett wasn’t a company
first sergeant anymore. He was Jock’s battalion sergeant major now.

“Don’t you worry none, sir,”
Patchett said. “Top’s still just fine, as long as it’s just you and me
talking private-like. Sergeant major is kinda formal between two
dogfaces who been through as much together as we have.”

“Got it,” Jock replied. “But every
other swinging dick better call you sergeant major, right?”

“Damn straight, sir.”

A steady stream of confused, newly
arrived GIs spilled from the deuce-and-a-half trucks shuttling between the Port
Moresby docks and 1st Battalion’s bivouac. By morning’s end, some
300 men, all green privates—save for a few equally green sergeants and
lieutenants—were distributed to fill the empty platoons of Able, Baker,
Charlie, and Dog Companies.

It should have been pure chaos,
like most mass movements in this man’s army.

But it went smooth as silk. Until
this morning, 1st Battalion may have been just a skeleton, but its
key leadership positions were already staffed with the combat veterans of
Charlie Company—men who Jock Miles had led into combat in Papua.

By mid-afternoon, the battalion was
organized enough for its first formation. As Jock trooped the line with Colonel
Molloy, Sergeant Major Patchett paced behind the rear rank, making sure the
company sergeants tolerated no goofing off among their men. Always a few
dogfaces, too clever for their own damn good, Patchett thought, smarting
off, thinking they blend in so good nobody can see them. His studied eye
caught one such incident in Baker Company. That unit’s first sergeant found
Patchett in his face immediately.

“I know y’all are brand spanking
new to my battalion,” Patchett hissed in the first sergeant’s ear, “but let’s
get something straight right off. If you let them get away with that grab-ass
on the parade field, how the hell do you expect them to follow orders in
combat? You gotta stomp on that shit the minute you see it, Sergeant.
Otherwise, it’s gonna grow like a cancer and wreck your company. I
guaran-damn-tee it. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major, I just—”

“Didn’t ask for no fucking
explanation, did I?”

“No, Sergeant Major.”

“Very fine. Now get your head out
of your ass and carry on.”

Colonel Molloy’s inspection done,
Jock dismissed the battalion formation. Their day was far from over: in one
hour, they’d embark on their first tactical field exercise.

“It’ll be a Chinese fire drill,”
Patchett assured Jock and Colonel Molloy, “so no live ammunition yet, that’s for
damn sure. We don’t be needing no accidents.”

Molloy asked, “When do you propose
to do a live fire exercise, Major Miles?”

“The minute the sergeant major and
I believe they’re ready, sir.”

“Good plan,” Molloy replied, “but
I’m more than a little concerned about the way you reorganized your cadre. Do
you think it was a good idea to deplete Charlie Company of most of its
combat-experienced officers and NCOs?”

“Yes, sir,” Jock replied. “I
believe it’s better to spread the expertise around so all the companies have a
relatively equal level. Otherwise, we get one very experienced company and
three led by rookies.”

Molloy pondered that for a moment,
and then asked, “Sergeant Major, is that your opinion, too?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Patchett
replied. “I seen it too many times before. Get one company full of crackerjacks
and the others full of jerk-offs…well, them jerk-offs will collapse the minute
the shit hits the fan. Then we all end up getting overrun. But if they all
fight about the same, we all got a better chance to keep drawing breath.”

Molloy smiled: the sergeant major
might have only limited command of the King’s English but his experience had to
be respected. “Very well, then,” he said, “but I’ve got to drop a little
bombshell on you both. Your battalion is still under strength by about fifty
men, and, unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to stay that way. By the time
any more replacements are available, we’ll all be bivouacking in Buna.”

Jock knew what the expression on
Patchett’s face meant: Should I bend over again, sir…or are you done fucking
me?

Trying to keep that same expression
from his own face, Jock asked, “What about our heavy machine guns and mortars,
sir? We’ll still be getting those, won’t we?”

“The S4 expects them within the
week, Major Miles.”

“That don’t give us no training
time for the weapons company hardly at all, sir,” Patchett said. “Not if we’re
moving out in nine days.”

As he climbed into his jeep, Molloy
replied, “All we can do is our best, Sergeant Major. I’m counting on you two to
do that for me.”

As the colonel drove away, Patchett
asked Jock, “Sir, I thought you said that man was in France in ’18?”

“Yeah, he was, Top.”

Patchett shook his head: “He don’t
sound like no one who been in a shit storm of lead...but let’s hope he’s better
than that last paper soldier we had to put up with.”

Jock replied, “Trust me, Top. He
is.”

The first tactical field exercise
went exactly as Sergeant Major Patchett expected: a Chinese fire drill. Radios
broke down almost immediately in the tropical heat, causing coordination
between units to break down just as fast. Among those with working sets,
communications discipline was atrocious: several operators would constantly try
to talk on the same frequency at the same time; knowledge of proper voice message
format was sorely lacking; security procedures went out the window. Case in
point: one squad leader in Able Company began identifying himself over the air
as if answering a telephone. “McNally, First Squad,” he broadcast rather than
his proper call sign, Rodeo One-One-Six. Countless units reported their
location’s coordinates without bothering to code them.

An evaluator told one of Jock’s
company commanders, “They’re making it way too easy for the enemy. A lot of
your men just died because they told the Japs who and where they
are.”

Four of the battalion’s nine rifle
platoons got lost in the rainforest, unable to accurately dead reckon using
map, wristwatch, and compass. Two of those platoons eventually found their way
to the objectives and staged ragged mock attacks judged as “unsuccessful” by
the evaluators.

A frustrated platoon leader told
his evaluator, “These maps are all fucked up, sir.”

In a deadpan voice, the evaluator
replied, “It’s not the maps, Lieutenant.”

The other two lost platoons never
found their objectives; they could barely find their way back to the assembly
area when the siren signaled the end of the exercise. Ultimately, their
evaluators guided them back to save time; too much had been wasted already.

Tactical dispersal was another area
needing improvement. It wasn’t uncommon for GIs to be bunched close enough to
hold hands. In one incident, an evaluator encountered five GIs huddled—inches
apart—behind the same fallen log while taking up a defensive position.

“You know what I see here?” the
evaluator asked. “Five dead GIs. Did you ladies ever hear the expression grenade
gets you all? Well, it just did. Here…put these around your necks.” He
handed each of the GIs a cardboard tag that read KIA in big black
letters—for killed in action.

As the evaluator walked away, the
GIs snickered among themselves like it was all some big joke. One lay prone and
silent, pretending to be a corpse with eyes closed, hands crossed over chest,
and a disdainful smirk on his face.

Chapter Six

Kokoda, the little mountain village
that gave the track its name, was the halfway point in the 120-mile journey
from Port Moresby to Buna. That distance was as the crow flies; it
nearly doubled for men climbing up and down the towering peaks of the Owen
Stanley Range. The head of the Australian 7th Division column had
yet to reach the village. It was still some 20 miles away, a formidable
distance for diggers still skirmishing for almost every yard.

General George Vasey, the division
commander, watched with quiet despair as a stream of casualties trickled to a
primitive aid station just a hundred yards behind the fighting. A few of the
stricken could walk—or at least hobble—on their own. The others had to be
carried by native litter bearers.

Most of the casualties weren’t
wounded; they were sick, weakened by malaria, bush typhus, or a host of other
tropical diseases. General Vasey wasn’t surprised he was losing men to sickness
carried by insects and ground water; he just hadn’t expected so many of them.
General Blamey, the commander of all Australian forces in Papua and Vasey’s
boss, had estimated a casualty rate to disease of no more than 20 percent.

It’s going to be twice that, at
least, Vasey told himself.

There was no room for the newly
sick and wounded under the aid station’s tattered tarp. They’d stand, sit, or
lie in the pasty mud and frequent rain, too tired to swat away the ever-present
mosquitoes, waiting quietly until it was their turn with one of the three
harried doctors. Offering only triage and not treatment, a doctor’s time with a
sick digger would be over quickly. If deemed too sick to stay on the Track,
he’d be marked for evacuation to Port Moresby. That journey would take several
days on foot—without medical treatment and fully exposed to the conditions that
made him sick in the first place. The trek would begin only if there were
native bearers to spare after the badly wounded had been evacuated.

Sick or wounded, a digger might not
survive the journey. Only an airplane could improve his odds.

A doctor said to General Vasey,
“We’ve got to do better for the lads than this, sir. How long to Kokoda?”

“Two, maybe three days,” Vasey
replied, as if trying to convince himself.

“Is the airstrip there still
serviceable?”

“As far as we know,” Vasey said.
“Let’s bloody hope it still is when we get to it.”

First Battalion’s field exercise
may have been every bit the Chinese fire drill Sergeant Major Patchett
predicted, but it wasn’t a disaster. Everyone expected there to be mistakes,
and those mistakes were not the issue. What Jock Miles would do to correct them
was.

“That wasn’t the first time a
platoon or squad got lost,” Jock told the battalion’s assembled cadre, “and it
won’t be the last. Those of us who’ve been here a while know Papua is not
exactly studded with landmarks. But you’ll learn quickly how to correlate
terrain features with your map. Your company commanders all did, in no time
flat. Learn from them.”

Jock looked to the battalion
communications officer and asked, “All the radios working again, Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir, they are,” the commo
officer replied. “User error, mostly.”

“Very well, Lieutenant,” Jock said,
“and I’ll expect all company commanders to educate their men on the care and
feeding of those radios.” Jock yielded the floor to Patchett: “Sergeant Major,
you’ve got stuff to add, I’m sure.”

“I sure do, sir,” Patchett began.
“First off, as far as those on-the-air fuckups went, I think a few good raps on
the helmet should fix that. And if that don’t work, make sure they write their
fucking call signs in grease pencil right on their walkie-talkies so they can’t
forget. But most importantly, nobody got hurt…not so much as a stubbed toe.
Believe me, that’s something y’all can feel good about.”

And they did: they all knew
training accidents were endemic to the military. GIs could always find diverse
ways to maim themselves. Even without live ammunition, their profession
combined all the most dangerous elements of working with machines while
existing in the wilderness.

“Now,” Patchett continued, “we still
got ourselves a li’l ol’ morale problem. A whole bunch of these shitheads still
ain’t taking this soldiering business with the proper seriousness…because they
ain’t figured out how to take it serious yet. Serious is too damn
terrifying.”

He took a dramatic pause before
continuing, “And they won’t take it serious until that special something
happens that makes a man change inside, like hauling off what’s left of his
buddy in a mattress cover. You need that cat-list.”

There were strange looks being cast
all around, men wondering if this was some army term they had somehow never
heard before.

Jock broke the confused silence:
“You mean catalyst, Sergeant Major?”

There was just a hint of
indignation in Patchett’s voice: “I believe that’s what I said, sir.”

“Just making sure, Sergeant Major,”
Jock said, in his best soothing voice. “Just making sure. Please continue.”

“I just got one more thing to say,
sir. I think we can stop fiddly-fucking around and move on to live fire
training exercises first thing tomorrow. We’re gonna need every minute to get
our asses ready.”

Jock replied, “I couldn’t agree
more, Sergeant Major.”

Infantry may be Queen of Battle,
but artillery is still king. As in any successful marriage, the king and queen
have to learn to work together to achieve common goals. That’s exactly what
this portion of the live fire exercise was about: infantry and artillery
coordination in the attack. The infantrymen of Charlie Company, under
Lieutenant Lee Grossman, were dug in at the edge of the exercise area, watching
as 75-millimeter artillery rounds landed on the hill some 50 yards in front of
them. In another minute the fire would lift, and Grossman’s men would assault
the hill in a mock attack, firing live bullets at defenders made of burlap
sacks and straw. None of the company’s rookies had ever watched an artillery
round impact so close before.

There were a few brief ooohs and
ahhhs, but by and large, the men weren’t impressed. Disappointed
would be a better word. They were expecting hellfire and brimstone. All they
got were some muffled booms, wispy puffs of smoke, and a few clods of
earth flung into the air.

Surely nothing powerful enough to
stop a horde of Japanese swarming down on them.

“You may not think it looks like
much now, men,” Grossman would tell squad after squad as he moved along the
line, “but when we start doing this for real, we’re going to be a hell of a lot
closer to it—maybe right under it—so close you’ll hear the shell fragments
whizzing through the air. So close your ears will bleed.”

His words only seemed to be making
the men more disenchanted with their current lot in life, so Grossman would
add, “You’d better believe that when the Japs are in your face, you’re going to
want that artillery. You’re going to need that artillery, because
without it, you’ll be in real deep shit. Trust me on that one.”

Yeah, trust me, Lee Grossman
told himself as he reached the last platoon. I’ve already been down that
road a couple of times.

Sergeant Major Patchett wasn’t
pleased by the interruption. He was trying to compile evaluators’ reports on
the live fire exercise for the lunchtime debriefing when the Headquarters mess
sergeant burst into the command tent.

“We’ve got a big problem, Sergeant
Major,” the mess sergeant said, on the verge of panic. “We can’t cook that
chicken for lunch. We ain’t got no grease!”

Patchett’s slow boil began. Last
night, he had plainly instructed the men would receive hot meals throughout
their training at Port Moresby: Three fucking squares a day, I believe my
exact words were. The boys will have plenty of time to eat K rations once we’re
back in the field.

But now, this mess sergeant was
telling him his kitchen wasn’t prepared to do that.

Patchett asked, “And when did you
realize this, numbnuts?”

“Just now, I didn’t—”

Signaling stop like a
traffic cop, the sergeant major shut him up. “Don’t want to hear no excuses,”
Patchett said. “You fucked up, plain and simple. Never checked your
requisitions, did you?”

His eyes staring at his feet, the
mess sergeant shook his head: No.

“So now you’re telling me my hungry
boys are gonna get dog squat for lunch? While you shitcan a couple hundred
pounds of fresh chicken?”

“I ain’t got nothing else to cook,
Sergeant Major.”

“Bullshit you don’t. How much
butter you got?”

“Plenty…but I need that for
breakfast and—”

Patchett cut him off again. “That’s
right. You got plenty. Fricassee the goddamn chicken with some of that
butter…and make it snappy. Lunch is in thirty fucking minutes.”

“But—”

“And it better not be one second
late, neither…or I’m looking at my new mess private. Or, even better, my
new rifleman.”

It was obvious to Jock: the men in
his 1st Battalion still had that li’l ol’ morale problem, just like
Patchett had described. As they marched in from the live fire exercise, Jock could
see it throughout every company. Most men grumbled, shuffling their tired feet
as they walked, paying no attention to the steady cadences called by their
sergeants. Some engaged in horseplay. Occasionally, there was a burst of snide
laughter: a few jokers hidden deep in the ranks were, no doubt, passing witty
comments attempting to satirize how this man’s army was run by
incompetent idiots who wanted to play hurry up and wait all day long.
The men felt entitled to laugh: this whole war was nothing more than a cruel
joke being played on them.

Their uniforms labeled them as
soldiers; their manner labeled them as anything but. Real life
was someplace else, thousands of miles across the ocean. They still thought
they could play these silly army games just enough to get by: keep your nose
clean, keep your head down, and somehow you’ll get home in one piece.

They’d had the mantra kill or be
killed drummed into their heads—but they still didn’t want to believe it.

“They’re just scared shitless, sir,
that’s all,” Patchett said.

Jock hadn’t heard his sergeant
major walk up behind him.

“Scared shitless,” Patchett
repeated, “and them poor bastards don’t know how to show it proper yet.”

“I know, Top,” Jock replied, “I
know. Chow ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Patchett replied. He
didn’t bother relating the incident with the mess steward; he knew Jock had
enough on his mind.

Besides, Patchett told
himself, that’s my job to take care of them nitpicky little details.

A command echoed down from the lead
platoon, and 1st Battalion’s column of twos shifted right and became
single file. Another battalion-sized unit was coming the other way on the
narrow dirt road. The men in that column were in full field gear, heavily
loaded with ammunition, horseshoe packs, and canteens. Full of somber purpose,
they marched forward, their faces wearing the resolute expressions of men
communally tasked with a difficult and deadly job.

“That’s Second Battalion,” Patchett
said. “They’re moving out to the Kapa Kapa.” He paused, shook his head, and
added, “Poor bastards.”

“Look how different they seem from
our guys, Top.”

“A couple of week ago, they didn’t
look so different, sir. But they’re real soldiers now. They’ve got
bloody hands, just like me and you. They know what it’s like to bury their
own.”

A faceless, sarcastic voice from 1st
Battalion called out, “See you at Buna, suckers.”

There was dead silence for a
moment, until a voice from within its ranks—a voice cold, harsh, and
certain—thundered 2nd Battalion’s reply:

“You won’t be seeing shit when you’re
dead, rookie…and that’ll be real soon.”

It was as if God himself had just
spoken to the men of 1st Battalion. It took a few seconds to become obvious,
but a change had swept over them: they shook off their slouched postures and
stood ramrod straight. Any hint of indifference vanished from their faces. In
those few seconds, the cruel joke they had considered this war to be
evolved to a serious and inescapable reality.

Patchett took it all in with a
smile. “I do believe we just had ourselves a cat-list, sir,” he said.

Chapter Seven

The last of the American B-25s
swept low over the mountain plateau that was the Kokoda airstrip. They released
their bombs, hugged the treetops ringing the hardscrabble runway, and made
their swift escape as the ground shook in a chorus of explosions.

On the high ground overlooking the
airstrip, the Australians tried to take stock of the raid’s effect. Looking
through binoculars, the Aussie major said, “Well, at least they blew up the two
bloody airplanes…not that they were causing us any trouble. They were probably
broken down and left behind, anyway. And they were careful not to crater the
runway.”

A senior sergeant replied, “Those
fucking machine guns are still alive, though, sir…both of them, one in each
corner of the strip. Their parapets are still intact, too. They could put down
some murderous interlocking fire on us.”

“Yes, I can see that for myself,
Sergeant,” the major replied. “Shook the little buggers up, though, didn’t
they? They’re jumping around like their pants are on fire. I still don’t see
any of that dug-in infantry on the perimeter we ran into this morning, though.”

Yeah, the sergeant told
himself, when it cost us eight men for nothing, you silly bastard.

He knew what the major’s next words
would be. He wasn’t in the least bit eager to hear them. Setting down his
binoculars, the sergeant drew a deep, anxious breath.

“There’s only one way we’re going
to find out how many of those buggers are still alive,” the major said.

Miserable at reading his
commander’s mind so well, the sergeant replied, “I know, Major. I bloody well
know. But before we probe them again, can we at least wait until the
twenty-five-pounders are ready to shoot? They say it won’t be much longer until
they’re up on the ridge.”

“We can’t wait forever, Sergeant.
We’ve got to have that bloody airfield.”

The sergeant made no effort to
stifle the pleading tone in his voice: “So give us a fighting chance to take it
then, sir. Please…we need those guns.”

There was no arguing with the
sergeant’s logic: artillery support could make all the difference between a
successful attack and another slaughter at the hands of Japanese heavy machine
guns.

Time…we can’t waste any
more bloody time, the major thought. We’re already days behind schedule.

As he gazed into the distance,
across that coveted airstrip, the major replied, “Thirty minutes, sergeant. We
attack in thirty minutes, whether the bloody artillery is ready or not.”

The closest artillery piece was
still a hundred yards downslope from the ridge’s crest. Muscles trembled as
exhausted teams of men pulled on the long ropes hauling the 25-pounders up,
struggling to get the four guns to clear firing positions. They knew the
infantry desperately needed some fire support right now—and they were just as
desperate to provide it.

But the laws of physics don’t yield
to desperation. With each pull, blocks and tackles groaned, ropes taut as wire
blurred and buzzed, Australian soldiers and Papuan natives cursed their mothers
for giving them life—all to gain mere inches of uphill progress.

At this rate, they’d never be ready
to fire in time. They would fail their mates in the infantry.

A gunner shouted an idea:
“Lieutenant…suppose all of us get on one rope and pull just one bloody gun into
position? It’ll be much faster…That one can be shooting while we haul up the
other three. Better than nothing, no?”

The lieutenant knew a good idea
when he heard one. So did everyone else: they all ran to the ropes of the gun
closest to the ridge and started pulling with whatever might their wrung-out
bodies could muster.

We could hide in this high kunai
grass forever and the Japs would never see us.

The diggers took comfort in that
fact as they crept toward the airstrip.

Of course, if they’re around, we
won’t see them, either, until we’re right on top of them. And this bloody kunai
is sharp as razor blades. Let’s try not to bleed to death from the slashing
it’s giving us.

The first Japanese soldiers they
stumbled across were dead, scattered in the kunai, done in by an American bomb.
Some bodies were intact but inert, their internals shattered by concussive
force alone. Others were torn to pieces, shredded by fragments hurtling through
the air like a thousand iron talons. The diggers couldn’t see the bomb crater
concealed in the tall grass until they crept right up to it. They slid in,
welcoming the cover the crater afforded while they got their bearings.

They didn’t all make it.

The kunai grass trembled as if
gigantic, invisible scythes were trimming it to the height of a man’s knee. The
first digger struck by the bullets was dead before he hit the ground.

In a split second, three more would
be hit but not die outright. They wailed as fate decided which of them to claim,
making sounds the living never wanted to hear again but would never be able to
forget.

The chatter of Nambu machine guns
to their left and right…

Fuck! We’re caught in their
bloody kill zone.

Those lucky enough to be in the
crater pressed tight to its rim, feeling the thupp thupp thupp of
machine gun bullets burrowing into the churned-up earth all around them. There
wasn’t much else they could do…except stand up and die in the machine guns’
fire. The sporadic pows of Enfield rifles and the thumps of light
mortars posed an ineffectual counterpoint to the steady rhythm of the Nambus.

A digger tried to raise just his
Bren Gun over the edge of the crater. Before he could squeeze off even one
round, the weapon was shot away. The gun—and the hand that had tried to wield
it—was now shattered and useless.

The wailing of the wounded and
dying men in the kunai grass wouldn’t stop. If anything, it grew louder…and
there was still nothing the men in the crater could do for them.

An object flew into the hole...

“GRENADE,” someone—or
everyone—cried out.

The wounded Bren gunner stared at it
in disbelief.

Two of the others tried to crawl
inside their helmets.

The last man in the hole lunged for
it…

He picked it up…

Started to throw it away…

And then stopped. He stared in
disbelief at the object for just a second and then pushed it away as if toxic.

It was a digger’s boot…with the
severed foot still in it.

“Bloody hell,” was all he could
say, over and over again.

On the ridge a thousand yards away,
a cannoneer rammed the first round into the breach of the only 25-pounder ready
to fire.

The gunner lined up the target in
his telescopic sight…tweaked the elevation wheel…

Just a little bit more...There!

Satisfied, he jerked the firing
lanyard.

The first artillery round of the
battle for Kokoda was finally in flight.

At first, the artillery round’s
impact to their right front confused the diggers in the bomb crater.

A private asked, “Is that theirs…or
ours?”

“Damned if I know,” his sergeant
replied.

The wounded in the nearby grass had
stopped their wailing. The diggers thought they could hear only a single Nambu
machine gun firing now, the one to their left front.

A second artillery round slammed
in, hitting the same spot as the first.

The private said, “The Japs
wouldn’t be knocking out their own guns now, would they? That artillery’s got
to be ours.”

“About bloody time.”

The second 25-pounder was finally
in position on the ridge. Its dog-tired crew began to lay their piece on the
same target the first gun was engaging.

The lieutenant stopped them. “No,
lads, not there,” he said, binoculars pressed to his eyes. “You aim left, at
the west edge of the runway. Target is the machine gun emplacement.”

Peering down his sight, the gunner
said, “Yeah…I’ve got it.”

The Japanese machine guns were
silenced, but the fight for Kokoda airstrip was far from over. The diggers had
emerged from the bewildering blindness and point-blank combat in the kunai
grass into the open spaces of the airstrip, pushing what was left of the
Japanese defenders before them.

“Swing your company to the right,
Captain,” the major said. “Let’s cut off their retreat and finish them before
they vanish into the woods on the other side and the village beyond.” Turning
to his artillery liaison, the major continued, “Go with them and pick out targets
in the village for your guns—anything that shows its ugly head.”

“Very well, sir, but we’ve only got
two guns in action so far,” the liaison replied.

“And they’ve done a bloody
brilliant job. Keep it up.”

The men of 2nd Battalion,
81st Regiment had begun to wonder why it was called the Kapa Kapa Trail.
It wasn’t a trail at all—it wasn’t even a footpath wide enough for two men in
most places. GIs at the front of the column—the point men—couldn’t walk
10 yards without having to hack a path with machetes through jungle growth
clinging to the steep mountainsides. They’d swing those blades until they
thought their arms would fall off. Then it was someone else’s turn.

At least there was no shortage of
drinking water; the frequent rain saw to that. All a man had to do was muster
the strength to catch it.

Colonel Blevins, the battalion
commander, was having a difficult time believing his native guide even knew
where in this vertical hell they were. Puzzling over his map, Blevins said to
the guide, “That stream we just crossed…it can’t possibly be the one you say it
is.”

He pointed to another thin blue
line on the map, farther down the “trail.”

“I think it’s this one,” Blevins
said.

The guide shook his head. “No, sir.
No, sir,” he replied. “It is the one I said it is.”

“But that means we’ve only come
about fifteen miles in the last two days.”

“That’s right, Colonel,” the guide
said.

Blevins blew out a sigh of
exasperation. “We’re falling way behind schedule. This can’t be the right
trail. Why is it so overgrown?”

“Because nobody uses it.”

“Why not?”

“Because only the insects want to
go where it goes.”

Two days in this mountainous jungle
hell and the GIs were already spent beyond recovery. They’d lost track of how
many times they’d sunk in mud up to their waists or almost been swept away
fording rapid streams. They’d left Port Moresby heavily loaded with weapons,
ammunition, personal gear, and rations, but already men were faltering under
their loads. Terrified to be left behind, they lightened up, discarding items
that served no immediate purpose.

Mosquito netting was among the
first items to get dumped alongside the trail: It doesn’t work anyway,
the GIs told themselves. The fucking insects own this place. Raincoats
were abandoned, too: You’ll get soaking wet one way or the other in this
jungle. If it isn’t the daily rain, it’ll be the chest-deep streams you have to
ford. In fact, the men had decided there was no point carrying any uniforms
except the ones they were wearing.

And to hell with shaving
kits…but keep your toothbrush: you’ll need that to keep your rifle clean.

The 60-millimeter mortars began to
vanish, too—first the heavy base plates; next, the bipods; finally, the tubes
and ammunition.

You can’t fire them with any
accuracy in this dense jungle canopy, anyway…and the fucking things weigh
forty-two pounds each.

It’s not like we’ve seen any
Japanese. We’re the only ones stupid enough to be in this tropical shithole.

When told of the disappearing
mortars, Colonel Blevins said, “But damn it to hell, that’s all we had for fire
support.”

Before he could say, Make them
go back and find those weapons, he stopped himself. There would be no
point: the mortars would never be found now, hidden by that thick jungle. The
column had to keep moving. The men detailed to the search might never find their
way back.

He took cold comfort in one fact: I
guess it’s a good thing I decided not to bring any pack howitzers. They
would’ve just ditched them, too…and eaten the mules.

On the spot, Blevins decided the
heavy field radio set—three packs weighing 50 pounds apiece—would never leave
his sight. Without that set, the airplanes that were supposed to drop supplies
would never find them.

They’d wither and die faster than
they already were.

December 1942

Chapter Eight

Everybody thought it, but no one
dared to say it out loud: the last supper.

This could very well be the last
time they’d all be together.

Beneath a canopy on Esme’s
foredeck, Jillian Forbes played hostess to Jock and the dozen American soldiers
from Charlie Company she’d known—and fought the Japanese with—back in Cape
York. Her ship’s Aborigine cook had outdone himself: the GIs gorged themselves
on the seafood feast.

There was something else the Yanks
appreciated: anchored offshore, waiting her turn to unload her war cargo, Esme
offered a respite from Port Moresby’s ever-present squadrons of mosquitoes.
Safe beneath the canopy, even the inevitable rain couldn’t dampen their
spirits.

“Just like old times, ain’t it?” Corporal
Bogater Boudreau said, shoveling still more food onto his plate. “Here we are
again, with Miss Forbes bringing the vittles to us starving…”

He paused, searching for the right
word.

Jillian finished the sentence for
him: “Wankers, I think you mean to say. You poor, starving wankers.”

“Yeah, that’s it, ma’am,” Boudreau
replied. “That’s us, for sure.”

She laughed and planted a sisterly
kiss on the top of the blond Cajun’s head.

Sergeant Major Patchett popped open
another bottle of Australian beer and downed half of it in one swallow. “That’s
mighty fine,” he said. “I’m getting real tired of that Japanese piss-water
them yellow bastards left behind.”

He raised the bottle to toast
Jillian: “Thanks so much, Miss Forbes, for bringing us the good stuff.”

The sun was setting on the western
Owen Stanleys. Once it slipped behind those jagged peaks, the gray filter of
dusk would envelop land and sea once again, slowly dimming until darkness
closed around them like a black curtain. There would be no party lights on Esme’s
deck: “Blackout rules, you know,” Jillian reminded everyone.

Jock asked, “Jill, is this really
your last trip to Port Moresby?”

“Afraid so.”

“I thought maybe there’d be time
for one more…”

She shook her head.

“Where will you be sailing next?”
he asked.

“Not sure,” she replied. “There’s
been some talk of running supplies to the Aussies at Milne Bay—”

“What about Buna, Jill?”

She smiled, caressed his hand, and
said, “Wouldn’t that be lovely?” But the smile faded quickly. “There’s just one
little thing, Yank…you haven’t taken the bloody place yet. I hear it’s still
lousy with Japs.”

She took a long pull on her beer,
trying to wash away the fear that after tonight, they might not be together
again for months, maybe years…

Maybe ever.

“Sailing to Buna would be
difficult, though,” she continued. “Coming around the east end—through the Trobriand
Islands—it’s very treacherous. Nothing but reefs, Japanese airplanes—”

“And submarines,” he said, like a
raw nerve had been struck.

“No, not so much there, Jock. Too
shallow and hemmed in for them. For big warships, too. But getting back to what
I was saying, the only half-decent harbor near Buna is Oro Bay.”

“How far away is it?”

“East, about fifteen miles, I
think.”

Fifteen miles of jungle,
Jock thought. Might as well be a thousand.

It was time for the men to get back
to shore. Tomorrow would be another full day of training, and these 12 combat
veterans were among the teachers. Patchett gathered everyone for a last toast.

Raising his beer bottle, he said,
“I’ve had better assignments in this man’s army…but I’ve never been with
better people.”

Bottles clinked all around.
No one felt the slightest hint of disagreement with Patchett’s statement.

As the men began to climb into the
longboat taking them ashore, a chill coursed down Jillian’s spine. She turned
to Jock and asked, “But you…you’re staying the night, aren’t you?”

He looked surprised as he replied,
“Of course, Jill. Of course I’m staying.”

They took their time making love.
When they were finished, their damp, naked bodies still entwined on the sheets,
Jock whispered, “We’re getting awfully good at saying goodbye.”

She squeezed him tighter. “We’ve
had too much practice, Jock.”

Nestled within the shading
mountains, Kokoda was already in darkness, hidden from the sunset beneath the
soft glow of a burnt orange sky. The Aussies had won the fight for the
airstrip. This was no cause for celebration, though: they were still only
halfway to their objective, the north coast of Papua. They hunkered down for
the night, knowing today’s victory would only ensure their chance to die
another day.

Having the airstrip improved their
situation dramatically. In the morning, once the mist cleared—and barring a
blinding rainstorm—C-47 transports of the American 5th Air Force
would land with their loads of supplies.

A digger said, “We won’t be mucking
about in the jungle, lads, looking for those bloody parachutes.”

“And none of it will go to the
Nips,” another added.

His shattered hand swaddled in a
blood-stained bandage, the wounded Bren gunner said, “I’ve got you all beat.
I’ll be taking my lunch in Port Moresby tomorrow. It’s just a short airplane
ride away.”

Once past Kokoda, the Aussies would
begin their downhill run to the coast. Often, it wouldn’t seem like a descent:
there would still be plenty of climbing out of valleys, but the peaks to be
scaled would be lower. As the Owen Stanleys gradually yielded to swampy coastal
plains, there would be more plateaus—and more airstrips to turn to good use.

But first, they had to evict the
Japanese blocking their path at Kokoda Village.

“Level the bloody place,” the major
told his artillery liaison.

“But sir,” the liaison replied,
“that will take all the ammunition we have for the twenty-five-pounders...and
probably more.”

“So? The Yank planes are coming
tomorrow. We’ll get more.”

A breathless sergeant from the recon
platoon approached on the run. “Major, if I may?” he asked.

“What on earth is it, Sergeant?”

“Me and my lads think the Japs
might have already pulled out of the village,” the sergeant said.

“We’d be wasting the artillery ammo
if that’s the case, sir,” the liaison added.

The major shot the liaison a look
that made sure he’d shut up unless spoken to from this point on.

“What makes you think they’re gone,
Sergeant?” the major asked. He seemed dismissive of the reply before he heard
it.

“We were able to get really close,
right up the trail…almost into the village itself. It was getting dark, for
sure, sir…but there was no sign of anyone. It’s deserted. You’d think they’d
lay machine guns across the trail, but no…Nothing. We even made some noise to
try and draw fire.”

The major didn’t bother to
deliberate more than a second or two.

“Level the bloody place,” he said,
and walked away.

It had taken the better part of the
day for the Aussies to pull the last two 25-pounders into firing position. The
effort cost them three more injured men: a block had fractured while hauling up
the last gun. Ropes quivering with tension were suddenly released, whipping
through the hapless diggers like horizontal guillotines, breaking bones and
gashing flesh. Mercifully, nobody was run over as the gun slid downhill some 40
yards, accelerating and revolving end-for-end until it came to rest against a
broad tree trunk. Save for a bent shield, the piece was undamaged.

Now, as darkness fell, the last gun
was finally in place. Exhausted beyond caring, the artillerymen fell asleep
wherever they dropped.

They stayed asleep for the 45
minutes it took the artillery liaison to climb to the ridge.

Shaking the lieutenant awake, the
liaison said, “Get these lads shooting right bloody now, or you’ll have a boot
mark in your arse like the one the major just gave me.”

He didn’t want to wake up. “What?
Shooting…at…uhh…what, sir?”

“The village,” the liaison replied.
“The bloody village. Come on, man…I’ll help you work up the firing data. How
many rounds do you have left?”

That was far more information than
the lieutenant was able to process at the moment.

The liaison insisted: “A rough
figure, man!”

“Fifteen…I think. Maybe seventeen.”

“Good,” the liaison said. “Prepare
them all.”

The native guide had begged Colonel
Blevins to stop sooner along the Kapa Kapa Trail. He made an impassioned plea:
“We must not stay on Ghost Mountain at night!”

“I can’t stop while there’s still
daylight,” Blevins replied. “We’ll never meet the Aussies at this pace.”

Only when dusk washed away the
jungle’s color did the colonel bring 2nd Battalion to a halt. The
native guide wanted to flee, but he had taken an oath to support the Allies; he
couldn’t dishonor himself by going back on his word. Seeking shelter in the hollow
of a tree, he pulled a GI blanket over his head. He didn’t want to see what
night on the mountain would offer.

It never grew dark. Twilight
yielded to an eerie green glow: the jungle was alive with phosphorescence. The
soft, chemical radiance seemed to emanate from everything: trees, vines, the
vegetation and rotting logs covering the jungle floor. Devastated by exertion,
the soldiers usually fell dead asleep at any halt. This time, they stayed
awake, staring in uneasy wonder at the surreal light.

“It’s perfectly normal,” a GI said,
“a natural process. Some materials store energy and emit it as light, just like
the face of a wristwatch.”

A squadmate sprawled on the ground
nearby asked, “What are you, a fucking chemist or something?”

“I was studying to be one.”

“Ahh, that’s too fucking bad,
pal…but I don’t care if it’s natural or not. It’s scaring the living shit out
of me. I thought Halloween was over already.”

A sergeant stumbled by, making his
way to the head of the column. “You ain’t the only one scared shitless,” he
said. “The porters…it looks like they’re all gone…high-tailed it back down the
trail.”

When the new dawn broke, the
sergeant was proven right: the native porters—some 50 of them—had vanished.
Unlike the guide, they’d taken no oath; they were just paid labor. The porters
had no intention of spending a night on this place they called Ghost Mountain.

“Do you suppose they’ll come back now
that the sun’s up?” Colonel Blevins asked his guide.

“No, Colonel, I don’t think so.”

That was the last thing Blevins
needed to hear. There would be no one to tote the hundreds of pounds of
ammunition, field rations, and pioneer equipment. No one but his own GIs—and he
already knew how averse those GIs were to carrying anything that didn’t support
their immediate needs.

Blevins needed to sit down. He felt
strange; he couldn’t describe it any other way, as if whatever energy
his worn-out, middle-aged body had left was being flushed into the ground.

If we ever get out of this
jungle, he told himself, my battalion will be useless as a fighting
force…

But who am I kidding? It’s
useless now. The only fighting we’re doing is to stay alive.

Something was happening inside him.
Pain began to shoot down his arms. He was sure some giant clamp was being
tightened around his chest. Breathing caused excruciating pain.

Soldiers were gathering around him.
They crawled up on hands and knees—Are they too weak to stand, too?—just
staring, trying to understand. In the dim green light, their eyes seemed sunken
in their skulls, just black holes where bright orbs once shined.

A shirtless GI—The medic…I
recognize him—unbuttoned the colonel’s shirt and pressed a stethoscope to
his chest.

“His heart,” the medic said, as he
gently laid the colonel on his back.

Blevins was fascinated—and horrified—by
the medic’s ribs:

The spaces between them…they’re
all sucked in and hollow, like in those pictures of starving children…or that
spear wound Christ suffered on the cross, only all over his chest. My boys are
starving—they’re eating three times the daily K ration and they’re still
starving. This jungle, these mountains—they suck the life right out of you…

And with one last, gasping breath,
the jungle sucked the life out of Lieutenant Colonel Blevins.

The last shovelsful of dirt filled
Colonel Blevins’s grave. Major Henson, the man who was the battalion’s XO just
an hour ago, was now its commanding officer.

A senior sergeant told the new
commander, “We should just turn back, sir. This has been a fucked-up deal from
the git-go.”

“Negative, Sergeant,” Henson
replied. “We have our orders. We’re pushing on.”

Chapter Nine

The view from the airfield at
sunrise seemed conclusive: Kokoda Village was battered but still empty. The
artillery had done its work in the night, expending their ammunition just as the
Aussie major had prescribed. Six American C-47s arrived as promised, landing
from the east as if borne on rays of the morning sun. Supplies were quickly
offloaded; the sick and wounded filled the cabins for the flight back to Port
Moresby. The Yank pilots—nervous to be on the ground in Papua’s wild interior
for the first time—didn’t dare shut down their engines. They were airborne
again just moments after their delicate human cargo was safely in place.

The materiel they delivered was
short one notable necessity: “There’s no artillery ammunition in the lot, sir,”
a lieutenant reported to the major.

“Get Port Moresby on the wireless
immediately and make bloody sure the next lift brings some,” the major said.
“Fifty rounds at least.”

“But that won’t be before tomorrow,
sir,” the lieutenant replied. “At the earliest.”

“Then let’s hope to God we don’t
need any before then,” the major said. “Now, why are you still here? Didn’t I
just give you an order?”

As the lieutenant scurried away, a
captain asked, “Are we still going to clear the village this morning, sir? Even
without the guns?”

The major seemed surprised by the
question. “Of course we are,” he replied. “Time waits for no man. Are you
telling me the patrols haven’t set out already?”

“Not yet, sir,” the captain said.
“The men are still eating.”

The major’s face flushed: “Eating,
Captain? Now?”

“Yes, sir…you know how it is when
we get a fresh food drop. The men eat and drink it immediately. It goes bad in
no time otherwise.”

The company of diggers grew more
confident with each step. Now less than 50 yards of open ground away, the first
mounds of rubble—like so many shattered totems—marked what was once Kokoda Village.
No one—living or dead—could be seen.

“Looks like a piece of piss, men,”
the lieutenant leading the center platoon said.

He turned to say something to his
platoon sergeant, but he never got the words out. The first burst of machine
gun fire cut him down like a machete clearing jungle growth.

The second burst swept away the
half of the platoon too slow in kissing the dirt.

All along the company line, diggers
littered the ground. Some tried to burrow in and save themselves. For the rest,
it was already too late.

As they lay immobilized, a
smattering of deadly accurate mortar shells began to drop in their midst. Each THUMP
of a round’s impact took another bite from the already decimated company.

“THERE MUST BE AT LEAST THREE
NAMBUS, CAPTAIN,” a sergeant shrieked to the company commander. “I CAN’T SEE
WHERE THE BLOODY HELL THEY ARE.”

I can, the captain told
himself.

On the far side of the village,
behind a massive pile of shattered timbers the Aussie artillery left behind,
was a well-fortified bunker.

Sure, the bloody Japs left…but
the little bastards came back.

The captain crawled to his right
platoon. “Go around them,” he told the platoon leader. “Kick them in the arse.
I’ll call in the mortars.”

He would have called for artillery,
too—if they had any rounds to shoot.

The platoon crawled into the maze
of tall, razor-sharp kunai grass and promptly became lost. The platoon leader
had to stick his head up out of the grass to get his bearings—and nearly got it
shot off for his trouble: a bullet snatched the slouch hat right off his head.

He didn’t bother trying to find it.

Reoriented, the platoon tried its
flanking attack. The machine gun fire that raked the diggers was every bit as
savage as before.

“Our mortars, our Brens…they’re
aren’t hurting that bunker a bit,” the platoon leader said. “We’ve got to pull
back.”

The survivors escaped only by
crawling back through the kunai, dragging their dead and wounded with them.

Far behind the fight and still high
on the ridge, the artillerymen were rigging their impotent guns for the descent
to the plateau below.

Gathering his section’s gear, a
gunner nearly threw his back out as he jerked on what he thought was an empty
ammunition box. It barely moved; neither did the one beneath it.

“LADS,” he said, “WE MUST’VE BEEN
MORE COCKED UP THAN WE THOUGHT LAST NIGHT…”

He held open the lids of the ammo
boxes as if revealing found treasure.

They still had four more rounds to
fire.

It only took a few moments to have
a gun ready to shoot again.

The first round was short.

The second was long.

The third and fourth blew the
bunker apart like so many matchsticks.

As the diggers combed through the
smoking remains of the Japanese position, a sergeant reported to the major: “We
found eight Nips, half-naked, as usual.”

“Are they all dead, Sergeant?”

“They are now, sir…also, three
machine guns, two small-caliber mortars, and enough ammunition to hold us
diggers off for another day, at least. Thank God for our bloody gunners…even if
the silly bastards can’t count for beans.”

“Very well, sergeant,” the major
replied. “Now, let’s get moving. We’re still only halfway there.”

Chapter Ten

Colonel Molloy took his pointer to
the big map. “The Kapa Kapa is every bit as difficult as the Aussie coast
watchers told us, apparently,” he told his assembled commanders and staff.
“Second Battalion has only made it to here”—the pointer made an
aggravated snap against the paper—“as of last night’s radio report.”

Not even close to halfway,
Jock thought. Maybe we should’ve listened to those coast watchers a little
better. MacArthur must be really pissed about now, with his “grand
gesture of help” to the diggers turning to shit and all.

“I think we can write Second
Battalion off as being any help to the Australians,” Molloy said, as his
pointer now traced the Aussie advance along the map. “They’re well past Kokoda Village
now—to about here—on the Track’s downhill run to the coast. They’ve occupied
three more airstrips the Japs abandoned, too, so they’re getting regular
resupply and casualty evacuation from Fifth Air Force…but between all that
mountain climbing and fighting Jap infantry tooth and nail for every mile,
they’re still in real bad shape. Any questions so far?”

There were none.

“Okay, then,” Molloy continued,
“we’ve got our airlift schedule to kick off Operation Easy Street, the
conquest of Buna. Colonel Vann, your Third Battalion will fly over this coming
Monday—three days from now. Major Miles, your First Battalion will go on
Tuesday. Your respective areas of operation once we get there are marked on the
map.”

Jock had a question now. “Sir,” he
asked, “are you telling us it’ll take an entire day to move one
battalion by air?”

Colonel Molloy gestured to his Air
Force liaison: “You want to answer that one, Major?”

“Certainly, sir,” the liaison said.
Taking the lecturing tone of a grade school teacher, he continued, “It breaks
down like this, gentlemen: eight C-47s have been assigned to this movement.
It’ll take all of them just to move one company and its equipment. Each
battalion has four companies. By the time you fly around the mountains, it
takes almost three hours for a round trip between Port Moresby and
Fasari—that’s the airstrip our Aussie friends were nice enough to have the
natives clear for us. Now, we get twelve hours of daylight…” He mimed adding
columns of numbers in the air; the smile that crossed his face as he did it
could only be described as condescending. “Are you with me so far?” he added.

“We can do the math,” Jock said,
“but I’m curious about the allocation. That’s all we get? Eight
airplanes?”

“There’s a real big war going on,
Major Miles,” the liaison replied.

Yeah, Jock thought, and I
need some desk clerk with wings to tell me that.

The air liaison continued, “Once
you’re on the ground, it’s only forty miles over flat ground from Fasari to
Buna.”

Only forty miles…like this
flyboy’s ever walked—and fought—across forty miles.

Jock had another question. “Maybe
I’m missing something here, but I thought we were taking a battery of
seventy-five-millimeter howitzers with us. When do they get airlifted? And how
will we move them from Fasari to Buna? Mules? Jeeps?”

Colonel Molloy’s expression turned
sour. “You’re getting ahead of me, Major Miles,” he said. “That’s my next point
in this briefing.”

Standing in the corner of the tent,
the captain commanding the artillery battery looked like he was going to throw
up. Jock could feel the sting of bad news before it was even spoken: I guess
it’s time to bend over and spread those cheeks, because here comes another
shafting.

“There’s going to be a change in
our fire support,” Molloy said. “We’re turning in the seventy-fives and
replacing them with one-oh-fives. MacArthur figures we’re in line for an
upgrade in firepower…and the divisions struggling in the Solomons badly need
the lighter pack artillery, and plenty of it, on the double.”

So why does the chief
cannon-cocker over there look like he’s going to puke all over himself?

“This poses a bit of a transport
problem for us, though,” Molloy continued. “One-oh-five howitzers don’t fit in
a C-47…not unless they’re completely broken down, airlifted piecemeal, and then
reassembled. Unfortunately, it would take special tooling at each end of the
trip to accomplish that…and that’s something we don’t have right now.”

The air liaison added, “And each
broken-down gun would take up an entire C-47. We just can’t afford to waste
airlift capacity that way.”

“That’s all great,” Jock said, “but
we’re not going to give up the seventy-fives until after we’ve got
control of Buna, right?”

Colonel Molloy shook his head. So
did the artillery captain.

“The seventy-fives are to be at the
docks by tomorrow, Jock,” Molloy said. “MacArthur wants them in the Solomons
within a week.”

Jock couldn’t believe what he was
hearing. “So we land with absolutely no fire support? Not from Navy ships…not
from our own guns. Just nothing?”

The air liaison replied, “The Fifth
Air Force is all the artillery you’ll need, Major Miles.”

“Funny,” Jock said, “but I’ve heard
that line before. It was bullshit then…and it’s bullshit now.”

An hour after the briefing, Jock
was still in a rage, swearing and throwing things around his battalion CP tent.

“NO FUCKING ARTILLERY,” he said,
kicking a footlocker across the dirt floor. “NONE AT ALL. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS
SHIT? DON’T WE EVER LEARN ANYTHING?”

He didn’t notice Colonel Molloy
enter.

“ATTEN-HUT,” Sergeant Major
Patchett said, hoping to silence Jock before he spewed another epithet their
regimental commander might take personally.

Jock and the four battalion staff
officers present snapped to attention.

“Begging your pardon, sir,”
Patchett said to Molloy, “but we were just hashing out a few of them Problems
of Command training scenarios…”

The colonel laughed: You’ve got
to respect the loyalty of an NCO who’ll flat out lie to cover for his
commander.

“I’ll bet you were, Sergeant
Major,” Molloy said, “but I’m glad you’re all here. I just gave Third Battalion
this sermon, and now I’m going to give it to you. Let’s sit down. Take a load
off.”

They grabbed whatever they could
find—folding chairs, camp stools, storage chests—and formed a circle with
Molloy at the head.

“Now, Major Miles,” the colonel
began, “I understand exactly how you feel: the battle for Port Moresby was a
shambles because you didn’t have the firepower to punch through the Jap
defenses…”

“Amen to that, sir,” Patchett
muttered under his breath.

“And you think we’ll be making the
same mistakes at Buna all over again,” Molloy continued. “Am I right, Jock?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it, in a
nutshell.”

“Well, Major…I’d agree with you, if
it wasn’t for one thing…”

“What’s that, sir?”

“It just might be different this
time with our air support. When you were fighting for Port Moresby, they had to
come all the way from Australia. I’ve heard the comments about how the Fifth
Air Force did such a great job, for five fucking minutes a day. But this
time, they’re right over the mountains at Port Moresby and right down the coast
at Milne Bay. That should make a big difference.”

“I sure hope you’re right, sir,”
Jock replied.

“But I’ve decided on one thing,”
Molloy said. “Until we know for sure what kind of fire support we’re going to
get—whether it’s from Fifth Air Force, floating in our artillery and tanks on
barges, or whatever it takes—I consider the mission of this regiment at Buna
nothing more than a reconnaissance in force. We will not attack any fortified
positions with our asses uncovered and left out to dry…not as long as I command
this regiment. You have my word on that.”

As soon as the colonel left the
tent, Patchett said, “Maybe I was wrong about that man, sir…but it’s all just
fancy words until we see him in action.”

Lieutenant Paul Hellinger peered
over the tailgate of the deuce-and-a-half. Just as he feared, the bed was
empty.

“Where’s the rest of my mortars?”
Hellinger asked the supply sergeant in charge of the truck.

“That’s all there was, Lieutenant,”
the sergeant replied. He thrust his clipboard in Hellinger’s face. “Sign here
for what you got, sir…in triplicate, please.”

The paperwork done, the truck drove
off, leaving nothing but dust and empty promises in its wake. Paul Hellinger
watched it go, a forlorn young man trying to come to grips with a failure not
of his own making, but his to bear nonetheless. He shuffled the useless sheaf
of requisitions in his hands. He wasn’t a combat veteran yet, but he didn’t
have to be one to know some lousy sheet of paper merely requesting a weapon was
no substitute for the real thing.

“Something wrong, Paul?” The voice
belonged to Lieutenant Lee Grossman, commander of Charlie Company.

“Yeah, Lee…something’s wrong. Real
wrong. I was supposed to get four 81-millimeter mortars. I only got two…and
it’s only four stinking days until we move out. Some weapons company I’m
running, eh?”

Grossman asked, “You tell Major
Miles yet?”

“No…I just found out. But to be
honest, I’m not looking forward to telling him…not one bit.”

“Why’s that?”

Hellinger wasn’t sure where to
begin. “Well, for starters,” he said, “I’m the new kid on the block. I don’t
know him…not like you guys do, anyway. I’m not sure how to approach him. Plus,
he’s a West Pointer and—”

“Oh, hell, I wouldn’t worry about
that, Paul. I know some of those ring-knockers from the Academy can be real
assholes…like this is their club and we don’t really belong. But Jock Miles
isn’t like that. You couldn’t ask for a better CO. Give it to him straight.
Just don’t ever try to bullshit him.”

A dark thought crossed Grossman’s
mind: “Paul…your paperwork…it was in order, wasn’t it? I mean…you didn’t make
some clerical mistake that’s causing us to get the short end?”

Hellinger held up his handful of
requisitions. “Nope…the paperwork’s okay, Lee. I checked it a hundred times.
Supply just didn’t deliver.”

“Then just deal with it…that’s all
he’s going to tell you to do,” Grossman replied. “Being short a couple of
mortars is a bad deal, for sure…but it’s not your fault. Hell…we’re already
short artillery support. But we’ve been in deeper shit than this, believe me.
We’ll figure a way out.”

Chapter Eleven

Colonel Dick Molloy didn’t imagine
General Hartman had summoned him for a friendly chat: I can smell the
ass-chewing coming a mile away.

The look on the general’s face
didn’t change Dick Molloy’s mind. Ordering his CP tent cleared so they’d be
alone, the general began, “At ease, Colonel. You and I need to have a little
talk. I think your outlook on things may need a little…”—he took a second to
search for the right word—“reorienting.”

Molloy decided this might be a good
time to just shut up, stand at parade rest, and speak only when spoken to.

“I’ve heard some rumors,” Hartman
continued, “that you’ve been telling your men this Buna operation will be a reconnaissance
in force. Is that true, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir. I believe I did use
those words.”

Hartman kept pushing: “You have
read the operations order, have you not? You are aware Buna is an offensive
operation?”

“A reconnaissance in force can be a
great asset to an offensive operation, General.”

The general’s face began to turn
red. “It can also turn into an excuse to make a lot of noise but take no
ground. The mission of Operation Easy Street is to seize Buna, not recon
it, Colonel Molloy.”

“I understand that, sir. But until
we know exactly what we’re up against—”

Hartman cut him off. “We already
know what we’re up against, Colonel. MacArthur’s intelligence estimates are
quite clear: there will be only a few thousand exhausted, disorganized Japanese
troops in the Buna area. The terrain there is flat and wet—unsuited for
defensive positions. Between the Aussie division and our own, you don’t think
we can handle that in short order?”

Molloy couldn’t keep the ironic
smile from his face. “Sir, I believe you were the victim of General MacArthur’s
last intelligence estimate, right before you tried to take Port Moresby. That
was supposed to be a cake walk, too.”

He watched Hartman bristle but the
spoken truth was impossible to evade. The general needed a moment to compose
his thoughts. Suddenly, he seemed very old—and very tired.

Finally, Hartman said, “Colonel,
you’re a West Point man. You do still remember the priorities of command they
taught you there, don’t you?”

“Yes, General. Of course I do.”

“Repeat them for me, please.”

“The first priority is my mission,
sir. The second is my men. The third, the materiel under my
command.”

It was Hartman’s turn to smile.
“Very good, Colonel,” he said. “Don’t you ever forget that…the mission
always—and I mean always—comes first.”

“I understand, General…but I remember
something else, too: you won’t accomplish your mission if your men are
outgunned and slaughtered.”

Hartman’s smile faded. Once again,
he seemed to be searching for the right words. This time, nothing came.

“Dismissed, Colonel,” was all the
general said.

No one was surprised when the
argument quickly escalated to first punch. Sergeant Mike McMillen’s left hook
sent the C-47’s crew chief sprawling to the ground.

“Enough of your flyboy bullshit,”
McMillen said, standing over his stunned victim. “We get the whole damn cabin
for our stuff…six thousand pounds’ worth…says right here on the load manifest.
You don’t get to kick any of it off to haul your Air Force crap.”

The C-47’s pilot, a young
lieutenant who looked barely out of his teens, jumped down from the airplane’s
loading door to break up the fracas.

“I want to press charges against
this man,” the crew chief said to his pilot. “He assaulted me, Lieutenant,
plain and simple.”

“Go ahead…press all the charges you
want,” McMillen replied. “I’m a lot better off in the stockade than where I’m
going.”

Another voice rang out in the
pre-dawn darkness: “At ease, Sergeant McMillen.” When the men who had gathered
around saw it was Major Miles speaking, they snapped to attention. The crew
chief quickly picked himself up off the ground to do the same.

Ignoring the young pilot eager to
get his attention, Jock said to McMillen, “What’s the story here, Sergeant?”

McMillen reiterated what had just
happened while pointing emphatically to the load manifest in his hand. “We
can’t let them cheat us out of cargo space, sir. We need every ounce of this
shit,” he concluded.

Jock now put the pilot in his
sights, asking, “Was this your bright idea, Lieutenant?”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m sure it’s all a
big misunderstanding.”

The crew chief glared at his pilot
like a man betrayed.

“I’m sure it is, too, Lieutenant,”
Jock said. Looking to the crew chief, he added, “Are you injured, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. I’ve been sucker-punched
before.”

“Very well,” Jock said, “then
there’s no need to set the wheels of military justice in motion just yet.
Lieutenant, I hope this isn’t an example of the cooperation you winged
heroes of Fifth Air Force are prepared to extend…cooperation we’re
depending on in a big way.”

“Oh, no, sir. Not at all, sir.”

“Good. We’re in agreement. You
two—shake hands.”

Swallowing their pride, McMillen
and the crew chief did as they were told.

“Now,” Jock said, “let’s quit
fucking around and get this airplane loaded…and every last piece of our gear
rides. Is that clear, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely clear, sir.”

As the men went back to work, Jock
pulled McMillen aside and said, “That was good work, Mike…but don’t push your
luck with the quick hands. Next time, I might not be there to bail your ass
out.”

McMillen asked, “You’re not gonna
tell Lieutenant Pop on me, are you, sir?”

“No, Mike, you’re going to tell
your company commander yourself.”

McMillen did a two-step of
frustration as he said, “But he’ll want to take it out of my ass, sir. He’ll
probably bust me. Maybe you could—”

“Sorry, Mike. That’ll be his call.”

The run-down building, just down a
dusty street from the harbor, looked like any other sailors’ pub in Australia,
right down to the sign over the door that read, No Boongs Allowed.
Jillian Forbes could have recognized the place in the dark. This establishment,
in Cooktown, on Cape York’s eastern coast, seemed to be the only game in town
if you were in the market for alcoholic refreshment.

Behind her, two of Esme’s
Aborigine crewmen were pulling a cart. “Wait here,” she told them. “I’ll get
the grog out to the street; then you roll it back to Esme. Just make
sure it stays covered, and don’t let a constable see you. We don’t have enough
money on hand to buy lager and post your bail, too.”

One of the men patted the canvas
tarp folded on the cart. “No worries, Miss Jilly,” he said.

Jillian expected to be the only
female in the crowded pub who wasn’t a prostitute. When she stepped through the
door, though, she got a surprise: seated at a table in the corner was a woman of
late middle age. Dressed in men’s clothes yet unmistakably female, with a cap
trimmed with faded gold braid on the table before her, this tall, sturdy sheila
radiated an aura that said, Screw with me at your peril. Her gnarled
hands told of a lifetime of hard work…

At sea, no doubt, Jillian
surmised.

Sizing up Jillian’s workaday
trousers and shirt in a quick glance, the woman called out, “Are you lost, schatzi?
You may still be young and pretty but no man will pay for you dressed like
that.”

The men in the pub—merchant seamen
all—must have agreed, because they laughed out loud. So did the women
slithering through the ranks of sailors, plying their trade.

That accent…she’s not Aussie,
that’s for sure, Jillian thought. She sounds German…maybe Dutch.

The older woman said, “You’d better
come and have a drink with me, schatzi, before the sharks in this sea
eat you alive.”

Jillian strode over to the woman’s
table and said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but nobody eats me alive.”

“Oh! A feisty one, she is! You must
join me for two drinks, then.”

“Just let me take care of a little
business, and then I’ll be glad to.”

Stacking the cases of beer on the
wooden sidewalk outside the pub, the barman scowled when he saw the two
Aborigines waiting with their cart.

“You didn’t say this was for no
boongs,” he said to Jillian.

“That’s right, mate. I didn’t say,”
Jillian replied. “What’s wrong? You don’t want my money?”

The barman spit on the ground,
narrowly missing the stacked bottles. Then, he stomped back into the pub.
Jillian followed him in and made straight for the older woman’s table.

“Buying spirits for the blacks, I
see,” the woman said, pouring Jillian a glass of whiskey. “Can’t that be a bit
dangerous for an Aussie, schatzi?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jillian
replied. “I suppose introductions are in order. I’m Jillian Forbes. I captain
the coastal trader Esme.”

“Good for you! My name is Beatrix
Van Der Wegge. I’m master of the good ship Java Queen.”

“So you’re Dutch, Beatrix?”

“Yes. I’ve been in the East Indies
all my life. Where have you been running?”

“Port Moresby and back. But the
next run is to Milne Bay.”

“Mine, too! We’ll be sailing
together,” Beatrix said as they clinked glasses. “Jillian…what do they call you
for short?”

“Mostly, they don’t. But the blacks
call me Miss Jilly, and my man—and only him—calls me Jill.”

Beatrix took hold of Jillian’s
hands, examining them closely. “Hmm, you’re not afraid of hard work, I see. You
mentioned your man…but there’s no ring on your finger.”

“We’re not up to that yet. He’s a Yank
soldier—a major—in Papua at the moment.”

Releasing Jillian’s hands, Beatrix
said, “A Yank and an Aussie…a very dangerous coupling. Take my advice,
schatzi…never get attached to any one man. Especially not a soldier.”

She held up her own hand, wiggling
her fingers to show she wore no ring, either. “I’ve rid myself of three
husbands already, one way or the other, Jillian. When you’re young, it’s all
tongues and naked skin and sweat and sticky bedclothes. But once you’re old and
drier than a nun’s nasty, they just become a nuisance, wagging their little
willies in your face all the time.”

“Regardless—,” Jillian began to
reply, until a drunken sailor stumbled and nearly upset their table.

“STEADY ON, YOU MONGREL,” Jillian
commanded, while Beatrix coolly appraised her and the intruder.

The drunk staggered back a step,
trying his best to shape alcohol-soaked facial muscles into a look of
indignation. The best he could manage was a twisted grimace.

“The both of you can go fuck
yourselves,” he said, “or fuck each other…or whatever it is you do. I don’t
take me no orders from someone who squats to pee.”

He couldn’t react quickly enough to
Jillian’s movements. In an instant, she was face-to-face with him, one hand holding
her long, sharp seaman’s knife firmly against his groin. Her other hand held
him by the throat. He didn’t—no, couldn’t—move.

“You know, laddie,” Jillian said,
“I can fix it so you squat to pee, too. Would you like that?”

He shook his head.

“All right, then,” Jillian said,
pushing him away.

He tumbled hard on his backside as
the rest of the patrons roared with laughter.

“Well, schatzi,” Beatrix said,
“that was quite an impressive display. Here, have another drink. That imbecile
spilled your last one.”

As they clinked glasses once again,
Beatrix said, “I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Jillian downed the whiskey in one
swallow. “You know,” she said, “I never got to ask what they call you for
short.”

Beatrix gave a tight-lipped smile
and replied, “They call me captain.”

Chapter Twelve

Corporal Bogater Boudreau could see
it coming: the man sitting next to him on the C-47—the BAR gunner in his
squad—was about to throw up.

“C’mon, mon frère…suck it
up,” Bogater said, snapping open a paper airsick bag with a flick of his wrist.
“If you heave, the whole damn plane’s gonna start in. It’ll smell like a
flophouse shitter in here in no time flat.”

Bogater was right: in a few
minutes, the plane’s cabin reeked with the odor of vomit as the stomachs of GI
after GI succumbed to the rough ride.

Standing at the cockpit entryway, Lieutenant
Theo Papadakis, Able Company’s commander, said to the pilot, “For cryin’ out
loud, pal…can’t you do something about these air pockets? My guys are puking
their guts out. They’re gonna be useless once we’re on the ground again. Hell
of a thing if we have to fight our way off the airstrip.”

“First off,” the pilot replied, “I
can’t do anything about the turbulence. It’s from the mountains. Only two ways
to avoid it—fly real high or fly all the way around—and we can’t do either one
right now. And as far as having to fight your way off the airstrip—you won’t.
We were in and out of there all day yesterday with your other battalion. We
didn’t see a lousy Jap anywhere.”

Theo Papadakis took small comfort
in that fact. “But they’re out there somewhere,” he said.

“Just remember the rule,” the pilot
said. “If you puke, you clean it up.”

Someone tapped Papadakis on the
shoulder. It was Mike McMillen, one of his platoon sergeants. “Lieutenant Pop,
you got a minute?” McMillen asked.

“I’ve got until this fucking
airplane touches down again.”

McMillen related the story of his
fight with the crew chief.

“You mean that guy over there?”
Papadakis asked, pointing to the crewman fast asleep against the cabin’s aft
bulkhead.

“Yeah, him,” McMillen replied.

“I was wondering who lumped up his
face like that. You say you did that with one punch, Mike?”

“Yes, sir. It was only one, I
swear.”

“Then I’d say you did a good job,
sticking up for your platoon and all, Sergeant.”

“But I don’t want to get you in
Dutch with Major Miles, Lieutenant. You know…letting it slide and all.”

“Don’t worry about Major Miles,
Sergeant. He’s got bigger things to worry about…and so do I. Do you know what a
reprimand is?”

McMillen looked confused as he
replied, “I suppose…it’s…umm…”

“Let me make it real simple, Mike.
You just got one. Case closed.”

They had only been there a few
hours, but already the men of Jock’s battalion had devised a nickname for the
airstrip at Fasari: So Sorry. It seemed to fit: the field was nothing
but a flat expanse of ground which natives had cleared of the high kunai grass
and a few inconveniently placed trees. The soil was muddy but firm enough,
despite the frequent deluges of rain. When airplanes were absent, the only clue
to its purpose was the long streamer at the top of a high pole serving as a
wind sock. There was barely enough room for the flight of eight C-47s to land
and, squeezed wing tip to wing tip, unload their cargo.

In short, a sorry excuse for an
airfield.

By mid-afternoon, the three rifle
companies of 1st Battalion were on the ground, going through the
motions of providing perimeter security for an airstrip yet to be threatened by
enemy soldiers. There was always the prospect of marauding Japanese aircraft
but they hadn’t appeared, either.

Now, they thought the sun was
taunting them. This evening, it seemed to be in a bigger hurry than usual to
hide below the horizon, giving relief from the broiling heat of day but
plunging them into immobilizing darkness. Jock and Colonel Dick Molloy tracked
that merciless orange star as they stood on the airstrip, awaiting the final
airlift of the day, the one that would carry the weapons company and complete
the movement of Jock’s battalion to So Sorry.

“At least we’ll get a later sunset,”
Jock said. “The mountains don’t block the setting sun here on the north coast
like they do at Port Moresby.”

Molloy didn’t seem to be listening
as he scanned the empty sky. “The rain’s slowed them down,” he said. “If the
Air Force doesn’t show up soon…”

There was no point completing the
sentence. Everyone knew the rest: once the sun went down, the planes wouldn’t
be able to find the place, let alone land. Jock’s battalion would face their
first night back in the field—and many more, perhaps—shorthanded and
undergunned.

The long shadows of dusk had begun
their slow creep across the airstrip when the first whisper of airplane engines
echoed off the mountains. In a few moments, the C-47s drifted into view, the
setting sun glinting off their windshields. As the line of aircraft turned one
by one to the runway’s heading, Jock grimaced:

“There are only seven planes, sir,”
he said. “There should be eight.”

Once on the ground, the
transports—with engines still running—wasted no time unloading. Sergeant Major
Patchett jumped from the lead aircraft and ran straight to Jock and Molloy.
“One of the planes had to turn back,” Patchett shouted over the rumble of 14
idling engines. “Motor trouble, they said.”

Jock asked, “Did they make it back
to Port Moresby?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“What was on that plane, Top?”

“The two heavy mortar sections, a
shitload of ammo, and Lieutenant Hellinger.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jock and Dick
Molloy said, their words in almost perfect unison.

Jock blew out a chestful of
frustration and added, “What the hell’s going on here? It’s like the gods and
MacArthur are conspiring to take away all my firepower.”

Dick Molloy found that ironic—and
funny. He asked, “The gods and MacArthur…is there really any difference, Jock?”

First Battalion bivouacked at So
Sorry for the night. At first light, they hit the narrow, coastal trail
leading to the regimental assembly area—a village called Dobodura—some 40 miles
away and eight miles inland from Buna. The men had come up with a more easily
pronounceable nickname for that place, too: Double-Dare.

“The Aussies say it’s a good place
for an airstrip,” Colonel Molloy told Jock just before the battalion set out.
“I got a message last night saying the native labor has already been lined up
to start the land-clearing operation. Double-Dare Airfield...that has an
audacious ring to it, don’t you think?”

They weren’t sure how far they
traveled down the trail that first day. Division’s schedule for the forced
march showed the battalion arriving by sundown of the second day on the trail.

“Ain’t no way, sir,” Melvin
Patchett said. “This ain’t much of a trail…it’s a damn footpath, and it ain’t
exactly no straight-line footpath, neither, like them dumbasses at Division
sketched it on the map. All these twists and turns are adding the miles like
crazy…and with getting slowed down by rain every couple hours and all, we’ll be
lucky to drag our sopping wet asses into Double-Dare by sunset of Day
Three.”

Jock replied, “Yeah, maybe…but at
least we aren’t running into any Japs.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Patchett said,
“but I’m kinda surprised we ain’t caught up with Third Battalion. They only got
less than a day’s head start on us…and we know what a bunch of route-step
fuckups they are.”

It was early in their second
morning on the trail. Lieutenant Lee Grossman’s Charlie Company was leading 1st
Battalion. A new corporal was out in front of the column as point man. First
Sergeant Tom Hadley was right behind him, grading his every move.

It all happened so quickly. In one
swift motion, the point man went to ground, his finger tightening on the M1’s
trigger.

Hadley was practically flat on top
of him, whispering, “What’ve you got?”

“Something up ahead,” the point man
said, “it looks like a foot.”

“It doesn’t look like a
foot, numbnuts. It is a foot. And it’s wearing a GI boot.”

Hadley began to low-crawl forward.

“It could be a trap,” the point man
whispered.

Hadley didn’t stop. He couldn’t
hear the words, anyway.

Lieutenant Grossman scuttled up and
joined the point man on the ground.

“What’s going on, Corporal?”
Grossman asked.

It was First Sergeant Hadley who
answered the question: “GET THE MEDIC UP HERE! RIGHT NOW!”

Lieutenant Grossman and the medic
joined Hadley, who was hunched over two prone, semi-conscious GIs.

“These guys aren’t wounded,” Hadley
said. “They’re sick…they’re burning up. Is this what dengue fever looks like?”

The GIs moaned as the medic tried
moving their arms and legs.

“Yeah, could be dengue,” the medic
said. “Or maybe bush typhus.”

“I can’t believe Third Battalion
just left them here like this,” Hadley said.

One of the sick men was trying to
say something:

“Fell…behind...might…not know…not
know…we’re gone. Help me…”

“Yeah, sure, buddy,” Hadley
replied. “Just take it easy.” He asked Grossman, “Sir, what do you say we get
some of the native porters to carry these guys back to So Sorry?”

“Yeah, by all means,” Grossman
replied. “Just figure out how to redistribute the loads those porters were
carrying. Do not leave anything behind. And for cryin’ out loud, Top, let’s get
this column moving again, on the double.”

Chapter Thirteen

First Battalion made it to Dobodura—Double-Dare—on
the morning of the third day.

It wasn’t the last glimpse of the
glistening blue Solomon Sea before the trail turned inland that caught the
attention of the GIs, or the barren swampland stretching for miles that offered
a soldier little in the way of cover or concealment.

What did catch their attention was
the aid station overflowing with casualties.

“What the hell?” Lieutenant Theo
Papadakis said to no one in particular. “Somebody’s been blowing smoke up our
asses. Looks like there’s plenty of Japs around here. Those GIs didn’t wound
themselves. Third Battalion must’ve took a hell of a beating here last night.”

Another disquieting sight: natives
digging row after neat row of holes—unmistakably graves.

Jock Miles had just sat down to
rest his soggy, aching feet when he was set upon by Lieutenant Colonel Horace
Vann, 3rd Battalion commander, and the Australian coast watcher for
Buna District, Dickie Bennett. Both had the haggard look of men too busy—or too
terrified—to sleep.

Colonel Vann said, “My lead company
had advanced halfway down the trail to Ango Corner, Jock. They were unopposed
and had no problems until the sun went down. Then the Japs came out of the woodwork.
My men got hit with everything—artillery, mortars, machine guns. I swear, those
Japs were rising out of the swamps like ghosts. I took over fifty dead or
wounded—almost half of King Company.”

Jock asked, “Your other companies,
sir…did they have any contact?”

“No,” Vann replied, “they were
here, guarding the darkies clearing this airfield, and in Dobodura village.
They heard it all, but they never got hit.”

Dickie Bennett was obviously biting
his tongue. Finally, he could hold back no longer. “You’ve got it all wrong,
Colonel. Your men of King Company got spooked,” he said. “The Japs were doing
their firecracker reconnaissance trick—a handful of sappers running
around throwing firecrackers to see if you’ll start shooting and give your
positions away. Your men did…and they paid for it.”

It was Horace Vann’s turn to bite
his tongue as Jock thought, Vann’s only been here a day but already there
ain’t much love lost between these two. That ain’t good.

Bennett poured more gasoline on the
fire: “If me and my blokes fell for that every time the Japs tried it, we’d
have been dead a hundred times over by now.”

“All right,” Vann said, “that’s
enough out of you, Mister Bennett—”

The Aussie interrupted with a
surly, “That’s Lieutenant Commander Bennett, Colonel.”

“Fine…Commander. Thanks for
all your help, but I’ve had enough of your fucking snide comments, okay?”

Bennett stormed off. The words that
ain’t good repeated in Jock’s head. He asked Vann, “Do you have radio
contact with Regiment yet, sir?”

“Nope. Haven’t been able to raise
them. My radios are as waterlogged as this swamp. Do you know if Colonel
Molloy’s in the area yet?”

“Should be, sir. He and his
headquarters group were at the ass end of my column.”

“Well, then,” Vann replied, “me and
my boys are sitting right here until he shows up and figures out what he wants
us to do. I’m not crippling another company doing some recon in force
when we have hardly any force at all. If you’re smart, Jock, you’ll keep
your men right here, too. At least for now.”

Lieutenant Papadakis approached and
said, “Able Company’s ready to move out, Major Miles.”

Jock slung his Thompson submachine
gun over his shoulder. “Very well, Lieutenant,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

Unmistakably annoyed, Colonel Vann
said, “That’s a bad idea, Major Miles. Your men should stay here and reinforce
my battalion. You and I are all alone out here. The Aussies are still up on
Kokoda, the rest of our division will take days to trickle in, and the Japs are
like the insects…they’re everywhere.”

Jock kept walking.

Vann called after him, “Stay here,
Jock. It’s the smart thing to do.”

“I never said I was smart,
Colonel.”

Theo Papadakis asked, “What was all
that fuss with Colonel Vann about, sir?”

“Don’t worry about it, Theo,” Jock
replied as he spread the map on the ground. “Take your company and start moving
to the coast. Find a good, dry place for a camp between Cape Sudest and the
east end of Duropa Plantation.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Just be careful, Theo. There
aren’t a lot of places to hide in those swamps.”

Papadakis laughed and said, “Those
swamps…that dumb Cajun Boudreau can’t wait to get ass deep in them. Says it
feels just like home on the bayou.”

“Use Bogater wisely,” Jock replied.
“He’s the best scout in this battalion…probably the whole damn division.”

“I will, sir. I promise.”

“Keep me posted on the radio what
you find, Theo. I’ll send the other companies up after you. By nightfall, the
whole battalion should be settled in.”

“I promise one more thing, sir,”
Papadakis said.

“What’s that, Theo?”

“I promise my men won’t be shooting
at no firecrackers.”

Jock started to laugh, but the
racket of automatic weapons fire—definitely not firecrackers—erupted
from the head of Able Company’s column. The shooting ended quickly.

When Jock and Papadakis arrived,
GIs were pulling the bodies of two dead Japanese soldiers—a private and a lance
corporal—from the swamp and onto the trail.

“ANYONE HIT?” Papadakis asked.

“Just these Nips,” a sergeant
replied. “Probably scouts, but the fucking idiots shoulda known better than to
be snooping around like that in broad daylight.”

“Funny thing, though,” Jock said.
“These Japs are awfully well dressed. Their uniforms and gear look right out of
the box. And they’re fit and well fed, too. They sure don’t look like sickly,
rag-tag survivors of the Port Moresby evacuation…like we’ve been told to
expect.”

Theo Papadakis asked, “You think
they’re getting reinforcements over the water from Rabaul, sir?”

“They’re getting them from
somewhere, Lieutenant, that’s for sure.”

“I like the way you’ve set up your
men so far, Jock,” Colonel Molloy said. “If you can push the Japs out of that
plantation, we’ll be money ahead. We can come at Buna Mission—and Buna Village—from
two directions.”

Jock wished he felt more optimistic
about that prospect. The Duropa Plantation—the little he could make out of it
through binoculars from the tree he climbed for a better view—looked like a
narrow, deep fortress of closely spaced coconut palms. The sea guarded its
long, northern flank; a seemingly impassible swamp guarded the southern flank. We
might take it, Jock thought, and be money ahead, like the
colonel said, but I’ll bet we spill gallons of our blood doing it.

Molloy’s radio operator rushed up
with a report. “Revelation Six reports they’re in position, sir,” the
radioman said.”

Revelation Six: Lieutenant
Colonel Vann of 3rd Battalion.

“Very well. Thank you, Simmons,”
Molloy replied.

Alone with Jock again, Dick Molloy
said, “About damn time Vann’s in position…especially after that cavalcade of
fuckups he presided over last night. It’s just poor combat discipline that a
company got chewed up like that. For cryin’ out loud…throwing firecrackers?
Have you ever come up against that, Jock?”

“Heard about it, but no, sir, never
came up against it.”

“You think your men will handle it
better than Vann’s did?”

Jock really wanted to answer in the
affirmative, but he knew better. “Hard to say, sir,” he replied. “You never
know what’s going to happen that first time.”

“Yeah,” Molloy said, “ain’t that
the hell of it? I appreciate your candor, though. Speaking of candor, what do
you think of that Aussie coast watcher we’re working with?”

“He’s got a temper, sir…and I don’t
believe he thinks too highly of us Yanks. But he’s all we’ve got right now. At
least he was right about the airstrip at So Sorry being wide open.”

Chapter Fourteen

Sergeant Mike McMillen was pissed
off and didn’t mind saying so: “We’re going to be spending Christmas in this
sewer. You all realize that, don’t you?”

The men in Able Company’s 1st
Platoon were already miserable enough. They didn’t appreciate their sergeant
dumping coal in their stockings two weeks in advance. In fact, they didn’t want
to be reminded of Christmas at all. This waterlogged, mosquito-infested,
disease-ridden tropical hell called Buna had taken them as far from the
Yuletide spirit as anyone could imagine. What was worse: they were about to go
patrolling again—farther out this time—in search of the Japanese they knew were
there, somewhere, but had yet to see.

“Let me walk point again, sir,”
Bogater Boudreau said to Lieutenant Papadakis. “I don’t trust none of these
touch-holes up front, anyways. They’ll get us all fucking dead.”

“You sure?” Papadakis replied. “You
did it yesterday. It’s not your turn again for a while.”

Actually, Theo Papadakis would be
thrilled to have Bogater Boudreau on point today, or any other day for that
matter. He didn’t trust any of those touch-holes, either. At least not
yet.

A strange sound greeted Jock and
Sergeant Major Patchett as they slogged their way to Colonel Molloy’s HQ at Double-Dare:
a jeep’s engine.

“What in tarnation is that thing
doing here?” Patchett asked, more annoyed than surprised. “All I can say is it
better be loaded to the brim with stuff we need…like food, medicine…”

Jock caught first sight of it as it
wound its way along the trail. “Well, Top,” Jock said, “looks like all that
jeep’s bringing is General Hartman.”

Patchett laughed. “I hope he’s got
enough gas in his tank to get his ass back outta here, ’cause he probably ain’t
gonna like what he sees one bit.”

The sergeant major couldn’t be more
right. The first words out of General Hartman’s mouth were, “Why haven’t you
pushed into Buna, Colonel Molloy?”

Not the least bit flustered or
intimidated, Dick Molloy turned to the map. “We’re not in a position to do so
yet, General,” he replied. “The rest of the division is only just arriving in
the area. As of this morning’s report, the Australians estimate they’re still
three days out on the Kokoda Track. As a result—and per your orders, sir—I’ve
had to shift my regiment’s Third Battalion west, well into the Aussie area of
operation, to try and cut off any Japs retreating from Kokoda to Buna,
Sanananda, or Gona.”

Hartman scowled. “Something your
Second Battalion on the Kapa Kapa should have done some days ago, Colonel.”

Molloy tried not to let his
irritation at the general’s studied indifference to reality boil over into
anger. “I’ve had no radio contact with Second Battalion, sir,” he said. “Neither
has the Air Force at Port Moresby. In all honesty, we sent them off on a
mission that was ill-fated from the start. I’m not sure if or when we’ll ever
see them again.”

Hartman scowled again. “It could
have been done, Colonel. It should have been done.”

Without skipping a beat, Molloy
continued, “Nevertheless, sir, that leaves me with just two battalions—now less
than seven hundred men due to combat casualties and sickness—trying to secure a
front almost eighteen miles long. That’s one man for every one hundred
thirty-five feet. I’m afraid I’m in no position to attack anything at the
moment.”

General Hartman stepped to the map
and said, “That’s a ridiculous mathematical analogy, Colonel. Now, what about
Miles and his First Battalion? What are they doing way over there by the
coast?”

Molloy replied, “We believe the
best way into Buna Mission and Buna Village is through Duropa Plantation, sir,
it’s—”

“Nonsense,” Hartman interrupted as
he stabbed a point on the map repeatedly with his finger. “It’s painfully
obvious the best way into Buna is straight up the road from Ango Corner. Didn’t
you bother to do a map recon, Colonel?”

“We’ve done much more than that,
sir,” Molloy replied, “and quite painfully, too. Colonel Vann’s battalion took
nearly fifty casualties at Ango Corner a few nights back.”

He let his words sink in before
adding, “As far as the maps go, they’re almost useless. Almost nothing on the
ground jives with them. For example, that road you mentioned is little more
than a footpath, flanked by swamps. And we still haven’t received the low-level
recon photos we requested from the Air Force.”

“You’re giving me nothing but
excuses, Colonel,” Hartman said. “We need results…and we need them quickly.”

“Well, sir,” Molloy replied, “if
it’s results you want, we just may get some very soon. Major Miles, are your
men going into Duropa Plantation today?”

“As we speak, sir,” Jock replied.

“Then I wait with bated breath,
gentlemen,” the general replied.

Outside the tent, all was not well
with Hartman’s jeep. The odor of burned-out clutch hung heavy in the air.

“Damn thing won’t move, sir,” his
aide said. “We must’ve damaged the transmission slipping and sliding all over
that jungle trail.”

A broad smile of satisfaction
spread across Sergeant Major Patchett’s face. “Maybe he should’ve come in a
tank instead,” he said to Jock. “We could’ve used it…but then again, the piece
of shit probably would’ve broken down in about a mile, anyway.”

It could all seem so normal, so
ordinary—like an idyllic stroll in a tropical sylvan paradise. The handful of
combat veterans in Able Company knew better, though; the neat row after row of
coconut palms defining the Duropa Plantation formed perfect lanes of fire. The
few rays of sunlight filtering through the palm fronds seemed to be
spotlighting the killing zones. Instinctively, the veterans slid close to the
nearest line of palms. They wanted to be no more than a step from the best
source of cover available: a stout tree trunk.

The rookies hadn’t learned that
lesson yet. They walked, cautious yet oblivious, in the middle of lanes wide
enough for a jeep, passing from one pool of sunlight to another. They were
unable to draw visual cues from their more experienced comrades for one very
simple reason: they couldn’t see most of them. The dense stand of palms limited
visibility in every direction but one: straight ahead.

It seemed unnatural when the first
chorus of gunfire rang out…

And even more bizarre when
bullets—like invisible tripwires—began to cut GIs down.

It didn’t matter whether a GI had
been in combat before or not: no one could tell where the Japanese shooters
were. They were close—the racket of their weapons made that clear—but invisible.

For the rookies, it was hard to
decide which was more frightening: the deadly chatter of Nambu machine guns or
the screaming of the wounded.

A terrified private clung to
Bogater Boudreau’s back as they took cover behind a tree trunk. The private had
already dropped his rifle; his free hands were trying to cover his ears.

“What’d you think was gonna
happen?” Bogater told him. “This ain’t some cowboy movie where you get shot and
then you lay down and go to sleep. Now pick up your fucking weapon and return
fire, dammit.”

“Where, Corporal? I can’t see where
they are! Can you?”

Bogater slammed a fresh magazine
into his Thompson. “Shoot anywhere, numbnuts. It don’t matter where. Just
shoot.” He squeezed off another unaimed burst and then tried to stick his head
out for a better look.

The solid thup thup thup of
bullets hitting the other side of the tree trunk changed his mind in a hurry.
He seemed to be asking the heavens when he said, “Am I the only son of a bitch
trying to fight back around here?”

Crawling flat on his belly, Theo
Papadakis slid past the private to get to Boudreau.

“I can’t see where the hell those
bastards are, Lieutenant Pop,” Bogater said.

“I think I saw something,”
Papadakis said. “Looks like there’s a couple of places out there where the
ground rises up a little. That don’t look right, considering the land around
here’s flat as a board.”

The lieutenant spoke quietly but
his words seemed determined, as if he was calculating the odds. It was
difficult to hear him over the close-in noise of Japanese machine guns and the
wounded crying for God and their mothers.

Bogater asked, “You think they’re
bunkers, sir?”

“Fuck yeah I do.”

“How far, Lieutenant?”

“Forty, maybe fifty yards.”

Boudreau had already pulled the
safety pin from the hand grenade. Papadakis shook his head like it was a very
bad idea. “No!” he said. “All that’s gonna do is bounce off a tree and come
back at us.”

“What choice we got, sir?” Bogater
asked. He flung the grenade side-arm around the tree trunk, putting as much
might as he could into the awkward motion.

Thup thup thup...more
bullets hit the tree. Bogater snatched his throwing hand back with a grimace:
“Shit…got me some damn splinters.”

Two Mississippi, three
Mississippi, four Mississippi—the grenade bounced off the ground and
detonated not even halfway to the bunker.

“Well, that didn’t do shit,”
Bogater said. “Where’s the fucking thirty cal, sir? The mortars?”

“Too late for that,” Papadakis
replied. “We’re gonna pull back and regroup before we all get fucking killed.
We’ve got too many men down already.”

The tally for Able Company’s
morning probe was grim: five men dead and twelve wounded, eight badly enough to
be evacuated by native litter bearers back to the airfield at So Sorry.
If they survived that trip, they’d get a plane ride back to Port Moresby.
Hopefully.

Among the badly wounded was the
lieutenant leading 1st Platoon.

“Can I just move up Sergeant
McMillen to acting platoon leader, sir?” Theo Papadakis asked Jock. A muscular
but small man, Papadakis looked positively miniscule as he grieved his
company’s losses.

Jock looked at Sergeant Major
Patchett to gauge his reaction. He was relieved when Patchett gave a slight,
almost imperceptible nod.

“Sure, Theo,” Jock replied. “Do
it.”

As the rest of the company
commanders gathered in the CP tent for the briefing, Patchett told Jock, “We’ve
got another problem, sir. Ain’t enough field rations showed up in that last air
drop to feed two companies, let alone a battalion. We’re gonna have to ration
the rations.”

“Shit,” Jock said. “How are we
fixed for sixty-millimeter mortar ammo?”

The battalion supply officer
replied, “We’re not flush, that’s for sure, sir. Fifty-two rounds total,
assuming the companies are leveling with me. That breaks down to forty HE,
eight white phosphorous, four illum.”

Fifty-two rounds between twelve
tubes, Jock thought, a little better than four rounds a tube, against
Japs dug in like moles. That ain’t good.

Patchett said, “Maybe we can get
Third Battalion to farm out a couple of their eighty-ones.”

Jock shook his head. “Even if
Colonel Molloy agreed to it, the Third is already headed west across the Girua River,
into the Aussie zone. They’d come up with a million excuses to make sure we
never got those mortars.”

“Yeah,” Patchett agreed. “We’d do
the same to them, I reckon.”

“Damn right we would,” Jock said,
“and who knows…they may need it where they’re going, too.”

Jock took a count of the attendees
and said, “All right, gentlemen, we’re all here, so let’s get down to it.
Believe it or not, we learned a few things this morning. It appears the
Japs—despite those fine intelligence estimates to the contrary—have constructed
rather formidable field fortifications. The good news is: they’re above
ground.”

The faces of Jock’s officers
couldn’t lie: they didn’t see the good news in that at all. The only news that
might be classified as good involved the Japanese fleeing the field of
battle completely.

It fell to Lee Grossman to ask the
question on everyone’s mind: “Why’s that good news, sir?”

“Because if they’re above ground
and we can pinpoint where they are, maybe the Air Force can flatten them for
us,” Jock replied. “Of course, if we had some artillery or tanks, we’d do it
ourselves. Theo’s been closest to those bunkers so far, so I’ll let The Mad
Greek describe them.”

Theo Papadakis took center stage,
exhausted but still looking every bit the scrappy fighter he had long since
proven to be. “They just look like big lumps on the ground…ten, maybe twenty
feet wide in front,” he began. “They don’t seem to be very deep front to back,
though. You really can’t see them until you’re right on top of them…the
jungle’s grown over them real thick already. I think they’ll stand out a little
more if you can view them from the side. Their humped shape will probably be
more pronounced that way.”

Lee Grossman asked, “Can you see
the firing ports?”

“Nope…and that smokeless powder
they’re using doesn’t give them away, either,” Papadakis said. “Your only hope
is to see a little bit of muzzle flash…but you’ve got to be too damn close
already to see that. One more thing, the way they’re laid out, they look to be
mutually supporting. We got caught in a shitstorm of interlocking fire.”

The morning’s losses had taken
their toll on Theo Papadakis; he was trying hard not to get choked up. It was
obvious he wouldn’t be able to fight off the tears much longer, though.

Jock came to his rescue. “Okay,
very good, Theo. Thanks. Now listen up, gentlemen…this is what we’re going to
do.” He pointed to Lieutenant Tony Colletti, Baker Company’s commander, and
said, “Tony, take your company and retrace Able’s steps into the east end of
the plantation. Get their attention and draw their fire. Use a few grenades, if
you have to, and pull that firecracker recon the Japs are so fond of.”

He turned to Lee Grossman next.
“Lee, once Baker Company’s got their attention, your Charlie Company will
advance on the plantation’s east end from the south—out of the swamps—and see
what the Japs look like from that direction. Everybody pool your mortars—we’ll
set them up at the jumping-off point just east of the plantation. Sergeant
Major, you’ll coordinate the mortar fires. We’ll all only be about a mile
apart, at most, so we should be able to communicate with the walkie-talkies
just fine.”

Theo Papadakis raised his hand.
“What do you want Able Company to do, sir?” he asked.

“Your company’s in reserve, Theo,”
Jock replied. “Be ready if we need our asses bailed out.”

Papadakis seemed hurt by that
answer. “But, sir—” he began to protest.

Jock put a hand on his shoulder.
“You and your men earned a break, Theo. And hey…if we screw up, it may not turn
out to be much of a break at all.” He looked at his wristwatch and said,
“Okay…it’s oh-nine-fifteen. I want an ops order written and distributed within
two hours.”

The battalion operations officer
grimaced—that’s cutting it mighty close—but nodded in acceptance.

Jock continued, “Everybody
remember: this is still a recon. We’re not looking for a serious
engagement, unless we see a golden opportunity…and I mean really golden.
Then, I’ll make the call whether we change missions or not. Don’t anybody go
freelancing on me. Let’s plan a jump-off time of thirteen hundred. Any questions?”

Patchett had one: “Where will you
be, sir?”

“I’ll be with Charlie Company…in
the swamp,” Jock replied.

Chapter Fifteen

The swamp’s mud was threatening to
suck the boots right off the feet of Charlie Company’s GIs. At the best spots,
they were ankle deep in soft, silty soil. At the worst, they were waist deep in
fetid water.

“This is like living in a fucking
sewer,” Lee Grossman grumbled, “and the rats here shoot back. It’s a shame we
don’t have any boats.”

Jock replied, “Why, Lee? You don’t
mean you’d try to sneak up on them from the seaward side, do you?”

“Hell, no, sir. That’d be suicide.
I’d use the damn boats to get through this swamp.”

“Staying dry is the least of our
worries, Lee, considering there’s next to no cover here. And if this high swamp
grass thins out, we’re out of concealment, too.”

“Concealment? No problem, sir.
We’ll just hide behind a cloud of these mosquitoes.”

The GI carrying Grossman’s
walkie-talkie said, “These fucking mosquitoes…I just know I’m getting malaria.”

Another GI replied, “You’ve got it
already, you dumb shit. We all do. Any day now, we’ll start shaking with
chills…and then burning up with fever. That Atabrine shit they want you to take
ain’t gonna help you none.”

“Enough of that talk, you men,”
Grossman commanded. “Let’s stay focused.”

Talking softly so his words
wouldn’t carry, Jock said, “You know, Lee, I’m afraid they may be right.”

Lieutenant Tony Colletti was
pleased with how things were going so far. His Baker Company had entered the
coconut palm forest of Duropa Plantation as silently as thieves. He told
himself, No way in hell we’re going to get cut up like Theo’s company did.
Poor Theo…he’s taking it real hard. He had a charmed life when he was a
platoon leader, but that’s all over now. He’s tough, though—he’ll make it.

Two scout teams—two men each—were
some 50 yards ahead of the rest of the company, inching from tree to tree so as
not to expose themselves for more than a second or two. Behind the scouts, the
company’s three rifle platoons were ready to lay down supporting fire as
necessary.

“We’ve got to be at least as far in
as Lieutenant Pop’s guys were,” a scout said to his partner. “Can you see
anything?”

“Not a damn thing,” the partner
replied.

Huddled low against a tree trunk,
the scout called Lieutenant Colletti on the walkie-talkie. “Panty Raid
Zero-Six, this is Panty Raid Three-Seven, over.”

He cringed as his company
commander’s hushed voice crackled in the earpiece: it seemed loud enough to be
heard a mile away.

“This is Three-Seven…you
want us to try the firecracker trick?”

“Affirmative, Three-Seven.
Do it now. Six out.”

He never even got to pull the
safety pin from the grenade. A loud shout rang out from his right flank. A GI
was screaming, “HALT! HANDS UP!”

The reply contained no words—just the
thunderous roar of weapons discharging.

The two scouts were lucky; their
tree of salvation had dense, above-ground roots which wrapped around them like
a mother’s embrace.

They needed it: bullets were
whizzing past their position in every direction, it seemed.

Both scouts knew his partner’s
first thought: What fucking idiot tried to capture somebody?

They knew each other’s second
thought, too: the Nambu machine gun trying to saw down the tree shielding them
couldn’t be more than 20 yards away.

Their third thought wasn’t a
thought at all, but an instinct: We need mortars! Now!

Each was so eager to make that call
for fire, they nearly fought over the walkie-talkie.

It took almost a minute for the
first mortar rounds to arrive.

That minute seemed like a hundred
lifetimes to men pinned down under fire.

Only a few rounds landed anywhere
near the bunkers, doing no more than assaulting the eardrums of the Japanese
inside.

The rest burst in the dense palm
canopy above the scouts, raining invisible shards of steel all around them.

The scouts yelled as one into the
radio, “TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! YOU’RE KILLING US!”

“Oh, shit,” Lee Grossman said, as
the sounds of the fight in the plantation rippled across the swamp. “I guess
Baker Company got their attention, all right. Sounds like somebody’s getting
their ass riddled in there but good.”

“We still can’t see shit, though,”
Jock said. “We’ve got to get closer.”

“Mortars on the way, sir,” the
radio operator said.

Jock spied through a tall clump of
swamp grass as the mortar rounds began to burst in the trees.

“Shit,” he muttered, “the rounds
aren’t even making it to the ground. That’s all we need…tree bursts, with our own
guys underneath. Shit.”

The radio operator had another news
flash: “They’re canceling the mortars, sir.”

“Good,” Jock replied. “Get Panty
Raid Zero Six for me.”

The radio conversation was brief.
When it was done, Jock told Grossman, “Baker’s holding in place. Let’s you and
me try to get up to that next bunch of swamp grass. Maybe we can see what we
need to from there. Make sure the rest of your company stays put.”

It was a 30-yard slog to that next
patch of grass.

Thirty yards had never seemed so
far…but they made it.

Nobody was shooting at them.

“I make it as about a hundred yards
to the southern edge of the plantation,” Jock said. “What do you think?”

“That looks about right, sir,”
Grossman replied. “And not a stitch of concealment the entire way. Our asses
will be hanging out if we try to cross it.”

“I can tell there’s a line of bunkers
facing east, shooting at Baker Company,” Jock continued, “and about where that
line is…but I can’t make the individual bunkers out.”

Grossman nodded in agreement and
asked, “You think there are any facing this way?”

“I’m betting there are, Lee…I just
can’t tell exactly where. Not until they start shooting.”

Grossman asked, “You want to do a
little firecracker recon, sir?”

“Yeah. You’ve got First Platoon on
the left flank, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Good. Let them do it. Have Hadley
pull the company back first.”

“While we stay and watch, sir?”

“That’s what I’ve always liked
about you, Lee. You catch on fast.”

As the rest of 1st Platoon
followed First Sergeant Hadley out of the swamp, three men stayed behind. Rather
than throw the grenades into the swamp water, where their submerged detonation
might or might not draw the attention of the Japanese, the three came up with a
different concept for the firecracker recon. They stuck two grenades in
the thick mud of a grass thicket and tied a long cord to their safety pins.

The cord was played out as far as
it would go—only about 20 feet—but that was enough. It was then tugged firmly.

The three GIs ran like hell,
surprised and terrified by how much noise they made as they sloshed through the
swamp.

The grenades exploded with a dull thud
and a great geyser of mud and brackish water.

A fusillade of rifle and machine
gun fire erupted from Japanese bunkers facing the swamp. It was aimed precisely
where 1st Platoon used to be.

The rounds struck nothing but the
swaying swamp grass. The GIs were long gone.

“They fell for it,” Lee Grossman
said, his words more a sigh of relief he wasn’t in the bullseye.

“It’s just like the other bunkers,”
Jock said. “I can tell where they are but I can’t actually see them.”

“So what do we do now, sir?”

“We figure out map coordinates for
the bunker complex, Lee. Then we get the Air Force to pummel the shit out of
it. Something’s bugging me, though.”

“What’s that, sir?”

Poking his head through the swamp
grass for another look at the Japanese positions, Jock said, “We don’t see any
Japs. Not one…and we can see a lot of that plantation from here. They can’t
stay in those bunkers forever…and there can’t be many Japs in—”

He stopped talking, grabbed a
startled Lee Grossman by the web gear, and yanked him down.

In the swamp, down meant
under the stinking water.

It was the only place to hide from
the machine gun suddenly traversing toward them. Its bullets swept just inches
over the water’s surface before swinging away.

There was no need for words when they
surfaced: they knew they had to make their escape.

Grossman couldn’t talk, anyway. He
was coughing up the swamp water he swallowed.

They were crawling along the swamp
bed on hands and knees, heads just above water, weapons slung but dragging
through the foul stew.

They could sense the machine gun
tracking back their way…

No way I’m going under that
fucking water again, Grossman thought.

He saw what he thought was a patch
of solid ground. He hurled himself onto it.

It wasn’t solid at all: he sank
into it—flat, face down—like a cookie cutter into soft dough.

The dough held him like a giant
suction cup and wouldn’t let go.

Bullets trimmed the swamp grass all
around like an invisible lawnmower making one broad pass…until their path swung
away again.

Jock popped out of the water. It
took him a few moments to find his partner, squirming, semi-submerged and stuck
like glue in the muck.

Prying on Grossman’s helmet, he
freed the man’s face so he could breathe again. The dank air of the swamp had
never smelled so sweet as it rushed back into Lee Grossman’s lungs.

He didn’t seem to be hit. Using the
stock of his Thompson like a spade, Jock liberated the stuck man limb by limb.

The second Grossman was free they
were on the move, leaving behind a man-sized, perfectly detailed impression of
a soldier in the Buna swamp.

The two scout teams weren’t sure
how they made it out of the plantation. All four men were wounded, the jagged
tears in their flesh from American mortar fragments and splintered trees, not
bullets. The battalion surgeon treating them couldn’t understand how they
hadn’t been killed.

“We must’ve crawled under the
fucking ground, Doc,” one of the scouts told the surgeon. “All I remember is
clawing through dirt.”

The mystery of HALT! HANDS UP!
still needed to be sorted out; that colossal mistake wouldn’t be unraveled
until Baker Company was back at the assembly area. There, the answer came
quickly.

The shout had come from 3rd
Platoon on the right flank. A mortified PFC was immediately fingered by his
squadmates for the mistake.

“Two Japs popped up right in front
of me and started to run away,” the PFC tried to explain to his company
commander. “But they vanished, just like that. I had to do something,
sir.”

Doing a slow burn, Lieutenant
Colletti said, “You picked the wrong something, Hallstrom. You weren’t
on fucking guard duty. You were on a recon patrol. Did these Japs even see
you?”

“We looked right into each other’s
eyes, sir.”

“All right…so what do you mean by vanished,
Hallstrom? Where’d they go?”

“I don’t know, sir. They just
dropped out of sight. Gone…just like that.”

“All right,” Jock said as the
debriefing wound down, “let’s sum up what we’ve learned today. We know pretty
well where the Jap bunkers are on the eastern edge of the plantation as well as
its southeastern corner.” His fingers retraced the red lines already drawn on
the map.

“We also learned our mortars aren’t
worth a shit in the palm groves,” he added. “We were damn lucky they only
wounded four of Tony’s men. How are those guys, Tony?”

“They’ll be okay, sir,” Lieutenant
Colletti replied. “They can stay and fight.”

“That’s good news,” Jock said.
“Now, I’ve already called in the Air Force. They gave an ETA of sixteen
hundred, give or take a little. A spotter plane will mark the targets with
smoke. We’ll have to guide him in so he puts the smoke in the right places for
the attack planes. We’ll set up an OP here”—his finger marked a spot on the
map—“near the coast on the far edge of the swamp, with the big radio.”

Sergeant Major Patchett had been
quiet throughout the briefing, but now he was sketching on a pad of paper like
a madman. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, “but I think I’ve got something
here.”

“Let’s have it,” Jock replied.

“Well, gentlemen,” Patchett said,
“y’all been talking about how you actually ain’t seen no Japs, except those two
that Lieutenant Colletti’s man tried to capture. And even those two vanished
like ghosts. By the way, Lieutenant”—he nodded to Colletti—“I trust you’re
gonna reassign that man, before his own platoon does him in?”

“Already taken care of, Sergeant
Major,” Colletti replied.

“Very fine, sir,” Patchett said.
“That man just made hisself a mistake…a real fucking stupid one…but he won’t be
making it again, I guaran-damn-tee it. Now let’s be getting back to these invisible
Japs. I don’t believe they’re invisible at all. They just done like both sides
did in France in ’18—they dug a network of communications trenches linking
their bunkers. They’re probably not too deep, or they’d fill up with
groundwater like every other hole in these parts, but them Japs can use ’em to
move around, bring supplies, visit the latrine…all without their heads ever
popping up above ground. And the jungle will hide those trenches just like it
hides those bunkers.”

Patchett passed the pad he’d been
drawing on to Jock. “I sketched out a few ideas how we can use them trenches to
our advantage.”

The other officers gathered around;
the drawings diagrammed an attack plan brilliant in its simplicity.

“So,” Jock said, “we take a corner
bunker…and then work our way down the trenches, one bunker at a time.”

“And all the while,” Patchett
added, “the Japs can only get at us from one direction—down that narrow little
trench from the next bunker. Keeps everything real linear, sir.”

Chapter Sixteen

The only thing that came from the
sky around 1600 was the rain. The Air Force radioed their regrets: there would
be no air raid on Duropa Plantation today.

“They’ll try to be back first thing
tomorrow,” Jock said.

“Maybe it’s just as well, sir,” Patchett
added. “We wouldn’t have much daylight for a follow-up attack if the flyboys
came now, anyway.”

When the chills and shakes hit him
a few hours back, Lieutenant Colonel Vann had insisted he was all right and 3rd
Battalion was to push on. Now, the fever was upon him and he could barely
stand, let alone slog through swamps. Pushing on was impossible.

“I’ll be all right,” Vann told his
staff. “I’ll catch up in a bit.”

His staff thought that much too
optimistic. They’d seen enough malaria to know the symptoms on sight: each
platoon had already lost half a squad due to illness, and sick call kept
growing slowly but steadily. They knew their commander’s fever wouldn’t break
for hours.

“Major Raddatz,” Vann said to his
executive officer, “get the men into the ambush position along the Sanananda
Road. You’ve still got time before dark.”

But not much time, Herman
Raddatz thought as he studied his map in the
fading light of dusk. We should’ve crossed  flowing water at four points—one
river and three creeks, according to this fucking map—but by my count, we’ve
forded five already and we still haven’t stumbled across anything a civilized
person—let alone that annoying Aussie Bennett— would call a road.

The road, Dickie Bennett had told
them, was on dry terrain and wide enough to accommodate a truck. It was the
final leg in the Kokoda Track. Any Japanese fleeing Kokoda to the north coast
would be on that road. Maybe they’d be on it tonight.

Dry terrain had Raddatz
scratching his head, though. Every step the men of 3rd Battalion
took seemed to go deeper into swampland.

The only thing Herman Raddatz was
sure of was his exhausted men had been walking all day, trying to cover the
eight miles between Dobodura—Double-Dare—and Popondetta, a village
straddling the Sanananda Road his men had promptly nicknamed Pompano,
like the city in Florida. Or the fish, perhaps.

We should have been there by
now, Raddatz told himself, but we’ve got no choice except to keep going.

By the time the sun was about to
set, 3rd Battalion had come to some sort of swamp thoroughfare, a
north-south path, high and dry, that appeared heavily—and recently—used.
Whether it was wide enough for a vehicle or not depended on one’s definition of
a vehicle: a bicycle would fit; maybe a donkey cart. But that was about it. If
they were anywhere near the village of Popondetta—Pompano—they couldn’t
tell.

Racing the darkness, Major Raddatz
used one rifle company to set up a roadblock, another to lay the ambush along
the trail, and the third to close the trap from behind once their quarry was
stalled by the roadblock in the kill zone.

“When the Japs come down this road
from Kokoda,” Raddatz told his staff, “they’re dead men.”

They waited half the night. Most of
3rd Battalion had long since dozed off at their ambush posts.

The small band of Japanese
stragglers, silhouetted by the light of a full moon, were more than halfway
down the gauntlet before the Americans realized they were there. “Wait,” a
sergeant whispered to a wide-awake GI about to fire, “let them get all the way
to the roadblock.”

“But I’ve got ’em dead to rights,
Sarge!”

“Take it easy, Killer…they could be
the lead element for a battalion still way down the road. Or a division. Don’t
give us away just yet. Let them get all the way in.”

At the roadblock, the company
commander watched as the stragglers approached. “Only four or five of them, by
my count,” he said to his men. “Capture them. Don’t shoot unless they want to
fight. Try to keep it quiet…in case there are more coming.”

The five Japanese surrendered
without a fight. Hands up, they knelt until pushed face-down on the road by
their captors.

“Look at them,” the company
commander said to Major Raddatz. “They’re in rags…and barefoot.” One by one, he
lifted their heads and shined a red-filtered flashlight into their faces. In
the dim light, it might as well have been skeletons staring back at him. “These
guys look like death warmed over.”

No one noticed the secret smile on
the face of one prisoner as he was rolled over to be searched. Quickly, deftly,
he pulled the grenade from beneath his tattered shirt and—with a CLANK—armed
it by striking the primer against the helmet of the GI bent over him.

“What the hell?” the GI said—and
then he saw the small, round object rolling slowly toward the circle of
officers.

“GRENADE!” the GI yelled as he
pulled the Japanese soldier in front of him for cover.

It was too late.

The blast seemed little more than
that of a large firecracker to those far enough away.

To those closer, it didn’t matter.

Major Raddatz was dead. Two junior
officers in the circle were, too. The company commander was mortally wounded.
So was the Japanese soldier who dealt the grenade.

The other four Japanese were
quickly bayoneted to death by a mob of GIs who whooped like cowhands as
they thrust their blades through flesh and bone.

For good measure, the Japanese
soldier who had already stepped through death’s door was bayoneted repeatedly,
as well.

Bloodlust knows few limits.

A few hundred yards to the west—on
the actual Sanananda Road—two battalions of exhausted and sickly Japanese
soldiers stole through the darkness toward the north coast. They could sense
they were close to the end of the harrowing journey that began in Port Moresby.
They could already taste the fresh coconut milk that would slake their
bottomless thirst; that was the only thing keeping them on their bleeding and
swollen bare feet.

None of them were the least bit
interested in the sound of an explosion from across that forbidding swamp or
the barely audible screams and cries which followed: the horrific sounds of men
facing—and dealing—death.

Chapter Seventeen

There was good news over the radio
at first light: the attack planes from 5th Air Force were in the
air. They’d be over Duropa Plantation within the hour. Jock was trying to rub
from his eyes the two hours of fitful sleep he’d managed to get. Sergeant Major
Patchett looked like he’d bagged a solid eight hours as he bustled around the
battalion CP. Jock knew better; Melvin Patchett had probably never gone to bed.
He seemed to be the only human on the planet who didn’t require sleep.

Jock asked, “How’s sick call
looking, Top?”

“We’ve got ten more, sir…mostly
malaria, Doc says.”

Jock did the math in his head:
between the combat casualties, the sick, the still-missing mortar platoon, and
the fact they had been short some 50 men to begin with, his battalion was at 60
percent of full strength—about 250 men.

And it’s only been five days
since we flew in here…

A strange sound drifted in from
outside the CP tent: hoofbeats. Colonel Molloy and Dickie Bennett were
approaching on horseback.

“We’re on our way to Third
Battalion over near Popondetta,” Molloy said. “These mounts seem like the best
way to travel…until we get some jeeps here, at least.”

Dickie Bennett asked, “Would you
like one for yourself, Major Miles? My boys pinched quite a few from the bloody
Nips.”

“No, thanks, sir…I’m not much of a
horseman.”

Patchett laughed and said, “Which
one of you Yankees is, sir?” He stopped laughing when he remembered Colonel
Molloy was from Ohio…and he was an ex-cavalryman. “With all due respect to both
you gentlemen…just making a little joke.”

“No time for jokes, I’m afraid,”
Molloy replied. “I’ve got some bad news. The plane carrying your mortar
platoon—the one that never showed up at Fasari. Well…the Air Force spotted it,
crashed up in the mountains. Survivors don’t look very likely, they said.”

Patchett’s jaw tightened. His voice
flat and emotionless, he said, “That’s a tough break, sir.”

Jock could only mumble, “Dammit.”

But there was no time to grieve. He
asked Colonel Molloy, “Are you going to stay a while and see what the Air Force
can do, sir?”

“That’s my plan, Major.”

They made their way on foot to the
designated observation post—the OP. As they walked, Molloy asked Jock,
“You copied the radio traffic from Third Battalion, didn’t you?”

“Yeah…Colonel Vann’s down with
malaria and some of his staff are dead. Sounds like a pretty shitty ambush when
you lose as many as you kill.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Molloy
replied. “That’s why I’m headed over that way. I’ve got to see for myself
what’s going on with that unit…even if it takes all damn day on horseback to
get there and back.”

Jock asked, “Are you going to
replace Colonel Vann, sir…him being sick and all?”

Molloy shook his head. “With who,
Jock? We won’t see any replacements for weeks…maybe months. If Vann can
function at all, he’s my best bet for the time being.”

Patchett broke into their
conversation. “Begging your pardon, sirs, but we’ve got the spotter plane on
the big radio. He’s about four minutes out. Major Miles, you want to call the
shots here?”

“Yeah,” Jock replied, “but I want
to do it with Lieutenant Papadakis and Corporal Boudreau. They’ve been closest
to the target.”

The two men he’d just named were
poised for the task. Jock walked over and gave each an encouraging pat on the
back. Bogater Boudreau asked, “How come we can’t just mark the target with Willie
Peters from our mortars, sir? Seems kinda silly to have some air-machine do
what we can do for ourselves.”

“Not really, Bogater,” Jock
replied. “By the time we got the mortars adjusted on target, we’d have smoke
all over the place. Wouldn’t be very precise for the bomber pilots. Besides,
when there are friendly aircraft in the area, we don’t lob high-trajectory fire
through their airspace. Don’t want to shoot down our own guys.” He paused, and
then added, “Plus, we don’t have a whole lot of white phosphorous rounds to
play with at the moment.”

Boudreau thought that over, finally
nodding as if it all made perfect sense.

“Let’s try to get it done in one
pass,” Jock said. “That slow little bird is too vulnerable to keep coming back
over those Japs.”

Papadakis asked, “You sure got a
lot of sympathy for those flyboys after all that aviating you did over Port
Moresby, don’t you, sir?”

“Yeah, Theo. Some of them, at
least.”

“Don’t sweat it, sir,” Boudreau
added. “It’ll be just like tossing apples into a barrel.”

The faint purr of the
spotter plane’s engine was on the breeze now, growing louder by the second.

“There she is, sir,” Boudreau said,
pointing out over the water. “Maybe that’s the same L4 you were flying in.”
Bogater cradled the microphone in his hands like it was their key to salvation.

“Maybe,” Jock replied, eyes glued
to the little plane. “Turn him…wait…wait…NOW, Boudreau.”

Within seconds, the L4 banked
sharply toward land while diving lower to skim the waves.

“Smart,” Jock said.

“Why’s that, sir?” Papadakis asked.
“Is he harder to hit flying low like that?”

“No, Theo…but he won’t have so far
to fall when the plane gets shot out from under him. Vector him left five
degrees, Boudreau.”

The plane settled on its new
course.

“Perfect,” Jock said. “All we’ve
got to do now is watch.”

Patchett nodded with satisfaction,
too. “Even if his smoke rounds burst in the treetops, that should still get the
job done.”

Jock asked, “You mean mark the
target with a burning coconut tree, Sergeant Major?”

“Whatever it takes, sir,” Patchett
replied.

They could hear the Nambus firing
from the far side of the plantation. “They ain’t using tracers,” Patchett said.
“Can’t tell if they’re hitting that flying bag of sticks or not.”

“He’s still airborne,” Jock
replied. “That’s all that counts.”

The L4 was just above the
plantation’s treetops.

“NOW, NOW, NOW, OVER,” Bogater
screeched into the microphone.

Four smoke grenades tumbled in
rapid sequence from the little plane.

Two of them actually made it all
the way to the ground. The other two nestled in the treetops, setting them
ablaze just as Patchett foresaw.

“Close enough for government work,”
the sergeant major said.

The radio squawked with a new
voice: the attack flight leader.

“We’ve got the smoke,” the leader’s
voice said. “Heads up…here we come.”

As the L4 made its escape across
the swamp—and heading straight for the OP—Jock and company didn’t need tracers
to see the Japanese machine guns were slicing the plane to ribbons.

Each man made his unique sound of
distress as the L4’s tail section suddenly swung up and away from the fuselage,
detached itself, and began a fluttery, spiraling descent to the swamp a hundred
feet below.

Minus its tailplane, the rest of
the airplane nosed over and—like the projectile it now was—plunged straight
down for a heart-wrenching second, its engine roaring until the swamp silenced
it with a final, sickening THWOOSH and a mighty spray of muddy water.

It had come to earth just yards in
front of the OP’s cowering occupants, an upside-down crucifix—or an olive drab
angel with broken wings, its head jammed deep into the mud.

The pilot—still inside, strapped to
his seat—was obviously dead, the grotesque twist of a broken neck unmistakable.

The strike of the attack bombers
was almost anticlimactic.

Peering into the tangle of
bomb-blasted coconut palms, Theo Papadakis asked, “Think the Air Force did us
any good?”

“Let’s go find out,” Jock replied,
“and we’d better do it on the double…while those Japs are still shell-shocked.”

This time, Charlie Company led the
advance into the plantation. Their objective was simple: take the bunker
anchoring the southeast corner; it seemed to have taken quite the desired
pounding from the bombers. Boudreau even thought it might have suffered a
direct hit with a 250-pound bomb. With any luck, the occupants of that bunker
were dead—or at least too dazed to fight.

Once the bunker was taken, the
other two companies would exploit the success by attacking the next ones in
line down the communications trenches. The bunkers would fall like dominoes—hopefully—and
that cleverly built defensive wall would be breached.

It didn’t take long to realize that
wouldn’t be the case. Far from it: the fire from the southeast bunker—and every
other bunker facing the approaching GIs—was just as withering as the first two
ventures into the plantation.

Never getting closer than 200 yards
to the objective, Charlie Company pulled back, dragging its dead and wounded
through the merciless swamp as best it could.

Once back at the assembly area,
Melvin Patchett flung his gear on the ground as he summed up everyone’s
feelings: “Fucking Air Force is useless as tits on a bull.”

General Hartman took the news of 1st
Battalion’s failed attack as a personal insult. Berating Jock Miles, he asked,
“How could that be, Major? Clearly, you don’t have a very good grasp of your
enemy’s situation. You’ve played right into his strength time and again.”

Jock was beyond being intimidated
or insulted. “Sir,” he began, “until we have a means of putting large-caliber
direct fire on those bunkers, be it from naval gunfire, tanks, or our own
artillery, we will not breech them. They’re too well built. The Air Force just
dropped a couple of tons of high explosives on them, and it looks like they
bounced right off.”

“I just cannot accept that, Major,”
General Hartman replied. “Were the targets marked for the bombers?”

“Well marked, sir. The spotter
plane pilot gave his life doing it.”

“That’s a shame,” Hartman said,
“but don’t get all down on the Air Force just because one strike didn’t kill
every Jap. Give them a chance.”

“It’s not a question of killing every
Jap, sir. I don’t think they killed any of them. And every second we
wait for the Air Force to live up to its promises, more of my men die.”

“Well, Major…we can’t sit on our
hands and wait for someone else to win the battle for us. MacArthur won’t hear
of it…he’ll hang me out to dry so fast your head will spin. I’ll be discussing
a new plan of attack with Colonel Molloy the minute he returns from
Popondetta.”

Chapter Eighteen

Dickie Bennett didn’t believe in
sugar-coating bad news. He told Horace Vann point-blank, “You’re in the wrong
bloody place, Colonel. You don’t really think this piddling goat trail is the Sanananda
Road as I described it to you? In great detail, I might add.”

He considered capping the insult
with you stupid Yank wanker, but in a rare surrender to tact and
cooperation, decided not to do so.

Maybe it’s just the malaria
making him bloody stupid, Bennett speculated. Looks well enough at the
moment, though.

Colonel Molloy told Vann, “Get your
men saddled up and over to Popondetta. Expect to link up with the Aussies
coming down from Kokoda within twenty-four hours.”

Horace Vann didn’t mind those
instructions one bit. He knew of the beating Jock Miles’s 1st
Battalion was taking at Buna. He’d gladly stay well out of the way and act as
greeters for the Aussies.

“Something else, Horace,” Molloy
said. “Get the Aussies to loan us a couple of their artillery pieces. Don’t
wait for it to have to go through MacArthur’s channels. Just get us those
fucking guns right away.”

The word passed through Colonel
Vann’s battalion quickly: they’d set up their ambush in the wrong place. The
five Japanese they’d captured—and then killed—were probably as lost as they
were; that sarcastic Aussie coast watcher with Colonel Molloy seemed quite sure
of it.

The men of 3rd Battalion
weren’t terribly upset with that turn of events, though. Their collective
thinking: If we can stay out of the Japs’ way, that’s just fine with us.

Another issue wasn’t fine
with them, however: their commander was sick with malaria and, as a result,
occasionally unable to perform his command duties to the fullest.

But he was staying at his post.

That meant only one thing to the
men in the ranks: if they got sick with malaria—or any of the other tropical
diseases that laid a man low sporadically, only to recover until the next,
unpredictable attack—they’d be expected to stay at their posts, too. Parading
to sick call with the slightest hint of chills or fever would only get you
paraded right back to your company.

Forget about being evacuated to Port
Moresby…or even Australia. You’re stuck in this tropical
sewer for the duration…

On half-rations, yet.

Half-rations sounded like a
pretty good deal to the gaunt, exhausted diggers who stumbled out of the
mountains and into Popondetta the next morning. Compared to the little 5th
Air Force had been able to supply the last few weeks, half-rations would be a
grand feast.

What didn’t sound like a good deal:
the Japanese they were pursuing had slipped right through what should have been
an impassable American roadblock. General Vasey, the Aussie division commander,
vented his frustration on the first American officer to greet him: Lieutenant
Colonel Horace Vann.

“Are you bloody kidding me?” Vasey
said. “You stopped a grand total of five Nips? And you want to nick some of my
artillery, to boot?”

“Buna has turned into a hell on
earth, sir,” Vann replied. “The bulk of the Japanese defenders seem to be holed
up there…and they’re very well dug in. The Jap strongholds in your area of
responsibility—Sanananda and Gona—appear to be held much more weakly.”

Vasey snickered. “That sounds like
another of MacArthur’s brilliant intelligence assessments. They may have been
weakly held once but not anymore. Not since you Yanks let in the whole bloody
lot I chased from Port Moresby.”

“We need those guns, General,” Vann
insisted. “If Buna falls, the pockets of resistance you face will crumble
quickly.”

Vasey mulled it over for a moment.
Finally, he said, “I’ve brought twelve pieces over the mountains, Colonel. I’ll
loan you four of them. If I don’t, your General MacArthur will just order it,
anyway. Consider it a gesture to promote Allied cooperation—something I
haven’t seen bloody much of from your camp.”

“We greatly appreciate the gesture,
General,” Vann said, “and he’s our General MacArthur, sir. We’re all in
this together.”

“Bloody unfortunate,” Vasey
replied. “Perhaps I’d be more willing to believe we were in this together if I
had seen just one Yank walking the Kokoda Track. Just do me a personal favor,
Colonel.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“The gun crews I loan you…make sure
the lads get to enjoy a fair share of your half-rations, please.”

It took a full day for the four
Australian artillery pieces, drawn by horses and mules every bit as hungry and
exhausted as the men driving them, to arrive at 1st Battalion’s CP
near Duropa Plantation. The diggers couldn’t believe their luck when the first
words out of Sergeant Major Patchett’s mouth were, “Let’s get you boys fed. We
fixed y’all a nice, hot supper here.”

Nice, hot supper: that meant
C ration cans warmed in a 55-gallon drum full of water boiling over a fire. In
this primitive setting, it was better than a dinner at the Ritz. The diggers
nearly ripped the scalding cans of stew open with their bare hands.

The Aussie lieutenant in charge of
the gun sections asked Jock, “Do you Yanks eat like this all the time, sir?”

Jock laughed. “No, I'm afraid not.
We just set some aside because we heard company was coming.”

The lieutenant seemed embarrassed
as he asked, “Some of your lads didn’t eat, then, sir?”

“No, we all ate. Just not very
much.”

In truth, the GIs didn’t look
anywhere near as malnourished as the Aussies—But give us a little more time,
Jock told himself.

Their stomachs content for the
moment, Jock and the Aussie lieutenant—Leftenant Fairburn, as the
Aussies pronounced the rank—raced the setting sun to complete their recon of
firing positions. Fairburn grew more uneasy as they waded ankle-deep in swamp
water. He asked Jock, “You say there’s some dry ground ahead, sir, closer to
the target? We can’t shoot from this muck. The guns will just slide and sink.”

“Yeah, there’s dry ground…and a
treeline, too. Should give you some concealment from air attack.”

“Has there been much air activity
from the Nips, sir?” Fairburn asked.

“Not yet, Lieutenant. Not yet.”

When they reached the place Jock
had in mind, Lieutenant Fairburn didn’t look pleased. As he gazed across the
vast expanse of swamp into the distant plantation, he asked Jock, “It has to be
direct fire on those bunkers, sir, like we were engaging tanks?”

“Affirmative,” Jock replied. “We
need that dead-on accuracy. Lobbing indirect fire at them is just too chancy.
Hell, the Air Force just bombed the crap out of the place…but those bunkers are
still there.”

“Well, sir…if this is the closest
we can get, then it’s too bloody far for direct fire,” Fairburn said. “It’s
well over two thousand yards. Anything over fifteen hundred yards and it’s
indirect fire. You really think those bunkers are that tough?”

“We don’t think, Lieutenant.
We know they’re that tough. I tell you what…rest your men and your
animals tonight. Set up your guns here at first light and we’ll see what you
can do. Maybe we can pull a rabbit out of a hat together.”

In the harbor at Milne Bay, Jillian
smiled as a small but familiar vessel glided alongside and tied up to her
anchored freighter Esme. It was Andoom Clipper, one of her
fishing boats out of Weipa, Queensland. Old Robert, the Aborigine elder and
Jillian’s right-hand man in Weipa, was at her helm.

Beatrix Van Der Wegge downed the
last swallow of after-supper whiskey and asked, “You’re not really going
adventuring in that little tub, are you, schatzi?”

Jillian replied, “Why not? It’s
perfect for the job. That’s why I volunteered her.”

Beatrix said nothing in reply but
her scowl made it obvious: she didn’t agree.

Old Robert didn’t look too pleased
as he came aboard Esme, either.

“Try not to get this one sunk, too,
Miss Jilly,” he said. “We need it to catch fish so our country can eat.”

Jillian put on a display of mock
indignation. “Well, it’s very bloody nice to see you too, Robert,” she said.

Without a hint of contrition in his
voice, Old Robert replied, “I mean no disrespect, Miss Jilly, but we really do
need the boat.” He paused, looked down at his feet, and added, “We need you,
too. When are you going to come home? What happened to the woman who wanted
nothing to do with their war?”

Jillian exhaled loudly, an
exasperated puff whose meaning Robert knew all too well: She’ll come back to
Weipa when she’s good and ready...

His mind finished the sentence with
a note of personal dread: if she gets to come back at all.

“I wish everyone would stop
worrying,” Jillian said. “It’s just a little survey mission, trying to find
suitable harbors closer to Buna—”

Beatrix interrupted, “More likely,
trying to get closer to that Yank of yours, schatzi.”

Jillian ignored her, adding, “A
small, fast, inconspicuous boat is just what we need—better than one of those
patrol boats that keep getting shot up all the time.”

Old Robert laughed without smiling.
“Inconspicuous? She’s fifty feet long. Only a canoe would be inconspicuous when
the Japanese planes come,” he said. “Even then…” His voice trailed off, as if
he didn’t want to think about how vulnerable a boat like Andoom Clipper
would be when an airplane—Japanese or Allied—strafed her.

“To hell with both of you,” Jillian
said, turning her back to them to watch the sunset.

Both Beatrix and Old Robert wanted
to believe those words were offered in jest. But they were having a rough time
convincing themselves.

Chapter Nineteen

The nights, at least, were quiet at
1st Battalion’s perimeter. Only the hushed sounds of nature fell on
the GIs’ ears: the hiss of inevitable rain, the rustle of wind, the calls of
animals. There had been no combat in the dark; the sickly, starving, yet still
deadly Japanese troops were content to stay in their fortress-bunkers. Jock and
Colonel Molloy had discussed using the cover of darkness to surprise and
overwhelm the nearest enemy positions, but no plan had been formulated. It was
hard enough trying to fight an enemy you couldn’t see in broad daylight. Trying
to seek him out at night only seemed like a prescription for confusion, massive
casualties, and certain defeat.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky in the
morning with this Aussie artillery,” Colonel Molloy said before trying to catch
an hour or two of sleep.

Melvin Patchett wasn’t so sure
about the getting lucky part. “It’s still gonna take some fancy shooting
from them cannon-cockers to blow them bunkers apart,” he said to Jock, “and
that’s gonna be pretty hard and all with just throwing a few rounds their way.
Maybe it’ll make their ears bleed…but hell, their ears should already be
bleeding from our Air Force’s little visit.”

As his words faded, quiet should
have prevailed once again…but the night stillness was abruptly pierced by the
continuous shrieking of a man. The terrible cries seemed to be coming from
Charlie Company’s area. As Jock and Patchett hurried closer, the wailing
subsided to sobbing and a torrent of tortured, unintelligible words. Their
source: a distraught young private in the grip of his first sergeant, Tom
Hadley, who was carefully burning a leech from the man’s body with a cigarette.

“McCurdy’s just gone a little
swamp-crazy, sir,” Hadley said. “I’ll get him calmed down and—”

“The hell you will,” Private
McCurdy said, a big man coming apart at the seams before their eyes. “I can’t
take it no more…these bugs…the snakes…fucking crocodiles…the crotch
rot…everything’s wet and falling apart”—he held up a sodden GI boot with the
sole half-detached—“and I know I’m sick.” He put the palm of his hand to his
forehead. “Look…I’m burning up.”

Hadley put his own hand against
McCurdy’s forehead. “You’re not burning up. You’re no sicker than the rest of
us.”

“But I’m starving to death, First
Sergeant,” McCurdy whimpered.

“We’re all a little hungry,” Hadley
replied as he gave Jock and Patchett a searching look, its meaning evident even
in the dim moonlight: What the hell do I do now?

Patchett nodded to Jock, a gesture
that meant let me handle this, sir. He pulled Hadley aside and, speaking
softly, said, “Don’t fret none that you’re new to this top sergeant game, Tom.
You’ll learn how to be their mama when you need to be. You’re doing just fine
for now.”

Hadley didn’t looked convinced he
was doing just fine; he was out of ideas how to deal with Private
McCurdy.

Patchett stepped over to McCurdy.
“I just want y’all to remember something,” the sergeant major said, his voice
as soothing as a country preacher comforting the bereaved. “Sure, ain’t none of
us had a decent meal since Grant took Richmond…and we’ve been living in
stinking water up to our asses for what seems like a month of Sundays…but the
same goes for them Japs over there, only worse.”

Hadley and McCurdy had the same
confused look on their faces. His voice high-pitched and trembling, McCurdy
asked, “How do you figure that, Sergeant Major?”

“It’s just a natural fact, son.
Mother Nature can’t be no kinder to them yellow-ass bastards than she is to us.
In fact, they gotta be suffering worse than we are ’cause they been here longer
than us.”

McCurdy wasn’t buying it. “So why
are they kicking our asses?” he sobbed. “They’re killing us left and right.”

Patchett’s tone changed from
soothing to evangelical. “Why, son, we’re just getting started. We’ll get our
ducks in a row real quick here, and then your Charlie Company will go right
through them Japs like shit through a goose, just like it did at Port Moresby.”

Hadley rolled his eyes. Bullshit,
he thought. Nobody had walked right through anybody at Port Moresby.

“I wasn’t at Port Moresby,” McCurdy
said. “I’m a replacement.”

“Then you’re a lucky man, Private
McCurdy,” Patchett replied. “Your chance to make history has finally arrived.
Now, the question is, are you gonna seize that chance like a man? Or are you
gonna keep sniveling like some little nancy-boy?”

McCurdy had been in this man’s
army long enough to know there was only one answer to that question. His
body gave a shudder of resignation—and then he picked up his helmet and began
bailing water from his fighting hole.

“It’s just going to fill back up,”
McCurdy mumbled as he flung the water away. “It always does. More water, more
fucking bugs. Some fucking foxhole…”

“A foxhole’s something you hide in,
son,” Patchett replied. “You’re standing in a fighting hole. Besides,
the exercise’ll do you good…take your mind off your troubles.”

As he and Jock began to walk back
to the battalion CP, Patchett said, “We gotta keep a handle on this shit, sir.
If it can start in an outfit as squared away as Charlie Company, it can happen
anywhere. If we let it take hold, it’ll spread like wildfire.”

Tom Hadley hurried to catch up.
“Something else I’ve got to tell you, sir,” he said to Jock. “Lieutenant
Grossman…he’s in a real bad way.”

They found a groaning Lee Grossman,
his pants around his ankles, lying across the narrow, water-filled slit trench
that functioned as the latrine. The Charlie Company medic was holding on to
him, trying to prevent his weakened, spasming body from doubling over and
sliding butt-first into the trench. Even in this pungent swampland, you could
smell what was wrong with Lee Grossman from a long way off.

“Good lord,” Patchett said, “the
man’s squirting like a fire hose.”

“It’s dysentery,” the medic said.
“Worst case I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve seen worse, son,” Patchett
replied. “Plenty worse. Saw a whole company come down with it once…”

He didn’t finish the sentence
because the rest of it would have been and half them sumbitches died.

Instead, Patchett said, “But I’ve
gotta ask…how the hell did a company commander, of all people, get laid low
like this? I figured some dumbass private would be the first one drinking water
he shouldn’t.”

Too busy to consider an answer, the
medic said, “Who knows, Sergeant Major? Who the hell knows?”

I think I know how he might have
gotten it, Jock told himself. That head-dunking I gave him in the swamp
a couple of days ago to duck those bullets…

Shit. You save a man’s life…but
the saving might kill him anyway.

Patchett asked the medic, “You give
him any sulfa yet?”

“Not yet, Sergeant Major.
Dehydration’s the biggest danger right now. I’m waiting on this shit-blast to
finish, then I’ve got to get the lieutenant rehydrated and up to Doc at
battalion so—”

Patchett cut him off. “Save it,
son, we all know the drill.” Looking to Jock, he asked, “What do you want to do
about Charlie Company’s command, sir?”

“I’ll bet Lieutenant Grossman’s
already taken care of that,” Jock replied. “Am I right, Sergeant Hadley?”

“Yes, sir,” Hadley said, “Lieutenant
Havers has already stepped up to acting company
commander.”

“Very well,” Jock replied. “Get
Lieutenant Grossman to the battalion aid station as soon as you can. Doc will
want him shipped back to Port Moresby, I’m sure.”

Despite his pitiful state, Lee
Grossman heard every word. He managed to sit up and, his voice a dry, harsh
croak, say, “No, sir…no evacuation…please…I’ll…I’ll be okay.”

Jock tried to offer a comforting
hand to Grossman but the medic stopped him. “Better not, sir,” the medic said.
“It’s a mess around here right now…fecal matter everywhere…and dysentery’s
highly contagious.”

Shrugging off the medic, Jock said
to Grossman, “We’ll see, Lee. We’ll see. Right now, you just rest. Don’t worry
about a thing.”

Turning to Hadley, Jock added,
“First Sergeant, fill in this latrine as soon as they’re done here. Dig a new
one for the healthy men and another for the sick. Keep them far apart. Make
sure any man who touches a shovel washes up real good.”

“Good plan, sir,” Patchett said.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

As they once again began their walk
back to the battalion CP, Jock added, for Patchett’s ears only, “The last thing
in the world we need right now is a whole bunch of our men dying from the
shits.”

“Amen to that, sir,” Patchett
replied.

“And where’d you pick up this nancy-boy
stuff, Top? Are you trying to learn the King’s English from your Aussie
girlfriend, too?”

Patchett smiled. “Among other
things, sir.”

Chapter Twenty

The Japanese sergeant took comfort in one—and only one—fact: Our
officers are very brilliant men.

They designed this network of
fortifications we cower in—these bunkers of logs, steel, and earth. So
efficiently laid out, so resistant to enemy detection and fire even sick,
starving, and exhausted men like us can stop our adversaries in their tracks.

All we have to do is point our
weapons out the firing slits when ordered and pull the triggers. The enemy drop
like flies. They never see us. We see only fleeting glimpses of them just
before they fall.

Not long ago, this beautiful
patch of land was a coconut palm plantation.

Now, it’s a killing field.

My men and I were never at Port
Moresby, never fought our way triumphantly over the mountains only to
flee back. We’ve been in Papua only a month.

We’re lucky: it takes longer
than a month for a man to starve to death.

But it only takes a moment to
lose your mind when the bombs and shells start to fall.

Already, two of my men are
locked in that moment forever. Call it shell-shock, combat fatigue—whatever you
wish…

Insanity is the same no matter
what name it hides behind.

The sunrise began to cast its rays
through the firing slits, slicing across the interior of the bunker like the
beams of searchlights, blazing a row of neat rectangles along the rear wall.

A new day, the Japanese
sergeant told himself. I wonder if the enemy will—

The muted poom of artillery
fire answered his unfinished question. He and his men had barely an instant to
exchange looks of panic before the rounds came screaming in.

Jock had watched the Australian
artillery at work long enough. He put down his binoculars and told Lieutenant
Fairburn, “Okay…one more volley at that corner bunker, then cut it off.”

Patchett’s face registered
agreement. He asked, “How many rounds will that leave us, Lieutenant?”

“Six per gun, Sergeant Major,” the
Aussie replied.

Patchett grimaced as he calculated:
Six rounds times four guns…twenty-four rounds total. Just barely enough if
we need to exploit a success…or cover a retreat.

“Get Able and Baker Companies
moving,” Jock told his radio operator. “Let’s take a bunker or two from these
bastards while their heads are still spinning.”

Lying flat on his belly, Lieutenant
Theo Papadakis felt he could reach out and touch that corner bunker—the one
Charlie Company had failed to take in their attack two days ago. Crawling
forward with the lead squad of his company—Able Company—Papadakis was close
enough to see the bunker for what it was: a long, low earthen mound, overgrown
with vegetation, with narrow firing slits carved just above ground level.

Although the artillery fire had shattered
wide swaths of coconut palms and heaved up mounds of earth all around, the
bunker didn’t seem to be damaged at all. But no shots had come from it.

They were only 50 feet away.

“I’m gonna put a grenade through
one of them shooting holes, sir,” the squad leader whispered to Papadakis.

He pulled the safety pin…rose to a
kneeling position, his arms splayed like a baseball pitcher delivering a killer
fastball…

And that was as far as the sergeant
got. The Nambu machine gun opened up from the bunker and cut him down.

The grenade fell to the ground at
Papadakis’s feet, its safety lever gone, its fuze burning. If he hadn’t felt it
bounce off his boot, he might never have noticed: his head, like everyone
else’s, was pressed tight to the ground, hiding from the machine gun bullets.

Four to five seconds until
detonation, a voice in his head recited like a drill instructor. That clock
had started ages ago.

Four to five seconds…

Had that interval of time ever
seemed so long…or so short?

Pivoting his prone body, he grabbed
the grenade and flung it with all the awkward strength he could muster toward
the bunker.

It exploded halfway there—still in
midair—claiming nothing and no one as its victim, leaving only tiny vortices of
uplifted dirt and shredded vegetation where the fragments struck.

Theo Papadakis pulled the
walkie-talkie to him. “ONLY ONE NAMBU FIRING,” he shrieked to 2nd
Platoon on the left. “IT CAN’T COVER OUR WHOLE FRONT. GET AROUND AND BEHIND
IT…NOW!”

Second Platoon’s leader—Lieutenant
Squibb—was thinking the same thing even before his company commander’s voice
spilled from the radio:

If we can get behind this
fucking bunker, that could be all she wrote for the Japs. One Nambu shooting
through one little slit ain’t got enough field of fire to stop us all.

He ordered his men forward.

Squibb was startled when the point
man of the lead squad—moving on the dead run—suddenly dropped from sight.

What the fuck? Nobody shot him,
did they?

The point man wasn’t shot. He was
lying in the mud at the bottom of a shallow trench, alive but in much pain.

“My fucking knee, Lieutenant,” the
point man moaned to the platoon leader. “I think I tore it up. Where’d this
fucking hole come from, anyway? Better not be some Jap latrine.”

It wasn’t a latrine. They’d found
their first communications trench: furrows that allowed the Japs to crawl from
bunker to bunker unseen and under cover. In one direction, the trench sketched
a beeline to their objective: the bunker guarding the southeast corner of the
plantation.

In the opposite direction could
only be another bunker—one sitting on the southern edge of the plantation. That
bunker hadn’t fired a shot at them yet, as near as they could tell.

Now or never, Lieutenant
Squibb told himself. Motioning for his men to follow, he dashed to the corner
bunker.

From inside, the Nambu kept on
playing its staccato rhythm of death.

There was an opening on the back
side, framed with timbers…

This must be the way in…

He made a grenade his calling card:

Fire in the hole, you sons of
bitches!

There was a muffled, uninspired thud
as it detonated inside the bunker.

Why do grenades always sound so
damn disappointing when they go off?

But the Nambu stopped firing.

The lieutenant stepped through the
entrance into the dim interior of the bunker. He was surprised—it seemed so
much smaller inside than out, its roof so low he couldn’t stand straight.

Claustrophobic…that’s the word.

The stench greeting him made him
lurch backward—a nauseating mix of spent gunpowder, excrement, decay…and death.

Unable to see much—and not wanting
to—Squibb slammed his eyes shut and emptied the magazine of his Thompson into
the bunker’s interior. The sound of his weapon firing in that hellish echo
chamber assaulted his body like the blows of a mallet.

Fumbling in his web gear for a new
magazine, he opened his eyes…

Shit! They ain’t dead!

But they weren’t fighting back,
either.

He tried to guess how many…a
dozen, two dozen?

They squirmed like a tangled mass
of worms in the muck of the bunker’s floor…

Half-naked, sickly, swimming among
their own dead, their skin ghastly white canvases for the brushstrokes of blood
and mud, trying to get away…

But with nowhere to run.

It looks like that painting of
asylum inmates I saw once.

Their mouths were moving but made
no sound. Nothing Squibb could hear, anyway—his ears rang like sirens from the
blast of his Thompson in these close quarters.

It’s like they’re begging...but
for what? Life? Or death?

He leveled his Thompson but
couldn’t pull the trigger. Bile was burning its way up his throat.

He lurched for the exit.

Outside the bunker on all fours,
the meager contents of his stomach now a small, mucousy puddle on the ground
beneath him, Lieutenant Squibb heard the weapons of his GIs finishing what he
had been unable to do.

It took Theo Papadakis just seconds
to run to the bunker Squibb’s 2nd Platoon had just seized. That run
ended with him hugging the bunker’s front face for dear life: there was
withering fire from deeper in the plantation raking its rear side.

These fucking bunkers are laid
out in depth, he realized. The next row is killing us.

Now what?

He could hear men—his men—shouting
from inside the bunker. He slid down to a firing slit and yelled: “SQUIBB…YOU
IN THERE?”

“Yessir, I’m here. What do we do
now?”

Wish I had a quick answer to
that question, Papadakis thought.

“We’re pinned in here, Pop,” Squibb
said. “I’ve got about half my platoon with me, the rest are in the commo trench
to the south. We can’t go near the exit…bullets are coming through there like
fucking sideways rain. I think I’ve got at least five men down already.”

Papadakis asked, “Does your radio
work?”

“Don’t think so. I’ve been trying
to call for artillery, mortars, anything. No one’s home.”

“I’ll call it for you,” Papadakis
replied. “How far out there you figure the next line of Japs are?”

“No fucking idea, Pop. Take a
guess.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. Sit tight.”

Jock had the artillery on the way
within seconds of Theo Papadakis’s call.

Studying the attack diagram, Jock
picked up the mic and said, “Trenchfoot Six, this is Dry Rot Six.
Can you move down the commo trenches to the adjacent bunkers, over?”

“Not real sure, Dry Rot,”
Papadakis replied. “I’ve got guys in the south trench but they’re pinned down.
Looks like the next bunker—behind this one—finally woke up, over.”

“Are there other trenches? Over.”

“Not that I can see…but I can’t see
a whole lot right now. My head’s up my ass. We’re getting creamed here, over.”

The four Aussie howitzers let fly
their first salvo.

Patchett mentally clicked off the
ammo count: Twenty rounds left.

The artillery rounds screamed over
Able Company’s heads and impacted about 50 yards deeper into the plantation.

Cutting it a little close there,
Papadakis told himself.

But the Japanese fire seemed to
wane.

“Repeat,” Papadakis said. “I say
again, repeat, over.”

Four more rounds screamed over Able
Company.

Sixteen rounds left…

The Japanese fire thinned to
sporadic rifle shots.

“Okay,” Papadakis said, “I think
I’ve got an opening. I’m gonna hook up with Mildew Six on my left and
push toward the south, to that next bunker, over.”

“Roger, Trenchfoot. I’m
committing Green Mold  to exploit on your right, over.”

“Roger…and thanks. I could use some
cover from Green Mold on that flank. Better give me one more volley from
the cannon-cockers, too, over.”

Jock asked, “You sure you need
that? We’re tight on rounds, over.”

“I’d feel a whole lot better if I
had it.”

“Twelve, dammit,” Patchett mumbled
as the Aussies let the rounds fly.

Charlie Company—call sign Green
Mold, with Lieutenant Havers now in command —was the battalion reserve for
the attack. Major Miles had just committed them to exploit Able Company’s gain;
Havers was scrambling like a chicken with his head cut off to put his company
into action.

Tom Hadley, his first sergeant,
took Lieutenant Havers aside. “Are you sure you want to do it this way,
Lieutenant?” Hadley asked. “You’re sending in one platoon at a time. That’s
asking for trouble. All the platoons should attack at once…you know, massing
of force and all that.”

“We need to be cautious, Tom,” Havers
replied. “Let’s probe first to see what we’re getting into.”

Hadley bristled; he didn’t know
Havers very well. Certainly not well enough to be on a first name basis:

And his tone—like I should be
grateful he’s lowering himself to be my buddy. Pretty snobby for a rookie C.O.
fresh out of the box.

Worse, several GIs had overheard
the way the new company commander casually addressed him. That sort of
informality could cripple a unit’s chain of command in no time flat. If he’d
learned anything at all from Melvin Patchett, it was to never let a slip of
discipline go uncorrected—not even for a second.

“With all due respect, sir, it’s Sergeant
Hadley. Even Top would be okay…if you don’t mind.”

Without looking up from his map,
Havers replied, “Sure, Sergeant. Whatever you like. Now let’s quit
screwing around and get this show on the road.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Able Company owned the bunker in
the southeast corner. Theo Papadakis—Trenchfoot Six—left Squibb’s
platoon to defend it. With his other two platoons, he moved south along the
commo trench toward the next bunker. Tony Colletti—Mildew Six—and his
Baker Company would distract the Japanese in that bunker by feigning a frontal
attack from the swamp. Once Colletti had the attention of the Japanese, Able
Company’s two platoons would slip around and behind the bunker…and take it,
too.

It was the best chance they’d had
so far.

But the battalion radio net began
to tell another tale:

Trenchfoot Two-Six—Squibb’s
platoon at the corner bunker—was being overrun. The Japanese counterattack was
coming from their right flank—exactly where Charlie Company—call sign Green
Mold—was supposed to be covering.

“We’re dropping the ball real bad,
sir,” Tom Hadley told Lieutenant Havers. “Able Company’s getting the shit
kicked out of them because we ain’t where we’re supposed to be. We’ve got to
push forward—right now—with the whole damn company on line.”

“You heard what First Platoon said
after they got pushed back,” Havers replied. “The Japs are already there in
force. We can’t cut them off now.”

“In force, my sweet ass, sir.
Couldn’t be more than a platoon or two of Japs doing the counterattack. If it
was, we wouldn’t have a First Platoon anymore. They’d all be
dead…instead of milling around here with their thumbs up their asses like the
rest of us.”

Lieutenant Havers didn’t seem to be
listening. “Our only chance,” he insisted, “is to go around and behind the Japs
hitting Able Company—”

“That ain’t gonna help anybody,
sir,” Hadley said. “It’ll be too little, too late. If we’re gonna pussyfoot
around, we might as well save our energy and just call in the artillery and
mortars on them.”

Havers smirked and shook his head.
“You do remember Battalion cautioning that we’re low on artillery and mortar
ammo, don’t you, Sergeant?”

“Yeah…but as long as we’ve still
got it, using it’s better than getting everyone killed, sir. I’m pretty sure
Battalion would want it that way.”

“Negative, Sergeant…we’ll do like I
said. Let’s get the company swung around to sweep from the north, platoons in
column. Third Platoon will lead.”

“No, sir…not in column. We’ve
already made that mistake enough today. We need platoons on line…more firepower
up front that way.”

“Sergeant, did I not make myself
clear?”

“Please, sir…at least two platoons
up and one back, then?”

Havers shook his head. “Negative. I
want my platoons in column. No more discussion. Now let’s get moving.”

It all fell apart so quickly. Theo
Papadakis and his company were no longer on the offensive, seizing ground from
the Japanese. They were the defenders now, in a desperate fight for their
lives.

He’d lost contact with Squibb’s
platoon at the captured corner bunker.

Worse, he was taking brutal fire
from that direction—the one direction from which, just a few moments ago, he’d
felt safe.

Something’s fucked up with
Charlie Company, I’ll bet, Theo told himself. There should be
nothing but GIs behind us, not Japs.

Something else I’ll bet…that
never would’ve happened if Lee Grossman was running Charlie, instead of that
greenhorn Havers.

He was taking brutal fire from
another direction, too. It had to be coming from bunkers deeper in the
plantation.

The wails of his wounded men—a
growing chorus singing a song of mortal fear—wove around and through the
constant racket of gunfire.

Most of the men still able to fight
were sprawled in the mud at the bottom of the commo trench, crammed shoulder to
shoulder. The rest scuttled behind trees, darting back and forth, not sure in
which direction to seek cover from the crossfire.

It no longer mattered how well Tony
Colletti’s Baker Company was keeping the Japs in the next bunker occupied. Theo
Papadakis—and what was left of his Able Company—would never be able to seize it
now. They’d never get there alive.

Papadakis keyed the walkie-talkie
and said: “ALL TRENCHFOOT UNITS, THIS IS SIX…PULL BACK. REPEAT, PULL BACK.”

He didn’t realize how loud he had
spoken until he looked down the trench: he was the only man still there. The
rest had heard and heeded his command long before their platoon and squad
leaders could relay it.

Charlie Company’s sweep from the
north progressed at a snail’s pace—it had covered only a few hundred yards so
far. Surprisingly, it had met no resistance.

“We’re not moving fast enough,
sir,” Hadley told Lieutenant Havers. “At this pace, Christmas will be come and
gone before we make contact.”

Havers replied, “You’re mighty
eager, aren’t you, Sergeant? Didn’t your mother ever teach you haste makes
waste?”

Tom Hadley remembered another
expression his tough-as-nails mother—a West Virginia miner’s wife—had often
told each of her many sons, something quite different than the lieutenant’s
cliché: Son, she would say, don’t fuck up.

He decided to keep that piece of
wisdom to himself. They were already past the point of prevention and well into
the fuckup.

Over the chatter of distant gunfire,
another sound made itself known: the dull poom poom poom of cannons
firing from a mile or more away.

They weren’t the Aussie
cannons—their sound was coming from the opposite direction. The wrong
direction.

Within seconds, the whine of
incoming shells drowned out every other sound—even the beseeching voices of the
combat-experienced men like Tom Hadley, who were screaming, “INCOMING! HIT THE
DECK!”

The rounds’ impact shook the ground
like an earthquake, shattered some trees, and loosed the bladders and bowels of
Charlie Company’s rookies. As the rain of debris from the explosions subsided,
First Sergeant Tom Hadley made a decision: it was time to take command of this
idiot circus before they got wiped out to the last man.

“CHARLIE COMPANY, PULL BACK,”
Hadley roared. “MOVE IT! ON THE FUCKING DOUBLE!”

A few yards away, several green
troopers huddled on the ground, paralyzed with fear.

“GET UP AND RUN,” Hadley bellowed
at them.

“Fuck that,” one of the troopers
said, his trembling voice at least an octave higher than normal. “We need to
take cover.”

“NO, DUMBASS,” Hadley replied,
kicking the speaker firmly in the backside, “WHEN THE ROUNDS ARE COMING DOWN ON
YOUR HEAD, YOU TAKE COVER. WHEN THEY’RE NOT, YOU RUN LIKE HELL OUT OF THE KILL
ZONE.”

The dull poom poom poom sounded
in the distance once again…

And this time, every man who still
could ran like hell.

It wasn’t much of a run to the
rally point, only a few hundred yards. Once there, Charlie Company’s men would
have been content to keep running all the way to the airfield at So Sorry,
but First Sergeant Hadley corralled and quickly reorganized them. A headcount
was not encouraging: there were fifteen wounded, six of them stretcher cases
that had been dragged out of harm’s way by their comrades. The lieutenants who
led 1st and 3rd Platoons were among the badly wounded.

There were eight men missing. Among
them were the other two company officers: the leader of 2nd Platoon
and the company commander, Lieutenant Havers.

Dammit, Hadley told himself,
that puts me officially in charge. Those junior officers don’t last too
long, do they?

He called four names: “Wozniak,
Simms, Mukasic, McCleary…saddle up. You’re coming with me.”

PFC Wozniak raised his hands to the
sky as if beseeching heaven and asked, “Why are we so fucking lucky, Top?”

The first sergeant grabbed him by
the web gear, jerked him to his feet, and replied, “Because, wiseass, I need
experienced people. I ain’t got time to wipe some rookie’s ass right now. Come
on…we’re going to go find our missing guys.”

Corporal Bogater Boudreau had long
since run out of ammunition for his Thompson. But it didn’t matter—as long as
he was stuck in that corner bunker, he had a seemingly inexhaustible supply for
the Nambu machine gun.

And them dumbass Japs keep
walking right up and let me cut ’em down. They ain’t figured out it’s a GI
behind this gun—and it’s pointing right at them.

But this little ruse de guerre
of mine is about played out. Maybe it ain’t such a swell idea to be rear guard
after all.

And I don’t remember
volunteering to do this alone…but I’m the only son of a bitch in here who’s
still drawing breath.

He was expecting the grenade that
sailed through the bunker’s entrance.

A pile of dead Japanese provided
ample cover.

But the explosion finished off
whatever hearing Bogater had left.

As he pulled himself from under the
shelter of the corpses, he tried without success to shake off the awful ringing
in his ears.

But I’d rather be deaf than dead
any day, the Cajun told himself as he picked up a Japanese rifle and
dropped the two soldiers who entered the bunker with one shot each. Each
squeeze of the trigger made nothing but a muted, mechanical clank in his
crippled ears, more felt than heard.

Pretty good shooting…considering
you gotta cycle the fucking bolt on these Jap rifles after each shot. Ain’t
they heard about semi-automatic yet?

But it’s time to get the hell
out of here.

Hoisting a Japanese corpse before
him like body armor, he burst out of the bunker.

Nobody fired at him.

He didn’t stop to wonder why. He
dropped the lifeless shield and ran.

That’s when Mother Nature decided
to open her faucets once again.

The deluge took the sprinting
Bogater Boudreau by complete surprise: Usually, you hear it coming, that
shisssh of rain sweeping across the jungle is hard to miss…

Trouble is, I can’t hear nothing
but that high C note in my ears…and now, with this rain pouring down, I can’t
see shit, neither…

Where the hell am I?

He wasn’t the only man lost in the
rain.

Out of the curtain of falling water
walked another soldier.

He might have been 100 feet away…

He might have been 10.

They saw each other at the same
time, hesitated for just an instant as they processed whether friend or foe.

Both decided foe.

Both squeezed their rifle’s trigger.

Neither weapon fired.

“Fucking Jap piece of
shit,” Boudreau spewed as he cycled the Arisaka’s bolt.

Damn. It’s empty.

Never taking his eyes off his
adversary, the Cajun searched his trouser pocket for another clip.

Don’t tell me I lost the son of
a bitch…

The Japanese soldier found his new
clip with little fanfare. He loaded it into his rifle with a chop of his open
hand…

Slammed the bolt home…

And caught the stock of Boudreau’s
rifle squarely against the side of his head.

Just like Babe Ruth swinging for
the fences, Bogater told himself. I believe I killed the little bastard.
Split his head open like a melon dropped off a truck.

“So sorry about that,” he said out
loud, “but, you know…it’s kill or be killed, mon frère.”
Snatching the loaded rifle from lifeless hands, he added, “Tell you what…I’ll
trade you.”

Now all I gotta do is figure out
which way’s east…

The Japanese artillery was silent
now as First Sergeant Tom Hadley and his four-man detail searched for their
company’s missing along the plantation’s edge. The sounds of the fight for the
corner bunker—so tumultuous a few minutes ago—had dwindled to sporadic gunshots
that seemed more like afterthoughts than signals of battle.

“How come the Jap artillery shut
off?” PFC Wozniak asked as he tried to wipe the rain from his face.

“They’re probably just as low on
ammo as we are,” Hadley replied. “Shut the fuck up and stay alert.”

They entered a grove where the
trunks were scarred as if they were the artifacts of some demonic whittler.
There were more signs of the artillery’s handiwork, too: the drops of viscous
pink painting the terrain—some small, some in fist-sized globs mixed with
scraps of olive drab fabric—the detritus of a life’s sudden and violent end refusing
to be flushed away by the downpour.

“Well,” Hadley said, his voice
flat, “looks like we found at least one of them. Okay, split up and spread out.
See if you can at least come up with dog tags. But keep on your toes,
dammit—this is still Indian country.”

Under a pyramid of broken trees,
Tom Hadley found Lieutenant Havers.

He was still alive…barely.

A broken but stout tree branch,
sharpened like a spear when sheared from its lofty home, had run the lieutenant
through.

Now, its tip impaled in the ground,
it held Havers face-up in mid-fall, his lifeblood slowly trickling down its
shaft in rivulets of deep red to mingle with the rainwater puddling below.

He’s as good as dead, Hadley
knew, just like my big brother was when that boiler blew up and ran a pipe
right through him. Take that branch—that spear—out of him, and he’ll bleed out
in a second or two.

“Get me the medic,” Lieutenant
Havers commanded.

The tone of Havers’s voice—so
demanding, so entitled, so full of the patrician arrogance Hadley had endured
as a boy from the offspring of bankers, lawyers, and coal mine bosses in his
West Virginia town—dissolved whatever compassion he might have had for his
dying commander.

Just like that asshole platoon
leader who got himself killed up on the mountain back at Port Moresby—who
was it? Oh, yeah…Lieutenant Wharton. Shit, I damn near forgot his name already.

“The medic,” Havers demanded.
“Where the hell is he?”

“He’ll be along in a minute, sir,”
Hadley lied. “Let me help you out in the meantime…Sorry, sir, but this is going
to hurt a bit.”

Before Havers could sputter another
word, Tom Hadley wrenched the branch—with Havers still attached—sideways and
out of the ground.

Then, his foot firmly against the
lieutenant’s chest, he yanked it out of Havers’s body…

God forgive me.

It was all over quickly: the arrogance
in the lieutenant’s eyes faded, replaced by a blank stare that seemed focused
on some other dimension.

In his last seconds of life, he
seemed to be saying something, an inaudible whisper Hadley felt sure he
understood:

Fuck you, Tom.

As he took one of the dog tags from
Havers’s neck, Tom Hadley remembered an old poster he had seen on a barracks
wall back in the States. It said: Death Comes Quickly…Treat Immediately.

Chapter Twenty-Two

General Hartman was red-faced with
annoyance. They could imagine smoke pouring from the general’s ears as he said,
“In other words, gentlemen, you’ve failed again.”

Jock and Colonel Molloy winced for
just an instant before placing the appropriate expressions of contrition on
their faces. They well understood how the army game of blame assessment was
played: it was their fault the attack on Duropa Plantation had failed, and
that’s all there was to it.

“Major Miles,” the general
continued, “I’m going to put a stop to this attack through the plantation
obsession of yours. It’s getting us nowhere.”

The general stepped to the map and,
stabbing a finger repeatedly into the shaded area representing Buna Village,
said, “You’re going to shift your focus to a direct attack on Buna.”

Colonel Molloy decided this was the
time to speak up. “But that’s an attack across nothing but swamp, sir, it’s—”

“It’s what, Colonel?”
Hartman interrupted. “I hope you weren’t planning to say it’s suicide.”

“No, sir,” Molloy replied. “I was
going to say extremely difficult.”

What Molloy wanted to add but
didn’t: and extremely unlikely to succeed.

It was obvious from Hartman’s
expression he didn’t care how difficult Dick Molloy or Jock Miles thought it
would be.

“I’m going to tell you gentlemen
what MacArthur told me,” Hartman said. “Take Buna…or don’t come back alive.”

Jock and Colonel Molloy exchanged a
fleeting, worried glance: this is crazy talk. If MacArthur actually said
those words, he was nuts. If General Hartman believed them, he was nuts, too…

Because it ain’t the generals
who do the dying.

“May I make a suggestion, sir?”
Molloy asked.

“By all means, Colonel,” Hartman
replied, his tone not in the least bit cordial.

“This campaign has, so far, taken a
frightening toll on Eighty-First Regiment. Major Miles’s battalion is—after
only a week of combat—down to fifty percent of its fighting strength—”

“Much of that is from sickness, not
wounds in action,” Hartman interrupted.

“That makes no difference, sir,”
Molloy replied.

“I’m well familiar with your
regiment’s casualty figures, Colonel,” Hartman said. “Get to the damn point.”

“Those casualty figures are
my point exactly, sir. One could say we already are, to a very great degree, not
coming back alive. Now that the other two regiments of this division have
finally joined us here on the north coast, it would be greatly appreciated if
they could help in assaulting this stronghold which, to our collective shame,
we greatly underestimated.”

General Hartman couldn’t have
looked less sympathetic.

“And while we’re talking about
reinforcements, sir,” Molloy continued, “where do we stand with getting the
artillery and tanks we’ve been begging for?”

Finally, there was a slight smile
on Hartman’s face. “Molloy, I’m glad you brought those topics up together,” he
said, “because they’re joined at the hip. We can’t bring in tanks and artillery
vehicles until we have a nearby harbor. It looks like the best candidate is a
place down the coast called Oro Bay, about fifteen miles east of here. From
there to here, we’ll need to build a wide road through the jungle, complete with
bridges to cross the many rivers and streams along the way. Now, gentlemen, I’m
going to share something with you that I do not—and I repeat, do not—wish
to become general knowledge, lest it cause panic among the troops. MacArthur
suspects that since we’re putting so much pressure on Buna, and the Aussies on
Gona and Sanananda, the Japanese are—despite their weakened naval
position—about to risk landing seaborne reinforcements of their own. Perhaps as
much as a division. Therefore, I must ensure that all our coastal
installations—the airfield at Fasari and the one under construction at Dobodura,
any port we may establish, and any roads connecting them all—are well
protected. I’ve assigned that vital task to Eighty-Third Regiment.”

Molloy asked, “What about
Eighty-Second Regiment, sir? What’ll they be doing?”

“MacArthur feels it’s best that
they augment the Aussie division. It’s time we finally gave our steadfast
allies a bit of a helping hand.”

Jock and Colonel Molloy exchanged
another quick glance, one of frustration this time. They were both thinking
exactly the same thing: As usual, politics is dictating tactics...and we’re
going to take our lumps for it. Again.

General Hartman had one more point
to make: “You gentlemen already know MacArthur’s position on the artillery—as
long as you have the support of our Air Force, they’re all the artillery you
need. Learn to employ it better. Now, do you two gentlemen have any further
questions?’

Neither Jock nor Colonel Molloy
said a word.

“Good,” Hartman said. “You’re
dismissed. Go and bring me a victory.”

As they walked from Hartman’s CP
tent, Jock said, “Learn to employ it better, my ass. Colonel, I don’t
believe the general’s been paying attention.”

Through clenched teeth, Molloy
muttered, “Affirmative, Jock. Operation Easy Street, my aching ass.
Hasn’t been a damn thing easy about it.”

Andoom Clipper was making
good time as she sailed along the Papuan coast. “Fifteen knots, on average, I
reckon,” Jillian Forbes said to the US Army captain standing beside her on the
bridge. Easing her helm left to glide past the shallows of a reef, she added,
“We’ll make Oro Bay before sundown.”

The captain—Marcus Concavage, US
Army Engineers—had nothing to say in reply.

Jillian found the whole situation
amusing: Leave it to the Yanks to send an army man for a navy job. Look at
that frown on the wanker’s face…I don’t think he believes we’ll be there when I
say we will. Bloody hell, it’s only a day’s sail. He’s been a nervous wreck
ever since he came on board. Wound a bit tight, I’d say…

And he’s not happy about a
sheila driving the boat, that’s for bloody sure.

Something else was bothering
Captain Concavage, too. Pointing to the Aborigine man ministering to the Clipper’s
engine, he said, “I’m still not sure why that abo needs to be on board,
Miss Forbes.”

“Like I told you back at Milne Bay,
Nigel is the best engine mechanic I know,” she replied. “Far better than I am
at keeping her running. Surely you can appreciate that, Mark.”

She watched him tense as the
familiar form of his name rolled off her lips. She’d done it intentionally;
after spending all morning trying to foster a more comfortable working
arrangement with this stick-up-the-ass Yank, she’d gone for broke.

“Captain Concavage, please,
Miss Forbes. I can’t let my men think it’s okay to abandon proper military
etiquette and discipline just because we’re…”

He didn’t seem to know how to
finish the sentence.

She glanced down at the rest of her
passengers: a US Army survey team—one old, fat sergeant and two privates barely
out of their teens. They lounged on the main deck among piles of gear, their
shirts and boots off.

Military discipline, my arse, she
thought. Looks like his lads think they’re on a bloody vacation cruise.

She asked, “Because we’re what,
Mark? In mixed company? In the middle of nowhere?”

“Yes,” Concavage replied, “all of
those things, I suppose, Miss Forbes.”

“You know, Mark, this isn’t the first
time I’ve worked with the US Army.”

She didn’t bother to add and
that last lot was a hell of a lot tougher and far more interesting than you and
your wankers.

“Regardless, Miss Forbes. I
must insist we address each other properly at all times.”

“Fine, Captain Concavage. In that
case, I must insist you refer to me as Captain Forbes.”

“But, that’s not...”

Again, Concavage floundered, not
knowing how to finish his sentence.

“I’m a licensed ship’s master. That
earns me the title of captain.”

The Yank seemed wounded; he hadn’t
seen that parry coming.

“Get used to it, Mark,” Jillian
said.

There were almost two hours of daylight
left when they reached Oro Bay. Captain Concavage’s team wasted little time: in
minutes, sounding lines were over the side as Jillian gently maneuvered Andoom
Clipper around the potential harbor. By sunset, the initial survey was
complete. Oro Bay was deemed a suitable harbor for the coastal and inter-island
freighters that made up the bulk of the Allied transport tonnage around Papua.

“I’d bring my Esme in here
any day,” Jillian said, well satisfied with the day’s work.

A delicious thought crossed her
mind: I’m only about fifteen miles from my Jock, I think. Close enough to
walk.

The heavy radio, with its
hand-cranked generator, was ferried ashore in the Clipper’s pram. Soon
its message was acknowledged by Milne Bay and Port Moresby: this was the place
to build a harbor.

As he savored a cup of hot coffee
from the Clipper’s galley, Concavage said, “Once we get the landing
ships the Navy’s promised, we can even bring in tanks and all sorts of heavy
vehicles.”

“You don’t have to wait for the
bloody Navy,” Jillian replied. “Beatrix’s ship, the Java Queen, used to
carry railroad cars. Tanks won’t be a problem for her. All you blokes need to
do is come up with a lighter big enough to float them ashore. Shouldn’t be much
of a challenge for Yank geniuses like you.”

Looking bewildered, Concavage
asked, “Beatrix? You mean there’s another ship captained by a girl?”

“A woman, Mark,” Jillian corrected.
“She’s a woman. Just like me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jillian awoke to the clanking of
tools. The sky was already turning pink at its eastern fringe; the sun would
rise very soon. Nigel was fussing with the Clipper’s engine.

“Everything all right, Nigel?” she
asked.

“I suppose, Miss Jilly,” the
mechanic replied. “Better safe than sorry.”

Jillian glanced at the narrow beach.
The pram was still there, just where the Yanks had left her last night. Captain
Concavage and his team had spent the night on shore with the equipment they’d shuttled
from the boat so far. They’d come back for the rest first thing this morning,
and then she’d be free to weigh anchor and return to Milne Bay. There’d been no
point continuing the risky process of unloading in the darkness; she wouldn’t
dream of trying to sail back through those hazardous waters at night, anyway.
She went below to make coffee.

At first, the chattering of the
old, dented coffee pot on the burner masked the sound from outside, until it
became too loud to be ignored:

Airplane engines…and they don’t
sound like Yanks or Aussies, either.

Jillian rushed out to the deck. The
first thing she saw was Nigel cradling the hunting rifle they kept on board: pirate
insurance, they called it.

The second thing she saw was the
jagged-V formation of six Japanese planes in the dull gray sky—single-engined
fighters—low over the water, no more than a mile offshore.

One by one, they peeled away,
forming an accelerating column that descended straight to the anchored Andoom
Clipper.

“GET IN THE WATER, NIGEL,” Jillian
shrieked.

She dove overboard, propelling her
body as deep into the watery darkness as she could.

Just when she thought her lungs
would burst, she heard the swoosh of bullets piercing the water’s
surface…

And then the explosion—its
shattering roar amplified by the water—that shoved her still deeper like a
giant hand.

Melvin Patchett seemed lost in
thought. Jock asked, “Something on your mind, Top?”

Picking up the operations order
from the field desk, Patchett waved it like a flag and replied, “Much as I like
this little plan you and Colonel Molloy cooked up, sir, I think I know what’s
gonna happen. Y’all are asking to get yourselves relieved…maybe even
court-martialed.”

“It’s worth that risk, Top.”

“But the general specifically said
he wanted a full-blown regimental attack on Buna, didn’t he? This ain’t nothing
more than that recon in force business all over again…and it’s kinda
light on the force part. Most of our battalion’s still going to be on
the edge of the plantation, sitting on the balls of their asses, marking time.”

“Consider them my reserve, Top. In
the meantime, we can say they’re there to block those reinforcements
everybody’s so damn sure the Japs are going to land. And what’s the difference,
anyway? We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of just walking up the road
into Buna without serious armor and artillery support.”

“You don’t have to convince me,
sir…but it just looks like we ain’t even pretending to do what General
Hartman ordered. Not by a long shot.”

Melvin Patchett’s voice took on the
fatherly tone Jock hadn’t heard directed at him in quite a while. “I know what
y’all are trying to do, sir,” he continued, “and I surely do appreciate it. So
do the men who won’t be dying in this shithole quite yet. But we like having
you around, Jock Miles…and Colonel Molloy, too. I guess I misjudged that
man—turns out he’s all right. Now, we don’t want the brass thinking you both
slipped into casualty avoidance mode. Don’t ever forget that MacArthur
knows your name…and in your case, that’s a bad thing. He’d make an example
outta you in a fucking heartbeat.”

“Thanks, Top,” Jock said. “I
appreciate the sentiment. I really do. But those are my orders…at least until
we get the firepower to do this job right.”

Patchett shrugged, and then
replied, “As you wish, sir. Now, speaking about casualty avoidance mode,
are you good with having Charlie Company commanded by an NCO?”

“What do you mean? I can’t think of
a better man for the job than Tom Hadley, Top. Can you?”

“No, sir, I sure can’t, neither.
But it’s a natural fact that an outfit run by sergeants is gonna be a lot less
likely to take the initiative…especially when that initiative involves
bloodshed. That’s why this man’s army thinks so highly of its officers.
They don’t seem to mind getting people killed as much…present company excepted,
of course, sir.”

“You really believe that’s true?”

“I guaran-damn-tee it, sir.”

A sly grin crossed Jock’s face.
“Then maybe we should offer Hadley a battlefield commission, Top.”

An equally sly grin was on
Patchett’s face now. “And I would strongly advise him to refuse it, sir. He
don’t need hisself no gold bar. Besides, if I buy it one of these days, you
just might need him to fill my shoes. That’s a damn sight more important than
minting yourself another mustang.”

She thought she’d never make it to
the surface. The need for oxygen, the convulsive panic, the growing certainty
these were her last moments on earth, all rolled together into a darkening
maelstrom…

But suddenly, her watery grave
began to lighten; the surface was just above…just an arm’s length…an inch…

A burst of air filled her lungs—a
life-saving infusion that quickly had her choking on the fumes of burning
diesel. She was adrift in a field of shattered wooden planks that once formed
the proud hull of Andoom Clipper.

Between her and shore was a
spreading pool of floating fire. She couldn’t tell how long or wide the pool
was.

“NIGEL,” she yelled, “NIGEL…WHERE
ARE YOU?”

There was no answer.

She did a quick inventory of her
physical state: Now that my lungs have stopped aching, I think I’m all
right.

The offshore breeze was pushing the
pool of fire slowly toward shore.

If I stay behind it, I’ll make
it to the beach…eventually. It’s not far…I’ve swum a hundred times farther than
that before. Please tell me Nigel’s not hurt. But if he stayed on the boat…

She tried not to think about it.
Tasting the still-unburned diesel coating the surface of the water around her,
she thought, If this lot starts to burn…

But the flaming pool began to
diverge into smaller pockets, dwindling and snuffing themselves out as the
floating diesel was burned off. After minutes that seemed like they’d never
end, Jillian was ashore.

The pram hadn’t moved: Why
aren’t the Yanks trying to help? You’d think they’d at least want to try and
salvage their equipment, some of which is still bobbing around out there in the
bay.

Where the bloody hell are they,
anyway?

Jillian walked into the trees,
where she thought she’d seen the Yanks’ campfire glowing last night.

Pretty stupid of them to light a
fire when you don’t know who’s around. It’s got to be here somewhere…

She found it. The fire was snuffed
out.

So were the lives of Concavage’s
three men.

They were dead in their bedrolls,
each man’s throat cut.

That explains why there was no
noise…

But where the bloody hell is
Marcus Concavage?

She heard the crunch of vegetation
being trampled. It sounded very close.

Able Company was the unit Major
Miles picked to probe along the road leading to Buna Village. That didn’t
bother Theo Papadakis even as he told himself, It’s not much of a road,
actually, more of a dangerously exposed goat trail on a strip of dry ground
just a little above swamp level, with occasional dense stands of trees—perfect
places for the Japs to pull off ambushes.

What did bother Lieutenant Pop was
the unit on his left flank: Colonel Vann’s 3rd Battalion:

I wouldn’t trust those useless
sons of bitches to mind my dog, let alone cover my ass. They’re supposed to be
probing along a trail about a mile west of us. But they’re moving so damn slow
we keep getting way ahead…and I end up with nobody protecting my left flank at
all. But we’ve got to maintain contact with them—I think I’ll detail Bogater
Boudreau and his squad to that job.

When Boudreau finally found some of
3rd Battalion’s men, they were huddled at the edge of a grove,
taking cover behind the stoutest trees they could find.

“Get down,” a sergeant hissed at
Boudreau, “there’s a sniper in those trees up ahead.”

Bogater replied, “So? Shoot the son
of a bitch.”

“No,” the sergeant replied. “If we
don’t shoot at him, he won’t shoot at us.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Boudreau
said, as he turned to one of his men. “Curly, swap me your M1 for a minute.”

“You looking for a Purple Heart,
pal?” the sergeant asked.

“Don’t need one, Sarge. I already
got two,” the Cajun replied. “Give me that damn M1, Curly.”

“Ahh, c’mon, Bogater,” Curly
replied. “Let me do it.”

“Nah…you city boys can’t shoot for
shit.” Offering his Thompson in trade, he insisted, “The rifle, please…that’s a
fucking order, Private.”

Binoculars in hand, Boudreau asked,
“All right…which tree is this dead Jap in? Oh, never mind. There he is.”

“You’ll never hit him,” the
sergeant said. “He’s at least three hundred yards away.”

“More like two hundred, Sarge, and
I can shoot the eye out of a bayou gator at two hundred yards.”

Boudreau’s first shot splashed
against the tree trunk, so close it made the sniper flinch.

“Hmm…a little left,” the Cajun said
and squeezed the trigger again.

The shot knocked the sniper from
his perch. His body dangled lifelessly from its tether, high in the air.

“There,” Bogater said, “just let
the bastard hang. Now then, Sarge, where’s your C.O.? We gotta get you boys
moved up about half a mile. First Battalion’s got its derriere sticking
out in the wind with y’all dug in way back here.”

Crouching at the edge of a grove,
the men of Able Company could see the rooftop of Government House, the long,
one-story building that had once been the Australian district headquarters at Buna
Village. Just to its east was a cluster of similar buildings that comprised
Buna Mission. Jock, having joined the company for this probe, asked its
commander, “How far do you figure to Government House, Theo?”

Papadakis replied, “A mile,
sir…maybe a little more.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figure, too,”
Jock said. “I can’t believe we haven’t run into any Japs yet. Not that I’m
complaining…”

About a half mile up the trail was
one more grove, a broad island of cover and dry ground jutting from this
unforgiving swampland. To get to that grove, you had two choices: you either
walked down the road in plain sight, like lambs to the slaughter, or you
slogged through the swamp and took what little concealment the swamp grass
offered.

“Spread your platoons wide and use
the swamp, Theo,” Jock said.

Without a hint of reservation,
Lieutenant Pop replied, “Roger, sir.”

They could hear the steady thrum
of aircraft engines growing closer. Spotting the first flight—a quartet of
American P-40 fighters streaking toward the village at low level, Jock said,
“Even better…while they’re hitting Buna, maybe they’ll distract the Japs enough
to mask our advance. Get your men moving, Theo…and pray those flyboys do us
some good for once.”

They were halfway to the next grove
when the Japanese machine guns concealed there opened up on Able Company. They
had no place to take cover except the noxious water of the swamp.

“It’s like hiding in a fucking
toilet,” Papadakis said. “I’m calling in the Aussie artillery, sir. We need—”

“No, hold up, Theo,” Jock
interrupted. “They can’t shoot with the Air Force overhead.”

Half-crawling, half-swimming the
few yards to his radio operator, Jock asked, “You got those planes up on the
net?”

“Yes, sir,” the radioman replied,
handing Jock the walkie-talkie.

“Good,” Jock said. “Let’s give them
another chance to see if airplanes really can be as good as artillery.”

Tracers were rising up from
anti-aircraft guns within Buna Village, spraying the sky with speeding balls of
brilliant light as the gunners zeroed in on the P-40s. Jock’s conversation with
the flight leader was brief.

“They’ll be more than glad to come
over and help us out,” he told Papadakis. “They’re getting their asses riddled
over the village. Do all your platoons have yellow smoke?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Have each platoon pop one to
their front. That should be enough to get the pilots oriented…hopefully.”

Papadakis sounded wary as he asked,
“So they hit the Japs and not us?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Jock replied. “How
are your casualties?”

“We’re okay so far…two wounded in
Third Platoon…not badly, though, sir.”

“Let’s try and keep it that way.
The Japs fucked up, Theo…they’ve got our range all wrong. Most of this stuff’s
going over our heads.”

“Yeah,” Papadakis replied as he
scanned the grove with binoculars. “I swear to God, sir…that fire’s coming from
a bunker just like the ones on the plantation.”

“Wouldn’t that be hot shit,” Jock
said. “You’ve got to hand it to these little bastards. They built up one hell
of a fortress on real short notice.”

Theo Papadakis had to laugh.
“Yeah,” he replied, “it’s amazing what you can do when there’s someone’s sword
up your ass.”

Their spirits plummeted when the
P-40s made their first pass at the grove. It was a strafing run with their
.50-caliber machine guns.

“That’s all they’ve got?” Papadakis
said, genuinely disappointed. “Machine guns? No bombs? Shit…we’ve already got
fucking machine guns. Look how much good they did us so far.”

Jock’s radio came alive with the
flight leader’s voice.

“They’re coming around for another
pass,” Jock said. “I told them to strafe closer to the near edge of the grove
this time.”

“Might as well,” Papadakis replied.
“I guess the Air Force likes it here. Nobody’s shooting at them.”

“Yeah,” Jock said. “You must be
right about those Japs being in a bunker. Their machine guns don’t seem to be
able to shoot up, only out.”

Papadakis had a new concern: “What
about the Jap artillery, sir? Why do you figure they ain’t opening up on us?
We’re in range…and they don’t give a shit if they hit one of our planes or
not.”

“I’m betting they’re as low on ammo
as our guns,” Jock replied. “They’re saving it until they really need it.”

“Like when they had to blow the
shit out of Charlie Company at the plantation, sir?”

That was a memory Jock didn’t wish
to relive right now. “Yeah, Theo,” he replied. “Something like that.”

The four planes flew a low circle
in trail and lined up for their next run. The third began to trail grayish
smoke, which quickly turned oily black. As it closed on the grove, tongues of
bright orange flame burst from the stricken P-40.

Already close to the treetops, she
snapped over on her back…

And plowed into the ground, snapping
tree trunks and digging a furrow through the grove like a meteorite come to
Earth.

Just like that, the firing from the
Japanese bunker stopped.

Able Company wasted no time racing
toward the grove.

When they got there, a startling
find awaited them:

It had, in fact, been machine gun
fire from a bunker pinning them down.

But the bunker had been cleaved
open by the crashing P-40, its engine an unyielding projectile of nearly a ton
traveling over 200 miles per hour.

Now, the bunker was just so many
mangled logs, charred and torn bodies, and upturned dirt.

From the grove, Jock had a
concealed yet unobstructed vantage point for observing Buna Village.

“Dig your guys in here, Theo,” Jock
ordered. “Let’s hold on to this patch of turf for a while.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

They’re lost, Jillian
realized. We’re walking in bloody circles.

The two stumbling Japanese soldiers
holding her captive seemed to be getting weaker and more confused with every
passing minute.

They’re sick…and wounded,
too, she told herself. Look at those bandages…they’re filthy.
Festering. Bloody hell…if I’d realized that, I would’ve just taken my chances
and run. But those bayonets…they look sharp enough even a child could drive one
right through you.

There was no question of running
now. Ropes wrapped around her torso had her arms—with wrists lashed
together—pinned tightly behind her back. A noose had been fashioned from
another rope and slipped around her neck. One of the soldiers had a grasp on
the other end of the noose rope and used it to pull her along.

Like a dog on a leash, I am.

The soldiers’ movements grew more
lethargic; their eyes became glassy.

Maybe they’ll stop walking, lie
down, and slip off to sleep. I could work these ropes against one of those
bayonets…maybe take back my knife from that one’s belt…

A sharp tug on the noose nearly
jerked her off her feet. They were changing direction. The soldiers suddenly
seemed more confident, with a tepid burst of renewed energy. The smell of meat
cooking drifted through the air. In a few moments, Jillian realized why: a
small camp of lean-to shelters was nestled among the trees ahead.

In the camp were four more Japanese
soldiers. One was a lieutenant, complete with sword.

I still remember the rank
insignia from their little stay at Weipa.

The soldiers were busy boring holes
into coconuts—the task seemed to be causing them great difficulty—and then
pouring the milk down their throats.

Old women can crack open
coconuts with ease. What’s wrong with this lot?

They must all be sick.

Seated on the ground nearby were
four nuns in full habits, the black cloth torn, tattered, and filthy. No bonds
held them in place. They seemed to be patiently waiting their turn to drink.
One appeared to be middle-aged: Mother Superior, probably. Jillian put
the ages of the other three as very close to hers: mid-to-late twenties, I
reckon.

Not far away stood Marcus
Concavage, lashed to a tree, looking battered and in shock. His vacant stare
seemed focused a million miles away; he didn’t notice Jillian being brought
into the camp. He didn’t seem to notice much of anything.

Using the free end of the noose
rope, the soldiers tied Jillian by her neck to a tree not far from the Yank
captain. Almost choking her, they pulled the rope tight, leaving her stretched
in an awkward and painful parade rest, body rigid, hands joined behind
back.

Concavage still seemed oblivious.

“Marcus,” she whispered, “what in
bloody hell happened to you?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He just
kept staring straight ahead, gazing into some alternate reality only he could
see.

The Japanese lieutenant put six
coconuts on the ground and motioned to the older nun. She gave one to each of
her charges, set one aside for herself, and carried the last two to Jillian and
Concavage.

“Do you speak English, my dear?” the
nun asked with a thick Irish brogue.

“I bloody well do,” Jillian
replied.

“Ahh, wonderful…an Australian,” the
nun said. “Here…drink.”

She held the coconut to Jillian’s
lips. It was difficult to regulate the milk’s flow: Jillian’s head, lashed
against the tree as it was, could not tilt back to catch all of the refreshing
liquid. A good deal of it ran down the front of her bound torso.

“That’s all right, Sister,” Jillian
said. “I’m not very thirsty. I was sipping coffee on my boat not that long
ago.”

“What’s your name, child?

“Forbes. Jillian Forbes. What do I
call you?”

“Sister Benedicta. Was anyone else
with you, Jillian?”

“My mechanic…Nigel…I’m afraid…”

“That’s all right, dear girl. He’s
in the hands of our Lord.” The sister pointed to Concavage. “Do you know this
poor man?”

Jillian explained how they came to
be at Oro Bay. When her story was done, she asked Sister Benedicta, “Are you
their…prisoners?”

“Technically, I suppose,” the nun
replied, “but it seems to be a somewhat more symbiotic relationship now.”

“What the bloody hell do you mean,
Sister?”

She pointed to the wild pig
roasting on a makeshift spit. “They supply the food, and we provide the medical
care.” Benedicta winked when she said medical care. “We’re nursing
sisters, don’t you know?”

“How do you converse with them?”

“The lieutenant—that beastly young
man; that murderer—studied in Paris for a few years, so with my schoolgirl
French, we get by. It’s a shame those studies didn’t impart some western
civility in him. Actually, I think he’s quite homesick for Japan.”

“He’s more than homesick—he’s got
some jungle disease or another. They all do. And all their wounds are infected.
You can smell it.”

“Of course they’re infected, child.
We’ve seen to that.”

Jillian looked at the nun with a
mixture of awe and respect. “Then maybe you could see to getting me untied,
too, Sister? This is all a bit overdone, don’t you think? What is it with these
bloody Japs and their fondness for ropes?”

From their vantage point in the
grove, Theo Papadakis and the men of Able Company watched as the attack planes
pummeled the Japanese at Buna Village. The hail of bombs and bullets went on
all morning and well into the afternoon; six waves of aircraft came and went,
the waves separated by an hour or so. By the third wave, Lieutenant Pop’s
men—as well as the airmen overhead—noted the lessened volume of anti-aircraft
fire. By the fifth wave, there was none at all.

“Them anti-aircraft guns…they
probably ran out of ammo,” Sergeant Major Patchett said.

Papadakis replied, “They’ll just
get more and use it against us when we attack.” He didn’t sound defeatist,
merely resigned and girding for the next struggle.

Melvin Patchett frowned, raised an
eyebrow, and asked, “More? From where, Lieutenant?”

“You heard the rumors, Sergeant Major…they’re
bringing in supplies and reinforcements during the night…on barges and
submarines.”

Patchett pointed to the planes
darting overhead and said, “Don’t you think the Air Force would have spotted
them, Lieutenant? Even if they showed up here at night, it’s a long ways to
anywhere, and boats don’t move that fast. They’d get caught out in daylight
somewhere.”

Papadakis wasn’t convinced. “What
about submarines? You can’t see them when they’re underwater.”

“They ain’t gonna be underwater if
they’re anywhere near shore around here. It’s too damn shallow. And I ain’t no
sailor, Lieutenant, but from what I hear about them pig-boats, they ain’t
hardly got room for their crew inside, let alone passengers or cargo.”

Still unpersuaded, Theo Papadakis
shook his head and replied, “I don’t know…they just seem to have this shit
figured out better than us.”

It was Patchett’s turn to shake his
head. “Lieutenant,” he began, “I’m sure as hell hoping you ain’t been pumping
them fairy tales to your men. Major Miles and me got enough trouble keeping the
damn rumor mill under control. With all due respect, sir, we sure as hell don’t
need no officers greasing them wheels. Besides, that little ol’ plane crash
taking out that bunker over there just might be the cat-list we’ve been
looking for.”

Papadakis looked confused: “The what?”

“Cat-list, Lieutenant…You
know, something that lets something happen that couldn’t happen before.”

“Oh, yeah,” Papadakis said. “That.”

Patchett added, “Y’all enjoy the
night in this nice, dry hunk of tropical paradise…and tomorrow—once the rest of
the battalion gets here—we just may find ourselves a way to take that li’l ol’
village over there.”

It might’ve been a nice, dry
night in the grove if it hadn’t rained steadily until midnight, soaking everyone to the bone once again. The offshore breeze that followed the storm blew
in something the GIs didn’t want to hear: the faint, puttering sound of engines
coming from the seaward side of Buna. Unmistakably nautical.

“See?” Theo Papadakis said. “Rumor,
my ass, Sergeant Major. I told you the Japs were bringing stuff in at night.”

Melvin Patchett’s acknowledgement
was simple yet irritated: “Shit.”

Jock Miles’s reply was slightly
more expansive: “Dammit. No wonder we keep hitting a brick wall.”

Whatever those vessels were, their
stay was brief; the sound of engines drifted away quickly. The night became
still and quiet—you might dare call it peaceful. Each man in Able Company’s
perimeter—officer and enlisted alike—allowed himself a brief interlude to imagine
he was not at war, not stuck in this soggy hell called Buna. Thoughts drifted
to home, to loved ones, to happier times…bittersweet memories that fortify a
soldier’s will to keep going while leaving his heart torn and aching with loss.

It was a coincidence Jock Miles
checked his watch—0310 hours—at the exact moment the explosion shattered
that peace. It came from west of Able Company’s position in the grove.

“Third Battalion’s getting hit,”
Patchett said, his ears sorting the racket of gunfire that came on the heels of
the blast. “I ain’t hearing nothing but Jap weapons. Ain’t those fools gonna
fight back?”

The radio frequencies came alive
with screaming voices from Colonel Vann’s 3rd Battalion begging for
fire, begging for reinforcements…

Or just begging for salvation:
“THEY’RE EVERYWHERE! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!”

But in Able Company’s perimeter,
there was no attack. None of Lieutenant Papadakis’s men had fired a shot.

“Negative contact for my platoons,
sir,” Papadakis said to Jock.

Very good, Jock thought, they’re
not panicking…not even in the dark.

Another explosion rumbled from 3rd
Battalion’s direction.

“Just a mortar,” Patchett said.
“Small-caliber stuff. Gotta be Jap.”

A new voice shrieked from the
radio—Colonel Vann himself:

“I’M PULLING MY BOYS BACK. WE’RE
GETTING FLANKED.”

The pitch of Vann’s voice raised
with each terrified word.

“Flanked? How?” Patchett said.
“We’re snug up on his right, the Aussies are on his left.”

The next voice to spill from the
radio was cool and composed. It belonged to Colonel Molloy: “Negative,
negative, Mudbath. Stay in position. Artillery on the way.”

“Artillery…swell,” Jock mumbled.
“How many rounds did they have left?”

“Twelve,” Patchett replied. “And
those idiots over in Third Battalion didn’t even shoot their own mortars yet,
neither.”

Colonel Molloy was back on the
radio. This time, he was calling Jock. His message was terse: “Proceed west
with all available resources, engage enemy forces in unknown strength attacking
Mudbath.”

“That’s a new one on me,” Patchett
mumbled. “A company going to rescue a battalion.”

They listened as the first volley
of Aussie artillery impacted to the west.

“Eight rounds left, I reckon,”
Patchett said. “I bet they’re gonna shoot up every last round before this
thing’s over.”

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Jock said.
“Theo, take Able Company west…probe carefully, now…and engage whatever Japs you
find.”

Papadakis asked, “Should I leave a
platoon here to hold the grove, sir?”

“Negative, Theo. Take all your
firepower with you.”

Papadakis didn’t like that idea. “I
don’t know, sir,” he replied. “If we leave, we may never get it back.”

“That’s the chance we’ve been
ordered to take, Theo.”

Patchett asked, “Where are you
gonna be, sir?”

“I’m going to Third Battalion
CP…maybe between me and Colonel Vann, we can sort this thing out.”

“Very well, sir,” Patchett replied.
“Where do you want me?”

“Get with our staff…make damn sure
that when Baker and Charlie Companies get here, they go where we need them…”

“Wherever in hell that may turn out
to be,” Patchett said, finishing Jock’s sentence perfectly.

“Theo, one more thing,” Jock said.
“Don’t walk into our own artillery. Your job’s going to be hard enough.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The first person Jock ran into at 3rd
Battalion CP was Colonel Molloy. “I’m sorry I had to pull your guys out of that
great position,” Molloy said, “but General Hartman ordered me to do it. I tried
to change his mind, but—”

“I understand, sir,” Jock replied.

“No, Jock, you don’t understand the
half of it yet. Hartman’s convinced we’ve got the whole damn Imperial Japanese
Army storming our front. I say that’s bullshit…this is just more of their night
probing, trying to get us to panic…and it sounds like that’s exactly what
Vann’s people are doing. Again.”

Jock asked, “Are the Aussies
helping out on the other flank?”

Molloy laughed. “Fuck no,” he
replied. “They’re smarter than that…and they’re determined not to let our
confusion become their problem. They say if we pull back, they’re withdrawing
all the way to Pompano.”

Moving along swamp trails was hard
enough in daylight. At night, it was inviting disaster. By the time they had
walked half a mile, most of Able Company’s men had fallen off the trail into
swamp water at least once.

One terrified private swore he
landed on a crocodile.

Bogater Boudreau tried to shake
some sense into the man. “If you did,” the Cajun corporal said, “you wouldn’t
be standing here to yack about it. Trust me on that, mon frère.”

“But I felt it! It moved! I—”

Bogater wasn’t buying it. “Do us
all a big favor, McConnell, and shut the fuck up. Look at the bright side…now
that you’re all wet, nobody can tell you pissed your pants. Get moving.”

Boudreau addressed the rest of his
squad: “If I see one more fucking flashlight come on, I’m gonna shove it up
your ass until your belly button glows. All you gotta remember about crocs and
gators is stay away from the teeth. The rest of it can’t hurt you much. And if
one’s in your way, shoot it in the fucking head.”

Able Company had advanced a few
hundred yards farther when a machine gun began raking the trail.

The first two men in the column
were erased in the blink of an eye.

The third man, Theo Papadakis,
found himself in swamp water up to his chin.

He knew what and who it was slicing
up his company:

That ain’t no Nambu! It’s a
fucking thirty cal! Our own guys are shooting at us!

He grabbed the two men closest to
him in the water.

“Follow me,” Papadakis told them as
he pulled them forward.

One of the men, a private crouched
so low in the water the helmet on his head looked like a floating turtle,
asked, “Where the hell are we going, Lieutenant?”

“That’s our own guys shooting at
us,” Papadakis replied. “We’re going to make them stop. Now follow me. That’s a
fucking order.”

“But what about the crocs?” the
private asked, on the verge of tears.

Papadakis replied, “What are you
more afraid of…a croc or a machine gun? Come on, dammit.”

It didn’t take long for the trio to
slog alongside the machine gun emplacement. The gunners, focused on the trail,
never saw them coming.

Theo Papadakis stood up, covered in
muck like some comic book swamp monster, and bellowed: “HEY, SHITHEAD! WHO THE
FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE SHOOTING AT?”

The gun went silent.

He was startled to see three
Japanese faces—just as startled—staring back at him in the glow of a parachute
flare.

But the gunners were only startled
for a moment. They began to swing the machine gun toward Theo Papadakis.

His grenade dropped right in their
midst…and blew them to kingdom come.

Theo and his two men crawled out of
the swamp water and onto the dry ground. They found the US-issue Browning
.30-caliber machine gun toppled on its side.

“Some sons of bitches in Third
Battalion gave up a thirty,” Papadakis said.

“Maybe they got it taken from them,
sir,” a sergeant said, “and they’re dead.”

Theo Papadakis shook his head.
“Knowing those useless bastards,” he said, “they gave it up and ran like scared
little girls.”

Able Company pressed on. They had
yet to encounter a trooper of 3rd Battalion.

And they encountered no more
Japanese.

“If we go much farther,” Papadakis
said, “we’re going to have to start talking Australian again.”

There was a commotion ahead—men scared
out of their minds, running and yelling in American English:

“HURRY UP, LOUIE…HELP ME WITH
GEORGE…BEFORE THE BASTARDS CATCH UP WITH US.”

Four GIs—Louie, George, and their
two buddies—ran right into Theo Papadakis and a group of his men.

“Hey, wait a minute…calm down,”
Theo said, corralling the petrified GIs. “Where the fuck are you guys running
to? And where are your weapons?”

“We’re getting out of here,
Lieutenant,” came the reply, “and you should to, if you know what’s good for
you. They’re coming.”

Papadakis asked, “Who’s they?”

“Who do you think? The fucking
Japs.”

Growing weary of all this, Theo
rubbed his head and said, “You know, we’ve been all over your position. We’ve
seen exactly three Japs…and we killed them.”

“But they’re everywhere,
Lieutenant!”

“They’re everywhere…and nowhere,”
Theo Papadakis replied. “Everywhere and nowhere, dammit.”

A flare popped overhead, casting
the swamp in its ghostly, flickering light.

There was no one to see in the
flare’s glow but themselves.

Once dawn broke, four facts became
unmistakably apparent:

The Japanese casualties littering
the alleged battlefield could be counted on one hand.

Third Battalion was in hopeless
disarray. It would take a day or longer to re-establish their position opposite
Buna—provided the Japanese let them.

The casualty count for 3rd
Battalion boiled down to zero killed, zero wounded, and two missing.

“The crocs probably got them,” Jock
mumbled.

Finally, Jock’s 1st
Battalion, through no fault of their own, had suffered the worst. While they
were rushing to aid 3rd Battalion—aid it was now obvious hadn’t been
needed—the Japanese had reoccupied that choice position in the grove in force.

Probably with fresh troops that
landed last night, Jock feared.

Able Company, with the help of the
just-arrived Baker Company, tried to retake the grove. Both companies were
exhausted before they began, Able from the night’s needless adventure, Baker
from the all-night march from the plantation to rejoin the battalion. As the
casualty reports began to trickle in, Jock ordered, “That’s enough. Call it
off. Pull back and regroup.”

With great disgust, he summed up
the night’s action: “That was a big step backward.”

As if the fiasco never happened,
General Hartman found something else on which to vent his displeasure. Lining
up Jock and Colonel Molloy in his sights, he began: “You both deliberately
ignored my orders. Explain to me, Colonel Molloy, why only one of Major Miles’s
four companies was where I ordered them to be?”

“Three companies, General,” Molloy
said. “There are only three companies in First Battalion.”

“Why the hell is that, Colonel?”

“Because his weapons company was decimated
by a plane crash before it ever got here. Perhaps you recall, sir.”

Hartman looked confused, as if this
was all news to him. But he recovered his air of disapproval quickly.
“Regardless, Colonel. Where were the other two companies?”

Molloy replied, “Two are here, sir,
and they did the bulk of the fighting last night. The third, Charlie Company,
is still at the coast, near the plantation.”

Hartman’s face turned a furious
red. “And what the hell are they still doing there, Colonel?”

“They’re holding that terrain until
Eighty-Third Regiment relieves them,” Molloy said. “I believe that was your
intent, sir, to protect our flank against the Japs reinforcing by sea.” He
paused, hoping the logic of his statement would sink in, before adding, “Was it
not?”

General Hartman’s face grew slack
as the feistiness drained out of him. He seemed struggling to remember
something…

His own words, probably,
Jock thought as he watched the confrontation in silence. I think the old
man’s losing it.

Molloy asked, “By the way, sir,
where is the Eighty-Third, anyway? We thought you said they’d be here
yesterday.”

“There’s been a small change of
plans,” Hartman replied. “I’ve ordered them to secure Oro Bay. The engineers
will be there within days to build the road to Buna.”

He hesitated, sensing how inadequate
his explanation seemed, before saying, “Didn’t my staff advise you?”

“We’ve been pretty busy with the
Japanese, sir,” Molloy replied. Making a great play of conciliation, he added,
“Perhaps we overlooked the message.”

Molloy knew differently, though,
telling himself: There was no message, General, because neither you nor any
member of your staff can find his ass with both hands.

But news of the road sounded like a
dream come true. In a hopeful, polite tone, Molloy asked, “And with this road,
we can expect our artillery and armor support soon?”

Sounding more like a naïve
cheerleader than a division commander, Hartman replied, “You betcha,
Colonel…and then we’ll really show those Japs something!”

But the stern general in him
quickly resurfaced, pushing the enthusiasm aside. In harsh, adult tones,
Hartman said, “But you will not sit on your asses and wait for it to arrive,
gentlemen. You will continue to attack the Japanese with everything you’ve
got…”

His voice faded. This time, at
least, he didn’t add or die trying.

Chapter Twenty-Six

It had been four days since Jillian
became the unwilling guest of the sickly Japanese detachment. Sister Benedicta was
true to her word: the Japanese lieutenant had been persuaded to ease Jillian’s
bonds. She was still bound by the neck to a tree, but the noose rope was looser
now, allowing a foot or more of movement. Her hands were still bound behind her
back, but not as strictly as before, helping to ease the ache in her shoulders
and numbness in her hands. The ropes binding her arms to her torso were gone.

She was allowed brief periods to
deal with bodily functions. The long tail of the noose functioned as a leash;
the soldier holding it would turn his back as one of the nuns helped Jillian,
her hands still bound, through the process. On this particular toilet break,
Sister Benedicta provided the assistance.

The nun said, “I must ask you, when
is your womanly time of month due? I’ve saved some wadding for you.”

Jillian scowled; her period had
been the last thing on her mind.

“Why do you care?”

“They must not know you are
bleeding. In the primitive religion these savages practice, menstrual blood is
considered poison.”

Jillian smirked as she replied,
“Oh, so they’re Christians, then.”

“Do not make a joke of this, child,”
the old nun said. “They will beat you…maybe kill you. We witnessed several
young women from our mission killed by them in that way.”

“Why? Just because they had their
periods?”

“Yes, and the Japanese found them
handling their food.”

Jillian mulled that over for a
moment. Growing up around the missionaries at Weipa, she was used to religious
hysteria…

But right now, I suppose it’s
better to be safe than sorry.

“All right then, Sister. If you
must know, it was due last week. I’m usually regular as clockwork but—”

“Oh, goodness,” Benedicta said as
she hurriedly crossed herself. “Have you sinned with a man?”

“I certainly have…but we were real
careful.”

“Perhaps not careful enough, dear
girl.”

Wanting desperately to change the
subject, Jillian asked, “What if I just ran away right now? That tosser can
hardly lift his rifle, let alone chase me.”

“I’d ask you not to do that,
Jillian,” Benedicta said.

“Why not?”

“Because if you escape when in our
charge, they will kill us. That was the deal I had to make to help you.” Her
brogue sounded as somber as a funeral march. “The Lord has helped my sisters
and me survive the captivity of these…these creatures. Don’t undo his
good work so carelessly, I beg you.”

Jillian had watched and marveled at
how Sister Benedicta and her nuns were, slowly but surely, sickening the
Japanese soldiers. She had been told of their cache of coconuts—well hidden
beneath fallen fronds, empty and long drained of their sterile milk—which they
repeatedly used to “cleanse” the wounds of the steadily deteriorating men.

The milk in those coconuts wasn’t
fresh; it wasn’t even milk—it was water from a nearby stream.

Everyone who’d spent any time in
this corner of the world knew never to drink or wash with water from the
streams, creeks, and rivers of Papua. They were nature’s sewers, chock-full of
disease-causing organisms.

It can’t be much longer before
these wankers are too weak to move.

“But suppose I wasn’t in
your charge,” Jillian said. “If you could somehow get my knife to me and—”

“I’m afraid that’s a very dangerous
undertaking, too, Jillian.”

“All right…slip me something that’s
sharp. Anything.”

Benedicta nodded. “Perhaps I can
manage that.”

“And for God’s sake, Sister, you
and the other nuns come with me. Once they’re too weak to catch food, you’ll
starve.”

Sister Benedicta shook her head.
“We’re doing God’s work, child, and it’s not done yet. He will provide.”

Pointing to the delirious Marcus
Concavage, bound to a nearby tree, Benedicta asked, “What about the Yank? Would
you take him, too?”

“I don’t think that would work out,
Sister.”

It must’ve been hours since the sun
went down; Jillian slumped against the base of the tree that was her prison.
Concavage was babbling nonsense: something about his mother and the Christmas
pudding he couldn’t have.

That poor tosser is so off his
nut. Could he possibly know it’s nearly Christmas?

There was a soft swishing noise—the
sound of a nun’s habit as she walked.

Something was pressed into
Jillian’s hand. It felt smooth and cool—and very sharp on its edge. Like a
rock. Or a piece of glass.

Out of the darkness, Sister
Benedicta’s voice whispered, “I believe this is your chance, child. God bless
and be with you.”

It took a long, frustrating while
to free her hands with the crude tool, and then just seconds to slip out of the
noose. She’d watched the sun’s path every day of her captivity; she knew which
way to walk to get back to the coast.

I can’t be far from Oro
Bay…but I don’t fancy stumbling for hours through the pitch
black jungle, with all the goodies it has to offer: snakes, crocs,
venomous spiders, wild pigs, falling into hidden ravines…maybe even more Japs.
And I have nothing for a weapon…but what choice do I have?

Maybe the Yanks will be there
already.

As she made her way, walking in
circles became her biggest fear. She was relieved to find the rare break in the
jungle canopy, allowing her to observe the stars and stay on course.

Jillian had no idea how many hours
she had walked when the sounds of vehicles rumbled out of the darkness. A few
more minutes of walking and she heard the voices of Americans.

“HELLO,” she called out. “I COULD
USE SOME HELP, YANKS.”

The surly reply: “OH YEAH? HOW
ABOUT IDENTIFYING YOURSELF, LADY?”

“My
name is Jillian Forbes. I’m master of the motor vessel Esme.”

“AND I’M THE FUCKING KING OF ENGLAND.”

“NO YOU’RE NOT. YOU’RE SOME BLOODY
YANK TOSSER WHO’S TOO STUPID EVEN FOR GUARD DUTY. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO CHALLENGE
ME FOR THE PASSWORD, NUMBNUTS.”

A hushed conversation ensued among
the still-unseen Yanks.

“YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE
PASSWORD IS, DO YOU, YOU WANKERS?”

A different voice spoke up: “JUST
COME FORWARD WITH YOUR HANDS UP, LADY. NICE AND SLOW.”

Jillian did as she was told and was
soon surrounded by a squad of Yanks. Each of her arms firmly in the grasp of a
GI, she was marched off, a prisoner once again. It didn’t take much walking
until the waters of Oro Bay came into view, shaded in the soft light of dawn.
Half a dozen freighters were at anchor, unloading their cargoes of men and
materiel onto lighters and whaleboats. She knew all the ships on sight,
including Beatrix Van Der Wegge’s Java Queen.

She recognized the small boats,
too: They were in the salvage heap at Milne Bay.

Soon, Jillian was inside a tent,
standing before a US Army colonel. He knew her name; he just wasn’t convinced
she was the person attached to that name.

“I told you,” Jillian said, “my
papers went down with Andoom Clipper.”

“Then how do I know you’re not a
spy?” the colonel asked.

Beatrix’s voice boomed from the
tent’s entryway: “If you Yanks were any dumber, you’d need help dressing
yourselves. Of course she’s Jillian Forbes. Who else could she be?” She threw
an arm around Jillian and asked, “What happened, schatzi? Did you lose your
boat?”

Jillian told her story. As the
telling came to a close, she asked, “I suppose you’ve found the bodies of those
three lads from the survey team?”

The colonel nodded, and then asked,
“And their captain…you say the Japs have him?”

“Yes, and he’s gone completely
crackers.”

“I see,” the colonel replied. “And
these nuns? They’re…”

He wasn’t sure how to finish the
sentence.

Jillian helped him out: “They’re
killing the Japs for you. Just slowly.”

The colonel leveled a jaundiced eye
and said, “Kind of odd that just you escaped, though. Why are you so lucky,
Miss Forbes?”

“Maybe because I’m not doing the
Lord’s work, Colonel. Just MacArthur’s.”

The colonel’s display of suspicion
had finally ground to a halt; Jillian and Beatrix left the tent, triumphant. As
they walked toward the beach, Beatrix said, “You gave us quite a scare, schatzi.
Pity about your little boat, though…and your poor mechanic, too.”

Jillian stopped walking and flopped
down on a supply crate. “Hold on a minute,” she said, grasping her mid-section.
“My stomach…something’s not right.”

“Good lord, schatzi! You’re not
preggers, are you?”

The sudden wetness between
Jillian’s thighs provided the answer. Her words came out like a sigh of relief:
“Definitely not…but I’ll need to borrow some trousers from you. I’ve bloodied
mine, I’m afraid.”

Now it was Beatrix who breathed a
sigh of relief. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is not to have that little
problem anymore,” she said, wrapping her overshirt around Jillian’s lower body.
“Actually, schatzi, I would have loved for that to have happened right in front
of that idiot colonel, just to see the look on his face. Men can be so
squeamish about these things.”

When she stopped laughing, Jillian
added, “I should count my lucky stars Aunt Flo’s visit held off until
now. I’m told Japanese men can be a lot worse than squeamish.”

A lighter slid up on the beach
carrying a small tracked vehicle—a Bren Gun Carrier in Aussie
parlance—armed with the machine gun for which it was named. The soldiers called
them “tanks,” but Jillian wasn’t impressed. As they rumbled off a makeshift
ramp onto shore, they didn’t seem to her like armored vehicles at all: They
look like cheese boxes on treads.

“I carried four of them this trip,”
Beatrix said. The Aussies are going to drive them up to their lads fighting
near Buna. If they manage not to break down, they’ll be there in a few hours.”

Buna was all Jillian needed
to hear. As soon as she was in fresh pants from Beatrix’s foot locker—a little
too roomy but nothing a belt couldn’t handle—she quickly found the Aussie
lieutenant in charge of the vehicles. “Do you think you could give a sheila a
ride to Buna?” she asked. “I’ve got a Yank I’d like to see up there.”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” the
lieutenant replied. “It could be a dangerous trip…and you’re not military.”

Jillian could feel the blood rising
to her face as she said, “Not military? I’m military enough to drive a
boat that brings you and these bloody kiddie cars you call tanks to this
hell hole…and I’ve tangled with the Japs a few times already without any help
from you and your lot. So how about it, sport?”

He didn’t doubt her determination.
She looked ready to throw the first punch.

The lieutenant gave a quick look
around to ensure none of the brass were watching. Reluctantly, he said,
“Well…all right. Climb in, ma’am.”

Beatrix called after her, “Don’t
stay too long, schatzi. We need Esme in the convoy again.”

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Jillian
replied. She pointed to the sky and added, “Be careful, now. There’s nowhere to
hide from the bloody Jap airplanes.”

There was nowhere for the Japanese to
hide from the American and Australian airplanes, either. Huddled in their
bunkers, their bodies were safe from all but the improbable direct hit of the
bombs.

But their minds were not:

The
planes come day and night now

Like
an invasion of locusts

Kill
one, kill two…it makes no difference

They
are millions

Every
bomb blast shakes our squalid world like the earthquakes of home

Pounding
our souls flat like the blows of a thousand hammers

Making
us certain of our demise

Shattering
our courage to face this unwelcome inevitable

The
blasts come in clusters of ten, twenty…sometimes more

Multiples
of terror

We
are helpless

We
are hopeless

A
crowd of deaths—all different, all the same—argue over which will claim us

The Japanese soldier closed his
notebook. His only hope was someday someone might read it—and learn the truth.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

New and different
sounds—unrecognizable at first—began to mix with the constant rumble of bombs
dropping on Buna. Soon the sounds grew loud enough to be identified: the creak
and growl of tracked vehicles. Men scrambled from the CP tent to have a look.

“Sounds like tanks,” Patchett said,
with an exuberance he rarely displayed. “We must be getting them bastards
after—”

His words stopped dead. The
exuberance died with them.

“Shit,” he said as the vehicles
came into view, “it’s just some Aussie Bren Gun carriers. What the hell do they
think they’re gonna do with those pieces of shit in these parts?”

“Yeah,” Jock said, “they’ll just
stall in the swamps. And they aren’t heavy enough to flatten a bunker, anyway.
I’d trade all three of those things for one fucking—”

It was time for Jock’s words to
stop dead. One of the carriers had groaned to a halt. A most unlikely passenger
popped out.

“Hooooleeeee sheee-it,” Patchett
said, eyes wide, jaw dropped, like he had just seen the ninth wonder of the
world.

Jock muttered, “How in the hell…”

The woman walked toward them as if
her presence was the most natural thing in the world. “You wankers got
something to eat?” she asked.

It took a while for Jillian and
Jock to unravel from the embrace and kiss. GIs in every direction stopped and
stared in disbelief: Something’s bizarre about this little scenario. This
ain’t supposed to be happening here.

One GI was unwise enough to make a
lewd comment about what the lady was about to do to one of the major’s body
parts. Bogater Boudreau put him flat on his back with one punch.

“Don’t you never say nothing like
that about Miss Forbes again,” Bogater said, his foot on the man’s neck, “or
there’ll be a line of guys in this battalion waiting their turn to kick the
shit outta you.”

Jock wouldn’t let go of her, even
after the crush of the embrace was through. He needed the physical reassurance
this wasn’t a cruel dream. He asked, “What the hell are you doing here, Jill?”

As she related the story, he wished
he hadn’t asked.

He had never feared more for her
safety than at that moment.

Gently, he tried to trace the
fading ligature marks on her throat. She grasped his hand to guide it away;
when she did, he saw the flesh on her wrists for the first time. Raw, chafed,
and bruised, it looked so much worse than the faint coil pattern pressed into
her neck.

Even though he was keeping a
respectful distance, Patchett couldn’t help but wince when he saw the wounds,
too.

“Never mind, both of you,” she
said. “It’s over now.”

Her face broke into a devilish
smile: “Are you tossers going to feed me, or what?”

She polished off the first C ration
meal in short order and asked, “Got any more?”

“Go easy, Jill,” Jock replied,
feeling worthless for having to say it. “We’re real short. We haven’t had a
food drop in days. Once the airfield up the road at Dobodura opens up, it’ll
get better.”

She hoped he was right about that.
He’d lost so much weight; he seemed to be shrinking before her eyes.

“Those Bren Gun carriers I rode in
with,” Jillian said, “do you think they’ll be any help? We started out with
four, but one broke down after a couple of miles…and the one I rode in was on
the verge of overheating any minute.”

Jock’s embittered silence was the
only answer she needed. She slid closer and wrapped her arms around him.

“It’s got to get better, Yank,” she
said, her voice a soothing whisper. “We’ll have all sorts of goodies pouring
into Oro Bay before you know it.”

Jillian wanted to look deep into
his eyes but couldn’t; there was no depth to them anymore. They had drained to
shallow pools of exhaustion and torment. But something else was floating there,
too. She tried to tell herself otherwise, but the evidence was staring her in
the face: he was losing hope. It wasn’t just Jock: she could smell the despair
on every GI she saw.

Even Jock’s attempt at a smile
couldn’t disguise it.

“Can you spend the night, Jill?”

She wanted nothing more than to say
yes, to stay, to give him any measure of comfort she could manage.

But she knew she couldn’t. She had
to get back to her ship.

“I can’t, Jock,” she replied.

“But how will you get back?”

“I’ll hitch another ride. There are
enough blokes driving on that trail now. It’ll be a main road before you know it.”

“But what if there’s no one, Jill?”

“Then I’ll walk. It’s not far.”

“What do you mean, not far?
It’s fifteen miles back to Oro Bay.”

She gave him the smile you’d shine
on a fearful child needing reassurance. “You forget where I’m from, Jock,” she
said. “To us, fifteen miles is—like you Yanks say—around the corner.”

“But there might be more Japs…”

Jillian’s smile didn’t fade as she
replied, “After that last encounter, I think I’m more afraid of nuns than
Japs.”

“I ain’t fucking doing it, Tom, and
that’s all there is to it. You’ve got me confused with somebody who gives a
shit.”

Acting Company Commander Tom Hadley
looked the new buck sergeant, a Philadelphia wise-ass named Frank Bustamante,
dead in the eye.

“Then you’re busted, Bustamante.”

Hadley took a moment to enjoy his
statement’s alliterative flair before adding, “And you’re under arrest.”

The buck sergeant laughed out
loud—but there was a rising panic in his voice as he asked, “For what, Tom?”

“Failure to obey orders,
inattention to duty, insubordination, you name it.” Hadley motioned to one of
the corporals and said, “Take Private Bustamante up to battalion. Tell
the sergeant major I’ll send the charge sheet along later.”

Frank Bustamante made a cocky show
of seeming unconcerned. “You can’t, Tom. You ain’t an officer and you ain’t
really the fucking company commander. You’re just acting.”

PFC McCleary, the company’s
resident scholar, looked up from his well-worn copy of Kafka and said, “He can,
Frank. If he can order you to put your ass on the line he sure as hell can take
your stripes. It’s quite logical.”

“And actually,” Hadley added, “all
I was asking you to do is have another look for our missing guys.”

“Fuck that,” Bustamante replied. “I
ain’t gonna get my ass shot off looking for corpses. Put me in the stockade,
Tom…I don’t give a shit. I’m better off there, anyway.”

A look of mock disbelief on his
face, Hadley said, “Who said anything about the stockade, Private? Short
of men as we are right now, you think we’re going to ship you off to a nice,
cozy jail cell back in Port Moresby? Allow me to repeat your own words: fuck
that. Actually, I’m thinking you’ll be staying right here, doing your duty
alongside your brothers in arms, while a different disciplinary measure is
employed.”

“And what the fuck would that be,
Tom?”

“Forfeiture of pay,” Hadley
replied.

Frank Bustamante’s face looked
truly stricken now. “You can’t do that,” he moaned.

“He can, Frank,” PFC McCleary said,
this time without bothering to look up from his book.

“Oh yeah? If you do, Tom, you’ll be
taking food out of my mother’s mouth.”

Hadley asked, “How’s that?”

“I allot all my pay to her. You
take that money, she don’t eat.”

“Geez, too bad about that, Frank,”
Hadley replied, without a hint of sympathy.

Still moaning, Bustamante asked,
“What am I gonna tell her?”

As he walked away, Hadley replied,
“Tell her she should’ve had a smarter son.”

PFC McCleary offered Bustamante one
final piece of wisdom: “You know, Frank, if you really wanted to help out your
mom’s piggy bank, you should’ve gotten yourself killed. That ten grand life
insurance payout would’ve done her a lot more good than the measly thirty bucks
a month.”

It was late afternoon before Tom
Hadley made it to the battalion CP.

“No luck finding your missing men?”
Jock asked.

“No sir,” Hadley replied. “The
patrol got a little deeper into the plantation before they started taking fire,
though. Looks like the Japs might have abandoned some of the outer bunkers.”

“About time,” Jock replied. “We’ve
only dropped about a million tons of high explosives on them. Any of your guys
hurt?”

“Two men wounded, sir. Doc’s
patching them up right now.”

“So they can stay, Tom?”

“One can, sir. Not too sure about
the other.”

Jock shuffled some papers on the
field desk. “I see you’re going to court-martial Bustamante.”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Sounds like he’s got it
coming. It’s a shame, too, him just getting his third stripe and all. You’d
think he’d know better.”

“I think he was just trying to test
me, sir.”

“Well, Tom, I’d say you passed that
test. But I’ve got one little problem…you really want to bust him and
hit him with forfeiture of pay? Isn’t that a little steep?”

“I know it might sound that way,
sir,” Hadley replied. “That’s why the paperwork to stop his pay is going to get
lost somewhere between here and division.”

A wry smile crept across Jock’s
face. Melvin Patchett, at his field desk a few feet away, was smiling, too.

“So,” Jock said, “you’re just going
to let him stew for a while, thinking his pay’s getting docked.”

“Yessir. I figure having a
pissed-off guy on the line is better than having no one.”

After Hadley left the tent, Jock
turned to Patchett and said, “Top, I’d say you trained that young man real
well.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Night is different, Sergeant
Mike McMillen thought as he stared into the dark, moonless void beyond Able
Company’s perimeter. Everything changes in the dark. Shadows you wouldn’t
pay a damn bit of attention to in daylight become monsters wanting to eat
you…or maybe just Jap soldiers trying to stick you in the gut.

A match’s flame becomes bright
as a flashlight.

A flashlight becomes a beacon.

You can hear better…or at least
hear more of everything. Jungle rain sounds like a toilet that won’t stop
flushing—and I can hear that fucking creek running like it’s right in front of
us, but it’s a hundred yards away.

The sound of some moron coughing
can be heard for a mile. The crack of a branch is like a gunshot.

And the battle raging seven or
eight miles away sounds like Armageddon, waiting to swallow you up.

Within seconds, a fire ignited in
the distance, an orange dome of brilliant light…

Another fire flared, and then one
more.

Suspended in the darkness, the
three blazes were funeral pyres on a black canvas.

Mike McMillen had a pretty good
idea what was burning. So did the man crouched next to him, Sergeant Major
Patchett.

McMillen asked, “That’s where the
Australians are, ain’t it?”

“I reckon so,” Patchett replied.

McMillen asked, “You think that’s
those Bren Gun carriers going up?”

“Hell yeah,” Patchett replied,
“every last one of them, it looks like. Damn fool Aussies were using tracers.
Didn’t anyone ever tell them those things work both ways?”

“You think the Aussies were trying
a night attack?”

“Doubt it,” Patchett replied. “More
likely it was the Japs doing the attacking. Stay on your toes, Mike. If them
Nips feel like roaming around in the dark, they may come visit us, too.”

“We’re ready,” McMillen said.

“You’d better be. Oh, and
Mike…Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, yeah. You, too, Sergeant
Major.”

The Japanese came to visit in less
than five minutes. The night instantly devolved into the swirling, deafening,
and incomprehensible melee of combat.

Silhouettes raced through the
darkness, appearing and disappearing like pop-up targets in a shooting gallery.

Some men yelled in rage and
bloodlust.

Others screamed in mortal agony as
their lives were stolen away.

And still others cowered in their
fighting holes, too terrified to fight…

Too terrified to even move.

Mike McMillen dropped into such a
hole. The two GIs in it were curled into tight balls, as if each wanted to be
back in his mother’s womb.

McMillen smacked them both across
their helmets with the butt of his Thompson.

“FIRE THOSE FUCKING WEAPONS RIGHT
FUCKING NOW,” McMillen said.

He could see the whites of their
frantic eyes, shining like marbles in the darkness. No words were necessary;
the eyes told him all he needed to know.

“I’ve done this drill too many
times before, assholes,” he said, thrusting an M1 into each man’s hands. “Just
pull the fucking trigger. I don’t give a flying fuck where the rounds go. Pull
it…NOW.”

One of the GIs summoned the courage
to speak: “But, Sarge, I don’t know where—”

McMillen cut him off. “No fucking buts.
Shoot the goddamn weapon. If nothing else, it’ll keep their heads down. That’s
all you gotta do.”

Each man did as he was told,
flinching when his rifle fired as if he’d never pulled that trigger before.

“That’s it,” McMillen said. “Now
keep it up. I’ll be coming back to check on you two douchebags real soon…and I
better find this hole filled up with empty clips when I do.”

It seemed like everything was
happening at either light speed or slow motion; there was no in-between. The
normal rhythms of life had vaporized into the warm night air.

Light speed: the Japanese
soldier racing toward Able Company’s CP.

Slow motion: Theo Papadakis
cutting him down—cutting him nearly in half, actually—with his submachine gun.

Light speed: the shock wave
and lethal fragments of an enemy grenade tearing through the CP.

Slow motion: knocked down
and stunned by the blast, Theo Papadakis dragged himself along the ground. He
found the CP’s field telephone.

He couldn’t believe how difficult
it was to turn the crank.

Even more unbelievable: the phone
still worked.

It was Major Miles who picked up at
Battalion. Papadakis’s words wheezed out of him: “Fire mission, target Roger
Peter Three, shell HE...”

It was too hard to hold the phone
anymore. He dropped it, leaving Major Miles’s anxious voice still hissing in
the earpiece.

For a few, brief moments, life returned
to its normal cadence. The sound of men talking, yelling commands, curses, even
promises of death to every Jap within the sound of their voices could be heard
clearly…

So could the staccato chatter of
weapons firing…

And the crump of mortar
shells—the fire mission he had just called was spraying its deadly mayhem
across Roger Peter Three, a registration point for mortars and artillery
just outside the perimeter.

Then, as if someone forgot to wind
the clock, the mysterious whirlpool of combat spun down to slow motion again.
To Theo Papadakis’s ears, the sharp cracks of gunfire became little more than
the clanks of a tinker’s hammer. Those clanks faded—and died.

The fight’s over, Theo told
himself.

I hope to hell we won.

He tried to wipe his eyes clear with
his hand but only made them worse. It felt like he was dragging a wet rag
across his face.

Even in the dark, he could tell
why: great flaps of skin were dangling from his hand like a torn glove.

No wonder I couldn’t crank the
damn phone…

What a great Christmas this is
gonna be.

And then his world went blacker
than the night.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

With sunrise came the reckoning.
Jock toured the aftermath of last night’s battle with Melvin Patchett at his
side.

Patchett’s eyes, tough and
unshining like ovals of suede, took in the scene at the perimeter near Roger
Peter Three, one that was all too familiar. He summed it up simply:

“We took an ass-whupping, sir.”

“But we held, Top,” Jock replied. There
was no hint of boast or pride in his words, just exhaustion and resignation.

“Yeah,” Patchett said, the word
clipped and dry. His eyes panned the field of battle once again and added, “But
we paid one hell of a price.” He summoned Sergeant McMillen to join them.

“Mike,” Patchett said, “you sure
all these Japs are dead?”

“Absolutely, Sergeant Major. I saw
to it myself.”

“Did you have to shoot any of them
all over again?”

“Just one.”

“That’s damn good,” Patchett
replied. “We don’t be needing no more surprises from them sneaky bastards
today. How many Jap dead do you count?”

“About fifty-seven, Sergeant Major,
near as we could count the ones that ain’t all in one piece. Looks like at
least two were captains. Three stars sitting on two stripes—that’s a captain,
right?”

“Sure is,” Patchett said. “That
means we got hit by more than one company. Probably a battalion.”

“Oh, that’s just swell,” McMillen
replied, his voice as sarcastic as he could make it. “By the way, are the
natives going to bury all these Japs, just like back at Port Moresby?”

“That’s the plan,” Patchett said,
“but if they don’t, maybe we can tear Eighty-Third Regiment away from their essential
duties, like guarding that airfield that don’t need to be guarded.”

Jock asked, “What’s the word on
Lieutenant Pop, Mike?”

“Touch and go, sir. That hand of
his is tore up real bad and he’s hit in a couple of other places, too. Lost a
lot of blood.”

Patchett’s mind was focused
elsewhere: “You notice the same thing I’m seeing, sir? A lot of these Japs died
of gunshot wounds. You better believe they were flat on their asses before the
mortars ever hit. Otherwise, they’d be chewed up like them other poor bastards
scattered in pieces all over the place.”

“Yeah, I see that,” Jock replied,
and then asked McMillen, “What do you make of that, Mike?”

“I tried to keep my whole platoon
shooting, sir.”

“How successful do you figure you
were with that?”

“About fifty-fifty, sir.”

“Then you did way above average,
Mike. Damn good job.”

“Damn right,” Patchett added.

“Thanks, sir,” McMillen replied. “I
heard a rumor that when Third Battalion got hit the other night, only a handful
of guys expended any ammo at all. I didn’t want that to happen in my platoon.”

Jock nodded in agreement. The rumor
sounded just about right, based on what he’d seen at 3rd Battalion
that night.

“I’m noticing something else, sir,”
Patchett said. “This is the second time we’re seeing actual dead Japs…and this
bunch is looking awful well fed, just like the first. These uniforms ain’t much
wore out, neither.”

They all knew what that meant, but
Patchett felt obliged to spell it out: “Them sounds we hear from the beach at
night—wherever they’re coming from, they’re bringing fresh meat by the
boatload. You don’t suppose His Majesty MacArthur finally got some intel
right?”

“It would be about time,” Jock
said. “It’s about time for something else, too. I’m putting Lieutenant Pop in
for a Silver Star. If he hadn’t managed to call in the mortars—wounded like he
was—we probably would’ve been overrun.”

“Damn right again, sir,” Patchett
replied.

Something near the edge of the swamp
caught Mike McMillen’s attention. “Ahh, shit,” he said. “Look at that fucking
Jap. Where the hell was he hiding?”

Fifty yards away, a Japanese
soldier—one leg mangled and useless—was trying to low-crawl away through the
swamp grass. If he had a rifle with him, it was submerged in the swamp water.

“Berman,” McMillen yelled to a bespectacled
private, “put that poor son of a bitch out of his misery.”

Hesitantly, Private Berman took a
shot with his M1. It missed by several feet.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” McMillen
said. “Never mind, four eyes. I’ll do it…before he gets away.”

Mike McMillen brought the
Thompson’s stock to his shoulder and took aim.

“God forgive me,” he muttered, and
let a short burst fly.

The man stopped crawling.

Without saying another word,
McMillen walked toward his victim.

“Careful, Mike,” Patchett called
after him. “Make sure he’s good and dead.”

“I know the drill, Sergeant Major.”

When he was 20 feet from the
man—close enough to ensure the head shot wouldn’t miss—he fired one more time.

Then he turned—forgiven or not—and
slowly walked back to the perimeter.

A runner approached and handed a
report to Patchett. He scanned the page in silence.

Jock asked, “How bad, Top?”

“Real bad, sir. Able Company got
hit worst. Ten killed, a dozen wounded, four of them evac cases.”

Patchett ran through Baker and
Charlie Company’s casualty lists. Jock took some small comfort: those numbers
could have been much worse.

Patchett flipped the page, read for
a moment, and made a tsk-tsk sound.

“The Aussies got their clocks
cleaned real good, too,” Patchett said. “Them Bren Gun carriers? Cross ’em off,
just like we suspected.”

Then the sergeant major told his
commander something he knew all too well:

“Technically, sir, this battalion
ain’t anywhere near combat effective strength anymore. And this whole regiment
certainly ain’t. Probably the whole damn division, neither.”

Trevor Shaw put down his book and
patted the cushion next to him, beckoning Ginny Beech to join him on the
villa’s veranda. Being MacArthur’s host and housekeeper were providing far
greater challenges than either of them had imagined. They needed to grab
moments of relaxation whenever they could.

From inside the house, they could
hear MacArthur ranting.

“His majesty is in quite a
snit,” Ginny said as she took a deep drag on her cigarette. “He’s worked up
about the bloody wankers in Washington telling him what to do again.”

“And here I thought he was giving
that poor bloke in there with him bloody hell,” Shaw said.

“Oh, no,” Ginny replied, “General
Freidenburg hasn’t gotten a word in edgewise
yet. I’m not sure he even knows why he’s here. Probably thought he was getting
invited to Christmas dinner.”

Actually, General Robert
Freidenburg had a pretty good idea why he was there. He had a map case full of
his ideas for Operation Easy Street, ready to show MacArthur. But the supreme
commander wasn’t ready to hear them quite yet. As his head tracked The Great
Man pacing back and forth across the drawing room, Freidenburg felt like he
was at a tennis match.

MacArthur suddenly stopped, turned
to his guest, and said, “Do those fools in Washington really think they can
tell MacArthur anything about how to run a war, Robert?”

A rhetorical question, for
certain, Freidenburg told himself. I’ll just purse my lips and shake my
head, like I’m agreeing with him. Surely, those stupid bastards in Washington
know by now they can’t tell him a damn thing.

MacArthur continued, “I will
not—repeat, will not—consider bypassing Buna, like George Marshall is
suggesting, just to keep the casualty figures down to something they can
stomach. I will not stop fighting until I raise the stars and stripes over Buna
Village. They can’t have their war and not expect to spill some blood, too.
Now show me what you’ve got, Robert.”

Freidenburg spread his maps across
the table. “Our mistake,” he began, “was not realizing that the Japanese strong
points at Buna, Gona, and Sanananda are essentially islands, with the
sea on one side and swamps on the other. We need to stop treating their capture
as if it’s a land attack and employ an amphibious assault.”

MacArthur said nothing, just
stroked his chin as he studied the maps.

“Of course, sir,” Freidenburg
continued, “we lack the transport equipment to stage an amphibious assault
across vast swamps—we can’t truck the necessary boats over land. But we could
certainly stage an amphibious assault from the sea.”

“But what of naval fire support,
Robert? We can’t sail capital ships through those treacherous waters.”

“That’s very true, sir,”
Freidenburg replied, “but do we really need capital ships? Corvettes, frigates,
and all sorts of gunboats are already sailing as far west as Oro Bay. It’s only
fifteen miles more to Buna and twenty-five to Gona. In conjunction with Fifth
Air Force, those vessels can sail close to shore, giving us all the firepower
and anti-aircraft cover an amphibious landing needs.”

“What about landing craft, Robert?”

“The Australians have retained
quite a few from the Milne Bay landings, sir. Many of them are already at Oro Bay,
being used as lighters to unload transport ships. Not enough to land an entire
division in one wave—but when have we ever had that luxury?”

Deep in thought, MacArthur stepped
away from the maps. He began pacing once again but more slowly this time. It
didn’t take more than a minute for his eureka moment to strike.

“Robert,” the supreme commander
said, “I’m placing you in command of Thirty-Second Division, effective
immediately. Relieve Hartman and turn his fiasco around.”

Freidenburg fingered the three
stars on his collar. “But, sir,” he said, “I’m a lieutenant general. It
would be a demotion to command a division.”

“Nonsense, Robert. Not only will
you command our Thirty-Second Division, I’m putting you in overall charge of
the Aussies, as well. You will be the theater commander, in complete charge of
Operation Easy Street. A job certainly befitting three stars. Who knows?
Perhaps it will be the path to your fourth star.”

Or, Freidenburg thought, I’ll
be your perfect scapegoat if this plan doesn’t succeed.

“I’ll arrange an airplane for you
to leave within the hour,” MacArthur said. “You will personally hand-carry the
orders relieving General Hartman of his command. For security reasons, I will
not broadcast such information over radio channels.”

Salutes were exchanged and
Freidenburg headed for the door.

“Good luck, Robert,” MacArthur
said. “I’ll bet you never expected to be taking supper at Buna tonight, did
you?”

“No, sir, I certainly didn’t.” He
wished his reply had sounded more enthusiastic.

“And Robert…one more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I
told Hartman: take Buna, or don’t come back alive.”

Chapter Thirty

Jock and Colonel Molloy could tell
their fate right away. When they stepped into the division CP tent—General
Hartman’s headquarters—no one would look them in the eye.

“We’re getting shit-canned, Jock,”
Molloy mumbled. “Merry Christmas, dammit.”

General Hartman got straight to the
point. “Gentlemen, I’ll put it bluntly: MacArthur’s breathing down my neck for
results, and I’m just not getting them from you. Colonel Molloy, I’m relieving
you as commander of Eighty-First Regiment. Your XO will take over until a
permanent replacement is decided on. You are to report to General MacArthur’s
headquarters at Port Moresby for reassignment immediately.”

Dick Molloy said nothing; he
remained braced at parade rest.

“Now, as for you, Major Miles,”
Hartman continued, “I’m having you reassigned to Eighty-Second Regiment. Since
that regiment is fighting with the Australians, I believe you’ll fit in there just
fine, as fond of Aussies as you apparently are.”

Shit! Does anyone not know about
me and Jillian?

Hartman asked, “Do either of you
have any questions?”

They replied, “No, sir,” in
near-perfect unison.

“Then you’re dismissed. Pack your
bags, gentlemen.”

Dick Molloy was packed and ready
for his drive to Fasari in less than an hour. The jeep driver assigned to take
him was delighted: he’d have plenty of time at So Sorry to grab a hot
Christmas meal at the airfield mess, a luxury the GIs stuck in Buna could only
dream about. No doubt, the supply sergeants at the airfield, not wanting to
waste a precious cubic foot of cargo transport, would want to fill his jeep
with materiel for the trip back. They’d done that every trip he’d made,
so far.

Maybe it’ll be stuff I can
squirrel away and sell to some poor suckers.

They were driving on the coast
trail only a few miles out of Buna when Colonel Molloy yelled, “STOP.”

“What’s the deal, sir?” the driver
asked as he slammed on the brakes.

“There are men in the brush
alongside the road, Corporal,” Molloy replied.

Gunning the engine, the driver
threw the gearshift into reverse and said, “But they could be Japs! We gotta
get the hell outta here!”

“They’re not Japs, Corporal.
They’re GIs. Now stop…that’s an order.”

A man—an American soldier—stumbled
onto the trail before them. Each step seemed an agonizing task. He collapsed to
his knees and began to crawl toward the jeep.

Dick Molloy met him halfway. He
tried to help the man to his feet but it was no use. He was little more than a
skeleton draped in skin, which was hollowed and sunken everywhere there was no
bone. His uniform was filthy and in tatters, his boots disintegrating about his
feet. On his collar, he wore the gold leaf of a US Army major.

Molloy gently cupped the man’s
unshaven chin, raised his head, and looked into his empty eyes. Somehow,
despite all the severe changes in appearance, Dick Molloy recognized this man.

“Major Henson,” he said.

There was a glimmer of recognition
in those empty eyes for a moment, and then Ralph Henson replied, his voice a
tortured whisper, “Colonel…”

“Unbelievable,” Molloy said. “You
men of Second Battalion made it off Kapa Kapa after all. How many are you,
Ralph?”

Henson seemed to be searching the
heavens for the answer before he said, “A hundred…give or take.”

My God, Dick Molloy thought.
One hundred…out of the four hundred fine men who I sent on that trek. What a
waste…I am the stupidest son of a bitch who ever wore this uniform.

In time, Colonel Molloy would
remember their journey hadn’t been his idea: he’d been ordered to send a
battalion over Kapa Kapa Trail.

He would mourn forever the loss of
those 300 under his command nonetheless.

“Corporal,” Molloy called to his
driver. “Empty all my gear out of the vehicle.”

Molloy began to load as many of the
bedraggled troopers of 2nd Battalion as would fit into the jeep.
When it could hold no more, he told the driver, “Take these men to the field
hospital at Buna. I’ll stay here and round the rest up as they straggle in.
Come back on the double with as many vehicles as you can find.”

“But sir,” the driver said,
“wouldn’t it be better to take them to So Sorry?”

“Too far,” Molloy replied. “Take
them to Buna.”

“But your orders, Colonel! You’re
supposed to  be—”

“Fuck the orders. Take them to Buna
NOW, Corporal.”

The driver looked at the starving
men—only inches from death—piled into the jeep. He began to feel guilty he’d
wanted to make these starving suffer the much longer journey…just so he could
snag a hot meal.

No—guilty was too kind a word.
He felt like a piece of shit.

“Roger, sir,” the driver said.
“I’ll be back in a flash.”

Lieutenant General Robert
Freidenburg was on the ground at Fasari three hours after his meeting with
MacArthur. The 25-mile-long road to Oro Bay was still under construction by
Army engineers but usable. Good speed could be made along the road in dry
weather, and it hadn’t rained yet today. The jeep carrying General Freidenburg
made the trip in less than an hour.

“Your gunboat is ready, General,”
Freidenburg was told as he arrived at Oro Bay, “but are you sure you don’t want
to drive to Buna, sir? You can be there over the coast trail in about an
hour. The boat will take three times as long.”

“Negative,” Freidenburg replied. “I
need to see the overwater route for myself. Consider it a reconnaissance.”

The Australian crew of the
gunboat—eight men with a leftenant in charge—seemed less than thrilled
to be spending Christmas Day making this voyage into hostile waters. General
Freidenburg tried to lay their fears to rest: “The aerial photos show no
evidence of shore batteries at Buna. We’ll take a good look around for
ourselves before I go ashore at Cape Sudest. An American unit will receive me
there.”

None of the Aussies bothered to say
their collective opinion out loud: Good luck, chum. Yank intelligence
hasn’t been worth a bloody fart so far.

Once out of the general’s earshot,
one enterprising seaman wanted to start a betting pool on whether they’d
encounter Japanese coastal batteries or not. The wager was a non-starter: none
of his fellow crewmen would bet against the gunfire. It didn’t matter to them
what this Yank with the stars on his collar said.

The general found the motoring
toward Buna quite congenial: plenty of sunshine, delightful sea breezes. The
steady throb of the gunboat’s engines was comforting. Sailing less than a mile
offshore, he scanned the beaches with binoculars and made copious notes.

“This looks like perfect terrain
for amphibious landings,” Freidenburg told the boat’s skipper.

The leftenant  replied,
“Then how come nobody’s tried one yet, sir?”

“Call it a failure of
imagination, young man,” Freidenburg said.

The general checked his map. “I’m
estimating five minutes until we’re off Buna Mission. That puts us right—”

“BLOODY HELL,” the leftenant
cried as he jammed the boat’s throttles full forward.

A string of rail-thin geysers—like
the spurts of decorative fountains—stitched a path straight as an arrow across
the water’s surface.

With one slight correction by the
Japanese gunners on shore, the geysers zeroed in on the gunboat. They had her
range now.

More guns joined in, throwing
shells toward her in shallow arcs, slicing into her wooden hull like a team of
skilled carpenters.

The leftenant swung the helm
hard to starboard.

It only helped for a moment. The
boat was quickly zeroed in once again.

“This
isn’t small arms fire,” the leftenant yelled. “TWENTY MILLIMETER,
AT LEAST. THEY’LL CUT US IN BLOODY HALF.”

He began to order his crew to
return fire, but there was no point…

He had no crew anymore.

They—and the deck guns they
manned—had been swept clean by Japanese shells into the sea.

The thuds, clanks, snaps and
groans of the boat’s dissection drowned out her engine’s soothing throb.

General Freidenburg was still
onboard, huddled behind the twisted steel of what had once been a gun mount. As
the boat turned, he skittered on all fours to put the scant safety of the metal
between him and the gunners on shore.

At least the bloody Yank knows
how to take cover, the leftenant told himself.

He’d turned her 180 degrees now,
gotten farther offshore…

But she was dying fast.

She’s shipping too much
water…her engines will die any second.

And the Japanese gunners had found
her range again.

The leftenant yelled to the
general, “I’M GOING TO TRY AND PUT HER AGROUND NEAR CAPE SUDEST.”

Now low in the water, she’d sink
without any further assistance from the Japanese…and soon.

The gunboat went under still a hundred
yards from shore.

General Freidenburg and the leftenant,
buoyed by life jackets, paddled to the beach. A handful of GIs met them in the
low surf and pulled the exhausted and shaken men ashore.

“What’s your name, First Sergeant?”
the general asked one of the soldiers holding him up.

“Hadley, sir. Thomas P.”

“What’s your unit, Sergeant
Hadley?”

“Charlie Company, First of the
Eighty-First, sir. I’m acting C.O.”

Freidenburg gave him a curious look
and asked, “Why’s that, son? Where are all your officers?”

“They’re all dead or wounded but
one, sir…and he’s got the shits real bad.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“Can I ask you something, sir?”
Hadley said.

“Go ahead, son.”

“With all due respect, sir, what
the hell were you trying to do out there in that boat? Didn’t the Air Force
tell you Buna is a fortress? Anti-aircraft guns work pretty darned good against
everything else, too. They sure cut that boat of yours to shreds.”

“Couldn’t be helped, son,”
Freidenburg replied. “I needed to do a little recon.”

The leftenant tried not to
burst out in sardonic laughter as he thought, Or maybe you were just
demonstrating a “failure of imagination,” you bloody tosser. “Couldn’t be
helped,” my bloody arse. Tell that to my dead crew.

One of Hadley’s men handed the
general a canteen. He drank it down with gusto.

“Well, Hadley, Thomas P.,” the
general said, “You’ve done me a good turn. Now what can I do for you?”

Hadley replied, “Well, for openers,
sir, you can get us our battalion commander back. That might take a lump or two
of coal out of our Christmas stockings.”

Chapter Thirty-One

General Hartman looked at the
orders General Freidenburg had just handed him and smiled. More than anything,
he marveled at the economy of the English language:

I’m relieved of my command:
fired, sacked, shit-canned, kicked upstairs—whatever you wish to call it.

At the same time, that same word
has a different meaning: I’m relieved to be relieved.

In fact, you can say I’m
thrilled. This unholy donnybrook is out of my hands now.

Robert Freidenburg found Hartman’s
idiotic grin ridiculously inappropriate.

Where’s this man’s sense of
dignity? His military bearing?

He wondered if the outgoing
commander was of sound mind. All the more reason he needed an answer to a
question vexing him ever since he washed up on shore:

“General,” Freidenburg said, “I’ve
been told you’ve just fired the commander of the Eighty-First as well as one of
that regiment’s battalion commanders. I must ask you: why?”

“Quite simple, sir…their
performance was deficient.”

The answer earned a harrumph from
Freidenburg. That sounds odd coming from a man being fired for exactly the
same failing, he thought.

After giving a quick situation
briefing—and a most superficial one at that—to the new division commander,
Hartman was eager to depart. He wasn’t worried at the moment about the stigma
that would undoubtedly be attached to his firing. He could taste the hot food
and cold beer of Port Moresby already, perhaps even the safety and comfort of
an Australian posting.

The moment Hartman left the tent,
Freidenburg told the division G1, “Rescind those relief orders for Molloy and
Miles immediately. There’s going to be enough chaos around here…I don’t need
multiple changes of subordinate commands going on at the same time, too.”

“But sir,” the flustered colonel
replied, “Colonel Molloy is probably back in Port Moresby already.”

Freidenburg was about to say then
get him back, when Dick Molloy walked into the Division CP.

After salutes and introductions,
Molloy said, “I have some surprising news, sir—Second Battalion of the
Eighty-First has finally come off Kapa Kapa Trail…what’s left of it, anyway.”

At 82nd Regiment HQ—an island
of Yanks in the middle of the Australian Seventh Division HQ—a field telephone
rang. The sergeant taking the call turned to Jock Miles and said, “Major…hope
you didn’t unpack yet.”

Jock wasn’t in the mood for beating
around the bush. “Why, sergeant?” came from his mouth like a growl.

“Because you’re going back to the
Eighty-First, sir. Your orders just got rescinded.”

Leaving should’ve been no problem
at all. He hadn’t even met Colonel Triplett, the regimental commander, yet and
had been assigned no duties in his command. It was only 12 miles back to his
old unit; Jock would’ve walked it—even lugging all his gear—but nightfall would
catch him before he was halfway there. Wandering around in the dark was a good
way to get yourself shot. He needed a ride, but all of the Eighty-Second’s
vehicles—scarce as they were—were busy at the moment. He flopped down on his
pack outside the headquarters tent and laid in wait to snare a jeep.

He didn’t remember dozing off. It
seemed dreamlike, though, when something began tapping him on the shoulder
rather firmly. When he opened his eyes to see what it was, a reflex shot
through his body; he transitioned from repose to standing at attention in less
than a heartbeat.

An American bird colonel and an
Aussie general hovered before him, looking less than amused.

“You must be Major Miles,” the
colonel said. “I’m Colonel Triplett. This gentleman to my right is General
Vasey. Do you know who he is, Major?”

“Yes, sir. He commands the
Australian Seventh Division.”

“Very good, Miles,” the colonel
said. “Now I’ve just been told you won’t be staying with us. Damn shame, too…we
could use replacement officers. But before you go, the general would like to
pick your brain for a few moments…or will that cut into your beauty sleep?”

Hmm, Jock thought, first
he refers to me as a “replacement” officer, then the “beauty sleep” crack. I’m
not a replacement—replacements are rookies and I ain’t a rookie. And everyone
knows a smart soldier catches his sleep whenever he can. Keep the insults coming,
Colonel. It’ll be a pleasure not working for you.

Jock kept his annoyance to himself
and replied, “I’m at your disposal, sir.”

“The bunkers, Major,” General Vasey
said. “They’re nothing like the defenses we defeated coming across Kokoda.
These are some very tough nuts, and we haven’t cracked one yet. We hear you’ve
had some success at taking them. Please share with us how you did it.”

“I wouldn’t call what I’ve had success,
sir,” Jock replied. “A platoon got behind one once and went in through the back
door. Couldn’t hold on to it, though. The Japs counterattacked in force and
kicked them out. The other time…well, that was just a fluke.”

“What kind of fluke, Major?”

“A plane did it, sir. It—”

Growing impatient, Vasey
interrupted, “You mean a plane bombed it?”

“No, sir. I mean the plane crashed
into it. The engine block went through that bunker like a hot knife through
butter.”

“I see,” said the general. “That
way doesn’t seem bloody practical at all, does it?”

Jock shook his head. “Without big
guns or tanks, sir, those bunkers are still going to be here long after we’re
dead and gone.”

Colonel Triplett cast a
disapproving glare Jock’s way. “That sounds a bit defeatist, Major. Not
something I’d expect to hear from an American officer. With an attitude like
that, you’ll never succeed in taking Buna.”

Jock replied, “I really don’t think
it’s a question of attitude, sir.”

“I’m inclined to agree with the major,”
the general said. “I can’t wait to hear how your General Freidenburg intends to
proceed with this bloody cock-up, now that MacArthur’s made him my boss,
too.”

Vasey didn’t sound pleased with
that turn of events. Not one bit.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, sir,”
Colonel Triplett said. “Bob Freidenburg will have Easy Street
straightened out in no time.”

It was late the next day—the day
after Christmas—when Jock finally got back to 1st Battalion. As he
threw his gear down inside the CP tent, Melvin Patchett greeted him with a
bemused smile: “Couldn’t find no work, I reckon?”

“Afraid not,” Jock replied. “You’re
still stuck with me, I guess.”

“Worse things could happen, sir,”
Patchett said as he shook Jock’s hand with genuine enthusiasm.

“Have we seen anything of our new
general yet, Top?”

“Not since Hadley and his boys
fished him out of the drink. But there’s a big briefing at Division for all you
mucketymucks tomorrow at 0800.”

“Is Colonel Molloy back yet?”

“Actually, sir, the colonel didn’t
get too far at all…and you ain’t never gonna believe who he brought back with
him.”

“I heard a rumor,” Jock replied.
“He found Second Battalion, right?”

“Yep, he sure did. About a hundred
of ’em’s all that’s left. Seventy-five percent casualties and they never ran
into even one Jap. Didn’t do the Aussies they were supposed to help a bit of
good, neither.” His voice dropped to just above a whisper as he added, “Damn
shame. The ones who made it here look like they already got one foot in the
grave. Another of The Great MacArthur’s master plans turned to shit.”

Theo Papadakis limped into the
tent, grinning from ear to ear. His wounded hand was concealed in a mitten of
bandages. “Great to have you back, sir,” the Mad Greek said.

“Theo!” Jock said, truly surprised
to see his Able Company commander. “I figured you’d be at the hospital in Port
Moresby by now, with nurses catering to your every whim.”

“Nah, I’ll save that shit for the
badly wounded, sir.”

Jock gave him a good once-over:
Lieutenant Pop was one tough son of a bitch, but at the moment, he looked
anything but fit for combat duty.

“I know what you’re thinking, sir,”
Papadakis said, “but I can manage. Besides…my guys need me. You need
me.” He held up his bandaged hand. “Don’t worry about this. It ain’t my
shooting hand.”

“But you’re beat up all over,
Theo…your leg, your—”

“I’m fine, sir…and a lot better off
than Lee Grossman is. At least I can get off the crapper now and then. If
you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta check my perimeter before it gets dark.”

With Papadakis gone, Jock asked,
“Grossman’s still here, too?”

“Yep,” Patchett replied. “He
insists he’s gonna be fit as a fiddle any day now. I can’t get rid of these
officers of yours no how.”

Patchett began briefing Jock on
what he had missed the past two days. “Basically, sir, it don’t look like we’ll
be doing much of anything until our new division commander gets his britches
dried out.” Sweeping his hand across the local map, Patchett continued, “We’ve
been using the time to harden our position—we strung out what little barbed
wire we could get our hands on along likely avenues of approach, laid in some
more mortar registration points across the battalion front, got our fields of
fire marked right down to the last rifleman, and rigged a whole shitload of
noisemakers. You can see them all marked on the map.”

“Yeah…looks good, Top. How’s our
sick call doing?”

“About the same…a handful of new
cases every day. Guys with malaria are, for the most part, going right back to
duty, riding out the fevers and the chills as they come. Of course, they’re
useless as tits on a bull during those times, but we ain’t got the transport to
evacuate them, anyway. The Atabrine supply is getting pretty low, but Doc’s
expecting a fresh shipment real soon.”

Jock asked, “Are the men actually
taking the Atabrine now?”

“Most of ’em are, sir. They’re
getting used to that yellow tinge it gives the skin.” Pointing to his own
sallow face, he added, “I tell ’em it blends in with the jungle better,
anyway.”

“What about quinine, Top?”

Patchett laughed. “Ain’t got none.
Ain’t seen none.”

Jock didn’t see anything funny in
that. “So we’re still below combat strength,” he said, “and getting worse by
the day.”

“Affirmative, sir,” Patchett
replied. He paused, and then added, “But we’re still in better shape than those
poor bastards who come off the Kapa Kapa.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Japanese planes came just after
midnight, twin-engined bombers droning high in the sky. They scattered their
bombs far and wide with no precision, blasting barren swampland more often than
any Allied position. It even appeared some of the bombs fell into the Japanese
positions near the plantation and Buna Village. The only serious damage done to
the Americans was on the airfield under construction at Dobodura: the longest
runway—almost finished after laborious clearing and leveling by hand—was now
pockmarked with bomb craters and useless. It would take a week or more of
backbreaking work to make it right again. Until it was, no transport planes
with supplies for Buna could use it; Fasari—some 40 miles away—would remain
their closest suitable airfield.

The night bombing served another
purpose: it ensured all the Allied troops were wide awake when the Japanese
ground attacks began a few minutes after the planes flew away.

Sergeant Mike McMillen was
surprised—and well pleased—to find every man in every fighting hole of 3rd
Platoon firing his weapon. “Keep it up, you guys,” he’d tell the occupants of
one hole before scurrying to the next.

The company’s mortars were pumping
a steady stream of shells toward the enemy. A few of those would be
illumination rounds. Any second, their flares would pop, throwing harsh light
and crazily dancing shadows across the battleground as they drifted down on
tiny parachutes. When they did pop, McMillen figured he could get a fair
estimate of how many attackers they faced:

All you see is their motion..

You get a second to count the
ones in the open when they first get lit up. You’ll see their shapes plain as
day—until they freeze.

One or two of them, and it’s
probably just a squad—or maybe just a few sappers—probing you for a weak spot.

Four or five, it’s a platoon.

More than that, you won’t be
able to count them all before they stop moving and you lose them. You’re
looking at a company—or better.

Something seemed odd to McMillen
about the sound of this fight: The wounded screaming their fucking heads
off—it’s a lot more than usual...

And most of the screaming seemed to
be in Japanese.

The flares popped. Mike McMillen
could see what all the screaming was about:

Japs caught in the barbed wire,
getting their asses riddled. More than I can count…a lot more.

Struggling to free themselves from
the wire, they stayed in plain sight—their thrashing silhouettes backlit by the
cruel beacons floating down—until bullets and mortar fragments finally ended
their misery.

Turkey shoot,
McMillen told himself.

At the company CP, Theo Papadakis
was starting to get the same impression: This seems to be going a whole hell
of a lot better for us than the last time they attacked.

His mangled and bandaged hand hung
at his side, a grim reminder of that night. In his other hand, he held his Thompson
by its trigger grip, its butt against his hip.

One of the field telephones rang.
The voice from 2nd Platoon said: “We’ve lost contact with Baker
Company on our right.”

“Stand by,” Papadakis said. He put
down his Thompson and cranked another phone—the one to Battalion—with his one
good hand.

“We’ve got Baker Company on the
line right now, Lieutenant,” Melvin Patchett told him. “They’re saying they
lost contact with you.”

“I’m gonna check it out,” Papadakis
replied. “I’ll be on the radio.”

Thompson in hand, walkie-talkie
slung over his shoulder, Theo Papadakis set out toward the break in the
treeline marking the boundary between Able and Baker Companies.

Fucking guys are probably five
feet away from each other but too scared to know it, he hoped. They should
be right around here…somewhere…

Two fresh illumination rounds
popped over the swamp, casting jiggling shadows through the trees before him.

He thought the silhouettes popping
in and out of those moving shadows were scrub.

Then he remembered there was no
scrub as tall as a man in this wooded position.

The flare’s light hung still for a
moment, long enough to catch the shape of the helmets…

They were definitely not GIs—and
they were maybe 30 feet away…

There was no point in challenging
with the password.

He squeezed his trigger instead. He
didn’t let go. The magazine was empty in two seconds.

One silhouette was still standing.

Theo Papadakis dropped to one knee,
propped his Thompson against his bent leg and, with his good hand, pulled
another magazine from its pouch.

Then, with his bandaged hand
supporting the weapon against his leg as best it could, he tried to ram the
magazine home.

The weapon slipped and fell to the
ground.

Out of the darkness, there was a
sharp, metallic clack-clack—like a rifle bolt being cycled…

And then a single shot.

Theo Papadakis felt nothing. He
expected a flash of hot, searing pain as the force of the bullet’s impact
knocked him back.

But he hadn’t moved an inch. All he
felt was the thup-thup of his heart pounding. All he heard were the
sounds of the fight still raging far in front of him.

His good hand found the Thompson
and brought it back against his leg. This time, he rammed the magazine in and
managed to pull the charging handle.

In any other time, the reloading
mishap would’ve seemed brief: it only took a few seconds to resolve. But in
combat, those few seconds seemed like hours.

And the silhouette was still there,
unmoving…

Definitely not shooting.

Bogater Boudreau’s voice came from
Lieutenant Pop’s left: “I’ve got it, Lieutenant. Don’t shoot me.”

The flare’s light was fading fast,
but Papadakis could make out another shape with a GI helmet—Boudreau, he was
pretty sure—blend with that unmoving silhouette. Then they were both gone with
a soft plop of an object hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Bogater’s voice floated out of the
darkness again: “His gear was just hung up on that tree, sir. Between you and
me, we killed him at least twice. What’re you doing out here, anyway, banged up
like you are?”

“You guys said you lost Baker
Company.”

“Yeah…some damn fool over there
tripped on the commo wire, sir. Pulled it right out the phone. It’s all fixed
now. Don’t worry yourself none over it.”

“Don’t worry myself none? Are you
fucking kidding me, Bogater? Japs walked right through a gap in our line.”

“Looks like we just fixed that,
too, Lieutenant.”

Charlie Company held the right
flank of 1st Battalion; Charlie Company’s right flank was the Solomon
Sea. They could hear the fight raging at Able and Baker Companies to their left,
but so far they’d had no contact with the Japanese this night. Not so much as a
stray gunshot came their way.

On paper, elements of the 83rd
Regiment—the unit guarding the coast trail from Fasari—were covering Charlie
Company’s rear.

In reality, Tom Hadley and his men knew
better. The GIs covering the coast trail—soon to be the coast road—had
grown quite fond of high-tailing it back to the relative comfort of Oro Bay
each night, leaving nothing but weakly staffed listening posts behind.

Tom Hadley had long ago decided his
company would cover their own back door. He’d expressed his reason bluntly:
“What’s an LP going to do for us when the Japs show up? Say goodbye as those
long bayonets run them through, that’s what. That ain’t what I call protecting
our rear.”

He knew full well there was nothing
stopping the Japanese from coming ashore in boats behind his company at any
number of places along that 15-mile stretch of coast from Buna to Oro Bay. If
they came that way, he had no intention of getting caught with his pants down.

And if they came that way, it would
be at night.

That’s why he wasn’t surprised when
one of the positions on the backside of the company’s perimeter called for
illumination rounds. “Something clanged a couple of the noisemakers out
there, Tom,” the voice on the field telephone said. “Let’s see what the hell it
is.”

At the battalion CP, Jock got the
phone call from Hadley just as the first flare popped behind Charlie Company’s
perimeter. The roar of gunfire filtered through the dense woods almost
immediately.

Jock asked, “How many Japs, Tom?”

“Too many to count, sir,” was the
reply.

“Do you need help?”

“I’ll get right back to you on
that, sir.”

It was nearly five anxious minutes
before Tom Hadley was back on the line. By then, the shooting had died out all
across 1st Battalion.

“They’re either dead…or they ran
away, sir,” Hadley reported. “Nobody’s screaming for mama or the medic, so I
guess we’re all okay.”

Melvin Patchett blew out a big sigh
of relief. “If them reports stand the light of day,” he said, “we made it
through a large-scale attack with just a couple of wounded and no dead. Didn’t
give up an inch of ground, neither.”

As his grease pencil screeched
across the manpower status board, Patchett added, “I’m real pleased, sir. Our boys
handled that real calm-like, and I believe they’re gonna be real proud of
themselves when the sun comes up.”

Jock nodded; he was thinking the
same thing.

“Hey, Top,” he said, “you think we
just had ourselves a cat-list?”

“Maybe so, sir,” the sergeant major
replied. “Maybe so.”

Morning broke and the casualty
reports from last night’s action were confirmed: only a handful wounded in 1st
Battalion, none seriously. There were no deaths. The Japanese they faced hadn’t
been so lucky. Some 50 of them were dead, and the GIs were still counting.

The morning brought more good news:
for the first time since leaving Port Moresby, they had mail.

“Best Christmas present we could
give these boys is a letter from home,” Patchett said to Jock, “even if
Christmas was two days ago.” Then he added, “You ready to head up to Division,
sir? Don’t want to keep our new general waiting.”

The morning’s good news stopped as
soon as General Freidenburg opened his mouth. He sounded totally serious in his
plan to throw an amphibious invasion at the Japanese stronghold of Buna. Dick
Molloy was the only one of the three regimental commanders not too shy to voice
his disbelief.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Molloy
said, “but didn’t you just get blown out of the water off Buna?”

“As I told you already, Colonel,”
Freidenburg replied, “that was merely a reconnaissance…and it told me
everything I needed to know.”

General Vasey, the Aussie division
commander, sneered at those words. Merely a reconnaissance, he told
himself, that cost Australia a ship and her crew. Thank God
their sacrifice was so helpful to this Yank wanker.

Freidenburg continued, “When we
stage our assault, it will include proper and effective suppression of enemy
fire by sea and air…”

The general paused. He could tell
from the look on Colonel Molloy’s face he was not convinced. Plenty of other
faces in the tent weren’t convinced, either.

“Something you’d like to say,
Colonel?” he asked.

Molloy replied, “I was just
wondering about this effective suppression you speak of, sir. The Air
Force has been pounding the daylights out of the Japs ever since we got here,
and it hasn’t done us a bit of good yet. As to naval gunfire, what caliber guns
are we talking about, sir, if I might ask?”

“We’ll have the use of several
frigates, corvettes, and gunboats from both our Navy and the Australians,”
Freidenburg said.

“So the biggest guns we’re looking
at are four inches…maybe five inches, tops?”

“That’s correct, Colonel.”

Trying to keep his voice calm,
Molloy replied, “Sir, we’ve been firing Aussie artillery pieces of that caliber
at the Japanese positions for two weeks now…and we haven’t made a dent in them
yet. Shooting from boats isn’t going to make it any more effective…unless those
boats are cruisers or battleships with guns twice that size. And from what I
hear, the big ships aren’t interested in coming into these waters just yet.”

There was a murmur of agreement
from the other officers. Robert Freidenburg got the distinct impression he was
losing this crowd. But he was a general, by God—and generals always got
their way. The blinding reflection off those three silver stars on his collar
never failed to silence the most vocal of subordinates.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the general
said, “there’s been much talk in Port Moresby about how your troops are
demoralized and won’t fight. That’s because they’ve been led in a manner that
is less than, shall we say, inspirational. We’re going to change all
that—right here, right now. Nothing brings inspiration like a plan
that’s truly different—and what could be more different than the failed
strategy you’ve been employing than a dynamic amphibious assault?”

He paused to read the faces of the
silent men before him: They’re bending to my will—they have no choice, of
course—but they’re not fully on board yet. I think it’s time to puff them up
with some bullshit.

General Freidenburg continued,
“Speaking of inspiration, gentlemen, last night I witnessed something truly
inspirational. The First of the Eighty-First did a positively crackerjack job
against those Japanese probes…”

“Probes?” Patchett whispered loud
enough for Jock and Colonel Molloy to hear. “More like battalion-sized attacks,
wouldn’t you say?”

But the general was still talking:
“And seeing the outstanding job that battalion did inspired me to make a
decision. Major Miles, you and your men will have the honor of spearheading the
amphibious assault on Buna.”

That was the last thing Jock wanted
to hear; he was sure his face showed it. But for some reason, Patchett had a
big grin on his face. He leaned toward Jock and whispered, “The man can make an
ass-screwing sound like the sweetest blow job you ever got, can’t he?”

“Dammit, Top,” Jock said, “he’s
watching us. Knock it off.”

“That’s why I’m grinning like a
fucking idiot, sir. He thinks I’m telling you how proud our outfit is to get
shit on like this. Spearhead, my ass.”

General Vasey had a question. “Sir,
will my Australian troops be involved in these amphibious landings in any way?”

“I’m afraid not, General,”
Freidenburg replied. “We don’t have the boats for it.”

General Vasey grinned broadly and
made no attempt to hide it. That was the most inspirational thing he’d
heard in a long time.

Freidenburg wasn’t finished with
the Aussie commander, though. “You and I will discuss the role of your Australians
in the coming operation at the conclusion of this briefing,” he said.

The briefing was turned over to the
division staff officers—the G2, G3, and G4—responsible for the assault’s
planning. It quickly degenerated into the usual litany of half-baked estimates
and wishful thinking. The only bright spot revealed: the amphibious assault
couldn’t be scheduled any sooner than 10 days from now. It would take that long
to gather enough assault boats at Oro Bay.

“Plenty of time to whip your
troopers into fighting shape,” the G3 assured everyone.

“Happy Fucking New Year,” Patchett
mumbled when the assault date of January 6, 1943, was announced.

It was 1100 hours when the briefing
finally lumbered to a close. Before dismissing his officers, General
Freidenburg said, “Gentlemen, I have it on good authority that your previous
division commander was told to take Buna, or die trying. I suspect he
might have expressed that same mandate to all of you.”

Nodding heads throughout the tent
confirmed his suspicion.

The general continued, “Well, I’m
here to tell you…I don’t plan to try and I certainly don’t plan to die.
I just plan to win.”

As they walked from the HQ tent,
Patchett muttered, “Now how fucking inspirational was that for a way to
close a briefing?”

General Vasey’s private talk with
his new field commander, General Freidenburg, got off to a rocky start when
Freidenburg, with complete sincerity, said, “George, I’m sorry your Aussies
won’t be part of the amphibious assault.”

“I’m not, General,” Vasey
replied, “not in the least. We climbed over the bloody mountains to get here,
pushing the Japs back the whole way, while you Yanks rode in leisurely and
unopposed on your bloody airplanes. After all that mountaineering, we don’t
need a bloody swim, too. You’re bloody welcome to it.”

Freidenburg thought, Maybe
that’s why they call him “Bloody George.” And here I thought it was because he
was such a tough fighter.

The American general bristled as he
said, “Need I remind you, General, it’s those American planes that keep you
supplied.”

“And for that, we are most grateful
to our generous ally,” Vasey replied. “But what we need most—tanks and more
artillery, bigger artillery—your airplanes can’t provide. That can only come
from the sea.”

“And the American regiment fighting
with you, General Vasey—the Eighty-Second. I trust you’re most grateful for
them, too?”

“Of course we are, sir…they make
wonderful ammo mules and road guards. And they’re very happy to leave the
actual fighting to us.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Jock and Patchett had just made it
back to their battalion CP when the sound of rifle fire pierced the quiet midday. It didn’t sound like a fight was in progress—more like a solitary soldier taking
target practice, dispensing well-aimed rounds at a leisurely pace.

“That’s an M1 doing the shooting,”
Patchett said. “Sounds like it’s coming from over at Charlie Company.”

More curious than alarmed, the two
men headed off in that direction.

When they came to the source of the
gunfire, it took a moment to sort out what was going on.

A weeping Private McCurdy was
standing a few yards beyond the treeline that was Charlie Company’s perimeter,
M1 in hand, in plain sight of any Japanese sniper who happened to be in range.
Across a swampy clearing, tangled in the plantation treetops some 200 yards
from McCurdy, was a decoration that hadn’t been there earlier that day: a
Japanese fighter plane, upside down, its lifeless pilot dangling from the
cockpit by one leg still trapped inside. McCurdy would take his time lining up
the dead pilot in the rifle’s sights, wiping the tears from his eyes before
squeezing off another round.

His last shot had been a hit; the
pilot’s body was still rocking back and forth like a pendulum.

“First Jap son of a bitch I’ve
actually seen in this shithole,” McCurdy announced as he pushed another clip
into the M1, “even if he was dead from the git-go.” At the shooter’s feet was
an ammo box still brimming with bullets.

“I could do this shit all day,” he
added.

A dozen GIs from McCurdy’s
platoon—men responsible for defending this sector of the perimeter—had left
their positions and clustered like grenade bait, watching in aimless silence
from a respectful distance. Tom Hadley, the acting company commander, was among
them.

“Sergeant Hadley,” Jock said, “stop
that man from what he’s doing immediately. Get him back under cover before he
gets his ass blown off.”

“We tried, sir,” Hadley replied,
“but he took a shot at Sergeant Matthews.”

Matthews stood next to Hadley,
looking none the worse for wear but with eyes full of anger. It seemed likely
he would have already shot McCurdy if not for the continuing intervention of
Tom Hadley. Now that their battalion commander and sergeant major were on the
scene, no one except Private McCurdy was in a hurry to commit a court-martial offense.

McCurdy popped off another shot at
the Japanese pilot’s body.

It missed.

Patchett asked Hadley, “Ain’t that
the lad who got all girly over some leeches on him about a week back? You were
burning them off him, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Hadley replied.
“Looks like he’s really gone off his rocker this time.”

Jock asked, “Do you know what
brought all this on, Sergeant Hadley?”

“Mail call, sir. McCurdy just found
out his wife had a baby. His sister sent the damn letter. Only trouble is, he
isn’t the father. Even counting for the two months it took the letter to catch
up with us—the baby couldn’t be his by about three months.”

Before Patchett could say, You
want me to handle this, sir? Jock was already striding straight for the
shooter, who was lining up his next shot.

But McCurdy heard the footsteps
approaching from behind. He spun around, pointing the rifle straight at his
battalion commander…and then he faltered, if just for an instant. You could see
the uncertainty flash across his face: there was all this serious authority
closing in on him.

That gold leaf on his collar…

McCurdy’s aim wavered. He knew he
was already in deep trouble, but if he pulled the trigger now, he’d open the
door to a whole new realm of retribution.

But he didn’t care. He’d already
made himself an easy target for the Japanese. He couldn’t see any difference in
whose bullet ended his miserable life.

In for a penny, in for a pound…

The muzzle of the M1 rose, inches
from the major’s heart…

With a lightning-quick jerk of his
hand, Jock snatched the M1 from McCurdy’s grasp.

It happened so fast: the private’s
trigger finger squeezed hard but the trigger was already gone.

Jock’s voice sounded like the
judgment of the heavens when he said, “We don’t desecrate the dead around here,
Private. And we don’t shoot each other, either.”

Grabbing McCurdy by the web gear,
he disarmed him of his bayonet as he pulled the man back inside the perimeter.
“Turn him over to the MPs at Division,” he told Hadley. “And get the rest of
your men back in position right fucking now, before the Japs join us for
lunch.” Turning to Patchett, he added, “Sergeant Major, a word in private?”

They walked out of sight behind a
thicket. Jock squatted, his back against a tree. He seemed to be gasping for
breath.

“You okay, sir?” Patchett asked. It
was then he noticed Jock’s hands shaking.

“I…I will be...in a minute, I
think. Cover me, will you?”

Melvin Patchett stood guard,
watching as his commander passed through the three stages all sane men endure
when conquering mortal danger: first, the decisive action that recognizes no
fear; second—the stage Jock was in now—the sudden remembering you are mortal
after all, and what you just succeeded in doing could have ended instead in a
variety of tragedies. Soon would come the third stage: pushing as much as
possible of what just happened from your mind so you can get on with the
business at hand, knowing full well the memory had taken up permanent,
life-altering residence in your psyche.

Patchett waited the few moments it
took for Jock to pass into that third stage before saying, “Well, I’m here to
tell you, sir, they’re gonna be calling you B-B from now on.”

“B-B? What the hell does
that mean?”

“Brass balls, sir. I can
hear ’em clanking together now, matter of fact.”

“Cut it out, Top,” Jock said as he
pulled himself to his feet. “C’mon…let’s find Hadley and have a word with him
before we head back to the CP.”

Hadley found them first. He asked,
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Sure, Tom. What is it?”

“I just wanted to say, sir, that
what you did…well, that was really impressive.”

“No, Tom, it wasn’t impressive…just
necessary. By the way, you did a pretty good job keeping that situation from
getting too far out of hand.”

Hadley shrugged and replied, “The
way I figure it, sir, we had enough of our guys killing each other back on Cape
York.”

Jock and Patchett were halfway back
to their CP before either man spoke; Hadley’s parting words had brought back
some painful memories of the ordeal on the Cape. It was Patchett who finally
broke the ice: “How do you want McCurdy’s charge sheet to read, sir?”

“Make it so they’ve got no choice
but to give him a Section Eight, Top. He doesn’t belong here…never did. But he
doesn’t need to rot for the rest of his life in Leavenworth, either. Life’s dealt
him a shitty enough hand already.”

Patchett mulled that over for a few
seconds before nodding with satisfaction. “Sounds good to me, sir,” he said.
“But, you know, just before he saw you coming, I was pretty sure he was fixing
to turn that weapon on hisself.”

“Nah,” Jock replied, “he may be
fucked up…but he ain’t that fucked up.”

Patchett looked skeptical. “I don’t
know, sir,” he said, “and I can still hear them balls clanking.”

Over in 3rd
Battalion—Colonel Vann’s command—two GIs had decided to become that fucked
up. Posted to a stinking, water-logged, mosquito-infested hole that
served as a listening post on the trail between Ango Corner and Buna Mission,
the PFCs took the assignment as their golden opportunity: a guaranteed ticket
out of this deadly tropical hell.

“If we’re wounded so we can’t pull
duty, they’ve got to evacuate us,” the first PFC—the more accomplished shithouse
lawyer of the two—said. “And nobody’s ever going to be able to tell how the
wound happened.”

“And even if they suspect you did
it yourself,” the other PFC—a lesser genius—added, “they can’t prove
nothing, right?”

“Absolutely correct,” the lawyer
said, swept away in righteous logic. “Just make sure you break a bone. That’s
the way out of this shithole forever. Flesh wounds won’t get the job done.” He
pulled the Nambu pistol he found after last night’s attack and asked, “Are you
ready?”

The lesser genius nodded.
They began to lay down a theatrical volley of fire with their M1s. It was a
deception aimed at nothing in particular, since there were no Japanese anywhere
to be seen. The lawyer threw a grenade for good measure.

As soon as it burst, he pointed the
Nambu at his lower leg, closed his eyes…

And pulled the trigger.

He expected it to hurt. But he
wasn’t prepared for the blinding pain as the bullet scorched a path along his
tibia and into the thick muscle behind. It was like being stabbed with a
blowtorch.

He hadn’t expected so much blood,
either.

There was nothing theatrical about
his screaming. He meant every agonized word:

“MEDIC! MEDIC! HELP ME. OH GOD,
HELP ME…”

The Nambu pistol had fallen to the
ground. The lesser genius decided not to pick it up. Watching the lawyer
writhe on the ground was fast changing his mind about the wisdom of
self-inflicted wounds:

It wasn’t supposed to hurt that
bad.

Struggling to get his words out,
the lawyer moaned, “Come on! Do it already! Before help gets here.”

The lesser genius shook his
head and tossed the Nambu into the swamp. He’d take a pass.

He would’ve been better off if he
hadn’t. When he raised his head from the hole to hail the approaching medic, a
sniper’s bullet struck his helmet at the perfect perpendicular, punching
cleanly through thin steel as if it was no sturdier than an eggshell, spraying
his brains out the other side.

They weren’t back at the battalion
CP more than a few minutes when Melvin Patchett said, “Sir…you gotta take a
look at this.”

Approaching the CP tent was a
ragged, stumbling column of GIs, perhaps two dozen in number. New fatigues hung
on their skeletal frames as if they were department store mannequins. Their
heads didn’t seem wide enough to fill their helmets. They didn’t seem fit
enough to put one foot before the other.

“Detail, halt,” the
sergeant-in-charge commanded, his reedy voice weak and barely audible. On his
next command—“At ease”—the men of the detail collapsed to the ground. The only
things keeping them from falling flat on their backs were the bulky packs they
wore.

As the sergeant walked toward Jock,
his steps were so uncertain it looked like even odds he wouldn’t make it.

“Sergeant Overton reporting, sir,”
the man said, offering a wobbly salute.

These men don’t look strong
enough to stand up in a stiff breeze, let alone fight the Japanese, Jock
thought. Where the hell did they come from?

Then it hit him: they were
survivors of 2nd Battalion. The men of the Kapa Kapa.

Jock asked, “Who on earth sent you
men down here, Sergeant?”

“Orders from Division, sir. They
said you needed replacements.”

Jock’s silent reply: Yeah…and
you ain’t them.

“Get these men under shelter,
Sergeant Major,” Jock told Patchett. “I’ve got to find Colonel Molloy.”

Over the telephone line, Dick
Molloy’s voice was anything but enlightening. “I didn’t know anything about it,
either, Jock. Just see if you can find something for those men to do. Maybe
they can man some observation posts or something.”

“They’re so wrung out they can
hardly stay conscious, sir,” Jock replied. “Putting them in an OP just risks
getting us all killed. And it’s hard enough to keep the men I already have fed.
I don’t need more useless mouths.”

Even the poor acoustics of a field
telephone couldn’t mask Molloy’s frustration. “I know, Jock…I know,” he
replied. “But we’ll figure something out.”

“I’m not so sure, sir. We’ve got
enough going on here already. We don’t need to be playing convalescent home to
troops who should have already been evacuated—just to make Division’s manpower
figures look better down in Port Moresby.”

Another thing the phone couldn’t
mask: the tone in Molloy’s voice that meant he considered this conversation
over. “Tell me something I don’t know, Major Miles,” he said.

And then the colonel rang off.

The rest of 2nd
Battalion’s survivors—some 75 in number—were still languishing at 81st
Regiment’s aid station. Even by the relaxed standards for combat-ready
troops General Freidenburg had imposed, these men still weren’t fit for
duty. It would take a considerable amount of nutritious food and uninterrupted
rest to rehabilitate them. Neither commodity was readily available at Buna.

They may have been physically weak,
but their minds still worked just fine; the ordeal of the Kapa Kapa hadn’t
blinded them to the realities of the stalemate they had finally joined. One of
those realities was on full display in the person of a new arrival, his stretcher
lying on the ground outside the triage tent.

“That guy over there,” a corporal
who survived the Kapa Kapa said, “I heard the docs talking about him. His
leg…that’s a self-inflicted wound, they say.”

“Oh, yeah?” his fellow survivor—a
sergeant—replied. “Let’s go have a word with him.”

They staggered over to the
stretcher, looming over the recumbent, immobile GI with the heavily-bandaged
shin.

“Hey, bud,” the sergeant said, “I
hear tell you shot yourself.”

“That’s a bunch of crap,” the shithouse
lawyer replied. “They dug a Nambu slug out of me.”

Shaking his head, the corporal
said, “That dog ain’t gonna hunt, fella. They say the angle that bullet went
in, a fucking Jap would’ve had to be holding hands with you. And I hear there
are Jap weapons laying all over the place out there.”

“You don’t know shit, my friend”
the lawyer said. “While you assholes were fucking off in the jungle, I
got wounded in combat. Leave me the hell alone.”

“I ain’t your friend, Private,” the
corporal said. “You know, we learned something while we were fucking off in
the jungle, as you say…a little something about emergency first aid. Let us
show you how we cleaned out wounds…”

The two survivors proceeded to
urinate all over the lawyer. He couldn’t escape—all he could do was
squirm on the stretcher. That wasn’t enough to stay dry.

“You’d best close your lying mouth,
now,” the sergeant said, enjoying himself as he redirected his stream at the
man’s face.

When they were finished, they
buttoned up and started shuffling back to their tent. The sergeant had one
thing to say in farewell:

“Fucking coward. I hope they shoot
your worthless ass for good this time.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Aside from the daily bombing raids
on Buna by 5th Air Force, it had been quiet all along 81st
Regiment’s positions for the third day running. As a new day dawned on Charlie
Company, 1st Battalion—Tom Hadley’s outfit—the men were starting to
get used to this new level of inactivity. But they knew it couldn’t go on
forever: higher headquarters was cooking up a new way to get them killed, they
were sure.

But until those plans—whatever they
were—came into play, the men were very happy to cool their heels. “I could get
used to this,” a GI named Joey Rossetti said, sprawled in a low hammock he had
rigged between two trees from a supply-drop parachute.

His buddy Jimmy Quigley—seated on
an ammo box that was gradually sinking into the soggy ground—warned, “You’d
better not get used to it. When you drop your guard, that’s when a bullet’s
gonna find you.” He took a long swig from his canteen cup and then plunked it
down on the crate the two troopers used like a coffee table.

“Cut the crap, Jimmy. When your
number’s up, your number’s up, and you can’t do nothing about it.” Joey sat up
in the hammock and lit a cigarette. “Hey, ain’t tomorrow night New Year’s Eve?
You got any plans?”

“Oh, sure. I suppose I’ll do the
usual stuff—take my girl out dancing, watch the ball come down in Times Square,
then take her home and put it to her like usual.”

“You can’t,” Joey said. “I heard there
ain’t no ball this year. Blackout, you know.”

“No problem. I don’t need no lights
to get laid.”

“Nah, you can’t do that, neither.
She’s screwing some 4-F now.”

Jimmy Quigley took another long
drink from the cup, set it back on the crate, and—laughing at himself—sighed,
“Fuck me…”

There was a sharp CLANK—when
their eyes fell on the coffee table again, the canteen cup was gone.

What the hell?

It only took a second for them to
crack the mystery of the vanishing cup: SNIPER!

They flung themselves to the ground
and began crawling for cover.

Along the way, they came across the
cup; its journey had ended in a thicket a few feet from the coffee table.
There was a neat bullet hole punched in each side, the holes aligned as if
drilled by a master machinist.

The whole company got the word in
no time flat. Complacency vanished; every man was jumpy. Crouched in a fighting
hole, Tom Hadley and a trio of his best sharpshooters peered across the swamp
to the treeline marking the plantation’s eastern edge. Treetops still supported
the upside-down Japanese plane and its dead, dangling pilot. Even using
binoculars, no one could pick out the sniper.

“He’s got to be up in those trees
on the edge somewhere,” Hadley said. “If he was any deeper in the plantation,
his field of fire wouldn’t be worth a damn.”

“Why don’t we just rake the
treetops with the thirty cals, Sarge?” a sharpshooter asked. “We’re bound to
hit him that way.”

Without a hint of uncertainty,
Hadley replied, “No. Our machine guns are in perfect defensive positions. We
need them to stay hidden right where they are. If we start using them as
tree-trimmers, we’ll give their positions away. Then we’ll have a lot more than
some sniper to worry about.”

“So what’re we gonna do, Sarge? If
we ever needed a tank, it’s—”

Hadley interrupted, “We ain’t got a
damn tank. But I just got an idea.”

His men didn’t like the sound of
that.

“What kind of idea, Sergeant
Hadley?” another sharpshooter asked. “Don’t tell me you want to send out a
patrol, so we can get picked off one by one.”

“No,” Hadley replied, “better than
that. I’ll be right back. In the meantime, everybody keep their asses down.
Don’t do anything stupid.”

Esme was sailing with the
sunrise out of Milne Bay, rounding East Cape for a day’s run up Papua’s north
coast to Oro Bay. It would be the vessel’s first trip there—and her captain’s
second. From her bridge, Jillian took in the stockpiles of military hardware
being amassed in and around that harbor. The sheer amount of it all made her
think:

It’d take weeks for the mob of
us coastal traders to move all that stuff up to Oro Bay…and
the big ships from Australia just keep bringing more and more.
Too bad they can’t make that bloody trip. It would save us all so much time.

Her ship’s load was like all the
others she had carried since signing on to the Allied merchant navy: the hold
was crammed with ammunition and rations; lashed to the deck were a few light
vehicles—jeeps and light trucks the Yanks called three-quarter tons—and
55-gallon drums of gasoline and oil. She couldn’t carry the tanks Jock and his
men needed so badly; the vehicles already on board taxed the lifting ability of
Esme’s small deck cranes to the limit. Beatrix Van Der Wegge’s Java
Queen was the only ship in the coastal trader fleet that could handle the tanks.
On her reinforced deck, she had space for three, plus the sturdy cranes to lift
them.

There were half a dozen light tanks
lined up on shore at Milne Bay: Stuarts, they were called. Jillian
didn’t find them particularly awe-inspiring: Sixteen tons of armor plate
wrapped around a puny gun. A steel coffin on treads.

But she knew the Yanks at Buna were
desperate for them. Unfortunately, the bigwigs in charge of logistics
considered construction equipment far more important at the moment. So the
Stuarts sat, while bulldozers and earth-moving trucks were loaded onto
Beatrix’s Java Queen.

Esme was steaming west in
the Solomon Sea now, making 15 knots for the 12-hour run to Oro Bay. Her ship’s
company had been enhanced by four, courtesy of the Royal Australian Navy: the
crew of the Oerlikon 20-millimeter cannon freshly mounted to her foredeck.
Jillian patted the ship’s wheel as she thought, You’re really a warship now,
old girl. Maybe the next Jap plane that tries to sink us will get a right
thrashing.

The gunners had been disgusted, at
first, to learn they were assigned to a ship captained by a woman. One young
seaman even had the gall to spit on Esme’s deck. Two facts changed their minds,
though. First, they learned their skipper had just escaped several days in
Japanese captivity. Her first mate hadn’t hesitated to embellish the story:
“Captain Forbes has already killed—single-handedly—a bunch of Japs both at Cape
York and Papua. More than all of you lot put together, I reckon.”

The first mate could tell from
their faces he had reckoned correctly: the most combat any of the gun crew had
seen, most likely, was brawling in a Brisbane pub, where bruised prides were
the only casualties.

“In other words,” the first mate
continued, “the captain’s not to be trifled with or her ship subjected to any
disrespect.”

Second, there was a significant
cache of Australian beer on board, some 60 cases destined for an American unit
at Buna as a New Year’s surprise. “But if you behave yourselves like good lads,”
the Aussie gun crew was also told, “a case of that delicious brew can be
yours.”

Tom Hadley returned to Charlie
Company in short order, riding the hood of a jeep towing two .50-caliber
machine guns on a common wheeled mount. He pointed to a spot at the edge of the
treeline and called to the driver, “Set up over there, pal.”

The jeep sloshed to a stop at the
appointed spot. The three men crewing the weapon disconnected it from the
vehicle, manhandling it the last few feet into position.

“There,” Hadley said, “you’ve got a
great field of fire. This will only take a minute. Then you guys can high-tail
it back to Division.”

“Okay, great,” the buck sergeant in
charge of the twin .50s said. “Now what is it that you want us to do, exactly?
We’re an anti-aircraft unit, you know? We’re not trained to do ground combat.”

“That’s just why I called on you
guys,” Hadley replied. He pointed across the swampy clearing to the far
treeline and asked, “See? What’s in those trees over there?”

“It’s a fucking wrecked airplane,”
the buck sergeant said.

“Right. Now shoot it down. And
while you’re at it, take the tops off the trees fifty yards to either side.”

“Are you shitting me, Top?” the
buck sergeant asked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hadley
replied. “But if I were you, I’d make it snappy. We’ve had a little problem
with snipers around here.”

The twin .50 mount came complete
with a steel shield to protect the gunners. At the word sniper, its
entire crew scrambled to huddle behind it.

“Oh, what the hell,” the buck
sergeant said as he swung the sights onto the suspended airplane and pressed
the trigger button.

Tom Hadley covered his ears and
smiled: The racket of a couple of fifties alone is enough to scare you to
death.

The gun crew did what was asked of
them. It was all over in less than 20 seconds. The machine guns sat silent and
smoking, their ammo drums empty.

“We’re getting the fuck out of
here,” the buck sergeant said as he hurled himself into the driver’s seat.

“Thanks a bunch,” Hadley replied.
“Come back anytime.”

The men on the perimeter were
breathless with excitement. As Hadley walked up, a GI told him, “You should’ve
seen it, First Sergeant. Three of those Jap bastards fell out of the
trees. One of them was hiding in that fucking airplane. Only trouble is, before
those fifties showed up, one of them got Jimmy Quigley. He tried to take a peek
and they shot him dead, right through the neck.”

“Shit,” Hadley said as he surveyed
the now-altered far treeline. What had once been tall coconut palms looked like
well-chewed toothpicks. The wrecked airplane no longer dwelled in the trees; it
was in pieces on the ground.

“Major Miles on the horn, First
Sergeant,” a runner reported.

When Hadley picked up the phone,
Jock asked, “How’d the landscaping go, Tom?”

“Pretty good, sir. I don’t think
we’ll be having much trouble with snipers for a while. Those fifty cals did the
trick.”

“I’m glad they’re good for
something,” Jock replied. “As far as I can tell, they haven’t hit an airplane
yet…and they can’t get close enough to try and split those bunkers open, either.”

Esme was halfway to Oro Bay
when a lookout shouted, “PLANES OFF THE STARBOARD QUARTER—ABOUT A MILE AND
CLOSING.”

Jillian fixed them in her
binoculars. It didn’t take but a second to realize they were Japanese
fighters—two of them, low in the sky…

And they’d be upon the ship in much
less than a minute.

We’re a bloody sitting duck. Not
much room to maneuver in these waters.

Easing the ship’s wheel to port,
Jillian said, “Let’s show them her skinny arse, lads.”

The planes flashed along her
starboard side, their bullets splashing wide off her bow.

The Oerlikon gunner tried to track
them as they sped ahead and broke hard left.

But he couldn’t keep up. His
tracers arced far behind the nimble fighters, never closing the gap.

“LEAD THEM, YOU WANKERS,” Jillian
implored from the bridge.

But the gun crew down on the
foredeck was too far away to hear.

Jillian eased the wheel back to
starboard: Can’t get too close to shore…too many shallow spots.

The fighters lined up for another
pass. This time, they came straight for her port side.

No leading necessary for the
Oerlikon gunner this time…

Just a difficult head-on shot at
their minute front profiles.

The deck gun’s tracers seemed to
float all around the attackers like helpful beacons guiding them to the ship…

But never hitting them.

With the THUNK THUNK THUNK
of a rivet gun gone amok, Japanese bullets slammed against the weathered steel
of Esme’s hull and deckhouse.

The bullets left only dents.

Jillian allowed herself to relax
for a moment: What’s that the Yanks say? Close, but no cigar?

But all that bloody petrol
lashed to the deck…I ought to dump it in the sea right this minute.

The planes sprinted away, making
safe distance from the ship before beginning their turn to strike her once
again.

With nothing to lose—and no hits
yet to his credit—the Oerlikon gunner began firing with planes still a long way
off.

He tried to find the range as the
tracers—short of their mark—bounced crazily off the water.

“BRING IT UP, LAD…BRING IT UP,” the
gun crew yelled at their mate on the trigger.

He did.

Like magic, both planes suddenly
pulled straight up and over, reversing direction and racing away with engines
screaming.

If the planes had been hit, no one
could tell. All they knew was the Japs were leaving in a hurry.

Everyone on board wanted to slap
the gunner on the back and give him a hearty, You did it, lad! Well done!

But then they saw the real reason
the Japanese planes were fleeing: a quartet of American fighters—P-40s by their
silhouettes—were diving down from high overhead, giving chase.

For the Aussie gunners, the thrill
of bagging an enemy aircraft would have to wait. The relief of the fight being
over would have to suffice for now.

“It’s about bloody time,” Jillian
said. “The Yank Air Force is finally doing what it promised.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

It had only cost a few cases of
beer to bribe the GI truck driver. Just like Jillian figured, he’d be glad to
take her and the rest of the golden brew up to Buna.

These Yanks will do anything for
some grog.

It was late afternoon when the
truck pulled up to 1st Battalion’s CP. Melvin Patchett was the first
out of the tent. He was surprised—and delighted—to see her, especially after he
saw what was waiting to be unloaded. Within a few moments, he had a detail
carrying the cases of beer into the CP on the double.

“Young lady,” Patchett said, “are
you trying to corrupt us fine American boys with all this Australian mother’s
milk?”

“I doubt I could corrupt you Yanks
any worse than you already are,” Jillian replied as she gave him a big hug.
“Where’s the major?”

“Up at Regiment. I’ll give them a
ring and—”

“No, don’t,” she said. “I want to
surprise him.”

“That you will, dear girl. That you
will.”

When Jock stepped into his CP some
30 minutes later, he was afraid he was dreaming: there was the woman he loved,
perched high on a stack of beer. He stood there, dumbfounded; no words would
come out.

“Nice to see you too, Yank,” she
said, enjoying his stunned surprise as she jumped down to her feet. “I thought
I’d bring the lads some New Year’s spirit.”

The next thing she said made Jock,
Patchett, and everyone else in the tent burst out laughing: “I’m not going to
get you in any trouble, am I?”

Jock replied, “What kind of trouble
could be worse than what we’re already in?”

He began to pull her by the arm out
of the tent.

“Sergeant Major, I’m going to take
a walk up to Cape Sudest with Miss Forbes,” Jock said. “Charlie Company can
fetch me if you need me.”

“No problem, sir,” Patchett
replied. “Take your time. But just one thing…” He handed a helmet to Jillian.
“Best put this on, Miss Forbes. Snipers, you know.”

She glanced at Jock for a clue if
Patchett might be joking. The look on his face told her the sergeant major
definitely was not.

They stretched out among some big
rocks at Cape Sudest, not far from a Charlie Company outpost. “Good cover
here,” Jock said. Their hideaway afforded a splendid view of the sea and the
setting sun. It was a fine place to share a K ration supper.

There was quiet, too: not a bomb,
artillery round, or gunshot to be heard.

Buna could almost be a lush,
tropical paradise—if only your mind could forget it was also a burgeoning
cemetery.

It had only been a week since
Jillian last saw him. He had been gaunt then—much too thin. Now he looked even
worse.

“Your skin…it’s all yellow,” she
said.

“It’s the Atabrine, Jill. Supposed
to help prevent malaria.”

The exhaustion she had seen in his
eyes the last time was still there. The despair was gone, though, replaced with
what she could only believe was acceptance:

Bloody hell! He thinks he’s
already dead…and he’s accepting it. I’ve heard about this before: soldiers can
only function if they believe they’re already dead. Otherwise, any sane man
would be running as fast as he could to get away from the madness.

They always knew every time
together could be their last. But this time, there seemed an ominous certainty
about it.

His gaze fixed out to sea, he said,
“They want us to make an amphibious attack…”

She wasn’t surprised. She had seen
the growing collection of barges and landing craft at Oro Bay—far more than
were necessary to unload the coastal traders.

“When, Jock?”

“A week or so.”

“How’s that going to work?”

“It’s not, Jill. It’s a fool’s
game. We’re going to die in record numbers. The Japs will win.”

They watched in silence as clumps
of driftwood washed ashore, the waterlogged planks smashing to pieces as they
crashed against the rocks.

“We’re going to end up just like
that,” Jock said, “just broken pieces floating in the water.” He said it so
matter-of-factly; if she hadn’t seen his face, she might have thought he was
making an idle observation instead of a dire prediction.

He seemed too tired to think and
plan beyond moment-to-moment necessities of survival anymore.

But she wasn’t too tired. Her mind
reeled feverishly, searching for anything that might reverse the inevitability
of failure—and death.

Maybe this will do it…

“We’ve got tanks for you down at Milne
Bay,” she said. “Isn’t that what you need?”

“Tanks at Milne Bay don’t do us a
damn bit of good here, Jill.”

“But we can bring them to you!”

“Can you do it by tomorrow?”

They both knew the answer to that
question was beyond their control.

“They’re making us bring the bloody
construction equipment first,” she said.

“Of course they are,” Jock replied
with a sneer. “What’s more important than building their fucking airfields?”

She watched as more driftwood
shattered against the rocks…

And it gave her an idea:

“Jock, it’s a fool’s game, you
say…and I’m sure you’re right. But suppose you staged an amphibious attack that
was really just a diversion—a decoy for the real attack?”

“But the diversion, Jill…the men
trying to pull it off will get slaughtered.”

“Suppose it didn’t have any men—the
whole thing was a ruse. Would that work?”

There was a light in his eyes that
hadn’t been there a moment ago. He had no idea exactly what she was suggesting,
but the possibility there was something—anything—they could do other
than the guaranteed disaster General Freidenburg wanted was enough to spark a
ray of hope.

“It’s simple,” Jillian began.
“There’s a whole bloody fleet of old barges and whaleboats at Oro Bay that are
useless and in the way. Most of their engines still run. We’re supposed to take
them out and scuttle them…but what if we towed them off Buna—at night, of
course—lashed their tillers down and set them straight for shore? We could fill
them with explosives and gasoline drums on very long fuzes…”

“You mean fireships? That’s
a centuries-old tactic, Jill. Do you really think it would fool them?”

“Why not? You told me your blokes got
fooled by firecrackers, didn’t you?”

Jock had to laugh at himself.
“Point taken,” he said.

Jillian wasn’t finished. “We could
even cut palm fronds to look like men’s silhouettes and nail them into the
boats. That should get the Japs soiling their trousers, don’t you think?”

“And while they’re distracted with
all that,” Jock added, “we can push in from the land side. We could probably
get halfway to Buna Village before they realized what the hell was going on.”

“So what do you think, Yank?”

“I think we’d better go talk to
Colonel Molloy right now.”

Jock and Jillian were sure the
colonel was going to say no. Molloy sat in silence, staring off into space, as
they described their plan. Once they were finished, he still had nothing to
say. They stood before him in the awkward silence—anxiously hoping for his
approval—for what seemed like an eternity.

When he finally spoke, his words
were steeped in tones of rejection.

“What bothers me most,” Colonel
Molloy said, “is your plan’s reliance on civilians. They’ll be preparing the
boats for the fake assault, they’ll bring them into position, they’ll launch
them toward shore. I can’t risk the lives of my men for a plan that rests so
heavily on non-military personnel not under my command.”

That was the wrong thing to say to
Jillian Forbes. The air began to charge with the energy of her response before
she spoke a word.

“Colonel,” she began, “you seem to
have forgotten your whole operation depends on the civilians you think
so little of. Who do you think brings all your supplies? It’s civilian
sailors like me. Whatever those bloody little airplanes of yours bring in
doesn’t amount to a trickle compared to what comes over the water.”

Molloy began to wish he had chosen
his words more wisely.

Jillian continued, “And who’s been
carting those supplies through jungles, down rivers, and over mountains for
you…when they’re not carrying the litters of your wounded and burying your
dead? Or have you inducted all those natives into your army?”

She waited for him to absorb those
blows before adding, “No, wait…then you’d have to actually pay a generous
wage—like the rest of you wankers get—instead of the pittance you throw at
them.”

“Miss Forbes,” Molloy said, “I
don’t mean to imply I’m not appreciative of your—”

“Good,” she cut in. “Then let us civilians
help you even more…before Buna becomes nothing but a Yank graveyard.”

Molloy went silent again. But this
time, he didn’t seem to be contemplating yes or no. It was more like how
and when?

Jock asked, “I suppose it’s too
much to ask that the other two regiments help us out this time?”

“You suppose correctly, Jock,”
Molloy replied. “That would involve coordinating through Division…and General
Freidenburg would put the screws to this scheme the second he heard it. He’ll
see it as someone trying to step on his toes…and he’d be right. Better he knows
nothing about this fireship scheme until it’s all over.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jock said. “But
speaking of coordinating, how will we maintain communications with you
civilians?”

Glaring at him like he was an
idiot, Jillian replied, “We do have wireless on our ships, you know.”

Before Jock could say anything,
Molloy asked, “But what about message security, Miss Forbes? All messages have
to be coded…and I can’t release our codes to you.”

“You don’t have to,” she replied.
“We’ll let you use our merchant navy codes.” She pulled a small notebook from
her pocket. “Copy it quickly, please. I need it back.”

Molloy’s concerns didn’t stop
there. “But General Freidenburg’s assault is laid on for the sixth of
January—less than seven days from now,” he said. “We couldn’t possibly pull
this off before then…could we?”

“Colonel, we could have those boats
off Buna as early as tomorrow night,” Jillian replied, “the first of January.
We civilians aren’t bogged in all your military red tape.”

“Well, we’re not going to do it
tomorrow night, that’s for sure,” Molloy said. “How much time do you need to
get your men ready, Jock?”

“We could go in forty-eight hours,
sir.”

“Very fine,” Molloy replied. “If we
set it for oh-one hundred on January third, is that agreeable to you, Miss
Forbes?”

“Absolutely, Colonel.”

“Good,” Molloy said. “It’s set,
then. One more thing, Miss Forbes…you’re positive there are half a dozen Stuart
tanks awaiting shipment at Milne Bay?”

“Without a doubt, Colonel.”

She could see the question in his
eyes. It was breaking her heart the answer couldn’t be yes.

“I can’t stay, Jock,” Jillian said.
“I’ve got to get back to my ship…and get the wheels turning on our little
plan.”

“I know,” Jock replied. “We’ve both
got a lot to do.”

He could feel the distance already
growing between them although they were still close enough to touch.

Within minutes of their arrival at
Jock’s CP, Patchett had a jeep waiting to take her back to Oro Bay. As she
hopped into the passenger’s seat, Jock said, “Don’t even think about being
anywhere near Buna—offshore or onshore—when we launch this attack, Jill. I mean
it.”

The kiss she gave him tried to
convey so much: hopes, dreams, reassurances, confidence—anything but the
nagging fear growing within her that somehow she was creating the circumstances
of his death.

“I wouldn’t worry, silly boy,” she
replied, trying her best to dodge the issue. “I’ve got a ship to look after.”

“I’m serious, Jill. Don’t.”

Colonel Molloy wasted no time
tracking down General Freidenburg. He was at one of the airfield construction
sites near Dobodura, admiring the repair work in progress on the bomb-damaged
runway.

The general said, “These coloreds
do some fine work as long as they’re closely supervised. Wouldn’t you agree,
Colonel?”

The urge to reply with sho-nuff,
massa, was very strong, but sarcasm wouldn’t help Dick Molloy
a bit right now. Instead, he replied, “Yes, sir, but there’s something I must
discuss with you.”

“Go ahead, Colonel,” Freidenburg
said, his eyes never drifting from the natives hard at work on his airfield.
“I’m all ears.”

“General, are you aware there are
six Stuart tanks at Milne Bay, just waiting to be shipped up here? And there’s
a ship on hand capable of carrying them to Oro Bay?”

Freidenburg acted surprised to hear
that.

Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn’t,
Molloy thought. But he learned something a long time ago: generals
always knew everything they wanted to know.

“Stuarts! How do you know that,
Colonel?”

“An eyewitness told me, sir.”

“Even if that’s true, Colonel, it
would be a week or more before they could be here and—”

“Negative, sir. I’m told they could
be here in two to three days.”

The general appraised Molloy with
the cold, dead eyes of a shark. His voice soft yet menacing, he replied, “Do
not interrupt me again, Colonel. As I was saying, a few tanks that may or may
not be at Milne Bay will not be necessary after your men storm Buna Village
from the sea. It might be different if tanks could be part of that amphibious
assault, but we don’t have the landing ships for that. Do I make myself clear?”

The only thing that was clear to
Dick Molloy: General Freidenburg was every bit as obtuse as the man he
replaced.

January1943

Chapter Thirty-Six

First Sergeant Tom Hadley was delighted
to no longer be acting company commander of Charlie Company. He greeted Lee
Grossman, the real company commander, by handing him a bottle of beer. “Happy
New Year, Lieutenant,” Hadley said. “Here…have a brew, sir. Everybody gets
one…and you sure as hell look like you need it.”

“Better not,” Grossman replied,
gently rubbing his belly. “This gut’s going to be tender for quite a while. Doc
said mine was the worst case of dysentery he’d ever seen. I damn near died of
dehydration.”

“Well, on behalf of every swinging
dick in the outfit, it’s good to have you back, sir,” Hadley said. “But with
all due respect, you do look like you got rode hard and put away wet. You sure
you’re up to this? We’re going back into the plantation tomorrow night, you
know.”

“Tom, I’ve had my ass dangling over
a slit trench for the better part of two weeks. It’s time I did my bit again.
Let’s start with you filling me in on who’s in charge of what in this company
now.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Hadley
said, “but before we do that, the men would like to give you a little welcome
back present.”

As a crowd of GIs watched, two
privates approached, each concealing something behind his back. Once standing
before Lieutenant Grossman, they dropped to one knee and produced the hidden objects.
Each man held out a roll of toilet paper. On the side of both rolls were
written the words Reserved for Company Commander’s Use Only.

“We figured these might come in
handy, sir,” Hadley said.

For a moment, the men thought their
C.O. had not found their gift funny at all. But after an awkward, silent
moment, he took the offered rolls, tucked them under his arm, and—with a big
smile—said, “Thank you very much, men. I’m sure I’ll be putting this generous
gift to good use…and real soon, too.”

The men were surprised to hear a
sound they didn’t think existed anymore; it was the sound of their own
laughter.

Less than a mile away, in a
stinking, squalid bunker, the Japanese soldier wrote:

The
lieutenant killed himself today

As if
the failure of the Empire was solely his

And
his alone

Maybe
the hunger drove him crazy

Or
the diet of lies we have been forced to live on

They
said our victory was certain

But
the boats no longer come, bringing fresh troops each night

All
clean and strong

Ready
to be sacrificed

Or
just join the ranks of the starving

The
dead feed us now

Ours…theirs…it
makes no difference

The
lieutenant killed himself today

Already
there is not much left of him

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Sergeant Major Patchett’s grease
pencil squeaked as it made the last of the day’s entries on the unit manpower
board. Totaling the columns yielded a bleak picture: barely 200 combat-able
men—less than half of a full-strength battalion—would be attacking the Duropa
Plantation later that night. Zero hour for the attack—3 January at 0100—was
just six short hours away.

Patchett had been meticulous not to
include the survivors of the Kapa Kapa in his tally. They were not combat fit. Hell,
Patchett told himself, the bunch of us who wasn’t on the damn Kapa Kapa
ain’t all that fit ourselves. But we gotta draw the line somewhere whether you
fish or cut bait.

The men from the Kapa Kapa would cut
bait. They’d man the battalion and company CPs, handling the phones and
radios, freeing able men for the assault. They’d even man the fighting holes
providing headquarters security; with any luck at all, that task would prove to
be more convention than necessity.

But they wouldn’t be making that
walk in the dark into the plantation.

One of the Kapa Kapa men manning
the phones called out: “Major Miles, Regiment says the boats are leaving Oro Bay
now.”

“Excellent. Right on time,” Jock
replied.

Already in his field gear, Jock
slung his Thompson and stepped from the tent into the gray light of dusk.
Patchett did the same, telling himself, Time to do a little fishing.

They would be making that
walk into the plantation.

The captain of the ocean-going tug,
Mieke, was not a happy man. Hendrik Jansen had allowed his cousin,
Beatrix Van Der Wegge, captain of Java Queen, to badger him into this voyage
on two conditions: first, he would go no closer than two miles to the shore at
Buna Village, rather than the one mile that crazy Australian girl Beatrix was
so fond of wanted; second, Beatrix would forgive one-half of the 10,000 gulden
in Netherlands East Indies currency he was in debt to her.

He had begun to have second
thoughts on the incentive of the second condition: If the fucking Japs win,
that Dutch money is worthless, anyway. I’d be off the hook.

It was too late for Hendrik to back
out now, though. His blacked-out tug—and the 25 barges and whaleboats it was
slowly towing from Oro Bay—was drawing close to Buna. Full of fake men,
dynamite, and gasoline to boot, he thought. We’ll be lucky if we don’t
all get blown to bits. And I’m already in trouble with the Yank Navy.
Indeed he was: he was supposed to be picking up another load of barges at Milne
Bay this very night.

Jillian spun the dials on Mieke’s
radio direction finder, plotting the bearings to the Japanese transmitters at
Lae and Rabaul as well as the Australian Navy station at Milne Bay. She smiled
as the three radio vectors intersected on the chart quite close to her
celestial plot. “About a mile to the release point,” she told Hendrik. “Twelve
more minutes on this heading and speed.”

Somewhere in the darkness to the
south lay Buna Village.

“Let’s get the skiffs ready,” she
said.

Twelve minutes later, Mieke’s
throttles were cut and she coasted to a stop. Her two skiffs were
lowered into the water. The starter ropes for their small outboard engines—short
lengths with a knot in one end and a wooden handle on the other—were wound onto
the flywheels and given mighty pulls. The outboards came to life with a steady putt-putt
which had never before seemed so loud.

“The Japs are going to hear these bloody
engines all the way to Rabaul, let alone Buna,” the Dutchman with Jillian in
the first skiff said.

“If we do this right, Ruud,”
Jillian replied, “we’ll be long gone before they suspect a thing. For all they
know, these are their boats. They won’t risk lighting us up with a
searchlight…not right away, at any rate.”

In a most unconfident tone, Ruud
said, “I hope you’re right, missy.”

Jillian and Ruud—plus the two
crewmen in the other skiff—went about the business of maneuvering the unmanned
boats for their blind southerly run to shore. Six big barges would be in the
lead, towing columns of three boats each. Engines roared to life, tillers were
lashed amidships. Very long fuzes for the explosives were lit.

That left one boat—a big whaleboat
loaded with barrels of gasoline—as a free agent. It was the fastest boat of the
lot and its engine the loudest of all: a corroded muffler had seen to that.
They’d set this one to sail southwest—toward shore but diagonally away from the
other boats. Hopefully, its noise would divert the attention of the Japanese,
making the arrival of the other two dozen boats at a different point on the
beach all the more alarming.

The big whaleboat’s engine was
cranked and Jillian steered her to the southwesterly course. Lashing down the
tiller, she said, “Light her fuze, Ruud…and let’s get the bloody hell out of
here.” They jumped into the skiff and cast off from the floating timebomb.

The roar of the whaleboat’s
unmuffled engine drowned out the putt-putt of the skiff’s outboard motor
for a good 15 seconds—until that roar sputtered and died.

“Go back,” Jillian said to Ruud on
the skiff’s tiller. “We’ve got to start her again.”

“Forget it,” the Dutchman replied.
“I’m not getting my ass blown up for you or some Yanks.”

“That son of a bitch won’t blow for
a good ten minutes,” she said, “and a lot of good blokes are depending on us to
make this work. Turn this fucking boat around. Now.”

The helmsman laughed and replied,
“I don’t take orders from you, missy.”

She didn’t bother answering. He was
seated on the side bench, one arm casually draped over the outboard motor’s
tiller, his long legs spread wide apart.

She kicked him squarely in the
balls.

As he writhed in pain, she grabbed
him by his feet and levered him over the side.

“Best inflate your life belt,
Ruud,” she called to the man now struggling in the water. “I’ll be back for you
when I’m done. Don’t go too bloody far.”

It didn’t take but a few minutes to
figure out what was wrong with the whaleboat’s engine in general terms: Plenty
of fuel but no bloody spark. The battery’s going to give out if I keep trying
to crank her, too.

Fumbling in the sparse illumination
of her blackout flashlight, she got to the heart of the problem: The bloody
ignition lead is so corroded, it fell right out of the distributor.

Using her pocket knife, she
stripped clean the ignition wire and distributor terminal.

Now, how do I hold them
together?

Her bootlace did the trick: a few
sturdy wraps around the lead and post, secured with a sound knot, and the
circuit was restored.

If only the bloody battery has
enough life for one more crank…

It didn’t. Pushing the start
button resulted in nothing but a few anemic clicks of the solenoid.

I’ll have to pull-start her.

She glanced at the fuze, sizzling
its way around the whaleboat: Looks like it’s about half burned down. Maybe
five minutes left.

Five minutes—at most—until
the fuze set off the dynamite and gasoline drums, blowing this boat to
matchsticks and setting the sea on fire.

Jillian needed a starter rope.
There was one in the skiff—the one they used to crank her outboard.

She held it in her hands, examining
it closely:

It’s too short. It’ll never turn
over this big motor enough to get her started.

The only other rope was the long,
stout length tying the skiff to the whaleboat’s beam—and it had plenty of extra
hanging from the cleat.

She cut it, knotted one end and
wrapped it around the crankshaft’s start pulley.

It fit perfectly.

She grasped the rope with both
hands and tugged with all her might.

The rope slipped through her hands;
the crankshaft didn’t budge.

I need a handle on the free end
of this bloody rope…something to give me more grip.

Her eyes fell on the skiff’s bilge:

The oar!

She tied the rope to the oar’s
handle. They formed a “T” she could grab firmly with both hands.

Jillian pulled…

She was rewarded with a partial
turn of the crankshaft—one pumff of a cylinder’s compression stroke…

And that was all.

The burning fuze rounded another
turn in its path to the dynamite caps.

Four minutes…maybe. I need more
leverage!

Jillian tried straddling the engine
block, squatting as low as the machinery allowed. She pulled again…

This time, two pumffs…and
then silence.

More bloody leverage!

She climbed onto the engine itself,
struggling for a precarious foothold among the manifolds and wires.

Jillian wound the rope’s slack
around the oar’s handle, making a short, tight lead to the pulley, squatted
low…

And sprung to a standing position
with every ounce of strength in her being.

She went flying as the rope played
out from the pulley.

Tumbling backward, she ended up
wedged in a sitting position between the engine block and deck, her backside
stuck into the bilge.

But the loud mechanical throbbing
between her knees could only mean one thing:

Success. The engine was running.

The whaleboat was moving again,
heading with purpose toward shore—and the Japanese.

The fuze was in the final leg of
its long, circuitous run to the dynamite.

Three minutes, tops.

She leaped into the skiff and cast
off from the vessel about to find its destiny as a fireship. The raucous
sound of her unmuffled engine grew fainter.

Jillian couldn’t find the starter
rope for the outboard.

Bloody hell! It’s still on the
other boat!

She tried to fit the rope she had
fashioned for the whaleboat’s engine into the outboard’s flywheel:

Too thick!

At least she still had the oar.

In the moonlight, she could see the
faint outline of Mieke, 200 yards—maybe more—to the north. She kept
rowing.

Somewhere in between—hopefully—was
Ruud.

At least without this bloody
kicker running, I’ll be able to hear the wanker sobbing.

Ruud must have heard the slap of
the oar, because he began to call her name, mixed into a continuous string of
curses.

“KEEP IT UP, WANKER,” she called
out, “IF YOU DON’T MIND DROWNING.”

Jillian edged the skiff toward the
sound of his voice. Soon, she could catch glimpses of his head, wet and
glistening in the moonlight, as it bobbed not far off in the low swells.

Reaching him, she thought the wiser
of offering a helping hand to climb back into the skiff.

The bastard will just pull me in
for spite.

She threw him the rope instead.

Ruud sloshed over the side, an
animated silhouette, eyes glowing with rage.

His profane tirade began anew,
first in Dutch: “Stomme kut! Stomme hoer!”

And then in English: “I
swear to God, I’ll fucking kill—”

The brilliant orange flash lit the
sea and everything on it for an instant. A split second later, the sound of the
whaleboat’s detonation assaulted their ears.

Ruud’s face was no longer just a
dark shape with luminous eyes. In the flare of the explosion, Jillian could
watch as his anger and hate changed abruptly to shock and fear.

There was good reason for the
sudden change: he could see the seaman’s knife in her hand, reflecting the
fire’s light as if it, too, was ablaze.

He remembered Hendrik’s warning: Mind
Beatrix’s words…that crazy woman will gut you like a fish if you cross her.

At first, they thought the fire
spreading across the water’s surface was throwing brilliant sparks.

Then they realized what they were
seeing was actually tracers bouncing off the water all around them.

Large-caliber tracers, at that,
aimed at the pool of fire spreading from where there was once a whaleboat.

“We’ve certainly caught the Jap’s
attention now,” Jillian said, pumping the oar through the water as if competing
in an Olympic event.

Ruud’s arm was over the side, the
palm of his hand paddling frantically, adding whatever propulsion he could.

The skiff drew closer to Mieke. They
could hear the THUNK of rounds striking the tug’s steel hull.

They were so near—but Mieke
was beginning to move away, her propellers churning the sea beneath her stern.

A loud CRACK—and all at once
a whirlwind of stinging splinters, a splatter of something warm and wet. The
sea began to flood in where the skiff’s bow used to be only a moment before.

The last thing Jillian heard was
the inflation cartridge on her life belt hissing like an enraged viper.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Charlie Company lay poised on the
eastern edge of Duropa Plantation. The sea to their right, the rest of the
battalion to their left, they were ready—and waiting—to push west toward Buna.
When that first whaleboat exploded in the night, it didn’t seem very impressive
at all. Lieutenant Lee Grossman began to doubt the wisdom of this whole attack,
asking, “That’s it? That’s the whole damn diversion?”

The whaleboat’s fiery demise—several
miles away, well out to sea and over so quickly—seemed to have little effect
other than to rouse a robust Japanese response. Judging by the amount of
Japanese firepower raking the sea, the weary, disheveled men of Grossman’s
company were thanking their lucky stars they were on land right now—even if it
wasn’t exactly dry land—and not out on that water, trying to storm the
beach in flimsy wooden boats as General Freidenburg would have them do in a few
days.

But if the attack they were about
to launch succeeded, there’d be no need for dying in the little boats. At the
moment, though, this attack seemed just as stupid as the general’s plan.

The GIs’ thinking didn’t change for
a few minutes—until the main body of the fireships erupted in a
thunderous succession of explosions, showering flaming gasoline onto a broad
stretch of beach just a mile or two ahead.

“Now that’s more like it,”
Grossman said.

Tom Hadley, his first sergeant, was
even more expressive: “It’s like we’re staring into a red-hot furnace...”

Indeed, the rows of coconut palms
between them and the beach could resemble a furnace’s grill in a man’s
imagination.

Understanding the power of the
flames within that furnace required no imagination at all.

Hadley squinted into the distance
for a better look. “Looks like those bunkers along the beach took a dose of
burning gas, sir.”

That sounded like a good bet: the
Japanese heavy weapons firing out to sea had stopped. All that could be heard
now was the irregular poom…poompoom of their ammo cooking off.

“I think it’s now or never, guys,”
Lieutenant Grossman said. “Let’s get moving.”

Within minutes, the men of Charlie
Company were deeper into Duropa Plantation than they’d ever been…

And they hadn’t taken a round of
enemy fire.

The blaze’s orange light shone from
the beach like a beacon guiding the GIs forward—without lighting them up like
targets for the slaughter.

The first line of bunkers—the
bunkers that had stopped them cold on each of their previous attacks into the
plantation—were backlit by the flames. The GIs could make out their shapes
clearly.

Carefully, they skirted the silent
bunkers and then approached them from the rear—close enough to hurl grenades
through their entryways.

When the dust from the grenades’
explosions settled, they stormed inside—and found no one…

No one alive, anyway.

But the grenades hadn’t killed a
soul.

The corpses, stacked like cordwood
in corners, had been dead for a long time.

Some were missing limbs.

All seemed to be stripped of flesh
somewhere.

The corpses weren’t all Japanese.
Tom Hadley noticed that right away.

Some of the bodies had dog tags—GI
dog tags—around their necks. Hadley reached out for one.

“Careful, Sarge…they might be
booby-trapped,” a squad leader said.

The first sergeant paid no
attention. He read the name on a dog tag.

Then another.

Hadley looked stricken. They could
barely hear him when he mumbled, “Son of a bitch!”

Then he said it again, much louder
this time.

There was no need to ask Hadley
what was wrong. Everyone knew.

They needed to get out of that
bunker, to get some fresh air…

Even if that air stunk from the
fumes of the inferno on the beach.

Better that than the stench of
death.

Lee Grossman arrived to find most
of the GIs around that bunker hunched over, puking the meager contents of their
stomachs.

Grossman asked Hadley, “What the
hell is going on, Tom?”

The first sergeant had trouble
putting the words together. Finally, they spilled out in an anguished torrent:
“Miserable fucking bastard lowlife animals…”

Lee Grossman wasn’t sure who or
what he was talking about.

Hadley saved him the trouble of
asking: “OUR GUYS, SIR! THE GUYS WE COULDN’T FIND…THOSE BASTARDS, THEY WERE
EATING THEM!” His voice dropped: “No wonder we  couldn’t—”

Tom Hadley’s words were cut off as
he surrendered to his own nausea.

Grossman struggled to put the
terrible visions out of his mind. There was a more immediate problem: huddled
in distraught clusters, his men seemed anything but alert:

Do they need to be reminded we
may be just yards from the enemy?

An eruption of heavy gunfire far
off their left flank, where the rest of the battalion was, reinforced his
thinking:

There are still Japs around here
somewhere…and plenty of them.

Another problem: when the blaze on
the beach died down, they’d all be night-blind for a while.

We’re not done here and we don’t
have much time. I’ve got to get them moving, right now.

But he didn’t need to say a word to
make that happen.

GIs who were disoriented and
doubled over with nausea just a moment ago had—on the double—fallen into
combat formations. At First Sergeant Hadley’s forceful direction, they were
stalking deeper into the plantation.

A sense of rage hovered over the
company now, subdued yet powerful enough to overcome the illness, exhaustion,
and misfortune they had suffered.

It was powerful enough to channel
the unspeakable horror they had just witnessed—a horror among horrors that
would stay with them forever—into one purpose: retribution for the desecration
inflicted on their buddies.

Every man—even the lowest
private—felt the same:

Dying was one thing…shit, we’re
all gonna die…but even a man you killed deserves respect after he’s gone.

We’ve had it just as bad as you,
you little bastards…maybe worse.

But no matter how bad things
got, we never ate the dead.

We’re better than you, you
fucking cannibals…and now we’re going to show you just how much better.

Sergeant Major Patchett appeared
out of the darkness just as the last platoon of Charlie Company was moving out.
He smiled with satisfaction as he watched them go; an old soldier could tell a
good unit from a worthless one at a glance.

“I’ve got to show you something,”
Grossman told him.

Inside the bunker, Patchett
retraced the steps Hadley had taken, reading each dog tag.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” the
sergeant major said, and then spat on the ground. “Better get Major Miles over
here.”

They stepped outside the bunker.
Patchett said, “No wonder your boys were looking real sharp, Lieutenant. It’s a
damn shame, too, but I reckon we got ourselves the cat-list for certain
now.”

The light from the fires had dimmed
to a faint glow far in the distance.

“I can’t see a fucking thing, Top,”
a platoon sergeant said to Tom Hadley.

Hadley replied, “So what? It just
means they can’t see us, either.”

Charlie Company had reached the
second line of bunkers without even realizing it.

The first clue came from a trooper
who had walked right into a bunker’s stout wall of logs and earthwork.

He heard voices from inside—excited
voices—and they weren’t speaking English.

A few feet to his left a Nambu
machine gun began firing, its muzzle sweeping wildly back and forth, spitting
tracers into the darkness in an arc too narrow to touch him.

Surprising even himself, the
trooper climbed on top of the bunker and—almost casually—dropped a grenade into
one of its vent holes.

The grenade exploded. The Nambu
stopped firing.

He slid down the backside of the
bunker and walked in.

There were just two Japanese
soldiers inside.

One was motionless on the ground.

The other was screaming his head
off…

Probably calling for his mama.

Two rounds from an M1 silenced the
screamer as First Sergeant Hadley rushed in.

“You okay?” Hadley asked.

“Yeah,” the trooper replied. “Just
fine. Gotta ask you something, though, Top.”

“Go ahead.”

“You shot guys before, right?”

“Yeah…a couple I know about,
anyway.”

“Did it bother you any?”

“A little bit,” Hadley replied.
“Still does.”

“Funny, but it ain’t bothering me
at all right now…not these fucking bastard cannibals.”

The trooper fired another round
into each of the dead Japs.

“All right, that’s enough,” Hadley
said. “You only have to kill them once. Save your ammo. You’re gonna need it.”

Farther south—to Charlie Company’s
left—Able and Baker Companies were still stuck at the first line of bunkers.
The automatic weapons fire they faced was murderous. They pulled back to
regroup as Jock called his company commanders together.

Despite his still-healing wounds,
Theo Papadakis was as feisty as ever. He was frustrated, too: “How come Grossman’s
not hitting hardly any resistance at all, while we’re still fighting the whole
damn Imperial Japanese Army?”

Tracing his fingers along the map
spread on the ground, Jock Miles said, “It’s simple, Theo. The Japs facing
Lee’s company pulled back to defend the beach when the fireships hit,
just like we hoped they would. The ones facing you and Tony didn’t. But they’ve
still given us an opening we can exploit.”

Tony Colletti, Baker Company’s
commander, asked, “So how far has Charlie advanced?”

“Looks like they’re about a mile
into the plantation,” Jock said. “Is that right, Lee?”

“Yes, sir,” Grossman replied. “Near
as we can figure in the dark.”

“Shit,” Papadakis said, “that’s
almost to Buna Mission. Another half mile and you’re in Buna Village. Are you
guys finding any more bunkers?”

“Again, it’s hard to tell in the
dark, Theo,” Grossman replied, “but we’re past the second line now, and we
haven’t come up against anything else.”

Practically jumping up and down
with eagerness, Papadakis said, “Let’s go, then! We can bypass all this shit in
our sector and follow Lee and his boys right into Buna Village. We’ll be there
by sunrise. Wouldn’t that surprise the shit out of the Japs when we join them
for breakfast?”

Nobody laughed. No one wanted to
hear jokes about eating right now. Not after what Charlie Company had
found earlier.

“Anyway, I’ve told Lee to stop and
dig in where they are,” Jock said.

Papadakis couldn’t believe what he
was hearing: “Why? Why stop now, sir?”

“Because,” Jock replied, “all those
Japs that pulled back, thinking we were going to hit Buna Village from the
water? Well, we’ve got to be ready for them when they decide to return. A lone
company could get cut off real easy.”

Papadakis wasn’t giving up. “But
ain’t that what Third Battalion is for, sir? Protecting our flanks…and our
asses?”

“Sorry, Theo,” Jock replied, “but
I’ve seen enough of Colonel Vann’s people under fire. So have you. I’m not
going to trust them to protect us.”

“Amen to that, sir,” Melvin
Patchett said.

Jock continued, “Now, Theo…this is
what I need you and Tony to do. We’ve had a lucky break. For the first time,
we’ve broken their line of defense. Move your companies through the area
Charlie has cleared and take out the bunkers in your sectors from behind…while
it’s still dark and they can’t see you coming.” He sketched a line on the map.
“Don’t go any farther into the plantation than this line. Link up with Charlie
Company on your right. We need to stay close together so if a counterattack
comes our companies don’t get cut up piecemeal. Do I make myself clear?”

Papadakis and Colletti nodded in
unison.

Patchett added, “Shouldn’t be no
big thing taking those bunkers in the dark. You know exactly where they
are…damn fools have been firing tracers at you all night.”

Tony Colletti had one more
question: “If we can pull that off, sir…have we gained enough to make that
amphibious landing the general wants unnecessary?”

Jock replied, “That’s a real good
question, Tony.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Beatrix Van Der Wegge couldn’t
sleep, even though it was the dead of night. She and her ship were stuck at Milne
Bay: those idiot Yanks in charge of supply have proven their incompetence
once again. Bloody fools could fuck up a free lunch.

Beatrix decided to drown her
frustrations in whiskey. She should have been at Oro Bay already—and on the
tug, Mieke, with Jillian.

But the Americans at Milne Bay had
ruined all that. After spending last night loading her ship with the usual
complement of heavy construction vehicles, her manifest and sailing orders were
cancelled at the last minute. Java Queen was to be unloaded. Her new
cargo would be three of the Stuart tanks that had languished on the wharf for
days.

When she asked the reason for the
change, the pencil-pushing American lieutenant had pointed skyward and replied,
“Orders from upstairs, ma’am. Some general must’ve changed his mind.”

The unloading and reloading would
take until tomorrow morning. Java Queen would then be on her way. By
this time tomorrow night, the tanks would be at Oro Bay.

Beatrix poured herself another
glass and thought, It’s a shame I have to leave Jillian all alone with my
cretin of a cousin and his barbarians. But no worries…she can handle herself
anywhere.

It was 0500 before Lee Grossman got
back to Charlie Company. He didn’t have much trouble finding it in the dark;
all he had to do was follow the sounds of one vicious skirmish after another
being waged.

But the gunfire wasn’t coming from
his company’s perimeter. Once safely within its bounds, Grossman asked the
first platoon sergeant he could find, “Where’s First Sergeant Hadley?”

The platoon sergeant pointed toward
the sound of the gunfire. “He’s over by the beach, sir, I guess. He heard boats
coming—”

Worried and impatient, Grossman
interrupted, “What boats? Not our decoy boats?”

“No, sir. Not ours…theirs. Lots of
them. He took a thirty cal, one of the mortars, and all the ammo they could
carry with him.”

“Damn it,” Grossman said. “I told
him to stay put.”

“We got your message, sir,” the
platoon sergeant said, tapping the walkie-talkie slung over his shoulder. “We are
staying put…we’re dug in here real good. But the first sergeant was worried
the whole battalion was about to get flanked, so…he did what he did.”

A few hundred yards away, nestled
in a grove at the edge of the sea, were Tom Hadley and the detachment of men
he’d dragged with him. He wasn’t sure how many GIs he took: Ten, I
think…couldn’t really tell in the dark. One of them’s already dead. And I’m not
even sure where we are…we might even be in Buna Mission. I guess
we’ll find out when the sun comes up…if we’re still alive.

The Japanese barges were still
coming—down to a trickle now, but the clatter of their engines still
unmistakable. The machine gunner had become proficient at estimating their
range from sound alone—he’d had a lot of practice in the past hour.

The mortar crew had the whole
length of beach before them zeroed in. Whenever a landing barge scrunched to
a stop on the sand, the men scrambling to get off were met by the blast of a
high explosive or white phosphorous round. Here, the mortar had found a decent
field of fire; back within the plantation, the thick overhead canopy all around
yielded almost no good firing points for the high-angle weapons.

The other two riflemen on Hadley’s
team were tasked with making sure no Japs snuck up behind them.

Hadley tapped a man each from the
machine gun and mortar crews: “Go back and get more ammo, some batteries for
the radio, and more water.”

“We ain’t had time to get thirsty
yet, Top,” a GI replied.

“Not for you, zipperhead…for the
thirty cal’s barrel. It’s gonna melt if we keep shooting her this much.”

Tom Hadley wasn’t sure how many
Japs they’d killed, or if any had managed to slip away from the killing zone of
the beach. It was still too dark to tell. The moon had finished its duty for
this night; the sunrise was more than an hour away. The only light was from the
scattered flames of burning wooden barges, set alight by the mortar’s white
phosphorous shells.

In that dim light, Hadley’s
detachment could see the surf slapping against what seemed a seawall of
corpses.

Sunrise brought a number of
surprises.

For Tom Hadley and his men by the
beach, there were two big ones: by rough count, there were over 100 dead
Japanese littering the shore, and they weren’t just near Buna
Mission—they were on the edge of its grounds. A few hundred yards
away, Japanese troops were scurrying in and out of the Mission’s houses.

They were practically out of
ammunition—again—for their GI weapons. But just before sunrise, they had scooped
up all the Japanese weapons littering the beach they could carry. They were
better armed now than when they first took up this position: three Nambu
machine guns, a host of Arisaka rifles, and boxes full of ammunition and
grenades were ready for action.

Hadley assessed their chances: So
long as an artillery or mortar round doesn’t land right on top of us, we can
hold out for a long time.

Just how long this time
would be was a big question mark; the sporadic fire of Japanese small arms—some
of it to their rear, between them and the rest of Charlie Company—had broken
out since first light. If there had ever been a chance to return to the company
perimeter, it was long gone. The enemy was all around; Combat Team Hadley
was an island in a dangerous sea.

The extra walkie-talkie batteries
had come in handy: they still had communication with the rest of the company
and could coordinate fire against the Japanese probes.

General Freidenburg didn’t like
surprises. When he awoke, the trucks were waiting to shuttle 81st
Regiment to Oro Bay in preparation for his amphibious assault. But the 81st
was nowhere to be found. He flew into a rage.

The general sprayed spittle all
over his staff as he fumed, “How dare that son of a bitch colonel fuck up my
simple plan so totally?”

By the time Dick Molloy’s jeep
slogged the six miles to the division CP, General Freidenburg was ready to
pluck that eagle right off his collar.

Then Colonel Molloy stepped to the
map and explained exactly where his troops were—and the deception that had
enabled them to get there.

“Let me get this straight,
Colonel,” Freidenburg said. “You took it upon yourself to fake a night
amphibious assault…and the Japs fell for it?”

“Yes, sir,” Molloy replied. “We’ve
broken their defensive ring. Most of the Japs have been squeezed into the
village itself. Major Miles’s First Battalion has done an amazing job. Now,
since I still don’t have the tanks or artillery I’ve asked for, I need the Air
Force to rain holy hell on Buna Mission and Buna Village right now.”

General Freidenburg turned to his
staff officers, his eyebrows raised as if asking, Can we make that happen?

The G3 poured cold water on the
idea: “Storms are coming in less than an hour, sir. The Air Force won’t be able
to do any precision bombing, at least not today.”

Molloy said, “Then give me back the
Aussie artillery…before my men collapse in their tracks from exhaustion.
Finding that evidence of cannibalism gave them the will to fight like demons
all night…but they’re only human. They’re burned out now.”

“Cannibalism?” Freidenburg
asked. “What are you talking about, Colonel?”

Molloy told the general and his
staff the sordid tale.

The general seemed unconcerned.
“War is hell, Colonel Molloy,” he announced. “Simple as that.”

“Some people’s definition of hell
is apparently a little different than mine, sir,” Molloy replied.

Freidenburg shrugged. “Request for
the artillery is denied, Colonel. The Aussies have just taken Gona. They’re
going to turn east and press toward Sanananda immediately. If I take their guns,
they won’t advance another inch, just for spite.”

Molloy checked the map again. Gona
had been a small Japanese outpost on the coast some eight miles west of Buna.
No doubt, they defended it fiercely, but the Australians had the numbers,
despite the toll exhaustion and jungle diseases had taken on them; and they
still had those artillery pieces. It was just a matter of time before Gona
fell. Sanananda lay between Buna and Gona; the fortifications there looked
every bit as formidable as what his regiment was encountering around Buna.

The Aussies will need those guns,
Dick Molloy told himself, and a hell of a lot more.

He was surprised to find the
general now smiling at him. “Actually,” Freidenburg said, “I’m very pleased I
was finally able to light a fire under you and your men, Colonel. It’s been a
long time coming.”

Dick Molloy stifled the rage that
comment ignited. He asked, “So, General, I suppose there’s no need now for your
amphibious assault?”

A sardonic grin spread across
Freidenburg’s face as he replied, “Not unless your little freelancing stunt
turns to shit and you fail to take Buna.”

The general strolled over to the
map and, without bothering to look Dick Molloy in the eye, added, “Don’t ever
fucking do something like this again, Molloy. Dismissed.”

With Molloy gone, the G3 asked,
“But sir, weren’t you going to tell him about the tanks?”

“No,” Freidenburg replied, “If I
did that, they’d all just sit on their lazy asses until the damn things showed
up.”

The rain came as promised. Jock,
with a squad from Able Company, trudged through the plantation to Charlie
Company’s position. Bogater Boudreau, the squad’s leader, had been willing to
wager they wouldn’t run into any Japanese along the way. No one was willing to
take him up on that bet.

“From what I hear,” Boudreau said,
“ol’ Tom Hadley killed all the Japs fixing to flank us. We won’t be seeing none
of them until we meet up with Charlie Company.”

Jock tried not to chuckle as he
said, “That sounds like one hell of a war story, Corporal Boudreau. I can’t
wait to hear the version Hadley tells. I heard he doesn’t see it quite that
way.”

“I don’t know about that, sir…I
don’t see no Japs. Do you?”

“No…not yet.”

“Then I’ll say it again, sir…First
Sergeant Hadley saved all our asses. If he don’t get a big ol’ medal for that,
then I don’t know what the heck a man has to do—short of dying—to get decorated
around here.”

Decorations were the last thing on
the minds of Tom Hadley and his detachment. The rain had brought no respite
from attacks by Japanese desperate to dislodge them. So far, though, no Jap had
gotten close enough to hurl a grenade their way.

The GI manning one of the captured
machine guns said, “Those Nips ain’t so damn tough when they ain’t in them
bunkers.” Raindrops sizzled on contact with the gun’s hot barrel as he
struggled to reload. “Piece of Jap shit…shoots slower than my grandma and it
takes forever to seat one of these damn magazines. Give me a belt-loading
thirty cal any day.”

“You guys are doing just fine with
those pieces of shit,” Hadley replied, gazing into Buna Mission with
binoculars. “Hey…I think I see one of their mortar pits.”

He stopped to wipe the lenses dry
and then took another look at his target.

“Shit,” Hadley said, “they’re
fixing to hang one. You got line-of-sight on it?”

His eye squeezed against the
mortar’s sight, the gunner replied, “No dice, Top.”

“All right then,” Hadley said, “use
the plotting board. Azimuth three-two-zero, range five hundred.”

“We’ve only got three rounds left,
Top,” the mortar section chief said.

“I can fucking count, Corporal. Let
’er rip…get them before they get us, okay?”

The gunner’s bloodshot
eyes—strained, beyond tired—struggled to read the tiny numbers on the sight’s
knobs as he set the firing data. “I swear,” he mumbled, “if I’m still alive
when this is over, I’m gonna sleep for a week straight. I don’t care if they
court-martial my ass, either.”

Bogater Boudreau would have cleaned
up on his bet: they made it all the way inside Charlie Company’s perimeter
without seeing any Japanese. Lieutenant Lee Grossman filled Jock in on the
current situation.

Pointing west, Grossman said,
“Hadley and his boys are a couple of hundred yards over that way. They’re
shooting captured Jap weapons now and doing a hell of a lot of damage.”

Jock asked Grossman, “What about
bunkers in Buna Mission?”

“Hadley says there doesn’t seem to
be any between him and the Mission, sir. There are a few on the beach side, but
they’re all burned up and don’t seem to be active.”

“Good,” Jock replied. “Here’s
what’s going to happen: when the rain stops, the Air Force is going to bomb the
hell out of Buna Mission and Buna Village. Then we’re going to move in from the
east, while Third Battalion comes in along the Girua River from the west.”

Grossman seemed surprised: “You mean
Third Battalion’s actually going to do something constructive? That’d be a
first.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jock
replied. “To continue, I’m going to have Able Company pass through your position
here, Lee, and attack Buna Mission from the beach side. They’ll be the ones to
relieve Hadley, who can then join back up with you. Your company will attack
straight ahead, while Baker Company will hook around and advance up Ango Trail
to attack the southeast corner. They’ll come up against bunkers, but I’ve got an
idea how to get around them.”

Grossman asked, “Are we getting any
artillery support, sir?”

“Afraid not, Lee…but we’re going to
put all the battalion’s mortars behind Baker Company—in open swamp
country—where they’ll have good fields of fire.”

“Better than nothing, I guess,”
Grossman replied.

Jock turned to Bogater Boudreau.
“Now, Corporal…you just walked the best route to get here and you know where
First Sergeant Hadley’s outpost is. I’ll expect you to be Able Company’s guide.
Lieutenant Pop will be depending on you.”

Boudreau replied, “Ain’t no step
for a stepper, sir.”

It was mid-afternoon before Jock
got back to his battalion’s forward CP. The rain hadn’t let up a bit. The
makeshift CP was situated beneath a ground sheet strung between trees to keep
out the rain. In the fierce downpour, though, the ground sheet had become a
rain collector, about to collapse any second from the sheer weight of water.
Three GIs were struggling to drain the cover and restore its slope so it
wouldn’t fill up again. They weren’t having much luck; one field radio had already
been doused with the runoff. Until the radio operators got a chance to dry it
out, it would be as useless as if it had been thrown in a lake.

“You boys could fuck up a wet dream,”
Melvin Patchett fumed as he stepped in to provide direction to their hapless
efforts. Pointing to the tallest of the GIs, he continued, “You, Stretch…poke
the tarp right here with your rifle butt…”

When Patchett jerked his arms
upward to lend a hand, the sleeves of his sodden, mildewed fatigue shirt
separated at the shoulders. In a burst of rage, he ripped the sleeves clean
off.

“Don’t sweat it, Sergeant Major,”
Jock said, rubbing his hands over the many tears in his own sopping-wet
uniform. “You’re still the best-dressed son of a bitch in the outfit. And you
can always draw the stripes on your bare arms with a grease pencil.”

Patchett replied, “With all due
respect, sir, that ain’t fucking funny. Not a damn bit. It ain’t bad enough
them flyboys get their three hots and a cot, but I’m betting they
get a new suit of clothes the minute a button pops off, too. At the rate we’re
going, them natives in their jock straps gonna be wearing more than us dogfaces
real soon.”

One of the radio operators handed
Jock a message from Regiment. Its contents didn’t seem to impress him at all.

As if a switch was thrown, Patchett
was all business again: “So what’s it say, sir?”

“It says we’re to consolidate and
hold our positions.”

“Shit,” Patchett scoffed, “you
already had us doing that last night. You’re way ahead of them brass hats, as
usual, sir.”

Java Queen, with her load of
three Stuart tanks, was only a few miles from dropping anchor in Oro Bay when
the tug, Mieke, making good speed back to Milne Bay, passed in the
opposite direction. Beatrix Van Der Wegge scanned her cousin’s vessel with
binoculars: there was no sign of Jillian on board.

She grabbed the blinker light and
flashed a message: Where is Jillian?

From Mieke’s bridge, the
answer flashed back: Missing. Presumed drowned.

Chapter Forty

The next sunrise brought clear skies—and
the bombers of 5th Air Force. Jock and his men listened as they
approached, encouraged and excited by what sounded like an aerial armada about
to deal the first punch in their assault on Buna.

“Don’t get your hopes up too much
until you see where them eggs land,” Melvin Patchett said. “We been down this
road a few times already.” The fact that the men of his command were close to
the target area—in some cases, as little as a few hundred yards close—did
little to bolster his confidence. He’d been on the receiving end of errant
American bombs before.

“But it’s a perfectly clear day,
Sergeant Major,” Lieutenant Tony Colletti, Baker Company’s commander, said.
“How the hell can they miss?”

Patchett’s tight-lipped smile was
his silent but respectful way of telling an officer exactly what he thought: You
dumb fuck. You got yourself a shitload to learn yet.

In First Sergeant Hadley’s
position—the closest to the target area—he and his men burrowed deep into their
fighting holes as the rumbling of aircraft engines grew louder. Tom Hadley
peeked out from under the rim of his helmet just as the bombs began their
plummet to the ground.

SHIT! They’re going to land
right on top of us!

He dropped to the bottom of the
hole, yanking the helmet tight against his head. Right now, he wished his whole
body could fit inside that steel pot.

The string of bombs landed, one
right after the other, a series of explosions Hadley could only describe as the
footsteps of a giant on a double-time march.

With each explosion, the ground in
which the GIs lay shook as if attached to the planet by the thinnest of
threads.

The sound of the impacts—those giant’s
footsteps—got closer and closer…

And then they stopped. The only
sounds now were the distant whoomps of bombs impacting in Buna Village—and
the pounding of their hearts.

Gingerly, Hadley and his men patted
themselves all over.

They were all okay; Close…but no
cigar.

But what about the Japanese?

Hadley slowly raised his head over
the edge of the hole and brought the binoculars to his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said, “they
tore the hell out of the beach, and that’s about it. If anyone was taking a
morning swim, they’re dead about ten times over.”

But the Japanese facing them in
Buna Mission were still very much alive as they scurried from deep cover to man
fighting positions once again.

“All right, guys,” Hadley said, “be
real careful now. Lieutenant Pop and his bunch are going to be coming soon.
Let’s try to shoot only the Japs, okay?”

Tony Colletti’s Baker Company
watched the bombing as they lay poised along Ango Trail. Much to their
surprise, one bomb—at long last—scored a direct hit on a Japanese bunker,
blowing it to smithereens.

For the first time in what seemed
like an eternity, they had something to cheer about.

But after that brief celebration,
it was time to get moving and launch their attack into the teeth of the
remaining bunkers.

I need to be here with
Colletti’s company, Jock told himself. He had known that since the
inception of this plan. Baker Company’s roll would be the most difficult part
of 1st Battalion’s attack—and the most fragile.

But something was wrong right off
the bat: along the trail, a platoon of GIs—not from Jock’s battalion—had
several dozen natives kneeling in a line, hands on head…

Like prisoners condemned to death.

A cocky sergeant strolled casually
behind the line, laughing as he pressed the muzzle of his Thompson against the
neck of each native in turn without pulling the trigger.

Standing to the side, a cluster of
native women and children, all bewildered and crying, were being held at bay by
American soldiers.

A young officer was in charge. Jock
asked him, “What the fuck is going on here, Lieutenant?”

“We caught these Jap sympathizers
manning one of the bunkers, sir,” the lieutenant replied.

“What’s your name, Lieutenant?”

“Lundsford, sir. James W.”

“What on earth makes you think
they’re sympathizers, Lieutenant Lundsford?”

Before he could answer, one of
Colletti’s sergeants emerged from the bunker in question. “We cleaned this line
of bunkers out yesterday, sir,” the sergeant said. “There ain’t a fucking
weapon in there.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure they shot at
us, sir,” Lundsford said, as if trying to convince himself. “They must have
thrown the weapons in the swamp.”

Colletti’s men were muttering the
same thing Jock was thinking: “Bullshit.”

Jock asked, “What unit are you
from, Lieutenant?”

“Love Company, sir…Third of the
Eighty-First.”

“You’re Colonel Vann’s men, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Figures. I’ll tell you what we’re
going to do, Lieutenant. First, release these people—”

“But sir, they must have been
working for the Japs.”

“And now they work for us. Do it
now, Lieutenant.”

Within seconds, the natives were on
their feet, scurrying away from Buna as fast as they could.

“Very good,” Jock said. “Now, you
realize you’re in the wrong place, don’t you? Your battalion’s boundary is Girua
River.”

The lieutenant looked confused. He
pulled a map from inside his helmet and began to fumble with it.

Jock pointed west. “Don’t bother,
Lieutenant. It’s that way, a good couple of hundred yards. I suggest you get
over there immediately. They’re probably wondering where the hell you are.”

With Lundsford and his platoon
gone, Jock settled into a secluded grove with Colletti’s men. They needed to
review the attack plan one last time.

“Through the swamp, fellows,” Jock
said, “it’s the only way. While Third Platoon bluffs a frontal attack, the rest
of us slide in through the wetlands and get behind the bunkers. When the Japs
see us there—and they will see us—at least some of them will have to
come out into the open and engage…”

Tony Colletti picked it up from
there: “That’s when we tell the mortars to let ’em have it.”

“Exactly,” Jock said. “Once we’re
behind the bunkers, you all know the drill…”

Jock paused, distracted by the
sound of a jeep coming up the trail. A GI on the perimeter sounded the warning:
Big brass on the way.

The jeep came to a halt just feet
from Jock’s briefing site. General Freidenburg stepped out.

So much for our concealed
location, Jock told himself, cursing the sound of the jeep’s engine. Now
every fucking Jap in Buna knows there’s something to shoot at here.

General Freidenburg stood in the
middle of the trail, glistening stars and all, as if waiting for someone to
salute him. Dozens of men would have been glad to offer that salute, if only it
wouldn’t make them a target for the snipers, too.

“Better step over here, sir.” Jock
urged the general toward the shelter of the trees. “This is a pretty hot area.”

Freidenburg didn’t move an inch,
but the two staff officers riding with him—both colonels—inched steadily toward
the cover of the trees. The general asked, “You’re Miles, aren’t you, Major?”

“Yes, sir. First of the
Eighty-First C.O.”

“I thought so. What are you waiting
for, Major Miles? The air bombardment is over. Move your men up this trail on
the double.”

Up this trail—and become
fodder for the bunkers’ machine guns.

Half the company heard the
general’s order. Whatever hope the weak and weary GIs had held of surviving to
see tomorrow was collapsing like a house of cards.

But then there was a most
surprising and unlikely reshuffle of the deck. Unlike anything they had heard
before in their military life, their battalion commander replied, “Negative,
sir. We’re not going to frontally assault bunkers. We learned that lesson a
long time ago. We’re going around them, through the swamp, and attack them from
behind.”

The GIs could not believe their
ears. Sure, they’d heard men balk at orders before, but the man giving the
order had usually been just a sergeant; the man resisting the order did it with
the knowledge he was about to experience the full wrath of discipline that
sergeant could cook up, be it guard duty, KP, or a trip behind the barracks to
be beaten to a pulp.

But this was different—much
different. They’d never seen an officer’s order—much less a general’s—refused
by anyone, let alone another officer.

They had no idea where this
standoff was going.

But Jock did. The cat was out of
the bag now—and his mind was made up: as long as he was in command of this
battalion, not one more man would be offered up to the slaughter of the
bunkers.

If the general wants another
frontal attack, he’ll have to find someone stupid enough to lead it.

He fully expected the next words
from General Freidenburg’s mouth would be the ones relieving him of command.

But the general said nothing. He
just kept glaring at Jock, as if waiting for him to crack—to come to his
senses—and follow orders like a good soldier.

Jock said nothing, either. For the
soldiers watching, the motionless silence of the two men became awkward and
then frightening. The GIs were the pawns in this unlikely chess match, one in
which the general had all the moves.

It would be checkmate, Major
Miles any second, they were sure…

As soon as somebody said something.

That somebody was the general. He
broke his glare at Jock, swept contemptuous eyes across the anxious troops, and
said, “You’re just yellow, Major, and I don’t mean from the Atabrine, either.”

Jock didn’t reply. He betrayed no
emotion at all.

But the GIs started to grumble;
they didn’t agree with the general’s assessment.

They knew better.

“The Japs aren’t near as tough as
all you men think they are,” Freidenburg said. “I’m betting there’s no serious
threat here. I’ll decorate the first man who’ll walk fifty yards down this
trail toward Buna Village.”

There were no volunteers.

“Some of us already got decorations,
sir,” a GI said. “They’re called Purple Hearts, and we ain’t begging for
another one.”

The general spit on the ground in
disgust. “Like I said…you’re yellow.”

Then Jock said, “I’ll tell you
what, sir, I’ll walk down that trail…if one of your staff officers would be
kind enough to accompany me.”

Freidenburg’s two staff colonels
were trying to make themselves invisible behind some trees. Neither was about
to volunteer for anything.

“Well, I’m not seeing any takers,
sir,” Jock said, “so I’m guessing—”

His words were cut off by a rumble-clank-clatter
of heavy machinery approaching. Everyone turned to see the olive drab outline
of a Stuart tank, its treads throwing clods of mud into the air behind it as it
chewed its way up the trail.

There was a man riding on top,
standing behind the turret. Even from this distance, they could tell it was
Sergeant Major Patchett.

The Stuart rattled to a stop beside
the general’s jeep. Patchett jumped down and said, “It followed me home,
Daddy…can I keep it?”

General Freidenburg seemed annoyed
by the tank’s arrival.

“All right, then, Major,” the
general said, “maybe this is what you need to jack your courage up. All you
people have been bellyaching about armor support ever since I got here. Well,
here it is. Impress me.”

The general and his colonels hopped
in the jeep and made their escape down the trail toward Double-Dare.

Patchett gave Jock a curious glance
and asked, “Still sucking up to the mucketymucks, eh, sir?”

“Get this,” Jock replied. “The
general wanted a frontal assault on the bunkers.”

Patchett whistled like a bomb
falling. “Well, fuck him and the jeep he rode in on. We’re smarter than that
now.”

“Hey, Top…where did this
tank come from, anyway?”

“A couple came up from Oro early
this morning, sir. Supposed to be three, but one’s broken down already. They
said they got orders to go to Eighty-Third Regiment down at Double-Dare,
but they don’t have the faintest fucking idea where that is, so I made them a
little deal.”

“What kind of deal, Top?”

“We’ll guard their fuel reserves—a
deuce-and-a-half with drums full of aviation gas—and they’ll help us out.
They’re real touchy about that gas getting appropriated, especially with
that airstrip at Double-Dare opening up for business.”

“Who the hell is doing the
guarding, Top? I thought we agreed every man not burning up with fever would be
on the line in this attack.”

“And they are, sir…they are. Don’t
you fret none. I’ve got some of those poor bastards from the Kapa Kapa doing
the guard duty. They can do that job sitting on their sweet asses.”

Jock wished he had bitten his
tongue; as usual, Patchett had the details covered. But there was one more
question: “You said two tanks, Top. Where’s the other one?”

“I was just getting to that, sir.
It’s in the plantation, with Able Company.”

Chapter Forty-One

It didn’t take long for Corporal
Bogater Boudreau to decide he wanted nothing to do with the Stuart tank given
to Able Company. “It draws too much fire, Lieutenant,” he told Theo Papadakis,
“and it’s slowing me down. Y’all can hide behind it if you like, but I’m gonna
go find me Sergeant Hadley. Catch up when you can…if that’s okay with you, sir.”

Papadakis was beginning to feel the
same way about the tank. The sergeant in command seemed much too cautious,
almost timid: He thinks there’s a fucking sniper in every tree in this
plantation, waiting to drop a grenade on him. And these tight rows of trees
make its path kind of predictable for an anti-tank gunner.

Still, it was nice to hide behind
its comforting mass when the bullets were flying. The tank’s main gun—though
relatively puny at 37 millimeters—was the most firepower they’d had at their
disposal since the loan of the Aussie artillery. The two extra machine guns it
carried were nice to have, too, scattering the Japs before them like a giant
steel broom.

And these damn Japs keep popping
up everywhere…like they’re crawling out of the ground five or six at a shot.
It’s like a firing range at a lunatic asylum. At least we ain’t hit no fucking
bunkers yet.

But the Stuart could only be one
place at a time; Lieutenant Pop’s company was spread thin, advancing in a line
almost 200 yards wide. Corporal Boudreau and his squad were well in front of
that line.

“Remember,” Boudreau told his men,
“Sergeant Hadley and his boys are firing Jap weapons now. Don’t get fooled by
their sound and do something you’ll be real sorry about. We should be getting
pretty close to them.”

Two troopers on the right flank of
the squad were certain they were pretty close. Twenty yards in front,
they heard a Nambu firing toward Buna Mission, opposite their direction of
approach.

“It’s gotta be Hadley,” one of the
GIs whispered. “Otherwise, they’d be firing at us, right?”

The other GI agreed. Together, they
low-crawled forward until they came to what looked like a freshly dug trench.

They slid in, expecting to be
greeted like saviors—and found themselves face to face with three skeletal
Japanese.

The gaunt Americans didn’t look so
great, either, but these Japanese might as well have been the walking dead.

The GIs tried to level their
weapons—an M1 and a BAR—but they were too close.

Two of the Japanese soldiers
already had iron grips on the muzzles, grappling them skyward despite the best
struggle the GIs could muster.

These fucking Nips…they must
weigh about forty pounds apiece. How can they be so fucking strong?

The panicked GIs fired several
rounds, which streaked off to nowhere.

They were all locked in a struggle
that would have appeared comical if it were not a matter of life and death:
four men—exhausted and weakened by malarial fever before this joust even
began—waltzing to and fro in the narrow trench to the rhythm of their mortal
grunts.

The third Japanese soldier did his
own hopping dance, trying to jab at the Americans from behind his comrades with
a long bayonet.

But it wasn’t long enough. Its
point couldn’t reach the GIs.

They danced on, for seconds that
seemed endless, fueled only by adrenaline and the knowledge that to yield was
to die.

The Nambu’s sudden silence,
followed by those strange, random shots of the GIs’ weapons, caught Bogater
Boudreau’s attention. He crawled as fast as he could in their direction.

His worst fear: some of his men had
found Combat Team Hadley…and killed them.

His greatest hope: any other
scenario which resulted in no Americans dead or wounded.

What he found lay somewhere in the
middle: a situation still in flux, like watching a feeble tug-of-war between
geriatrics.

Bogater put a stop to the dance:
from only feet away, he dispatched the Japanese clinging to his men’s weapons
with two shots from his Thompson.

The third Jap—the bayonet
wielder—tried to run.

He’d only taken a few steps before
Bogater’s third shot found him.

“Y’all can thank me later,”
Boudreau told his panting, unnerved troopers. “Didn’t crap your pants, did
you?”

They shook their heads.

“That’s real good. Now scoop up the
Nambu and get moving. We ain’t there yet.”

A few moments more and they found
Hadley. There was that same chatter of a Nambu as they approached, but this
time Boudreau shouted the challenge word: Laramie.

Tom Hadley’s voice called back the
password: Licorice.

Turning to the two GIs who had
waltzed with the Japs, Boudreau said, “You see? That’s what the damn password’s
for, zipperheads. Now get down here and give those Charlie Company mutts a
breather.”

Boudreau’s squad jumped down into
the trench. They found themselves on a catwalk of dead Japanese.

Another five minutes and Theo
Papadakis joined them in Hadley’s trench. The Stuart idled 10 yards away.

Hadley, in awe of the metal
monster, asked, “Where’d the tank come from?”

“The sergeant major gave it to us,”
Lieutenant Pop replied. “He gave another one to Baker Company.”

Papadakis scanned Buna Mission with
his binoculars. “So how do we get in there, First Sergeant?”

“I’m pretty sure there are no live bunkers
on the beach side,” Hadley began, “just scattered Japs in holes and buildings.
I’ve been calling in the mortars on every position I can see. Just keep doing
that and you won’t have much trouble going in from this side.”

Hadley pointed farther inland,
toward Charlie Company’s area of operation. “Charlie’s going to have it
rougher,” Hadley continued. “They’ll be up against bunkers, I’m pretty sure.
We’ve been taking fire from over there, and we can’t tell from exactly where.
I’ve dropped mortars on them, but it didn’t shut them up. I think there’s a big
open area, too. You see it? It’s too bright to be in trees like we are here.
It’d be perfect terrain for a tank.”

Papadakis and Boudreau were
thinking the same thing: Nice as it would be to keep that tank, Charlie
Company needs it a whole lot more.

“Tom, I’m gonna give the tank to
you guys,” Papadakis told Hadley. “It wouldn’t have a whole lot of room to
maneuver on the beach, anyway. Tell Lieutenant Grossman that if I get in
trouble, I might have to call for it back. But for now, it’s yours.”

Many loud clanks—every man’s
head went down as machine gun rounds bounced off the Stuart.

“See, I told you,” Bogater Boudreau
said. “You’d better be able to hide behind that damn thing because it draws
fire like a son of a bitch. Better not be no anti-tank guns around here or the
tankers’ asses are gonna get fried.”

First Battalion’s battle for Buna
Mission was at full throttle, for better or worse. Able Company pushed in from
the beach in the north, Charlie Company from the plantation in the east, Baker
Company from the swamps in the south. They could only pray Colonel Vann’s 3rd
Battalion was where it was supposed to be, covering the western flank.

The two tanks, hobbled as they were
by terrain, were still making the difference everyone had hoped they would. The
Stuart attacking with Baker Company dared not stray from the trail; it would
promptly become mired in the muck of the swamp if it did. Protected from
Japanese sappers by a squad of Lieutenant Colletti’s GIs, it had done well from
the trail, though, rumbling to less than 50 yards from the first bunker and
pelting it with 37-millimeter shells. Aiming at a firing port but never
managing to put one through, it took six shots from the Stuart’s small-caliber
main gun to partially collapse the bunker and pound it into silence.

Jock, with the rest of Baker
Company, emerged from the swamp behind the bunker. “They’re not all dead,” Jock
said, pointing at the dazed and battered Japanese stumbling out of its
entryway.

Jock was right; most of the
bunker’s complement were quite alive.

The deafening racket of gunfire
erupted.

So did the screaming of men at the
top of their lungs.

The gunfire was over in 10 seconds.

The screaming was not.

GIs still in the thrall of combat
cursed their enemy.

The wounded begged for help in two
different languages.

The dead stared with vacant eyes
into a realm no one wished to visit.

But this bunker finally belonged to
the Americans, who wondered in fear how many more like it would have to be
taken.

The GIs didn’t have to wait long
for an answer.

They were already drawing fire from
another bunker.

Able Company raced along the groves
rimming the beach and plunged into Buna Mission.

The terrifying noise, blinding
smoke, and confusion of combat surrounded them as it had so many times before.

Kill or be killed once again
became a doctrine not to be pondered but a mantra believed in with your heart
and soul.

Rare was the GI not firing, hoping
his refusal to participate in combat would somehow exempt him from its
consequences.

You couldn’t hide behind a battle
line when there wasn’t one—the enemy wasn’t just somewhere in the distance
before you; he seemed to be all around.

Theo Papadakis’s one
miscalculation: he forgot the mortars were almost two miles away. Once he
called for fire over the walkie-talkie, his request relayed to the mortar
section, and the rounds launched, it took over a minute for them to land on
target—an eternity in close combat.

Caught in a murderous crossfire, he
had to give up hard-won ground waiting for mortar rounds too long in coming.

That was my fuckup…and two good
men died. I swear to God, I’ll never stick our necks out like that again.

They were deep in Buna Mission now,
a very different but no less dangerous battlefield. Rickety buildings still
amazingly intact stood amidst the rubble of those flattened by 5th
Air Force.

Bogater Boudreau took a practical
view: “At least when you pitch a grenade here, it don’t bounce off a tree and
come right back at you.”

He tossed one right through a hut’s
unshuttered window.

Its blast puffed fleeting clouds of
dust and debris out every opening. The thatched roof fluttered like windblown
hair.

The Japanese inside stopped
shooting.

Motioning toward the hut, Boudreau
tapped two GIs lying next to him and said, “It’s y’all’s turn…go finish them
off.”

The troopers didn’t want to go. His
voice trembling, one said, “You’re crazy, Cajun. You really like this shit,
don’t you?”

“Don’t matter none if I like it or
not. I got no choice…and neither do you.”

“But maybe the Japs in there are
already dead.”

“Then they won’t mind you shooting
them one little bit. Get your asses moving.”

Tom Hadley was surprised to find
what he thought was an open field was actually an airstrip not long abandoned
by the Japanese. Drums of oil and fuel lined a trench covered with camouflage
netting. Salvaged aircraft parts littered the field’s periphery. There was a
tattered windsock flying from a tall pole.

It made a perfect killing ground
for machine guns, several of which opened up in an interlocking field of fire,
crisscrossing the airstrip the moment the GIs appeared at its far end.

As most of Charlie Company sprawled
on the ground for cover, a squad of GIs scrambled behind the Stuart as it
rumbled toward the machine guns.

It was all over quickly. Two nests
were wiped out, one blown to shreds by the tank’s 37-millimeter gun at 30 yards,
the other by its machine guns at point-blank range.

If there were more Japanese machine
gunners, they had fled by the time the rest of Charlie Company crossed the
airfield.

The GIs needed a break. Lee
Grossman figured half of them were running fevers. As they sagged into a ragged
defensive perimeter, he worried they might never have the energy to get up
again.

Everywhere he looked, though, men
were breaking off chunks of D bar—those bitter blocks of chocolate designed
strictly to provide calories for energy—and popping them into their mouths.

At least they’re giving it the
old college try, Grossman told himself.

He’d seen troops that had thrown in
the towel before.

His men hadn’t.

He pulled out his pocket notebook: I’ve
got to make some notes for the after-action report—if I live long enough to
write one.

It fell open to a reminder he had
written earlier that morning. He smiled when he read it: Recommend Hadley
for Medal of Honor.

Lieutenant Colonel Horace Vann was
suffering through another malaria attack. The chill phase was upon him,
teeth chattering, wrapped in a blanket despite the sweltering heat of his CP
tent. He’d tried to focus on his battalion’s situation map but given up. His
faltering concentration would only get worse when the chills passed and the
fever kicked in.

A frantic staff captain burst into
the tent. “Colonel,” he said, “I’ve just been told there’s a big gap in our
lines.”

“Show me,” Vann replied, pointing
to the map.

The captain hastily sketched a
dismal picture: India and Love Companies had never established contact on their
flanks, as were their orders. The resulting gap—rumored to be half a mile wide,
maybe more—had become a causeway for Japanese fleeing 1st
Battalion’s push from the east, squirting enemy troops toward Sanananda or even
the mountains inland.

“As we know, sir,” the captain
said, “the Japanese don’t run away. They regroup to counterattack.”

“Bullshit, Captain,” Colonel Vann
replied. “They ran away from Port Moresby. They’ve run away from a lot of
places. They’re not supermen…and they’re not suicidal.”

“But we’re supposed to be the
blocking force, sir.” Pushing his finger into the map at the point of the gap,
the captain added, “We’re supposed to be stopping exactly what’s happening
right now.”

“So…get those companies to close
the gap, Captain.”

“They tried, sir. They were beaten
back…quite badly.”

Vann wrenched his face into a look
of disgust. “They never did have any backbone. Make them try again.”

With great hesitation, the captain
began, “Begging your pardon, sir…but many of your men are just as sick as you.
I think this might be a time for you to make a command visit and…you know…influence
the situation with your presence.”

For a brief moment, Vann was full
of piss and vinegar as he replied, “OH, DO YOU REALLY, CAPTAIN?”

But that spark burned out as
quickly as it had flared. Colonel Vann slumped back into his camp chair like a
man too exhausted to care. He tucked the blanket tight under his chin and
muttered, “Just leave me in peace and go do something, will you, Captain?”

Charlie Company’s break was over
all too soon. They were up and moving forward again, leaving the abandoned
Japanese airstrip behind.

They heard the gunfire and
explosions from Buna Mission. Now, through the trees, they could see its
buildings not far away.

Thinking out loud, Lee Grossman
said, “It can’t be this easy.”

He was right.

The sound of machine gun fire
seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

The first rank of the lead platoon
crumpled to the ground, mowed down like a bloody harvest.

Shit. Bunkers. One left, one
right.

Where’s the fucking tank?

The Stuart wasn’t far behind. Its
engine revved as it swerved through a row of trees.

The steady CLANK of bullets
ricocheting off the metal beast was as unnerving to the GIs hugging the nearby
ground as it was to the crew inside.

Lee Grossman and Tom Hadley,
huddled behind a stout tree trunk, had figured out where the bunkers were.

The tank commander, buttoned up and
half-blind in his turret, had not. His first shot from the main gun streaked above
and past one of the bunkers.

He wasn’t answering Hadley’s radio
calls, either.

“I’ve got to get him straightened
out,” Hadley called to Grossman.

Sprinting like a madman, the first
sergeant hopped on the tank’s rear deck. Huddled for cover against the turret,
he saw why they’d lost radio communication:

The damn antenna’s shot off.

He reached over the top and banged
on the hatch with the butt end of his Thompson.

The hatch didn’t open.

Can’t blame the guy…I could be a
Jap sitting up here. Got to get his attention.

Maybe this’ll work…

He banged on the hatch with the
Thompson again, but this time, he tapped out a rhythm: thunk-thunkthunkthunkthunk-thunk-thunk,
to the tune shave and a haircut, two bits.

The hatch cracked open.

“YOU’RE TOO HIGH,” Hadley said.
“ONE BUNKER’S ONLY THIRTY YARDS DEAD IN FRONT OF YOU.”

The tank commander shouted back,
“THERE’S MORE THAN ONE?”

“THE OTHER ONE IS ABOUT TWENTY
DEGREES LEFT AND A LITTLE FARTHER.”

The tank’s main gun fired.

Ducked down behind the turret,
Hadley was disappointed: he hadn’t felt a bit of recoil.

That gun feels a little on the
weak side.

If a mortar can’t crack one of
those bunkers, how’s this peashooter going to do it?

The main gun fired again.

And again.

Then the tank was moving, pivoting
left slightly as the turret traversed in the same direction.

“YOU’VE GOT IT NOW,” Hadley said.
“I’M GETTING THE HELL OFF.”

He slid from the tank to the
ground.

The first bunker was still
intact—but it was smoldering and silent now.

A platoon moved briskly to flank it
and take it from behind. It only took seconds: three Japanese dead, one GI
wounded.

When Hadley found Lee Grossman
again, Jock Miles was there, too.

Jock asked, “How’s the tank holding
up?”

“So far, so good,” Grossman
replied. “Looks like it could use a bigger gun, though.”

“Yeah,” Jock replied, “I noticed
that. Took six shots at damn near point-blank range to shut one up over in
Baker Company…and even then, the bunker was still standing.”

Hadley got his breath back and
added, “Just so the sons of bitches inside get dazed for a minute, that’s all
we need.”

Pointing toward the tank, Jock
said, “Come on, let’s see what’s going on over there.”

They scrambled to join the fight
for the second bunker. Halfway there, the fire became so intense they had to
drop to their bellies and low crawl the rest of the way.

The platoon sergeant facing that
bunker told them, “That fucking thing gotta be made outta more than just dirt
and wood…look!”

The tank had advanced to just yards
from the bunker’s front face, so close its machine gun couldn’t depress enough
to shoot through the narrow firing ports.

The main gun fired repeatedly—a
dozen rounds in 10 seconds—and each shot resulted in nothing more than a cloud
of dust and splinters as it glanced off the bunker’s sloped roof.

“Sir,” Jock’s radio operator said,
“I’ve got Regiment on the horn for you.”

“Tell him to wait a minute,” Jock
replied. “We’re a little busy here right now.”

The Stuart’s engine revved like it
was at the starting gate of a race.

It lurched forward, its nose pointing
skyward as it drove onto the bunker, until its chassis was perched nearly
vertical, like a begging dog on its hind legs, its belly exposed to anyone on
the far side.

The bunker didn’t collapse; it
didn’t even shudder.

The platoon sergeant threw up his
hands and said, “See? What’d I tell you? That fucking lump in the ground’s made
of iron or somethi—”

The shock wave came first.

Then they saw the flash of orange
flames shooting from beneath the tank and heard the WHOOMP of the
shell’s impact.

A second more and they heard the
distant poom of the gun that fired it.

High-octane gasoline began to flow
from the Stuart like liquid fire, engulfing the bunker in its flames.

Two Japanese soldiers, ablaze from
head to toe, stumbled outside to be shot dead—perhaps mercifully—by a host of
GIs.

“Well,” Hadley said, “that’s one
way to take out a bunker—drop a burning tank on it.”

“We’ve got to get that crew out,”
Jock said. He stood up and started to sprint toward the spreading inferno.

He got to the commander’s hatch. It
was already ajar, two arms clinging to its rim.

Jock grabbed for the arms but Tom
Hadley already had them in his grasp.

“This thing’s going to cook off any
second, sir,” Hadley said, with startling calmness. “Here…I’ve got these guys.
You go up front and try and get the driver out.”

“No…no good,” the tank commander
mumbled. “All dead…”

Tom Hadley was amazed how easy it
was to lift the man out. He seemed light as a feather.

Boy, I must be really pumping
the old adrenaline. I’m strong as hell.

Then he saw why the man was so
light: both his legs were gone.

Back down on the ground, they had
no idea how they had gotten themselves and the legless man out of the flames.

Or how they had done it so quickly.

That speed had saved them: the
second artillery round slammed into the tank’s thin, exposed underbelly.

This time, the ammunition onboard
did start to cook off, driving every man’s head back to the ground once again.

Lee Grossman was already calling
for fire from the battalion’s mortars. Between transmissions, he told Jock, “I
was looking for that artillery when it fired the second time. Saw the flash.
Gotta take him out before he does any more damage.”

Thirty seconds later, they heard
the dull crump of mortar rounds impacting.

Binoculars still pressed to his eyes,
Grossman said, “Yeah, that ought to do it.”

Jock acknowledged Grossman with a
nod; he was busy on his radio, finally able to have that conversation with
Colonel Molloy at Regiment. While listening to the colonel, he watched as the
medic shook his head and gently closed the tank commander’s eyes.

The medic gave him a look that seemed
to say, Nice rescue, sir, but…

Then he hurried off, toward the
sounds of wailing men he might actually be able to save.

At first, Jock didn’t know why
Grossman and Hadley were staring at him with those worried looks. Then he
realized his hand was shaking.

In fact, his whole body was
shaking. All of a sudden, he was freezing cold, too.

What the hell’s going on? Is
this the fright just coming out now? Or…

He realized what it was:

Shit. Malaria.

Chapter Forty-Two

Melvin Patchett couldn’t believe
his eyes. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said to Jock, “but how the hell did
you get malaria? You took your Atabrine real regular-like, didn’t you? You
must’ve—you’re yellower than them Jap sons of bitches.”

Jock shrugged, and then pulled the
blanket tighter around his body. The chills were still with him.

“I was pretty good about
taking it, I thought,” Jock replied, “but Doc says it’s not one hundred percent
effective. Just my damn luck…”

“How high’s the fever running?”

“Don’t know, Top. I haven’t had the
fever part yet. But the chills haven’t been too awful…so maybe the fever won’t
be, either.”

“Let’s hope so, sir,” Patchett
replied.

They both knew it was the fever
that would make all the difference. Some of their men were fighting the
Japanese right now with fevers of 103 degrees. Jock and Patchett had set that
reading as the cutoff: any higher, a man was usually too weak and useless, a
danger to himself and his buddies. He’d be pulled off the line and sent to the
aid station.

“Do me a favor, Top…don’t mention
I’m sick to anyone, not even Colonel Molloy.”

Patchett grimaced. “A little late
for that, sir.”

Dick Molloy was approaching, only a
few yards away. He’d heard every word of Jock’s last sentence.

Molloy asked, “Don’t tell me what?”

Then he saw Jock huddled in the
blanket; he didn’t need an explanation.

“Shit,” the colonel said, “you’ve
got the bug, too. How bad?”

“Doesn’t seem too bad so far, sir,”
Jock replied.

“That’s good, because I’ve got a
couple of things to tell you. It’s not all good news, I’m afraid, Jock.”

Patchett, not sure his presence was
required, began to excuse himself. Molloy motioned for him to stay.

“I’m relieving Colonel Vann,”
Molloy said. “He left a hole big enough for half the Japanese Army to slip
through. Your battalion has done a great job so far, Jock, but because of Vann
dropping the ball again, some of those Japs you pushed back squirted right out
the other side. We could have had them all trapped in Buna Village and let the
Air Force pound them to dust, but now we’ll have to fight them all over again.
Worse, I’ve had to pull his lines back so his whole battalion doesn’t get
enveloped and destroyed.”

Patchett asked, “Who’s getting his
job, sir?”

“Rudy Sontag. Just arrived from Australia.
He’s a damn good man. I think you both know him, right?”

They nodded approvingly.

Jock asked, “Anything we can do to
help, sir?”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,
Jock. Once all your units have moved through Buna Mission, consolidate your
position on the far side and link up with Sontag on your left. Come tomorrow,
we’ve got a tactical air unit moving into Dobodura airstrip. That’ll give us continuous
air support from sunup to sundown. We’re going to get some Navy destroyers
offshore by sunrise tomorrow, too. A naval shore group is coming up from Oro
today to coordinate fire support.”

Patchett whistled happily. “Them little
five-inch guns on them boats will be better than nothing, even if it is
swabbies doing the shooting,” he said. “Why’s the Navy suddenly so interested
in coming way up here, sir?”

“Seems they just scored some big
victory over the Japs north of Rabaul,” Molloy replied. “The Solomon Sea isn’t
the sole property of the Imperial Japanese Navy anymore.”

They could tell the colonel had
something else to say but he looked hesitant, as if he couldn’t find the words.

Molloy finally pulled a piece of
paper from his pocket and said, “I’ve got this message here from Oro Bay…I
figure it’s meant for you. It’s from a lady by the name of Beatrix Van Der
Wegge. She’s a freighter captain, I’m told. Do you know her?”

“Yeah,” Jock replied, “I’ve heard
the name. She sails with Jillian.”

Words now failed Molloy completely.
He handed over the sheet of paper.

Jock read it silently.

It was all there: how Jillian
Forbes had personally led the fireship deception.

In other words, she’d gone and
done exactly what I begged her not to do.

He couldn’t tell if he was shaking
from the malaria or the terse, life-shattering finality of those last four
words: She’s missing, presumed drowned.

Jock handed the message to
Patchett.

After he read it, the sergeant
major dismissed the message with a shake of his head. “Presumed my ass,
sir,” he said. “No way that lady’s dead. She’s too damn clever…and too damn
tough.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Night brought Jock’s fever. The
first thermometer reading: 102.6 degrees.

The medic started to say, “If it
gets to over 103, he’s—” but Patchett cut him off.

“We know the damn drill, Doc,” the
sergeant major said as he gave the medic the bum’s rush out of the tent.
“We wrote that rule, remember?”

“He keeps mumbling something, too,”
the medic added. “About some woman. If you ask me, he’s getting delirious.”

“No one’s asking you nothing, son,”
Patchett replied. “We’ll call you if we need you.”

The medic gone, Patchett told Jock,
“Try and get some shuteye, sir. I’ll be in the CP if you need me.”

As the sergeant major vanished into
the shadows, Jock could feel himself being sucked down into that vacuum of
despair again.

Does he really think I’m going
to be able to sleep?

How can I?

It’s my fault.

I told her not to go…

No, I begged her not to go.

She’s not dead.

She can’t be dead.

But if I really believed that,
why do I have to tell myself over and over again?

It might have been the heartbreak;
it might have been the fever.

Or maybe just the exhaustion they’d
all lived with far too long.

Whatever it was, he collapsed into
the emptiness inside him…

…and slept.

Dawn broke to strange, new sounds:
the faint and distant roar of American aircraft taking to the air at Double-Dare;
the much closer CRUMP of naval shells landing in Buna Village.

“Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty,”
Patchett said as he gently shook Jock. “You’re gonna miss all the fun. How’s
the fever doing?”

Jock touched his hand to his
forehead. “Feels like it’s gone.”

“Good to hear, sir, because we’re
fixing to carry you around like the Queen of Sheba if need be.”

Struggling to focus, Jock asked,
“Whose artillery is that?”

“The Navy’s, sir. Lieutenant Pop’s
already got their fire support team up and running. Ol’ Bogater Boudreau
dragged those swabbie officers kicking and screaming right up to our front
line. I tell you what…they weren’t too thrilled about that, not one li’l bit.
He even told them they ain’t got a hair on their asses if they weren’t close
enough to eyeball the targets. None of this we’re going to do it by sound
shit. With all due respect, of course.”

Jock had come around enough to
visualize the scene Patchett described. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought
of the Cajun corporal goading naval officers to risk their necks on land.

Patchett continued, “The Navy’s
gonna be done in a couple of minutes, then it’ll be the Air Force’s turn. We’ve
got fire support coming out our asses all of a sudden.”

“About fucking time,” Jock said.
“Is that tank still running, too?”

“Yeah. It’s still with Baker
Company. That okay with you, sir?”

“That’ll be fine, Top.”

Then he thought of Jillian…and the
agony of losing her returned.

It took an entire day to fight
their way into Buna Village. A rain squall in late morning had slowed things
down considerably; the Air Force retreated to fairer skies, leaving only the
guns of the Navy destroyers offshore to soften up what seemed a never-ending
string of Japanese strong points.

The air support—now flying from the
nearby airstrip at Dobodura—could spend much more time pounding any given
target before it was chased off by weather or the need to refuel and rearm.
“They’re knocking the shit out of the Jap heavy weapons,” Jock told Colonel
Molloy, “but the troops do what they always did—they go underground until the
planes leave. We’re going to be digging them out of those holes for days.”

“Good thing it’s a small village,
then,” Molloy said. “What’s your battalion’s strength now, Jock?”

“Going down at a pretty good clip,
sir. We’re not really a battalion anymore…more like a very big company.”

“I see,” Molloy replied. “How’re
you holding up?” He hedged immediately, adding, “You know, being sick and all.”

What Jock wanted to reply: Malaria
is the least of my problems. I feel dead inside…and unless I find her again,
I’ll probably feel this way for the rest of my life.

Instead, he said, “I’ll be okay,
sir.”

Jock was sure the colonel saw
through this flimsy optimism to the lie festering beneath. It was what he
needed to hear, though; they both had too much to do—with too much at stake—to
flounder in the truth right now.

Later that evening, Tom Hadley and
Bogater Boudreau asked to have a word. Jock knew it would be about Jillian;
both had come to know her well during the ordeal on Cape York. Their respect
and admiration for her was no secret.

“We all feel real bad about Miss
Forbes, sir,” Hadley said. “Hell, if it wasn’t for her, we’d have all been dead
last year on the Cape…not to mention right now, here at Buna.”

Boudreau added, “So we want to
volunteer, sir.”

“Volunteer? For what, Bogater?”

“For the search party for Miss
Forbes, sir,” Boudreau replied. “She must’ve swum to shore somewhere around
here, after she got the Japs’ drawers all in a bunch with them fireships.”

Jock looked at the two earnest
young men standing before him. Like Melvin Patchett, neither believed a little
thing like being lost at sea could claim someone like Jillian. The doctrine of
a combat commander loving his men had been a part of his being from his days at
West Point. But he had never felt that love more strongly than at this moment.

“I really appreciate that, guys,”
Jock said. “You don’t know how much that means to me. But right now, I need you
to do me an even bigger favor.”

Hadley asked, “What’s that, sir?”

“Just try to keep yourselves and
your men alive, okay?”

The Japanese soldier was curled
into a mudhole barely big enough for his withered frame. He could hardly see
the notebook page inches from his nose. What little light there was filtered
through voids in the rubble heaped above to conceal the hole.

He heard no American footsteps. It
was time to put pen to paper.

I
write my final entry for the hundredth time

From
a shelter that may well be my grave

We
who are left behind are human booby-traps

Hundreds
of us…maybe thousands

Snipers
at point-blank range

Picking
off Americans

Exhausted
men, like me

Whose
thoughts seemed a million miles away

I
killed five today, an unseen assassin

How
am I still alive?

Once,
we fought from ingenious shelters

Marvels
of practical engineering

Which
could withstand all but the mightiest blow

Now
we fight crouched in puddles

With
only frail scraps above our heads

While
the airplanes fill the sky like flocks of birds

Spreading
their droppings of iron rain

When
I am out of bullets I am to flee

But
to where?

We
are cornered in a room full of enemies

Some
say they’ll save their last bullet for themselves

I
will save my last bullet for a man in a group

At
least I’ll take one more of them with me

While
his comrades free me from this hell

Chapter Forty-Four

Their first night inside Buna
Village, Jock announced his decision: “I’m not going to keep trading one dead
GI for one dead Jap in a hole, like General Freidenburg seems to want us to do.
I don’t think much of that equation at all. Neither does Colonel Molloy. So at
first light, we’re going to pull back a little and let the Air Force set fire
to this whole damn place. And when those fires burn out, we’re going to crush
what’s left with tanks.”

His company commanders were
relieved—but puzzled. Lee Grossman asked, “Tanks, sir? As in plural?
Where the hell are we getting more tanks from?”

“The colonel just told me five more
Stuarts are sitting at Oro now,” Jock replied. “Assuming they all make the
drive up here without breaking down, we’ll get two more and the Aussies will
get three.”

As the briefing broke up, Melvin
Patchett told Jock, “Good plan, sir. Real good plan.”

But then he noticed Jock was
shaking. “The malaria…it’s coming over you again, ain’t it, sir?”

“In spades, Top.”

Late that night, as the chills
rolled into fever, Jock had only one decision left to make: “Don’t let the
medic take my temperature, Top.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it, sir.”

“Then you do it.”

When Patchett took the thermometer
from under his tongue, Jock didn’t have to be a mind reader to know the number
wasn’t good.

“It’s climbing. One-oh-four point
three,” Patchett said, like a jury foreman reading a guilty verdict. “We
gotta get you to the sick ward.”

Even though his voice was strained
and shaky, Jock’s words were emphatic: “The fuck you will, Top. I’m staying
with my men.”

Melvin Patchett laid a comforting
hand on Jock’s shoulder. There was no point trying to talk a feverish man out
of something he had his heart set on.

Sure, he’ll stay with his
men…even if it kills him.

He sent a runner to fetch the
medic.

The sun was high and the Air
Force’s firebombing well under way when Jock’s fever finally broke. “He
shouldn’t even be here,” the medic said to Patchett, who was pointedly ignoring
him.

“You do realize, Sergeant Major,
that we took four more men out of action during the night with the fever?”

Patchett bristled. “You trying to
tell me my business, boy? Of course I fucking realize that.”

Jock was still stirring, not quite
awake yet. Nodding toward him, the medic added, “Well, then you know it should
have been five.”

He sprinted out of the tent before
Patchett could unleash his wrath.

Jock gulped down the first canteen
of water handed him, letting the last bit splash over his sweaty face. “The
tanks,” he said. “Did they get here?”

“Yep,” Patchett replied. “Only one
broke down and Colonel Molloy said to scratch it off the Aussie’s allocation.
I’m really starting to like that man.”

“You see, Top? I told you he was a good
man to work for. What else did I miss during the night?”

“Not a damn thing. We’re all just
waiting on the flyboys to finish up.”

Jock tried to stand and nearly fell
on his face. He would have if Patchett hadn’t caught him.

“You know, sir…another bout of the
fever like you had last night and you may not be with us much longer. And I’m
not talking about a trip to the aid station, neither.”

“Can’t think about that right now,
Top.”

He found his feet this time. They
headed out of the tent to watch Buna Village burn.

General Freidenburg was expecting
gratitude from the Aussie commander, General Vasey. Instead, he was getting an
earful.

“Two bloody tanks? That’s all I get
from you Yanks?”

“I think that’s quite a fair
allocation, General,” Freidenburg replied. “You were doing quite well breaking
through the Sanananda defenses without them. They’re just icing on the cake for
you now.”

Vasey tried hard not to laugh in
the American’s face. “Doing quite well, General? If you call my
horrendous casualty rates doing quite well, I don’t want to know what doing
badly entails.”

Freidenburg paid no attention to
the complaints. He had a few of his own.

“Looking at your situation map,
General Vasey, you don’t seem to be using the US Eighty-Second Regiment very
effectively. Why aren’t they in the main thrust of the attack with your boys,
instead of just guarding your boundary with my Thirty-Second Division?”

“Because my men don’t bloody trust
them under fire, General. Neither do I. And since you Yanks have cocked up so
badly, I need an entire regiment just to protect my flank from all those
Japanese you let escape from Buna. I consider it poetic justice to call upon
your Eighty-Second to provide me this service. Unfortunately, they don’t seem
very good at doing that, either.”

“Now see here, General,”
Freidenburg said, “I will not tolerate—”

But Vasey kept right on talking.
“Twice, I’ve had to rescue their flank from being enveloped by ragtag
bunches of Nips. And another thing, General…can you tell me how many Japanese
your Eighty-Second has killed or captured?”

Freidenburg was stumped for an
answer.

“Then let me tell you, sir…a dozen.
A bloody dozen. Thousands of Nips fleeing right through their lines to
the hills—where, no doubt, we’ll be fighting them all over again—and the best
your lads can do is bag a dozen?”

Spitting fire, Freidenburg said,
“I’ve listened to enough of your bullshit, General. Now I want a straight
answer: when will you capture Sanananda?”

George Vasey wasn’t in the least
bit intimidated. His reply: “We’ll capture it bloody well before you Yanks
finish your mucking about in Buna.”

The fires from the Air Force’s
incendiary raid on Buna were beginning to burn out. There was still plenty of
daylight left to begin the task of finding—and finishing—any Japanese making a
stand in the village. The engines of the Stuart tanks roared to life. A squad
of men climbed on the back of each, doing their part in the symbiosis of
infantry and armor: You give us rolling cover and firepower, we’ll keep the
Jap sappers off you.

Jock had been summoned to
Regimental HQ just as the sweep into Buna Village began. He wasn’t happy about
it; he’d wanted to be with his men as they cleared the village inch by inch.

But maybe it’s a blessing right
now, he thought. I’m about as wrung out as an old dishrag. I can tell by
how everyone’s staring at me that I look like warmed-over shit. Riding in this
jeep is about as much exercise as I can handle at the moment. Maybe I should
grab some chow up at Regiment…that might help.

After nothing but K rations—and,
when the sickness peaked, no food at all—the thought of a canned C ration
entrée was making his mouth water.

He hadn’t been in the HQ tent for a
second when Colonel Molloy said, “Jock…listen to this.”

An American voice was shrieking
over the Division radio net, calling for immediate air support. The target: Jap
armored vehicles.

They moved to the map to plot the
given target coordinates. They couldn’t believe where the pin fell.

“Impossible,” Jock said. “That
plots right on the edge of my zone, in Baker Company’s area. It’s bullshit…we
haven’t seen a Jap tank the whole time—”

He stopped cold. The realization of
what was happening struck him—and everyone else in the tent—like a punch in the
face.

Molloy asked, “That call’s coming
from Eighty-Second Regiment, isn’t it? Over with the Aussies?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“They’re looking across the Girua River,
sir,” Jock said, “right at my guys working with one of the Stuarts.”

“Call off the fucking Air Force,”
Molloy commanded. “They’re fixing to hit friendlies.”

The Air Force liaison piped up and
said, “We’re not handling that call, sir. It’s going through the Aussie net.
They’re relaying the Eighty-Second’s support request.”

“Break into the Aussie net, then,”
Molloy said.

“I’ll try,” the liaison said as he
fumbled with the signal SOP book. “Gotta figure out what frequency they’re on.
But by the time we authenticate…”

Molloy was getting hot under the
collar fast. “Then get Division on the fucking horn and have them do it. We
don’t have much time…there are planes in the air all over the place.”

The colonel was right: there were
planes all over the sky, just waiting for a target of opportunity like
this—even if it was an American tank they’d be accidentally targeting.

But there wasn’t enough time.

Lieutenant Tony Colletti, walking
behind the Stuart with a squad of his men, heard the P-40 screaming toward them
long before he saw her.

By the time the plane came into
view, streaking at treetop level, it was too late…

He could see the big white stars
under her wings plain as day.

For the pilot, who got nothing more
than an instantaneous glimpse of his target, a tank was a tank.

Colletti’s last thought: Gee…nice
to get air support when I didn’t even ask for it.

A hundred yards away, Melvin
Patchett was an inadvertent witness as the mistake unfolded.

He heard the P-40 coming, too…and
saw the bomb drop.

In the split second that followed,
he was trapped within the silent bubble of excruciating pressure and pain as
the blast’s shock wave expanded at cosmic speed.

His ears too battered to hear the
explosion, his body flung through space like a rag doll, Melvin Patchett felt
like he had absorbed the blow of some giant sledgehammer.

When he finally struggled to his
feet, aching but still alive, the Stuart was nothing but a smoldering shell,
unrecognizable but for the severed tracks still dangling from drive sprockets.

Lieutenant Colletti and the men
with him were gone, erased as if they had never existed.

Chapter Forty-Five

The close-in airstrip at Double-Dare
made more than just close air support possible. Now, General Freidenburg could
make regular trips to MacArthur’s HQ in Port Moresby, flying there and back in
the same day.

The current trip—five days and
counting into 1st Battalion’s clearing of Buna—was cursed with bad
news for Freidenburg from the start. He had barely stepped from the airplane
when informed his deputy commander, a brigadier general, had been shot and
severely wounded by a sniper while attempting to expedite the clearing
of Buna.

“It’s a living hell in that
village, sir,” Freidenburg told MacArthur. “I’ve watched my men rooting
Japanese soldiers out of the ground like they were pulling weeds.”

An interesting analogy, but a lie:
Freidenburg had yet to set foot in Buna Village and had no intention of doing
so until it was completely pacified.

Adding insult to injury, the
Australian command had upstaged the good news he came to announce: their radio
message informing MacArthur they had conquered Sanananda had beat Freidenburg
to Port Moresby by a good hour.

Looking none too pleased, MacArthur
said, “And yet, despite your brilliant amphibious deception, Robert, we still
struggle in Buna. How long until you’re finished there?”

“Not much longer, sir…a matter of a
few days. I’ve got the Japanese with their backs pinned against the Girua River.
There’s no place they can run now.”

“Very fine. But one more thing,
Robert. Those casualty rates—totally unacceptable. Washington is not pleased. I
can’t have any more Bunas. Is that understood?”

Freidenburg found the irony in
MacArthur’s words infuriating: Suddenly he’s worried about casualties? Isn’t
this the man who said, “Take Buna…or die trying?”

Nonetheless, he replied, “Yes, sir.
Absolutely, sir.”

MacArthur finally cracked a smile.
“But all in all, Robert, you’ve done an excellent job. I consider this campaign
as good as closed.”

Freidenburg wasn’t out the door of
the villa a minute before MacArthur had his message of great success in
Papua on the airwaves to Washington.

Busy in the kitchen, Ginny Beech
caught glimpses of the Supreme Commander standing before the drawing
room mirror, preening like a schoolboy, practicing his victory speech.

“His victory, my bloody
arse,” she mumbled as she set out the general’s fine china for supper. “His
lads should be getting all the credit.”

The table set, she returned to
wondering if she’d ever again see the lad she cared about most: Melvin
Patchett.

Nothing seemed excellent or as
good as closed to the GIs clearing Buna Village. True, once they reached
the Girua River—less than a half mile away—every square foot of this tropical
graveyard would be secured. But in that distance, they could find themselves in
any number of small but deadly battles with concealed Japanese.

One such battle had played itself
out earlier that day. “That brigadier we ain’t never seen before just walked
smack into it,” Bogater Boudreau told some GIs who’d missed the spectacle. “I
guess them stars don’t make you too smart. He was just standing there, tall as
can be, telling us we was all sissies. Couldn’t figure out why we was
all crawling on our bellies, I reckon.”

The tanks had been a godsend. As
Tom Hadley put it, “Just think how fast we could have done this if we had those
Stuarts from the very beginning...instead of the bullshit games we’ve been playing
for the last month.”

A few yards away, Jock sat on the
hood of a jeep and watched the mop-up proceed. “Hey, Top,” he called to
Patchett, “those tanks are too close together. Spread them out…move one of them
over to that creek bed with Able Company. That looks like trouble, don’t you
think?”

A few days ago, he would have had
the strength to run over and correct the situation himself. Now, he was simply
too weak: I’d end up flat on my face in the mud after a couple of steps.
That’d be inspiring as all hell to the men, wouldn’t it? Those sick troopers
still out here on the line…how the hell are they doing it?

No sooner had the Stuart joined
Able Company, the POOM-POOM-POOM of its main gun echoed through the
burned-out rubble that was once a village. There was one hell of a fight going
on at that creek bed. It was over in seconds.

Lieutenant Papadakis made the long
walk back to Jock. Almost apologetically, he said, “Thanks for the tank, sir.
We would’ve been in deep shit without it.” His head hung down, he added, “I
should’ve thought of it myself. That creek was a perfect ambush spot if there
ever was one.”

“Don’t sweat it, Theo. Chalk it up
to a lesson you’ll never forget.”

Moving like a man three times his
age, Jock eased himself off the hood and settled into the jeep’s right seat.
“Let’s get closer,” he told his driver.

The Japanese soldier couldn’t
believe his good fortune. Some 30 yards away, centered in his field of fire, a
jeep rolled to a stop. Several ragged Americans crowded around it immediately,
their bodies slouched against the vehicle as if it was the only thing keeping
them upright. They were all listening intently to the man in the passenger’s
seat.

He is their leader even if they
do not bow to him. A fool could tell.

I have been given a supreme
final gift.

Praying the faint click-click
of the bolt wouldn’t be heard over the murmur of the jeep’s engine, the soldier
checked the chamber of his Arisaka rifle—needless confirmation of a fact he
knew all too well:

My last bullet.

But his shot at the leader wasn’t
clear.

Move out of the way, Yankee
bastard!

He could feel his heartbeat
pounding in his ears, a racing clock ticking off the last seconds of his life.

Hurry! Give me my moment. I am
ready.

But the Yankees seemed in no great
rush...

Until that one man moved…and the
leader’s cover evaporated.

The hunter locked eyes with his
startled quarry.

He sees me! The eyes of a hawk!

The Americans became a blur, men
scrambling to defend themselves, screaming like animals caught in the snare…

One by one finding their triggers.

I squeeze my trigger, too…

While the voices of my ancestors
spirit me away.

Bogater Boudreau was keeping an
exact count: this guy made the 27th dead Jap his squad would be
pulling out of the ground since the assault on Buna Village began.

“Twenty-seven in five days,”
Boudreau said to no one in particular. “You’d think all the ruckus they stirred
up, we’d be finding a lot more than that. If every squad in this battalion
pulled out twenty-seven, that’s…that’s…”

“Nine hundred seventy-two, give or
take,” a private said, helping out his mathematically challenged squad leader.
“Assuming, of course, all the squads actually have GIs in them…which they
don’t.”

They kicked the last of the
splintered, blood-spattered boards off the hole.

“Geez,” the private said, “this
guy’s head got blown clean off.”

His voice matter-of-fact, Boudreau
replied, “Yep, that’ll happen when half-a-dozen guys unload their Thompsons all
at once. Easy now…check him for booby traps.”

“I hear Major Miles was the one who
spotted the guy just in time.”

“Heard the same thing,” Boudreau
said. “Too bad he had to get winged for his trouble.”

“Winged? I heard he took it right
in the chest.”

“Nah…just the shoulder. He’ll be
okay.”

“Funny, though,” the private said,
“when the medics hauled him off, he was shaking like a man scared out of his
ever-loving mind.”

“You don’t know nothing, shithead.
The major ain’t scared. It’s the sickness making him shake, that’s all. He’s
got it real bad. You start spreading any bullshit rumors about him and it’ll be
your ass, you hear me?”

“Yeah, Corporal. I hear you.”

“Good. Now give me a hand here.”

They reached down, grabbed the dead
man’s belt, and pulled. The rotted fabric snapped in two.

“Son of a bitch,” Boudreau said.
“And we thought our duds were in lousy shape.”

They grabbed his arms this time and
pulled. The dead man didn’t budge.

“Lord, we’re getting weak,”
Boudreau said. “This guy gotta weigh about next to nothing.”

It took four GIs to get the body
out of the hole and carry it to the collection point. As they did, something
fell from the dead man’s pocket: a small notebook.

Bogater Boudreau picked it up. As
he thumbed through the pages, a photograph fell out: a picture of a young
Japanese woman.

“Well, darling,” Bogater said,
“better find yourself another lover boy.”

The notebook’s pages were full of
neat writing. To Bogater’s eye, it seemed to be structured like the verse he’d
read as a child, except it was in some strange, unfathomable alphabet.

Boudreau slapped the book closed
and said, “Don’t look like there’s no documents in here worth worrying our
heads over.”

He tossed the notebook into a
burning pile of rubble.

It seemed anti-climactic when they
reached the river bank, like the last play in a game decided long before the
final whistle. A dozen Japanese soldiers huddled into a bunker little more than
a child’s sand castle fought to their last bullets. All but two were then
crushed beneath the tracks of the Stuart tanks. One tried to escape—despite
being so weak he could barely walk—by swimming the river, only to be dragged
under by a crocodile after several futile strokes.

The last Japanese soldier emerged
from a mangrove and tried to surrender to a startled GI who promptly shot him
to death, emptying his M1’s clip in the process.

Standing over the slain man,
Patchett deadpanned, “Nice shot group, Quick Draw. Just remind me to
never, ever sneak up on you.”

As the echoes of those last
gunshots faded and died, the survivors of 1st Battalion sagged to
the ground as one, sitting and staring silently into the sunset. No one dared
express relief or joy—they just wanted to be still, to rest for a moment,
without wondering if that moment would be their last.

Those whose first campaign was Buna
now knew what the veterans knew:

The taste of victory is not
sweet.

It’s bitter—a prized wine turned
to vinegar.

The new dawn brought the sound of
many trucks. The first thought in the head of every man in 1st
Battalion: They’re bringing in hot chow!

The trucks didn’t come bearing
food, though. They were carrying troops—men of the 41st Division,
according to their shoulder patches. These men seemed happy—and they
were much too clean and pressed to have been in Papua more than an hour or two.
They certainly hadn’t done a lick of fighting.

“These sons of bitches came
straight from the airfield,” Tom Hadley said, eyeing their spotless uniforms as
he stood, filthy and unshaven, clad only in crumbling boots and tattered boxer
shorts.

“Better than that,” Melvin Patchett
added. “I’m betting about forty-eight hours ago, every swinging dick was up to
the hilt in some Queensland sheila.”

A spit-shined, cocksure captain
strode up to Patchett. “I’m looking for the commanding officer, Sergeant. I’m
told his name is Major Miles.”

“The major’s in the hospital,
Captain.” Pointing toward the latrine, Patchett added, “You need to speak with
Lieutenant Grossman, he’s ranking officer around here at the moment…but hang on
a minute, sir.”

He reached into his tent and
produced several rolls of toilet paper. “Might want to bring these with you,
sir…the lieutenant will sure appreciate it. Might want to keep a little for
yourself, too.”

Glaring at Patchett, the captain
asked, “Is that some kind of joke, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. Ain’t no joke at all.”

Not quite sure this grizzled old
sergeant wasn’t trying to bullshit him, the captain set off smartly for the
latrine. He had only taken a few steps when Patchett asked, “Begging your
pardon, sir, but where the fuck y’all been?”

Chapter Forty-Six

C-47s were crammed into every available
parking spot at the Dobodura airstrip. Waiting to board them were hundreds of
GIs and Aussies. Some were wounded, some sick and feverish. A few, like Jock
Miles, were unfortunate enough to fit both categories.

Up until a few minutes ago, he
would have been considered one of the walking wounded, his arm in a
sling which immobilized the collarbone fractured by the sniper’s bullet. A
painful wound, but not life-threatening. But now, the grip of malarial fever
was setting back in. A medic scrambled to find Jock a stretcher for the plane
ride to the big hospital at Port Moresby. Melvin Patchett found his commander
by the loading door of Nightingale 12—a C-47 identified with a big 12
chalked on its fuselage.

Patchett took a sobering look at
all the troops waiting to be evacuated. He recognized so many of them as his
own—the men of 1st Battalion, 81st Infantry. “Maybe I
should’ve had roll call right here this morning,” the sergeant major said.
“Damn sure looks like there’s more of us on this airstrip than back at camp.
How you holding up, sir?”

“I’ll be okay, I guess, Top,” Jock
replied, his voice beginning to waver, sounding definitely not okay.
“But the malaria…it’s kicking my ass right now. The damn fever…”

“I know, sir…I know. You just take
yourself a little time off in Port Moresby. You’ll be good as new before you
know it. And don’t you worry about a thing. We’ve got everything under control
here.”

“I’ve been hearing the Forty-First
showed up to relieve us, Top. That true?”

“Yeah, they’re here…all full of piss
and vinegar. They’ll learn, I suppose…but not before they gotta haul some of
their own off to Graves Registration.”

Jock mustered a feeble laugh. “We
all need that cat-list, don’t we?”

Colonel Molloy made his way through
the throng of waiting GIs, finally spying Jock and Patchett by Nightingale
12. “Glad I caught you before you shipped out, Jock,” Molloy said.

He didn’t bother to ask how Jock
was feeling. One look told him all he needed to know: This poor bastard’s in
bad shape. Don’t make him lie to you again about how he’ll be okay.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re both
here,” the colonel said. “Real quick question—what do you think we learned at
Buna?”

Hurting though he was, Jock had an
answer ready. “That’s simple, sir,” he said. “If I’m ever told to attack
fortified positions without artillery and tanks again, I’m going to shoot
myself in the foot right off the bat and be done with it.”

Molloy and Patchett waited for his
laugh but it never came. He looked dead serious.

Jock had one more thing to add: “And
that isn’t the fever talking, either, sir.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

As the clouds thickened around her,
Nightingale 12 plodded east, searching for the low mountain pass that
would take her to Papua’s south coast and the final, western flight leg to Port
Moresby. The C-47s of Nightingale Flight were strung out now—each
flying on her own—to reduce the chances of colliding in the poor visibility.
The mountains that towered somewhere off their starboard wingtips, hidden
behind that harmless-looking white mask of clouds, were enough of a danger; the
planes didn’t need to be smacking into each other, too.

Jock’s fever was, at last, doing
the talking. Over and over, he was mumbling the same word. The lead flight
medic asked his assistant, “What’s he saying?”

“I don’t know…sounds like some
woman’s name, like Jill, or Jillian, maybe.”

“Take his temperature.”

“But I did a half hour ago. It was
one-oh-three. Typical…he’s got malaria.”

“Take it again.”

This time, the thermometer read
105.3.

“Holy shit! This guy’s on fire,”
the lead medic said. “Start sponging him down, Private, right fucking now.”

As he worked the cool water over
Jock’s body, the assistant said, “Don’t you dare die on us, Major. We’ll get
you there real soon, I promise.”

The lieutenant barked the command:
his sergeant sliced through the coarse rope with his sword. The prisoner—who
had been tied, arms spread, to a bamboo pole, suspended like a crucified Christ
in midair by that rope—crashed to the muddy ground. Aching arms now freed from
the pole, the prisoner was dragged by soldiers back to the barbed-wire pen.

Only one of the other prisoners in
the pen came to help, a young Dutch nurse who—as near as she could tell—had
been held in this prison camp for over a year. The rest of the captives skulked
away. They were afraid any association with this rebellious newcomer would only
get them tortured, too.

The nurse gently cleaned the new
prisoner’s wounds with fresh coconut milk. With practiced hands, she checked
for other injuries. When that was done, she whispered, “Did they rape you?”

In a strained voice, exhausted but
still defiant, the prisoner replied, “No, and I’ll bloody well find a way to
kill them if they try.”

The nurse sighed and shook her head
sadly. She’d survived in this camp by making herself useful. This new prisoner
seemed dedicated to the suicidal strategy of being a thorn in her captors’
side, an insect asking to be swatted.

Stroking the prisoner’s long hair
tenderly, the nurse said, “Jillian Forbes, you silly girl…it’s a miracle they
haven’t killed you already.”

It was well past 1500 at Seven Mile
Airfield outside Port Moresby. The planes of Nightingale Flight had come
and gone—all but one.

In the Operations tent, the duty
officer was running out of places to call, alternate landing fields where Nightingale
12 might have set down. He held up a sheaf of radio messages for the
squadron commander to see. “We know she didn’t return to Dobodura, sir,” the
duty officer said, “and she’s not at Fasari, Kokoda, or Milne Bay, either. We
got Twenty Mile on the horn, too—no dice.” He looked at the big map one more
time and added, “And they sure as hell didn’t fly to the Solomons…or back to Australia.”

The squadron commander took a step
outside the tent, taking a long, hard look at the afternoon storm clouds
rolling off Astrolabe Mountain and the Owen Stanleys beyond. He shook his head—Nightingale
12 would have returned to Earth somewhere by now: She’d have been out of
gas a while ago.

“There aren’t many choices left,
then,” the commander said. “She’s either in the drink…or more than likely,
she’s down in the mountains somewhere. You never had any transmissions from
her? Nothing at all?”

“No, sir. Not a damn word. It’s
like she just vanished.”

***

About The Author

History is a parade of chance outcomes,
influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong
student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter
Grasso’s novels explore the concept change one thing…and watch what happens.
The results are works of fiction in which the actual people and historical
events are weaved into a seamless and entertaining narrative with the imagined.

Focusing on the WW2 era, Grasso’s novels have
spent several years in the Amazon Top 100 for Alternative History and War.

Retired from the aircraft maintenance
industry, Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert
Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These
days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying
radio-controlled model aircraft.

Contact the Author Online:

Email: William Peter Grasso

Connect with the Author on
Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso

More Novels by
William Peter Grasso

Moon
Above, Moon Below

A
Moon Brothers WW2 Adventure

France, August 1944. In this alternate history WW2
adventure, American and British forces struggle to trap and destroy the still-potent
German armies defending Normandy. But the Allies face another formidable
obstacle of their own making: a seething rivalry between generals leads to a
high-level disregard for orders that puts the entire campaign in the Falaise
Pocket at risk of devastating failure—or spectacular success. That campaign
unfolds through the eyes of two American brothers—one an idealistic pilot, the
other a fatalistic tanker—as they plunge headlong into the confusion and
indiscriminant slaughter of war.

Operation
Fishwrapper

Book 5

Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series

June 1944: A recon flight is shot down over the
Japanese-held island of Biak, soon to be the next jump in MacArthur’s
leapfrogging across New Guinea. Major Jock Miles, US Army—the crashed plane’s
intelligence officer—must lead the handful of survivors to safety. It’s a tall
order for a man barely recovered from a near-crippling leg wound. Gaining the
grudging help of a Dutch planter who has evaded the Japanese since the war
began, Jock discovers just how little MacArthur’s staff knows about the terrain
and defenses of the island they’re about to invade.

The American invasion of Biak promptly bogs down, and the
GIs rename the debacle Operation Fishwrapper, a joking reference to
their worthless maps. The infantry battalion Jock once led quickly suffers the
back-to-back deaths of two commanders, so he steps into the job once again,
ignoring the growing difficulties with his leg. When his Aussie wife Jillian
tracks down the refugee mapmaker who can refine those fishwrappers into
something of military value, the tide of battle finally turns in favor of the
Americans. But for Jock, the victory imparts a life-changing blow.

Operation Blind Spot

Book 4

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

After surviving a deadly plane crash, Jock Miles is handed a
new mission: neutralize a mountaintop observation post on Japanese-held Manus Island
so MacArthur’s invasion fleet en route to Hollandia, New Guinea, can arrive
undetected. Jock’s team seizes and holds the observation post with the help of
a clever deception. But when they learn of a POW camp deep in the island’s
treacherous jungle, it opens old wounds for Jock and his men: the
disappearance—and presumed death—of Jillian Forbes at Buna a year before.
There’s only one risky way to find out if she’s a prisoner there…and doing so
puts their entire mission in serious jeopardy.

Operation Easy Street

Book 3

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

Port Moresby was bad. Buna was worse.

The WW2 alternative history adventure of Jock Miles
continues as MacArthur orders American and Australian forces to seize Buna in Papua
New Guinea. Once again, the Allied high command underestimates the Japanese
defenders, plunging Jock and his men into a battle they’re not equipped to win.
Worse, jungle diseases, treacherous terrain, and the tactical fantasies of deluded
generals become adversaries every bit as deadly as the Japanese. Sick,
exhausted, and outgunned, Jock’s battalion is ordered to spearhead an
amphibious assault against the well-entrenched enemy. It’s a suicide
mission—but with ingenious help from an unexpected source, there might be a way
to avoid the certain slaughter and take Buna. For Jock, though, victory comes
at a dreadful price.

Operation Long Jump

Book 2

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

Alternative history takes center stage as Operation Long
Jump, the second book in the Jock Miles World War 2 adventure series, plunges
us into the horrors of combat in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. As a
prelude to the Allied invasion, Jock Miles and his men seize the Japanese
observation post on the mountain overlooking Port Moresby. The main invasion
that follows quickly degenerates to a bloody stalemate, as the inexperienced,
demoralized, and poorly led GIs struggle against the stubborn enemy.

Seeking a way to crack the impenetrable Japanese defenses,
infantry officer Jock finds himself in a new role—aerial observer. He’s teamed
with rookie pilot John Worth, in a prequel to his role as hero of Grasso’s East
Wind Returns. Together, they struggle to expose the Japanese defenses—while
highly exposed themselves—in their slow and vulnerable spotter plane. The enemy
is not the only thing troubling Jock: his Australian lover, Jillian Forbes, has
found a new and dangerous way to contribute to the war effort.

Long Walk to the Sun

Book 1

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

In this alternate history adventure set in WW2’s early days,
a crippled US military struggles to defend vulnerable Australia against the
unstoppable Japanese forces. When a Japanese regiment lands on Australia’s
desolate and undefended Cape York Peninsula, Jock Miles, a US Army captain
disgraced despite heroic actions at Pearl Harbor, is ordered to locate the
enemy’s elusive command post.

Conceived in politics rather than sound tactics, the futile
mission is a “show of faith” by the American war leaders meant to do little
more than bolster their flagging Australian ally. For Jock Miles and the men of
his patrol, it’s a death sentence: their enemy is superior in men, material,
firepower, and combat experience. Even if the Japanese don’t kill them, the vast
distances they must cover on foot in the treacherous natural realm of Cape York
just might. When Jock joins forces with Jillian Forbes, an indomitable woman
with her own checkered past who refused to evacuate in the face of the Japanese
threat, the dim prospects of the Allied war effort begin to brighten in
surprising ways.

Unpunished

Congressman. Presidential candidate. Murderer. Leonard
Pilcher is all of these things.

As an American pilot interned in Sweden during WWII, he
kills one of his own crewmen and gets away with it. Two people have witnessed
the murder—American airman Joe Gelardi and his secret Swedish lover, Pola
Nilsson-MacLeish—but they cannot speak out without paying a devastating price.
Tormented by their guilt and separated by a vast ocean after the war, Joe and
Pola maintain the silence that haunts them both...until 1960, when Congressman
Pilcher’s campaign for his party’s nomination for president gains momentum. As
he dons the guise of war hero, one female reporter, anxious to break into the
“boy’s club” of TV news, fights to uncover the truth against the far-reaching
power of the Pilcher family’s wealth, power that can do any wrong it
chooses—even kill—and remain unpunished. Just as the nomination seems within
Pilcher’s grasp, Pola reappears to enlist Joe’s help in finally exposing
Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the passion of their wartime romance
rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher down before becoming his next
victims.

East
Wind Returns

A young but veteran photo recon pilot in WWII finds the fate
of the greatest invasion in history--and the life of the nurse he
loves--resting perilously on his shoulders.

“East Wind Returns” is a story of World War II set in
July-November 1945 which explores a very different road to that conflict's
historic conclusion. The American war leaders grapple with a crippling setback:
Their secret atomic bomb does not work. The invasion of Japan seems the only
option to bring the war to a close. When those leaders suppress intelligence of
a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the invasion forces, it falls to photo
reconnaissance pilot John Worth to find the Japanese device. Political intrigue
is mixed with passionate romance and exciting aerial action--the terror of
enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire, mechanical malfunctions, deadly weather,
and the Kamikaze. When shot down by friendly fire over southern Japan during
the American invasion, Worth leads the desperate mission that seeks to
deactivate the device.