Operation

Fishwrapper

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 2015 William Peter Grasso

All rights reserved

**

Cover design by Alyson Aversa

Kindle Edition License Notes

Operation Fishwrapper is a work of historical fiction.
Events that are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point
in time or may not occur at all. Apart from the well-known actual people,
events, and locales that figure 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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Novels by William Peter Grasso

Copyright

Author’s Note

Dedication

Map—Dutch New Guinea

Map—Biak

Part I—Broken Wings

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

Part II—Until It Ends

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

About the Author

More Novels by William Peter Grasso

Author’s Note

This is a work of
alternative historical fiction. In actual events, MacArthur’s forces invaded
the island of Biak at the end of May 1944 as part of their continuing
quest to neutralize the Japanese in Dutch New Guinea and secure airfields to
support the invasion of the Philippines. The fighting on Biak raged until early September of that year, when the
last Japanese retreating westward across the island in a brutal war of
attrition were finally subdued. While the story in this novel adheres loosely
to the timeline of actual events, the events depicted, the units and weaponry
involved, and the intelligence ploys used to achieve an American victory are
fictitious.

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

Contact the Author Online:

Email: wpgrasso@cox.net

Connect with the Author on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso

Dedication

To
Peg, still the only reason all this is possible

Chapter One

June 10, 1944

2300 hours

The US Navy crew of the PBY
Catalina was used to night missions. They’d been flying them for months, using
their radar to find and attack enemy ships seeking refuge with the only friend
the Imperial Japanese Navy had left: darkness. Two symbols stenciled below the
pilot’s window—each an outline of a sinking ship—meant this aircraft had been
credited with sending two enemy vessels to the bottom. But this US Navy Cat had
rarely worked as a solo ship before—and never with an Army officer onboard,
calling the shots.

That officer—Jock Miles, Major, US
Army—peered over the shoulder of the PBY’s navigator, a lieutenant j.g. named Becker.
Together, they watched as the dial on the radio direction finder crept slowly
toward the aircraft’s port beam. “About fifteen seconds,” Becker called to the
pilot. “Then turn left to heading one-three-zero…on my count.”

Becker turned to Jock and said,
“Well, Major Miles, let’s hope and pray the signal from Darwin isn’t bending a
whole lot tonight.” Then, stopwatch in hand, he began the countdown:

“Five…four…three…two…one…MARK.”

The lumbering flying boat dipped
her left wing and began a southerly turn. When she leveled off at her new
heading, the radar operator stared intently at his scope and said, “Well, that
looks pretty good, Major Miles. We’ve got a coastline about five miles off our
port wing and nothing but sea return ahead. Wanna look?”

Jock leaned closer to the radar
scope. “Like you said, Baum, it’s a coastline. With a little luck, it’s Biak’s
coastline.”

“Don’t sweat it, sir,” Petty
Officer Sid Baum replied. “Mister Becker hasn’t gotten us lost too badly yet.”

The PBY droned on for twenty
minutes more, slowly losing altitude until they were 3,000 feet above the sea’s
surface. In the pale glow of the cockpit lighting, Jock could read the tension
on the face of the pilot, Lieutenant Arthur Simpson.

“You sure it’s safe to be down this
low, Major?” he asked Jock. “Mountains jutting out of the sea in the dark are a
great way to get us all dead.”

“Yeah, I’m sure, Mister Simpson.
Been over this place three times in the past week.”

“But that was in broad daylight,
Major…and you were probably a hell of a lot higher, too.”

Simpson was right about that: those
missions on Photo Finish—an Army Air Force B-24 bomber converted for the
photo mapping role—had been flown at 8,000 feet, with the comfort of escort
fighters to ward off Japanese interceptors. None had risen to the challenge,
though—and the photos hadn’t shown anything to suggest a significant Japanese
build-up on the island of Biak. The pilots had called those missions milk
runs.

“And I’m still a little fuzzy what
the Army expects to see at night it couldn’t see in broad daylight, sir,”
Simpson said, and then laughed as he added, “oh, wait…the Army doesn’t do much
night flying. They get lost real easy once the sun goes down. Maybe you
should’ve gotten the Aussies to fly this mission, Major. MacArthur usually
gives them all the shit jobs, doesn’t he?”

Without taking his eyes off the
navigator’s plot, Jock replied, “Mister Simpson, I’m married to an
Aussie, so I don’t need to be hearing that crap from you, too. Now come left
five degrees. Let’s get a little closer to the coast.”

As he put the big flying boat into
a shallow bank, Simpson mumbled a skeptical, “Aye aye, sir.”

They were barely out of the turn
when Simpson said, “Major Miles, you’d better have a look at this.”

There was a bright glow in the
distance, just visible over the Cat’s nose, like the lights of a small city.
They were flying straight for it. Simpson asked, “What the hell do you make of
that, sir? Fires or something?”

“Nope,” Jock replied, “those are
floodlights. Just what I was afraid of.”

“Afraid? Why?”

“Because, Mister Simpson, the
natives don’t generate electricity. Those are Jap floodlights.”

“But sir, why would the Japs be
stupid enough to light up the place like it was Christmas?”

“They’re in too much of a hurry to
care right now, Mister Simpson. We figured they’d be building airfields around
the clock down there on Biak. But I still can’t figure out why we never saw any
of that on the daytime recon flights.”

“Well, now we know they’re building
something,” Simpson said. “And now that we’ve seen it, we can get the
hell out of here.” He was already pushing the throttles forward and beginning a
turn that would take them away from the coastline.

“ Negative, Mister Simpson,” Jock
said. “Hold your course and altitude.”

“But that’s going to take us right
over the Japs!”

“That’s exactly what I want. Now
throttle back, for cryin’ out loud—let’s not make this big black airplane easy
to spot by blowing flames out her exhausts. I’m going back to the blisters for
a better look…and to get some pictures.”

Jock had barely stepped from the
cockpit when Sid Baum, the radar operator, yelled, “Holy shit! I’m getting
returns like crazy, five miles dead ahead, maybe a little less.”

“Dammit,” Simpson said. “A
mountain! I knew it! We don’t know where the hell we are!”

Lieutenant Becker replied, “Begging
your pardon, Skipper, but I’ve got a pretty damn good idea where the hell we
are…and there aren’t any mountains ahead of us.”

“Mister Becker’s right, sir,” Baum
added. “This sure as hell isn’t any mountain I’m looking at. It’s got to be
ships. Lots of them.”

We figured that, too, dammit,
Jock told himself. Ships bringing troops under cover of darkness. Lots of
ships bringing lots of troops.

“Hold this damn course,
Lieutenant,” Jock yelled to Simpson. Then he continued aft to the gun blisters,
passing below the flight engineer at his panel in the stubby cabane strut that
joined the fuselage to the wing. The engineer, a crusty CPO named Atticus
“Buzz” Parmly, called down, “What the hell’s going on, Major? The lieutenant
can’t seem to decide whether he wants to climb or stay put. He’s playing hell
with my fuel calculations.”

“We’re staying put, Chief. We may
have hit the jackpot.”

“Jackpot, eh? We gonna win the war
tonight, Major?”

“Right now, I’d settle for not
losing it, Chief.”

When Jock reached the aft
compartment, he found Minsky and Benedetto, the two gunners, staring intently
out the left blister. Benedetto asked, “What the hell’s going on down there,
sir? It’s lit up like a fucking carnival.”

“Looks like the Japs are building
airfields,” Jock replied. “That lit-up area’s got to be between Mokmer and
Sorido. It’s the only place on Biak where there’s a plain flat enough for
airfields but close to the sea for easy resupply.”

Minsky asked, “All the rest is
mountains and jungle, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“And the Army’s hot to invade it,
ain’t you, sir?”

“Afraid so,” Jock replied. “Pretty
soon, too…maybe too damn soon. But that’s not for publication, understand?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

As the Cat flew closer to the
shoreline, the floodlights, though trained on the ground, reflected an
unwelcome glow across the plane’s lower surface and into her cabin. The scene
below looked as if it was being played out in the bright sunlight of high noon.
Trucks, steam rollers, and gangs of men—hundreds, maybe a thousand—were toiling
to clear and level long, narrow strips of land in three distinct areas.

“Three separate airfields, spread
out over about five miles,” Jock said as he snapped photos and jotted notes on
a map. “They’ll be able to launch hundreds of planes, enough to do some serious
damage to our amphibious assault before it even gets near the beach. No wonder
we couldn’t see any of this during the day—they’re working under camouflage
netting. Looks like miles of it.”

Flying directly over the shoreline
now, they could see ocean-going troop barges nestled against makeshift floating
jetties and the sparse patches of beachfront the mangroves had failed to claim.
Each barge was huge, meant to carry fifty to one hundred troops or tons of
equipment. Jock counted at least three dozen offloading men and materiel. The
rectangular shapes of countless other barges lurked in the offshore darkness,
barely visible yet betrayed by the glow of their wakes as they circled, waiting
their turn to be guided through the reefs.

Jock didn’t need to see any more.
He hurried back to the cockpit. Grabbing the message pad on the radio
operator’s desk, he began to draft the message to 6th Army HQ: a
warning that Biak was not the easy pickings MacArthur had pronounced it to be.

Then the first jolt rocked the Cat.

Even though they’d expected it, to
a man they wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. But they couldn’t pretend for
long, not as the harsh, industrial racket of flak punching through their ship
continued. They dared to look and saw the orange glints in the dark sky
—looking deceptively like the harmless blink of a photographer’s flash—as
anti-aircraft shells exploded all around them. They could hear the explosions,
too, their dull poomfs too close for the drone of her engines to
mask—quickly followed by a sound like angry waves of hail against a tin roof as
still more iron fragments ripped through her thin aluminum skin.

With a sickening lurch, the Cat
yawed left. The steady, comforting drone of her engines turned into the cyclic
moan of mismatched rpms as the port engine began to falter. Chief Parmly
struggled with the dying engine, gently playing her controls, trying to restore
at least some of her power, while he offered a silent prayer for the continued
health of the good starboard engine.

“I CAN’T CLIMB ON ONE ENGINE,
DAMMIT,” Lieutenant Simpson yelled. “WE’VE GOT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

He jerked the control wheel hard to
the right, hoping to turn his lumbering ship back over the sea, out of harm’s
way.

Nothing happened. The Cat didn’t
turn right. She just kept drifting left, over the Japanese on Biak.

What the hell? he thought,
and gave the wheel an experimental spin fully to the left. The Cat didn’t
respond in that direction, either.

Staring in bewilderment at the
useless controls, he said, “Son of a bitch…we’ve got no ailerons. Flak must
have cut the cables. Right rudder’s already to the floor fighting this
crapped-out engine…and we’re still slipping to port.”

His co-pilot, a cocksure rookie
named Steve Richards, tapped his finger against the altimeter and muttered,
“Shit…shit…shit.” The instrument was slowly winding down, dragging Richards’
confidence down with it.

Lieutenant Simpson gave a tentative
backward tug on the control column. The ship’s nose began to rise. “At least
the elevators still work,” he said, watching as the airspeed—already
dangerously low—began to bleed off. “But if we don’t keep the nose down, she’s
going to stall.”

He turned to his radio operator and
said, “Morales, send out the mayday. Tell them we’re going to end up in
the drink somewhere south of Biak.”

“No,” Jock said, still writing on
the message pad. “If we’re going down, we’ve got to get this intel report out
first. Too many lives are at—”

“Bullshit on that,” Simpson
interrupted. “I’m not taking a dunk in the Pacific without them knowing where
the hell I am.”

Becker, the navigator, asked, “And
where exactly are you going to be, Skipper? We don’t have a clue where we’re
going to splash. Not yet, anyway.”

“Ballpark, Mister Becker.
Just get us in the damn ballpark.”

“One hell of a ballpark,” Becker
mumbled as he drew a big goose egg on his chart south of Biak Island.

“We’re wasting time,” Jock said, thrusting
the message pad toward the radio operator. “How about it, Morales?”

Hector Morales looked at Jock, and
then his pilot. Grabbing the message pad, he said, “Begging your pardon, Mister
Simpson, but the major here is right. And if you gentlemen would stop measuring
your peckers for a minute and leave me alone, I could get off both these
messages no sweat.” He hunched over his telegraph key and began to send the
intel report.

“Dammit, I gave you a direct
order, Morales,” Simpson said.

“Yeah, I know you did, sir, but he
outranks you.”

He kept right on sending Jock’s
report.

“Dammit, I’m in command of this
aircraft,” the pilot said. “You’ll do as I—”

Jock cut him off. “No he won’t,
Mister Simpson, because I’m in command of this mission. Every man in
your crew seems to realize that except you. Just fly the fucking airplane.”

The moaning of the out-of-sync
engines stopped, giving way to a shrill squeal like metal against a grinding
wheel. The cockpit lit up with an orange glow as the damaged port engine trailed
a comet’s tail of sparks. In seconds, it burst into vivid flames, which swept
aft across the wing.

Before Simpson could scream Feather
it…shut her down, the engine seized, her propeller blades coming to an
abrupt halt in a startling display of centrifugal force that tore the engine
halfway off its mount. It dangled crazily, a useless, drag-inducing appendage
on a barely controllable ship that needed every bit of that lost streamlining
just to stay airborne a few minutes more.

At least the fire had gone out.

Ensign Richards was still watching
the altimeter wind down. “We’re going to be on the deck in a little over a
minute,” he said. “We’ve got to hit level, or we’re going to bury a wingtip and
cartwheel…and I can’t keep her straight with the rudder anymore.”

“No shit,” Simpson replied. “Looks
like there’s only one way to pull that off now…”

He yanked the throttle of the
undamaged starboard engine to idle. The Cat became nothing more than a
reluctant, muttering glider, wings level at least, but sinking steadily back
down to earth.

The floodlights of the Japanese
airfield builders were now behind them. Below was nothing but an indefinable
darkness.

“We can’t possibly be over water
again,” Simpson said.

“Believe me, we’re not,” the
navigator replied. “There’s miles of Biak still ahead of us.”

“We’re putting the tip floats down,
anyway,” the pilot said.

Wishful thinking…

The first new sound was an
intermittent scraping, as if a stiff brush was scouring metal.

The second was a sickening CRUNCH,
like a boat being smashed against rocks by an unforgiving sea…

Followed by the violent
deceleration that swirled everyone and everything around the cockpit like rag
dolls…

And then nothing but a damning
stillness.

Chapter Two

As Jock regained his senses, one
thing became obvious: they hadn’t crashed in the water. His hands found a
flashlight; its beam revealed they weren’t quite on the ground, either—at least
not the forward fuselage. It had sheared from the rest of the airframe and was
wedged high amid a stand of trees, its nose angled sharply upward. The first
challenge would be to not fall to earth through the gaping hole where the cabin
bulkhead used to be once he freed himself from his seatbelt.

As he struggled with the buckle,
one thought filled his mind: This was supposed to have been a desk job…a
game-legged infantryman helping the Air Force make better maps for us dogfaces.

Nobody, though, had forced him to
fly recon missions like this one, which had just come to its unceremonious end.
Going on flying status had been his decision and his alone.

But aside from aching like he’d
just taken a thorough beating in the boxing ring, he knew he wasn’t badly hurt.
Even the leg seriously wounded months ago—the wound that was supposed to keep
him out of combat—still felt serviceable.

Hell, I hardly limp at all
anymore.

Reaching beneath his seat, he was
relieved to find his Thompson submachine gun still there, its strap still
wrapped around the seat frame.

And these Navy guys gave me
funny looks when I brought this tommy gun on board, like it never occurred to
them we might land in the wrong place and need some serious firepower. All they
carry are those sidearms…and I bet they can’t hit anything more than five feet
away with them.

Making the uphill climb through the
cockpit on hands and knees, he found Hector Morales helping Sid Baum from
beneath the wreckage of his radar set.

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Major,” Morales
replied, and then asked Baum, “You sure you’re not hurt, Sid? There’s a hundred
pounds of crap laying on you.”

“Nah, Hec, I’m good, I think.
Nothing’s broken. Ain’t heard much out of the officers, though.”

Jock climbed farther into the
cockpit and found out why: Becker, the navigator, was dead. His head lay
against his chest as if attached by nothing more than rubber bands.

Broken neck, the poor bastard,
Jock told himself.

Simpson, the pilot, and Richards,
the copilot, were just coming around, moaning softly, still strapped to their
seats. They were covered with plexiglass splinters from the shattered cockpit
windows. Miraculously, neither appeared to have suffered more than superficial
cuts. Jock went to work freeing Simpson from his seat harness.

The pilot’s return to lucidity was
as abrupt as if a switch had been thrown. He fixed Jock in an accusing glare
and announced, “This isn’t my fault, you know. It was all your idea.”

“Save that crap for the pilots’
lounge,” Jock replied, helping him from the seat. “Nobody gives a shit whose
fault it is at the moment. Now hang on to something real tight or you’ll slide
right out of here. We haven’t figured out how far it is to the ground yet.”

“Yeah, we have, Major,” Morales’
voice replied out of the darkness. “We played out some rope, and we’re about
twenty-five feet up. But we’ve got other problems…the chief’s hurt. Looks like
he busted his arm. Must’ve hit his head, too, because he thinks he’s back in Cleveland.
And I just got a pretty good whiff of hundred octane.”

“EVERYBODY OUT,” Lieutenant Simpson
said, pushing past Jock in a great rush to slide down that rope.

“Not so damn fast,” Jock said,
holding him by the arm. “You and Mister Richards take the thirty cal from the
nose turret. Grab as many ammo belts as you can carry, too.”

“NO TIME! WE’RE GONNA BURN,
DAMMIT,” Simpson replied. “WE GOTTA GO.”

“There isn’t anything in this part
of the airplane to burn, Mister Simpson,” Jock said. “In case you haven’t
noticed, the wings aren’t with us anymore. They got ripped off—and if memory
serves me right, all the fuel is in those wings.” He tightened his grip on the
Navy man’s arm. “Now get ahold of yourself, Lieutenant. Welcome to the ground
war. The fun’s just getting started.”

They left Becker’s body in the
cockpit. “We’ll get him out and bury him once we get our bearings,” Jock told
the others.

It wasn’t hard to find the rest of
the airplane, even in the dark. Jock took Baum and backtracked down the line of
broken trees that extended some fifty yards from the severed forward fuselage.
It was all there: two torn-off wings, forming a ragged V with the tail
section inside. The battered bodies of Minsky and Benedetto, the two aft
gunners, were there, too, lying amid the wreckage. The odor of aviation
gasoline Hector Morales had detected while they were still hanging in the trees
was overpowering; leaking fuel was forming widening pools on the ground.

As they dragged the dead gunners
clear of the twisted metal and puddled fuel, Baum asked, “You’re going to get
us out of here, aren’t you, Major Miles? I mean, Mister Simpson may be a decent
pilot and all, but down here, well…”

His voice trailed off. Further
explanation seemed unnecessary.

Before Jock could answer, they
heard the growl of a motor vehicle engine, barely above idle, far off but
growing louder.

“Shit,” Jock said, “I think someone
heard our arrival.”

Baum asked, “Shouldn’t we be seeing
some glare off his headlights or something?”

Jock replied, “Ain’t that funny?
They’ve got their airfields lit up like Times Square, but a solitary vehicle
driving around in the bush is practicing blackout discipline. That’s why
they’re going real slow…they can’t see a damn thing in front of them.”

“How far away do you think that
truck is, sir?”

“Can’t tell for sure. Maybe half a
mile. Leave these poor guys here for now. Let’s get back with the others.”

They didn’t have any trouble finding
the others—Simpson, Richards, Morales—in the darkness of the rainforest.
All they had to do was home in on the racket those three men were making.

Three men. There should have been
four.

“Knock off the noise, dammit,” Jock
said. “We’ve got company coming. And where the hell is Chief Parmly?”

“Don’t know,” Simpson replied. “We
were trying to make a splint for his arm, and he just kept babbling about going
to some bowling alley to meet some dame. Next thing we knew, he was gone.”

The pilot was all jittery motion,
ready to vanish like his flight engineer. “We heard that truck,” he said. “It’s
coming this way. We’ve got to get the hell away from the ship.”

“Hold on a minute, Lieutenant,”
Jock said. “The truck’s not that close. Not yet, anyway. Maybe you’d like to
hear about the rest of your crew first, so you won’t be worried you lost track
of them, too? ”

“What? Are they dead?”

“Yep.”

“Their fifty cals…can we use them?”

“No, they’re all twisted up in the
wreckage. Besides, they’re too heavy for the handful of us to carry around. The
thirty cal from the nose is a lot more practical.”

Richards, the co-pilot, wasn’t even
a shadow of the cocky young pilot he’d been in the air. He whined, “But don’t
we need a tripod to fire that thing?”

“Believe me, Mister Richards, we
won’t need a tripod. Who’s the best shot with it?”

All the Navy men pointed to Hector
Morales.

Jock said, “Good. You handle it,
Morales. Everybody else, strap a belt of ammo around yourself, just like this…”
He draped one around his own torso to demonstrate. “Now, did you get everything
else we need out of the plane?”

“Yeah,” Simpson replied, “we’ve got
the survival kit, the canteens, the code book, the Very pistol…but we’ve got
two more little problems.”

“Only two? Now there’s a miracle.
So what’s the deal?”

“Well, first off, Ensign Richards
has lost his forty-five.”

“Yeah,” Richards said, “the stupid
thing must’ve fallen out of its holster when I was sliding down the rope.” Like
a confused schoolboy, he added, “I can’t find it in the dark.”

Jock took the .45 from his own
holster and handed it to Richards. “Here, use mine,” he said. Unslinging the
submachine gun from his shoulder, he added, “I’ll get by with Mister Thompson
here. What’s the second problem?”

Simpson replied, “Morales never
sent that mayday I ordered him to. I’m going to make sure he rots in the brig
as soon as we—”

“Balls, Lieutenant,” Jock
interrupted. “Do us all a favor and put a lid on that bullshit right now. You
sound like some shithouse lawyer—and the law doesn’t mean a whole lot out
here in the bush. Neither do those pilot’s wings.”

“Oh yeah? Then enlighten me,
Major…what does mean a whole lot in the bush?”

“Watching out for each other’s
asses and not doing anything stupid, Mister Simpson.”

The vehicle was close enough now to
hear the driver grinding its gears.

“C’mon, let’s go south,” Simpson
said, checking the compass in his shaking hand. He looked ready to break into a
sprint.

“No,” Jock replied. “That would be
one of those stupid things I was just talking about. We’re not running
anywhere…not in the dark. It’s bad enough the chief’s already stumbling around
out there.”

Simpson’s whispered reply sounded
like a muffled shriek: “So that’s your plan, Major? Stay here and die?”

“No, Lieutenant, that’s not it. Now
listen up—first, we’re going to get about fifty paces from this nose section
and set up a perimeter.”

“But there’s only five of us.”

“That’s plenty, Mister Simpson.
Everyone, follow me.”

They could hear the Japanese
shouting in the darkness. “Sounds like they’ve found the wreckage,” Jock
whispered. “Just remember…if they come at us, let the thirty cal do the
talking. Those pistols will be useless unless you can reach out and touch the
bastard.”

He crawled closer to Morales on the
machine gun and added, “If you’ve got to shoot, keep it low. Good troops will
go to ground at the first shot. Make sure they stay there.”

“Got it, sir. But the tracers…won’t
they give our position away? I tried to swap them out but there’s not enough
time…and I can’t see what the hell I’m doing.”

“Don’t sweat it, Morales. Close as
we’re going to be, they’ll see the muzzle flash, anyway. That’s good thinking,
though. Keep it up.”

A crack, like a footstep
crunching through the underbrush, very close.

A man’s scream from the other side
of the perimeter.

Multiple shots from a .45 pistol,
GI issue.

And then the insane racket of so
many different weapons, shooting wildly.

More men screaming, near and far.

Bullets flying, ricocheting off the
ground, the trees, the mangled metal that used to be the Cat.

The strobe-like flash of Morales’
machine gun, its tracers etching lines of brilliant light as they deflected
like speeding pinballs off invisible bumpers.

Jock’s mind sorted the chaos with a
swiftness born of hard experience: The Japs aren’t on top of us…they’re by
the wings and tail.

In the middle of all that
gasoline…

He grabbed the Very pistol, slipped
a flare into its chamber…

Skip it like a stone, Jock.

The flare was startlingly bright as
it streaked from the pistol, a low line drive piercing the darkness that
concealed the wreckage, dipping, bouncing…

But the broad circle of fire that
erupted as it careened through puddles of fuel seemed brighter still.

They watched in open-mouthed awe as
the dark silhouettes of men danced crazily in the flames…

Until they seemed to evaporate,
drifting with the embers into the night sky.

The only shots being fired now were
the random cook-offs of rounds caught in the blaze, aimless but no less deadly.

“Keep your asses down,” Jock said,
“and follow me.”

They’d only low-crawled a few yards
when Sid Baum moaned, “Oh, geez…”

He’d bumped into the lifeless body
of Chief Parmly.

Baum hesitated for a moment,
wondering what to do, until he realized there was only one choice. He left the
body where it was and scurried away after the others.

Once they’d escaped the fire’s
light, they got up off their bellies and walked as swiftly as the darkness and
the rainforest allowed. Jock led; the Navy men followed, each with a firm grasp
on the shadowy form in front of him. To lose that grip—and become lost,
separated from the rest—could be as good as a death sentence.

Thick undergrowth snagged their
feet constantly. Each man had tripped and fallen countless times, pulling down
the man in front and behind like a sagging chain. Every tumble sapped a little
more of their ebbing strength. Jock called them to a halt. They needed a break.

“Give me a perimeter just like we
had back at the wreck,” Jock said.

They complied without a word, too
terrified to do anything else.

Baum began to say, “The chief…he’s—”
before Lieutenant Simpson cut him off.

“We know, Baum. We know…he’s dead.”

Even in the dark, Simpson could
feel Jock’s eyes boring into him.

“You have a problem with me,
Major?” he asked.

Jock replied, “Just wondering who
popped off with the .45 back there and started that little shitstorm.”

“What are you saying? You think I
shot Chief Parmly?”

“I’m not saying anything,
Lieutenant. But ears don’t lie. It came from your side of the perimeter. What
were you shooting at?”

“Dammit, I don’t know…I saw something—someone,”
Simpson replied. “He was right there”—he held out his arm to indicate the
closeness—“and you were the one who said don’t shoot unless you can reach
out and touch the bastard.”

Morales mumbled, “Even if the
bastard was one of our own guys?”

Mumbled or not, everyone heard it.

“Now just a damn minute,” Simpson
said, “I’ve had about enough of you, Morales, and—”

“Shut up, Mister Simpson,” Jock
interrupted. “Here’s the deal—you fucked up when you lost track of Chief
Parmly. If he’d been where he should have, he might not be dead right now. You
understand what I’m telling you?”

Simpson gave a barely perceptible
nod.

“I take it that’s a yes,
Mister Simpson?”

“Yes…sir.”

He may have hesitated to say it,
but his use of the word sir managed—finally—to convey every ounce of
respect the term deserved.

“Good,” Jock said, “because there’s
nothing we can do about the chief now, just like there’s nothing we can do
about Mister Becker, Minsky, or Benedetto. Let’s see if we can get the rest of
us off this rock while we’re still drawing breath. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Okay,” Jock continued, “let’s get
reorganized. Anyone have any pistol ammo left?”

Aside from Hector Morales, who’d
been firing the machine gun, none of the Navy men did. They’d shot every last
bullet they had.

“Morales, divide up what’s in your
magazine to the others,” Jock said. “That’ll give you a couple of shots each.
But don’t waste them. I’ve still got one full magazine for the Thompson…and it
looks like we’ve got a belt and a half for the thirty cal.”

“That’s not a whole lot, sir,”
Simpson said.

“You’ve got that right,” Jock
replied, “so let’s try and stay out of trouble.”

They were ready to move again in
minutes. Lieutenant Simpson asked Jock, “What’s the plan, sir?”

“We’re going to head east.”

“Why east, sir? The south coast is
a lot closer.”

“Because the south coast’s got the
best beaches for an amphibious landing, even better than where we saw the Japs
landing a couple of hours ago.”

A couple of hours ago—already
it felt like a couple of years, Jock thought.

“The Japs know a good beach when
they see one,” Jock added, “so they’ll be in force down south, waiting for
MacArthur to come. We’ll take our chances going east. Intel says some Dutch
planters may still be hiding out there. If they are, maybe we can hook up with
them.”

“Are you going to be able to walk
very far on that leg of yours, sir?”

“Just watch me, Mister Simpson.”

Chapter Three

With the sunrise came the ability
to pinpoint their position. All one of them had to do was get his head above
the dense rainforest so he could see Biak’s prominent mountain peaks. “I’m not
the tree climber I used to be,” Jock said, “not with this leg. So who’s it
going to be?”

Arthur Simpson didn’t look like
much of a candidate. He was burly, looking every bit the tackle he’d played on
the Annapolis varsity. Sid Baum was a big bruiser, too—an urban brawler if
there ever was one.

Either one of them would
probably snap the top of a tree right off, Jock thought.

Wiry guys made the best tree
climbers—that got the list of candidates down to Steve Richards and Hector
Morales.

“I’ll do it, sir,” Morales said,
sounding positively eager.

“No,” Lieutenant Simpson replied.
“This is an officer’s job. Mister Richards, you do it.”

Steve Richards looked terrified at
the prospect.

“Don’t worry,” Jock told him.
“You’re a better target down here in the open than you’ll be up there.”

That didn’t seem to comfort
Richards at all. But he took the compass Jock offered and, with great
reluctance, swung himself onto a lower branch. Jock said, “Just get us good
azimuths to the two highest peaks. They should be hard to miss once you’re up
there.”

Using branches like ladder rungs,
Richards got about halfway up the tree trunk—thirty feet or so above the
ground. From that point on, the branches would be too thin to support a man’s
weight. He’d have to shimmy up the trunk to reach the top.

He made the mistake of looking
down…and froze.

Jock asked, “Something wrong,
Mister Richards?”

“I…I can’t, sir. I can’t do it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I…I just can’t.”

Sid Baum offered, “I think I know
what’s wrong with him, sir. He’s afraid of heights.”

“Are you shitting me? A pilot
who’s afraid of heights?”

“Seen it before, sir. A good pal of
mine couldn’t even climb a ladder or ride a Ferris wheel when we were kids, but
that didn’t stop him from becoming a bomber pilot with the Army. Got a letter
from my wife last week that said he did his twenty-five missions over Europe
and now he’s back home.”

Jock puzzled over that one for a
moment before saying, “That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“Maybe not, sir, but it’s the God’s
honest truth. As long as the thing he was riding wasn’t attached to the ground,
it was no problem. Looks to be the same story for Mister Richards.”

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,”
Jock said. “Morales, go and get him down.”

Arthur Simpson seemed just as
startled as everyone else. He responded to Jock’s accusing glare with an
earnest shrug that said, Hey, I didn’t know! Really!

Good thing, Jock thought,
because setting a man up like that—one of your men, to boot—would make
you an even bigger asshole than I already think you are.

Once Richards’ feet were firmly
back on the ground, Hector Morales shot to the top of the tree with astonishing
ease. The compass shots took less than a minute and then he, too, was back on
Mother Earth.

“The highest peak on the north
island is shrouded in mist,” Morales said, “but I still got a pretty good
estimate where it is, sir. Couldn’t be off more than a degree or two. The other
peak I shot dead on. I can still see smoke from where we burned the plane,
though. We’re not as far from it as I thought…a mile or so, probably. I’d hate
to get caught in a forest fire we set ourselves.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jock
replied. “The wind’s blowing away from us…and it’ll rain buckets before you
know it. That’ll put the fire out, for sure.”

Plotting Morales’ azimuths on the
map, Jock said, “That puts us here, halfway across the southern plateau, about
three miles north of the southern coast…in the middle of this big, empty green
glob. This old map sure isn’t real big on surface features, is it? No rivers,
no streams, no contour lines…nothing. I guess we should count ourselves
lucky it showed those two peaks, at least.”

Arthur Simpson took a good look at
the map and replied, “I thought you said the Japs would be in force near the
south coast, sir. It seems deserted around here.”

“Are you complaining, Mister
Simpson?”

“Hell, no, sir.”

“Don’t sell the Japs short,
either,” Jock added. “Just because we don’t see any at the moment doesn’t mean
there’s not a regiment or two nearby.” He made a small circle on the map along Biak’s
east coast. “Let’s shoot for this area here. It’s only about a seven-mile
walk…if we can believe this map, that is.”

Simpson asked, “Why there, sir?”

“Because if I was looking for
somewhere to hide out, I’d pick a place like that. Nothing but rainforest,
supposedly. Maybe the Dutch think the same way.”

“You mean if they’re still even on
this island, sir…and alive, right?”

“Well, Mister Simpson, I’d say you
have an excellent grasp of the situation. Pull your gear together—we move out
in two minutes.”

Steve Richards didn’t need to say a
word. All it took was one look at him to know he was mortified by his
tree-climbing failure. Jock walked over to him; Richards’ eyes wouldn’t meet
his.

“Don’t sweat it, Steve,” Jock said
quietly, hoping only Richards would hear. “I can’t climb a tree, either. And I
sure as hell can’t fly a plane…so I guess that puts you one up on me.”

Lieutenant Simpson was too close not
to hear it, though. He hovered, with what Jock thought to be a smirk on his
face, looking ready to mock his copilot…

But Simpson read the forbidding
look on Jock’s face correctly: Don’t you fucking dare. He turned away
and said nothing.

They hadn’t walked far before the
downpour came, just as Jock promised it would. The jungle rain promptly
drenched them, and its loud hiss made it impossible to speak softly.
“Use that rain catcher from the survival kit,” Jock shouted. “Catch every drop
you can.”

“But we’ve still got lots of water,
sir,” Baum replied.

Jock laughed and said, “You flight
crew guys don’t get out in the hot sun very much, do you?”

“No, sir, not really. We’re either
flying…or cooling our heels.”

“Well, just wait until this squall
passes and the sun starts to bake us. You never have enough water in these
parts. Fill us up…every container we’ve got. When you’re done with that,
everyone use some rainwater to wash yourselves up.”

Jock decided this was a good time
for the rest of the jungle hygiene lecture. He gathered the Navy men close: “I
don’t see any Halazone in that kit, so don’t drink any—and I mean any—water
from streams we might stumble across. We don’t need anyone laid low with the
shits. And while we’re on the subject, if you do have to shit, don’t wipe
yourself with leaves. You’ve already bought enough trouble without your ass
itching and burning, too. There any toilet paper in that kit?”

“A little,” Baum replied.

“Well, when that runs out, use
whatever paper you don’t need…ration wrappers, notebook pages, whatever you’ve
got. Just don’t use one of these damn maps, in case they actually turn out to
be at least a little accurate. And one more thing…”

They all looked at him like they’d
heard quite enough already.

“Whatever paper you use, bury it.
We don’t need to leave any calling cards.”

The rain shower lasted only a few
minutes, ending as if heaven’s faucet had been abruptly shut off. Jock asked,
“Any of those forty-fives get wet in their holsters?”

The Navy men all shook their heads.

“Good. Now let’s hold up and dry
out the thirty cal.” He pulled the small oil bottle from the stock of his
Thompson. “When you’re done, get a little of this on those moving parts in the
casing. As soon as that gun’s up and running again, I’ll dry out my Thompson.
That way, we don’t lose all our firepower at once.”

It wasn’t even 0900 but the heat
and humidity were already taking their toll. “I think I see what you meant
about the water, sir,” Sid Baum said, slurping from his canteen once again.
“How long you figure until we hit the coast?”

Before Jock could answer, there was
a shriek from farther back in the column—one high-pitched yelp—the sound
of a startled and terrified man. Jock turned around to see Arthur Simpson some
ten yards away from a native man, who was clad only in khaki trousers but
carrying a Nambu pistol. That weapon was pointed straight at the Navy pilot.

The native shouted something—Jock
couldn’t understand what he said.

Arthur Simpson was jerking around
as if receiving electric shocks. He was trying—and failing—to pull his own
pistol from its holster. His panicky hands couldn’t seem to get the motion
right.

Before anyone could take a breath,
the native fired…

Simpson flinched but didn’t go
down. And he still hadn’t drawn his weapon.

“DOWN!” Jock yelled. Everyone but
Simpson hit the ground.

The native fired again.

Again Simpson flinched but didn’t
fall. He began backpedaling as fast as he could…

Until he tripped over Sid Baum.

The native took a step back,
putting a tree between him and Jock, and fired a third time.

Racing to clear his field of fire,
Jock told himself, If I don’t take this guy down, nobody will.

The BUPBUPBUP of a
three-shot burst from Jock’s Thompson…

The red spray of blood and body
tissue as the three bullets hit the native squarely in the chest…

And he fell backward in a heap.

His Nambu clattered to the ground.

“ANYBODY HIT?” Jock asked.

No one answered. But Jock could see
Morales and Richards clearly. They seemed shaken, but physically all right.

“Stay sharp, you  two,” Jock told
them. “There may be more of them around.”

He had to take a few steps to see
Simpson and Baum. They weren’t hurt, either…but Simpson looked like he’d just
witnessed his own death. Baum just looked confused. He asked, “What the hell’s
going on, sir? I never saw nothing.”

“Take a look over there,” Jock
replied, pointing to the man he’d just shot.

Baum took a few tentative steps
toward the motionless body. The native wasn’t dead yet—he was still gurgling
softly—but he would be very soon. The blood flowing from his wounds was nearly
invisible as it pooled on the wet ground.

“Where the fuck did he come from,
sir? That’s a Jap pistol, ain’t it?”

“Yep. Looks like Jap Army pants
he’s wearing, too.”

Tucking the Nambu into his belt,
Baum said, “So it looks like the natives ain’t necessarily friendly, are they?”

“Maybe not. Let’s get the hell out
of here…before some of his friends show up.”

Helping the ashen-faced Simpson to
his feet, Jock added, “It’s a hell of a lot harder to kill people when you’re
face to face, isn’t it? Not nice and easy like dropping bombs on them, eh?”

Simpson couldn’t find the words to
reply.

“Well, at least you didn’t piss or
shit yourself. Probably didn’t have enough time. C’mon…let’s get moving.”

As he took the lead once again,
Jock found himself mumbling: Fucking flyboys.

Chapter Four

Colonel Dick Molloy walked briskly
into the old plantation villa at Hollandia, New Guinea, trusting no one but
himself with the delicate task at hand. He passed the GIs nailing a sign above
the entryway and thought, They’re sure not wasting any time getting set up
here. They only flew in from Port Moresby yesterday.

The sign read:

SUPREME ALLIED HEADQUARTERS,

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC

OFFICE OF CIVIL AFFAIRS

This is where he’d find Jillian
Forbes—actually, Jillian Forbes Miles, Jock Miles’ Australian wife.
She’d been given the job Assistant Australian Advisor for Civilian and
Refugee Affairs. Dick Molloy had been the prime force behind that
appointment, lobbying for her until General Sutherland, MacArthur’s Chief of
Staff, finally relented and decreed the job was hers. After all, who could
provide better guidance on the needs of resettled civilians and refugees than a
woman who was both of these things—and an ex-POW of the Japanese, too?

Or, as Sutherland dismissively put
it, Oh, what the hell, Molloy. She knows all about sea transport and the
darkies, right?

Molloy had chafed at the mandate
she’d be Assistant Australian Advisor, since there didn’t seem to be any
Senior Advisor at Supreme Allied Headquarters. But he’d take what he
could get; he fully understood that a woman would never be the boss of anything
in MacArthur’s kingdom.

He made his way across the worn
hardwood floors of what was once an opulent parlor before the Japanese occupied
it. They’d first used the villa as a division headquarters. Later, as American
and Australian forces bore down on them, it had become a hospital and, finally,
a charnel house as Hollandia fell to the Americans.

Now it served as a bustling office
that seemed much too clean and fresh to be part of a forward Allied
headquarters. Those Army engineers did a hell of a job fixing this place up
after what it went through, Molloy told himself, trying to lighten just for
a moment the weight of what he was about to do.

She was sitting at a desk in the
middle of the room, sifting through stacks of paperwork. As soon as she saw the
look on Colonel Molloy’s face, she had no doubt: Something’s wrong…terribly
wrong.

Her stomach knotted as if it had
been punched, knocking the wind from her, forcing her to whisper:

“What happened? Is he…?”

“We don’t know anything, Jillian.
He was along on a night recon mission.”

Molloy hesitated, feeling as if he
was betraying a secret Jock had very much wanted to keep from her. A betrayal
for sure—but a necessary one now. As far as he knew, Jillian had no idea her
husband was doing anything other than an Air Force staff job on Wakde Island,
just over a hundred miles to the west. Intelligence liaison between Army
and Air Force, as Jock had described it. A safe job, out of combat and firmly
on the ground.

“A flying recon mission, of
course.” Her voice had returned but sounded disembodied, as if she was having a
discussion with herself.

“You knew, Jillian? You knew he was
flying?”

“How bloody stupid do you think I
am, Colonel? Of course I knew.”

Molloy looked surprised…or perhaps
confused, so she added, “I work for your bloody Army, remember? I know how to
find things out. So where do they think he is?”

“We don’t know. They radioed in
over an island called Biak. That was the last thing heard from them.”

A male voice—officious,
impatient—boomed from an adjacent office, saying, “Missus Miles, I need those
figures on Dutch POW repatriation on the double.”

Through the office’s open door,
Dick Molloy could see the speaker, an aging, pudgy, and sweating captain—the
type of rear-echelon pencil-pusher who considered himself the complete soldier
because he was dumb enough to wear a necktie in the tropics—seated like a petty
tyrant behind a desk too grand to be GI issue. It must have been the property
of the original Dutch plantation owners.

“I’ll take care of that jackass for
you,” Molloy told Jillian as he turned toward the office.

“No,” she replied, “it’s all right.
I’ll be fine, sir.”

She scooped up some of the papers
from her desk and started her own trek to the captain. Over her shoulder, she
mouthed the words, “Leave the wanker to me.”

At the doorway, she stopped and
looked back at Molloy. Her brave face cracked for just a moment as she asked,
“You’ll tell me the minute you know, won’t you?”

And then she strode to the
captain’s desk, unafraid, as always, of self-important little men.

Chapter Five

Arthur Simpson finally got his .45
out of its holster. Once they’d started walking east again, it never left his
right hand. He intended to be ready for the next encounter.

“Remember,” Jock told him, “you’ve
only got two rounds in that pistol. Make ’em count…hold it straight out in both
hands when you fire. None of that movie cowboy shooting from the hip
bullshit.”

“Yeah, fine, sir,” Simpson grumbled
in reply.

It was just past sweltering noon when Hector Morales said, “Sir, how much longer do you figure we’ve got to walk?” He
was sagging beneath the weight of the .30-caliber machine gun.

“Maybe another hour.”

“I don’t see how you doggies manage
all this walking, sir.”

“You mean infantrymen, don’t
you, Morales?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I meant. No
disrespect or anything…”

“None taken. Tell you what,
though…let Baum carry that weapon for a while.”

Morales started to protest but thought
better of it. His heart may have been willing, but his body was crying for some
relief.

Sid Baum shouldered the machine gun
and said, “It’s okay, Hec. Take a break. You earned it.”

They walked on. Fatigue made the
now-thin rainforest an enemy: an endless and monotonous maze that hindered
their progress, providing only random patches of shade that offered no shelter
from the broiling heat. Vines tore their flesh and snared their feet. They were
nearly out of water again.

When he first caught sight of them,
Jock thought he was hallucinating. There were dark men—natives?—directly
in front of them, just yards away yet nearly invisible…

And then the dark men stepped
forward—very real now, a dozen or more, obviously natives—with empty hands held
high over their heads in a gesture of surrender. Their garb was typically
native—most clad only in shorts, a few in loin cloths. Not a hint of a Japanese
garment this time.

Arthur Simpson had taken Jock’s
earlier instruction to heart. He held his .45 straight out, in both hands, its
muzzle just a few feet from the face of a cringing native. Definitely not cowboy
bullshit.

“NO!” Jock yelled. “DON’T SHOOT
THEM!”

Simpson hadn’t pulled the trigger
yet, but his aim didn’t waver.

“This could be a damn Jap trick,”
he said, his voice high-pitched and breathless, like a man scared half out of
his mind. “Fuck it, let’s kill them all.”

“No, Mister Simpson. Put down that
weapon. If this was an ambush, we’d be dead already.”

“So what the fuck do we do?”

“We accept their surrender.”

A tall native turned to Jock and
said, “Leider?”

“I think I know what that means,
sir,” Sid Baum said. “It’s Dutch. He’s asking if you’re the leader.”

Jock nodded yes.

“Good,” the tall native replied.
“Come…come see Meneer Dyckman.”

Jock turned to the Navy men and
said, “I think we might’ve just hit that jackpot, lads.”

Andreas Dyckman seemed less than pleased to have the Americans in his
camp. Jock’s first impression of the man: His head looks like it’s on fire!
The hair and beard were a vibrant red, slowly turning a brilliant orange in
random places as it whitened with age. This tall and burly
Dutchman—senior to all present by many years but fit as a much younger man—held
court over his collection of fugitives from the Japanese. They numbered
twenty-four European men of various ages—plus the sixteen native men and women
loyal to the Dutchman. The village of huts they had created on this high ground
overlooked the plateau that covered most of southern Biak. In outward
appearance, it looked no different than a native village. Only the collection
of white faces within its confines betrayed it.

In crisp English, Dyckman told
Jock, “We fled here when the Japanese first arrived two and a half years ago.
They have little interest in this part of the island. All the harbors and good
land for airfields are on the opposite coast. Keeping hidden from them is not
terribly difficult.” He pointed to the tall native who led Jock and the Navy
men to his enclave. “Josiah tells me that despite the islander you killed, you were
not followed. That is the only reason you are allowed to be here.” His tone was
less than welcoming. Almost hostile.

“And we’re most grateful to be
here, Mister Dyckman…but I’m a little confused. Aren’t we all on the same
side?”

“I once thought that, Major
Miles…until the deaths of our wives and children at the hands of your pilots
changed my mind.” The Dutchman glared at the two naval officers as he said it.
The golden pilot wings on their chests had indelibly marked them as enemies.

“But perhaps you can be of some use
to us,” Dyckman said. “We saw the flames of your crash—”

“That fire wasn’t from the crash,”
Jock interrupted. “We started it to get away from the Japs who showed up.”

“No matter,” Dyckman continued.
“Did any of your radios survive the crash, Major?”

“Maybe…if they didn’t burn.”

“Well, we’ll know shortly. My men
will be back from your wreck before nightfall.”

Glancing toward the boar being
roasted on a spit, Dyckman added, “Come and have some supper. You and your men
must be starving.”

The reason for Dyckman’s interest
in the Cat’s radios became apparent in short order. Jock was led to a hut
containing a radio station, complete with multi-band receiver, transmitter, a
bank of storage batteries, and a hand-cranked generator. Everything was in
perfect working order…except the transmitter.

“It hasn’t broadcast a single dot
or dash in two years,” Dyckman said. “We’re not sure what’s wrong with it…we’re
copra farmers, not radio experts. And we don’t have spare parts, anyway.”

“Two of the men with me are
radio experts,” Jock replied. “Maybe they can get this set back on the air.”

Jock imagined Dyckman would be as
enthused as he was at that prospect, but the Dutchman’s words didn’t reflect
it: “For all the good it did last time.”

“What do you mean?”

Dyckman settled slowly onto a
stool. He voice took on a softer, doleful tone as he said, “February 1942, when
the Japanese began sweeping down from the Philippines, we planned to escape.
But we had only a few small boats, so we sent the women and children first.
They set out just before nightfall. It’s just a short sail to Japen Island—not
even fifty kilometers—and an even shorter one from there to New Guinea. We were
in radio contact with the Dutch military at Sarmi and told them refugees would
be coming over the water. It did no good.”

“Why? What happened?”

“They weren’t even out of sight
when the planes attacked them.”

“And you think they were Allied
planes? Hell, back then American planes weren’t even here yet…just a few Aussie
and Dutch. How can you be sure they weren’t Japanese?”

“American, Australian, Dutch, it’s
all the same to the dead. At any rate, Major Miles, when the slaughter was over
the planes flew south, back toward New Guinea. Japanese planes would have flown
north or west.”

“Well…I can see your point there,
Mister Dyckman.”

“Yet, we clung to the faint hope
they’d somehow survived. Days went by before we learned they never arrived. Our
escape plan was a total failure: they’re dead, we’re trapped here.”

Radio static and snippets of voices
in a jumble of languages filled the hut as the Dutchman spun the dial through
the shortwave bands. “Let’s see if your General Eisenhower has been thrown back
into the English Channel yet,” he said, settling on an Australian station.

“I don’t think that’s going to
happen, Mister Dyckman,” Jock replied.

“I wish I shared your optimism,
Major.”

Chapter Six

It was nearly dawn when Andreas
Dyckman’s scavenger team returned from the Cat’s crash site. The team’s
leader—a young Dutchman named Hans—was the closest thing Dyckman had to a radio
expert. The five natives under his direction had stripped anything that
looked remotely like communications gear from the wreck and lugged it back to
the camp.

Dyckman had begun to despair they’d
never return. “What took you so long, Hans?”

“We had to wait until some gekken
went away,” Hans replied.

Jock asked, “What the hell are gekken?”

“Crazy people, Major,” Dyckman
replied. “It’s what we call islanders who are enamored with the Japanese and
try to emulate them.”

“Like that one I killed yesterday
on our walk here?”

“Yes. You were fortunate you ran
into only one. They usually come in groups...islanders who banded together over
some grievance against the Dutch. The Japanese invasion was the spark that
ignited their rebellion.”

“And the Japs give them weapons?”

“No, Major…even the Japanese are
not that stupid. But like any other sprawling organization, their military loses
things from time to time…”

“Loses…as in gets stolen?”

“Perhaps, or they simply leave
stuff behind by accident when they relocate. The Japanese are ruthless but far
from perfect.”

“I see,” Jock replied, “but the
Japs I’ve fought—if they caught you with their stuff, you’d be executed on the
spot.”

“Of course. The Japanese on Biak
are no different.”

“So why the hell would a native
walk around with a Jap weapon?”

“That’s one of the reasons we call
them gekken, Major Miles.”

Morales and Baum walked into the
radio hut. Both let out shrill whistles of surprise when they saw the Cat’s
radio gear—some of it still trailed several feet of wiring crudely hacked from
the plane by machetes.

“Gee, this stuff didn’t get burned
hardly at all,” Morales said, “but damn…it looks like you guys took an ax to
it.”

“Our tooling for this sort of work
is quite limited, sir,” Hans replied. “We had no choice. My apologies.”

“Ahh, no apology necessary. And you
don’t have to call me sir.” Morales pointed to the two chevrons stenciled on
his sleeve and added, “I work for a living.” Then he grew serious and asked,
“Was Mister Becker still there?”

“There was a dead American flyer
still in his seat, if that’s who you mean.”

“Yeah…him.”

“Shit,” Sid Baum muttered, “sure
wish we could have buried him…and the other three guys, too.” But then, like a
man possessed with renewed purpose, he said, “So speaking of tools, you at
least got a couple of screwdrivers so we can dig into this transmitter of yours
and see what’s what?”

As the two Navy men went to work,
Jock had another question for Andreas Dyckman. “Those sympathizers…the gekken,
as you call them…do they know you’re here? And if they did, wouldn’t they
report you to the Japanese?”

“I suspect they have,” Dyckman
replied, “but the Japanese have far bigger problems than a tiny group of
Europeans hidden away in the forest, wouldn’t you say?”

Hector Morales wiped his sweaty
brow and announced, “It’s no use. We can’t get this transmitter of theirs
working, sir. We need some final amp tubes, but our sets don’t have the right
ones, so we can’t cannibalize them. But we’ve got another idea…”

Jock replied, “What’s that?”

“Simple…we can jury-rig their
generator and power supply to our transmitter from the Cat. It’ll take a
little doing…we’ll need to come up with some kind of soldering iron. Sid may
already have that one figured out.”

Sid Baum was holding a foot-long
iron rod filed to a point. “If I make a wooden handle for the blunt end so I
can hang onto the darned thing once it gets hot, we can stick the pointy end
into a fire for a while and voila…we’ve got a soldering iron. It’ll be a
slow process, going wire for wire, but it should work. We don’t have a roll of
solder, so there won’t be much of it on the connections…only what we can
salvage from what’s already there. They’ll be a little brittle, but if we’re
gentle with it…”

“Sounds like a hell of a plan,” Jock
said, “but how slow do you figure this slow process will be?”

Baum replied, “We can probably have
it up and running sometime tomorrow...Right, Hec?”

Morales nodded in agreement.

That sounded like good news to
everyone except Andreas Dyckman. Deep in troubled thought, he stuffed his hands
into the pockets of his tattered shorts and shuffled out of the radio hut. Jock
was right behind him.

“That transmitter may save you,
Major Miles,” Dyckman said, “but it does me and my people little good now.”

“What are you talking about? It’ll
get you and your people off this island.”

Dyckman’s initial reply was a few
beats of skeptical laughter, soft and mournful notes trapped behind a
tight-lipped smile. Then he said, “You put me in an awkward position, Major. If
the Americans come now and drive off the Japanese, there is no point in my
leaving. I must stay and reclaim my property. But you say the Japanese are far
stronger here than your generals suspect, and you wish them to delay their
invasion.”

“Not for long, Mister Dyckman…just
until we’ve prepared better.”

“How long would that be, Major?”

“That’s really not for me to say…a
month, maybe two.”

This time, Dyckman’s laughter
turned derisive. “And you believe that your fears—and yours alone—will persuade
your generals to delay their precious plans? And here I thought you military
officers were serious students of history. Didn’t the last war teach you
anything at all?”

“I’m just trying to do my job,
Mister Dyckman.”

“I have no doubt of that, Major,
and I won’t stand in your way. That gives me another problem, though…”

“What’s that?”

“If we keep transmitting from the
camp, the Japanese will come after us for certain. We can’t push our luck too
long. We’ll have to relocate…and frequently. Will you be capable of that, Major?”

“Capable? Why wouldn’t I be
capable?”

“Your leg…is that an old wound? It
seems to be bothering you.”

“Don’t worry yourself about my leg,
Mister Dyckman. It’ll get me wherever I need to go.”

Sid Baum and Hector Morales had put
up with the annoying presence of their two pilots all day. Lieutenant Simpson
and Ensign Richards, hovering over them like fidgety shadows, had proved just
as irritating—and just as useless—as the swarms of flying insects pestering the
radiomen struggling to get the Cat’s transmitter back on the air. The sun was
going down now, forcing the tedious work to continue in the dim firelight. Sid
Baum had finally had enough of the officers’ needless supervision.

The soldering iron grew cold and
useless again. Reheating it in the fire for what seemed like the hundredth
time, Baum said, “You know, gentlemen, you’re not really bringing a whole lot
to this party. Watching us like hawks isn’t helping you or us a damn bit.”

Simpson replied, “We just want to
make sure we get the hell out of here, Baum, as quickly as possible.”

“That’s what we want, too, sir…but
dogging us won’t make this job go any faster. We’ve got to be real
careful what we’re doing here. We hook up a wire wrong and this whole thing can
go up in smoke…and then we’re all really fucked.”

He hesitated, weighing his next
words carefully before finally saying them: “So, unless you gentlemen know
something about wiring up a radio, how about you cut us some slack and get
lost? With all due respect, of course.”

“Due respect, my ass, Baum.
I tell you what…we’ll get lost. But you’d better not fuck this job up,
or…”

“Or what, sir? How could we
be in more trouble than we are right now?”

Simpson grumbled something
unintelligible; Baum and Morales were sure they heard the word brig in
there somewhere. He motioned for Richards to follow him, and they both beat a
hasty retreat.

As they did, the pilots felt sure
they heard Baum mumble something unintelligible, too. They were sure they heard
the word shithead in there somewhere.

He couldn’t sleep. Jock lay on a
mat outside the hut, trying to count stars. The burning, haggard feeling in
every exhausted sinew of his body was nothing new. Every combat soldier had
learned to deal with it:

You’ll sleep when you’re dead.

Exhausted or not, his mind was in
overdrive, planning what the first radio message would say—if and when the
transmitter worked.

Even more difficult: planning what
to do if the transmitter wouldn’t work.

He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t
sleep. Andreas Dyckman appeared out of the shadows and sat down beside him.

“If we move,” the Dutchman said,
“we should head north, into the mountains. They can only come at us from one
direction then.”

Jock nodded. He’d been thinking the
same thing.

“Of course,” Dyckman continued, “if
you’re lucky, you’ll be long gone. It won’t be your problem.”

Jock had been thinking that, too.
And more: “You know, even if we get picked up, you can still be a big help to
our invasion force with that radio, funneling intel our way.”

“Forgive my lack of enthusiasm,
Major Miles, but a radio has never brought me anything but sorrow.”

“You confuse me, Mister Dyckman. If
you’re so down on having a working transmitter, why did you bend over backwards
to salvage one from the crash?”

“That’s very simple, Major. I did
it on the slim hope that if we can tell them where we are, then maybe we, too,
won’t be attacked by your planes.”

Dyckman rose to his feet. “I’ll let
you sleep now, Major.”

“Ahh, who’s sleeping? But hold on a
minute. I need to tell you something. I’ve been in a situation just like the
one you’re in.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. I thought my wife was dead,
too, lost at sea off Buna. I finally gave up and resigned myself to it…and I
let a little bit of me die, too.”

“But she wasn’t dead?”

“Nope. Turned up a year later on Manus
Island in a Jap POW camp. She’s back in New Guinea now, working at Allied
Headquarters.”

“And your point in telling me
this?”

“My point is this, Mister Dyckman: never
give up hope.”

“I appreciate your trying to cheer
me, Major Miles…but I know what I saw.”

Chapter Seven

In war, good news always seems to
come with bad news attached. For Colonel Dick Molloy, the good news was that
Jock Miles was alive and well on Biak. Even better, he was transmitting fresh
intel the general staff needed to know immediately.

The bad news: that intel showed
just how badly they were underestimating the strength of the Japanese force
they’d soon face.

The Japs are turning that rock
into a damn fortress, with enough air power to sink a big chunk of our invasion
fleet before they even get near the place.

Biak will be like Buna
all over again. Maybe worse.

He barged into the office of
General Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence chief, the message from Jock in
hand. Willoughby’s aide jumped out from behind his desk and blocked the open
doorway to the general’s inner sanctum.

“You can’t go in there, Colonel,”
the aide said.

Molloy was about to shove this
obstruction wearing captain’s bars out of the way when Willoughby’s irritated
voice boomed from within the office.

“At ease, Colonel,” the
voice said. “You’d better have one hell of a good reason for this rude
behavior, dammit.”

“I believe I do, sir,” Molloy
replied, striding up to the general’s desk. “I’ve got bad news—real bad
news—from Biak.”

Willoughby let out a frustrated sigh.
“What is it this time, Richard?”

Molloy began to fill the general in
on the details of Jock’s report. He wasn’t halfway through when the general
held up his hand: stop.

“That Miles of yours…he keeps
popping up like a bad penny, Richard. What I don’t understand is why you’re
getting sucked into all his hysteria. Of course the Japanese will have
airfields on Biak…and this is old news, anyway. His first report—the one when
they were still airborne—was duly noted.”

“Duly noted, sir…and
promptly ignored.”

The general’s eyes flashed with
anger. “At ease, Colonel. I won’t tell you again.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I
know what we’d like to believe is the Jap situation on Biak, but it just
doesn’t add up to what Miles saw. We’re facing an air and ground defense far
more formidable than—”

Again, the general’s hand went up.

“What he saw at night,
Richard…at night, from a couple of thousand feet up. You know as well as
I do the tricks the eye can play on an overactive imagination under those
conditions.”

“Begging your pardon, General, but
Jock Miles is no rookie at this game. I think General MacArthur needs to be
informed of the changing situation immediately.”

“Oh, do you, Colonel? The
last time I checked, you were a regimental commander. You wouldn’t be
trying to do the G2’s job—my job—too, would you?” He pointed to the
brass plate atop his desk, adorned with name, title, and two silver stars.

“No, sir. Of course not, sir. But
we need to delay the Biak landings until—”

The hand went up once more.

“This is what you’re going to do,
Richard. Get with our Air Force people. Have them set up a bombing run on those
alleged targets Miles identified for tomorrow.” He’d sneered as
he said the words alleged targets.

“But sir, it would take a raid by a
hundred heavy bombers, at least, to take out all those airfields at once.
That’s way beyond Fifth Air Force’s capabilities.”

“Nonsense, Richard. They’ll do the
job with what they’ve got, just like they always have. And then, the Biak
landings—Operation Alamo—will take place as planned, eight days from
today.”

“It’s no good, sir,” Molloy
replied. “We’ve got to delay.”

The general shook his head. “We’re
driving an enormous ship, Richard, at very great speed. You just don’t stop
it—no, you can’t stop it—every time someone thinks he sees the boogey
man.”

He went back to shuffling the
papers on his desk. Molloy stood in place, ramrod straight, struggling to find
the words that might turn that enormous ship around.

“Why are you still here, Richard?
You’ve been dismissed.”

In reluctant retreat, Molloy was
halfway to the door when General Willoughby said, “Oh, and one more thing,
Richard. As long as Miles is already there, have him give us a bomb damage
assessment after the raid. Nothing like having eyes on the ground.”

“Isn’t that what the photo recon
boys at Fifth Air Force are supposed to do, sir?”

With a sarcastic smirk, Willoughby
replied, “You mean the photo recon group that hasn’t yet managed to take one
measly picture of what Miles claims is there?”

Molloy ignored the jab. “But he and
the Navy crew have been through a crash, sir…and they’ve been evading the
Japanese ever since. We should really have the Navy pick them up ASAP.”

“Negative, Richard. We’ve all been
through worse, and you tell me this Miles of yours is a very resourceful boy.
He’s apparently healthy and in a position to be quite useful. You have your
orders. Carry on.”

Jillian hung up the phone and
stared blankly into space. The young GI—a PFC mail clerk—who’d been standing
beside her desk waiting for the call to end, asked, “You okay, Missus Miles?
You look like you’re a million miles away.” Then he laughed and added,
“Actually, a million miles from Hollandia sounds like a great place to be.”

“I’m not so sure,” she replied.
“I’m trying to figure out if I’ve just gotten good news…or bad.”

“About your husband, ma’am?”

She nodded.

Gently, he placed a stack of
envelopes on her desk. Ordinarily, he would have just dropped them with a loud plop.
He decided not to this time, though; it would have seemed a cruel intrusion into
her privacy. “Well, I sure hope it turns out to be good news, ma’am,” he said,
and pushed off on his rounds.

So do I, laddie, she told
herself. So do I.

She tried to turn her focus back to
work but found it impossible. Now that the shock of knowing he was in hostile
territory had worn off, a rage began to seethe within her.

They’re going to just leave him
there and put him back to work? I thought they were supposed to rescue downed
airmen. They do it every day…one bloody submarine in the dark is all it takes.
I’ve got a good mind to—

Jillian stopped herself—ranting
would do no good.

At least both of us know the
other is still alive. That’s more than we’ve known for most of the past two
years. Go outside…take a walk for a bit…clear your head…

And then get back to your job.

The walk around the headquarters
compound did Jillian a world of good. Returning to her desk, she dove back into
the discrepancy she’d found before that phone call derailed her:

Something’s wonky with the
figures from the Aitape resettlement camp. Looks like there are about sixty
fewer Dutch refugees reported to be living at the camp than were transported
there.

She double-checked her figures.
Same result.

Walking into the office of the
sweating, pencil-pushing captain, she laid her evidence on his desk. He didn’t
seem in the least bit concerned.

If this bloody wanker spouts “no
big deal”—that tired excuse for Yank sloppiness—I just may have to bash his
brains in.

But he surprised her by saying, “We
simply cannot have a discrepancy of this nature. It makes it look like this
department doesn’t know what in the Sam Hill it’s doing, and I will not have
that. We must account for those people to the last head. You do realize,
Missus Miles, that the Supreme Commander has made it a top priority to account
for every last Dutchman—military and civilian—in these parts?”

She told herself, How touching
that tosser MacArthur cares so much about the Dutch when he doesn’t give a shit
about his own troops.

But she replied, “Of course I
realize it, Captain. Sorting out the refugees is my bloody job, after all.”

“I’m certainly glad you realize
that, Missus Miles. So tell me…what do you propose we do about this little
problem?”

“How about I go to Aitape and solve
it, for starters? Teach you Yanks how to count, if necessary.”

And get me away from you for a
while, you fucking pompous imbecile.

Andreas Dyckman was growing more
nervous by the minute. “We’ve already waited too long,” he told Jock. “You’ve
broadcast three times. They’ll find this location for sure…and soon.”

The Dutchman’s camp was a frenzy of
activity as his people packed their scant belongings, hoping to begin their
trek north to the safety of the mountains before darkness fell. He hurried to
the radio hut and began to hover anxiously over Baum and Morales as they
struggled to dismantle the gear.

“Dammit, we’re going as fast as we
can, Mister Dyckman,” Baum said. “These Rube Goldberg connections we
made are fragile enough. We break something now and we may never get this set
back on the air.”

“Getting back on the air
will be the least of our worries if the Japanese come walking in on us,”
Dyckman replied. “Please, gentlemen…finish with all possible haste.”

Jock huddled over a map with the
Dutchman’s scout, Hans. They were preparing for a walk in a different
direction: back to Mokmer on Biak’s west coast for the bomb damage assessment
ordered by Headquarters at Hollandia. The raid by the planes of Fifth Air Force
was scheduled for 0900 tomorrow. They’d have to walk all night—coast to coast,
clear across the Biak plateau—to be in position on the bluffs above Mokmer’s
airfields. When the raid was finished, they’d have to walk all the way back
across Biak, hopefully to find Dyckman and his people once again.

Hans asked, “Will we be taking the
radio with us, Major?”

“No,” Jock replied. “Much too
heavy…and much too fragile. We need to travel light.”

“But that means we cannot report to
your generals in Hollandia what we saw until we return to Meneer
Dyckman’s new camp.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it means,
Hans. I’ve already told HQ to expect about a twelve-hour delay in reporting. If
we need another raid…and I’m betting we will…they wouldn’t be able to fly it
before the next day, anyway.”

Something about the plan still
bothered Jock, though. “Are you sure we can set up on the bluffs without the
Japs seeing us?”

“Quite sure, Major.”

“All right, then…let’s take two
more guys besides you and me. How about one islander and one Yank?”

“Fine. Do you remember Josiah, the
man who found you?”

“Yeah…he’ll be good.”

“Yes, he will, Major. But what Yank
will you choose?”

“I’ll let you know in a couple of
minutes.”

Arthur Simpson answered a question
still unspoken. “No fucking way, Major Miles. I’m not going.”

“To be honest, Mister Simpson, I
wasn’t planning on asking you.”

Steve Richards didn’t wait for
Jock’s question, either. “Sure, I’ll go, sir,” he said. “Be glad to do it.”

“Great, Steve. Pull your gear
together. We leave in thirty minutes.”

Simpson leaned against a tree,
sulking. “I don’t see why you don’t take the Jew or the Mexican instead. Foot
patrols sound like an enlisted man’s job, anyway.”

“That’s funny...I could have sworn
you were the guy who said climbing a tree was an officer’s job.
The Navy seems to have pretty interesting ideas about division of labor.
Anyway, I wouldn’t take Petty Officers Baum or Morales, Mister Simpson,
because they’ve got a very critical job of their own, tending to that radio.
Something only they can do.”

As he turned to walk away, Jock
added, “Mister Simpson, didn’t the Navy teach you a little respect for your men
and their abilities goes a long way?”

Simpson’s shake of the head was not
a no but a rejection of Jock’s premise. “I don’t answer to the US Army,
Major Miles.”

“Maybe not, Lieutenant. But since
you’re staying with the others, you will  be answering to Mister
Dyckman. Try and be of some use to him.”

Chapter Eight

Jock did a last check of the three
men going with him on the all-night walk to Mokmer. They were armed lightly,
their weapons more a token offering to the danger they might face than a
serious defense against it. Jock carried his Thompson, deadly at close range
but uselessly inaccurate beyond. Hans and Josiah toted ancient, bolt-action
Mannlicher rifles, slow-firing and cumbersome. Steve Richards had only his .45
pistol. “Remember,” Jock told them, “we’re a recon mission. We’re not looking
to get into any fights. Nobody get itchy on the trigger.”

Richards asked, “Shouldn’t we be
taking the thirty cal, sir?”

“No…Dyckman’s people will probably
need it worse than we will.”

They hadn’t even cleared the camp’s
perimeter when CRUMP—the first mortar round landed in its midst.

“Get back with the others…NOW,”
Jock yelled.

A few rapid heartbeats later, the
second CRUMP.

Dyckman and his people were frozen
in fear, half-crouched, their wild eyes searching for a safe haven nature
couldn’t provide. Hector Morales crouched behind the .30-caliber machine gun,
ready to fire…but he could see nothing to fire at.

“EVERYBODY DOWN, DAMMIT,” Jock
called out. “KISS THE GROUND.”

Another CRUMP, and Jock
said, “Rate of fire’s real slow. Can’t be more than one mortar out there…and
it’s a light one. Probably not too far away, either.”

He crawled to Dyckman. “Any of your
people hit?”

“I don’t believe so, not yet,” the
Dutchman replied. “Where is it coming from?”

Jock pointed west. “That way. I’m
going to go find it.”

Dyckman recoiled in horror.
“Shouldn’t we run?”

“No, keep your people down. If we
run, they’ll just follow us. Don’t think there’s very many of them…not if
they’re using a mortar right off the bat. Better we get them off our backs
right now.”

Telling Hans to follow, Jock
low-crawled out of the camp. Once out from under the mortar rounds, they
regained their feet and moved swiftly through the forest. As the CRUMPS
of impact grew fainter, they began to hear the poomf of the
mortar being fired.

It was coming from somewhere on
their right…

A few dozen yards away…no more than
that.

They were on their bellies again,
crawling closer.

Ahead, a sight unseen in nature:
bushes twirling, moving back and forth…a repetitive, energetic activity…

Not bushes at all, but poorly
camouflaged men feeding rounds into a mortar tube.

“Bingo,” Jock whispered. “I count
four…what about you?”

“Yes, four.”

“I’ll take them,” Jock said. “Cover
my back in case there are more around.”

The Japs looked comical as Jock
crawled closer—men adorned with branches and leaves like children at play…

Confident they were blending with
their surroundings…

But standing out all the more.

Jock was ten feet away when the
first Jap saw him.

By then, it was too late.

Two quick bursts from the Thompson.

Four dead Japanese soldiers. One
corporal, three privates.

One silenced mortar, still smoking.

“Should we bury them?” Hans asked.

“No time,” Jock replied, his words
hurried. “There’s got to be more of them around somewhere.”

Hans nudged a lifeless body with
his foot. He was relieved when it remained dead. “Why did they stay so far
away, sir? Why didn’t they come close and snipe at us?”

“Probably got a gander at the
thirty cal over Morales’ shoulder and preferred to keep their distance.”

Jock took in the full panorama of
the forest. There was nothing to see but trees. “I guess Mister Dyckman must be
right. The Japs really are spread pretty thin in these parts.”

He picked up a rucksack fashioned
as an ammunition carrier. There were still four mortar rounds inside. He picked
up the corporal’s binoculars, too.

“Take the tube, Hans. A knee mortar
might come in handy later.”

“A knee mortar, sir?”

“Yeah, that’s what we call these
little fifty-millimeter jobs. Seen them plenty of times before. Even used one a
couple of times.”

“What are we going to do with it?”

“Take it with us,” Jock replied.
“We could use a little more firepower for our little trip to Mokmer. Now
c’mon…let’s make sure the others are okay.”

Dyckman breathed a sigh of relief
as Jock and Hans returned, but his troubles were far from over. “By some
miracle, none of my people are injured,” he told Jock, “but your troublesome
Mister Simpson is missing.”

“I saw him,” Sid Baum added, pointing
into the rainforest. “He was running like a scared rabbit. You went one way,
Major, looking for that mortar, and he went the other…”

He mumbled a few more inaudible
words. Jock was fairly sure chickenshit was among them.

Dyckman was already shepherding his
people onto a trail. “I don’t have time or daylight to go looking for him,” the
Dutchman said.

“Neither do I,” Jock replied. “But
he couldn’t have gotten far. I’m pretty sure he’ll turn up again before long…if
he doesn’t get himself killed first.”

“Now there’s a thought,”
Baum replied, hoisting a piece of radio gear to his shoulder. Then, with a big
smile for Jock and Richards, he added, “With all due respect, of course,
gentlemen. See you tomorrow night…I hope.”

Then he joined Andreas Dyckman’s column
as it began to head north while Jock and his three-man team set out for Mokmer.

It had been dark for several hours
when the heavens opened up. Jock and his men paused for a few minutes to fill
their canteens with the cool, fresh rainwater, ate a few bites of the emergency
rations they’d salvaged from the Cat, and then pressed on. They had no time to
waste.

Steve Richards asked, “How’s your
leg, sir?”

“It’s fine. I wish everyone would
stop asking me that. Just because I limp a little doesn’t mean I can’t cut the
mustard.”

Cutting the mustard also
meant ignoring the burning eyes and drained muscles that felt like elastic
bands stretched beyond their limits—all the products of living on little or no
sleep.

When did I sleep last? Dammit, I
don’t even remember. I’ve got to get my mind off how tired I am. Think about
something else…

Something else turned out to
be the disappearance of Arthur Simpson.

Jock asked, “Hey, Steve...have you
flown with Simpson for a while?”

“On and off for a couple of months,
sir.”

“So why do you think he cut and
ran? I mean, hell…he’s been under fire before. We hit worse shit when the Cat
got knocked down. Strange that a little popgun mortar would push him over the
edge.”

Composing his thoughts, Richards
paused before replying, “It’s different in the airplane, I guess. There’s
nowhere to run.”

“But you didn’t run. Baum and
Morales didn’t run, either.”

“I can’t speak for the other guys,
sir, but I was too scared shitless to run anywhere. Did you ever feel like
that, sir?”

“You mean scared shitless,
Steve?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jock laughed as he said, “All the
time, Steve. All the damn time.”

The path Hans and Josiah had chosen
took them not through the rainforest but scrubland, with only occasional
patches of scrawny trees topped by sparse crowns that looked ghostly in the
gray moonlight. Jock fumed as he thought, Of course, according to this damn
map, all the terrain on this part of the island is supposed to be dense
rainforest. Haven’t seen much of that yet…and I doubt the terrain has changed
any since they drew this map at the turn of the century.

The open country had been a
blessing for walking in the dark. It allowed for good speed without the
constant stumbling and falling a nighttime trek through the forest usually
guaranteed. In daylight, though, open terrain like this—without cover or
concealment—could be a death sentence. Once they reached the area where the Cat
had crashed, Jock knew the terrain would turn back to rainforest and offer them
protection. But they weren’t there yet…and the eastern horizon had begun to
show the pale pink band of the coming dawn.

“How much longer until we hit some
real trees, Hans?” Jock asked.

“We’re very close, Major. A few
more minutes.”

“And that tree cover will last all
the way to the bluffs overlooking the airfields?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Hans knew his business well. In
short order, they were within the shelter of the forest, just as rays of the
early morning sun began to cast their shafts of orange light through the tall
columns of trees.

One of those shafts of light fell
on a strange object some distance ahead…something no one had expected to
encounter: a Japanese tank, motionless, silent, and seemingly unmanned.

By definition, it was just a light
tank. Even a small-caliber anti-tank shell would turn it inside out.

But to a foot soldier, it looked
like a dreadnought.

Jock, Hans, and Josiah scurried for
cover behind a broad tree trunk.

Steve Richards sprawled face-down
in an open patch far from any tree, a flatter yet clearly visible target. The
captured knee mortar he carried made a resounding thump as it bounced
off the ground.

“Crawl over to that tree, Steve,”
Jock said, his voice an urgent whisper. “And for fuck’s sake, stay behind it.”

Hans watched Richards do as he was
told, then turned to Jock with a curious look as if to say, What’s wrong
with that man?

Even unspoken questions needed
answers. “He’s a sailor and an airman,” Jock said, “and neither profession
knows how to fight on dry land.”

Using the binoculars he took from
the dead mortar crew, Jock surveyed the steel obstacle in their path. “Ahh,
shit. A soldier just popped out. He’s barely dressed…just in one of those
loincloth-things they wear for underwear. Looks like he just woke up. Doesn’t
seem like he heard us, at least. Wait, there’s two more…”

The three soldiers started a small
fire beneath a kettle hung from a makeshift tripod. Each threw a handful of
what looked like pellets—probably kernels of rice—into the kettle. Then they
sat on the ground, their backs against the road wheels of a tank track, in no
hurry to go anywhere or do anything. They didn’t even bother putting on their
uniforms.

The Japs aren’t any different
than any other army, Jock told himself. When there’s no one in charge,
they’ll just sit around and goof off.

Hans asked, “Why do you suppose
that tank is sitting out here in the middle of nowhere, Major?”

“I think it’s broken down. If their
tanks are anything like ours, that’d be pretty typical.”

Hans took a look through the
binoculars. “Yes, I see what you mean. There’s some kind of hatch open at the
back end…and there are tools scattered all around.”

“Yeah, the back end’s where the
engine is. And if it’s not running, it can’t chase us. All we’ve got to do is
sneak around back and be on our way.”

Retracing their path, they
retreated to the edge of the forest and then turned north. Once out of sight of
the broken-down tank, they turned west again, toward the bluffs overlooking
Mokmer…

But a new and terrifying sound sent
them scurrying for cover: the rumble of vehicle engines bearing down on them
from the north…

Still unseen through the trees but
their sound growing closer.

Maybe only a hundred yards away.

And then, there they were—tanks.

Just like the broken-down one
they’d skirted.

Three of them in column, close
together.

Shit, Jock thought, just
what the landing force doesn’t need. A whole bunch of Japanese armor. If we’ve
seen four of them already, I’ll bet there’s a battalion, at least.

On the lead tank, its commander was
perched atop the turret, his feet dangling into the hatch. Casually smoking a
cigarette as if out for a Sunday drive, he was clearly on an administrative
movement. The freedom to forget he was caught up in a war was his, if only for
this brief moment.

The tanks’ decks were laden with
personal gear, ammo boxes, tools, and spare track parts.

“This isn’t some patrol or training
exercise they’re on,” Jock whispered to Hans. “They’ve got all their crap with
them. They’re just repositioning, probably to the southern beaches. I guess
MacArthur’s intentions aren’t so hard to figure out, after all.”

The tanks were rumbling closer
now—close enough to spy through binoculars the sergeant’s insignia on the
collar of the lead tanker’s shirt. In a few seconds, they would split Jock’s
party in half.

Jock and Hans would be a few yards
to the tanks’ right, Josiah and Richards a few yards to the left.

Trapped in a lethal game of
hide-and-seek, they slithered in small arcs around broad tree trunks.

The tanks were almost close enough
to touch when the leader stopped.

Jock dared to peek around the
tree...

And saw the knee mortar Richards
had been carrying lying on the ground, squarely in the lead tank’s path.

Jock wanted to scream, Dammit,
Steve! Can’t you hold on to that damn thing?

The tank commander was sliding off
the turret to his vehicle’s forward deck.

One quick jump and he’d be on the
ground, just a few feet away…

With an eye-level perspective on
the area.

There’d be no way to hide from both
him and the men still on the tanks.

Fingers tightened around triggers,
preparing to fire a shot that could be a death warrant for the shooter as well
as the target.

Before the tanker could jump to the
ground, Josiah was standing in the middle of the trail. Wisely, he’d left his
rifle stashed out of sight.

He reached down, picked up the
mortar, and approached the lead tank.

When he got there, he bowed, and
then—as if making an offering to the gods—held up the mortar with both arms
outstretched.

The tank commander took the mortar,
looked at it for a second, as if wondering what the hell to do with it, and
then tucked it under a rope holding down some gear.

With great impatience, he motioned
for the black man to step out of his way.

Josiah bowed low once again and
cleared the path.

One by one, the tanks passed,
engines growling and tracks clanking. Josiah waved farewell to each in turn.

No Japanese tanker bothered to wave
back.

The sound of their engines faded to
a distant growl. Jock and Hans emerged from their hiding places to join Josiah,
still standing in the open.

“That was some real quick thinking,
Josiah,” Jock said. “Great job.”

The islander seemed surprised the
American major thought praise and thanks were necessary.

“It had to be done,” he said, as if
his action had been the most ordinary thing in the world. “None of you could do
that. Only me.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Jock
replied. “But where the hell’s Richards?”

Josiah pointed to the base of a
tree. “Behind there, Major.”

Jock found Steve Richards right
where Josiah said he was, slumped against the trunk. He was shaking, his eyes
full of tears. Whether they were tears of fear or shame Jock couldn’t tell.

“I fucked up again, didn’t I?”
Richards said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, you did, Steve. But it’s all
spilled milk now. Forget about it.”

He pulled Richards to his feet.

“Funny, though,” Jock added, “I
figured that mortar would come in handy. I just never imagined it would be that
way.”

He tapped the rucksack still slung
over Richards’ shoulder—with the four mortar rounds still in it—and said,
“Ditch the sack, Steve.”

“But maybe we could still use them
like grenades, sir.”

“Theoretically, I suppose we could,
Steve….but I’ve never done it with a Jap round and this isn’t the time to be
experimenting. Anyway, with your luck, you’ll probably just blow yourself up.
Like I said, ditch the sack.”

Jock checked his watch. It read
0730.

“C’mon,” he said, “we’ve got about
ninety minutes to get into position.”

“Plenty of time, sir,” Hans
replied.

“Let’s hope so.”

Chapter Nine

The OP Hans and Josiah had selected
was nothing short of excellent. It sat on the edge of a bluff some 500 feet
high, among trees offering good cover and concealment, and looked down on the
airfields around Mokmer—the closest about a mile away—and the narrow dirt road
winding its way along the coast. That road was clogged with Japanese trucks and
troops on foot, making their way south to the broad beaches where MacArthur’s
invasion forces would undoubtedly come.

“No wonder their tanks are going
cross-country,” Jock told his men. “That road down there is one big traffic
jam. The tanks’ll make better time, and use a lot less gas, driving right down
the plateau. I just hope there aren’t a whole lot more of them than the ones
we’ve seen already.”

There was another revelation, too.
The faces of the bluffs to the north were studded with caves, each now the home
of a large-caliber weapon able to throw shells out to several miles offshore.
“That stuff looks to be forty millimeter or better,” Jock said. “They’ve got
all the ground down there covered with fire. Our troops will be fish in a
barrel.”

At a few of the gun positions, rope
hoists were pulling crates of ammunition up from the base of the bluffs.

“How the hell did they get those
big guns up there?” Steve Richards asked.

“Same way they’re pulling that ammo
up,” Jock replied. “A lot of pulleys, a lot of guys, and a lot of hard work.
Did you ever hear the stories of how the Aussies got their artillery over the
Kokoda Track?”

Richards nodded. Jock added,
“Pretty amazing what you can do when you have a mind to, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and some banzai bastard’s
got his sword up your ass.”

As they spoke, Jock was trying to
correlate the terrain they were seeing with the map he held. He’d come to a
conclusion: “This map isn’t worth a shit. If you believed it, you’d think men could
just mosey up these bluffs like it was a walk in the park…instead of the
mountain-climbing expedition they really are.”

“The map doesn’t look so bad to me,
sir,” Richards said. “The coastline’s pretty accurate, at least.”

“Gee, you must be in the Navy,
Steve…and a flyboy, too. Coastlines, water depth, and the elevation of the
highest peak are all you care about. For the guys who have to walk and drive on
land, though, it’s all about the fine details. Good maps mean your artillery
lands on target, planes bomb and strafe where you tell them to...and maybe your
commander doesn’t order you into some fucking death trap.”

“You mean like Into the Valley
of Death Rode the Six Hundred, sir?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“But I thought that’s what your job
is, sir—working with photo recon to make better maps for your guys.”

“That’s exactly my job, Steve…but
we’ve been focused on redrawing the ones for the southern end of the island,
where our landings will be. We haven’t quite gotten to updating the rest of
these relics yet.”

Jock turned his binoculars back to
the airfields. The biggest one was closest to the seaside village of Mokmer. He
could count two dozen aircraft parked under camouflage netting, mostly
fighters, the rest a mix of single and twin-engined bombers. The nets that had
concealed the runway from daytime aerial observation were down, concealing
nothing.

“Maybe they’re getting ready to
receive more airplanes,” Richards said. “That strip can hold plenty more. Look
at all those empty parking ramps.”

“I think you’re right,” Jock
replied. He focused now on the other two airfields, trying to count the
aircraft parked there. But those fields were farther to the north, their
details less clear.

“I’m going to guess fifteen planes
at Borokoe,” Jock said, “and maybe ten at Sorido, with plenty of room for more
at both of them, too.” Richards nodded when asked, “You agree?”

Jock checked his watch. It was
0855. “Almost showtime…if all goes according to plan, that is.”

Hans and Josiah had been anxiously
watching and listening for the American planes ever since arriving at the OP.
Josiah had even climbed a tall tree to get a better view to the east, the one
direction in which the forest blotted the sky. The only bombing raids they’d
ever seen were by Japanese planes when Biak fell in 1942. Then, the Dutch
opposition to the invaders had been almost nonexistent. It had taken only a
handful of Japanese airplanes to claim the skies over their island. They had
high hopes the American bombing raid would be far more impressive.

Jock did, too.

The American planes didn’t come at
0900. The only things flying in the brilliant blue sky were seabirds gliding on
the thermals rising from the warming earth below.

“Which direction will they come
from, Major?” Hans asked. “If they come.”

“Don’t give up hope quite yet,”
Jock replied. “Military time can be a little variable sometimes. With
the linearity of the targets and the prevailing winds, though, I think they’ll
come out of the south. Better get Josiah out of that tree now.”

“Why, Major?”

“Because they’re not always on
target. He’s got no cover up there.”

But the bombing raid was already
twenty minutes late. He didn’t want to let on that maybe he, too, was beginning
to lose hope. Something his mother always said crossed his mind: Good things
come to those who wait, Jock.

Well, okay then, Mom…I’m
waiting. Now let’s see something good.

At first, they were just specks in
the southern sky. Then they could hear them, their sound still faint but
unmistakable: the guttural growl of aircraft engines, steadily growing stronger
as the specks evolved, sprouting tiny silvery wings and twin tails.

“B-25s,” Richards said. “I
count…oh, I don’t know…eighteen? Twenty?”

“Twenty sounds about right,” Jock
replied. “About two squadrons’ worth. Dammit, I was hoping for more. A lot
more.”

“They’re awful high, sir, about
eight grand, I’d say. I hope to hell those bombardiers have damn good wind data
or they won’t hit a fucking thing.”

“No shit, Steve.”

Jock trained his binoculars
skyward. “They’ve got fighter cover, too…way, way up…about half a dozen P-38s.
Can’t hardly see them.”

He ran the numbers in his head: twenty
bombers, four to eight bombs per ship. Eighty to one hundred sixty bombs…to
cover about four square miles of target. That isn’t nearly enough…

And a lot of those bombs will
miss.

The sound of air raid sirens
drifted up the bluffs from the plain below.

“Those Japs aren’t getting much of
an early warning,” Richards said. “They won’t even get those fighters down
there cranked up, let alone into the air.”

“Yeah, but the gunners are getting
a full minute, maybe a little more,” Jock replied. “That should be more than
enough for them.”

It certainly seemed to be enough.
The guns in the caves were being traversed and elevated, trying to target the
approaching American planes. Richards wondered aloud, “Do you think those are
the guys who knocked us down?”

Jock didn’t answer. He was focused
on the B-25s, waiting for the leader to start his drop. Once he saw that first
bomb start its plummet earthward, he’d be able to make a guess where it, and
all the rest, would land.

He only had to wait a few seconds. Bombs
away.

In the instant its freefall began,
that first bomb was little more than a tiny black dot.

But it quickly grew in size as
gravity imposed its relentless acceleration…

And then threatened to vanish into
its own blur if Jock so much as blinked.

He counted down the seconds: one
one thousand…two one thousand…three—

The flash of impact lasted only a
millisecond but spawned a crushing shock wave, a ring of hot gases racing
outward from its epicenter…

A beguiling vision, seemingly
benign from this distance, like the circular ripple of a stone dropped into a
pond…

Not adding a sound of its own to
the THUD THUD THUD of anti-aircraft fire and the drone of engines…

Until the soft poom of the
first bomb’s impact made its five-second odyssey to the OP—and then all the
other pooms in rapid sequence, like the sustained roll of a distant
drum, its beats too numerous to count.

Then it was over.

Their bomb bays closed now, the
American planes continued on their way, seemingly untroubled by the scores of
black puffs floating in the sky around them like soiled cotton. Lingering
reminders of flak bursts that had failed to take down even one aircraft.

“Ain’t that something,” Steve
Richards said. “They can’t hit one plane out of twenty in broad daylight, but
we got knocked down flying all by our lonesome in the dark of night.”

“Fate’s a cruel mistress, Steve.”

“How cruel was she to those Japs
down there, sir? What are you seeing?”

Jock didn’t reply right away. He
hadn’t finished scanning the broad target area below with the binoculars. When
he did finally speak, he sounded anything but pleased.

“Well, those flyboys moved a bunch
of dirt around and kicked up plenty of dust, but…ahh, shit.” He handed the
binoculars to Richards. “Here…have a look for yourself.”

What Richards saw almost made him
jump for joy. “But sir, look at those craters they put in that runway. That
airstrip’s out of commission. We blew the shit out of them!”

“Bullshit, Steve. They’ll have that
fixed tonight. And I only see a couple of aircraft knocked out.”

“But there’s probably damage to a
lot of the other planes we can’t see from here, sir.”

“That’s faith, Steve, not hard
intel. Let Hans and Josiah have a look.”

After his turn with the binoculars,
Hans said, “They missed the road, too. Completely.”

He was right. Not one vehicle
seemed so much as disabled, let alone destroyed. Drivers and foot soldiers who
had sought refuge off the road were returning to it now and resuming the march
south.

It was time for Jock and his men to
leave. The radio was a day’s walk away on the far side of the island. Jock knew
all too well what the bomber pilots would tell G2 as soon as they landed: The
drop was dead on target. Three airstrips badly damaged. No opposition from Jap
fighter aircraft. Flak ineffective.

And like the Navy pilot Richards
had said only a minute ago, so would the Air Force pilots conclude their
debrief: We blew the shit out of them.

In other words, a perfect
misrepresentation of the enemy situation on Biak.

One I must correct, Jock
told himself.

They were packed up and ready to
leave the OP. Josiah lingered, taking one last look with the binoculars. What
he said didn’t surprise Jock at all:

“The Japanese, Major…they’re
already working to repair the runways.”

They’d only been walking for an
hour. Jock was already lagging far behind.

Steve Richards asked, “Your
leg…it’s acting up, isn’t it, sir?”

There was no point in lying. There
wasn’t even a way to put an optimistic face on it.

He was in pain and everyone knew
it.

“You guys better push on without
me,” Jock said. “Here…I’ve already written out the message we need to send.
Take it, Steve. I’ll try and catch up when I can.”

If I can.

“Bullshit on that, sir. This is
about where we ran into those tanks a while back, isn’t it? What are you going
to do when more come? Run away?”

The Navy pilot might’ve been just a
beginner at ground combat but he made a good point.

“Then what do you suggest we do,
Steve?”

Richards reached down and eased
Jock to his feet. “I’m going to be your crutch, sir. And when I get tired out,
Hans and Josiah will take turns, too.”

“No good, Steve. I’ll slow you down
way too much. That message needs to get to Hollandia ASAP. Too many lives depend
on it.”

“A couple of hours one way or the
other won’t change a damn thing, sir. Your invasion isn’t supposed to happen
for another week, right? And didn’t Hans say it’s only about ten miles back to
where Mister Dyckman’s going to be, instead of the fifteen we had to cover
going the other way?”

“Yes,” Hans chimed in. “That is
true. We’ll be crossing a narrower part of the island. And the trail is
better.”

“It’s settled, then,” Richards
said. “Now come on, sir…one foot in front of the other.”

They’d only walked for a few
minutes when they again heard the bellowing engines of tanks making their way
south. There was no cause for alarm; the tanks were a good distance behind
them, not even close enough to be seen. With each passing second, those steel
monsters would drive farther away.

Jock caught Richards grinning and
said, “All right, all right…so you made a good call about the tanks, Steve.
Don’t let it go to your head. We’ve still got a hell of a long way to go.”

It wasn’t meant as a reproach and
Richards knew it. He kept right on grinning as he replied, “I’ll take that as a
thank you, sir.”

Something had been bothering Steve
Richards about this game-legged Army major ever since he boarded the Cat four
days ago. He decided this was the time to clear it up. “Sir,” he asked, “why
are you still even here? Couldn’t you have gone home with that leg wound?”

Jock was silent and pensive for a
few moments, as if carefully composing his reply. Then he said, “This is my
home now. Everything I care about in the world is right here. Like it or not, I
can’t get off this train until this damn war is finished once and for all.”

Chapter Ten

The jeep was barely managing
twenty-five miles per hour along the rutted dirt road. It had bounced and
lurched for the past three hours but still had a long way to go in the choking
dust and stifling morning heat. At the wheel, Lieutenant Jimmy Ketchum figured
it would take another hour, at least, to reach Aitape, some one hundred miles
down the New Guinea coast from Hollandia. He feared that hour would be spent in
more awkward silence; this whole trip, the fierce-looking Australian woman
sitting next to him hadn’t said a word, despite his many attempts to break the
ice. As if immune to the rough ride, she never looked up from the papers she
was trying to study.

Geez…would it kill her to shoot
the breeze a little?

Ketchum tried to crank up a
conversation one more time. “You know, Missus Miles, I served under your
husband at Buna. I was a green platoon leader and—”

Without looking up, Jillian
interrupted, “I know, Lieutenant. You told me that before we even left.”

“And I heard about all you did for
us there, ma’am…”

She looked up—finally!—and
fixed him in a questioning gaze.

“Go on, Lieutenant.”

“And I just wanted to say I’m real,
real sorry it worked out so badly for you, getting captured by the Japs and
all.”

“It came out a lot worse for the
lads who didn’t make it through, Lieutenant.”

“I suppose you’re right, ma’am. But
I’ll tell you what…if Major Miles asked me to, I’d go to hell and back for him
all over again.”

He could only steal glances at her;
the bad road demanded so much of his attention. But the look he saw on her face
in those brief glimpses was one he’d only seen on strong men in the throes of
combat: a calm, steely-eyed resolve in the face of death, forged in fear but
not bending to it.

That look quickly softened. A
knowing smile took its place as she said, “I know what you mean, Lieutenant,
but I reckon I already have gone to hell and back for him.”

He expected her to return to the
papers in her lap, but she didn’t. Suddenly, it seemed like all she wanted to
do was talk.

“How’d you end up being my
chauffeur? Doesn’t your Army have better things for its officers to do than
drive an Aussie civilian around?”

“I’m convalescing, ma’am.
Got wounded a few months back, at Aitape, of all places. Somebody’s idea of a
joke, I guess, that I’m being sent back there now. And I’m not just your
driver…I’m supposed to assist you in any way I can.”

She let out a roaring laugh. “Now that
sounds exactly like your bloody American Army, Lieutenant. A job with no
specific purpose.”

It was Ketchum’s turn to laugh.
“Then maybe you can clear up for me what your purpose on this little
trip is, ma’am.”

“It’s simple, Lieutenant. We’re
going to find the whereabouts of these sixty some-odd unaccounted-for Dutch
souls, so that bloody wanker I work for can balance His Royal Majesty’s
books for him.”

“His Royal Majesty, ma’am?”

“MacArthur, Lieutenant. Your bloody
General MacArthur.”

“But sixty people, ma’am, give or
take a few? Hell…they could all be in unmarked graves somewhere. We may never
find them. They were probably all POWs, right?”

“That would make it easy for us if
they were,” she replied. “Japanese prison camps keep meticulous records.”

“Why would they bother keeping
records, ma’am? They didn’t sign the Geneva Convention.”

“True, but certain prisoners could
be very useful for propaganda purposes. If they didn’t know who they were, they
couldn’t take advantage, now, could they?”

He took her word as gospel, since
she knew from hard experience.

“If they’re on land, we’ll find
them somehow, Lieutenant. The sea’s the only one who never gives up her dead.”

They knew they were close to Aitape
now; tall signposts had begun to sprout along the roadside, the top of each
decorated with a thicket of arrows pointing this way and that, each arrow
stenciled with an Allied unit’s designation.

“Who are we looking for?” Ketchum
asked. “The MPs?”

“Yes,” Jillian replied, “the
One-Oh-Sixth Military Police Company. They’re responsible for keeping law and
order around these parts…supposedly. Bloody thugs and head-bashers are all they
are, if you ask me.”

“I know exactly what you mean,
ma’am. Have you ever heard that old Army saying?”

“You mean the one that says I’d
rather have a sister in the whorehouse than a brother in the MPs?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the one.”

As if their joking had summoned him
somehow, a GI wearing an MP armband stepped into the middle of the road, his
outstretched hand commanding the jeep to halt.

“What’s going on, Corporal?”
Ketchum asked the MP.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,
sir. You’ll be on your way in a minute.”

A bit farther down the road, the
reason they’d been stopped was now in plain view. Three white people—two men,
one woman—were being led under guard across the road. They were civilians by
their tattered and filthy clothes, barefoot, and gaunt. Their hands were tied
behind their backs.

Skin that seemed thin as paper
stretched tight over their sinewy frames. Jillian doubted they’d had a decent
meal in months. Maybe longer.

Each man had tattoos on his bare
upper arm which Jillian recognized immediately: the marks of seamen. The
woman’s hair was a coppery red—dull and dirty, as if she’d been in the bush for
a while, but unmistakably a ginger.

Jillian leapt from the jeep and
brushed past the flustered corporal. A buck sergeant with the air of a bully
was leading the parade of prisoners. She marched right up to him, and in a
command voice that rattled the young man for just a moment, asked, “Just why exactly
are these civilians being treated like prisoners, Sergeant?”

His surliness returned quickly.
“Speaking of civilians, lady, just who the fuck do you think you are? You
better get the hell out of here before I lock that big mouth of yours up, too.”

She reached into her trouser
pocket, produced a document, and thrust it in the sergeant’s face. He got as
far as The Supreme Commander’s seal on the letterhead. There was no need
to read further:

This skirt’s got friends in real
high places.

Jillian wished she had more time to
enjoy watching this arrogant goon of a Yank turn to a sputtering idiot before
her eyes. “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

“Polito, ma’am…Louis T.”

“Well, Polito, Louis T., let’s try
this again. Why are these civilians being treated like POWs? Shouldn’t
they be in the resettlement camp?”

“They’re Jap sympathizers, ma’am.
They escaped from the camp last night, trying to make it to them yellow
bastards still holding out up in the mountains.”

“Really?” she replied. “Jap
sympathizers? Sounds a bit unlikely, Sergeant Polito.”

“Don’t matter, ma’am. I’ve got my
orders.”

“I’m sure you do. How do we find
your company HQ, Sergeant?”

Pointing down the road, he replied,
“It’s the next turn-off…about a quarter mile down. You’d better check in with Sergeant
Knox, ma’am.”

“Actually, I’m looking for your
company commander, a Captain Hutchins, I believe.”

Polito let out a laugh. “Good luck
finding him, ma’am. He usually makes himself real scarce. Like I said, ol’ Hard
Knox is the man to see. He runs the show around here.” He pointed again down
the road. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am…” Almost an afterthought, he looked
to Lieutenant Ketchum and threw a careless salute.

As the prisoners were led away, the
woman looked back, wanting to say something. She was stopped by the blow of a
rifle butt against her back. But the look on her face, the way her lips had
moved—Jillian was sure she was begging Help us…

As they climbed back into the jeep,
Ketchum asked, “You buy that bit about them being Jap sympathizers, ma’am?”

“Not for a bloody minute,
Lieutenant.”

To Jillian Miles, Technical
Sergeant Franklin Knox was the walking, talking embodiment of everything she
thought about military policemen: bloody thugs and head-bashers, all of
them. Tall and stocky, with a barroom brawler’s beer belly that strained
the buttons of his khaki shirt, his eyes seemed as cold and merciless as a
shark’s.

No wonder that GI back on the
road referred to him as “Hard Knox,” she told herself. Looks like
a right mongrel to me.

But she saw something else going on
behind those dead eyes. He’s a schemer…he’s at it right now. Either he’s
trying to figure out how to turn my visit to his advantage or how to stop me in
my tracks. Why on earth would he want to do that?

Unless he’s got something to hide.

At the moment, Knox wasn’t
bothering to hide his distaste for rank or women. Looking right past Jillian,
he told Jimmy Ketchum, “You can tell the lady this letter of hers don’t cut a
whole lotta ice around these parts…” Like an afterthought, he tacked “Lieutenant”
to the end of that sentence. It carried the same lack of respect he would have
lavished on titles like dog catcher or shithead.

“Negative, Sergeant. That
letter has the full effect of an order. You and your organization are to
cooperate with Missus Miles to the fullest.”

The big sergeant sneered. He wasn’t
even going to bother saying Yes, sir.

“And I’m not sure why we’re wasting
our time with you, Sergeant Knox,” Ketchum continued. “Take us to your
commander, Captain Hutchins, on the double.”

“Can’t do that,” Knox replied.

“Why the hell not, Sergeant?”

“Because it ain’t my turn to watch
him, Lieutenant, so I ain’t got no idea where that man is at.”

Ketchum was starting to lose
patience. “You’ve got a pretty route-step outfit here, Sergeant. Not very
impressive at all.”

Knox just shrugged. “We take care
of our business, Lieutenant.”

Jillian had had enough of the
dick-measuring contest. “And I’m about to take care of mine, Sergeant,”
she said, “with or without your help or your bloody captain’s. I’m sure your
company clerk can provide me all the files I need to start the ball rolling.”

She pushed past the looming
sergeant and headed straight to a meek-looking corporal seated behind a
typewriter in the corner of Knox’s day room. At first, the corporal had trouble
grasping the situation. Since he joined the Army, he’d never had to deal with a
woman in an official capacity. Aside from the nurses, he didn’t know there were
women in any official capacity.

But it was obvious this Aussie lady
wasn’t just some clerk/typist for the brass: she was an undeniable force, a
commanding presence sucking the air right out of the room. She hadn’t asked him
for a thing yet, but he just knew when she finally did, every word would be
precise, proving the lady definitely had her shit together.

She ain’t gonna ask no questions
she don’t already know the answer to, I’m betting.

It only took one more bit of
rationalizing for the corporal to fall into step:

She works for the Supreme
Commander, for cryin’ out loud…hell, she’s got herself a fancy title, too…and
even Hard Knox knows damn well she’s going to get what she wants, whether he
likes it or not. That’s why he didn’t stop her from talking to me…

And hopefully, it’s why he won’t
beat the shit out of me when I do what she says.

In short order, the corporal was
handing over every document Jillian requested.

Hard Knox might’ve been silent but
wasn’t amused. He grew agitated when, after just ten minutes going over the
files, she announced, “Sergeant Knox, there seem to be quite a few
discrepancies here. If I’m to believe these figures, some sixty refugees who
arrived at this resettlement camp can’t be accounted for now. Can you explain
that to me?”

“You’re gonna have to talk to
Captain Hutchins, ma’am.”

“Then you’re going to have to find
him for me, Sergeant, and right bloody now.”

The last person in the world Hard
Knox wanted to find was Captain Hutchins: That stick-up-his-ass rich boy
would only fuck things up now. Better he chases skirt up at the hospital, keeps
getting piss-drunk at the “O” club, and stays the hell out of my way, like
always.

He gunned the jeep onto a narrow
side road which bore none of those arrows directing you to this or that unit.
Soon, he came to a gate in a tall, barbed wire fence, manned by two American
MPs who waved him through. Racing the short distance to a weather-beaten villa
nearly hidden by trees, he slid the jeep to a halt at the back steps. A
half-breed, light-skinned New Guinean—with the bushy hair of a native but the
smooth features of a European—stepped from the house to greet Knox.

Sauntering like the cock of the
walk, Fritz Van Flyss said, “Good afternoon, General. What brings you to
our fine establishment at this time of day?”

“Shut the fuck up, Fuzzy,”
Knox replied. “We gotta talk. We got big trouble.”

“So big the mighty US Army can’t
handle it?”

“No, you numbnuts…the fucking Army is
the trouble.”

They walked through the house—a warehouse,
actually—where natives were busy breaking open boxes marked with bright red
crosses and sorting their contents. Settling into a quiet back room, Knox
refused the whiskey Van Flyss offered; that was enough to convince him the news
his partner in crime carried was bad. Really bad.

“Never known you to turn down a
drink, Sarge.”

“No time right now, Fuzzy. Now
listen and listen good…”

Knox told him all about Jillian
being on the verge of blowing their whole operation sky high. He concluded
with, “If she finds what happened to them people and why, we’re fucked. So we
gotta get rid of that skirt, and fast.”

“You mean kill her?”

Knox bounced a meaty backhand off
the side of Van Flyss’ head. It nearly knocked him out of his chair.

“Oh, that’d be all we need, you
imbecile—kill some Aussie split-tail working for MacArthur. This fucking place
would be crawling with more brass than McNamara’s band.”

“So what are we going to do? And
that hurt, by the way.”

“Tough shit, Fuzzy. Now here’s the
deal—you’re gonna get some of your coons to put a damn good scare into
her. Fuck her up a little…so she won’t never be coming back here again.”

“But won’t they just send someone
else then?”

“They already did that once,
remember? Those dumbass officers they sent couldn’t find their asses with both
hands. Gave my unit a glowing report. This skirt can add two and two, though.”

“Let me get this straight, Hard…you
want my boys to give her a beating?”

“Gee, you ain’t so dumb, are you,
Fuzzy? That’s what I’m saying…beat her up real good…whatever it takes. Scare
the shit out of her. Just make sure she can walk out of here.”

Van Flyss thought it over for a
moment, and then said, “I told you we should’ve killed those people.”

Knox scowled at him. “I take it
back, Fuzzy...maybe you are that dumb after all. I’ll tell you one more
time—if we killed them outright, it’d be a firing squad for us, for sure. But
the way I got it set up, anything that happens to them is gonna be seen as
God’s will.”

Van Flyss sighed and said, “All
right. When do we do it?”

“Tonight.”

Chapter Eleven

Thirst was driving Arthur Simpson
slowly out of his mind. He’d yet to cross a stream or river from which to fill
his canteen. In his solitary wandering toward Biak’s southeastern shore, the
only body of water he’d come upon was a stinking swamp—a glorified mud puddle.
But even though he could no longer summon saliva to his mouth and he felt sure
he’d be spitting out dried-up pieces of his esophagus any minute, he wasn’t
crazy enough to try and drink from it. Not yet.

He’d couldn’t remember how long
he’d been walking the edge of this bluff—at least two hundred feet high—looking
for a safe and easy place to descend to the seashore. Simpson could see the
Pacific now, and its forbidden water—infinite, undrinkable—seemed to be
taunting him. The weather was taunting him, too. From his high vantage point,
he’d watched two storms roll off the ocean, pouring their life-giving rain on
the island far to the north and south. Not a drop had fallen anywhere near him.

Below the bluff, thick forest
stretched to a rocky shoreline. He wasn’t sure at first—maybe my eyes are
playing tricks on me—but he thought he was looking down on a thin column of
smoke rising above some treetops not far away.

A cookfire, I’ll bet. Some
darkies must be cooking up fish or a pig for supper…and where there’s cooking,
there’s got to be a village…

And where there’s a village,
there’s water.

Better hurry…it’s going to be
pitch dark in a couple of hours.

Abandoning caution and the laws of
physics, he eased one foot over the edge and then the other…and began a clumsy
and death-defying descent down the steep slope—slipping, falling, tumbling,
bouncing off trees—only to somehow regain his feet, try a few more uncertain
steps, topple over, and begin the head-over-heels journey all over again.

Bruising though it was, Simpson’s
unceremonious downhill run was a big timesaver—he reached the bottom in little
over a minute. He took some small comfort in that fact:

I’m a little banged up but I
don’t think I broke anything…and now I’ve only got an easy little stroll to
that village.

He staggered to his full,
commanding height, threw back his shoulders—Ow! Must’ve sprained something…

And then, as the pain in his
shoulders receded, he stepped off smartly, like a man on the way to reclaiming
his rightful destiny.

When the huts of the village came
into view, he stopped, crouched low, and began to recon the situation before
him. As he did, he reached for his .45 pistol…

But the holster was empty.

Shit! Must’ve lost it falling
down that fucking cliff. Ahh, the hell with it. Only had two damn bullets in
it, anyway. Don’t imagine I’d be able to shoot my way into getting a drink.

Simpson could see nothing but a
group of busy women—a dozen, give or take—tending to children and the
boiling pot.

Looks like they’re cooking
supper. Fish stew, I’m guessing. They’re no threat…but where the hell are all
the men?

He heard something behind him, a
rustling sound, like an animal in the underbrush.

When Simpson turned, there was a
man—an islander—standing before him.

In his hand was a large wooden
blade—like a fraternity paddle…or a cricket bat.

There were more island men all
around him. No bats for them, just long knives hanging from their waists.

Where the fuck did they all come
from? They don’t look too damn friendly, either. But at least there ain’t no
Nambu pointed at me this time. And those knives don’t mean shit. Hell, every
pickaninny in the jungle carries a knife.

Simpson held up his hand in
greeting, like the actors pretending to be American Indians in the movies did
when saying hello to white men.

The islanders made no gesture in
return.

“US Navy,” Simpson said, pointing
to the gold wings on his chest. “Pilot…aviator…flyer.”

Still no response.

He pointed skyward as he patted the
wings. Pilot or not, he was making no impression on the grim-faced islanders.

“American,” Simpson said. He
smiled, confident he’d just played the trump card ensuring his salvation.

The batsman took a sudden step
forward and, quick as lightning, delivered a knockout blow with that weapon to
the side of Arthur Simpson’s head.

The storms that bypassed Arthur
Simpson were much kinder to Jock and his men. They’d been drenched twice,
cooling themselves and refilling their canteens each time. Even if it hadn’t
rained they wouldn’t have become parched: Josiah was adept at finding the thick
vines that, when a cutting was hacked open, oozed enough thirst-quenching sap
to keep a man hydrated.

The setting sun was casting its
long, eastward shadows as they stopped to rest for a few minutes. Trying to
make some sense of his map, Jock asked Hans, “How much longer do you figure?
Best I can make from this piece of toilet paper is we’re still on Biak,
somewhere.”

“We will reach our rendezvous
within the hour,” Hans replied.

Steve Richards added, “See? I told
you, sir…you wouldn’t slow us down hardly at all.”

“Well, I sure appreciate the help,
Steve.” Then Jock stood and, for the first time since morning, took a few
wobbly but unassisted steps on both legs.

“Whoa, sir,” Richards said. “Give
it a rest!”

“No, I’m okay. You guys have been
carrying me all day long. I think I can finish up this trip on my own two feet.
You could use the break…I know it isn’t easy being somebody’s crutch over all
that distance.”

“Hell, sir, it was only about ten
miles. Sure, it was up and down a little, but…”

Jock laughed and said, “Steve,
you’re sounding more and more like an infantryman every minute.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,
sir,” Richards replied. Then he pointed skyward and added, “But I belong up
there, with the rest of the flyboys.”

“Speaking of flyboys,” Jock
said, “your Lieutenant Simpson…there’ll be a board of inquiry…” He had started
to say if we get back but changed his mind and finished the sentence
with “when we get back.” Then he continued, “I’ve worked with pilots for a
while now and I know how you like to cover each other’s asses. What do you plan
to say about him?”

Without a moment’s hesitation,
Richards replied, “I’ll tell them he ditched us and ran away. Fuck him.”

“Suppose he’s back with Dyckman
when we get there, Steve?”

“It doesn’t change a damn thing,
sir. Would it matter to you if he came back?”

“No, you’re right, Steve. It
wouldn’t change a damn thing. Fuck him.”

Arthur Simpson was fairly sure he
was conscious now—still woozy but conscious. He could hear people
talking in some strange language but couldn’t see anything except vague shadows,
more like sensing motion from behind a curtain than seeing animate objects.

That’s it! I’m lying here with a
sack over my head. Burlap or something.

He tried to lift his arms to remove
it but he couldn’t. Something was holding them to his sides. There was chafing
pressure at his wrists, which worsened the more he tried to pull his arms free.

Shit. I’m tied up.

There were hands on him now,
roughly pulling him to a kneeling position.

It felt like someone was untying
something from around his neck, and then the bag over his head was whisked
away.

He could see again, at least
whatever the soft glow of twilight allowed.

The village. I’m still
here.

Dark silhouettes paced around him
as if performing a ritual dance.

But one silhouette remained
stationary, directly before him…

And he’s still holding that
fucking bat.

There was something strange about
the shape of the batsman’s head…

He’s wearing some kind of
cap…but it almost looks like a hood.

The batsman drew close, crouched
low, and stared right into Simpson’s face.

His features were clear now…and so
was that cap.

It’s one of those a Jap soldier
wears, with that drape on the back to keep the sun off.

On the cap’s peak was the big star
of the Imperial Japanese Army, normally red but grayish now in the fading light.

Ahh, fuck…Gekken.

The batsman slowly raised his
weapon so it touched Simpson’s cheek.

The edge was razor sharp, like a
wooden sword.

He pulled that sharp edge along the
pilot’s cheek, causing a sharp pain and drawing blood.

Simpson could see the red trickle
on the blade.

He tried to pull away but the hands
of unseen gekken forced his head to be still.

The batsman seemed to be enjoying
himself. He barked words that sounded like orders and sprayed Simpson with
spittle.

The sack had been rolled into a slender
length of rough cloth, like a kerchief…

Or a blindfold. It was quickly tied
over Simpson’s eyes.

In the quiet seconds that followed,
the Navy pilot thought of the stories he’d heard of Allied flyers being
executed—beheaded—by their Japanese captors.

But that can’t be happening…not
to me. These aren’t Japanese. They’re just some fuzzy-wuzzies playing dress-up
games. And he doesn’t even have a real sword.

Enough of this shit. I’ve got to
get the fuck out of here…

He tried to stand…but couldn’t.

His ankles were secured to the
ground somehow. To stakes, a tree—he couldn’t tell.

Puffing his chest out, he said,
“Look, I’ll give you my wings! They’re nice and shiny, right? Shine like gold!
You want them, don’t you? Go ahead, take them.”

It seemed such a short time ago he
had not a doubt in the world he was all powerful, the master of his universe. A
soaring god…

The master of every
universe.

Now he was helpless, his fate in
the hands of a stranger:

Some fucking darkie.

This is all the Army’s fault.
Let them ask me again to fly a mission for them.

They can all go fuck themselves,
from that comic opera son of a bitch MacArthur right on down the line.

Arthur Simpson didn’t even sense
the disturbance of the air…

But he felt the bite of the wooden
blade as it struck the back of his neck with terrific force.

It put him face down in the dirt.
He couldn’t move a muscle…

Couldn’t feel his arms or legs.

But he could still hear the
shrieking of the gekken standing over him.

A metallic taste in his mouth:

My own blood.

A second blow…

But his head remained attached to
his body—there was less shattered spine and mangled tissue to hold it now, but
it was still attached.

On the twelfth blow, the wooden
sword splintered to pieces.

But the batsman was too caught up
in his bloodlust to stop. He screamed for another sword.

Arthur Simpson was dead long before
the seventeenth blow finally caused his head to roll free.

The winded but exultant batsman
picked it up by a bloodied ear and displayed it like a trophy.

But all the other gekken were gone.
For them, the Japanese ritual of execution they’d dreamed of performing on a
white man for so long had proved too horrific to watch.

The batsman’s solitary celebration
didn’t last long. He was soon confronted by a mob of angry village women. They
demanded the white man’s body—including his severed head—be removed. Immediately,
the women insisted, before it began to rot and stink. Already it was attracting
swarms of insects. The batsman had little choice but to comply; his mother was
the mob’s leader.

The rest of the gekken men joined
him as he wrapped Simpson’s body in a woven mat. Then they lifted it and headed
off in the darkness, hoping to travel as short a distance as possible downwind
from the village before ridding themselves of the corpse.

That distance turned out to be even
shorter than expected; they had barely made it to the trail when they heard
heavy footsteps coming the other way, sounds that could only be made by men
with boots on their feet. Men wearing footwear could only be enemies.

The gekken had no intention of
getting caught. They dropped Arthur Simpson and fled back to the village. They
were long gone when the first soldier in the Japanese patrol tripped over their
discarded cargo.

Chapter Twelve

They could tell they were getting
near the edge of the rainforest. As the sun set at their backs, its light had
grown dim among the trees through which they walked. But ahead, there was still
a sense of pastel pink mixing with deep blue. That was where the labyrinth of
the forest ended and the vista of sky and sea began.

“I’m guessing there’s a pretty
sharp drop to the water there,” Jock said, “despite the gentle slope
this useless map would have you believe.”

“Yes,” Hans replied, “about two
hundred feet, almost straight down, I’m told.”

Those last two words took Jock by
surprise. He sputtered, “You’re told? You mean you’ve never been here
before?”

“No, not here, exactly, Major. But
I’ve been close…and I do listen when others describe things.”

“How close is close,
Hans?”

“Within a few miles.”

“What about Josiah? Has he ever
been here?”

“Not that I’m aware of, Major. But
I assure you, there’s no cause for alarm. We know where we’re going.”

Josiah turned, as if to add his
reassurances. But before he could say a word, he dropped to one knee, rifle at
the ready, and raised his hand to the others: Stop!

Then he pointed toward the trees
still ahead, wagging his finger back and forth…

Sketching a line of adversaries in
their path.

Crouched low behind trees, the
others couldn’t see the Japanese.

But there were telltale sounds: the
scurrying of feet…

The clack-clack of rifle
bolts…

Then the first shot from an Arisaka
splashed against the tree, just a foot above Jock’s head. “STAY DOWN,” he said.
“DON’T WASTE A ROUND UNLESS YOU CAN SEE THEM PLAIN AS DAY.”

Steve Richards shot him a panicked
look. He wanted to fire, to do something—anything, no matter how useless—to try
and buy his salvation…something—anything—to stop the angry lead splintering the
tree which, for the moment, protected him.

Jock knew well the instinct
flooding Richards’ senses—and he knew well what a mistake it would be to follow
it now.

“Just do what I say, Steve.”

Suddenly, on the left flank, a
Japanese soldier was running, trying to keep his bent body low to the ground.

But speed makes for poor cover.
Hans picked him off with one shot.

“They’re trying to get behind us,”
Jock said. “They’ll be easy to see if they keep it up.”

Another Japanese soldier tried,
this time on the right flank.

It took two shots, but Josiah took
him down.

“Outstanding,” Jock said.

Richards was still nothing short of
terrified. “What about your Thompson, sir? Let loose with it! Spray their
asses!”

“When they’re close enough for this
thing to hit them, I will. Same thing for you with that .45. Now calm the fuck
down, Steve, and stay alert. You remember what your quadrant is?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“Good. Stay glued to it.”

It fell silent for a long, anxious
moment—just long enough to allow for false hope the Japanese were retreating…

But then came the sense of something
hissing through the air above their heads…

And a thump as the grenade
struck the tree right behind Jock…

And dropped into his outstretched
hand like an outfielder playing a long fly off the wall.

The grenade’s hiss was a
deafening whisper now as its fuze burned, spewing a plume of wispy gray smoke,
marking the last instant to its destiny.

Could there really be any time
left?

In one smooth motion, Jock’s arm
went from catching to throwing, hurling it back from where it had come.

The eyes of his three men watched
it fly over their heads in stunned disbelief, anticipating the blast which
seemed so long overdue.

Praying the grenade wouldn’t bounce
off yet another tree—and this time, land at their feet…

For they knew no hand would be
quick enough to flick it on yet again.

It had dropped from sight when it
finally blew up, its sound a muted poof…

Causing barely a ruffle of the
surrounding trees.

More like a malfunction than a
deadly explosion.

“A dud?” Richards asked.

“No,” Jock replied. “That’s what
they sound like.”

They waited for another grenade,
more rifle fire—anything to indicate the Japs were still players in this lethal
game.

“You killed them all,” Hans said, a
prayer more than a fact.

“I couldn’t be that lucky.”

He wasn’t—and neither was Steve
Richards.

The Japanese soldier seemed to pop
right out of the ground before him.

Richards’ .45 was only inches from
the onrushing soldier’s heart when he jerked its trigger.

They fell as one, in a swirling
sense of misfortune and dread…

And stuck fast to the ground on
which they fell.

Richards was on the bottom, flat on
his back. The mortally wounded Japanese soldier’s head lay prone on the flyer’s
chest, the stock of his Arisaka rifle standing above them like a grave marker.

The rifle’s long bayonet had gone
completely through the left side of Richards’ abdomen. Its tip was planted
firmly in the ground.

Their blood mixed, painting
matching portraits of war’s agony on their khaki shirts.

Jock raced to them, threw the
Japanese soldier off and placed the muzzle of his Thompson against the man’s
forehead.

Never give these bastards the
benefit of the doubt. Even the half-dead ones try to kill you somehow.

But he hesitated: Don’t waste
the bullet. He’s as good as dead already.

Richards’ hand clung to the
forestock of the rifle nailing him to the earth, as if even its slightest
movement might tilt the odds of living or dying even further against him. Jock
slid next to him and said, “Just try to relax. I’m going to pull it out.”

“NO! DON’T! IT’LL—”

There was no point protesting
further. Jock had already done it.

“It’ll what, Steve? Hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it?”

“No…not yet.”

“Good. Now just stay put.”

Pulling a pack of sulfa powder and
a roll of gauze from Richards’ musette bag, Jock stuffed a hastily fashioned
dressing into the wounded man’s shirt.

“I think you’re lucky, Steve. You
didn’t get stuck anywhere serious.”

Richards’ breathless reply: “Oh,
man…you’re not going to tell me it’s just a flesh wound, are you, sir?”

“Actually, I was. It’s a big one,
but—”

Two shots from a Dutch rifle cut
his words off. A few seconds later, there was a third shot.

“Sit tight, Steve,” Jock said,
placing the .45 back in the flyer’s hands. “Doesn’t sound like this is over
yet.”

He stood and saw Hans not ten feet
away. “No, Major,” the Dutchman said, his words as unsteady as his stance. “I
think it is over. Come and see.”

Twenty yards away—where Jock had
pitched the grenade—were the bodies of two Japanese soldiers. “They were
wounded,” Hans said, “and we finished them.” He pointed to the bullet wound in
each man’s forehead in turn. Then he dropped to one knee and looked like he was
going to vomit.

Ten yards farther, Josiah stood
over the body of a third Japanese soldier. Unlike Hans, he didn’t seem the
least bit upset at having to take lives. “He was crawling away, Major,” the
islander said. “But he didn’t get far enough. That makes six we killed.” He
took a look all around and added, “I don’t think there are more.”

“We can’t bet on that,” Jock
replied. “Not after all the noise we just made. We’d better get the hell away
from here…and we’re going to have to carry Mister Richards. Which way do we go
to find Dyckman?”

Hans wobbled to his feet. He looked
terribly confused.

“What’s the matter?” Jock asked.
“Never had to kill anyone before?”

Hans shook his head.

“Don’t feel bad. It hits everyone
like that the first time…unless they’re already crazy. But I’ve got to know,
Hans…which way to find Dyckman?”

“We shouldn’t have to go anywhere,”
Hans replied. “They were supposed to be right here.”

“Well, of course they’re not here,
dammit. The place is crawling with Japs. Pull yourself together. I need your
best guess where they might be, and I need it now, Hans. Don’t make me
flip a fucking coin.”

Josiah walked over to Steve
Richards. He bent down to help the pilot to his feet but then stopped,
straightened up, and returned to Jock and Hans.

“What’s the matter?” Jock asked the
islander. “Why didn’t you pick him up?”

“He cannot live like that,” Josiah
replied. “Better we leave him.”

“Negative,” Jock said. “You didn’t
leave me and we’re not leaving him.”

“You weren’t bleeding like a
speared animal, Major,” the islander replied. “He is.”

Jock wasn’t sure what was
infuriating him more: Josiah’s intransigent refusals, the fact that he was
spewing doom easily overheard by Richards, or that Hans was now useless, unable
to come to grips with having to kill other men to save his own life.

“Look,” Jock said, “it’s bad enough
we can’t seem to find our way out of a paper bag right now…” He walked over to
Richards and, with great difficulty, lifted him to his feet and became his
crutch.

“You carried me all that way,
Steve. Now it’s time I returned the favor.”

At first, it was all Jock could do
to keep his weak leg from collapsing under the strain.

But anger—and adrenaline—were doing
their work. He felt like a superman.

And he must’ve sounded like it,
too, when he asked Hans and Josiah, “Now, are you two going to get your thumbs
out of your asses and give me a hand here?”

Shame washed over Hans’ face.
“Forgive me, Major, but I do not know which way to go.”

Jock looked to Josiah. “What about
you? Any ideas where Dyckman is?”

The islander just shrugged.

It didn’t matter now. Jock had made
up his mind. “I’ll tell you what...we’ll head to the sea. That’s what everyone
seems to do when they’re lost on one of these islands. Maybe it’ll work for us,
too.”

They began to walk east, toward the
sea. All except Josiah.

Jock looked back over his shoulder
at the islander. He asked Hans, “What about our friend there? Is he with us, or
what?”

“Don’t fault him, Major. The island
people are…how should I say?…very fatalistic in matters of life and death.”

“That’s all well and good, Hans,
but fate be damned: Mister Richards isn’t going to die. Not if I have anything
to say about it.”

In a pained whisper, Steve Richards
added, “Sure glad you feel that way, sir.”

Jock gave the islander one more
glance, adding, “So unless you have some other urgent business to attend to out
here, Josiah, we sure as hell could use your help.”

It didn’t seem like he was going to
come. He stood in place, his face emotionless, as the three others kept walking
east. Just when Jock was convinced Josiah really wouldn’t be joining them, he
called out: “I think you’re all going the wrong way.”

That was enough to stop them in their
tracks. They turned to face Josiah.

“I think I know where Meneer Dyckman
will be, Major.” He was pointing north.

Jock asked, “Why north, Josiah? Why
that way?”

“Because he, too, will go to the
sea. The only way to get there without falling off a cliff is to go farther
north.”

“How much farther, then?”

“Not far, Major. Before nightfall.”

That didn’t give them much time.
Josiah had already started his walk north. Jock and the others fell in behind
him, all with the same hope and the same fear for Dyckman and his people:

They’ll go north…if the Japs
haven’t already gotten them.

They hadn’t walked far when Josiah
abruptly dropped to one knee and signaled Stop!

For Jock and Hans, going to
ground—and easing the wounded Richards down with them—was a much more delicate
exercise. It seemed like an eternity before they got the flyer propped up
behind a tree. Only then could they scatter to find their own cover.

Whoever—or whatever—was approaching
didn’t seem concerned with noise discipline in the least. They clomped
through the underbrush like carefree animals—or careless men. Josiah’s finger
tightened around his trigger.

“No, don’t,” Jock told him, not
bothering to keep his voice down. “We know who it is. Look…”

A tall, burly white man, in light
blue shirt and denim trousers and carrying a .30-caliber machine gun, US issue,
was at the head of a small group of men some forty yards away.

“That’s Sid Baum,” Jock said. “I
guess they’re out looking for us.” He stood up and walked toward the Navy man.

“Thank God you’re okay, sir,” Baum
said. “We heard all that shooting a while back. Thought you might need some
help.”

“Yeah, we do, Sid,” Jock replied,
pointing the big man toward Richards. “How far away is the rest of Dyckman’s
party?”

“A mile or two, sir…down the cliff
toward the beach.”

“Any sign of Mister Simpson?”

“No, sir. He’s still gone.”

“That’s a damn shame.”

“You thinking about looking for
him, sir.”

“He’s the last thing on my mind
right now, Sid.”

“Yeah. Mine, too, sir. But you guys
must be starving, right? Well, there’s great eating down there. Everyone’s
chowing down—crabs and stuff.”

“Outstanding! We polished off the
last of those emergency rations a long time ago, so hell yeah, we’re
starving. Now take off your shirt, Sid.”

“How come, sir?”

Jock was already taking his off.
“With yours and mine, we’ve got enough GI shirts to make a stretcher for Mister
Richards. First, we need some sturdy branches, about six feet long or so…”

In just a few minutes, branches
were found and slipped through the buttoned-up shirts; a stretcher took form.
Two islanders from Baum’s party jumped in to become its bearers.

Night closed in as they began their
trek down to the beach. Jock said, “Sid, I hope you’ve got this trail marked.”

“Way ahead of you, sir,” Baum
replied as he blinked his flashlight into the darkness ahead. Glowing dimly in
its beam was a white strip of cloth tied to a tree. Baum untied it and stuffed
it in his pocket. “We’ve got it marked like this all the way home.”

“Good thinking.”

“Did you get to see the bombing
raid, sir?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d they do?”

“Not so great, Sid.”

“Speaking of not so great,
sir…what’s gonna happen now with these Japs crawling all over the place?”

“Wish I knew.”

“They must be looking for that
transmitter of ours…and you’re gonna transmit again, ain’t you, sir?”

“I’m afraid we have to, Sid.”

They were quiet for a few moments.
Then Baum said, “Well, at least we’re all back together. Safety in numbers,
right?”

Chapter Thirteen

The ramshackle building was more an
oversized tin awning with open sides. The sign out front glowed in the jeep’s
headlights: it read OFFICERS’ CLUB. Jimmy Ketchum hit the brakes and said,
“This must be the place, ma’am.”

Jillian pivoted and slid from the
passenger seat, stepping to the wooden walkway with high-heeled feet together
like a lady gracefully dismounting a horse. She had no intention of giving the
crowd of eager officers watching her arrival an upskirt peek. “Pick me up in an
hour, Lieutenant,” she told Ketchum. “That should give me all the time I need.”

He watched the growing crowd of men
as they salivated over the prospect of this fine-looking woman joining them for
a drink—and a lot more, perhaps, if their overheated imaginations had anything
to say about it. “You sure you don’t want to carry that buffalo gun of yours,
Missus Miles? You might need to fend off some wild beasts in there.”

Jillian tossed off the warning with
a laugh. “I grew up in the bush, Lieutenant. I’ve been fending off wild beasts
my whole life.”

She found Captain Hutchins right
where the barman said he’d be, seated in a dark corner with nothing for company
but a row of empty Australian beer bottles on the deck beside him. When she
stepped up to him and began to introduce herself, the same thought crossed the
mind of every other man present: How come that Section 8 lush gets so lucky?

Hutchins cut her off halfway
through the introduction with an unsteady wave of his hand. “I know who the
hell you are,” he said, with all the slurred, impotent belligerence a
belly-full of beer can provide. “I read the dispatches from HQ, you know.”

“Then may I sit down, Captain?”

In one abrupt motion—like a sagging
marionette whose strings had suddenly been jerked tight—he shrugged and pointed
to the empty chair next to him.

She told him of the discrepancies
she’d uncovered in the camp’s records.

“You’ll have to talk with my
sergeant about that.”

“I already have, Captain…and he’s
been most uncooperative. I’m quite sure he, and perhaps you, are hiding
something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about. I may be the C.O. of that place on paper, but I’ve got nothing to do
with it. Knox takes care of business there.”

“I heard those exact words earlier
today, Captain Hutchins. From Sergeant Knox, of all people. But the question
is, what is this business he’s taking care of?”

At first, Hutchins’ face registered
confusion, as if running the resettlement camp was the only possible answer to
that question. Then the expression on his face changed. She couldn’t tell if it
now displayed shame, guilt, ignorance…or all of those things put together.

“I couldn’t prove anything in a
court martial, ma’am, but Knox may have something going on with some guy. Some
half-breed civilian scumbag.”

“Does this scumbag have a name,
Captain?”

“Yeah…Van Flyss. Fritz Van Flyss.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much…but one look at him and
you can tell he’s a slippery bastard. Probably as dangerous as the damn snakes
around here, too. Or at least as dangerous as Knox himself.”

Captain Hutchins slumped into his
chair. His eyes seemed to shake off the unfocused glaze the beer had put there.
What was left was the faraway stare of a shattered man.

He’s broken, Jillian
thought. What in bloody hell is he still doing here?

Her voice softer and sympathetic,
she asked, “Captain, I’ve seen so many like you before…and believe me, I
understand. But why hasn’t the Army sent you home?”

“Because those assholes say I’m not
crazy and I’m sure as hell not wounded. I just need some time and rest, that’s
all. So they stuck me in this backwater shithole.”

“But why? What happened to you?”

“Buna happened, ma’am.”

Without a moment’s hesitation,
Jillian replied, “It happened to all of us, Captain.”

Belligerence returned to his voice.
“Oh, yeah? What would you know about it, lady?”

“Quite a bit, actually. I was
there.”

He scowled. “How the hell could—”

“I was master of a coastal
freighter, bringing supplies to you Yanks. To make a long story short, I was
sunk and taken prisoner by the Japanese.”

“But…how…but you’re here
now. How could that be?”

“I got rescued. I was very lucky.”

“How long were you…you know…with
the Japs?”

“About a year.”

His sodden mind wrestled with the
simple arithmetic for a moment. “So you’ve only been back here a few…let’s
see…a few months?”

“That’s correct.”

Jillian had a pretty good idea
what he was thinking: The imprisonment…it’s made her damaged goods.

The halting, incomplete question he
spoke next proved it.

“Were…were you…”

“Raped? No, Captain. Tortured?
Yes.”

“Jesus…”

“No, he wasn’t there. We were on
our own.”

Hutchins shifted uneasily in the chair.
His eyes were focused on her now and not that illusory refuge of the mind where
the war weary sought their escape. For just one moment of clarity, he realized
whatever misdeeds Hard Knox had committed running that camp, he could be found
equally guilty: Ignorance won’t be an excuse. They’ll call it dereliction of
duty. A C.O.’s responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.

“You’d better be careful, though,
ma’am. Like I said, that Knox is a rough customer. Maybe you should just steer
clear.”

“Captain, I’ve been a prisoner of
the Japanese. I think I can stay one step ahead of some redneck Yank sergeant.”

A faint smile crossed his lips. He
was beginning to have little doubt she could.

“Could you do me just one favor,
ma’am, one Buna survivor to another?”

“And what would that be?”

“If you figure out what kind of
racket Knox has going on, give me a heads-up first, so I can maybe try and
cover my ass before the shit hits the fan.”

She offered her hand and they shook
on it. “Agreed. But just one thing, Captain…it’s not a question of if I
figure it out. It’s a question of when.”

Chapter Fourteen

Colonel Dick Molloy wouldn’t have
been surprised if General Willoughby balled up the message he’d just handed him
and threw it back in his face. He braced for the tirade he felt certain was
coming.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’ve got a squadron full of Fifth
Air Force’s crack bombardiers telling me they BLEW. THE. SHIT out of those Jap
airfields,” Willoughby said, his fist pounding the desk once for each syllable
in blew the shit. “And then, Richard, we got that one little major of
yours telling me quite the opposite.”

“Sir,” Molloy replied, “you wanted eyes
on the ground, and you got them. If you’re not going to believe what Miles
is telling us—”

“Oh, shut the hell up, Richard. I
don’t need lessons in processing intelligence. Not from you.”

Willoughby spun his desk chair
around and stared out the window. The awkward silence that followed was as
intrusive as a stick in the eye. It made Molloy aware of his every breath—every
twitch of his muscles—as he stood rigid before the general’s desk. He was sure
the clock on the wall had stopped. It seemed like a week passed before it
clicked off another minute and Willoughby turned his chair to face him once
again.

“Even if the information Miles sent
is on the money,” the general said, “I’m not going to worry my head about it.
The Fifth Air Force thinks we wasted a whole lot of their precious gasoline and
ordnance with that raid, and they’re quite confident that even in the unlikely
event those airfields fill up with aircraft overnight, it’s nothing they can’t
handle. As far as they’re concerned, the Japs have nothing but inexperienced
pilots left, and they’d love to get what’s left of the whole damn Jap air fleet
in one place so they can knock down those rookies all at once.”

To Dick Molloy, that had the stench
of wishful thinking and willful ignorance about it. But he said nothing. He
knew he’d already lost this battle.

“Besides,” the general continued,
“the Navy is breaking my balls now that we didn’t mention to them about their
aircrewmen still being with Miles. They had them listed as missing in
action. Now they’re hot to recover their boys…and they’re planning on doing
it tomorrow night.”

That was the best news Molloy had
heard yet.

“But that doesn’t give you much
time, Richard. We’ve still got radio contact with Miles?”

“As of thirty minutes ago, we did,
sir.”

“Good. Let’s get with the Navy
liaison and coordinate the pickup. They say they’ve got two subs in the area,
and either one can handle it. Now get your ass back to work, and don’t let this
little rescue sideshow get in the way of your real job.”

“No problem, sir. Everything is on
schedule for the Biak landings.”

Willoughby didn’t even look up from
his desk as he replied, “Very fine, Richard. Dismissed.”

Hector Morales was just about to
shut down the transmitter when his earphones came alive once more. Grabbing the
code book he’d just put away, he told the islander assisting him, “Get Major
Miles. Now!”

The message was still coming in
when Jock arrived at the lean-to sheltering the radio. Over Morales’ shoulder,
he strained to read what was already written down by the dim glow of the
receiver’s dial. The message was still coming when a breathless Andreas Dyckman
joined them.

“It’s good news and bad news,” Jock
told the Dutchman. “The good news is they want to take us off the island
tomorrow night.”

“I will not go,” Dyckman said. “Not
now. Not if your Army is coming so soon.”

“That’s your call,” Jock replied.
“Whatever you want to do.”

“But what is the bad news, Major?”

“They need coordinates for where we
want the sub to pick us up.”

Dyckman seemed surprised. “A
submarine? How will that work?”

“It’ll park in deep water a mile or
two offshore and send a rubber boat in for us.”

Jock knelt and unfolded his map on
the ground, lighting it by muffled flashlight. “So where the hell do I tell
them? With this piece of crap for a map, their landing party could end up God
knows where and we’d never find them in the dark.”

“It’s a pity,” Dyckman said. “We
made some excellent maps, but the Japanese have them all now. My daughter Greta
and her husband were the cartographers. They’d mapped almost all of the
southern island when the Japanese came.”

Jock asked, “So they’d be the ones
who know this part of the island pretty well, then?”

“Yes, Major…they’d be the only
ones. But now Greta is dead, as is Lukas.”

“I’m real sorry to hear that. But
how’d they die? In that evacuation attempt you told me about?”

Dyckman nodded.

“Gee, I’m sorry,” Jock said.
Turning back to the map, he asked, “So what do you think, Mister Dyckman? Where
the hell are we?”

Dyckman leaned over the map and ran
his finger along a curved section of coastline, where blue ink met green, both
faded by time and the elements and barely distinguishable in the faint light.
When his finger came to a stop, he said, “We are here, I believe, on this bay.”

The bay he picked—little more than
a tiny crescent scooped from the coast—didn’t even have a name on the map.

“I won’t be able to get a look at
this beach until sunrise,” Jock said. “Can a boat land here?”

Dyckman replied, “Yes, Major.”

Morales looked up from the radio
and nodded his agreement. “I saw the beach before the sun set, sir. It’ll do.”

“Well, it’s decided, then,” Jock
said. He wrote down the coordinates and handed them to his radioman. “Send them
quick, Hector, and get that transmitter the hell off the air. Maybe the Japs
won’t get another chance to track us.”

Jock was certain of one thing: even
if the Japanese hadn’t tracked their signal to this no-name bay, he and his
people were in a terrible defensive position, one they’d have to hold for an
entire day. They occupied a narrow coastal plain, not quite a mile deep, with a
horseshoe of high ground above them and their backs to the sea:

The Japs can lob mortar and
artillery fire down from the cliffs to their hearts’ content, and there’s not a
damn thing we can do about it except try to dig into this coral that’s like
fucking concrete and keep our fingers crossed.

The only thing we’ve got going
for us is there’s only one way down here from the high ground—that one steep,
skinny foot trail—unless the Japs decide to slide down off that cliff on ropes.
But then they’d be the vulnerable ones…and they’d need about fifty miles of
rope to get any numbers down here.

So all we’ve got to do is keep
them off that trail…

For twenty-four hours.

“Mister Dyckman,” he said, “I need
four of your armed men who speak good English.”

“Why, may I ask, Major?”

“I’m going to take them and one of
my Navy guys with the machine gun to the head of the trail. We’ll keep the Japs
from coming down here so your people can try and get some rest. Until the
shooting starts, at least.”

“Do you really think they’ll come
at night?”

“If they know we’re here, they just
might,” Jock replied.

“Take me, sir,” Hector Morales
said. “I got a good nap before while Sid was out looking for you. He can mind
the radio for us.”

“You’ve got a deal, Hector. Grab
the thirty cal, then gather up the guys Mister Dyckman picks and meet me at the
base of the trail. I’ll be along in a minute.”

Jock needed that minute to check in
on Steve Richards. He was lying beneath a small canvas tarp the islanders had
rigged to shelter him from the inevitable rain. His bloody shirt and makeshift
field dressing were gone, replaced by a cloth competently wrapped around his
abdomen.

“Pretty good-looking bandage,
Steve,” Jock said. “Who did it?”

Richards’ voice was strained, but
he was in good spirits. “One of the Dutch guys. Seemed like he’d make a pretty
good corpsman. And here I was, expecting some witch doctor remedies with leaves
and voodoo chants and stuff.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I
hear we’re getting rescued tomorrow night, sir.”

“Yeah, you’ll be back in your
Navy’s hands before you know it.”

“Maybe I’ll even be around to see
it.”

“You will be, Steve. Just take it
nice and easy and we’ll get you out of here safe and sound. Like I told you
back there, you’ve got a good wound. You’re going to be all right.”

Richards couldn’t help but smile at
the words good wound. “I didn’t think there could be such a thing, sir.
But I guess you’ve seen a whole lot of them…and you know good from…well…” He
let the sentence drop. “But I’ve got to ask you something. Is ground combat
always like that? I mean, so fucking confusing, like you’re caught in some
machine—you can’t even see its parts, but you know damn well they’re whirling
all around you—and they’re trying to rip you to pieces.”

“Steve, have you ever heard the
saying anyone who’s not confused doesn’t understand the situation? The
guy who coined that one had to be talking about ground combat.”

Richards nodded. He could find no
argument with that piece of wisdom.

“But that Jap, sir…did I kill him?”

“You did, Steve.”

He thought that over for a minute.
Then he asked, “I really didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

The trail seemed so much steeper in
the dark. It was especially tough on Hector Morales as he lugged the heavy
.30-caliber machine gun. The only way they knew they had reached the top was
when their aching leg muscles told them they weren’t climbing anymore.

“Hector,” Jock said, “set the
thirty cal up right here.” He held out a forearm like a signpost. “Now orient
it in this direction. Follow my arm. There was a curve in the trail about
twenty yards out. You’ll be shooting right across it. Nobody should get past.”

“What if I can’t see ’em, sir?”

“It won’t matter, Hector. Just keep
your bursts short so you don’t blow your ammo all at once. And don’t let the
barrel climb. Put those rounds out there at knee height, so they can’t even
crawl under them. I’m going to go set up the others now…spread them out wide on
either side of you. Then I’ll be right back.”

When Jock returned a few minutes
later, Morales asked, “Sir, I thought of something when we were getting that
last message from HQ. You weren’t thinking about going back to the other side
of the island again, were you? I mean, you’re limping pretty bad and all.”

“Why the hell would I do that?
We’re getting picked up tomorrow.”

“I know, but suppose they’d asked
you to do another scouting mission. Would you have gone?” He paused, and then
added, “I’m betting you would’ve.”

Jock had to stop and think about
it. Morales had a point: if he’d been ordered, would he have tried to do it
again?

Yeah, I would have tried, at
least. But no point pretending to be a hero now by saying it out loud.

“You’d have bet wrong, Hector.”

Morales shook his head. “That’s not
the way I read it, sir. Remember what Honest Abe said? You can fool some
of the people—”

“Yeah, yeah. I heard that tune a
long time ago.”

“Just saying, sir. Can I ask you
something else?”

“Might as well. Just make it
quick.”

“How come you call me and Sid by
our first names? Naval officers never do that. Ever. It’s like they’d die if
they ever got informal with subordinates.”

“The way I see it, Hector, just
consider it my way of showing you guys some respect for the way you’ve come
through out here. Now let’s shut the hell up and stay alert.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jimmy Ketchum lay on a cot in the
Quonset hut’s sweltering heat and thought, If this dump is the guest
quarters, I’d hate like hell to see the stockade on this post. I’d rather sleep
outside with the snakes and the jungle rats than in this sweatbox…but it’s the
least I can do for that lady. She’s got enough problems right now, with her
husband in limbo and all. I swear, she must be tougher than nails.

The sparse room in a corner of the
hut was officially assigned to Jillian Miles; her name had even been neatly
printed on the door in chalk by one of Sergeant Knox’s minions; her clothes and
gear were scattered throughout. But she would never sleep there. She’d burrowed
herself a refuge in an adjacent Quonset among the towering stacks of clothing,
cots, blankets, and sheets, probably intended for the resettled civilians but
yet to be distributed. It was a good hiding place: the building—and its
contents—seemed all but forgotten.

To complete their deception,
Ketchum would spend the nights in this room meant for her rather than the big,
barely occupied tent designated Visiting Officers’ Quarters. To make
sure he’d be awake if the intruders came, he’d rigged noisemakers—tin cans with
a few small rocks inside—on the floor near all doors and windows; the same
precautions GIs used on jungle perimeters. To keep it dark, he’d pulled the
fuses for the ceiling lighting. For emergency communication, he’d hooked up the
unused telephone wire strung between the two huts to simple buzzers he’d found
lying around. All you had to do was touch a flashlight battery to the wires and
the buzzer would wake the dead.

Proud of his handiwork, he reminded
himself, You know what they say about infantrymen—we’re skilled generalists.
We can do a little bit of everything.

He wasn’t asleep when he heard the
first rattle of a noisemaker. Within seconds, he could hear footsteps outside
his door…

And then the scrape of the door
latch as the knob was turned.

One hand gripping his Thompson’s
trigger, the other his flashlight, Ketchum slid himself and his weaponry deeper
beneath the sheets. He was ready.

The door opened part way, just
enough to allow the moonlight seeping through the window to illuminate their
faces.

Blacks. Two of them.

One rushed in, batting the mosquito
netting around the bed aside…

Ripping away the sheet…

Straddling Ketchum’s legs, grabbing
his boxer shorts, trying to pull them down…

And then stopping—frozen in place
and time—as the muzzle of Ketchum’s Thompson was deep in his mouth.

“Maybe you wanna fuck this
instead,” Ketchum said.

In the flashlight’s beam, he caught
the other intruder lunging toward the cot. Something in the man’s hand glinted
like metal…

He’s got a shiv.

The angle was almost perfect, one
assailant nearly lined up behind the other.

It only took a jerk of the
Thompson’s muzzle, still in the first man’s mouth, to resolve the geometry.

A three-shot burst killed them
both—through the mouth, out the neck, into the chest of the man behind.

Scurrying footsteps beyond the
door…

Shit, there’s another one.

There was no sound of a screen door
slamming.

The bastard’s still in here,
somewhere.

Jillian didn’t need a buzzer to
warn her. The gunshots sufficed.

She grabbed her rifle—the buffalo
gun, as Jimmy Ketchum referred to it—and slipped her torch into the
pocket of her shorts. Barefoot and silent, she ventured outside to cover the
entrance to Ketchum’s hut.

She could hear noises from inside:
intermittent sounds of frantic movement—brief but rapid skittering and
thumping—like a rat trying to prevent itself from being cornered.

Then, Ketchum’s voice: “I’d give it
up if I were you, pal. Just come out with your hands up.”

The sweep of a flashlight made
crazy shadows dance. Ketchum’s scanning the interior, she thought. He
said “pal”—I reckon that means there’s just one.

The clomp of running
footsteps on the wooden floor…and then the screen door slammed open as Fritz
Van Flyss burst out of the hut, arms and legs flying like a champion sprinter…

And went sprawling over Jillian’s
outstretched leg.

He struggled to regain his feet and
resume his dash, but a foot against his backside pushed him face down into the
dirt. He would have tried to get up and run again, but there was something cold
and hard pressing behind his ear.

Something larger, not quite as
firm—a bare foot, perhaps—was resting against his scrotum, causing him to wince
with the anticipation of pain, pending but not yet delivered. He tried to turn
his head to see his captor but was blinded by the brilliant beam of a
flashlight—her torch—aimed right in his face. The Webley revolver in his
hand felt wasted, like a trump card played too soon.

“Toss the bloody gun away, wanker,”
Jillian said, pressing the rifle’s muzzle more firmly against the back of his
neck.

Van Flyss did as he was told.
“You’ve got this all wrong, miss,” he said. “I know why you’re here. I know
everything. I can help you.”

“Bloody rubbish,” she replied.

“But I was trying to stop them!”

Standing a few feet away, Jimmy
Ketchum stifled a laugh and said, “Get a load of bullshit this guy’s peddling.
Two of his buddies stone cold dead and he’s trying to play hero and cut himself
a deal. Some balls, eh?”

Jillian dug her foot into Van
Flyss’ scrotum, making him whimper.

“Some balls, indeed,” she replied.
“Why don’t you start helping by telling us your name, bucko?”

He told her.

“Brilliant!” she said. “Just the scumbag
we’re looking for. Tie him up, Lieutenant.”

“But you need me,” Van Flyss
protested.

“It looks like I’ve already got
you, laddie…and for as long as I bloody want, too.”

“You sure had them pegged, ma’am,”
Ketchum said, “figuring they’d come after you like that.”

“They certainly didn’t waste any
time trying it,” she replied. “It just shows how desperate they are.”

If only we bloody knew what it
is they’re so desperate to hide.

“So what are we going to do with
him now, ma’am?”

“For starters, we’re going to have
him locked up for the attempted murder of a Yank officer—you, Lieutenant.”

Ketchum was almost done binding Van
Flyss’ hands behind his back. But he paused to marvel at what Jillian was
doing. She had bound his ankles to allow some movement—a slow, hobbled walk at
best. Baby steps, she called them. A man could never run away bound like
that.

Then she fastened a noose around
Van Flyss’ neck, like a dog’s choke collar and leash. Perfect for leading a
prisoner around.

“Where’d you learn to do all that, Missus
Miles? The Girl Scouts?”

She laughed and replied, “No,
Lieutenant. I learned at the hands of the Japanese.” Checking Ketchum’s work,
she shook her head and added, “You’re not doing his hands right at all.” She
began to retie the rope. “Here…do it this way. He’ll chafe the skin off his
wrists before he ever gets out of it.”

“So I guess they used to tie you
POWs up a lot, ma’am?”

“All the bloody time, Lieutenant.
The Japs love their ropes.”

Chapter Sixteen

They could hear the thunder now as
the storm coming off the sea grew closer. Each streak of lightning would
illuminate the pitch black rainforest before them like a photographer’s
flash—an instant of trickster’s light, showing them things that existed only in
their fears. In those momentary flashes, every dancing shadow could be a
soldier of the Emperor advancing toward them. Each of Jock’s five men, though
only a few yards from the man next to him, felt completely alone.

Jock could sense how anxious they’d
become: If I can’t calm them down, it’s only a matter of time before someone
breaks and gives us away. He moved quietly along the dispersed line they
formed, offering whispered words of reassurance he could only hope they
believed.

Even Hans and Josiah seemed much
too jumpy. He’d placed them on the flanks because of all Dyckman’s people he
knew them best and trusted them the most. Now he was beginning to doubt even
their composure.

We need this fucking storm
rolling in like a hole in the head. If someone starts popping off, we’re
screwed.

But what can I do? Take their
weapons away?

No…but I’ve got to put the
brakes on this train before it derails and we all get killed.

He made the rounds of his men once
again, hissing the same command to each in turn, “Do not shoot unless I give
the command. Is that clear?”

Each man offered the same, wordless
response: a wide-eyed, fearful look of acknowledgement which could mean Yes,
sir…or it could mean Are you out of your fucking mind?

The storm was almost on them; there
was only a second or two now between the lightning and thunder. No sooner had a
crashing BOOM assaulted their ears than the next round of lightning
came, with multiple, strobe-like flashes that made the forest come alive with
those phantom soldiers.

“Easy, boys,” Jock urged, scuttling
from man to man once again. “There’s nothing out there except—”

But he realized he was wrong.
Beyond their left flank—Hans’ post—something was definitely out there: the crunch
of a man’s footsteps, stepping gingerly through the brush.

The Dutchman’s rifle swung in their
direction. Jock grabbed its forestock with one hand. With the other, he waggled
a finger in Hans’ face: No!

Then he held that finger to the
man’s lips: Quiet!

The crunching of footsteps stopped.
Whoever it was couldn’t be more than fifteen feet away.

Some rustling sounds, and then
nothing…

Until they heard the soft groaning
of a man, as if he was straining against something. A few muttered words,
definitely Japanese.

The poor bastard’s trying to
take a shit, Jock told himself. Eating nothing but rice like they do,
they probably only crap a little rock-hard pellet about once a week.

Just like when we eat nothing
but K rations, and I’m betting it hurts like hell for them just like it does
for us.

But he’s too fucking close.

The groaning continued, getting louder.

Sounds like he’s giving birth or
something.

Still, he’s too fucking close.

Is he alone?

Is there a platoon of Japs out
there somewhere?

A company?

A battalion?

One step, one stumble, and he
walks right into us.

Can’t take the chance. But it’s
got to be done quick….and real quiet.

Jock laid his Thompson next to
Hans. Once more, he placed his finger to the man’s lips, harder this time: Quiet.
I mean it.

The Jap’s groaning became more
insistent.

This guy’s about ready to drop
his load. It’s now or never.

Jock drew his bayonet…

Crept forward…

It was over in a second. He’d never
killed a man with a blade before.

But it had gone by the book: stun
the victim with a sharp blow to the side of the neck. Pull back his head. Slice
his throat.

Done without a sound.

I don’t think the son of a bitch
even got to finish taking his crap.

In the next flash of lightning,
Jock could see just for a moment the man he’d killed, lying on the ground next
to the rifle that could no longer save him.

He’s so young. Just a kid.

Maybe he was lost.

Bad luck for him.

Then the rain began to fall, a
deluge so strong it could wash away everything but the sins of men.

The storm passed and so did the
terror of night, finally yielding to the relief and cautious optimism of
daybreak. No other Japanese had come their way, as near as Jock and his men
could tell. The only weapon used was one bayonet, now wiped clean.

They could take a better look at
the dead Japanese soldier. To Jock’s surprise, the hapless victim, who looked
so young in the brief, harsh flashes of lightning, wore the rank of lieutenant
on his collar.

Hector Morales asked, “What are we
going to do with this gentleman, sir?”

“When we get relieved in a little
bit, we’ll take him down with us and bury him, if we can manage to dig a hole
in this rock. Can’t leave him up here.”

“How come?”

“He might have been alone last
night, poor bastard, but he belongs to some unit. They just might come looking
for him.”

Jock rolled the dead man over and
checked his pockets. There was nothing out of the ordinary: a small notebook, a
pen, a few yen, some pills in a tin—probably quinine. There was also a
photograph of a young woman and a few letters, their paper faded, brittle, and
tearing at the creases.

His rucksack was a different
matter. It had the pungent smell of seafood about it, with good reason: wrapped
in crumpled paper was a small fish, probably being hoarded for a private feast.

But it was the wrapping paper that
was most surprising. It was a map of Biak; an American map, just like the one
Jock carried. There was writing on it, in English. Where the fish oil hadn’t
smeared it, the handwriting was fluid, almost decorative.

“That’s Mister Simpson’s
handwriting,” Morales said. “I’d know it anywhere. It’s all over my radio log.”
After a long pause, he added, “Maybe he just threw the map away and the Japs
found it.”

“No,” Jock replied, “I’m betting
the Japs took it off him, and then they threw it away. Our maps are so
useless the enemy uses them to wrap fish.”

Dyckman shook his head sadly when
Jock showed him the fish-stained map. “As I told you, Major, the Japanese have
the maps my daughter created. They have no need for these nineteenth century
mapmakers’ fantasies you Americans carry.” He fell silent for a moment before
adding, “And I suppose we can deduce the fate of your Mister Simpson, as well.
Now that the sun is up, I must take my people away from here, to the mountains
in the north. The Japanese are too close—all those radio transmissions you’ve
made. They must know exactly where we are. And as you’ve said, Major, this
place is a trap, hemmed in on all sides.”

“Sure,” Jock replied, “pull out
whenever you’re ready. But I need one favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“I need you to leave your crank
generator behind, so we can use the transmitter as a homing beacon for the
submarine.”

Dyckman didn’t like that idea one
bit. “That is unacceptable, Major Miles. We need the generator if we are to
charge the receiver’s batteries after you are gone. It’s our only link to the
outside world. And why would you not give us the transmitter now, too? You
don’t have any need for it. The submarine has your coordinates—”

“You mean the coordinates we got
from that mapmakers’ fantasy, as you call it? The ones that might be off
by thousands of yards?”

“Really, Major, you must be
realistic.”

“I am being realistic. A
miss is as good as a mile in the dark. We need that transmitter—and the
generator—to put out a homing signal.”

“If you transmit again, the only homing
that will occur is the Japanese zeroing in on you.”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take,
Mister Dyckman. Now listen…we’re not taking that gear with us. We’re leaving it
behind. You can come back and get it if you need it that badly once we’re
gone.”

“If the Japanese haven’t already
claimed it, you mean, don’t you?”

“I guess that’s a risk you’ll
have to take, Mister Dyckman.”

The Dutchman scowled, threw up his
hands, and began to stomp off. His red hair caught the morning sun and seemed
ablaze.

Jock called after him, “So we have
an agreement?”

“I wouldn’t call it that, Major.
You give me no choice.”

Chapter Seventeen

Captain Hutchins felt like a man
reborn. He was glad he’d stopped drinking the moment Jillian Miles left his
table last night. Rather than closing the bar, as was his usual custom, he’d
headed straight to his quarters and gotten a good night’s sleep, his first in
weeks. Waking at 0500, he ate a decent breakfast at the officers’ mess and
downed several cups of coffee as he read the note once again, the one someone
had slipped under his door as he slept.

The note was unsigned but he knew
who wrote it. That lady really kept her word, he told himself. This
is my “heads up.”

His newfound feeling of well-being
was quickly put to the test as he arrived at the provost marshal’s office—his
office. The place was swarming with MPs from 6th Army HQ, led by a
lieutenant colonel whose collar brass identified him as Judge Advocate
General’s Corps; in layman’s terms, a lawyer. Technical Sergeant Franklin
Knox was seated in a corner of the day room, looking unfazed, a burly MP
standing on either side of him. He wasn’t handcuffed.

Pretty strange to see MPs
guarding other MPs, Hutchins told himself.

Several other soldiers from
Hutchins’ company were seated along the opposite wall, with their own 6th
Army MP overseers. The looks on his men’s faces varied from bewilderment, to
defiance, to terror. They weren’t handcuffed, either.

Standing in the middle of the room
was Jillian Miles. She didn’t bother saying hello. Her first words to Hutchins
were, “That man Van Flyss…the one we put in your nick for attempted murder late
last night. He’s dead. Hung himself in his cell, they’re telling me…if you can
believe that.”

She looked to the colonel as if
saying, You want to take it from here?

“Missus Miles’ skepticism is
well-founded, I’m afraid,” the colonel said. “The dead man has considerable
blunt force trauma beneath that bushy hair of his, an injury quite inconsistent
with hanging. This, Captain Hutchins, appears to be a murder clumsily dressed
up to look like a suicide, and it happened in your shop, right under your
nose.” He relaxed into a chair, folded his arms across his chest, and fixed
Hutchins in a damning gaze. “So it’s your call what happens next…unless you
want it to be my call.”

Hutchins had a pretty good idea
what the colonel’s call would be: He’ll lock every last one of us
up—starting with me—and throw away the fucking key.

He couldn’t help but see the look
Jillian was giving him. He knew what it meant: You wanted the chance to
cover your ass, one Buna survivor to another. Well, here it is, mate. Better
grab it.

Hutchins seized that chance like a
lifeline. “Who was the duty NCO last night, Sergeant Knox?” he asked.

Knox replied as casually as if he
was reciting a grocery list: “That would be Sergeant Polito, sir.”

Polito, Louis T. Jillian
recalled the name and the face. He was the sergeant she saw leading those
alleged Japanese sympathizers back to the camp. The one who was
so arrogant at first, until he realized she worked for the Supreme Commander.

The one who looked so terrified
now.

“Sergeant Polito,” Hutchins
continued, “you are under arrest for dereliction of duty.” He turned to a 6th
Army MP sergeant. “Confine him to the stockade, pending further investigation
and possible additional charges.”

“But I didn’t do anything, sir!”

“That’s the trouble, Sergeant,”
Hutchins replied. “You didn’t do anything…and now a prisoner—your
prisoner—is dead.”

As he spoke, he caught the
momentary smirk that crossed Knox’s face and thought: That’s the look of a
man who thinks he’s getting away with murder.

Hutchins continued, “And you,
Technical Sergeant Knox, are confined to quarters until further notice.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Knox said. “You
can’t do that. You ain’t got nothing on me.”

“Actually, Sergeant Knox, I can.”

“You gotta charge me with something
first. Then I demand my right to a fucking court martial.”

“Okay, fine. The first charge is
insubordination.”

Knox scoffed, like this was all a
big joke.

“And there’ll be many more,
Sergeant, I’m quite sure. I’ve only just begun to peel this little onion of
yours.”

“You ain’t got nothing on me,” Knox
repeated as the MPs pulled him from his chair. He didn’t sound quite so sure
this time, though.

But Knox wasn’t finished. Before he
and his escorts reached the door, he stopped, turned to Jillian, and said,
“This is all your fault, lady. That man had a lot of enemies. You had him
locked up, disarmed him…a perfect set-up for someone with a gripe to do him in.
You got him killed.”

“So you knew Mister Van Flyss,
then, Sergeant?” she asked.

“Don’t make me laugh, lady.
Everybody knew him. Even some of your high-falutin’ officers. Any one of them
could’ve killed him.”

Jillian replied, “Only one problem
with that line of reasoning, Sergeant—he was in your nick at the time.”

“You don’t know shit about nothing,
lady.”

Hutchins said, “That will be quite
enough out of you, Sergeant Knox.” He motioned to the MPs: Get him out of
here.

Knox’s little empire toppled faster
than a house of cards once Sergeant Polito was isolated in a room with the JAG
colonel.  “I ain’t taking the fall for no murder,” Polito blurted. “I didn’t
even desert my post last night…Knox relieved me, all proper, by the book. He
told me to go get some coffee over at the mess hall.”

The colonel asked, “And when you
got back from getting the coffee, you didn’t check on the prisoner?”

“Why would I? Knox said everything
was under control. Then he took off. When I finally did check, right before
sunrise, well…it was me who sounded the alarm and called HQ, wasn’t it?”

“So to your knowledge, Sergeant
Knox was the only person alone with Van Flyss, aside from you?”

“Yes, sir. This stockade ain’t
exactly Grand Central Station—ain’t much traffic through here even in broad
daylight—and he was alive when I went for the coffee. I swear it.  And that rope
wasn’t even in the cell when I locked him up.”

The colonel jotted a few notes on
his pad. Then he asked, “Do you have any idea why Sergeant Knox might want
Mister Van Flyss dead?”

Polito looked as if he was about to
be sick. It took him a few moments to hold down the bile and form the words,
but finally he replied, “Yeah, I know why. Boy, do I know why…”

He was barely into his rapid-fire
description of the black market operation when the colonel stopped him, asking,
“You’re telling me that, led by their senior NCO, half the men in this company
were involved, in one way or another, with the theft and resale of Red Cross
relief food and supplies to any and all comers?”

“Not exactly all comers,
sir. Only to the GIs. Nobody else in this fucking country got any money…not the
Aussie diggers and surely not the darkies.”

There was a look of surprise on the
colonel’s face. “Is there really much of a market for it?”

“Are you kidding me, sir? We were
doing land office business. Maybe you officer-types don’t feel much like
noticing, but the doggies around these parts ain’t exactly chowin’ down
like the swells. Some extra rations and stuff come in real
handy.”

“Why did you go along with it,
Sergeant Polito?”

“Knox told us we’d play the game
and keep our fucking mouths shut or we’d end up with our asses beatin’ the bush
for Japs. Or worse.”

The colonel asked, “To your
knowledge, was Captain Hutchins involved in these events you describe?”

“You kidding, sir? I think this
morning was only the third time I even seen him in the months I’ve been here.
He’s just a name on an office door.”

“So the captain had no idea this
was going on?”

“I don’t think he knew shit about
anything around here, sir.”

“Did you receive any money for
participating in this…enterprise, Sergeant?”

“No, sir, I swear. But somebody
hadda get the dough. I’m guessing it went to the kingpin of the whole show.”

“And that kingpin would be
Sergeant Knox?”

“Yeah…him and that Van Flyss clown.
You know, the dead guy. But there’s more, sir…a lot more.”

“Go on, Sergeant.”

“There’s a secret camp, sir,”
Polito continued. “A prison camp…no other word for it. Some of the Dutch
at the resettlement camp must’ve caught wise to what was going on, seeing as
how they were barely getting subsistence rations and all. So before they could
make a big stink, they got separated from the rest and put in this special camp.
When we asked why we were doing that—rounding them up and all, like they were
criminals instead of people we liberated—Knox said he just found out
they were Jap sympathizers, and he’d been ordered to keep them on ice.”

“Found out from who,
Sergeant?”

“How the hell would I know, sir?”
He tapped the three stripes on his sleeve and added, “Just because I wear these
don’t mean I get to ask no questions.”

“Are men of your company involved
in this prison camp, Sergeant?”

“Hell, yeah, sir. Where do you
think the guards come from?”

“I see,” the colonel said. “Let’s
take a break for a few minutes. I think it’s time we brought that lady from HQ
in to hear your deposition. It might provide some answers on the missing
refugees she’s looking for.”

“Is it going to get me in worse
trouble if she does hear it?”

“No, Sergeant. I don’t believe we
could make this mess much worse at the moment.”

Polito’s chin slumped to his chest.
“Just do me one favor, sir. Promise me you’ll lock Knox up and throw away the
key. Otherwise he’s going to kill me for ratting him out. He’ll find me somehow
and kill me. It won’t matter what stockade the Army puts me in.” His eyes
filled with tears as he added, “Why do you think we all danced to his tune,
anyway?”

The colonel shook his head.
“Sergeant, if everything you just told me is true, Knox won’t be in a position
to hunt you or anyone else down. Not from inside a penitentiary.”

By midday, a platoon of American
MPs from 6th Army descended on the prison camp hidden in the
forest. Six of Knox’s men were on duty there, oblivious to the shitstorm of
reckoning going on back at company headquarters. The six were arrested and
loaded into a deuce-and-a-half.

An MP lieutenant, bustling about
with great purpose, approached Jillian and asked, “What exactly are we supposed
to be doing with these civilian prisoners, ma’am?”

“Prisoners?” she replied, trying to
keep her temper in check. “Prisoners? Clearly, you haven’t yet grasped
this situation, have you, Lieutenant? These people were being held captive by
criminals in your bloody Army. Congratulate yourself—you’ve just freed them.
You’re a liberator.”

He still didn’t get it.

And a stupid wanker, too, she
said only to herself.

“I’ll make it easy for you,
Lieutenant. We’re going to feed them and let the medics check them over. After
that, we’ll transport those that don’t need to go straight to hospital back to
proper quarters at the resettlement camp. Any questions?”

He still looked confused. “But
we’re kinda spread thin, ma’am, between cleaning out that secret warehouse and
this place. I’ve only got one empty deuce-and-a-half, ma’am…and there’s dozens
of these people.”

Bloody hell, Jock was right…MPs
really are the dimmest of the lot. Even their officers.

“Then we’ll have to use that truck
as a shuttle, won’t we, Lieutenant?”

“Oh…sure…okay, ma’am,” he replied.
He lingered uncomfortably for a few moments before hurrying off, finally
realizing his presence was no longer required.

The prison camp—there was no other
term for it—reminded Jillian so much of the Japanese POW camps where she’d lost
a year of her life. Tin-roofed huts with screens for walls, hemmed in by a
tall, barbed wire fence, could have been created by the same evil architects
the Japanese had employed. Fifty-two fair-skinned, painfully thin men and
women—European and Eurasian—were confined here:

All less than thirty years of
age, Jillian reckoned, although they look at least a decade older.
That’s what happens to you when you live without hope.

They’d been rescued from the
Japanese…only to be enslaved and slowly starved by some bad-seed Americans.

She gazed beyond the ramshackle
structures to a far corner of this fenced-in hell and saw the small crosses
perched atop low mounds of earth. She tried to count them but couldn’t; her
tremors of outrage became too much to control. It was all too real and
personal, a terrifying memory being replayed on a stage where no such horror
should ever happen. Sinking to her knees, she began to sob:

And we call the Japanese bloody
barbarians…

There was a hand on her shoulder.
Jillian looked up to see one of the women standing over her, helping her to her
feet. There was something so familiar about her…

That red hair! She was the female
prisoner we saw being marched across the road when we first arrived. I’m sure
of it.

It was hard to tell who was
comforting who as Jillian and the red-haired woman stood in each other’s arms.

“I heard you speak,” the woman
said, her English heavily accented by a lifetime in the Dutch East Indies.
“You’re Australian. Is it the Aussies who come to save us this time?”

“No…it’s still the bloody Yanks,
I’m afraid.”

The woman’s response was in Dutch.
The words were lost on Jillian but their invective tone was not.

Jillian’s gaze was still on the
graveyard. This time she finished counting the crosses—eleven—and added
the living and the dead in her head.

“So, sixty-three souls in all were
brought here?”

“That sounds correct,” the
red-haired woman replied as she brushed away some windblown hair in her face.
As she did, her tattered sleeve slid down, exposing her wrist. Both women had
matching scars there, harsh ligature marks imprinted for life by methodical
acts of torture.

Mine come only from the Japanese,
Jillian told herself. I hope this woman can say the same.

Composed enough now to make notes,
she asked, “Do you know all their names?”

“Yes. You can begin with mine…I’m
Greta Christiansen, nee Dyckman, from the island of Biak.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jock, Baum, and Morales took turns
carrying Steve Richards down to the beach. The man not holding up one end of
the stretcher carried the .30-caliber machine gun. Once they found a seaside
patch of trees where they could hide the wounded pilot, Jock said, “Okay,
Steve…we’re going to leave you here while we go back and get the rest of the
stuff. You got everything you need?”

Everything didn’t boil down
to very much: two canteens of water, a little pouch of food—fresh crab meat and
berries, courtesy of Dyckman’s people, for which he had no appetite—and his .45
pistol with one bullet in the chamber and nothing left in the magazine.
Richards sounded less than convinced when he replied, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.
You’ll be back before sundown, right?”

“It’s only about a mile round trip,
Steve”—Jock checked his watch—“and it’s only 1600 right now. We’ve still got a
couple of hours until sundown.”

“But you’ll be lugging that
transmitter…and that generator, too.”

“We’ll manage. You just relax.
Before you know it, we’ll be on that sub.”

Jock and the two Navy men made good
time on the walk back to the camp. It was deserted, just as they’d suspected it
would be. Dyckman and his people had been ready to depart on their trek north
the same time they’d set out to bring Richards to the beach. Finding them gone
was no surprise.

What was a surprise was finding the
transmitter and generator gone, too.

They dropped to the ground as one,
sure a million Japanese eyes were close by, watching their every movement.
Quickly, though, it dawned on all three of them:

The Japs didn’t do this. They’re
not interested in stealing our transmitter.

They’re interested in killing
us.

So there’s only one explanation
where it went.

Hector Morales stood up, scanning
the trees for the wire antenna he’d strung there. But it was gone, too. He
looked bewildered, like a man who couldn’t come to grips with the fact he’d
just lost everything he held dear to people he’d come to trust. He just kept
shaking his head, unable to say a word.

Sid Baum didn’t have any problem
finding his words. “Those lousy lying sons of bitches. When it came down to us
or them, I always figured they’d fuck us up the ass.” He shot Jock an accusing
look; its meaning seemed quite clear: This is all your fault. You trusted
that miserable Dutch son of a bitch.

Then Baum said, “We gotta go after
them and take that shit back.”

“No,” Jock replied. “I’m not
getting any of us lost on some wild goose chase.”

“But they couldn’t have gotten far,
dammit…and we know they’re going north.”

“Am I not speaking fucking English?
I said no, Baum. Now calm down and forget about it.”

“But why, sir?” His tone was less
aggressive, as if he suddenly remembered he was talking to a superior.

“Why? Because north
covers a lot of territory—which we don’t know from Adam—and with this useless
map we’ve got, we might as well be on the moon. Plus, it’s going to get dark on
us real quick.”

His defiance had collapsed, but
Baum’s pride was still calling the shots. “We can’t let them get away with this
shit, sir!”

Sounding more like a priest than a
superior officer, Jock replied, “Sid, I know you’re a stand-up guy, but this
isn’t some brawl between street gangs. We’re in the jungle. Different rules
apply out here, like don’t go looking for trouble when you don’t know where the
hell you are in the first place.”

Baum pleaded, “But what are we
going to do, sir?”

“Simple. We’re going to stick to
the plan and be waiting for that sub.”

“And if that doesn’t pan out?”

“Then we’ll have to think of
something else, Sid. But at the moment, it’s all we’ve got. So let’s get
moving. Let’s not leave Mister Richards alone any longer than we have to.”

Jock and Baum started walking.
Morales didn’t—he was just standing there, looking toward the bluffs
surrounding them.

Baum asked, “You coming, Hec, or
what?”

“I hear something,” Morales
replied. “Listen…”

“I don’t hear a fucking thing,”
Baum said.

“No,” Morales replied. “I’m not
kidding. Listen.”

Then they heard it: the sound of
engines…

“Tanks,” Jock said.

“SHIT,” Baum wailed. “We’re boxed
in here. What the hell are we going to do against tanks?”

“Don’t worry about the damn tanks,”
Jock replied. “They’re pretty far away and they can’t come down here. The
trail’s way too steep and narrow for them. If they try, they’ll just slide off
and tumble down the cliff. Worry more about any infantry that may be with
them.”

That came as no comfort to the two
Navy men, who seemed frozen in place.

“C’mon, dammit,” Jock said, “we
need to get the hell away from here…and right fucking now.”

They hadn’t gotten far when a
tank—perched at the edge of the ridge—fired its main gun, targeting the area
where the transmitter had been. Baum and Morales flinched, but Jock said, “Hey,
that’s a good sign. As long as they’re shooting this way, there probably isn’t
any Jap infantry poking around down here. Too much chance of hitting your own
guys. The sons of bitches sure got the transmitter’s old location dialed in,
though, don’t they?”

Jock found a spot where he had a
good view of the bluff. “Look…there’s two tanks sitting up on the ridge,” he
said. He watched the puffs of smoke from their barrels as the guns fired. A
moment later, he heard the reports.

Two more rounds splashed into the
ground hundreds of yards away from them.

“Pretty low-caliber stuff,” Jock
said, “and they’re just lobbing it down here blind, like artillery shooting at
a spot on the map. Don’t worry about them…just keep your eyes peeled for foot
patrols. But let’s get real wide of where the camp was, just to be safe.”

Baum said, “Then it’s going to take
a lot longer to get back to the beach, sir.”

“No shit, Sid.”

It was darker than they’d hoped
when they got near the beach. The late afternoon sun, which had silhouetted the
tanks perched on the ridge so well, had now dropped behind it, shrouding the
coastal lowlands in dusky shadow. The spot where they’d left Richards wasn’t so
easy to find anymore.

We’ve got to be close, Jock
thought. But if we stumble onto him, he might get panicky and…

He stopped Baum and Morales,
telling them, “Mister Richards is probably going to be really jumpy, lying
there listening to those tanks firing. Let’s not startle him, okay? Keep
calling his name real softly.”

They both nodded in agreement. Then
Morales said, “Speaking of the tanks, they haven’t fired in at least ten
minutes.”

“Yeah,” Baum added, “and if they’re
not shooting anymore, maybe Jap infantry’s on the way?”

“Could be,” Jock replied.

“That’s just fucking great,” Baum
said. “Now we’ve got two different ways to get shot.”

Jock smiled and said, “Only two?
That’s pretty good odds in this game, Sid.”

After walking north for ten
minutes—and still not coming across Steve Richards—Jock said, “We fucked up.
Let’s backtrack. We must’ve been too far north to begin with.”

He was right. They backtracked for
ten minutes and walked a few minutes more before Richards’ frail voice floated
out of the darkness: “I’m over here, for cryin’ out loud. Geez, you guys are
making a hell of a lot of noise. Where the hell’ve you been? And what’s all
that shooting back there? Artillery?”

Jock told him about the tanks.

Richards sat up on his stretcher as
the three friendly shadows drew closer. But something didn’t look right:
“Hey…you guys aren’t carrying enough stuff. Where’s the transmitter?”

The answer stunned Richards into
silence for a few moments, until he finally whispered his reply: “Shit. Those
bastards…”

“Damn good thing we got to recon
this place in the daylight,” Jock said. “Otherwise, we’d be just guessing how
to defend it.” He placed Morales’ machine gun so its fire crossed a broad, flat
field inland of their position, with few trees to provide cover for attackers.
“We’ll get the best field of fire for the thirty cal here,” he explained. “It
should cut down anyone trying to come from the south or west. Sid, you and I
will move over a few yards and cover the north.”

Their backs were to the east, where
there was nothing but the no-name bay and the sea.

“Ain’t we all kinda close together,
sir?” Baum asked. “You know…like one hand grenade gets you all?”

“In the daylight, you’d be right,
Sid. But in the dark…we’ve got to stay close to keep in touch. Otherwise—”

“We could end up shooting at each
other, sir?”

“You got it.”

Jock checked what was left of the
machine gun’s only remaining ammo belt. “Should be enough for four or five
decent bursts,” he told Morales, “but let’s do something. I count seven tracers
still mixed in…swap them out with ball ammo from the end of the belt. If we get
all the way down to those last rounds, we’re screwed anyway…it won’t matter a
damn bit those last shots are tracers.”

His gallows humor was infectious.
Morales replied, “At least we’ll go out in a bright blaze of glory, sir.”

“Now you’re talking,” Jock said.
“We’ve just got to hold on a couple more hours…”

“Yeah, that’s all,” Baum added,
“and pray that fucking sub finds us.”

The hours dragged on, marked only
by the rhythmic lapping of low waves along the beach, like the languid swish of
a clock’s pendulum running much too slowly. The moon cast the faintest of
glows, yielding a vague, monochrome sketch of shore and water. It wasn’t enough
light to see the silhouette of a dark vessel, especially a submarine’s, with
her decks nearly awash and stubby conning tower barely protruding above the
sea.

The night brought an end to the sea
breeze, and with it, the hope of that breeze helping to carry the faint sound
of diesel engines toward shore. “It might not matter,” Hector Morales said.
“I’ll bet when the sub gets close, she’ll probably be running on electric,
anyway. Much quieter.”

Jock shook his head and asked, “You
ever been on a sub?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I was, for a couple of days.
Believe me, if they’re on the surface, they use diesel, period. They can move
faster and keep their batteries charged…not to mention the fresh air those
engines suck into the sub.”

“The fresh air, sir?”

“Yeah. Subs stink to high heaven.
You cram about seventy guys who never shower into a stifling little tin can and
it gets ripe really fast. Airing the damn boat out whenever you can is a real
good thing.”

Morales replied, “Right now, I
don’t care what it smells like, sir, just so it shows up.”

Jock looked seaward, cupping his
hands against the sides of his head like crude ear trumpets. There was nothing
to be heard but the sounds of nature.

“I can feel it in my bones,” Baum
said. “This ain’t gonna work. We’re never gonna get picked up.” These weren’t
the words of a frightened man, just one who seemed totally convinced of his
fate.

It was the last thing Jock needed
to hear: This is all we fucking need right now…a collapse of morale.

“Take it easy, Sid,” Jock replied.
“The night makes everyone a little pessimistic.”

“You mean that old shit it’s
always darkest before the dawn, sir? Sorry, but I’m more than pessimistic.
I’m fucking certain. It’s not gonna happen. Too many ways for it to go sour.
Shitty map coordinates, no radio to home on…We’re fucked.”

Morales threw up his hands. “Ahh,
shut up, Sid,” he said. “This ain’t like you.”

“He’s right,” Jock said. “It’s not
like you at all, Sid. And it sounds like I’ve got more faith in your Navy than
you do. A hell of a lot more.”

Morales mumbled, “That’s exactly
what I was thinking.”

Even though Baum’s face was
invisible in the darkness, Jock could sense him withdrawing into himself, a man
suddenly without hope. Bad choice of words on my part, he told himself. I
must’ve hit a nerve, and Morales piling on was maybe the last straw.

“I’m not questioning your loyalty
to the Navy, Sid, just trying to lighten things up a little.”

“I know, sir, and I appreciate
that. But it’s fate I’m pissed at right now, not the Navy.”

Pissed at fate, are you? Well,
join the fucking club.

They settled back into their
waiting game. Jock turned to listen for the sound of engines on the sea once
again, but all he heard was the sloshing of surf.

Chapter Nineteen

Three hours until dawn. There was
still no sign of the submarine.

Morales asked Jock, “If it doesn’t
come, sir, are we going to try and hook up with the Dutchman again?”

“You’ve been reading my mind,
Hector.”

“Hey, sir,” Baum said, “can I get
first punch when we find him again?”

“Negative. I’ll be doing the honors
personally.”

Another hushed voice joined in, a
voice they hadn’t heard for quite a while. It was Steve Richards saying, “All
due respect, sir, but you guys need to shut up for a minute, so you can hear
something really interesting—maybe even wonderful—out there.”

They all turned to face the sea,
listening, hoping…

And there it was: the faint rumble
of diesel engines.

“Damn right it’s wonderful,” Jock
said. “That’s what our subs sound like.”

He picked up the binoculars but
found he didn’t need them. The sub was coming much closer to shore than he’d
imagined, so close he could make out the shadowy outlines of her periscopes and
deck guns. She seemed only about half a mile from the beach when she coasted to
a stop. A blinker light on the conning tower began flashing its message.

“Sid, you be our signalman,” Jock
said. “Leave Hector on the machine gun.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Baum replied.

It took a little over a minute
before the sub’s message ended. Baum shook his head and said. “You ain’t gonna
believe this. They want to know who said, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a
damn.”

“That’s an easy one,” Jock replied.

“That’s swell, but I don’t know
it.”

“Tell them Rhett Butler.”

“Who the hell is that, sir?”

“You’ve never seen Gone With The
Wind? Clark Gable played him.”

“Well that’s just fucking
wonderful.”

Baum blinked the answer with his
flashlight. But the sub had another question.

“My aching ass!” Baum said. “Don’t
these fucking squids like baseball? Now they want to know the name of the
president’s dog! What the hell is their problem, anyway?”

“Actually, that’s pretty simple,
too, Sid. The dog’s name is Fala.”

“Better spell that for me, sir.”

Within minutes of the reply from
Baum’s flashlight, a rubber boat was in the water, making its way to the beach.

Jock told Baum, “Let’s you and me
get Mister Richards. Once he’s in the boat, I’ll pull in Morales.”

The rubber boat scraped to a stop
on the beach. An oarsman drawled, “One of y’all a Major Miles?”

“I’m Miles. Glad to see you guys.”

“Still a party of four souls, sir?”

“Affirmative.”

“No problem…we got us plenty of
room.”

As Jock and Baum struggled to get
Steve Richards on board, the nerve-wracking jackhammer of Morales’ machine gun
shattered the stillness of the night.

“Dammit, he’s holding the trigger
down,” Jock said. “I’ve got to get to him.”

First, they had to pass Richards to
the two sailors in the boat, who now seemed far more interested in rowing back
out to sea.

“Gimme a goddamn minute,” Jock told
them as Richards was finally nestled in the boat. “Hold the fort here, Sid.”

Baum knew why Jock told him to
stay: I’m supposed to keep these squids from taking off without us.

Jock wasn’t even halfway to
Morales’ position when those last seven rounds in the .30-caliber’s belt—the
seven tracers—lit up the rainforest like wayward fireworks, bouncing crazily
into the air as they careened off trees, the ground, or whatever else was
lurking out there. All too soon, the machine gun went silent.

Suddenly there were more tracers
flying low over Jock’s head, slicing through the trees like brilliant arrows,
shearing them like a woodsman’s saw run amok. A new sound from offshore now
poisoned the night: the deep-throated poom poom poom of the sub’s
20-millimeter deck gun.

Is this their idea of fire
support? Or are they just trying to kill us? And where the fuck is Morales?

There was movement on the ground to
his right. He brought his Thompson to bear, tripped over some unseen obstacle…

And went sprawling to the ground.

He landed right next to Hector
Morales, who was struggling with something, pulling with all his might.

“Whoa! Hector…what the hell are you
doing?”

“The thirty cal, sir…it’s stuck. A
fucking tree just fell on it.”

“FORGET IT. IT’S OUT OF AMMO
ANYWAY. C’MON, LET’S GET OUT OF HERE.”

He pulled Morales away by his collar
and they began the low-crawl back to the beach. The sub’s tracers were beacons
pointing the way.

Morales said, “Boy, somebody ain’t
afraid of using tracers, that’s for sure.”

“What the hell did you see,
Hector?”

“I never saw them, sir…but I could feel
the Japs out there, all around.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“You don’t believe me, sir?”

“I don’t know what to believe,
Hector. All I know is the only fire I saw was all going one way.”

Scurrying along the coral on knees
and elbows, Morales was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You think I fucked
up, don’t you, sir?”

“Not if we get out of here alive in
the next couple of seconds.”

The 20-millimeter deck gun kept
firing at the shore until the submarine was under way. “What are you shooting
at?” Jock asked the sub’s captain.

“Same thing you were, I suppose,”
the captain replied.

“Yeah…whatever the hell that was.
What took you so long to show up, anyway?”

“Those coordinates we had for
you…they weren’t worth a shit.” He pointed to a spot on the nautical chart
about two miles south of the actual pickup location, separated from it by a
spit of land. “Your map and my chart certainly don’t agree with each other. One
of them—maybe both—is way off. We might’ve never found you if you didn’t fire
up that radio beacon.”

“Wait a minute,” Jock said, “what
radio beacon?”

“The one that steered us right to
you.” He showed Jock the vectors his crew had plotted from the shore
transmitter’s signal. “We were expecting that signal a whole lot sooner, but
hey…better late than never, right? And the later it got, the higher the tide,
so we could risk getting real close to shore.”

Jock stared at the chart in stunned
silence for a few moments, until a smile began to spread across his face. “I’ll
be a son of a bitch,” he said, “the old Dutchman came through after all. Go
figure…”

The captain didn’t get it. “What do
you mean, Jock?”

“Long story. Let’s just say it had
a happy ending.”

“If you say so. But is your leg
okay? You had some trouble getting down the ladder before. You need the doc to
look at it?”

“No, I’m okay. It’s just my
souvenir of Manus Island. The doc’s got his hands full with Mister Richards,
anyway.”

By the time the sun came up, Biak
was nothing but a few distant, hazy mountains off the submarine’s stern. Jock
and the three Navy airmen learned they wouldn’t be on board much longer.

“We’ll rendezvous with the flying
boat here,” the sub’s captain said as he pointed to a spot on the chart.
“You’ll be back in Hollandia for lunch.”

Chapter Twenty

At the Aitape resettlement camp,
the sordid empire of Sergeant Knox and Fritz Van Flyss was still being
unraveled. Jillian’s first order of business today would be an in-depth
interview with Greta Christiansen over breakfast at the camp’s mess tent.

“The doctor told me I’ll be fine,”
Greta began. “Quite a bit undernourished at the moment—and malarial, like
everyone else—but nothing that can’t be dealt with.” She took a bite of her
scrambled eggs and then, with what seemed to be great reluctance, pushed the
rest away. “He did caution me not to eat too much too soon. Our digestive
tracts need to get used to—” She stopped herself, as if she suddenly remembered
she was talking to another ex-POW, one well familiar with the privations of
captivity.

Jillian switched the topic to the
question of Japanese sympathizers.

“That Van Flyss,” Greta said, “he
was the real sympathizer. He’d go whichever way the wind blew. When the
Japanese were here, he never spent a night within their barbed wire. He was in
business with them instead, coming and going as he pleased, housing their comfort
women, supplying the officers with Australian liquor he’d
stolen…practically providing a resort for their high command. If anyone stood
in his way, he’d single them out for special treatment, and the Japanese
were more than glad to oblige.”

“Yes, I remember the special
treatments all too well,” Jillian said. She looked at the bruises on
Greta’s wrists—permanent disfigurements they both shared—and knew this Dutch
woman had endured her share of special treatments, too.

“As soon as the Yanks came,” Greta
continued, “he switched sides in an instant.”

“You mean he became an American
sympathizer?”

“More than that. The trouble is,
the Yanks always seem to have lots of money. Nobody else around here does. And
money is the root of all evil. They had it, he wanted it. All he had to do was
find something very profitable to sell to them.”

Jillian asked, “And that something
was the Red Cross food and supplies meant for you survivors of the Japanese
occupation?”

“Yes, and when we found Van Flyss
and his natives taking the relief packages away on Yank army trucks, we
suspected he was up to no good again, creating a black market out of
thin air in partnership with the Americans. Before we could even file a
complaint with the Red Cross, we were dragged from our quarters like criminals
and told we’d been uncovered as Japanese sympathizers. Have you ever heard
anything so ridiculous? We knew it was Van Flyss who identified us.”

“To who did he identify
you?”

“That beastly Yank sergeant…the one
who prowls about like a feral animal.”

“Sergeant Knox.”

“Yes, that one.”

“Just him? No officers?”

“Yes, just the sergeant, as far as
I know. In fact, I’d never seen an American officer until yesterday. Nothing
but sergeants and common soldiers.”

“Interesting,” Jillian said. “So
what happened next?”

“We were herded onto trucks by
American soldiers and driven to that prison camp. We were quite sure we’d been
brought there to die, whether by starvation, disease, or God knows what. I even
heard Sergeant Knox telling some of his men we were as good as dead, and we
deserved it.” She took a sip of coffee. “So what will happen to Knox, that hoerenjung?”

Jillian smiled. She’d been around
enough Dutch seamen to know hoerenjung meant son of a bitch.
“Considering that at the top of his rather lengthy charge sheet is Van Flyss’
murder, he could get the firing squad.”

Greta relaxed into her chair. “That
would be too good for him. Too good for any Yank, as far as I’m concerned.
They’re all a bunch of ratbags.”

“They’re not all like that, Greta.
Really. Most of them are good blokes.”

But the Dutchwoman’s skepticism
would not be shaken. “I’m not surprised you say that, considering you work for
them.”

“It’s more than that. I’m married
to one.”

Their conversation ended like a door
being slammed, replaced by an awkward silence. Jillian finally broke it by
asking, “Can I ask you about your family, Greta?”

“I don’t know if I have one
anymore.”

“Maybe I can help find them,”
Jillian replied. “Tell me all you can.”

Hesitant and guarded at first,
Greta settled into the telling of her tale: her life as a wealthy planter’s
daughter; her and her husband’s work mapping the wilderness that was Biak; the
last she saw of him as they were separated at a Japanese prison camp; her
father, left behind on the island at the mercy of the Japanese.

“You’re a mapmaker,” Jillian said.
“That’s very interesting. My husband is an intelligence liaison between the
American Army and Air Force, and I believe they’ve set their sights on Biak…”

Greta sensed Jillian’s question
before it was asked. Her face screwed up as if she’d just smelled something
rotten.

“If you’re going to ask me if I’ll
work for the Americans like you’re doing, my answer is this: absolutely not. I
won’t help those barbarians any more than I’d help the Japanese.”

Jillian managed only to say “But
Greta, listen to—” before she saw the company clerk barging into the mess tent,
making a bee-line for her.

“Missus Miles,” he said, “there’s
an urgent call from HQ on the landline for you.”

Jillian cringed at the word urgent—there
was a good chance it was news of Jock, and it was even odds whether that news
was good or bad. Watching the tense uncertainty seize her, the clerk wished
he’d phrased his sentence differently. He tried again: “Oh, no, ma’am…they
wanted you to know right up front it’s urgent in a real good way.”

She was breathless from running
when she reached the phone. Colonel Molloy’s cheerful voice was on the other
end, asking her, “How soon can you get yourself to Hollandia, young lady?”

Chapter Twenty-One

Master Sergeant Melvin Patchett
scowled as he watched his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kit
Billingsley, strut like a conquering Caesar on the beach at Biak. With smug
satisfaction, the colonel surveyed the mass and might of American men and
machines coming ashore to claim the island. We ain’t even set up our damn CP
yet, Patchett told himself, and already that sorry excuse for a C.O. is
playing grand marshal of the victory parade.

“Sergeant,” Billingsley thundered,
“this is just another example of the brilliance of Douglas MacArthur.”

Patchett replied, “How do you
figure that, sir?”

“Just look around you, Sergeant. Do
you see any Japanese? Once again, our landing was virtually unopposed.”

“Our battalion took three dead and
ten wounded, sir. Looks like the other battalions got hit a little worse.
Wouldn’t exactly call that unopposed.”

“Small potatoes, Sergeant,”
Billingsley replied. “Now, as I was saying, MacArthur has the knack for knowing
where the Japanese will be weakest. But I think he’s outdone himself this
time…this island was a positively inspired next move for us. We’ll be
through this place like shit through a goose, and then it’s on to Manila…and Tokyo.”

“Remains to be seen, don’t it, sir?
We ain’t been here an hour yet, and the Japs never try to fight on the damn
beach, anyhow. They let you land…suck you in…and then—”

“That’ll be quite enough, Sergeant
Patchett. I don’t need a lecture on Japanese tactics right now.”

Colonel Billingsley’s confident
façade faded as he spread his map on the hood of the jeep. He stared at it for
a moment and then took in a quick panoramic view of the island beyond the
beach, trying desperately to reconcile the cartographer’s graphics with what
the land revealed of itself. Then he returned to the map and the process began
all over again. His eyes made that circuit three times before he said, “Our
CP…I think it should be right over there.” He pointed to a spot on the open
beach a few yards away.

“Negative, sir,” Patchett replied.
“The only ones gonna find us there are the Jap planes come to strafe the
beach.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “We’re supposed to be a couple
hundred yards over yonder, just inside the treeline.”

Billingsley regained his bluster.
“Well then, Sergeant, you’d best get over there and set that CP up on the
double.”

As Patchett rounded up the
battalion headquarters staff, he thought, And that’s the good map, the brand
spanking new one! Shit, it’s like looking at an aerial photograph that got took
five minutes ago…and the damn fool still can’t figure out where the fuck he’s
at. Ink ain’t hardly dry on that map it’s so new…just like them orders jacking
MacArthur’s golden boy there up to light colonel.

I reckon we never knew how good
we had it when ol’ Jock Miles was running the show here.

“You serious, Top?” Sergeant
Bogater Boudreau asked Patchett. “He couldn’t even figure where he was on that
li’l ol’ beach?”

“As I live and breathe, Bogater,
that man is a walkin’, talkin’ fubar.”

“Nothing we didn’t already know, Top.”
Boudreau leaned over the maps he’d spread on the ground. “But now he doesn’t
even want me and my boys to recon this road to the airfields in person
first? Just a fucking map recon?”

“That’s what the man said. He’s in
a big rush to get to Tokyo, you see.”

“Fuck Tokyo, mon frère.
Y’all might never even reach Mokmer alive if we don’t have ourselves a little
look-see first. We only got one good map of this whole fucking island and it
stops about a mile north of here. Once we’re off it…shit, the fucking road even
disappears off the next map sheet…and I ain’t believing the terrain’s as flat
as this antique piece of junk says it is.”

“What’d you expect? Damn thing was
drawn around the turn of the century. Fucking road probably wasn’t even hacked
out of this here jungle then.”

Bogater fumed for a moment. “Son of
a bitch. This is Hollandia all over again, ain’t it?”

“You still going on about that,
Cajun?”

“Hell yeah I am. We were supposed
to be capturing some nice, firm ground for more of MacArthur’s precious airfields…looked
fucking great on that map from last century, didn’t it?...but instead, we’re up
to our titties in a swamp. A little too soggy for flight operations, the
brass say, so let’s move ourselves onto this little rock of an island called
Wakde instead. Don’t even give us no dry set of clothes or nothing. Fuck
me...just once, I’d like to be sure what exactly the damn terrain’s gonna be before
I set foot on one of these shitholes.”

“Hey, you knew this landing was
gonna be on a dry coral beach, didn’t you?”

“I surely did, Top…and I’m beaucoup
grateful for small favors. But I’m betting them favors just about run out.”

The downpour had slowed the long
column of military traffic to a crawl once again. Jillian fumed, checked her
wristwatch, and slid inboard on the jeep’s passenger seat as far as she could,
trying to keep dry from the rain slashing into the open-sided jeep.

“At least we’ve got good canvas on
top, ma’am,” Lieutenant Jimmy Ketchum said as he rode the clutch for traction
on the dirt road’s slick surface. A little more rain and it would become a
quagmire, ending their progress toward Hollandia until the deluge stopped and
the ground dried out. It would be the third time their trek from Aitape had
been forced to a halt by storms in the past two days.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Ketchum said,
“I’ll get you there before your husband ships out.”

She smiled and patted him gamely on
the shoulder. But deep down inside she didn’t believe him. It had been five
days since Jock had arrived in Hollandia, his odyssey on Biak finally over. It
had taken her three days to wrap up her business at the resettlement camp.
She’d managed to account for every last refugee of the sixty-three missing from
the camp’s official roster: fifty-two living, eleven dead. Those still alive,
like Greta Christiansen, had been placed in the care of the Red Cross, with the
camp now under the direct supervision of 6th Army HQ. The unit
originally responsible for the camp—the 106th Military Police
Company—was disbanded. Its members were promptly dispersed to other units with
two exceptions: the top sergeant, Franklin “Hard” Knox, was in prison at Port
Moresby, awaiting court martial for murder and a variety of other serious
charges. The company commander, Captain Hutchins, was in the back seat of the
jeep.

He’d been quiet the entire trip,
despite Jillian’s and Ketchum’s attempts to engage him in conversation. I
reckon he’s in no hurry to get to Hollandia, Jillian figured. He knows
he’s getting sent back to a combat unit. But with all the unspeakable things
that went on right under his nose, he’s a lucky wanker he’s not in a cell right
next to Knox.

Maybe the brass figure this is a
better way to punish him.

She checked her watch again: 1025.
When she’d talked to Jock on the landline two days ago—right before she left
Aitape—he told her in a conversation that was all too brief he’d be flying back
to Wakde Island. He had to be there by sundown on June 21.

Today.

It’s over an hour’s flight.
They’ll have to leave by 1600.

And we’re still thirty miles
from Hollandia.

She returned to the memory of that
phone call. They’d only been allowed two minutes on the circuit, but that was
all they’d needed to express relief for each other’s escapes from mortal danger
and plan for their paths to intersect—even just for an hour or two—at
Hollandia.

Now that plan was crumbling. The
column had stopped moving. The dark shape of the truck off their front bumper
was barely visible through the cascades flowing down the windshield. Ketchum
shut off the jeep’s engine. “Better save the gas, ma’am,” he said. “We’re going
to need it.”

The rain was falling in sheets now,
washing away the last traces of Jillian’s hope she’d get there in time.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The battalion had been on the road
to the Mokmer airfields for almost thirty minutes, its three rifle companies in
column, just like Colonel Billingsley ordered. Master Sergeant Patchett folded
the map sheet for the landing beaches and stuffed it between his helmet liner
and steel “pot.”

Walking beside him was First Sergeant
Tom Hadley of Charlie Company. Hadley asked, “Shouldn’t we take out that old
Mokmer map sheet now, Top?”

“Why bother, Tom? It ain’t worth
the damn paper it’s printed on. Look at what’s happening…the terrain to our
right is rising faster than bread in the fucking oven. That map sheet don’t
show shit about it. We’re gonna be fish in a barrel real soon, son.”

Hadley laughed. “What the fuck else
is new?”

“What we gotta do,” Patchett
continued, “is get us a company up on that high ground. The boundary with 3rd
Battalion is way over thataway. We can’t trust those shitheads to cover our
flank. I gotta talk to the C.O.”

“Get him on the radio,” Hadley
said.

“Nah…I don’t want this broadcast to
the whole fucking world for a whole lotta reasons. Better I do it face to
face.”

Patchett hurried back through the
next unit in the column, Able Company. At its tail end he found its commander, Captain
Theo Papadakis, with Colonel Billingsley. The Mad Greek wasn’t happy.

“We need to get us a company up on
the high ground, sir,” Patchett said to Billingsley.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to
tell the colonel, Top,” Papadakis added.

“Negative, negative,” Billingsley
replied. “I’m in contact with 3rd Battalion. They’ll move west to
cover our flank.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Patchett
said, “but that dog won’t hunt. Our battalion’s gonna be strolling into a
shooting gallery in a couple minutes—and we’re the fucking targets down in this
valley. We gotta cover our own asses now, not trust them route-step
douchebags to do it for us.”

“Just what I was saying,” Papadakis
mumbled.

Billingsley shook his head. “We
can’t. It’ll just slow us down.”

The Mad Greek had seen that
look coming over Patchett’s face before. He knew what it meant: the colonel was
about to be hosed down with some righteous wisdom, hard-won in this war as well
as the Great War before it.

“Slow us down, sir?”
Patchett began. “Slow us down? We best not get too comfortable over
having that li’l Stuart tank out in front, because once we get boxed in
here—the sea on one side, this cliff on the other—one pissant anti-tank gun on
the road ahead stops him dead in his tracks, and we’re stuck in a classic
fucking ambush. That’ll slow us down right quick. If we wanna keep
moving, better we control our own fate, sir. And the only way to do that is to
get up on that high ground.”

He watched for a few moments as
Billingsley vacillated silently, and then added, “We didn’t come all this way
to offer ourselves up like rookies, did we, sir?”

Under his breath, Papadakis
offered, “Amen to that.”

“Very well,” the colonel said.
“Papadakis, take your company up on the high ground. Link up with 3rd
Battalion and make damn sure you keep them out of your way. We can’t slow down,
not for a minute.”

“Roger, sir,” Papadakis replied. He
gave Patchett a victorious wink.

“One more thing, sir,” Patchett
said. “He should take Sergeant Boudreau’s recon platoon with him. They can do a
hell of a lot more good up there than down here.”

Papadakis liked the sound of that
so much he had trouble containing his enthusiasm.

Colonel Billingsley hesitated.
Patchett and Papadakis knew why: he’s trying to figure out if it’s really a
good idea…or are we just steamrolling his ass?

“Time’s a-wastin’, sir,” Patchett
reminded the colonel.

“All right, fine. Take Recon with you.”

“Roger, sir. I could sure use
them.”

Patchett said, “Captain Pop, keep
your bazooka guys up front. We got that intel about Jap tanks running around,
remember?”

“Got it, Top.”

As Theo Papadakis hustled off,
Billingsley told Patchett, “Let me make it clear, Sergeant—we will take
those airfields before nightfall.”

Patchett smiled and said, “I do
admire your confidence, sir.”

Kit Billingsley knew that was just
another of his sergeant’s many cryptic ways of saying, You’re one dumb son
of a bitch, ain’t you?

Crouched at the brink, Bogater
Boudreau looked down on the road that lay before his battalion’s column. Coming
into view was the lead Stuart tank, with its small main gun—only 37
millimeter—and several mounted machine guns. It plodded along slowly so the
platoon of men on foot behind her could keep up. Farther ahead on the road, he
could see something else: two Japanese anti-tank gun emplacements, small
caliber also, but with enough punch to knock out the American Stuart.

“I gotta put mortars on those
guns,” Boudreau told Murphy, his radio operator. “Tell Captain Pop we need a
fire mission, shell HE, at these coordinates…”

Then he hesitated, as he tried to
reconcile the gun positions with the coordinates on his map. “Dammit…this is
gonna be a crap shoot. Don’t know where exactly the hell anything is.” A few
more seconds and he said, “Ah fuck, tell ’em this…”

He read off a set of target
coordinates. They were nothing more than his best guess.

Then he said, “Please, dear
Lord…don’t let me drop them rounds on our own guys down there.”

“Or us guys up here, either,
Sarge.”

The call for fire was made. Twenty
seconds later, Murphy reported, “Shot, out…and they say we’re coming in weak
and barely readable, Sarge.”

“Oh, that’s fucking great. How’s
your battery?”

“Brand fucking new, Sarge.”

His binoculars trained on the
terrain below, Bogater mumbled, “I pray to God them bastards hit close enough
so I can see ’em.”

One one thousand, two one
thousand, three—

Four mortar rounds splashed into
the ground, silently at first, a second or two passing until the muffled report
of their impact reached the GIs on the high ground.

They landed nowhere near the
Japanese guns.

“Son of a fuckin’ bitch,” Bogater
said. “Left four-zero, drop two hundred. Fucking map…”

Murphy relayed the correction.
Fifteen seconds later, he said, “Shot, out.”

Well, they know we’re shooting
at them now, sure as shit, Boudreau thought. At least anti-tank gunners
can’t up and run near as quick as infantry. But that li’l ol’ Stuart keeps on
coming right at ’em.

Four more rounds landed, no more
accurate than the first. Different points of impact but still way off.

“KISS MY CAJUN ASS,” Bogater said.
“Ain’t no way that correction got plotted right. Them gunners gotta have our
azimuth to target all fucked up. Tell them again, Murph—Direction TWO NINER
ZERO, drop five-zero, goddammit.”

The RTO crawled to the edge of the
precipice with the walkie-talkie still pressed against his ear, waiting for the
reply, hoping to see with his own eyes just why on God’s green earth this
simple exercise in fire direction was so screwed up:

It can’t be Sergeant Boudreau’s
fault….we don’t call him “Bullseye Bogater” for nothing.

Twenty seconds passed before he
nudged Boudreau and said, “Shot, out.”

Maybe the Japanese gunners figured
the range was finally right. Or maybe they were afraid they were running out of
time, even though the mortar rounds hadn’t done so much as flick dirt on them.
They fired at the American tank in perfect unison—two barrels bouncing in
recoil, spewing smoke as their breeches snapped open—the whoomp of their
shots finally heard by the distant GIs a second later.

It was the last time the Japanese
gunners would fire. A moment later, the next volley of mortar rounds hit, close
enough this time to send hot metal fragments slashing through their position
like invisible razor blades.

“That’s more fucking like it,”
Bogater said. “Looks like we got about half them yellow fuckers. Tell ’em Repeat,
Murph. Just level the bubbles and don’t move a damn knob.”

Murphy did what he was told, and
then said, “The bastards hit the Stuart, Sarge. It’s stopped dead. Didn’t you
hear it?”

Hatches sprung open on the American
tank. An arm flailed from the turret and then fell back inside. Nothing but
flames escaped the hull. The squad of GIs walking behind the tank fled to
safety. There was nothing they could do to save the tank’s crew.

“She’s gonna blow sky high,”
Boudreau said. “Thank God I ain’t no tanker. Them contraptions ain’t nothing
but a pot to get your ass roasted in.”

The final four mortar rounds
landed. If there were any Japanese gunners still alive, they had already fled.

“We took too fucking long,”
Boudreau said.

“Maybe the mortar section screwed
up,” Murphy offered.

“Nah. Our coordinates were for
shit. The radios ain’t so fucking great, either.”

Bogater Boudreau watched as the men
of Charlie Company reached the silenced Japanese guns. There were a few,
time-delayed pops from M1s and Thompsons as the GIs made sure the
gunners were really dead. Then they continued the advance at a much slower pace
now, waiting for another Stuart from farther back in the column to come
forward, push its dead brother off the road, and take its place in the lead.

“Tell Captain Pop we’re moving
out,” Bogater told Murphy. “We gotta stay ahead of the boys down there and be
their eyes in the sky.”

They hadn’t advanced very far when
the point man—suddenly agitated—signaled the platoon to halt and hit the
deck. Boudreau crawled forward to join him.

When he got there, the PFC
sputtered, “Tanks, Sarge…four of them! And they ain’t ours, that’s for damn
sure.”

“Well I’ll be a dumb sumbitch,”
Bogater said. “Two fucking years in this theater and I ain’t never seen me one
Jap tank…”

And now there were four, spread
wide in a line, not moving but with engines running. They hadn’t bothered with
camouflage. They stood like steel fortresses among the sparse trees.

“If they got any brains at all,” he
added, “there’s infantry with ’em, too. We just ain’t seeing ’em yet. Good
thing they ain’t seen us, neither. Get Captain Pop up here, on the fucking
double.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The downpour stopped. Gears
grinding and engines revving, the convoy was moving again. They’d been handed a
bonus, too: there was little traffic heading in the opposite direction on the
Hollandia-Aitape road. Lieutenant Ketchum was able to race the jeep down the
nearly deserted oncoming lane, leapfrogging large portions of the seemingly
endless line of vehicles in which they’d been stuck. It was saving time, but
the extra speed amplified the bumpiness of the dirt road, often to violent,
gut-wrenching levels. Jillian was sure the wheels had left the ground a few
times already:

Bloody axles are going to snap
right off.

When an oncoming vehicle would
appear, Ketchum had to rapidly squeeze the jeep back into the convoy’s slower
flow, sliding the little vehicle between much larger trucks traveling almost
bumper-to-bumper. The hair-raising process was forcing Jillian and Hutchins—who
was being thrown around the back seat like a rag doll—to the brink of nausea.

But they were making up time,
Jillian was sure. They still had a chance to reach Hollandia before Jock
stepped on that plane.

And then all this reckless
driving will be worth it, she thought…

Until they came to the curve.
The thick growth of trees lining the road made the curve blind—you’d never be
able to see what might be coming the other way…

Until it was too late.

He downshifted to lose speed and
tried to ease right, nestling between a deuce-and-a-half and the
three-quarter-ton in front of it…

But there wasn’t enough room. The
deuce’s driver tried to brake hard but his truck began sliding on locked wheels
along the slick, muddy surface, barely decelerating as the front bumper hooked
the right rear quarter of the jeep. The groan of crunched metal sounded like
the devil’s hammer pounding the world to shreds.

Trying to get away from the jagged,
intruding steel, Hutchins flung himself to the left side of the jeep, hanging
over the edge like a sailboat crewman struggling to keep his boat from heeling
over.

Ketchum stomped on the brake. The
wheels locked, without a hint of deceleration.

He jerked the steering wheel hard
left. The jeep’s course didn’t change a bit.

“I AIN’T GOT HER,” he said.

The big truck’s momentum was doing
the driving now…

Ahead, the nose of another speeding
truck popped into view as it rounded the curve, less than a hundred yards away,
no more capable of stopping than anyone else…and coming straight at the jeep,
now nothing more than the deuce-and-a-half’s sidecar.

They’d collide in less time than it
would take to draw their final, terrified breaths.

Bogater Boudreau was more worried
about Japanese infantry he couldn’t see than the tanks he could. Captain
Papadakis had a plan to deal with both. “For openers, we’ll call artillery in
on them,” he told Boudreau and his other platoon leaders. “It probably won’t do
shit to the tanks, but it should shred any infantry with them. Then, we get our
tanks up here. No better weapon against a tank than another tank.”

Bogater wanted to believe, but he
had a long memory. “You don’t think their infantry will be dug in those fucking
bunkers like they were at Buna, do you, Captain Pop?”

“I doubt it. The ground’s just
fucking rock. And this looks like a mobile defense. Those bastards at Buna
weren’t going anywhere. It was stay put and die.”

“Sure hope you’re right, sir.”

“Anyway,” Papadakis continued, “I’m
gonna call the colonel and get some tanks up this way. Meanwhile, you get us
that artillery.”

“They’re gonna get plenty of
warning we’re coming, though, sir,” Bogater said. “Our adjustment rounds will
probably be way off for openers. I had one hell of a time a while back getting
the mortars on targets. Fucking maps…”

“I know, I know…but the guns are
only about two miles behind us. Won’t be much time of flight. Do all your
adjustments with air bursts. Start waaay high and walk them down. The
artillery’s got the same shit map we do—their vertical integral info is gonna
be just as fucked up as ours. Ain’t no bigger waste than burying a shell in the
ground that’s supposed to be an air burst.”

“Amen to that, sir.”

“Just make it happen, Bogater.”

The base piece of a 105-millimeter
howitzer battery still on the landing beach let the first adjustment round fly.
It burst well beyond the Japanese tanks, but the height above ground was much
too low—just barely above the treetops. “Drop two hundred, up thirty,” he told
his radio operator. “Dammit! If that sumbitch was any lower, I woulda lost it
in the fucking trees. This turf’s a lot higher than this map says it is, that’s
for damn sure.”

Someone crawled up beside him and
said, “You wasting rounds again, Bogater?”

He turned angrily toward the voice,
and then realized it belonged to Master Sergeant Patchett, who’d come to join
him.

Bogater asked, “You been here long,
Top?”

“Long enough to watch you fucking
up. Where do you reckon that next round’s gonna land, son?”

“It’ll be a little short, but the
burst height oughta be a perfect forty. I’ll bracket them in.”

“A pack of smokes says you’re
wrong. You’re gonna be long again. Them bastards are closer than you think.”

“Buulllllshit, Top.”

“Just you watch, young man.”

Patchett was right. The burst
height was good—the perfect forty yards above the ground—but still well
beyond the target.

“Ahh, fuck,” Bogater said. “Can I
owe you them smokes?”

“Sure can. Now make your last
correction, son, and call in holy hell.”

Boudreau told his radio man, “Drop
five-zero, fire for effect.”

“Now you’re talking,” Patchett
said. “Where’s Captain Pop?”

“Over yonder,” Boudreau replied,
pointing to where Papadakis was briefing his platoon leaders. “He’s calling for
our tank support.”

“I’m gonna go listen in,” Patchett
said, tapping the Cajun on the helmet. “Good luck, son.”

Bogater had the howitzer battery
deliver the fire for effect volley six times—six guns, six shots each:
thirty-six high-explosive shells in total. Half were air bursts showering
deadly fragments meant for the still-unseen Japanese infantry. The rest rained
down to point-detonate on the ground—or with a little luck, hit a tank
directly.

But the luck all seemed to be with
the Japanese tankers. When the dust settled, none of their armored vehicles
appeared to be damaged in any way. Worse, Colonel Billingsley had refused
Papadakis’ request for tank support. “First, the dumb son of a bitch says the
tanks can’t climb this gradient,” the Mad Greek fumed to Patchett. “So I
ask him how the hell did these Jap tanks get up here? But it didn’t matter a
damn bit to him. Says he needs the tanks on the Mokmer road…and them little
Stuarts we got ain’t designed for fighting other tanks, anyway. So what the
fuck good are they? Maybe he just wants to watch them get picked off one by one
while they’re all hemmed in playing follow the leader down there.”

Patchett was fuming, too: I
swear on my mama’s grave…the longer that golden boy hangs around, the dumber he
gets. MacArthur’s little parade ground soldier’s getting good men killed,
that’s what it amounts to. I’ve got a mind to tell—

But he stopped himself. He hadn’t
survived a lifetime in this man’s army by spouting insubordinate remarks
and he wasn’t going to start now. Instead, he said, “I’ll go try and
change his mind, Captain Pop. In the meanwhile, you got enough of them bazooka
rounds to cover your ass if push comes to shove?”

“Yeah, I think so, Top.”

Since he wasn’t getting the tanks
from Colonel Billingsley, Boudreau did the only thing he could think of: call
for more artillery fire. The odds it would do any good were slim, and he knew
it. With indirect artillery fire, you’d have to score a direct hit on the
tank…and even then, you might not knock it out.

Sure give those sumbitches
inside a headache, though.

He couldn’t believe the reply that
came over the radio from the artillery battery: “Unable. Engaging
higher-priority targets. Out.”

Now it was Boudreau’s turn to fume:
Ain’t nothing higher priority in my book than something about to shoot my
ass…and just where the fuck are these “higher-priority targets?” Probably those
assholes at Third Battalion using them to clear trees outta their way. All we
get to stop real live tanks with now is a couple of fucking bazookas…which we
ain’t never used against a tank, since we ain’t never seen one before. Not even
sure where to hit the sumbitch so that puny little rocket’ll do some damage.
The guy tells me he’s gonna aim for that split where the turret meets the
chassis. Or maybe an engine vent. He better be damn good…I watched enough of
them silly things bounce right off log bunkers back on New Guinea.

The tanks’ turrets began to
traverse. Their engines revved.

Ah, shit…here we go.

Theo Papadakis figured the terrain
gave his company a big advantage: the cliff on the tanks’ right flank prevented
them from moving in that direction. All he had to do was bottle them up on the
other three sides, get his three bazooka teams in close enough to finish off
the tanks from the sides or rear, and this obstacle would be breached.

But it was going wrong from the
start. There were still Japanese infantry protecting
the tanks: Plenty of ’em, too, dammit…too close to us to call in mortars or
artillery.

We’re gonna have to root ’em out
like weeds.

The tanks had begun to move,
pinwheeling toward the approaching GIs like wagons being circled, adding their
machine gun fire to that of their infantry.

If my guys ain’t behind a sturdy
tree, they probably got hit already…

And sturdy trees seem few and
far between around here.

The screaming of the wounded and
dying confirmed Papadakis’ fear.

But still, dammit…we’ve got ’em
surrounded! A tree or a tank hull only protects you from one direction. Just
gotta pop our heads up long enough to get a fix on ’em.

He tried: the bullet that glanced
off his steel pot knocked him senseless for a moment.

Bad fucking idea.

One rifle platoon had circled
completely behind the tanks. The bazooka team with them would have easy shots
at the sides of two tanks—if they could just get a little closer.

They couldn’t. The Japanese
infantry had set a trap and they’d crawled right into it. Grenades and gunfire
took a terrible toll. Among the dead GIs were the two men of a bazooka team.
Their weapon was just a mangled, worthless pipe now.

Another bazooka team thought they
had a chance: a difficult head-on shot, with a low chance of success…

But they took it.

It glanced off the tank’s glacis
plate, exploding harmlessly in the air.

And then the tank’s machine gun
mowed them down.

We’re getting creamed,
Papadakis told himself.

Bogater Boudreau was thinking the
same thing: Those guys are getting creamed.

His small recon platoon wasn’t
supposed to help take on the tanks. Their job was to be the lofty lookouts for
the rest of the battalion down on the road. The one bazooka team Captain
Papadakis had left with him was strictly for last-ditch defense.

But if them damn tanks keep
cutting up Captain Pop’s company and break out, they’re gonna roll right over
our asses. Ain’t gonna be much “defense” about it—it’ll be a fucking slaughter.

I gotta do something.

From Bogater’s position, three of
the four Jap tanks were presenting their right side, the fourth its rear. He
called the bazooka team over.

“You got a clear shot at every one
of those bastards,” he told them.

“We’re too far away, Sarge,” the
team’s corporal said.

“Then get closer, numbnuts.”

Bogater could tell right away
neither man was thrilled with that prospect. He jerked the bazooka from the
corporal’s hands.

“Then I’ll do it the fuck myself.”
He turned to one of his platoon and added, “Simms, take their rockets. You and
me gonna go do a little tank hunting.”

Simms wasn’t reluctant, just
skeptical. “You sure you know what you’re doing with that thing, Sarge?”

“What’s to know? You point it,
shoot it, and it’s got two wrong ends. That’s why you, Corporal Simms, are gonna make damn
sure there’s no touchholes behind me to get burned up by the rocket blast when
I fire.”

“I dunno,” Simms replied. “I just
think this would be a whole lot easier if those cannon-cockers took a little
more interest in what the fuck’s going on up here.”

“Too late for that now, mon
frère. They’d just kill more of Captain Pop’s men, probably.”

They started to low-crawl toward
the tanks, dragging the bazooka and the satchel of rockets along with them. The
hard ground was tough on their knees and elbows. The only cover was the spindly
trees that seemed to be getting farther and farther apart.

“I’d feel better about all this
crawling,” Simms said, “if there was at least some fucking concealment down
here. Some high grass…some scrub…anything.”

“Stand up if you like,” Bogater
replied, “and get your ass shot off.”

Simms stayed on his belly.

A bullet zinged off the
ground right next to Boudreau. Then another.

He rolled behind a tree trunk. So
did Simms.

Just one problem…

They were behind different tree
trunks. Boudreau had only one rocket—the one already loaded into the bazooka.
Simms had the rest.

A bullet smacked into the tree
protecting Bogater.

He asked Simms, “Can you see who
the fuck’s shooting at us?”

“Yeah…he’s about fifty, sixty yards
ahead, shooting prone. Kinda in the open.”

“That fucking far? I’ll never hit
him with this fucking Thompson. Take him with your M1.”

Gingerly, Simms leaned around the
tree trunk and drew a bead on the Jap sniper. He had a clean shot. No trees in
the way.

The SPLAT of another bullet
against the trunk made him pull back.

Simms said, “How about you spray
him so he keeps his fucking head down for a second?”

Bogater stuck the Thompson around
the tree and fired a short, wild burst in the sniper’s general direction.

That was all it took. The bullets
went nowhere near the Jap, but they made him stop firing just for a few moments…

And in those few moments, Simms
shot him right through the top of his helmet.

“Those fuckers gotta get stronger
helmets, Sarge. Way too flimsy.”

“Ours ain’t a whole lot better…not
for a straight-on shot like that.”

A tank rumbled and clattered straight
for them. But suddenly, it wheeled left, bullets bouncing harmlessly off its
hull and turret. It answered those bullets with machine gun bursts of its own.

“Some GIs are in deep shit over
yonder,” Bogater said. He was fixated on the tank, watching it turn. “We gotta
get closer…and fast.”

“We won’t get close enough for a
shot,” Simms replied. “The fucker will be gone.”

“Nah…he’ll be showing us his ass.
Just what we want him to do.”

They didn’t bother crawling now,
just running as low to the ground as they could manage.

One Japanese soldier popped out
from behind the tank, more surprised to see them than they were to see him.

Bogater knocked him down with a
short burst from the Thompson.

“HERE,” Bogater said, dropping to
one knee, raising the bazooka to the firing position on his shoulder. “I make
it thirty fucking yards…I’m gonna put one right up his ass.”

He squeezed the bazooka’s trigger.

Nothing happened.

He looked at the back end of the
tube, then straight down its bore.

He saw nothing but daylight. The
rocket was gone.

“THE FUCKER FELL OUT! GIVE ME
ANOTHER ONE!”

Simms didn’t want to believe it.
“COULDN’T YOU FUCKING TELL?”

“COULDN’T YOU FUCKING SEE THE
SUMBITCH FALL OUT?”

Simms ignored him and slipped
another rocket into the tube.

“Make damn sure you lock down the
lever this time,” Bogater said.

“I did the first fucking time,”
Simms replied, indignant. “You must’ve snagged it on something. There, it’s
in…wires are hooked up.” He stepped clear of the blast zone. A tap on
Boudreau’s helmet: “READY.”

Bogater pulled the trigger again.

This time, there was a deafening WHOOSH
as the rocket sped away…

And vanished into an engine vent
grill.

A small flash, a dull pfoomf…
and nothing more. The tank kept rolling away from them, straight toward Captain
Pop’s men.

Another tank began to pivot, as if
looking for a path through the trees to reach the one they just shot.

“Hurry up…another fucking rocket,”
Bogater said. “Gotta get him while he’s still broadside to us.”

A clank as Simms slid the
rocket into the tube. A few moments of fumbling with latching lever and
wires…and then another tap on the helmet: “READY.”

Bogater squeezed the trigger at the
exact instant the first tank exploded in a fog of thick black smoke. It made
him flinch and ruined his aim.

The rocket streaked away, glanced
off the ground yards short of the second tank, and struck its drive wheel with
a surprising loud POOM.

The damaged track separated from
the wheel and became mangled beneath the tank, now pirouetting on its one good
track. After half a revolution it came to a stop, its turret traversing,
spitting fire from both its machine guns. It was wounded, immobile, but not
dead yet…

At least not until Captain
Papadakis’ surviving bazooka team put a rocket point blank into its engine
compartment. In seconds, it was smoking as furiously as the first tank.

Simms asked, “Those Nips inside
even gonna try and get out?”

“Maybe they’re already dead,”
Bogater replied. “Probably choked to death on that burning diesel.”

The other two tanks wheeled north
and, with engines roaring, raced away. Neither Bogater nor the last of
Papadakis’ bazooka boys had a clean shot at them. The few rounds fired were
Captain Pop’s survivors mopping up the last of the Japanese infantry—no more
than a squad or two at this point. Abandoned by their tanks, they were
surrounded, outgunned, hopeless…

And soon dead.

As the echo of the last shots died
out, two GIs approached Boudreau and Simms. One was a captain. He wasn’t Theo
Papadakis.

“I’m from King Company, Third
Battalion,” the captain said. “What outfit are you boys with?”

“Recon Platoon, First Battalion,”
Boudreau replied, “and Able Company’s around here somewhere. Or at least what’s
left of them.” Then he saw Papadakis in a clearing still thick with smoke and
raced to him. The captain from 3rd Battalion followed.

“Nice dent in that steel pot of
yours, sir,” Bogater said when he reached Papadakis.

“Yeah…remind me never to stick my
head up in that shit again. Man, my neck’s killing me from getting jerked back
like that.”

Bogater asked, “How bad are your
guys banged up, sir?”

“Bad. Real bad. Don’t know how many
for sure yet.”

Papadakis gave the other captain a
stern once-over and asked, “Let me guess. You’re from Third Battalion, right?”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to link up
with—”

“Save it, pal. Thanks a shitload
for all your fucking help.”

“Wait a damn minute,” the captain
replied. “I couldn’t exactly tell where the hell you were supposed to be on
this shitty map.”

Theo Papadakis walked away, shaking
his head, trying to take stock of the dead, the wounded, and those who could
carry on…

Because he knew the battle for this
island had only just begun.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Squall’s coming, sir,” the courier
pilot told Jock. “If we wait until 1600 like you want, we might not get out of
here today.”

Jock checked his watch: 1440.
He thought it over for a moment.

“We’ll wait a little longer,
Lieutenant.”

The pilot didn’t want to hear that.
He was as keen to get back to his hammock on Wakde Island as Jock was to stay
in Hollandia. But he replied, “Yes, sir. Whatever you want. I’ll be in
Operations if you change your mind.”

Jock went back to the feverish work
of getting out the new maps—the ones that incorporated every last detail he’d
learned during his unintended stay on Biak. He knew the GIs on the ground
needed all the info about the Mokmer airfields and the surrounding terrain he
could provide:

Published intel updates are all
well and good, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

He cursed luck, the Japanese, even
himself that those maps weren’t in the GIs’ hands already.

They would’ve been…if we hadn’t
gotten our asses shot down.

He handed over his last page of
notes. His part was done now, but the maps still weren’t ready for printing.
These final bits of information would have to be collated, correlated, and
plotted by the team of intelligence officers and NCOs who’d been his constant
companions for the past five days, ever since returning from Biak. The
information on the maps had to be dead-on or they were no better than the
obsolete fishwrappers being used right now. Close enough wouldn’t
be good enough. Once printing began—tomorrow, hopefully—it would still be days
before they were in the hands of the troops whose lives depended on them.

A voice boomed from the far side of
the room. “Miles, what in God’s good name are you still doing here?” Every man
in the room snapped to attention. Jock spun off his stool, tried snapping to
attention, and nearly fell over as his bad leg buckled. Catching himself
against the work table, he braced and saw General Willoughby, MacArthur’s G2,
striding toward him.

A testy wave of the general’s hand
sufficed for at ease and the intel staff went back to their work. His
eyes boring into Jock, Willoughby added, “I thought your shop was on Wakde,
Major, not here in sunny Hollandia.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but my
orders are to return to Wakde not later than tonight.”

“Shouldn’t you be leaving, then?”

“I just finished my work here, sir.
My flight leaves at 1600.”

“Cutting it a little close, I’d
say, Miles, especially with weather moving in…”

The general paused for a moment,
thinking—and then his face lit up with sly revelation. “Oh, I get it. You want
to get in that last one with the little Aussie spitfire you’ve been shacked up
with.”

“With all due respect, sir, that
lady is my wife.”

If this was a fucking barroom,
I’d put this pompous sack of shit on his ass so fast, stars or no stars.

Willoughby replied, “Well, isn’t
that hot shit? That’d make you and General MacArthur the only two men in the US
Army lucky enough to have their wives in theater with them. I understand the Supreme
Commander’s privilege…but what makes you so fucking special, Major?”

“Not special, sir…but like you
said, just lucky.”

“Hmm…well, give her my love, Miles.
By the way, what’s the story with your leg?”

“Been sitting too much, sir. It
stiffens up.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t need
two good legs for a desk job, Major.”

Willoughby turned to leave, adding,
“Good luck, Miles. Don’t miss your flight, now. This war’s not going to wait
for you.”

At the door, he had one more piece
of cheerful advice: “Don’t knock her up now, son, because if you do, we’ll ship
her pregnant little ass back to Australia so fast your head will spin.”

Jock’s leg had loosened up by the
time he walked to the airfield’s operations shack. He could hide the limp
fairly well now, adopting a tender, stiff-legged stride, like a cowboy who’d
spent too much time in the saddle.

Maybe I’m even fooling other
people besides myself…

But I’ll never fool Jill.

Where the hell are you, baby?

He checked his watch, just like
he’d done every few minutes for the last hour. Now it read 1545.

The coming storm rolled off the
jagged mountains that formed New Guinea’s spine as it advanced steadily toward
Hollandia. Soon, the airfield would be enveloped in treacherous winds and
blinding rain. A takeoff at 1600 was pushing it as far as any sane aviator
dared.

A mechanic approached and said,
“Better get on board, sir. We’re gonna crank ’em up in a second.”

“Give me a minute,” Jock replied.
He’d abandoned any thought of holding her in his arms, kissing her, or sharing
a moment of conversation. He’d settle for much less now:

I just need to see her. Just a
glimpse to know she’s okay. That’s all I ask.

The right-hand engine of the little
C-45 transport plane sputtered to life, sounding as if it, too, had little
interest in setting out on this trip.

He gave one last, longing look
toward the airfield’s access road, one flicker of hope still burning that a
jeep, a truck, a bicycle—anything—would change course and come racing across
the ramp toward the plane…

But none did.

Jock flung his bags up into the
plane as the left-hand engine now popped and rumbled to life. Hesitantly, he
ascended the short ladder to the little tail-dragger’s cabin door. At the top
step, he turned to take one last look across the ramp…

Through the blur of the whirling
propeller, there was a deuce-and-a-half racing toward them head-on. As it drew
close, the GI behind the wheel altered course, driving a wide circle around the
aircraft. The truck swung around the plane’s twin tails and stopped aft of the
left wingtip, just a few quick steps from the cabin door. The cab’s
passenger-side door popped open…

And Jillian jumped down to the
ramp.

She looked like she’d been in a
brawl. Her skirt and blouse were splotched with mud. There were bruises of
vivid purple and yellow on her arms and shins.

Jock’s leg didn’t betray him as he
sprinted to her.

Locked in embrace, she spoke right
into his ear to be heard over the din of the plane’s engines. “I was afraid
this wasn’t your aircraft. And that storm on the way…”

“Honey, are you okay? You’re all
banged up. What the hell happened?”

“We had a bit of a wreck. Only the
jeep got hurt, though. No worries.”

With time so short, he blurted the
unfinished business burdening his mind: “I’m so sorry, honey. I had no business
flying those missions and I promise—”

She silenced him with a kiss. Then,
stroking his face soothingly, she said, “Baby, baby…we already talked about
this on the telephone. You don’t need—”

“No…I promise I won’t fly any more
missions, Jill. I’ve got no business being in action anymore.”

She kissed him once more and said,
“Like I told you before, Yank, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

For just a moment, the contentment
of their embrace cancelled every calamity the world had to offer. It even
cancelled the racket of the airplane engines idling just feet away.

She asked, “Taking your Atabrine?”

“Every damn day. You?”

“Of course. Malaria is just one of
the many little joys we’ve come to share.”

“You know, I’m real proud of what
you did at Aitape, Jill…”

“Thanks, baby, but I was just doing
my job.”

“But—”

The mechanic tapped Jock on the
shoulder. “Don’t mean to intrude, sir, but we gotta go, right now!”

One long, last kiss.

As he turned toward the plane, Jock
said, “But no more of that cloak and dagger stuff for you, okay?”

She smiled and gave him a thumbs
up.

Then she spoke her reply, softly
enough he couldn’t possibly hear it over the sawmill buzz of the revving
engines: “I won’t make promises I can’t keep, either.”

Halfway up the cabin stairs, he
remembered another piece of unfinished business he’d completely forgotten:
“THAT MAPMAKER YOU MENTIONED ON THE LANDLINE THE OTHER DAY…DID HE CHANGE HIS
MIND ABOUT WORKING FOR US?”

Jillian shook her head and replied,
“AFRAID NOT…AND IT WASN’T A HIM. IT WAS A HER.”

Watching him climb the boarding
steps, she thought, Bloody hell. His leg…he’s trying to hide it but it’s
acting up again.

The plane was airborne before Jock
made the connection: Holy shit! That mapmaker…her last name isn’t Dyckman by
any chance, is it?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Token resistance were the
words Lieutenant Colonel Billingsley used to describe the Japanese infantry’s
defense of the Mokmer airfields. That might have been technically accurate, but
the Japanese guns embedded high in the bluffs to the east were taking a
terrific toll on the American tanks. Master Sergeant Patchett looked away in
disgust as yet another Stuart rolling across the southern airstrip was knocked
out. The enemy round blew the turret cleanly off the chassis, leaving nothing
but a flaming hulk, spewing clouds of thick black smoke and a fireworks display
of cooked-off rounds.

That makes five we lost in the
last hour. Counting the one we lost on the road, half of what we hit the beach
with this morning is gone already. And ain’t nobody or nothing touching them
guns up there. At least my boys got the good sense to stay the hell away from
them tanks and not get roasted right along with ’em. Gonna be a long fucking
night.

Colonel Billingsley stood beside
his jeep, talking on its radio. When his conversation was finished, he told
Patchett, “I’m pulling the tanks back for now.”

Patchett thought, First smart
thing I heard the man say all day.

But then Billingsley added, “So my
soldiers will just have to finish taking these three airfields without them.”

“You mean after those guns
up there are knocked out, right, sir?”

“Negative, Sergeant. Between the
battalion’s position here and Able Company’s above them on the ridge, we’ve got
those guns isolated. They’ll run out of ammo soon enough. We’re going to press
on and take these airfields before nightfall, per the ops plan.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but
that’s just faith talking. What the hell good is it to take the airfields if we
can’t show our faces on ’em without getting our asses blown up? Ain’t no
airplanes gonna use them, that’s for damn sure. We gotta take out them guns
before we do anything else.”

“The job of taking out those guns
is allocated to the Navy, Sergeant. We’ve got all the fire support we need from
them.”

Patchett was losing patience.
“Sir…the Navy’s had just a couple li’l ol’ destroyers parked waaaay the
hell offshore and outta harm’s way all day long, trying to duel with them guns
long distance. They ain’t knocked out shit yet. Ain’t even come close.”

A picture of unjustified
confidence, Billingsley replied, “That’s why I’ve called in supplemental air
support. They’ll plaster those gun positions with rockets and fifty caliber.”

“With all due respect, sir, not a
one of them ideas is worth dog squat…and they might even get Able Company boys
on top of that ridge killed. How about we get ourselves a couple or three
artillery pieces and plaster them guns with direct fire? They won’t be missing,
neither…not from this close. We can bring ’em in and hide ’em in this treeline
right here come nightfall, when them Japs up there can’t see shit. At first
light, we give ’em hell, quick and simple.”

“Negative, Sergeant. My men will be
capturing airfields tonight, not waiting for artillerymen to save them.”

“Sir, your men gonna be dying in
droves if we try to hold this low ground with them guns staring down on us.
We’re just fish in a fucking barrel. Won’t be enough of us left by sundown
tomorrow to hold jackshit.”

“Oh, come now, Sergeant. That’s
just a little bit—”

“That’s the God’s honest truth,
sir, that’s what it is…and since I reckon their maps are as fucked up as ours,
I’d rather have our artillery putting some direct fire rounds exactly
where I want them than some pilot or swabbie putting them where he thinks
I want them.”

Patchett wasn’t sure if the silence
that came over Billingsley meant the man was thinking or sulking. He blew a
sigh of relief when the colonel finally said, “Fine, we’ll bring up the
artillery. But make sure our evening situation report to regiment states
clearly that our troops are holding the Mokmer airfields.”

Patchett smiled; it would be an
administrative lie well worth the lives saved. “Affirmative, sir,” he replied
as he told himself, Yeah, we’re holding it all right, provided we don’t dare
come out from under cover. And it don’t matter what bullshit we write…it ain’t
gonna fool Colonel Molloy. He’s got hisself two good eyes.

High atop the bluffs overlooking
the airfields, Bogater Boudreau had an idea. “Get me that spool of lacing cord
Bailey’s carrying,” he told his radioman, “and get Captain Pop up here. I gotta
show him something real quick.”

“Sarge, shouldn’t we be
whispering?” the radioman asked. “There’s Japs right down there below us.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Boudreau
replied. “They’re crammed into a cave, firing a big, loud gun. Their ears are
ringing so bad they can’t hear shit.”

When Theo Papadakis arrived,
Boudreau was already well into the test phase of his plan. “That cave right
below us,” he told the captain, “can’t be more than fifty or sixty feet down.”
Something was dangling down the cliff’s face from the spool of cord Bogater
held in his hands. Papadakis peered over the edge and saw what it was: a
cluster of hand grenades, hanging right above the top edge of the cave opening,
perfectly in line with the protruding barrel of its 40-millmeter gun—and
invisible to the gunners inside.

“What do you think, sir? A hell of
a lot better than waiting for the Navy or some flyboy to put one on the money.”

“How many grenades you got tied
there, Bogater?”

“Four, sir. Any more than that gets
a little unwieldy.” He started reeling the grenades back up.

“So you want to lower those
grenades down in front of the cave mouth? How you gonna pull the pins?”

“I’m gonna pull them first,
sir,” Boudreau replied. “Then Moose Jorgensen here is gonna heave the whole bunch like he’s throwing a
runner out at home from center field. As they start to fall, the cord’ll go
tight…and swing those sumbitches right into the cave. Should be just about the
right amount of time for the fuzes to blow, too.” He played out more cord,
measuring it against his forearm. “I’m adding about five feet to the total
length, to make sure them string bombs swing inside the cave.”

Boudreau plunged his bayonet into a
crack in the rocky ledge at the spot he’d first dangled the grenades.
“There…that oughta be straight above them bastards.” He tied the spool end of
the cord to the bayonet grip, then coiled the length that would carry the
grenades carefully on the ground.

Jorgensen held the grenades—his arm
cocked, ready to throw—as two men stood by to pull their safety pins.

Bogater told Papadakis, “Say the
word, sir.”

“Wait until they shoot again,”
Papadakis replied, “so we know they’ll be huddled up real close to the gun.”

They only had to wait a few
moments. The report of the 40 millimeter echoed up the cliff. Papadakis said,
“Let her rip, boys.”

The pins were pulled, and Jorgensen
gave a mighty heave. The cluster of grenades was launched high into the air…

One one thousand…

And then began to arc downward.

Two one thousand…

The coiled cord played out quickly
and smoothly.

Three one thousand, four one
thousand...

The grenades vanished into the cave
mouth.

Five one thousand…

The sound of the explosion was soft
and disappointing—just a muted poom—but the jet of hot gases that
blew from the cave looked more like the blowhole exhalation of a giant whale.

Scraps of wood and gear were blown
out and began the long tumble to the plain below.

Two Japanese gunners were blown
out, too. The GIs perched on the ledge watched them plummet like sacks all the
way to the ground.

Bogater said, “They ain’t thrashing
around like no man alive would.”

The barrel of the 40 millimeter
still protruded from the cave mouth but it was unmoving, lifeless.

Captain Papadakis said, “I think we
can take out two or three more of those guns the same way.”

“Yeah,” Bogater replied, reeling up
the scorched and severed end of the cord. “A couple more, for sure. The rest
are too far down for this little trick to work.”

“Hmm…yeah. Makes me wonder, though.
You suppose the Japs ever come out of those caves?”

“Not in daylight, that’s for damn
sure,” Bogater said. “Maybe they slide down ropes at night or something. It
sure as hell don’t look like they climb up here. Wish they would, though. Make
killing ’em a whole hell of a lot easier.”

The C-45 transport plane shuddered
to a stop on the ramp at Wakde Island, seeming just as relieved as its
occupants the flight from Hollandia was over. If they’d tried to land a few
minutes later, the airfield would have been hidden in darkness. As it was, they
came back to an earth shrouded in the deep shadows of dusk.

“I had one hell of a time feeling
around for the ground,” the pilot said as he and Jock climbed out of the plane.
“And this damn thing…if you don’t fly it all the way to the chocks, it’ll
ground loop on you or prang itself in a heartbeat.”

“Then I guess you did a hell of a
job, Lieutenant,” Jock replied. “Thanks for the ride.”

Jock’s desk at photo recon shop looked
like a dump truck had backed up to it and unloaded piles of folders, aerial
photographs, and drafts of topographic maps in progress. He took that as a good
sign: If they thought I was dead, the desk would’ve been cleaned out…or some
enterprising soul would have “appropriated” it already. There was enough
work there to keep him busy for weeks.

But there was something he had to
do first. He began drafting a message to Jillian back at Hollandia. It took
several tries—tearing up page after page of discarded words—until it was as
concise as protocol demanded:

Is mapmaker’s name Dyckman? If
so, tell her father is alive. I know where he is. Maybe that will change her
mind? Urgent. We need her.

He felt foolish for how long it had
taken him to connect the dots:

That mapmaker’s got to be
Dyckman’s daughter. I mean, how many fucking cartographers could there have
been on a little rock like Biak, let alone female ones? Maybe I
was starting to believe his whole family was dead, too. Wouldn’t that be hot
shit, after I was the one telling him not to lose hope.

At the Wakde radio station, the
communications officer on duty frowned as he looked at the message Jock had
just handed him. “This is civilian affairs stuff, sir,” the commo officer said.
“That’s pretty low priority. It may not even get sent for a couple of days.
Maybe you should just put it in an envelope and send it with the dispatches.”

He tried to hand Jock a manila
envelope, which was promptly batted away. Dispatch pouches were slower than GI
mail.

Jock leaned across the desk, close
enough this Air Force captain sloughing him off could feel his hot breath on
his face. “It’s damn high priority to the GIs getting their asses shot
off on Biak…and it’s a hell of a lot more important than those stacks of flyboy
requests for pillows and sun tan oil your people are sending right now. Here’s
the deal, Captain…either this message goes out tonight or you can explain to
General Kenney why it didn’t.”

Dropping Kenney’s name was a risky
move. The 5th Air Force Commander didn’t know Jock from Adam. He
probably had only the vaguest notion of what Jock’s job at his headquarters
was, too; there was a thick layer of staff between them.

And an Air Force commander
probably couldn’t give a shit less about maps for us dogfaces.

But the bluff worked. The commo
officer began to sputter as he shuffled papers on his desk.

“So that’s a yes, Captain?”

“Ahh…yes, sir. Your message will be
copied in Hollandia within the hour.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Sun’s almost up, y’all,” Patchett
said as his foot nudged the sleeping artilleryman. “Get your boys on them guns
and let’s do the deed.”

The gunners tried to rub the sleep
out of their eyes—the little they’d gotten, anyway, after driving up from the
beach and digging in their 105-millimeter howitzers in the pitch dark of night.
They’d dug the guns’ trails in deep: they remembered the last time their
battery shot direct fire. One of the pieces had reared up so violently from the
recoil, her spades hopped out of the shallow holes her crew had dug, allowing
the piece to rocket backwards. As she did, the trails of the loose cannon
smashed into one of her own crewmen, shattering his leg below the knee.

The artillerymen hustled to their
positions. They knew the sooner they got done with this task, the sooner they
could rejoin their battery, nestled in a far less hazardous location a mile or
so behind the lines. Rounds were assembled and lined up, ready to fire.

“Here’s the way it’s gonna be,
men,” Patchett said. “That gentleman standing right there is Captain Grossman.
Him and me’ll identify them targets for you, since ain’t a one of you got a
fucking clue where they are in them cliffs. The sun’s gonna be up behind ’em in
a couple minutes. That’ll light us up like Christmas but those caves will still
be hiding in shadow. Now like I told y’all before, Able Company is on the high
ground above them Jap guns. When Captain Grossman gives ’em the word, they’re
gonna drop illum with their mortars down the face of the cliffs. That’ll blind
the Japs a little and light them up for our first-round hits.”

The artillerymen seemed surprised
at the confident proclamation of first-round hits. “It may take a little
more than one round a target,” a section chief said.

“Bull-fucking-shit,” Patchett
replied. “Y’all gonna know exactly how far those li’l ol’ caves are, ’cause we
had all day yesterday to triangulate them. Just put the fucking range mark in
that scope of yours on it and pull the damn lanyard.”

“It ain’t quite that exact, Sarge,”
the section chief replied.

“It better fucking be that exact,
numbnuts, because once you pop off a round, them Japs gonna know exactly where
you are, too. It’s kill or be killed, son. I’d advise you to go with the
former.”

There were no further comments from
the grim-faced artillerymen.

Patchett wasn’t finished. “Since
the very clever doggies of Recon Platoon done already took out four of them
guns, all we gotta do is knock out the other eight. That’s four shots per gun,
y’all. Now load your first round.”

Shells were rammed into both tubes.
Breeches slid closed and locked shut with the metallic click of their
handle locks.

They could feel the warm morning
sun on their faces now.

“I’m going to light them up,”
Captain Grossman said. “Gunners, stand by.”

Twenty seconds later, four
illumination rounds—spread wide apart—began their synchronized parachute
descent down the face of the cliffs. The caves appeared as little more than
black pockmarks. Patchett pulled the section chief of one of the howitzers
close. Grossman did the same with the other gun chief.

“Okay,” Patchett told him as he
sighted with an outstretched hand, “first target is down three fingers from the
top right cave…got it?”

The section chief held out three
fingers, formed the sight picture in his mind, and replied, “Yeah…I got it.”

“Then do it, son.”

Within seconds, both howitzers
roared and bucked like angry dragons as they jerked violently from recoil. A
cloud of coral dust was sucked off the ground and mingled with the gun smoke.
Time of flight would only be a few seconds.

Eyes pressed against binoculars,
Patchett and Grossman could see the impacts a heartbeat before hearing them.
Nearly in unison, they yelled, “TARGET!” Both shots had achieved their first-round
hits.

Just as the light of the first
volley of illumination rounds was about to drop out of sight, a second volley
began its glide down the cliffs. At the howitzers, new targets were being
sighted and rounds loaded.

“So far,” Patchett told the
gunners, “y’all are on the right side of this kill or be killed shit.
Let’s keep it up.”

It took twelve shots of direct fire
from the 105-millimeter howitzers to silence the remaining eight guns embedded
in the cliffs. The Japs had managed to get off two shots from the last caves to
be targeted but they both landed wide, hurting nothing but trees and rock.
Patchett suggested, “I’m betting they couldn’t traverse far enough to get us,
sitting in them caves like they was.”

Lee Grossman nodded in agreement.
“Probably right, Top.”

“I’d better go find where golden
boy is hiding,” Patchett said, “and make damn sure he gets us those tanks
back on the double.”

“Amen to that, Top.”

Patchett had to laugh. “Amen to that?
Begging your pardon, sir, and no offense meant or nothing, but when the hell
did a Jew-fella from New York City start saying things like that?”

“None taken, Top. I guess I’ve just
been around you crackers too long.”

They broke into grins as they
headed their separate ways.

Colonel Billingsley proved
difficult to find. After several radio calls, he finally came on the air. When
asked his location, his reply—decoded—said, I’m with Able Company.
Consolidate the battalion’s position and await my return.

Patchett snickered as he read the
message: With Able Company, my ass. I just talked to Captain Pop…they ain’t
seen hide nor hair of the man since they went up the high ground. Just like him
to make hisself scarce when the shit’s hitting the fan.

Another thirty minutes passed
before Billingsley finally drove up in his jeep. “I’ve got good news, Sergeant
Patchett,” he said in greeting. “I’ve pulled Able Company off the cliffs.
They’ll be here in about an hour, and then the entire battalion will be moving
out. We’re heading west, along the coast.”

“Whoa…hold on a minute, sir. Who’s
covering our right flank, then?”

“That’s Third Battalion’s responsibility,
Sergeant. Captain Papadakis has already coordinated the new boundaries with
them.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I
spoke with Captain Pop not too long ago. He says Third Battalion’s got one
platoon wandering around up there, acting like they couldn’t find their asses
with both hands. Did Regiment okay this?”

“I don’t need Regiment’s approval
to mass my own troops, Sergeant. I’ll fill Colonel Molloy in on the details as
soon as we get organized here and—”

“Begging your pardon again, sir,
but we are organized here. Organized as all hell, as a matter of fact.
And I’m just a little bit worried we’re giving up the ground over our heads we
just spent a day, a night, and the next sunrise getting under our control.”

“You’re not seeing the big picture,
I’m afraid, Sergeant Patchett.”

No, sir…I’m seeing it pretty
clearly, and it looks like another fucking disaster waiting to happen.

“What about the Stuarts, sir? We
getting those tanks back ASAP?”

The blank look that came across
Billingsley’s face could only mean one thing: He ain’t even thought about
that.

“Yes, yes…of course. I’ll bring
that up with Regiment.” Then he stretched like a man who’d just awoken from a
long nap. “But first, nature calls, Sergeant.”

Billingsley started walking toward
the only building on the airfield, a squat wooden structure some thirty yards
away that had, no doubt, served as the airfield operations building. “I’m
betting there’s a proper officers’ latrine in that facility,” he said, “and I
plan to enjoy it.”

Patchett wrestled with informing
the colonel they’d already been through every inch of that building: And
much of nothing in there, let alone a shitter. I guess Jap officers crap in a
hole like everyone else. But he decided, Let him find out the hard way.

Then the world went dark for a
moment as if a harsh wind blew out all the light.

When Melvin Patchett came to, he
was flat on his face. His helmet lay on the ground beside him like an
overturned turtle. He looked behind and saw the building was a pile of smoking
rubble.

I never heard me a damn thing.
What the hell just happened?

His question was answered
immediately: he could see the puff from a tank’s main gun barrel, sitting atop
the cliffs.

The round slammed into the ground
between Patchett and the shattered building, barely missing Billingsley’s empty
jeep.

Looks like them Jap bastards are
playing a card out of our deck now.

He began to curse himself that he’d
let the howitzers leave.

But there was a flash from the top
of the cliff. The turret of the tank was flipped off its chassis like a cap
being popped off its bottle.

Then he heard the dull,
time-delayed poom of the exploding tank.

Was that Captain Pop’s boys did
that? Or did Third Battalion finally get their shit together? That tank didn’t
blow itself up, that’s for damn sure.

When Patchett got to the shattered
building, Lee Grossman and a few of his men were already there. They were
pulling Billingsley’s lifeless body from the rubble.

Grossman asked, “What the hell was
he in the building for, Top? It’s the only good target out here…and he walks
right into it?”

Patchett replied with a nonchalant
shrug. But a nagging voice in his head kept repeating, Let him find out the
hard way, like an accusing finger pointing right at him.

Praying to silence that voice, he
finally said, “I reckon he did find out the hard way.”

Grossman replied, “What the hell
are you talking about, Top?”

“Oh, nothing in particular, sir.
Maybe he was just looking for some Jap maps. Gotta be better than the crap we
got.”

“But we already looked. There
wasn’t shit in there.”

“I know, sir. Dammit, I know.”

Major Homer Rowe fancied himself a paperwork kind of officer: a
behind-the-scenes administrator more comfortable at a desk than bearing the
burden of command. One of the original National Guard officers in this
division, he was forty-one years old, chubby—although the New Guinea GI diet
had shed some twenty pounds from his short, stocky frame. Rowe cursed that
weight loss because as the pounds dropped, so did his blood pressure readings.
They’d been high, the medics told him—high enough to be sent home if the
condition persisted. But twenty pounds lighter, his BP dropped to “borderline,”
and Homer Rowe would have to continue slogging through the swamps and jungles
with the rest of the division, on their way to MacArthur’s dreamed-of return to
the Philippines. Try as he might, there just wasn’t enough food to eat in this
tropical sweatbox to maintain weight, let alone gain it back.

He’d done a competent job as
battalion XO under the now-deceased Kit Billingsley, just as he had for the
previous commander, Jock Miles. Now, as he stood in front of Colonel Molloy,
the regimental commander, he sensed his position in this man’s army was
headed for a drastic change.

“Colonel Billingsley’s been killed
in action,” Molloy said. “I need you to step in and take the battalion, Homer.”

Rowe swallowed hard and asked,
“Will this be a temporary assignment, sir? Until you can get somebody more—”

Molloy cut him off. “Why, Homer? Do
you have somewhere else you need to be?”

“No, sir. I just thought—”

“For cryin’ out loud, Homer,
everything around here is temporary. Hell, life is temporary. I realize
you’ve never had a combat command. In fact, you haven’t had a command at all
since running a National Guard company stateside before the war, have you?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“At the moment, though, you’re
senior. I need you to step up and do the job.”

“But what about Lee Grossman, sir?
He’s eminently promotable to major…and he’s got plenty of combat command time.”

“Major Rowe, listen to me, and
listen good. As far as I’m concerned, First Battalion has some of the finest
company commanders and NCOs I’ve ever had the honor to command. I don’t want to
alter their chemistry right now. All they need is someone to set priorities for
them and show them some leadership. And that’s going to be you.”

Rowe still seemed as if he was
searching for something to say that might change the colonel’s mind.

Moving to close the deal, Molloy
added, “Besides, you’ve got the finest battalion top sergeant in the entire
theater in Melvin Patchett. You know him well. He’ll be of great help to you.”

Homer Rowe did know Patchett
well—and he was scared shitless of him:

That cutthroat could kill me and
not give it a second thought if I gave him half a reason.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jock had ripped through the
dispatches from Hollandia for the past three days, searching for an answer from
Jillian. He couldn’t be sure if she’d even seen his message, the one asking
her—no, begging, really—to get that lady mapmaker from Biak on his team.

Maybe she has seen it and
already tried to reply…but it’s tied up in the same “low-priority” bullshit I
had to bluff my way through.

Either way, he still needed the
mapmaker’s help—there was a big snag in creating the maps the GIs on Biak
needed so badly. The photo recon squadron flying out of Wakde Island was doing
a great job providing aerial photographs of the island. Those images would be
the blueprints for the maps those GIs needed as they advanced through
rainforests so dense they might not be able to see twenty yards in front of
them. But aerial photographs, shot from an aircraft looking straight down, made
the world look flat. Sometimes there were telltale signs that indicated the
terrain was rising or falling—the meanderings of steams, rivers, and roads;
shadows falling across lower ground—but you were still left with a picture of a
world without accurate vertical relief features. Oblique aerial
photography—side or angular views of the earth below—could be of some help, but
the information they provided could only yield estimates of terrain height, not
the exacting figures needed for efficient land navigation, precise artillery
fire, and coordinating air support.

To get those exacting figures, you
needed surveyed information from the perspective of the ground, and that’s what
Jock and his team of mapping specialists were not getting. A sergeant who’d
been trying all morning to correlate aerial photos with survey data finally
threw down his plotter in disgust.

“I don’t know what planet this
survey team thinks they’re mapping, sir,” the intel sergeant told Jock, “but
they’re a day late and a dollar short—again. Somebody needs to straighten their
asses out.”

“Give me the down and dirty,
Sarge.”

“It looks to me like they’re
shooting their plots too close to the instrument, sir…like the guys with the
barber poles are afraid to walk out too far away and run into some bad guys.
Their data’s all over the place. Look here…if you believe the numbers, this
tableland’s got almost a quarter-mile overhang at its edge. You know that’s
gotta be bullshit. The best I’m getting is goose eggs on the chart, and I
should be getting pinpoints. It’s all fucking worthless.”

“I’ve seen this before,” Jock said.
“The survey teams get real fond of plotting where you’ve already been and not
where you need to go.”

“So what’re you going to do about
it, sir?”

Jock had been considering the
answer to that question ever since this problem first reared its ugly head. He
kept thinking of the promise he’d made to Jillian at Hollandia as the noise and
propwash of the plane taking him back to Wakde swirled impatiently around them.
He remembered how she’d responded, too:

Don’t make promises you can’t
keep.

Still, he wished with all his heart
he could keep that promise.

But there was another promise he
wanted to keep, too: the pledge he’d made to Duty, Honor, Country when
those gold bars were pinned on his shoulders nine years ago at West Point. Even
though the obscenities of war and politics had been doing their best to pervert
its meaning, the visceral knot tying him to that pledge hadn’t been broken. He
felt sure that for a man to do less than he could would only dishonor the dead,
the maimed, and those survivors with minds and souls irreparably shattered.
Worse, it would give new life to the maniacal dreams of demagogues.

To break that pledge now would be
like deciding not to breathe.

The sergeant was still waiting for
his answer.

“I guess someone’s got to go and
give those boys some direction,” Jock said.

The sergeant replied, “You, sir?
You sure you’re up to going back there? I mean, your leg and all…”

Jock smiled and said, “Don’t worry
about me, Sergeant. How hard can it be to ride around in a survey team’s
vehicle for a couple of days, anyway?”

Jillian had received Jock’s message
the night it was sent. But she hadn’t replied for one simple reason:

I don’t have a bloody answer for
him yet.

For those three days since
receiving that message, she’d been trying to track down Greta Christiansen. It
hadn’t been easy: without advising Allied Headquarters, the Red Cross had
decided to move the Dutch refugees at Aitape someplace else. Jillian had only
sorted out this morning where they were going:

Port Moresby. Nearly six hundred
miles as the crow flies across the mountains of New Guinea. The Red Cross was
looking to consolidate their efforts to care for their growing collection of
refugees in a more civilized locale.

Not bloody surprised,
Jillian told herself, after the disgusting spectacle the Yanks put on at
Aitape. But they could have at least given me a timely “heads up” about what
they were doing. Mocking herself, she added, After all, I am the
Assistant Australian Adviser for Civilian and Refugee Affairs.

The refugees wouldn’t be flying to Port
Moresby, though. They were going by boat, all the way around the eastern tip
of New Guinea. It would take almost five days on the slow coastal traders
available.

They’ve already been at sea for
three. If I can hop a flight to Port Moresby first thing
tomorrow, I can get there ahead of her. I just need to tell that wanker I work
for where I’ll be.

Standing outside his office door,
she thought there was a party going on inside. Her boss, the fat captain—the wanker
himself—was loudly proclaiming the brilliance of MacArthur to half a dozen of
his bootlicking underlings.

With great exuberance, the captain
was telling his audience, “He’s done it again. The Biak invasion has not only
put us within easy reach of the Philippines, but it’s stolen the limelight from
that little puddle jump they call The Invasion of France. Not to
mention the Navy’s tiresome and wasteful island-hopping campaign in the Central
Pacific, too. Only a man with the stature of our Supreme Commander can
achieve something so masterful. Eisenhower and Nimitz are mere schoolboys—babes
in the woods, I tell you—compared to the genius that is Douglas MacArthur.”

Jillian was surprised the captain’s
enthralled listeners didn’t burst into applause. But it was time to interrupt
their naïve, rear-echelon idolatry. She stuck her head in the door and said,
“Begging your pardon, Captain, but may I have a word?”

Clearly annoyed by her intrusion,
the captain replied, “Go ahead, Missus Miles. What word would you like to
have?”

“In private, if you please.”

He huffed and fumed for a few
moments before sending the others out of the office. “Now what’s so all-fired
important, Missus Miles?”

She told him.

“Absolutely not,” he replied. “I
need you here in this office, not traipsing all over New Guinea. Wasn’t that
little trip to Aitape enough for you?”

She decided not to bother with a
rebuttal. It would be lost on this blockhead, anyway.

“Actually, Captain, I’m just paying
you the courtesy of telling you I’m going.”

“I beg to differ, Missus Miles. I’m
ordering you—”

She cut him off with a laugh. “I
don’t wear your uniform. You can’t order me to do anything.”

“Perhaps not, Missus Miles, but I
can fire you.”

“You can try, I suppose…but if I
convince this woman to help you Yanks, everyone from your bloody MacArthur on
down will be thanking me, not sacking me. And unfortunately, I’m the only
one who has a chance to convince her. She holds you Americans on a par with the
Japanese. And she has good reason.”

He simmered for a few moments. When
he finally spoke, his tone could only be described as loathing:

“You’ve still got that chip on your
shoulder, don’t you? You think having been a prisoner of war entitles
you to do whatever the hell you want.”

She put her palms on his desk and
leaned across it. He flinched, as if she might spit fire right at him.

“No, you’ve got that all wrong,
Captain. If I’ve got a chip on my shoulder, as you say, it’s because I’ve been
fighting the Japanese one way or the other for more than two years now, while
you and all the other tossers in this establishment have done little more than
polish your desks. None of you have a bloody clue what war is really like. If
you did, you might not be so ready to stick your noses up MacArthur’s arse.”

The fat captain was sweating
profusely now, the khaki of his uniform turning dark around the armpits, the
tight collar, and the knot of his necktie. He realized he’d just lost this
skirmish…but maybe not the war.

“How will you get there, Missus
Miles? You’ll be gone for weeks in travel time alone. This command can’t
tolerate absentee civilian workers.”

Jillian found that funny. “Weeks?
Not bloody likely, I’ll be back in two or three days at most.”

“How on earth will you accomplish
that?”

“Simple. I’ll hop on a plane.”

“But you’re a civilian. Travel on
military aircraft is not authorized.”

Now she was laughing out loud. “You
silly, silly man,” she said. “How hard do you suppose it is for a white woman
in these parts to bat her eyelashes, show some leg, and hitch a ride on one of
your airplanes? Especially one with the credentials I carry from your Supreme
Commander himself? Hell, they’ll even be eager to let me fly the bloody
thing for a bit.”

Jillian didn’t have much time if
she was going to make that flight to Port Moresby. She’d rushed back to her
quarters at Government House to pack. Trying to stuff the last of her things
into a rucksack, she was startled by a voice in the doorway.

“What’s the big rush, baby?” Jock
asked.

Shrieking with delight, she raced
toward him. “What in bloody hell are you doing here?”

But once they were locked in that
joyful embrace, there was no need for answers.

With a deft backheel, he kicked the
door shut.

“Wait, wait,” she said as she
untangled one of her arms and set the door’s lock.

One more kick to clear the bed of
the rucksack…

And they collapsed onto the sheets
as one, pulling down the mosquito netting with them as they fell.

“I don’t…don’t…have much time,
Jock. I…oh, bloody hell, baby…”

And then they were lost in each
other.

When they were finished, they lay
side by side, drenched in sweat and contentment. It was Jillian who returned to
harsh reality first. She jumped up and stepped out of her rumpled dress. After
a quick session at the washstand, she pulled on a fresh shift from the
wardrobe.

“I’ve got to get to Port Moresby,
Jock. Greta—your mapmaker—has been sent there. I hadn’t been able to find her
until this morning.”

“So her name’s Greta Dyckman?”

“That was her maiden name. She’s
Greta Christiansen now.”

“Fantastic. Do whatever it takes to
get her on my team, Jill.”

“I’ll do my best, Yank…but if news
of her father won’t do it, I won’t have anything left to work with.” She
snatched up the rucksack. “And if I don’t hurry, I won’t make the courier
flight today, either.”

“I’ve got a jeep,” he said. “I’ll
give you a ride to the airfield.”

“Brilliant. And while we’re
driving, you can tell me why it is you’re here.” A big smile came over her face
as she pointed to the disheveled bed. “Or was that the bloody reason?”

As they sped toward the airfield,
Jock started to tell her about the surveying problems at Biak and how it was
preventing them from creating the maps the GIs needed so desperately. He hadn’t
gotten to the part about him actually returning there when Jillian said, “Stop
the jeep.”

There was no need for him to say
any more. She’d already figured it out.

When the jeep came to a halt,
Jillian climbed out, walked several paces away, and stood there, arms folded
across her chest, her back to him.

He killed the engine and said,
“Jill, come on. Get back in. It’s not what you think.”

“It’s exactly what I bloody think,
Jock.”

“But I came all this way just to
make sure you heard it from me.”

“Thanks for small favors, Yank.”

She still wouldn’t turn to look at
him. So he went to her.

His limp never seemed worse than at
that moment. He was grateful she wasn’t looking.

What he saw in her eyes surprised
him. He’d expected hurt. Instead, there was a clear-eyed gaze far into the
distance. Or maybe far into the future.

“How long, Jock?”

“Just a few days, I promise.”

“Ahh, there’s that word again. No
promises, Jock. War doesn’t keep them.”

She hopped back into the jeep.
“Come now, Yank, or I’m going to miss my bloody plane.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It had been four days since Major
Homer Rowe took over 1st Battalion. Melvin Patchett summed up his
new commander’s performance this way: The man couldn’t organize a pissing
contest in a brewery.

They’d finally managed to mop up
the lingering Japanese defenders around the main airfield at Mokmer, as well as
the two smaller landing strips at nearby Borokoe and Sorido. But it hadn’t been
easy, and it had taken much too long—days too long, in fact—and Colonel
Molloy was fuming over the slow progress. He was beginning to think he’d made a
mistake elevating Rowe to battalion commander.

“Major Rowe,” Molloy said, “I
handed you what is probably the finest fighting battalion in this division,
maybe in all of 6th Army…and in no time flat, you turned it into the
fuck-up outfit.”

Rowe sputtered his answer:
“We’re…I’m…doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances, Colonel.”

“I think those circumstances
would get a lot better if you got your head out of your ass, Major. For
example, I witnessed that little fiasco yesterday, where you sent Charlie
Company’s assault right through Baker Company’s position. If it hadn’t been for
Captain Grossman’s quick thinking, your men would have been killing each other.
How’d that happen, Homer? Did you forget where you put Baker Company?”

Rowe’s sputtering continued. “No,
sir. It’s just…well…”

“Never mind, Major. But this is the
glorious morning of a brand new day. Do you understand what you’ve been ordered
to do?”

“Yes, sir. We’re to move inland,
onto the high tableland, and pursue the withdrawing Japanese.”

“Not just pursue, Major. Cut them
off and finish them. And I want every last one of your companies up on that
high ground by noon…without you having them trip all over each other. Is that
clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Rowe replied, his voice
squeaking with stress. “Quite clear.”

By noon, the four companies of 1st
Battalion had arrived at their objectives on the high tableland. But the area
wasn’t a wide open plain like their ancient maps indicated. It was a thick
rainforest hiding a small village teeming with invisible Japanese. The first
American squads blundering their way were quickly cut down.

“We’ll envelop the village,” Homer
Rowe said, his words coming like gasps for breath. “Sergeant Patchett, have
Able Company move—”

“Just a damn minute, sir,” Patchett
replied. “Good plan, except we’d better call in artillery on that village
first, before we show our asses again. And we’d better not be too close when it
comes down, because with the coordinates we’ll be pulling off these fucking
maps, only the Good Lord knows where that first round’s gonna land. Let’s
narrow the odds of getting hit by our own guns, okay?”

“I…I suppose, Sergeant,” Rowe
replied as he began fussing with his map.

It became clear very quickly that
the major hadn’t a clue where they were.

“I’ll take care of calling for
fire, sir,” Patchett said. “Why don’t you make sure our wounded are getting pulled
out?”

“Yes, yes…that’s a good idea,
Sergeant.”

As Rowe and his radio operator
scurried off, Patchett asked himself, I wonder if he even knows where the
hell he’s going?

As soon as he called the fire
mission in on his own radio, Patchett switched frequencies and broadcast a
warning on the battalion net: “Every swinging dick better get their asses flat
down on the double. Rounds on the way. Your guess is as good as mine where
they’re gonna hit.”

Nobody guessed that first round
would land behind them—and much too close for comfort.

“Son of a goddamn bitch,” Patchett
said. “They gotta have the elevation of this place all fucking wrong. Hold on
to your hats, boys…next one’s gonna come right overhead, close enough to give
us all haircuts, probably.”

No sooner had Patchett radioed the
corrections, a frantic call came in from Major Rowe’s radioman: “The C.O.’s
down, the C.O.’s down, over.”

Patchett replied, “Down? As in hit,
over?”

“Negative, Sarge, negative. He’s
just down. Something’s wrong with him. Don’t know what, over.”

Ain’t that just ducky? Like we
ain’t got enough going on right now.

The next adjustment round streaked
in, impacting well in front of the huddled GIs this time. It didn’t quite reach
the village but it was close enough to call, Add five-zero, fire for
effect.

“Shot, out,” Patchett’s radioman
announced. The rounds were on the way—six each of 105-millimeter high
explosive, with point-detonating fuzes.

And they better be right on the
fucking money…

A soldier crawled up to Patchett
and tugged at his shoulder. “Sarge, there’s a couple of  trucks coming up the
trail behind us.”

“Are they GI trucks?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they’re lost worse than we
are, son. Don’t worry about ’em. Now watch close…”

The fire for effect rounds
seemed to do exactly what their name implied. One second, the village was
standing, offering a thousand concealed places from which a Japanese soldier
could kill Americans.

The next second, it was leveled,
looking like a box of giant toothpicks had been spilled and splayed across the
ground—a most powerful effect. But it was no guarantee of victory.
Rubble often yielded fighting positions every bit as good as standing
structures. Maybe better.

If the Japanese soldiers in that
village weren’t dead, maybe they’d been stunned and rendered useless by the
blasts just long enough for the GIs to swarm in and finish them.

It only took Patchett a few terse
sentences over the radio to get the companies moving into the village:

Able hook in from the left,

Baker from the right;

Charlie—cover Able and Charlie’s
asses and cut off any Japs running out the back door;

Dog Company—your heavy mortars
stay put and provide fire support on call.

That’s what we call your classic
double envelopment, boys. Y’all make sure you don’t shoot each other, now.

“C’mon, son,” Patchett told his
radioman, “let’s go see what’s the deal with Major Rowe.”

The medic from Dog Company had
beaten them there by several minutes. Despite his frantic efforts to revive
Rowe, one thing was painfully obvious: the man’s dead.

“What on God’s green Earth happened
to him?” Patchett asked.

“Heart attack, I think,” the medic
replied. “There ain’t a mark on him.”

“It fucking figures,” Patchett
said. Then he told his radioman, “Get me Regiment. Maybe we can convince
Colonel Molloy to put a real combat officer in charge this time. And
then call Charlie Company and tell Captain Grossman he’s running the battalion
in the meantime.”

The radioman hadn’t yet keyed the
microphone when he saw the man coming toward them. He’d know him anywhere—and
the limp just made it easier to recognize him at a distance.

“Speaking of real combat
officers, Sarge, take a look over yonder…”

At first, Melvin Patchett thought
he might be dreaming. Or worse, he was seeing a ghost…the ghost of Jock Miles.

But real or imagined, this
apparition could speak: “How’s the morale around here, Top?”

“Pretty shitty right now…and pardon
my French, sir, but just what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Just checking up on your cracker
ass. What happened to Major Rowe?”

“Heart attack, Doc says. Four days
in command was too much for the man, I reckon.”

“He was the C.O.? Did Billingsley
finally get kicked upstairs?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir. He
bought it those same four days back. Got hisself killed trying to take a shit.”

“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch. So
who’s next in line? Lee Grossman?”

“Affirmative. He just got the word
about a second ago.”

The intermittent crackle of small
arms fire from the village swelled to a crescendo. The radioman clamped the
handset against his ear, desperate to hear the voices being drowned out by all
the noise.

“Charlie Company needs the big
mortars, Sarge…and a couple more heavy machine guns. They’ve got a bunch of
Japs on the run.”

“Give ’em what they want, son.”

He turned to Jock and said, “I
gotta get closer, sir. Things are a little hectic right now.”

“I’ll come with you, Top.”

Patchett looked at the walking
stick in Jock’s left hand: At least it ain’t his shooting hand…and he’s
still got the good ol’ Thompson in the other.

“Suit yourself, sir. You sure you
can keep up?”

“Just watch me, Top.”

“Damn glad to have you along then.
Be like old times, sir.”

Captain Lee Grossman was thrilled
to see Jock Miles, the man he’d succeeded as Charlie Company commander two
years ago in the early days of the Papua campaign. Like every other veteran in
the battalion, he desperately wanted to believe Jock had come to take command
once again.

“Technically, I’m with Fifth Air
Force now, Lee,” Jock said. He tapped his walking stick on the ground. “And
this bum leg of mine makes my infantry credentials pretty weak.”

Patchett added, “Besides, with the
job he’s in now, he gets to snuggle up with Miss Jillian every chance he gets.
Hard for a man to pass up duty like that.”

“No, Top, it isn’t like that, I’m
afraid. Jill and I don’t get to see much of each other at all.”

With a knowing smile, Patchett
replied, “I’m sure you two find a way plenty of times, sir. But now that we
done quieted the Japs down for a spell, run it by us again exactly what you’re
doing here.”

“It’s simple,” Jock said. “Your
maps are old and obsolete and I’m going to fix that. I had the same problem
when I was stuck on this damn island a couple of weeks ago.”

Patchett was surprised. “You been
here before, sir?”

“Long story…and it wasn’t planned,
believe me. But speaking of bad maps, I couldn’t help but notice that
adjustment round that landed behind you earlier today. It damn near killed me
and that survey team of mine. What the hell was that all about?”

“Target elevation error,” Patchett
replied.

“That stuff’s been happening to us
all the time, sir,” Grossman added. “We just pray we can get eyes on where that
first round lands…and that it’s not right on top of us.”

Jock asked, “Are you setting up
registration points for your artillery and mortars?”

Patchett and Grossman exchanged
looks like schoolboys caught without their homework. It was Grossman who
finally spoke up: “Haven’t had much opportunity, sir.”

The answer surprised Jock. It
wasn’t like either of them not to be on top of everything. He asked, “Why the
hell not, Lee?”

“Most of our target locations are
pretty indistinct, sir. It’s hard to find them again when you need them—all the
trees look alike. And it’s not like we’ve got maps good enough to record them
on.”

“I see your point,” Jock replied.
“But that village you just cleared the Japs out of…you sure as hell better make
that a registration point on the double. Your artillery knows exactly where
that is now.”

“I’ll take care of that right
quick, sir,” Patchett said as he motioned for his radioman to join them.

“Great, Top. Now I need a favor
from you guys. That survey team of mine…how about we hook them up with your
recon platoon? It just might help the quality of their work a whole lot if they
knew someone was watching their backs…someone who wasn’t still green behind the
ears.”

Patchett snickered. “You mean
they’re a li’l bit skittish about getting their asses out in the boondocks,
sir?”

“More than a little bit, Top.”

“I reckon you’re right, sir. First
we’ve seen of a survey team on this damn island, and we’ve been the tip of
the spear ever since we got here. And I’m sure ol’ Bogater would be glad to
take them under his wing.”

Jock smiled at the sound of that
name. “That crazy Cajun’s got the recon platoon?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Outstanding. This is getting
better by the minute.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sergeant Bogater Boudreau thought
his leg was being pulled when he was told Major Miles was with the battalion
again. He’d replied, “I might’ve been born at night…but I wasn’t born last
night. So y’all can fuck off.”

When he reported to the battalion
CP for the survey team briefing, though, he was never so happy to owe someone
an apology. “As I live and breathe, sir,” Bogater said, “I thought I died and
gone to heaven when I saw you standing there. On second thought, forget the
dying part. We been through enough of that together, ain’t we?”

“Good to see you, too, Bogater.
You’re a couple of stripes heavier, aren’t you?”

“Yessir, seems like the brass think
if they give you more stripes, you’ll like it here better, the dumb bastards.
Present company excepted, of course.”

Jock began the briefing by telling
the story of the dead Japanese lieutenant’s rucksack containing the fish
wrapped in an American map. “So as you can see, men, the Japs think as little
of our maps as we do.”

“Damn, sir,” Boudreau said, “maybe
we oughta just shitcan this Operation Alamo stuff and call this whole
fiasco Operation Fishwrapper. Fits a whole lot better.”

“Not a bad idea, Sergeant
Boudreau,” Jock replied. “But the reason our maps stink is we still haven’t
compiled all the data we need to make them worth something. We’ve got great
aerial photos…but they give us a flat world. And as we can see all around us,
this place is anything but flat. And there are a lot of terrain features we
can’t see in an aerial photo, especially with tree cover blocking the view of
the ground. We’re going to need survey information—damn good survey
information—to fill in the missing pieces. The survey team and recon platoon
are going to work together to get it.”

Jock showed them where they’d be
working that afternoon: with a grease pencil, he drew a big box on a
high-altitude photo that included their current location. “We’re going to start
here,” he said, “and do a continuous survey north, covering a corridor a mile
wide all the way across the island. While we’re working in First Battalion’s
area of operations, Sergeant Bogater’s recon platoon will provide support for
the survey party. How does this play into the big picture? Like this: the
division’s objective is to hold a line clear across the island. Once we own
that line, we’ll be able to cut off the Japs trying to withdraw to the west.
The Navy will see to it they can’t send reinforcements or evacuate anyone by
sea, so every Jap we stop here means a man we won’t have to fight again
someplace else on this rock.”

The survey team section chief—a
smart-mouthed buck sergeant from Brooklyn named Lynch—was less than thrilled.
“In other words, sir, we get to stick our necks out with the toughest job,
while the other survey teams get to fuck the dog behind the front
lines.”

Jock smiled when he saw the icy
glare Bogater shot the survey sergeant’s way. He waited until he was sure Lynch
had caught the look, too, and then replied, “Negative, Sergeant Lynch. You’ve
just got the honor of being first. As soon as I’m finished with you guys, I’m
going to get the other survey teams in gear, too. They’ll be sticking their
necks out as far as yours, just a little farther down the line from here.
Are there any more questions?”

There were none.

“Then good luck to you all.
Frequencies and progress reporting times are in the commo section of the ops
order. I’ll leave you in Sergeant Boudreau’s very capable hands.”

The survey team seemed in no hurry
to get moving. The Cajun draped an arm around Lynch’s shoulders and said,
“C’mon, mon frère, let’s get your boys saddled up. You and me
gonna be great friends, we are.”

Maybe great friends was a
bit of wishful thinking as Bogater dragged the sullen Lynch and his four
terrified PFCs deeper into the rainforest. But at least they were getting the
job done properly.

“You don’t gotta worry,” the Cajun
said. “My guys are way, way out all around us. They’ll let us know if any Japs
are around, believe you me.”

He watched Lynch set up a shot on
the transit. But something wasn’t right; although they were plotting a hill
several hundred yards ahead, there was no stick man holding the
calibrated barber pole at its peak for Lynch to target.

“Wait a damn minute,” Boudreau
said. “How come there ain’t nobody up on that hill with one of them sticks?”

“Don’t need it,” Lynch replied.
“It’s far enough away to qualify as a distant aiming point.”

“Bullshit on that. Even a dumb coonass
like me knows a distant aiming point gotta be distant. I could hit the
top of that hill with a rock. And if we get that location wrong, everything you
shoot off it’s gonna be wrong, too.”

Bogater picked up a barber pole off
the ground, walked over to one of Lynch’s stick men, and shoved the pole into
his hands. “Let’s go, young man. You and Corporal Simms here are gonna take a
little walk up that hill.”

“But Sergeant Lynch said I didn’t
have to.”

“I’m changing the sergeant’s mind
for him, son. Get your ass moving. Simms will hold your hand all the way up
there, if you like.”

The two men trudged off toward the
hill.

“This is all a waste of fucking
time,” Lynch said. “It ain’t gonna matter all that much how I take this
shot…pole or not.”

Boudreau replied, “It’s gonna
matter a whole lot to me, Sergeant Lynch, next time I’m calling for fire on
that hill and that first round don’t get in the ballpark. And it’s gonna matter
a whole lot to Major Miles, too.”

“I don’t understand why everybody
in your outfit’s so willing to eat shit for that gimpy-legged son of a bitch.
Does he give out blow jobs on Sunday or—”

The next thing Lynch remembered was
being flat on his back, his jaw throbbing like it had been struck by a hammer.
Bogater’s snarling face hovered over him. The muzzle of the Cajun’s Thompson
was inches from his face.

“You ever say anything like that in
front of any man in this battalion again, he’s gonna shoot you dead on the
spot. Consider this your warning, mon frère. Now get the fuck on your
feet and take that plot.”

Colonel Molloy studied the piece of
paper in silence as the KP poured him and Jock another cup of coffee. The
colonel seemed troubled. He was pacing the CP tent with that faraway look on
his face all soldiers wore as they struggled to deal with the trials of their
profession.

“I don’t know what to do about
this, Jock,” Molloy said, waving the paper in his hand.

“About what, sir?”

“I’ve never seen anything like this
in all my years of soldiering. It’s a petition…can you believe that? Signed by
every officer and NCO in First Battalion. Your old battalion.”

Jock cringed. He’d learned a long
time ago never to sign your name to anything critical of your command or a
higher one. The Army wasn’t a democracy; civil institutions didn’t cut any ice
here. Those who tried to make it work like one endured quick and vicious
punishments.

Every officer and NCO. Shit,
that sounds like a mutiny. Were my guys—my ex-guys, I suppose—really dumb
enough to put their names on something like that en masse?

God, I hope not.

The next sentence Molloy spoke
should have brought him great relief.

But it didn’t…for a completely
different reason.

“Jock, what this paper says is they
want you back as their battalion commander.”

“But I thought Lee Grossman was
supposed to get moved up. He’s more than ready.”

Molloy laid the petition on the
table in front of Jock and pointed to the first signature:

Leon Grossman, Captain,
USA.

Right below it was Melvin
Patchett, Master Sergeant, USA.

Feelings of pride and dread were
stirring themselves into a witch’s brew in his gut. He wanted the job back.
There was no doubt in his mind.

So I limp a little…okay, maybe a
lot sometimes. The field grades of this man’s army are full of old coots with
one physical problem or another.

How can I say no and let my men
down?

But how can I say yes and let
Jillian down? I’m not a fool…all her talk about “don’t make promises” assumed
we were talking about staff jobs, not a combat command.

Would she leave me?

What the hell do I do?

“Am I really being offered a choice
here, sir?”

“Absolutely, Jock. It’s your call.
But I think you know what I’d like. There’s just one thing—I need an answer by
tomorrow morning.”

That didn’t seem like enough time. Sleeping
on it wasn’t an option, because Jock knew there’d be no sleep tonight with
this hanging over his head.

“But sir, how could we make this
work? I’m in Fifth Air Force now. That’s a whole different chain of command.”

“Don’t worry about that, Jock. Buck
Ziminski and I are classmates from the Point. He didn’t just save your ass from
getting shipped home when he offered you that job—he was returning a favor.”

“A favor…to you, sir?”

Molloy nodded. “So he and I are
even now. He never figured he’d have you forever. Now I know your leg can be a
challenge for you sometimes, Jock…”

“It’s not about my leg, sir.”

“That’s good to hear. And speaking
of Buck Ziminski, I heard he was about to promote you to light colonel. I
wouldn’t mind doing those honors myself, Jock.”

That news took Jock by surprise.
Promotion had been the last thing on his mind for quite some time.

“But what about the survey teams,
sir?”

“Looks like you’ve already solved
that problem, Jock. I’m detaching the survey teams to the individual infantry
battalions, continuing what you’ve started. It was a really good move. It’ll
keep them on track.”

“Sir, if I say yes, can I get back
to Hollandia—even just for a day—so I can talk to Jill in person?”

“No can do, Jock. I’ve been called
back there myself. I’m flying out tomorrow morning to brief the big boss.
I can’t have one of my battalion commanders gone at the same time, can I?
Especially my best one. I can’t have this whole show going to hell in a
handbasket overnight. Not again.”

The die was cast: Dick Molloy was
already talking as if the deal was closed. They both knew it was.

The colonel’s body language made it
clear the meeting was over. He had one more thing to say: “Tell you what,
Jock…write down whatever you want to say to Jillian and I’ll deliver it to her
personally tomorrow.”

He knew it would be the hardest
letter he’d ever had to write. All he could do now was hope she’d
understand…somehow.

Chapter Thirty

It was just past noon when the ship carrying the Dutch refugees arrived at Port Moresby. Warily, the men
and women stepped down the gangplank to be shepherded onto waiting trucks.
Jillian stood by, watching the procession, but there was no sign of the woman
she’d come to collect.

“Where is Greta Christiansen?” she
asked the man from the Red Cross, who was checking off names on a clipboard.
Two very disinterested American MPs were by his side.

“Christiansen…Christiansen. Ah,
yes. I have her name on the list. It’s right here.”

“So where in bloody hell is she?”

His tone suddenly pompous, he
asked, “And who is asking?”

She showed him her credentials.

His face dropped. Any hint of
arrogance was gone.

“If she’s not on board, Miss
Miles—”

“It’s Missus Miles, thank
you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Missus Miles. But
if she’s not on board, I have no idea where she is. I can ask these MPs to go
and search—”

“No need getting MPs involved,” she
said. “These people aren’t criminals.” She called to the ship’s first mate
standing at the top of the gangplank. “Permission to come aboard?”

With a theatrical flourish, he
bowed from the waist while sweeping his arm wide and high in welcome.

Stepping onto the deck, she asked
the mate, “Do you know of a Greta Christiansen onboard this vessel?”

He grinned as if she’d just tapped
into a juicy subject. “Yes, of course,” he replied.

“Well, where the bloody hell is
she? I would think she’d be in a hurry to get off this rust bucket.”

“Now that we’re in port, I’m sure
you’ll find her in the navigator’s quarters, ma’am.”

“The navigator’s quarters? Why?”

“Turns out they’re husband and
wife. A real touching story…they both thought the other was dead. Until she
turned up on this ship.”

The Red Cross man on the wharf was
getting anxious. “WELL? IS SHE THERE?” He pointed to his wristwatch.

“NO,” Jillian replied with a
perfectly straight face. “I’M AFRAID NOT.”

He seemed unsure what to do. He
paced in a circle at the foot of the gangplank for a few moments, and then
stopped to jot something on his clipboard. When he was done, he signaled the
trucks and the MPs to be on their way, jumped into a waiting car, and was gone.

“What was all that about?” the
first mate asked.

“Much easier than having a little
administrative tussle over custody right there on the dock. Let’s just say
Missus Christiansen has a higher calling at the moment than cooling her heels
in another resettlement camp. Show me to the navigator’s quarters, please.”

It took a lot of knocking—and a few
minutes of waiting—before the navigator opened the door to his darkened
compartment. Looking past the annoyed and shirtless man in the doorway, Jillian
could see Greta inside, hurriedly buttoning her dress. She didn’t look thrilled
to see who their caller was, either.

“Hello, Greta. I just did you a
favor,” Jillian said, “and maybe I can do you another.”

“If this has anything to do with
working for the American barbarians, you already have my answer.”

Greta joined her husband in the
doorway. Jillian extended her hand to him. “Lukas Christiansen, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, miss,” he
replied, his tone anything but cordial.

“It’s missus, actually. The Dutch
government-in-exile will be delighted to know you are alive and well. And a
navigator, too! Not a lot of difference between cartography and navigation, is
there?”

“What would you know about it?”

Greta provided the answer.
“Actually, Lukas, she knows quite a lot. She used to be a ship’s master.”

“Still am, technically. Just doing
some other war work for the Yanks at the moment.”

He still wasn’t impressed. “It
figures. She speaks like a fucking American.”

Again his wife filled in the
blanks. “That’s only because she’s married to one, Lukas.”

Pleading woman-to-woman now, Greta
said, “Jillian, I’ve only got a few moments left with my husband, the last ones
for who knows how long. Please leave us in peace before I must fall back into
the chaos of Red Cross hospitality.”

“Actually, that was the favor I
just did for you, Greta. I told them you weren’t on board.”

At first, she didn’t seem to
comprehend. Then, as the short-term implications sunk in—she was free to linger
with her husband—she became amused. A few moments later, the long-term
implications reared their ugly heads.

“Oh my god, Jillian…you just made
me a ghost again! I’m officially missing. I don’t exist.”

“No, no, no, Greta. It won’t be
like that at all. Have you forgotten what my job is? And who I work for?”

“You can fix it? You can make it
right again?”

“Of course. Didn’t I fix it
at Aitape?”

The conversation was making Lukas
confused and distrustful. Greta soothed him, holding him close while running
her hand through his hair. He started to speak—to hurl more vitriol, no
doubt—but Greta shushed him with a kiss.

“You said something about another
favor, Jillian. What would that be?”

“I’m thrilled that you’ve found
your husband again, Greta…but how would you like your father back, too?”

Within a few hours, the two women
were on the day’s last military flight back to Hollandia. Greta spent their
time in the air telling Jillian every detail of Lukas’ miraculous story. How,
after they were captured by the Japanese and then separated, he’d been placed
on a motor barge with other prisoners which headed west toward the Moluccas.
The barge swamped in a storm; a few of the male prisoners made it ashore on the
Vogelkop Peninsula. The escapees worked their way south, managing to stay
just ahead of the advancing wave of Japanese. Hitching a ride at Sorong on a
trawler which survived several attacks by Japanese aircraft as it crossed the Banda
and Arafura Seas, they finally landed in Darwin. There, Lukas met a Dutch
freighter captain desperate for a navigator and willing to overlook the
undocumented status of this ragged but talented refugee who knew how to read
charts and use a sextant.

Jillian asked, “And he never
thought to identify himself to any of the Allied authorities?”

“Let’s just say he reveled in his
anonymity.”

“Like a hermit at sea.”

“Exactly. I’m sure it was his way
of escaping the war…and the memory of losing me. He was so sure I’d die a
prisoner.”

Jillian replied, “They love to
underestimate us, don’t they?”

They landed just before dark and
went straight to the Office of Civil Affairs. Her boss was still at his desk.
He took one look at Greta and said, “Oh, good grief! Don’t tell me this woman
is Greta Christiansen.”

“Of course she is. She’s the reason
I went to Port Moresby, remember?”

His voice becoming loud and shrill,
the fat captain said, “Good lord, Missus Miles, you’ve done it all wrong. Don’t
you realize you’ve just kidnapped a Dutch citizen?”

“Not true,” Jillian replied, not in
the least bit concerned by the captain’s rage. “She came of her own free will.
Isn’t that right, Greta?”

Greta had no trouble mimicking
Jillian’s nonchalance. “Absolutely. I’m here to help.”

“THE RED CROSS HAS ALREADY LISTED
HER AS MISSING. THEY DIDN’T WASTE A SECOND WIRING ME THE REPORT. DO YOU
REALIZE THE AMOUNT OF PAPERWORK AND AGGRAVATION THIS LITTLE STUNT OF YOURS IS
GOING TO CAUSE, MISSUS MILES?”

“Actually, Captain, it will cause
neither. A simple letter to the Dutch East Indies government-in-exile in Australia
will suffice. I can have that prepared and on its way first thing tomorrow
morning. By the way, we’ve turned up her husband alive and well, so we can
cross another name off our missing, presumed dead list.”

He looked about to boil over but
Jillian kept on talking. “And as far as the Red Cross goes, they have nothing
to be aggravated about. We’ve just given them one less mouth to feed. As soon
as Missus Christiansen signs her statement of employment with Supreme Allied
Headquarters, the baffling mystery of her whereabouts will be solved to
their satisfaction.”

The fat captain wasn’t going to let
it go that easily. “This is all highly irregular, Missus Miles. You’ve made me
and my command look like a bunch of gangsters.”

“Oh, that’s just bloody bullshit. War
is highly irregular, Captain. And as far as the gangster claim, I think
Missus Christiansen would agree—all you Yanks are bloody gangsters. Right,
Greta?”

“Correct, Jillian.”

“So if you’ll excuse us, Captain,
we’re going to enjoy a drink and a meal at the officers’ club. Good night.”

They made it as far as the veranda,
where Jillian was startled to come face to face with Colonel Molloy.

“What are you doing here, Colonel?”
she asked.

“Actually, I was coming to say ‘hi’
to you. Figured you were still at work.” He looked to Greta and asked, “And who
do we have here?”

Jillian gave him the lowdown.
Molloy was delighted to learn Greta would be offering her mapmaking skills and
knowledge of Biak’s terrain to the Americans.

“We can certainly use your help,”
he said. “How soon can you join us on the island?”

Greta replied, “As soon as I can
collect some suitable clothes.”

“Excellent. I’m sure Jillian can
have you decked out in no time. You can fly back with me tomorrow.”

Molloy’s smile faded; there was
something else on his mind. Producing a small envelope from his shirt pocket,
he said, “Jillian…this is from Jock. I promised I’d give it to you personally.”

“Oh dear lord…is he all right?”

“Yes, yes. He’s fine. Perfectly
fine.” He pressed the envelope into her hand.

Shit. He’s being too solicitous.
This is bad news. I know it.

“I can’t read it out here. It’s too
dark. Excuse me for a moment.”

Back inside the villa, she read
Jock’s letter with trembling hands. Smiling through her tears, she was touched
that his men—some of whom she knew so well—had loved him so much they’d
petitioned for his return as their commander. It was easy to understand his
bond with them. She felt a bond to those men, too. They’d all been through so
much together in the past two years.

I should be jealous.

My husband has two wives…me and
his bloody First Battalion.

But how will he manage back in
the bush with that leg of his?

Knowing him, I’m afraid he’ll
find a way.

If those bastards don’t take
brilliant care of him, though, they’ll be answering to me.

She had to stop and pull herself
together before she could make it through the last paragraph:

Promises, Jill…I keep
remembering what you said about promises. How war doesn’t let you keep them.
I’d like to believe it, now more than ever. My only fear is that war or not,
I’ve pushed it one broken promise too far this time. I lost you once to the
Japs. If I lost you again…this time to my own foolishness…there would be
nothing left for me to live for.

She was too overwrought go back
outside and face Greta and Colonel Molloy. If she tried to speak, she knew
nothing would come out.

Just a few more moments and I’ll
be right as rain.

That was all it took. When she
stepped onto the veranda, Molloy’s eyes wouldn’t meet hers. Greta, with no such
problem, saw the tracks of Jillian’s tears glistening even in the dark. She
threw her arms around her.

“I’m fine,” Jillian said. “I’ve
grown quite accustomed to this insanity.”

She asked Molloy, “Really? A bloody
petition?”

“Can you believe it?”

“Yes, Colonel, I can. Nothing
surprises me about your Army anymore. Tell me…were you there when he made his
decision?”

Molloy nodded reluctantly, as if
confessing to some transgression against her.

“Was it hard for him?”

He nodded again, this time with a
bit more enthusiasm.

“Silly boys,” she whispered. “You
all can be so thick. As if he really had a choice…”

Jillian walked to the veranda’s
railing. Looking up at the starry sky, she added, “This war is our life…until
it ends, one way or another. And there’s not a bloody thing we can do about
it.”

Chapter Thirty-One

By the time Colonel Molloy returned
to his regimental HQ on Biak, Bogater Boudreau’s new name for the campaign they
were waging had stuck fast. It might still officially be Operation Alamo,
but every man in the regiment was now referring to it as Operation
Fishwrapper. Jock found himself explaining to the colonel how the new name
had come to be.

“So I’ve got you and your hoodlums
to thank for this,” Molloy said, trying to sound displeased by the state of
affairs.

No one in the regimental CP was
fooled. They all knew their colonel wasn’t really upset. Maybe he even likes
it, Jock thought. He certainly agrees with the sentiment.

“Think of it as a morale-boosting
device, sir,” Jock offered. “It puts a smile on the men’s faces.”

Molloy replied, “Always looking on
the bright side, eh, Major Miles?” Then he broke into a devilish smile of his
own. “By the way, that’ll be the last time anyone calls you Major
Miles.”

He reached into his pocket and
produced a silver oak leaf, the insignia of a lieutenant colonel. Unpinning the
gold leaf from Jock’s collar, he installed the new rank in its place. “I’m sure
you’d rather have your wife here doing this,” Molloy added, “but at least she
can tell you in her own words how she feels.”

From another pocket, he produced
Jillian’s letter.

Jock held it gingerly in his hands,
like it might explode if handled too roughly. “I shouldn’t read this right here
and now, sir.”

“Read it whenever you like, Colonel
Miles. But let me remind you that good things come in threes. You’ve
already seen the first two…”

“So this letter’s a good thing,
sir?”

Molloy smiled. “I believe you’ll
find that to be the case, Jock. And now, for that third good thing, just take a
look outside the tent.”

A GI was helping a red-haired woman
unload her gear from Molloy’s jeep.

Jock said, “Let me guess…that
hair’s a dead giveaway. That’s got to be Andreas Dyckman’s daughter, Greta.”

“Yep, that’s her. Your wife did one
smooth job rounding her up. Come on…you need to meet her. She’s quite an
interesting lady.”

As they shook hands, Greta said,
“Very nice to meet you, Colonel Miles…and congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thanks. Call me Jock.”

“As you wish. Actually, the
familiarity shouldn’t be a problem. Jillian’s told me so much about you I feel
I’ve known you for years. By the way, your wife is an amazingly courageous
woman, you know.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. She’s a
hell of a lot tougher than I am.”

“And very persuasive, too,” Greta
added. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.”

They went into the CP tent. A big
map of the island hung from a side curtain. Greta took one look at it and
whistled in surprise. It sounded like a bomb falling. “Where did you get this
sorry relic?” she asked.

“It’s the best we’ve got at the
moment,” Jock replied. “There are five survey teams at work. We’re updating the
map at a rate of about twenty square miles a day, when the Japs don’t slow us
down.”

“At that rate, you could be at it
for six months or more. My husband and I mapped most of the southern island. It
took us over a year.”

She went back to studying the map.
“Where is my father?” she asked.

“Last I saw of him, he was about
here,” Jock replied as he pointed to a spot on the east coast. “When I left him
and his party two weeks ago, he planned to go north. They had a radio set…a
receiver and transmitter. We’ve tried to raise him a number of times, with no
luck. I’m not surprised, though—he never liked to use the transmitter. That may
be a good thing, because if you transmit, the Japs can find you real easy.”

“Or maybe he thinks you’re the
Japanese trying to trick him into revealing his position. Did he have any of
the maps Lukas and I drew?”

“Nope. He said the Japs ended up
getting everything he had.”

“Well, there weren’t very many.
They were all plotted by hand. We didn’t have any printing presses for mass
production. You haven’t captured any maps from the Japanese, have you?”

“No, not yet, I’m afraid.”

“Well, the Japanese have had two
years to reproduce our maps. Maybe even make their own. There’s got to be
plenty of decent ones around this island by now. It’s a pity you don’t have any
of them.”

Greta stepped back to take in the
entire map hanging there in one glance. She frowned while calculating the scope
of the task ahead, finally saying, “Oh well, let’s get to work. Unfortunately,
it’s been a few years and I don’t have perfect recall, but I’m sure I can fill
in a good many blanks for you very quickly. I assume your lack of elevation
data is causing you the most problems?”

“You assume correctly,” Jock
replied.

“Fine. On which area do you need to
focus first?”

Jock tore open Jillian’s letter the
moment he returned to his battalion’s CP. Patchett caught a glimpse of him seated
in a corner of the tent, reading intently. In all their time together—even
those times under fire—he’d never seen Jock looking so apprehensive.

The boss needs a little privacy.
I’ll come back in a spell.

When Patchett returned, Jock was in
exactly the same place, his eyes still glued to the letter. He said nothing,
but his demeanor had done an about face: he looked relaxed and content.

A man could read a one-page
letter about twenty times in the couple of minutes it took to catch me that
smoke. Damn if his eyes ain’t welled up a bit, though. But look at him grinning
like the cat that ate the canary. It’s like a ton of weight just got lifted off
him.

If she ain’t leaving him over
this, I reckon she ain’t never gonna.

“Good news?” Patchett asked. It was
a safe question. He already knew the answer.

“Yeah, Top. Couldn’t be any better,
all things considered.”

By evening, the big map at the
regimental CP looked quite different. Working from memory, Greta had provided a
vast amount of topographic data for the current area of operations. A team of
intel NCOs drew her enhancements by hand onto smaller maps—the fishwrappers—for
immediate distribution to the infantry and artillery battalions.

“We owe Missus Christiansen here a
big note of thanks,” Colonel Molloy told his assembled commanders and staff.
“In just one day, we’ve seen a tremendous increase in artillery effectiveness
alone…not to mention a marked decrease in the terrain surprises which
have plagued us from the moment we set foot on this island.”

Artillery effectiveness…every
man in the room knew how much that meant, especially when firing on mobile
targets that don’t bother standing still while you’re adjusting rounds on them.
Before today, it had often taken five or six adjustment rounds before fire
for effect was called, the forward observers often trying to adjust the
unseen impacts by sound alone in the opaque wilderness of the rainforest. A
formation of Japanese soldiers could have run hundreds of yards while all that
was going on. The fire for effect rounds would take only trees as their
victims.

But they wouldn’t get very far if
that first round was close to on target—or you were confident enough of
the enemy’s location to call fire for effect right off the bat. Then
they wouldn’t have a chance to run.

“There’s an added bonus,” Colonel
Molloy said. “Now we have a much better idea where the tanks can actually
operate and do us the most good…and the area we’re going into tomorrow looks
perfect for tanks. Until we hit the coastal cliffs, it’s relatively level
ground, with room for them to maneuver in the forest. I’ll turn it over to the
S3 now. He’ll give you all the details.”

As the briefing wound to a close,
Greta went right back to work on the map. Jock walked over and said, “I think I
have an idea that might do us both some good.”

He had her complete attention. “I’m
sure your father’s out there, Greta, and I’m betting he’s real close—and in a
position to provide us some great intel—if we can just get him to talk to us.”

She knew immediately what he had in
mind. “You want me to send a message in code that he’ll know had to come from
me, don’t you?”

Jock replied, “That’s exactly what
I was thinking. What kind of code?”

“Something in Dutch. Perhaps the
lullaby he used to sing to me as a child.”

“It’ll have to be short. We don’t
want him on the air too long.”

“No problem, Jock. It’s just a
little song.”

“Great. Let’s run it by Colonel
Molloy and get his stamp of approval.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Maybe it was the newfound
phenomenon of deadly accurate artillery fire sweeping the rainforest ahead of
the advancing GIs. Or perhaps it was the clank and squeak of American tank
tracks that quickly filled the void, sounding as methodical and inescapable as
a meat grinder, whenever the artillery barrage leapt forward. Whatever it was,
after that first, decimating contact earlier this morning, what was left of the
shattered Japanese formation was fleeing to the north, not bothering to stand
and fight. At least not for the time being. The combat veterans in 1st
Battalion could not recall a time they’d advanced so quickly. They all were
thinking the same thing:

Are they going to run themselves
right into the Pacific? Or are we getting suckered as they hot-foot it to a
fallback position…where they’ll dig in and start kicking our asses?

A rookie PFC in Charlie Company
thought jogging a few yards behind the tanks was insanity. “Why the hell don’t
we just ride on the damn things?” he asked First Sergeant Tom Hadley. “Fuck
this double-time bullshit.”

“Why? You’re asking why,
numbnuts? It’s because we’re in contact, you dumb shit. A tank hull ain’t going
to give you cover if you’re sitting on top of it. And if you get shot off the
damn thing, who’s going to keep the Nips from hopping on and stuffing a grenade
or two into the vents? And one more thing—if you’re up on top, when the main
gun fires it’s like getting kicked in the nuts and punched in the ears at the
same time. Trust me…you’re better off down here, close to good ol’ Mother
Earth.”

It didn’t take more than a few
seconds for Tom Hadley’s advice to prove true: every man in Charlie Company
went sprawling as Japanese machine guns crisscrossed their column. “STAY DOWN
BUT KEEP FUCKING MOVING,” Hadley called out for the benefit of the rookies, who
were curled up as if trying to squeeze their entire bodies into their helmets.
The veterans didn’t need to be told. They were already yards ahead,
low-crawling for dear life. They knew how the Japs worked from hard experience:

Once we’re stopped dead, they’ll
rip us to shreds with mortars. Gotta get out of the kill zone.

They crawled until they could
huddle behind the steel mass of the tanks, now slowed  as the crewmen scanned
for the enemy gunners. The veterans were there a good minute before the rookies
finally made it.

“Nice of you to fucking join us,” a
platoon sergeant told them, his voice nearly drowned out by the staccato clank
clank clank of bullets ricocheting off the tanks’ hulls and the roar of the
tanks’ guns, returning fire. “You rookies just learned another important lesson
in how to stay alive out here.”

Another minute and the fight was
over as quickly as it had begun. The steel of the tanks prevailed against
Japanese armored only in mortal flesh. As their men scoured what was left of
the enemy position, Captain Grossman asked First Sergeant Hadley, “What’s our
casualties, Top?”

“Two wounded, sir, not too badly.
They can make it back to the aid station on their own.”

Grossman blew a sigh of relief.
“There couldn’t have been more than a handful of Japs here, Tom. They were dug
in deep…that’s why the artillery didn’t get them. How many bodies did we turn
up?”

“Six so far, sir.”

“I doubt we’ll find more than that.
Any blood trails?”

“Not a one, sir.”

Giving a Stuart tank a friendly pat
on its hull, Grossman said, “I’m starting to like these contraptions more every
day. But I’m betting this little skirmish was only a delaying action. We’re
going to hit a lot more shit as we keep going forward…and I think we just went
off the edge of this new map, dammit.”

An excited young corporal came
running up. “Sir! Top! You’ve got to see this!” Thrusting the rucksack he was
carrying toward them, he added, “Found it under one of them dead Japs.”

Grossman and Hadley jumped back in
terror. Neither man would take the rucksack. “Did you open that fucking thing
already, Corporal?” the first sergeant asked.

“Yeah, sure. It’s full of maps and
stuff.”

“Did it cross your mind it might be
booby trapped?”

“I was real careful when I did,
First Sergeant.”

“Let’s hope so,” Hadley replied as
he took the rucksack.

Just like the corporal said, it
contained maps which were far more detailed than the ones the GIs were using.
The stuff he was referring to turned out to be a sheaf of Japanese Army
documents.

Grossman turned to his radio
operator and said, “Get Battalion on the line. Tell them we might’ve just hit
the jackpot.”

At the regimental communications
section, a new radio operator was coming on duty. He took a look at the
messages lined up to be sent. On top was that crazy one in Dutch. They’d been
sending it since last night, tapping out words they didn’t understand in Morse
letter for letter. They’d received no reply.

The message contained just two
lines:

Slaap kindje slaap,

daar buiten loopt een schaap.

He asked the man he was relieving,
“What’d that lady say this meant, anyway?”

“It means something like Sleep
baby sleep, outside there walks a sheep.”

“Hmm…don’t make no fucking sense to
me.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to make
sense to you, pal. That’s what the colonel wants, so we’re gonna keep sending
it.”

Sliding onto the stool in front of
the radio set, he tapped out the Dutch words, just as he had every two hours of
his shift last night. When it was done, he shuffled the message back into the
queue without giving it another thought. But as he was about to start sending
the next message, his headphones came alive with Morse. The characters seemed
like gibberish:

Een schaap met witte voetjes,

die drinkt zijn melk zo zoetjes.

It was a moment before he noticed
the repetition of those two words: een schaap.

“Hey, Sarge,” he called out to the
section chief, “somebody besides me is talking about sheep in Dutch.”

“You mean we finally got an
answer?”

“Looks that way.”

The sergeant ran to get Greta
Christiansen.

By the time Jock arrived at Charlie
Company, Lee Grossman had gone over all the maps they’d taken from that
Japanese rucksack. They were printed in Japanese, not Dutch, and had detailed
topographic information. In addition, symbols that could only be the location
of defensive positions had been drawn in by hand. The position the GIs had just
overrun—the place they’d found these maps—was clearly listed.

“Look…this place was just an
outpost,” Grossman told Jock. “According to this map, their main position is
about five hundred yards ahead, right in front of Baker Company. If we get
Baker to fix the Japs in place with the sea at their backs, I can swing my
company around from the left real quick….and Able can swing in from the right.
We’ll surround them…and finish them. They won’t have any chance of getting away.”

Jock eyes didn’t lift from the map.
“Hold on a minute, Lee,” he said. “Something’s fishy here.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I don’t believe this map, Lee.
I’ve walked across this island before—not quite this far west—but I’ve still
got a pretty good feel for lay of the land. And it’s just not as regular as
this map wants us to believe. The coast especially…it gets real rough and then
cliffs drop off to the coastal lowlands.” He scanned the curtain of rainforest
all around them. “And you can never really get a good look at what’s ahead
because the trees hide so much.”

“You think it’s some kind of
set-up, sir? A hoax?”

“Could be. Maybe the Japs at that
outpost were supposed to leave those maps behind for us to find, but your guys
nailed them before they could pull back. Look at the defensive positions
they’ve drawn in. Do you really think the Japs would occupy low ground rather
than high ground?”

“Yeah, I see your point, sir.”

Jock rolled up the maps. “How much
do you want to bet that if we moved on the position they’ve got drawn, we’d be
the ones trapped on the low ground, while they’re above us all around?”

Grossman wasn’t in a betting mood.
He just nodded.

“They’re going to want to make a
stand pretty soon,” Jock said, “before their backs are flat against the sea. So
this is what we’re going to do…I’m going to take these maps up to Regiment and
see what Missus Christiansen has to say about them. In the meantime, I want the
rifle companies to hold their lines right where they are. Each company is to
send out a squad-sized recon patrol. Feel around for what’s really up
ahead in this maze of trees.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

This damn leg of mine…

When he arrived at the regimental
CP, Jock’s leg had almost buckled on him as he stepped from the jeep.

“You okay, sir?” his driver asked.

Clinging to the jeep’s hood for
support, Jock replied, “Yeah…give me a second.”

Once inside the tent, he found
Greta and her big map weren’t there.

“She’s at the commo shack, sir,” an
intel sergeant told him. “Something about sleeping babies and white
sheep.”

Jock knew what that meant: the
lullaby was now a duet. They’d made contact with her father, Andreas Dyckman.

He struggled back into the jeep.
“Drive over to the commo tent,” he told his driver.

“But it’s right over there,
sir…like only twenty yards—”

“Just drive, dammit.”

As the jeep rolled to a stop in
front of their destination, Jock said, “Hey…I’m sorry I snapped at you back
there.”

“It’s okay, sir. You sure you don’t
want the doc to have a look at that leg?”

“No time,” Jock replied and limped
inside.

“My father’s right here,” Greta
told him, pointing to a pin they’d stuck in the map. “We’ve gotten a fix on
him. Apparently, the Japanese haven’t…yet.”

Jock figured she’d be happy but she
wasn’t. Her face was stretched tight with worry.

“My father and his people are
pushed back against the sea. He says the Japanese are right in front of him, a
very large force, very close. He’s very talkative all of a sudden. He must be
terrified.”

Jock unrolled the map in his hand,
the one he’d taken from Lee Grossman. Comparing the two maps, two things became
quickly apparent. First, the terrain depicted on the map in his hands looked
nothing like the features on Greta’s map. Second, if the Japs were all around
Dyckman—and not where the captured map claimed they were—half of his battalion
would have blundered into them as they advanced to attack positions that were
nothing more than lines on paper.

Greta took a glance at his map and
said, “Where did you get this piece of stront?” He wouldn’t have been
surprised if she spit on it. “It should show sharp, rocky ledges dropping to
narrow beaches, Jock, not some gently rolling meadowland.”

“It’s no good, then?”

“Complete garbage. It’s not from
anything I drew, I can tell you that. It looks like the Japanese were trying to
deceive you.”

“Yeah,” Jock replied. “That thought
crossed my mind.”

“We’ve almost completed the next
map sheets—the ones you’ll need to go where my father and the Japanese are.
We’ve had to rush since you’ve covered so much ground today, so they’re very
rough, I’m afraid. We have no survey data yet to sharpen them up. Everything
you see is from my head.”

“So we found this Dyckman fellow,”
Colonel Molloy said, “and he’s in deep shit?”

“Yes, sir,” Jock replied. “We can’t
afford to lose him. He’s giving us great intel on Jap strength and
dispositions.”

Molloy studied Greta’s map. “Yeah,
I see. So we’re backing a battalion-sized force of Nips up against the coast
and your Dutchman’s gotten himself in the way.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve got to get him out
of there. We owe it to him…and to Greta.”

“Dammit…that’s going to slow us way
down,” Molloy replied, “and my ass is already in a sling because we’re eight
days into an operation that should have taken three.”

“That’s not your fault, sir.”

Molloy laughed. “Yeah…you and I
know that, Jock. But it don’t mean jackshit to the boys upstairs.” He stared at
the map in silence for a few moments more before adding, “All right. I’ll take
this up with General Freidenburg. But in the meantime, make sure your boys have
those Japs bottled up good and tight.”

“It would be a very simple rescue,
sir,” Dick Molloy told General Freidenburg. “Two landing craft—at most—could
pluck Dyckman and his people off the beach under cover of night.”

“Negative, Richard,” the general replied
without giving it a moment’s thought. “Can’t spare the boats. I’m using them
all to send a battalion from Eighty-Second Regiment to hold Owi.”

“But there’s nobody on that island,
sir.”

“Maybe not today, Richard, but the
Navy’s getting real antsy about having to sail so close to it on the way here.
If the Japs were to slip in down there with a couple of big guns, maybe some
planes and torpedo boats…it could make our resupply efforts on Biak a living
hell.”

“The Japs are running in the
opposite direction, General.”

“Are you questioning my tactical
judgment, Colonel? You, who’ve managed to move your regiment a mere ten miles
in eight days?”

“No sir, of course not. It’s just
that…”

“It’s just what, Richard?”

“It’s just…I don’t know, sir…It’s
just a shitty deal to be sacrificing people who’ve done nothing but help us.”

“Spare me the violins, Colonel.
This isn’t some pity party we’re running here. It’s a war…and people will die.
Or have you forgotten?”

“No sir, I haven’t forgotten. But I
can’t forget about the Dutchman’s daughter, either, and how much she’s done for
us in such a short time. I think we owe it to her, too.”

Perhaps the tone of Molloy’s remark
wasn’t what it should have been. A bit more respect in his voice might
not have changed General Freidenburg’s decision, but it might have radically
altered the outcome of this meeting.

“Let me tell you something, Colonel
Molloy. I don’t give a sweet fuck what you think. That split-tail has been here
exactly one day and already you make it sound like she’s winning the war
single-handedly. It’s the same kind of bullshit you dispensed to conjure up
special privileges for that Major Miles of yours.”

“Actually, sir, it’s Colonel
Miles now.”

“WHAT? We’ve promoted that
man? On what grounds, if I may ask?”

“Well, for openers, sir, he
deserved it.”

“How so, Colonel? For his sexual
prowess? It seems to me you’re trying to tailor that man’s career so he can
share as much sack time as possible with that Australian chippy.”

“Sir, the woman you’re talking
about is his wife, not to mention a valued civilian official of this command.
And if what you say is true, Jock Miles wouldn’t be on this island leading a
battalion again. He’d be back on New Guinea, with the rest of the
pencil-pushers…and his wife.”

“So not only is my judgment faulty,
Colonel, but now I don’t know a damn thing about what makes men tick, either.
Well, I’ll tell you what, Richard Molloy…maybe you shouldn’t be lowering
yourself by working for me, insightful as you are. So I’ll make it real
easy for you—you’re relieved of your command. I’ll get someone else to give
Eighty-First Regiment the kick in the ass it so sorely needs. My adjutant will
have orders cut sending you back to Hollandia for reassignment within the hour.
Good luck with what’s left of your career, Colonel.”

There was no point trying to fob
off the blame on the failures of two dead battalion commanders. There was no
point blaming the maps, either. In fact, there was no point blaming anyone but
himself. As commander, he was responsible for everything his regiment did or
failed to do. Molloy braced, saluted, and walked away, enjoying that brief
elation that comes with unexpected liberation. The regrets would come soon
enough, he knew, and so would the stinging impact of Freidenburg’s last
sentence, like the venom of a snakebite slowly taking hold:

Good luck with what’s left of
your career, Colonel…

For now Dick Molloy knew for
certain he would never in his lifetime wear a general’s star.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Melvin Patchett was never a man to
mince words. He told Jock, “That General Freidenburg don’t know whether to
scratch his watch or wind his ass. Anyone dumb enough to shitcan a man like
Colonel Molloy—probably the best fightin’ regimental commander in this whole
fucking army—oughta be taken out and shot. It’s just criminal what he done,
especially now, in the middle of—NO! Cancel that. It’s criminal any damn time.”

“Gee, Top…for a moment there, I
thought you were going to throw in a with all due respect.”

“Wasn’t planning on it this time,
sir.” Patchett seethed for a few moments longer. “So what are we gonna do about
that Dutchman of yours.”

“As far as Dyckman goes, I figure
we’re pretty much on our own at the moment. Command is going to be in a state
of flux for a day or two, no matter who succeeds Colonel Molloy.”

“So we’re gonna go ahead and rescue
this guy?” Patchett asked.

“Damn right we are, Top. I owe him
one hell of a big favor.”

“I understand, sir. When?”

“Tonight…before our new boss has a
chance to stop us from doing it.”

“We better get our asses organized
right quick then, sir. Sun’s gonna be down before we know it.”

At least they now had Greta’s
latest map, the one that covered the mile from 1st Battalion’s
present position to the coast. Jock’s three rifle company commanders were busy
sketching in the details their recon patrols provided.

“We think they’re getting ready to
hit us, sir,” Lee Grossman told Jock. “The way we’ve got them hemmed in, their
only chance is a breakout. Theo’s guys may have found out something that makes
that scenario real plausible.”

Theo Papadakis picked it up from
there. “There’s a big gap in their line, sir,” he said. “My guys went all the
way through it and walked far enough to see the beach. Never saw or heard a Jap
the whole time.”

Grossman added, “It’s not like the
Nips to leave a hole that big in a defensive perimeter. We didn’t fall for
their little trick with the maps, so we figure they’re scrambling to put
together an attack and may have gotten a little disorganized doing it. That’s
sure happened to us a bunch of times.”

Patchett had a different take. “But
they ain’t done no probing of their own, looking if we got ourselves a weak
spot. What if they’re planning on pulling all the way back and being evacuated
by sea?”

“I don’t think so,” Jock said. “If
they were planning on being evacuated tonight, they’d be down by the beach
already. It’d be too chaotic moving a unit that size in the dark, unless they’d
already marked exit lanes through the forest and down the cliffs. We asked the
Dutchman if they had. He says there’s been no sign of it.”

“Well, maybe you’re right then,
sir,” Patchett replied. “But since we’ve got our bearings with this new map and
all, why ain’t we pasting the shit out of them with artillery right fucking
now?”

“That’s a great idea, Top…and we’re
going to do that…just as soon as we’ve gotten Dyckman and his people out of the
way. We don’t want them caught in that fire. I owe him that much.”

Patchett narrowed his eyes and
asked, “Unless, of course, Captain Grossman’s correct and the Japs come on us
like stink on shit, right?”

“Yeah, of course, Top. You really
have to ask that?”

“Just checking, sir. Seems like you
got yourself a whole lotta owing going on here. I wanna make sure who
gets paid off first when push come to shove.”

“All right,” Jock said. “Let’s get
down to business. Theo, who led your patrol that found this gap?”

“Sergeant Boudreau, sir.”

“Great,” Jock replied. “Bogater’s
going to be my pathfinder on this little romp in the dark.”

“Whoa, wait a damn minute,”
Patchett said. “You ain’t really going in there yourself, are you, sir?”

“That’s my plan, Top. I’m the only
one who knows the Dutchman and his people. It only makes sense I go.”

Jock knew what Patchett was
thinking: You really gonna carry yourself around in the dark on that leg?

“I’m not worried about my leg, Top.
You shouldn’t be, either.”

“As you wish, sir. How big a team
you gonna take?”

“Let’s keep it small…about ten men.
But I’m taking one of the heavy machine guns and a couple of extra
walkie-talkies to be on the safe side. Don’t want to get out of touch with you
guys if the shit hits the fan.”

Lieutenant Ben Stone had never seen
anything like it: they’d asked for ten volunteers. They got forty-three—and
this in an army where volunteering didn’t really exist. The word was
just a euphemism for being selected against your will.

Stone was the newest and by far the
least experienced rifle company commander in 1st Battalion. He’d
only been in New Guinea a month when he was given Baker Company during the
mop-up phase of the Hollandia invasion. It had been strictly a matter of
attrition: the few lieutenants senior to him had been killed, wounded, or
stricken with one tropical disease or another. Compared to Captains Lee
Grossman and Theo Papadakis—veteran company commanders who’d outlived the odds
of survival many times over—Ben Stone was a neophyte at this savage game and he
knew it. He’d never laid eyes on the limping Colonel Jock Miles, the third
commander of this battalion he’d served under, until yesterday.

“I don’t understand it,” Stone said
to Theo Papadakis. “Why the hell are all these guys volunteering—I mean actually
volunteering—to get themselves killed trying to save some civilians who
got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“You’re pretty new here, Stone,”
the Mad Greek replied, “and there’s a shitload of stuff about this
outfit you don’t understand. But let me tell you this, my friend…those guys are
volunteering because Jock Miles asked them to, plain and simple.”

Darkness is my friend…Darkness
is my friend…

Bogater Boudreau figured those
words had scrolled through his mind a thousand times, like the news ticker
coursing around that building in New York City he’d seen in the picture shows.
Maybe if that ticker played long enough, he’d actually start believing its
message.

Trouble is, it’s too damn dark.
I can’t see a blasted thing in this forest. But I’m a tracker…a crack scout…and
I’m the point man, the GI in front of this column. I’ll use what I got: sound,
smell, feel—whatever it takes—to give the guys behind me a fighting chance to
stay alive.

It was sound that came first, a clack-clack
he’d heard too many times before:

That’s the bolt of an Arisaka
rifle…and it’s damn close, too, just off to my right.

Bogater stopped and crouched
against a tree. Behind him, each GI in the column bumped to a stop against the
man in front, like the cars of a long train braking to a halt. They recoiled
like a compressed spring, re-established their short intervals, and took up
firing positions as Jock crawled forward to join Bogater.

“I’ll go around and take him real
quiet-like,” the Cajun whispered, patting the handle of the bayonet on his web
belt. “I won’t let him give us away.”

“You sure there’s only one?” Jock
asked. “It’s not like Japs to put just one man on an outpost.”

“One’s all I’m hearing, sir. If
there’s more, I can come back for help…if I need it.”

“No,” Jock said. “Too risky going
alone. Take a guy with you. Your pick.”

“Okay, I pick Simms. He done stuff
like this before, too.”

It didn’t take long. All Jock heard
was a muffled cry, a rustling of brush, and a soft thump.

Simms emerged from the darkness and
told Jock, “You gotta see this, sir.”

When they got to Bogater, he was
sitting on the ground, hugging his legs against his chest, rocking slowly back
and forth. The lifeless body of an islander was lying beside him, the blood
from his sliced throat a glistening black pool on the ground.

“Tell me I didn’t just fuck up,
sir,” Bogater said, his voice low and hoarse.

Simms twirled a Japanese Army cap
around his forefinger. “What the hell is a native doing with a Nip hat and a
Nip rifle, sir? How come nobody told us we’d be fighting the darkies, too?”

Jock rolled the body onto its back.
He knew what the man was: gekken.

Simms scratched his head. “What the
fuck is a gekken, sir?”

Jock told them the story as Andreas
Dyckman had told it to him. His closing line: “Gekken means crazy in
Dutch, by the way.”

“So who was this crazy guy
fighting? Us or the Japs?”

“Both, probably,” Jock replied.

“Well, ain’t that hot shit,” Simms
said. “I tell you what, sir…any darkie I see with a rifle, I’m dropping him on
the spot.”

“Not so fast, Frank,” Jock replied.
“Like we talked about in the briefing, some of the people we’re about to team
up with are islanders…and they’ll be toting weapons. Their lives depend on it.”

“Dammit, sir…this war ain’t
confusing enough, and now you’re telling me there are good darkies and bad
darkies on this fucking island and they all look alike?”

“I managed to figure it out,
Frank…and you will, too. Just keep your eyes open.”

Bogater looked up, his hopeful eyes
shimmering in the dim light. “So I didn’t fuck up, sir?”

“No, you didn’t, Bogater. And you
kept it good and quiet. Now let’s get this show back on the road. Grab that
Arisaka, too.”

Bogater brought the column to a
halt once again. “I reckon this is the rendezvous point, sir...or at least damn
close. So where’s that Dutchman of yours?”

Before Jock could answer, there was
the sound of rifle shots.

“What the hell kind of weapon is
that, sir?” Bogater asked. “I ain’t never heard me nothing with a pow
like that.”

“It’s a Mannlicher, Bogater. German
rifle.”

“Ain’t we in the wrong theater of
war to be hearing one of them, sir?”

“No, that’s what the Dutchman and
his people carry.”

Bringing the machine gun to the
front, Jock moved his column slowly in the direction from which the shots had
come. They didn’t have to go far before a voice, in heavily accented English,
called out the challenge: “Luxembourg.”

Jock replied with the password:
“Licorice.”

Hans emerged from the darkness.
“Good to see you again, Major Miles,” he said as they shook hands.

Bogater said, “It’s Colonel
Miles now, mon frère.”

“Forgive me,” Hans replied, “and
congratulations, Colonel. But you have Frenchmen in your Army?”

“Sergeant Boudreau is an American,”
Jock said. “He’s acadie…a Cajun from Louisiana.”

Bogater added, “Bonsoir,
y’all.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,”
Hans replied.

“We’ll explain later,” Jock said.
“Where’s Mister Dyckman?”

“Meneer Dyckman will be here
in a moment. He’s making sure everyone is accounted for.”

“What was that shooting about,
Hans?”

“I’m not sure…one of our people
trying to kill phantoms, perhaps. If it had been Japanese, they would surely
have fired back.”

“I was thinking the same thing,”
Jock replied. “You have much trouble with the gekken lately?”

“Perhaps. Two of our islanders went
missing last week. It might have been the gekken.”

“Well, we just killed one a ways up
the trail.”

“Only one?” Hans replied, sounding
disappointed.

“Yeah, just one.”

“Good for you, anyway, Colonel.”

Andreas Dyckman stepped from the
shadows. “Ah, you are a colonel now, Jock Miles! That is very good.”

As they shook hands, Jock said,
“Thanks for your help with the submarine. We had to take back all those nasty
things we said about you when the transmitter turned up missing.”

“You’re very welcome, Colonel. As
you’ve come to learn, my way was much better. I still have your transmitter…and
now it’s allowed you to return the favor.”

“Okay,” Jock replied, “then we’re
even. Hans told me you’ve lost two of your people. That leaves how
many—thirty-eight men and women, counting you?”

“Correct, Colonel.”

“How many are armed?”

“Twenty-two.”

Jock calculated silently for a
moment, and then said, “You and I will stay together. Put one of your armed men
with us. Split the rest of your people into four equal groups of nine, keeping
the number of weapons and women in each group roughly equal. One of my guys
will be in charge of each group. Can you be ready to move in five minutes?”

“Yes, Colonel. But I have a
question.”

“What is it?”

“Your leg…will it carry you? You’re
limping badly.”

“Don’t worry about my damn leg,
Mister Dyckman.”

“Of course. But one more question,
if I may?”

“Make it quick, please.”

“Can you tell me when I will see my
Greta?”

“If all goes well, you’ll see her
in about an hour.”

Those words stunned Dyckman. “You
mean…you mean she’s actually here? On Biak? I didn’t realize…”

“She’s here, in the flesh, Mister
Dyckman.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Lee Grossman was right about the
Japanese wanting to break out. They made their move just minutes before 2100,
in the pitch dark of the forest floor at night. It began with a diversionary
probe at the right side of 1st Battalion’s line, quickly and soundly
repulsed by a platoon of Theo Papadakis’ Able Company.

The main thrust of the breakout,
however, was at 1st Battalion’s left side, and injected the might of
the trapped Japanese battalion between Grossman’s Charlie Company and Jock’s
patrol bringing in Andreas Dyckman and his people.

“We got a fucking herd of elephants
headed this way, sir,” Bogater Boudreau told Jock as he took up a firing
position. “A pretty damn fast herd, too.”

In the ghostly glow of Jock’s
blackout flashlight, Dyckman looked petrified. “We’ll be decimated,” he said.
“I must tell my people to run!”

“The fuck you will,” Jock replied.
“They’ll stay and take cover just like the rest of us. It’s the best chance
they’ve got to come out of this alive. Now keep your fucking head down and shut
up.”

Grossman—call sign Cleveland Six—was
on the radio calling for artillery fire. “Oh, shit,” Bogater said. “Incoming
rounds in the fucking dark…and we ain’t got time to dig a hole deep enough.”

Jock plotted the coordinates of
Grossman’s fire mission on his map. He breathed a sigh of relief—they were exactly
the coordinates he would have called. When Grossman’s transmission ended, Jock
picked up his walkie-talkie and added, “Cleveland Six, this is Papa
Six. Make it Danger Close, buddy. I’m just west of target. Over.”

His body pressed hard against the
ground, Bogater’s face peeked out from beneath his helmet like a turtle’s head
from its shell. “These maps from that lady better be as all-fired good as you
say they are, sir…or our goose is cooked for sure.”

The night sky suddenly lit up with
illumination rounds from GI mortars. The rainforest was no longer opaque as a
shroud; they could see the shapes of the Japanese darting through the ghostly
light and quivering shadows, pushing toward their breakout point…

And headed straight for Jock and
his patrol.

The GIs remembered the rule of
thumb they’d learned long ago: if you can count more than five enemy, you’re
facing a major unit.

There was no need to count this
time…

Fuck. It looks like hundreds of
them.

The forest came alive with an
uproar of gunfire. The heavy machine gun from Jock’s team dealt its mechanized
mayhem as it riddled row after row of silhouettes like pop-up targets on a gun
range.

The first artillery rounds impacted
in a blinding flash…

Right where Grossman had called for
them…

And right where Jock hoped they’d
be.

“Grossman called it dead on,” Jock
said. “What do you think of those maps now, Bogater?”

“I’m thinking pretty kindly toward
them at the moment, sir,” the Cajun replied as more artillery came crashing
down like rolling thunder, right on target.

This close-quarters fight became
like every other one these combat veterans had been through: a maelstrom of
gunfire, explosions, curses, shrieked commands, and the screaming of the
wounded. It seemed to take a lifetime but was finished in moments, leaving a
caustic stillness in its wake. The lingering, random shots punctuating that
stillness sounded like nothing more than a futile venting of frustration. The
darkness of night took back the battleground from the garish glow of ordnance,
seeking to erase the carnage for at least a little while…until the rising sun
would force you to behold it once again.

“Where the hell is your Dutchman,
sir?” Bogater asked.

“Damn good question.”

Dyckman hadn’t gone far. Jock found
him twenty yards away, being held down by one of his soldiers.

“He was running around like a crazy
man,” the GI said. “Figured I’d better hang onto him before he got his ass
blown off.”

“Good thinking, Marino,” Jock said.
“Let him up.”

Even in the darkness, Dyckman’s
eyes glowed like a man possessed. Jock gripped his arm so he wouldn’t run off
again.

I don’t think he’s afraid, Jock
thought. But he just seems so damn determined….

Jock suddenly realized what the
Dutchman had been trying to do. “You wanted to get to your daughter, didn’t you?”

He was calming now, his breath more
even, the fierce look in his eyes softening. In a voice little more than a
murmur, Dyckman said, “Of course I was. After thinking she was dead the past
two years, and then to find she’s here…almost close enough to touch…and the war
suddenly close enough to lose her again, maybe forever this time. You cannot
blame me, can you?”

“I’m not blaming anyone, Mister
Dyckman. But running around like a lunatic isn’t all that bright in the middle
of a battle.”

“I realize that, Colonel.” His head
sunk into his hands. “I need to see her so badly.”

“Then follow me,” Jock said. “We
might almost be there.”

Bogater Boudreau could feel the
commo wire they’d laid as a trail marker on the outbound leg going slack in his
hand. In a few more steps, he reached its frayed end.

“The wire got cut, sir,” Bogater
told Jock. “Probably by all that artillery, I reckon.”

Somewhere out in the dark, laying
invisible and useless on the ground, was the rest of the wire that was supposed
to guide them back to 1st Battalion’s position.

“I could go crawl around and try to
find it,” Bogater offered. “It couldn’t have gone too far.”

“Don’t bother,” Jock replied.
“Let’s see if we’ve got a bearing off Grossman’s radio.” He summoned the GI
carrying the walkie-talkie fitted with a direction finding antenna.

“When Cleveland Six
transmitted a minute ago,” the radioman said, “they were at about
one-seven-zero degrees, sir. They gotta be close. Signal’s so strong it’s hard
to get an exact fix.”

“We haven’t moved too far since
then,” Jock said. “That ought to get us in the ball park. You get that azimuth,
Sergeant Boudreau?”

“Yes, sir. One-seven-zero. We can’t
be more than a couple hundred yards out.”

“Affirmative,” Jock replied. But he
knew a couple hundred yards could seem like a thousand miles in the
dark.

At least his leg was holding up.

Each step raised their hopes a
little further. Walking more quickly now, they cast to the winds the caution
they’d employed walking the forest at night. The stumbles and falls that
resulted were many, each a noisy circus of clattering weapons, free-rolling
helmets, and groans they tried to stifle without much success.

But they were almost home. They
were sure of it…

Until the cruel rhythm of a Nambu
machine gun shattered that certainty, telling them they weren’t home at all.
Bullets zipped through the column from back to front, each on a mission
to ensure Jock and his people would never go home again.

“THEY’RE ON OUR ASS,” a voice
screamed from Jock’s radio. “I GOT GUYS DOWN. WHERE’S THE FUCKING THIRTY CAL?”

“That’s Mulcahey,” Bogater said,
identifying the voice as the sergeant whose group was the tail end Charlie
of the column. “He should know damn well where the machine gunners are at.
They’ve got their faces planted in the fucking ground just like the rest of us.
What the hell we gonna do now, sir?”

Jock was already speaking into his
walkie-talkie, telling Cleveland Six to relay his fire mission: “From
last target, left one hundred, add two hundred, fire for effect, danger
close, over.”

Bogater let out a soft whistle.
“Cutting it pretty fine there, ain’t we, sir?”

“Better than calling it in on our
heads.”

“You so sure we ain’t, sir?”

They heard the distant poom
of the guns a second after an artilleryman’s voice crackled from the radio:
“Shot, over.”

“We’re about to find out, Bogater,”
Jock said.

“Splash, over,” the
artilleryman said.

One one thousand…two one
thousand…three one thousand…

They heard the rounds crash into
the forest, so close they could feel the shock wave of their detonation. The
Nambu kept right on firing.

Shit! I either put it too far
out…or I just killed a bunch of my own people.

“What do you think, Bogater? Which
way do we move it?”

“I’m thinking we’re long, sir…but
not by much.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He keyed the radio:
“Danger close, direction zero-two-zero, drop five-zero, fire for effect,
over.”

Ten seconds later, the
artilleryman’s voice spilled from the radio again: “Shot, over.”

If I’m wrong, Jock thought, I’ve
just killed the rest of us.

“Splash, over.”

The rounds hit, the sound of their
impact closer this time, the shock wave strong enough to ruffle their tattered,
filthy uniforms. The echoes of their explosions quickly subsided, making way
for the sweetest silence Jock though he’d ever heard: the Nambu had stopped
firing.

There wasn’t a second to lose. Jock
keyed the walkie-talkie and said, “Get everybody moving.” Eager to prevent
another stumbling rush, he added, “With all due caution. Let’s maintain noise
discipline and security this time.”

Melvin Patchett’s voice came out of
the darkness: “You’d better keep them people quiet, sir. We heard y’all a
hundred yards out. Japs did, too, I reckon.”

Jock replied, “Son of a bitch…the
cavalry’s here. How close are we to Charlie Company, Top?”

“A couple of yards. Good thing we
knew y’all were there, though. Otherwise you’da got caught up in the crossfire.
Pretty good call with that artillery, though, sir. Couldn’t’ve done better
myself.”

“It’s a hell of a lot easier when
you know exactly where you are. We can thank Missus Christiansen for that.
Pretty amazing, considering she drew these last maps from memory.”

“They were close enough, that’s for
damn sure, sir.”

Patchett watched as Jock’s GIs and
Dyckman’s people filtered by, most on their own feet. The few wounded—all Americans—were
being carried by Dyckman’s islanders.

“I plan to thank that lady
personal-like, believe you me, sir,” Patchett said. “Where’s her pa,
anyway?”

“Oh, shit…don’t tell me he’s
missing again.”

“I saw him headed toward the back
of the column, sir,” Bogater said. “Maybe he was gonna check on his people?”

“Top, get these casualties taken
care of. Bogater, you come with me. Let’s go escort our Dutch friend out of
harm’s way once and for all.”

“Watch your step, sir,” Patchett
said. “No guarantee some live Nips still ain’t out there.”

Jock heard the sound first. He
dropped to one knee behind a tree, trying to get a good fix on its direction
while he stretched his aching leg.

Bogater crawled to him and asked,
“What’s going on, sir?”

Jock pointed into the black gloom
of the forest. “There’s something—or someone—out there. Listen. It’s
pretty close.”

The Cajun strained to filter
something other than the usual noises of birds and insects. After a few moments
he shook his head. “No, sir, ain’t hearing a damn—”

Then it happened again: a loud snap
and crunch of underbrush. Footsteps, without a doubt. Probably human,
too.

Struggling to his feet, Jock said,
“You sure as hell heard that. C’mon…it’s this way.”

They moved as fast as they dared
through the darkness—ten paces, twenty paces, fifty—but found nothing. They
heard nothing more, either.

“You notice we’ve been going up a
rise?” Jock asked, repeating out loud what his leg had been silently
complaining about for the last few minutes.

“Yes, sir, I surely did.”

“Maybe it’s more of a hill than we
realize. Whoever’s out there may already be on the other side and we can’t hear
him.”

“Good bet, sir. So what are we
gonna do?”

“We’re not stopping now, that’s for
damn sure.”

The incline was steepening. So was
the pain in Jock’s leg. More than once it threatened to give out. He found
himself grabbing the trunks of trees for support.

“You gonna make it, sir? I can go
back and get—”

“No, Bogater. We’re going to find
him, you and me.”

They kept climbing until they
noticed patches of moonlit sky peeking through the rainforest canopy. “The
trees are thinning out a little,” Jock said. “We must be almost to the top of
this fucking hill.”

“I still ain’t hearing nothing,
sir.”

The clack-clack of an
Arisaka rifle’s bolt cycling changed all that. It sounded like it was only a
few feet away…

Because it was.

There was a rustle of movement—and
Jock found himself at arm’s length from another man. Even in darkness, there
was no doubt it was a Japanese soldier.

He tried to point the weapon at
Jock but there was no room. They were too close.

Jock caught the stock of the rifle
with his free hand and held it fast. The long bayonet on its muzzle—only inches
from Jock’s ear—gave off a dim glint, reflecting what it could of the sparse
moonlight.

Jock tried to maneuver his Thompson
for a point blank shot but the adversary in his grasp kept twisting, turning,
retreating…

It had become an ironic shoving
match between heavily armed men.

Jock could see another shape
rushing toward them, another glint of moonlight off cold steel, a tousle of
light-colored hair on a helmetless head shining pale gray in the moonlight…

Bogater!

The Jap screamed and went limp as
the Cajun’s bayonet struck deep into him. Jock was finally able to pull the
Arisaka free but the motion made him jerk backward. He stumbled, tried to
regain his balance…

And then it all went wrong.

It felt like someone had taken a
scissor to his thigh muscle. Like a rubber band snapping, his bad leg recoiled
and went limp. Jock toppled over, expecting to hit the ground in an instant.

But he kept falling. It was
strangely exhilarating—like floating in space without a care—until he bounced
off the first tree. He felt no pain from the impact but heard the distinct pop,
knowing it could only be coming from inside his body.

The plummet continued. By the third
collision with a tree, he had lost consciousness.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The new regimental commander hadn’t
been in the crowded HQ tent more than a moment when, in the thick drawl of the
American south, he asked, “Where’s that sumbitch Dutchman who caused me all
this trouble?”

“He’s at the mess tent having
breakfast, sir,” an intel sergeant replied.

“Well, get his sweet ass over here,
on the fucking double. This isn’t the Dick Molloy Benevolent Society anymore.”

As the sergeant scurried from the
tent, the new commander told the rest of his staff, “For all ya’ll who
don’t know me, my name is Colonel T. Lamar Abernathy. General Freidenburg has
sent me to do a little ass-tightening around here, because it seems like this
regiment surely needs some. Any of my battalion commanders here yet?”

Across the tent, Lee Grossman
raised his hand. “Grossman, sir, acting C.O., First Battalion.” He would have
given anything not to claim that title.

Abernathy replied with only a
frosty, dismissive glare.

Melvin Patchett whispered in
Grossman’s ear: “I believe there’s something about that name of yours the man
don’t cotton to, sir.”

“Probably so, Top. I’ll bet he
thinks all Jews have horns, too.”

Patchett looked at him with mock
surprise and replied, “What? Y’all don’t?”

The intel sergeant returned with
Dyckman and his daughter in tow. Her arm was wrapped protectively around her
distraught father. Abernathy wasted no time firing his first salvo at Greta:
“You must be that mapmaking woman my predecessor was so all-fired high on.” He
looked her up and down with a disparaging eye, adding, “Don’t be getting too
comfortable here, missy. Your services are no longer required.”

Lee Grossman started to raise his
hand but Patchett grabbed it, whispering, “Let me be the one stirring the shit
around here, sir. We don’t need to be losing no more good officers.”

Patchett put his hand up.

The colonel pointedly ignored him
for a few moments. Then a look of unwelcome recognition spread across his face.
“Well, as I live and breathe, is that you, Melvin Patchett?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“I thought they would’ve put an old
goat like you out to pasture by now. Imagine my fucking delight when I heard
you, of all people, were a battalion sergeant major in my regiment,” the
colonel said, clearly not delighted. “What’s on your mind?”

“With all due respect, sir,”
Patchett said, “this lady’s helped us more in a couple days than a whole
truckload of staff jockeys done the past year. It just don’t make no sense why
you’d want to send her packing.”

The colonel smirked as he replied,
“I can explain it to you, Sergeant…but I can’t understand it for
you. So I’m going to say it just once—despite what Dick Molloy might’ve
thought, the US Army can make its own maps just fine and dandy. We don’t need
no woman around these parts showing us how.”

What Patchett wanted to say: If
only that were true, you fucking jackass. I got me a whole bunch of graves full
of guys who thought different.

But a life in this man’s army
had taught him to know better. Grossman wasn’t taking any chances on what
Patchett might say next, though. He nudged him and whispered, “Keep a lid on
it, Top. We don’t need to be losing any more good NCOs, either.”

Patchett replied, “Relax, sir. I
reckon this is about to take care of itself.” He motioned toward Greta, who to
this point had been calmly taking it all in, and added, “Watch this. She won’t
be holding her tongue much longer.”

In a flash she proved him right.
“In other words, Colonel,” Greta said, “your General MacArthur has paid me five
thousand American dollars for doing next to nothing. I know you Yanks love to
throw money away but this is quite extraordinary.”

Abernathy flinched. He shot a nasty
look at his adjutant, asking the man, “Is this true?”

The adjutant managed to sputter,
“Affirmative, sir.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

Any number of explanations crossed
the adjutant’s mind, none of which would qualify as a satisfactory answer.
Instead, he replied, “No excuse, sir.”

Abernathy’s face turned bright red.
“So you’re telling me this woman has an employment contract with
Supreme Allied Headquarters?”

It was a simpler question. All the
adjutant had to do this time was nod.

“Very well,” Abernathy replied,
“we’ll deal with this matter later.”

Patchett whispered to Grossman, “He
won’t be dealing with shit later. Abernathy always was a little dumber
than the average brass hat…but was he really supposing anyone except a GI would
work for nothing? Especially in this stink hole?”

Trumped by the daughter, the colonel
set his sights on her father. “And you, Mister Dyckman…I need you to explain
just what in tarnation you were doing out there that cost one of my battalions
its third commander in a week.”

In a weary, wavering voice, the
Dutchman tried to begin his story by telling how, nearly three weeks before,
he’d helped Jock and the crew of the downed PBY Catalina. But Abernathy cut him
off. “I’m a busy man, Mister Dyckman. I just want to hear about the events of
last night. Bad enough a battalion commander disobeyed orders and went
freelance on me but then he goes and gets himself—”

“Begging your pardon, sir,”
Patchett interrupted, “but the battalion never got no such order.”

“Why, that’s just a bald-faced lie,
Sergeant,” Abernathy said. He turned to his S3—the regimental operations
officer—and added, “Isn’t it, Major?”

The S3 hesitated before replying,
“Not exactly, sir. I was there. General Freidenburg told Colonel Molloy
not to do the rescue mission. And then he fired him on the spot. Nobody thought
Colonel Miles would go ahead and—”

“DAMMIT,” Abernathy said, “General
Freidenburg’s dead on the mark when he says this regiment needs some
ass-tightening.” He fixed Dyckman in his belligerent gaze and asked, “Let’s get
back to what happened last night. I’m told you took off—just vanished—after
Colonel Miles ordered you not to. And I damn sure want to know why.”

“It wasn’t my intention to disobey
Jock’s—Colonel Miles’—order, sir. But my people were terrified and
disorganized. They’d come under fire twice in just a few minutes. I was trying
to ease the colonel’s load and help lead them to the safety of the American
lines.”

“And did you manage to do that,
Mister Dyckman?”

“No, Colonel, I did not. I’m
ashamed to say I got disoriented. After stumbling about in the dark, I walked
right up to soldiers I assumed were Americans…but I was wrong. They took me
prisoner and began marching me through the forest.”

“How many Japs were there?”

“I saw only two.”

“So what happened next?”

“The Japanese seemed confused, as
if they, too, were lost. I tried to escape while they were engaged in some
hushed discussion—it sounded like an argument—but failed. They bound me to a
tree, argued some more…and then one of them leveled his bayonet at my chest.
Another man suddenly appeared out of nowhere—I only found out later it was
Colonel Miles—and he grappled with the soldier about to stab me. While they
fought, Sergeant Boudreau arrived and bayoneted the Japanese soldier…and then
Colonel Miles was gone, fallen off the ridge.”

“If you couldn’t tell it was Miles,
how the hell did you know it was this Boudreau fellow?”

“Sergeant Boudreau didn’t fall off
the ridge, Colonel. He stayed right there with me.”

“What about the other Jap? What
happened to him?”

“I have no idea, Colonel. Perhaps
he fled.”

“And perhaps you were in cahoots
with those Japs all along, Mister Dyckman, leading them to my position?”

“I do not know the meaning of cahoots,
Colonel.”

Keeping her anger in check, Greta
provided the translation. “It means collaborator, Papa. I've heard such nonsense
from the Americans before.”

The Dutchman’s face flared red as
his hair with rage. “I can assure you, Colonel, that allegation is absurd
beyond belief.”

Abernathy fumed for a few moments.
Then he asked Lee Grossman, “Captain, does this man’s story agree with what
your people told you?”

“Yes, sir. To the letter.”

“Well, ain’t that just the cat’s
ass,” Abernathy said. “But at least I’ve got me a forest full of dead Japs I
won’t need to be chasing anymore. We should have this little ol’ island sewed
up in a week or two.”

“Lord help us,” Patchett whispered.
“The man ain’t found the latrine yet and he’s predicting a lickety-split
victory.”

As they walked back to their
battalion CP, Patchett told Grossman, “I blame myself. I shoulda never let him
go out there with that leg of his.”

“No, Top...none of us could’ve
stopped him. It’s all our faults. We never should’ve asked him to come back in
the first place. That damn letter…”

Lost in their thoughts and regrets,
they walked on. Grossman finally broke the silence: “But he’s come back from
the dead before, you know.”

Patchett shook his head. “A
game-legged man’s one thing, Lee. A one-legged man’s something different
altogether.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Six months later—December 24, 1944

1900 hours

Jock took a long swallow from the
bottle of Australian beer. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the concept of
Christmas in the middle of summer.”

Jillian replied, “No more than I
could get used to it in the middle of winter, buried in snow.” She slid a
little closer to him on the veranda’s wicker settee, careful not to disturb his
leg, which was set in a fresh cast after its latest surgery.

“But you’ve never even seen snow,
Jill.”

“And from what I’ve heard, I’d like
to keep it that way, Yank. Your Massachusetts sounds frightfully cold and
dreary to me.”

The sun had dropped behind the
mountains west of Brisbane. The city they looked out on was in deep shadow, but
the horizon across the Pacific could still be seen clearly. “Nautical
twilight,” Jillian said, a wistfulness in her voice.

Jock asked, “You miss being on the
sea, don’t you, babe?”

“Bloody hell, Jock, I’m six months
up the duff. Going to sea will have to wait a while. A very long while.” She
leaned against the seat back, shifting in search of physical comfort that being
with child was making more elusive by the day. Still, she found a reason to
smile as she patted her swelling belly. “See what can happen? That one fleeting
moment in Hollandia…there was so little time…and we were so wrapped up in it we
didn’t bother to use a bloody johnny.”

“Any regrets, Jill?”

“Just one. That I didn’t leave a
steaming pile of horse shit on MacArthur’s desk when I got kicked out of New
Guinea.”

The Christmas revelers inside the
house were growing boisterous. “Aunt Margaret certainly knows how to throw a
party,” Jillian said. “Sounds like she’s breaking out the good stuff right
about now. She’ll want us to make an appearance soon, you know.”

Jock glanced at the empty
wheelchair beside them and said, “Not quite yet, if that’s all right.”

She knew why he was in no great
hurry to join the party. He’d fielded quite enough well-meaning questions about
his injuries. Nothing was more tiresome—and more depressing—for a true
warrior than having to play the wounded warrior. This holiday
furlough from the orthopedic ward had been a godsend for his morale—but it was
only temporary.

“Do you really have to be back in
hospital the day after Christmas?” she asked. “It seems like such a pitifully
short time.”

“You know the answer to that,
Jill.”

“You could go AWOL, you know.”

He wasn’t sure if she was joking or
not.

“You’re kidding, right?”

She’d been half-serious, even
though she was fully aware he had to return. There was still one more operation
scheduled on his leg—the one that would determine if he could ever use it to
walk again. Even if that operation was a smashing success, though, he could
never go back to field duty; his ravaged quadriceps would never allow it. But
with the help of a cane, he’d at least be able to stand on his own two legs once
more.

“Of course I’m kidding, Jock. But
before we get shanghaied into the party, I need to give you your
Christmas present.”

“Wait,” he replied as he gently
placed a hand on her midsection. “You’re already giving me the greatest present
a man could ask for. I don’t need anything more.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Well,
laddie, you’re going to get it anyway.”

“Let me go first,” he said.
Reaching under the wheelchair’s cushion, he produced a small box. “Here,
Jill…our very first Christmas actually spent together…and already there are
three of us!”

Removing the wrapping paper, her
eyes opened wide with surprise when the name of Brisbane’s most expensive
jewelry store was revealed. She gasped when she saw the gold necklace inside.
He helped clasp it around her neck. Running her fingers through the glittering
strands, she said, “It’s so beautiful! But how in bloody hell can you afford
this, Jock? Your bloody Army hasn’t even paid you in months.”

“That payroll snafu finally
got straightened out, Jill. Remind me never to get transferred from the Army to
the Air Force and back again. The bean counters just can’t keep up.”

“So you spent all your back pay on
this necklace, silly boy?”

“Yeah…pretty much. I’ve never been
able to buy you anything before.”

She kissed him again, this time
full on the mouth. They let it linger.

“Thank you, sweetie,” she whispered
in his ear. “I love it. And now, for your present.”

She retrieved an envelope from the
pocket of her maternity top. Handing it to him, she added, “Ta da! Welcome
to the Forbes family, Jock Miles.”

The paperwork within seemed all in
order, signed and stamped by various officials of the Queensland and Canberra
governments. Its language was tortuously legal. As best as Jock could tell from
a quick scan, the papers made him part owner of Forbes-Weipa Company.

“I gave you some of my shares,”
Jillian explained. “I wanted to split it fifty-fifty but since you’re a Yank—a
bloody foreigner—you can’t own more than fifteen percent of an Aussie
business. So that’s what you’ve gotten.”

He looked bewildered as he
stammered, “But…but all I got you…was the necklace.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh,
Jock…that’s so sweet. But Aunt Margaret insists: if you’re going to be knocking
up her favorite niece, you’re going to have to be a man of considerable
means. And now you are.”

“But wait a minute,” Jock said.
“Your company—”

She corrected him: “Our
company.”

“All right, our company does
lots of business with the US Government up on Cape York, leasing them all that
land, the harbor facilities, and lord knows what else. I’m an official of that
government, so doesn’t that put me in a conflict of interest?”

She took the paperwork from his
hand, turned a page and pointed to a clause. “It says right here you—and I,
your wife—will be recusing ourselves from all dealings with the US Government
as long as you’re serving in its armed forces.”

“But what business is there
right now besides dealings with the US Government?”

With a mischievous smile, Jillian
replied, “Oh, baby…you have no idea how much more there is.”

She gave him a few minutes of
silence to process his startling change of fortune. When that silence finally
begged to be broken, she asked, “Sweetie, how did you manage to actually buy
this necklace while you were cooped up in hospital?”

“Oh, that was easy. Colonel Molloy
did the buying for me. Since General Freidenburg canned him back on Biak, his
staff job here in Brisbane doesn’t take up a whole lot of his time. He’s been
trying like hell to get a slot in the Philippines, but that campaign’s
practically won already.”

“Jock, this whole war is
practically won. The Nips are finished. Just a few more months…”

“You’re sure of that, eh?”

“Bloody right I am.”

“I don’t know, Jill…maybe we can
push them all the way back to their home islands. But to invade those
islands…well, that’s going to be a whole different story.”

“I think you’re giving the Japanese
far too much credit. They may be vicious little bastards when they have the
upper hand, but they’re beaten now and they know it. The past two years have
been just one long retreat for them. This kamikaze rubbish they’ve
started is just the final, desperate act. Once that’s played out, they’ll have
nothing left.”

“The closer to Japan, the harder
it’s going to get, Jill. You know what the GIs are saying right now about when
the war will end and they can all go home? The Golden Gate in
’48.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Our son will
be three years old by then.”

“Whoa…wait a minute, Jill. Our son?
How do you know it’ll be a boy?”

“I can tell, Jock. I just know…just
like I know this war will be over before you’ll ever be fit for any kind of
duty again. Even to ride a desk.” She paused, and then, with a contented smile,
added, “And that makes me feel very good inside. We’ve finally stepped off
MacArthur’s merry-go-round. Paid a steep price, too, but it’s done at last.”

She saw the wistful look come over
his face as he gazed at his uniform blouse draped over the wheelchair’s arm. In
the rapidly fading light, the golden crossed rifles of an infantryman and the
silver oak leaf of a lieutenant colonel struggled to outshine each other.
Within a few moments, however, the contest ended. Both insignia dissolved into
the colorless veil of dusk.

Just a featureless silhouette in
profile now, Jock said, “I’ll have to get used to not being a soldier anymore,
I guess.”

Jillian took him in her arms.
“Jock, you’ll always be a soldier…and a bloody brilliant one, too. You
have nothing left to prove. It’s just time for someone else to do the actual
fighting.”

She glanced down at her belly.
Speaking to the tiny person growing within, she said, “But mark my words,
little man, it won’t be you.”

***

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.