Reluctant Warriors (8 page)

As farmers did, he picked up some dirt once or twice. He couldn't see it clearly.
It was slimy, more like mud than good soil. He dropped it on the ground and shook
his head, wondering how people could live in a place like this. Sounds also kept
him awake, sounds entirely foreign to his ears, loud sounds that were almost deafening.
The silence here was not silent. Knowing that the climate in Germany was a lot like
that of Iowa, he wondered what kind of a man this German was who was so important
to ComSubPac. Why would he come
here
?

His attention was instantly diverted by a new sound, soft rustling, in front of him.
He sat motionless in the two-foot-high grass with his legs crossed. His men were
behind him, but this sound came from in front.

None of my guys could possibly be in that direction,
he thought
. I would have heard
them move. We talked about this! I would be the closest one to the coast road, and
no one was supposed to go in front of me. I told the other three men at dusk, “If
you move off in front of me, one of us is going to shoot you.”

Could it be the men from the patrol? No, because there was an agreed-on signal. Neither
had thought it was very necessary at the time, but Bennish and Harry had agreed that
if the patrol returned after dark, they would begin flashing two flashlights when
they figured they were within half a mile. There had been no lights, and whatever
was making this sound was several feet away. Then, Harry had an even more worrisome
thought: perhaps it was a survivor from the patrol getting back as best he could.
Someone who didn't know the signal or didn't have a flashlight. Maybe he was hurt
and didn't know where he was.

Then, Harry thought, if he was hurt, he would at least groan! It didn't lessen the
stress. He took the .45 Browning pistol from his lap, the gun with the fake ivory
handle grips. It was a real mystery how that gun had become Navy issue. But there
it was when Harry chose from the weapons locker. He'd been hoping never to have to
use it. Though a farmer, he had never enjoyed hunting or the dying part of rural
life, just the growing.

There it was again, a rustling sound! It was a little louder this time. He felt frozen,
exposed. Was there light shining upon him, some moonlight coming through the clouds?
He looked around, trying not to move, but still could see absolutely nothing but
jungle and grass. Like everyone in the United States, he had heard much about the
Japanese proficiency in jungle fighting. Could the Japanese have eliminated the patrol
and now be creeping toward his men? Could they see in this light?

With fear beginning to envelop him, Harry again caught himself. No. He knew very
well from years at sea that some people had better night vision than others. His
was pretty good. If someone were coming through the deep grass toward him, they wouldn't
be able to see any better than he could. He clutched the gun harder. He knew there
was a bullet in the chamber. But a .45 would not fire unless you pulled back the
hammer and cocked it. Then it would shoot nine times, just as fast as you could pull
the trigger. It was a weapon of amazing power, and he knew it would drop a man with
a single shot.

There it was again, several steps closer! If it was an animal, why didn't it make
a sound, breathing or feeding? No sound, except the sound of something moving through
the grass.

Harry knew he had to cock the gun immediately. Leaning over a little on his left
hand, and placing the .45 under his rump to muffle the sound, he pulled the hammer
back.

Clunk, and it was cocked. The sound seemed deafening, but in a moment the object
was there again, slowly moving.

Ever so slowly, Harry brought the weapon around and twisted his body so that his
torso was closer to the sound. The object moved again, directly toward him. He wondered
if his men were still behind him. Had the enemy
taken them as they slept? He only
entertained the thought for a second.
No, Polavita would've raised the alarm
, he
thought.

He concentrated completely on the object in front of him, slowly extending both arms.
With his arms parallel to each other, he put his open left palm forward, though it
was not as far forward as the muzzle of the .45. The object was very near! He could
hear the grass move in front of him. Somehow, he felt no fear. His hands were quite
steady.

The grass moved again. It pressed against his left hand. Harry closed his eyes and
fired.

The report of the .45 seemed like an artillery shell. The object slumped. The sounds
of the night quieted for a few seconds, and then welled up as before as though nothing
had happened!

Harry rolled over on his back, half-expecting Japanese soldiers to jump him, or at
least fire back. There was nothing! The nonsilence was not replaced by any new sounds.
No soldiers attacked. It was just the deafening roar of the putrefied land he despised,
the strange unquiet.

Finally, he did hear something, a low whisper. “Boss, you all right?”

A wave of relief flooded him. Only Tony Polavita ever called him that! Then two other
recognizable voices came in out of the dark.

“What the hell was that?” said one.

The other, obviously the snorer, groused, “What happened?”

What a relief ! They were all there, Harry thought. He was halfway around the world
from his family, and his mission's success was in doubt, but he couldn't help smiling
broadly.

“I'm okay,” he said slowly.

“Want me up there with you, Boss?” Polavita whispered.

“Yeah,” Czarik added, “me too?”

“Shut up,” Harry answered quietly but firmly.

Silence fell again. Harry checked his watch again. He figured it was safe. Anyone
watching them from the jungle would have heard them already and made themselves known.
It was 0500 now.

His mind wandered, first to his wife, Dell, and then to their three children. For
the first time he thought it would be nice to go back to the
farm, to raise crops
again, just give up his career in the Navy. He'd only seen their eldest, Wilhelmina,
once, and never seen the boys, Toby and Danny. With Dell's father, Ray, dead, there
was no one to help Dell run the farm.
Both of us are struggling
, he thought,
and
both of us are losing.

What could have happened to Bennish's men? Why didn't they come back? They had had
three hours of daylight when they left. They'd headed off jogging, and it wouldn't
have taken much time to go down to that plantation, maybe twenty minutes. That would
have given them plenty of time to snatch the guy. Unless there were Japanese here!
They had heard no shooting, but the surf could have hidden the sounds. On and on
the questions and ideas recirculated in Harry's mind.

There was about an hour left before dawn. Harry relaxed a little, thinking back to
his years in the choir at St. Bartholomew's Lutheran Church in Dorance. Hymns whirled
through his mind, one after another. One in particular rolled through his mind over
and over again:

Singing songs of expectation,
Marching to the Promised Land.
Clear before us, through the darkness,
Gleams and burns the guiding light.
Brother clasps the hand of brother,
Stepping fearless through the night.

He had to laugh, thinking of old Mrs. Franklin singing it. She must have weighed
three hundred pounds. When she hit those high notes, they were hit! He used to shudder
when she sang, because it was more like screeching.

Something flickered in Harry's peripheral vision. He turned toward the coastal road.

There, amazingly, was a gleaming light just as the hymn said! He stared, his mouth
open. It was definitely a light, and it was moving! In another second he recognized
that it was the patrol, and that they were coming back on the coast road holding
torches! In a few minutes, with both groups yelling encouragement to each other,
they were close enough to distinguish the men holding the torches.

“It's my guy Duke,” Polavita said, squinting a bit, “three of our guys and . . .
a cart with what looks like two men on it.”

As the returning party came up to them, Harry could identify the figures on the cart:
Ensign Bennish, his uniform bloodied, and another figure in a dirty white Panama
suit, bound with ropes—probably the mysterious Vandelmann.
At least they all came
back
, Harry thought, relieved.

Osborne greeted them with an indignant snarl. “He shot Howie, sir! This goddamn German
asshole shot little Howie!”

Harry hurried over to Bennish. The little ensign tried to get up, but Harry motioned
for him to lay back.

“I don't feel so bad, sir,” Bennish said. “I'm just sorry about the mission. I'm
sorry I bungled it, Harry.”

“Well, you got him.”

“But I really don't know what I could have done differently. We had a rough time
of it, sir. This German is a little crazy.”

Harry looked at the German for the first time. He was an average looking man of fifty
to sixty years with a huge waxed moustache that came straight out on either side
of his nose. His suit must have been nice once, but now it was dirty and soaked in
sweat. He also reeked of booze.

“So,
this
is the guy we risked our lives for?” Harry asked. “You're joking, right?”

“We go up there to the house, sir,” Bennish explained, “and we knock on the door.
We can see him in there playing cards with two natives, drinking these shots of some
kind of liquor, just roaring laughing. So, we knock again, walk in, he looks surprised,
and damn if he didn't shoot me.”

Botel leaned over Bennish and started examining the wound.

“Jim, how does it look?” Harry asked.

“It doesn't hurt much, Harry,” Bennish said woozily. “Let me stand up.”

“Stay down, Howie. Jim?”

“Harry, the bullet went right through his side here.” Botel pointed at the open wound
that he had slowly unwrapped. By this time it had gotten reasonably light and there
was no need for the torches anymore. “He's
bled a lot. But it's a clean wound, not
bad if we can get him out of here soon.”

Harry turned to his men. “Let's not waste any time in getting out of this dump.”

They headed to the rafts. Osborne, who had settled down a lot, but still regularly
waved his pistol at the German, added something.

“Harry, I almost forgot. While this damn German was shooting Howie, Phoebe went up
the line to scout and found two Japs.”

Harry had noticed a smile on the face of the diminutive little sailor, but hadn't
thought anything about it.

Phoebe immediately began to talk, almost boasting.

“Yes, sir, I found these two Japs in a hut and I plugged 'em, sir, with my .45. They
were dead for sure. I watched 'em fall over and they didn't get up. Just after that,
I heard the shot and ran back toward the plantation.”

“There wasn't supposed to be any enemy presence on this island!” Harry had a very
bad feeling about this.

“Funny thing about that, sir,” Phoebe continued. “When I turned to run back to the
plantation house, a phone rang in the hut they were in. I didn't think they had phones
on this rock.”

All of the men stared. Osborne, Polavita, and Harry yelled at the same instant, “A
phone!”

Phoebe looked hurt. “So they got phones?”

“They don't have phones on this heap, Junior,” Osborne said caustically. “That was
an enemy field phone. You never said anything about a phone. Sir, I didn't know or
I woulda gotten out of there and not spent those hours looking for that damn cart.”

Polavita chimed in. “Yeah, kid, who do you think was on the other end of that thing,
my little sweet grandmother?”

“Phoebe, you sure you heard a phone ring?” Harry asked softly.

“Yeah.” Phoebe's voice sounded dispirited. “I thought it would be a good surprise
and you would be happy with me.”

“Was it a short ring?” Osborne asked.

“Yeah, a funny sorta ring.”

“Yeah, a field phone,” Duke said. The rest nodded.

“Ketchel, give me that Morse lamp,” Harry said. He pointed it at the submarine, whose
hull-down silhouette could not be seen between the waves, and sent:

HAVE GERMAN. HOWIE SHOT. JAPS ON ISLAND.

In a moment, he could see the answer as it came back.

ROGER.

Harry sat down to take stock. He looked at Botel, who had been leaning over Howie
the last few minutes. The little officer was no longer talking.

“His wound's beginning to fester in this heat,” Botel said.

Meanwhile, the German had sobered up just enough to begin nonstop talking. He was
in a jovial mood, still sitting on the cart.

As each man passed he would ask, “Wie heissen Sie?”

Ketchel finally looked up and said, “He wants to know your name.”

None of the men answered, but the German kept on asking.

Harry stepped back and thought. The whole thing was becoming clear to him. The German
had lied, perhaps about everything. Maybe he knew important things and maybe he didn't.
He had a plantation, so he was in the copra business. The information Rudy Ferrell
had come up with was that the Green Islands had been German up until the end of World
War I, when they had gone over to Australia as a mandate. So this guy had come here
as a young man. But for the last thirty years he had done business with the Australians.

It was also a good bet that the German had continued sneaking copra out to his Aussie
clients after the Japanese bypassed the place. Now he feared from the increasing
Japanese activity that they might occupy the island. When they examined his copra
tanks and found them empty, all they would have to do was get some of his native
workers together to figure out that he had been double-dealing them, and they would
put him in a nice hole in the ground. No doubt he had a pile of money in Australia
in some bank. He'd contacted his business cronies to get him out, but since the Aussies
had no subs, the pressure came through Washington to Admiral Lockwood at ComSubPac.