Shadows In the Jungle (21 page)

“This is it,” the skipper whispered.

The inflated rubber boat was lowered into the water on the seaward side of the PT, and the men loaded in. Sumner and Aguilar stayed to the rear of the craft. Aguilar brought with him a towrope, the other end of which was attached to the PT boat. As the Scouts rowed the rubber boat toward the dark shoreline, Aguilar played out the rope.

Just before four a.m., the rubber boat reached the shore and Sumner and his men jumped into the shallow surf. Aguilar turned the rubber boat and began rowing back, aided by crewmen aboard the PT boat reeling in the towrope.

The tree line began just twenty feet from the narrow beach. As drilled, the men moved into the natural cover, then fanned out into a semicircle, backs to the sea, and waited while Renhols and Weiland, the beach security team, brushed away their footprints in the white sand.

The island's vegetation was mostly coconut trees mingled with sparse shrubs and low grass less than a foot tall. With daylight still some two hours away, Sumner let the men nap, rotating between sleepers and guards every thirty minutes. The only “enemy action” the team encountered during the rest time occurred around five fifteen a.m., when a palm frond fell, landing on Weiland, who had been sitting against the tree trunk. Luckily, he had been hit by the leafy end of the thick branch, and was unhurt, although the men stifled a laugh as Weiland, jolted suddenly awake, assumed he had been jumped by a Japanese soldier and briefly wrestled with his attacker.

In the faint glow before the six a.m. dawn, during what is called the morning nautical twilight, Sumner was preparing to move his men out when he heard Jones give two sharp warning raps on his rifle butt. A nine-man Japanese patrol was moving toward them from the south. Signaling the team to silence, Sumner and his men lay hugging the ground, quiet as death itself.

The patrol was on a path, unseen by Sumner until now, that would take them just fifty feet from the Scouts' position. From their manner, Sumner knew they were not expecting trouble. They walked along almost casually. Their weapons, all bolt-action Arisaka rifles, were slung over their shoulders, and some were munching on fruit. The soldiers were all in good physical condition, wearing, for some reason, blue shorts with regulation short-sleeve shirts, socks, and the typical split-toe
jikatabi
rubber-soled shoes. The Scouts hugged the ground, not daring to breathe, as the patrol walked by, continuing off to the north.

Once the enemy was out of sight, Sumner told Blaise to conceal the radio as the team prepared to start their search.

As the sun continued its climb above the eastern horizon, its rays illuminated the buildings of the experimentation station, a few hundred yards to the south. Sumner could see six of them in various stages of disrepair, thanks to air corps bombs. From this distance, no signs of movement were evident, but a small plume of smoke rising from one indicated a cooking fire. Also now visible was a large, single-story house, just seventy yards to the team's right. The home's screened veranda faced the shore, giving its inhabitants a postcard-perfect view of the South Pacific.

Somewhere near the house, a rooster crowed.

“Maybe instead of the flyboys, we ought to rescue ourselves a chicken dinner,” Jones muttered.

“We have to check it out,” Sumner told Coleman. “If it's occupied, any Japs inside could block our return.”

Using hand signals, Sumner directed the team toward the house, crawling forward two at a time. Twenty yards from the house, they came upon a depression, three feet deep and twenty feet wide and running north to south. They crawled into it. For the next fifteen minutes they lay there, watching for movement, but the only sign of life was the clucking of chickens.

Suddenly the door opened and a Japanese officer decked out in boots, light khaki breeches, a white shirt, open at the collar, and an olive drab jacket with red collar tabs, each with two or three stars, emerged. Stepping off the screened veranda, he calmly opened the front of his pants, and began to urinate.

Finishing his chore, he turned and strode off in the direction of the experimentation station, unaware of the Americans watching him barely fifteen yards away. Assigning Weiland and Jones to keep a watch to the rear for any sign of the return of the nine-man patrol, Sumner and the rest left the depression and approached the house. Entering, weapons at the ready, they found it empty, as Sumner had expected. As in any army, Japanese officers and enlisted men do not intermingle.

The team returned to the depression and, following Sumner, headed toward the experimentation station, moving forward, hunched over, in short rushes from cover to cover, until they got to within one hundred feet of the cluster of buildings.

The Scouts could hear voices, but could not be certain where the speakers were or what was being said. One thing was obvious, though. The men talking were not the Americans they were seeking, a point confirmed by laundry, including Japanese military garments flapping from a wash line in the light breeze.

Sumner, at the edge of the depression, took much of this in with his binoculars. Through the glasses, he watched a mess cook busily at work over a fire. Since the air corps had worked over the station, Sumner could see inside some of the buildings, where supplies were neatly stacked under what remained of the roofs.

To his left, Sumner saw a sailboat on stocks, near the water and hidden from aerial view.

After some few minutes of observation, he shifted the team a short distance to the west to afford a different perspective. From this vantage point, Sumner saw only one other man in one of the buildings, and no sign of the officer. He did, however, spot a smaller structure with several lead-in wires stretching from an extensive array of radio antennae. Personal equipment was also visible and the breeze carried to the Scouts the smell of whatever the cook was preparing.

Sumner handed the glasses to Coleman and indicated where he was to look.

“With that radio setup, this could be the headquarters that controls all the barge traffic along this part of the New Guinea coast,” Sumner whispered. “The one thing I don't see that I had hoped to find is a guard shack where those flyboys might be kept prisoner. I don't see one. Nor does it seem like anyone's looking for them.”

“That patrol earlier?” Coleman asked quietly.

“Routine,” Sumner answered. “They were too casual to be a combat patrol.”

“You think those air corps guys are dead?”

“And buried here on the island somewhere,” Sumner said. “This place is just too damned small and too damned flat for them to hide out long.” He looked at his watch. It was nearly nine a.m. They'd been onshore four hours. “Maybe we'll keep looking, but the longer we stay on this island, the better our chances of ending up in that Jap's cook pot.”

Just then, Jones, on the right flank, spotted two Japanese heading in the Scouts' direction. As he passed the warning to the others, he saw two more enemy soldiers to the rear of the first pair. Sumner focused on them with his binoculars, estimating them to be about 150 yards away. Then, just as quickly as they were there, they were gone.

“That cuts it,” Sumner said. “We've been seen.”

A shrill whistle pierced the quiet air, grating on the Scouts' already taut nerves, followed by the flat crack of an Arisaka rifle. More firing broke out and the air became alive with the whizzing and buzzing of passing rounds.

“Make 'em duck,” Sumner told Coleman, who cut loose with his grease gun, emptying a thirty-round magazine in the direction of the gunfire. The shooting stopped.

“Weiland, Blaise,” Sumner said. “Keep a lookout for that patrol. Jones, you're the eagle-eye here. Have you seen any sign of those airmen?”

“No, sir,” he replied.

The firing resumed from a stand of vegetation in front of the team, kicking up dirt plumes around them. Coleman sent another long burst of submachine-gun fire that way. Leaves and pieces of twigs flew in all directions, and the Japanese return fire, when it came, was greatly reduced.

Sumner was certain the airmen were dead, otherwise one of them would have tried to make their presence known at the first sound of the skirmish, particularly the distinctive ripping sound of the 450-rounds-per-minute submachine gun. No voices were heard, nothing to indicate they heard the battle.

“Back to the beach,” Sumner said. “Weiland! Suppressing fire.”

Weiland, a big grin creasing his face, aimed along the sights and, with the nineteen-pound BAR resting on its bipod, emptied a twenty-round clip at the Japanese, replaced it, and emptied another. All firing stopped and the team scurried along the depression, heads bent low.

* * *

Cruising just to the north of Pegun, McGowen and the men on the PT boat heard the gunfire echoing from the island.

“Shit,” McGowen said. He turned to the PT commander. “Call for the cavalry.”

“Already on it,” the navy lieutenant said, his ship-to-ship radio mic in hand.

“Aguilar!” McGowen said. “Get that rubber boat ready.”

* * *

It took just fifteen minutes for Sumner and his team to reach their pickup point. Thrashing noises from behind let Sumner know that Japanese were in pursuit. Sumner directed Weiland to provide a base of fire while he and the others dashed from the depression into the underbrush. They, in turn, covered his withdrawal.

At the beach, Blaise and Renhols recovered the radio, switched it on and, as soon as it warmed up, contacted McGowen. Out from the beach, they could see the PT boat swiftly approaching, then glide to a halt three hundred yards from shore.

“We've got company, sir,” Blaise said into the handset.

“We know,” McGowen replied. “Did you find the airmen? Over.”

“Negative,” Blaise said. “We are coming out.”

“Roger,” McGowen said.

With a nervous eye to the north, Sumner watched for the nine-man patrol he knew had to be hightailing it in his direction. He deployed his men in a defensive semicircle.

“Tell Red we need a point of reference,” McGowen said into the radio. “We can't spot you in the underbrush.”

Blaise relayed the message.

Sumner nodded. Hoping the Japanese had not yet discovered their exact position, he stood up and stepped out from the vegetation onto the sand, facing the sea. Renhols joined him, facing inland.

Blaise said, “Roger.” Then to Sumner he said, “They see you, sir.” The two remained standing, back-to-back, a human landmark.

* * *

At about this time, McGowen's radio crackled with a different voice. The pilot of an Australian Beaufighter, Flight Sgt. Mostyn “Mos” Morgan, who, along with his navigator, Flight Sgt. Fred Cassidy, was scanning radio frequencies, had picked up the conversation between the PT boat and the island.

After identifying himself as a member of the Royal Australian Air Force's 30 Squadron, Morgan said, “I don't mean to eavesdrop, mate, but could you use a hand? Over.”

“In fact, yes,” McGowen said, looking up at the approaching drone of the aircraft. “I have a six-man patrol with Japs to their front and the sea to their backs. We need to get them off. We could use some air support. Over.”

“What an amazing coincidence, old man,” Morgan quipped. “It just so happens I have an airplane. I'll stand by until I see your lads are clear. Over and out.”

* * *

A burst of gunfire from Sumner's right alerted him to the fact that the much-anticipated arrival of the nine-man patrol had taken place. The firing also alerted the other enemy soldiers, who now began to close on the team's position. With the firepower he had, Sumner knew he could stave off the estimated thirty or so Japanese to his front. This new threat on his flank, however, made his situation more precarious. Blaise alerted McGowen to the new development.

“We can't provide covering fire because we can't see the positions of the rest of your team,” McGowen said. “Stand by. We are sending the boat.”

He turned to Aguilar.

“Ray! Get going.”

Aguilar nervously hesitated. McGowen shot him a hard glare.

“I said go! Now, damnit.”

Aguilar put the rubber boat over and he and a PT crewman climbed in and shoved off.

Sumner watched the PT eagerly. Farther out to sea, the frigate was in view, racing toward them at flank speed. In the distance, Sumner could hear heavy weapons fire. The other two PT boats were working over Fanildo and Bras, keeping the enemy's heads low and preventing them from sending reinforcements across the narrow channels to help their comrades on Pegun.

The sea was calm and the PT boat bobbed about three hundred yards offshore. Then the rubber boat emerged from the seaward side, turned, and, powered by Aguilar and the sailor, headed toward shore. Seeing the rubber boat, Sumner and Renhols dropped to a knee.

“They're dead meat on that thing,” Coleman said, watching the rowers.

Sumner agreed.

“Unless we give the Japs something else to shoot at.”

Coleman stared at him.

“Us?”

Sumner nodded, then said to all, “We're going to wade out backward to meet Aguilar. We don't have a choice. Jonesy, you're first. At my signal, fire to your left and head for the water. Go!”

Jones fired his carbine as ordered and scampered across the sand and into the surf. Turning to face inland, he began wading backward toward the approaching rubber boat. Japanese bullets splashed around him like jumping fish.

“Weiland, Coleman, suppressing fire. Renhols, firing to your right. Go.”

As the automatic weapons sprayed the brush, Renhols dashed into the water, firing his carbine to the right. He followed the retreating Jones.