Operation Long Jump (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 2) Read online

  Shaw demonstrated his blindingly fast telegraphy skills. “I’ve had a great deal of practice,” he said as he effortlessly decoded message after message, jotting them onto a pad. Handing one of the messages to Jock, he added, “This one will amuse you, Captain.”

  The message was a directive to provide regular reports on the disposition of Japanese ships in Fairfax Harbor, the port in Port Moresby.

  In the fading light of day, Jock swung his binoculars toward the harbor. “I make it as two destroyers and half a dozen freighters at anchor. Do you agree, Commander? You’re the coast watcher.”

  Not bothering to look up from the radio console, Shaw replied, “That was my count as well, Captain.” As he began to send the report, he added, “I trust they don’t expect us to see what’s going on fifteen miles away during the hours of darkness.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” Jock said. “MacArthur believes in magic, you know.”

  Chapter Ten

  Day 2/Day 3

  The GIs manning the night watch on the OP thought they were watching a thunderstorm far out in the Coral Sea. Bright domes of white light would flare on the horizon for a moment, illuminating the sky and clouds within their arc.

  Trevor Shaw set them straight. “It’s not a storm, lads,” he said. “That’s what a sea battle looks like at night. Those flashes are the big guns firing.”

  There was a flash that was different from those before it. This one was duller, orange in color, and lasted for several heartbeats before settling into a constant, reddish glow on the dark line of the horizon.

  “And that’s what a ship blowing up looks like,” Shaw said. “Let’s pray the Japanese Navy hasn’t found our invasion fleet.”

  The old coast watcher walked back to the radio and pressed the headphones to his ears. It wasn’t long before he said to Bob Wharton, “You’d better wake Captain Miles, Lieutenant.”

  Bad news travels fast, even among men dispersed in the darkness. Sergeant Tom Hadley found nothing but jumpy GIs as he moved from position to position along the OP’s perimeter, checking no one was asleep. He needn’t have worried.

  “I hear we’re getting marooned here, Sarge,” a rifleman whispered. “That gun battle out there…they’re sinking our fleet, ain’t they? We’re fucked…the only Operation Long Jump that’s gonna be going on is when we try to long jump our asses all the way back to Australia.”

  His buddy was just as pessimistic and even more jumpy. “I hear Japs everywhere, Sarge. I’m betting there’s hundreds of ’em climbing this damn mountain.”

  “I don’t hear a fucking thing, you douche bags,” Sergeant Hadley said, “and if they’re stupid enough to try and climb Astrolabe in the dark, they’re gonna die just like the ones we already buried. Now hear me good…the first idiot who fires at ghosts is gonna wish the hell he hadn’t. I’ll personally see to that. And like the captain says, let the Navy worry about what goes on in the water. Just stay alert and do your damned job.”

  Throughout that long, anxious night, Tom Hadley found himself repeating that same speech to the men of his platoon over and over. He wondered how many times he’d have to say it before he believed it himself.

  They were hoping the sunrise would reveal a very different seascape. Instead of an American invasion fleet nestling up to shore, only two warships could be seen making their way east across the Coral Sea. “They’re both Japanese,” Trevor Shaw said, “the same two we reported in Fairfax Harbor last night, I believe.” The brass telescope he used, sitting atop its battered, wooden tripod, looked like a seafaring relic from the 18th Century.

  Jock turned his binoculars to the harbor. Despite the early morning mist, he could tell one thing right away: there were several more transport ships at anchor now than last night. “Looks like the Port Moresby garrison got some overnight reinforcements,” he said. There was something else, too—something it didn’t take binoculars to notice. Japanese warplanes were rising from the airfield outside Port Moresby in droves and heading out to sea. As they passed closer to Astrolabe, the bombs and torpedoes hanging from wings and fuselages were clearly visible.

  As he gazed down on the empty beaches, Melvin Patchett clenched his teeth and mumbled, “And we got nothing. Not a damn thing.”

  Jock called his two platoon leaders together. As the first sergeant and Trevor Shaw listened in, he said, “Obviously, things got a little screwed up last night and the landings for Operation Long Jump have been delayed. We know from the radio traffic that our fleet lost some ships…we don’t know how many or what kind. But we believe they’re planning to regroup and try again.”

  “Any idea when, sir?” Bob Wharton asked.

  “I won’t bullshit you, Lieutenant…I have no idea. We’ve been instructed to stand by.”

  “Stand by?” Theo Papadakis said. “For how long, sir? The Japs are gonna know something’s fishy any minute now…like when those guys we buried don’t show up.”

  His tone icy, Jock replied, “Tell me something I don’t already know, Lieutenant. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Softening his words, Jock continued, “Look, our mission hasn’t changed…it’s just going to take a little longer. We’ve still got a couple of days’ worth of rations and enough ammo for another scrape or two with the Japs. And I know we’re all worried about the other half of our company that’s still with those ships, but we can’t do anything about that right now. I need the both of you”—he made solid eye contact with both Wharton and Papadakis—“to keep your men informed. As soon as I know something more, I’ll pass it along to you. We’ve got enough real problems to deal with. We don’t need the rumor mill cranking out imaginary ones.”

  “Amen to that, sir,” Patchett said.

  “Now,” Jock continued, “since it seems we’re going to be making this our home for a while, we’re going to need to make it more secure.” He turned to Patchett. “Top, what do you think are the quickest ways to do that?”

  “Well, sir, there are a few easy avenues of approach to this place that could use their fields of fire cleared…a little less vegetation and we could see them coming a whole lot better. It won’t take long to do. Also, we need to string up some noise makers outside the perimeter for the nighttime…any old ration cans, expended cartridges…anything metal hanging from a tripwire will do the trick. If the Japs do try to come in the dark, somebody’s bound to trip over one of them.”

  “You think we can scrounge up that much metal, Top?” Jock asked.

  “Are you kidding, sir? After all that shooting, them touch-holes got pockets full of expended brass. Everybody loves souvenirs.”

  “Okay, then,” Jock said. “Let’s get the men working on it right away.”

  Bob Wharton lingered behind. When the others were out of earshot, he asked, “Captain, what do we do if they forget about us?”

  Jock patted his lieutenant on the shoulder and replied, “Bob, how well do you swim?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Day 3

  The sun was beginning to set on what should have been D+0—Invasion Day—but as First Sergeant Patchett put it, “History was not made today. At least not here.” The American invasion fleet never came into view across the wide expanse of the Coral Sea. Japanese planes that had flown away to seek battle that morning had returned by midday. Refueled and rearmed, they set out once again, only to return before darkness fell. No one had kept count how many departed each time, so it was nothing but wishful thinking that a far fewer number of aircraft were now resting for the night at their Papuan airfield.

  Under the watchful eye of the first sergeant, the men had spent the daylight hours clearing fields of fire and setting out noise makers. No one complained about the downpours that soaked them twice; at least the rain gave the men a brief respite from the ever-present mosquitoes. Corporal Bogater Boudreau, stripped to the waist and dripping wet as he rigged tripwires, made a pronouncement: “At least up here on this mountain, you ain’t never gonna see no c
rocs. Come to think of it, I ain’t seen a lot of snakes, neither. So what’s a few damn mosquitoes?”

  “Those damn mosquitoes gonna give you malaria, you dumb Cajun,” Teddy Mukasic said.

  “That’s ‘Corporal dumb Cajun’ to you, Private,” Bogater replied. “Now get your Yankee ass back to work, mon frere.”

  Gabriel Lakai had that worried look on his face again. He had just finished another of the hourly telephone reports he had been faithfully performing for nearly two days. This call hadn’t gone well, he was sure. In fact, it might have been the harbinger of catastrophe. They seemed to be asking questions again, questions he didn’t understand and had no idea how to answer. A simple hai—yes—had saved him the last time. This time, though, hai seemed to be exactly the wrong thing to say. Gabriel could sense the outrage in the voice at the other end of the line the instant he blindly offered that word in reply.

  One look at Gabriel’s face and Jock smelled trouble. Setting his K ration supper aside, he asked, “What’s wrong, son?”

  “I think they ask questions again, Captain Jock, but I don’t know what they’re saying.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Gabriel. This little ruse of ours couldn’t last forever, anyway.”

  “But should I keep calling every hour, Captain?”

  “Is it getting too hard on you? You haven’t had solid sleep in two nights now.” He broke off a chunk of chocolate from his D bar and offered it to the boy.

  “No, Captain Jock…I’m fine,” Gabriel replied, flexing his arm muscles to prove his fitness. “Sleep is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Okay, then…keep making those calls. We’ve got nothing to lose now.”

  If it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Oshida’s excited cries, Theo Papadakis might have been as good as dead. He would have never known someone was sneaking up on him as he crouched next to Sergeant Brody, his injured squad leader.

  “Lovely, lovely,” Papadakis said, the challenge word tumbling in a panic from his mouth far too late. Even in the darkness of night, he could tell it was First Sergeant Patchett looming over him.

  “Lurlene, Lieutenant,” Patchett said. “I authenticate Lurlene…but I coulda cut your throat about ten different ways by now, sir.” The tone of sir managed to perform the ceremony of conveying respect without implying a shred of it. “Besides, all the L-words in the world wouldn’t make no nevermind to a Jap standing this close, even if he could pronounce them. And how come the prisoner ain’t blindfolded, like the captain wants?”

  “But it’s dark, Top. He can’t see shit. Nobody can.”

  “Don’t matter, Lieutenant. If the captain wants it, we do it. No questions. Next thing I know, you’ll be untying him, too.”

  “What can I say, Top? You got me.”

  “That’s damn white of you, Lieutenant.” Pointing to Oshida, Patchett continued, “All the noise he was making, he must’ve thought I was one of his buddies coming to gut you. What worries me, though, sir”—again, sir implied no respect at all—“is if you’re not alert, how do you expect your men to be?”

  “All right, Top. I get the message. I’ll fix it.”

  Through with the scolding, Patchett turned to Steve Brody. “How’re you doing, son?” the first sergeant asked.

  “It hurts like a bastard, Top,” Brody replied, “but I can handle it.”

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you and Mister Moto out of here, Steve,” Patchett said, motioning toward Oshida. “You should’ve been on some fancy hospital ship by now, with nurses fussing all over you.”

  Grimacing with pain as he sat up, Brody said, “It ain’t so bad with this sling Doc rigged up…and it ain’t even my shooting hand. You know, as long as I’m stuck here, I could make myself useful”—he motioned toward Lieutenant Oshida—“like guard that prisoner or something. I can still handle a pistol with my good arm. Probably hurt like crazy if I have to shoot it, but that’s just my tough luck.”

  Patchett nodded and said, “How about we give him one of those Nambu pistols we took off the Japs, Lieutenant?”

  “Sure,” Papadakis replied. “No problem.”

  Patchett motioned in the direction of Oshida again. “And if that gentleman over there makes any more noise, stick a damn sock in his mouth.”

  The quiet of night was making Jock uneasy. He tried to shake the feeling, telling himself, Quiet’s supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it?

  But something inside him wasn’t buying it: Is there such a thing as too quiet?

  His nervous hovering around the radio set was driving Ginny Beech to distraction. She pulled the headphones from her ears and said, “You look positively stonkered, Captain. Why don’t you try to get some rest? We’ll fetch you if there’s any news.”

  Jock shrugged. “I can’t sleep,” he said. “Whoever said no news is good news didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, that’s for sure.”

  “I wouldn’t worry, Captain,” she replied. “Even if the rest of you Yanks never show up, Papua is a big place to get lost in. Look at Commander Shaw and his merry band…we’ve been hidden away for months. That bloke I put down yesterday was the closest scrape we’ve had.”

  “Yeah,” Jock said, “but when that bunch of Japs we just buried doesn’t show up like they’re supposed to—”

  “Like I said, Captain…this is a big place.”

  PFC Bucky Reynolds thought it was anything but quiet. Prone in his fighting hole on the perimeter, he jerked his M1 to firing position at every gentle tinkle of a noise maker in the breeze. It was driving Frank Simms out of his mind.

  “Knock that shit off, for cryin’ out loud,” Simms said. “It’s just the wind. There ain’t nothing out there.”

  His voice anything but calm, Reynolds replied, “How the hell are we supposed to tell the difference between the wind and a Jap, Frank? Top doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. We made those noise maker things all wrong.”

  That earned Bucky a sharp rap on the helmet. “Listen, Pisser,” Simms said, “you’re the one who don’t know what he’s doing. You weren’t on the Cape…and Top was already fighting in a war while you were still sucking your mama’s tit.”

  Nothing Frank Simms said made any difference to Bucky Reynolds. The Japs are everywhere, he told himself. One of them is going to sneak up and drive his bayonet right through—

  Noise makers started clanging like church bells on a Sunday morning. “OH MY GOD,” Bucky yelled, but his words were drowned out by the POWW POWW POWW of his M1 as he rapidly squeezed off round after round.

  By his third round, every swinging dick on the perimeter—even Frank Simms—was firing and reloading as fast as he could.

  Lieutenant Papadakis screamed into his walkie-talkie, “FIRE MISSION FIRE MISSION, SHELL ILLUM, TARGET NUMBER TWO.”

  The mortar section responded promptly. With a dull PLUMFF, their weapon launched an illumination round—containing a parachute flare—high into the air. The round soared over Astrolabe’s front face toward the preplanned target point, ejecting the flare a few seconds later as it passed through the top of its arc. The flare floated downward on its parachute, swinging from side to side, its brilliant white light casting bizarre, jittery shadows on the landscape below.

  As the eyes of the soldiers on the perimeter adjusted to the unnatural, white-washed images before them, one thing became apparent: there was indeed something out there among the noise makers. Their firing stopped abruptly. The only sound they could hear now was a faint, pathetic bleating, slowly dying out.

  They had just riddled several goats.

  The parachute flare extinguished, blacking out the magnitude of their mistake—until a second illumination round popped overhead and highlighted their error in the brilliant light once more. In the new quiet, one more plumff sounded from the direction of the mortar section.

  “TURN OFF THAT FUCKING MORTAR.” The speaker was unmistakably First Sergeant Patchett.

  Theo Papadakis, the walkie-talkie still in his hand, loo
ked up to see Jock Miles standing over him. In the flare’s ghastly glow, the captain looked like a ghost. A very unhappy ghost.

  His words slow and measured, Jock said, “In the future, Lieutenant, let’s not be so eager to light up our secret location like Times Fucking Square, okay? If the Japs all the way in Port Moresby didn’t hear our little firepower displays, they sure as hell could see those illum rounds.”

  As the last flare flickered and died, Trevor Shaw walked up to have a look. “Rather raucous way to bag dinner,” the old coast watcher said. “Unless you have some use for those slaughtered animals, Captain, my men will be glad to claim them at first light.”

  With their night vision ruined by the flares, Jock, Patchett, and Shaw found making their way back up the slope in the dark to the OP no easy proposition. Cursing their temporary blindness, each tripped and fell at least once.

  “I should’ve never brought those illum rounds,” Jock said.

  Shaking his head, Patchett replied, “Nah…it was a good call, sir. We just got screwed by Mother Nature again. We may need them flares yet, but we’ve only got three left now…and I’m thinking we just cut our ammo reserves about in half.”

  “We should move at first light, Top,” Jock said.

  Patchett pondered for a moment before replying, “Why bother, sir? We’re gonna have to stay somewhere on this mountaintop if we’re gonna keep to our mission. What’s the difference between here or a couple of miles down the ridge? Even if they saw those damn flares in Port Moresby, they were too far away to pinpoint exactly where we are.”

  “You’ve got a point, Top,” Jock replied. “I’m pretty sure they’ve got a hunch we’re up here, anyway.”