Reluctant Warriors Page 8

  Harry called to the bridge with the message. Captain Phelps, Red to his crew, swore, which was very unusual. “God damn it, Harry,” he said over the phone. One of the lookouts later said he had thrown his cap down on the deck of the bridge. “What are they thinking at Pearl?” he demanded. “How can they do that to me? I want you to ask for a retransmission over my name. I know it will give away our position, but I just don’t care.”

  In only a few minutes a message came back, which one of the other men painstakingly decoded. It was identical to the first. Red won’t like this, Harry thought, and buzzed the bridge again.

  “Red, here it is, ComSubPac at the top, etc., the same message: ‘PROCEED IMMEDIATELY NISSAN ISLAND, GREEN ISLAND ARCHIPELAGO. HIGH PRIORITY. DETAILED TRANSMISSION WILL FOLLOW.’ By the way, Red, they even give us the heading of 175 degrees, I suppose just in case we can’t find this jewel on the map.”

  Phelps swore again, and again Harry thought how unusual it was—Phelps must have mistakenly left the intercom on. He couldn’t recall ever hearing the captain cuss before. But it was the fifty-fourth day of the patrol, and their pickings north of the Bismarck Archipelago had been very slim—only five ship sightings and only one sunk, a medium-sized tanker of about four thousand tons. They weren’t used to such poor luck on Bluefin, and it wore hard on Red. This was only Harry’s second patrol with the ship, but on a submarine the patrols were long and you got to know people quickly, working in close quarters. Harry had never seen the captain this low.

  “All right, Harry,” Phelps said after a long pause, obviously disheartened. “Come over to 175 degrees. Stay at flank speed.”

  Almost immediately, the boat heeled over. Then she slinked off from the convoy, which had never known she was there in the first place.

  In a few minutes, Harry called up to Red again.

  “Red, Rudy has the place on the map. It’s part of an archipelago, a coral atoll, oval in shape. Looks like about two hundred miles east of Rabaul, the big Japanese base, nearly the same distance from our closest base on Bougainville.”

  As Harry spoke, he could hear the captain’s voice fading in and out, muttering to himself, still cursing his luck. “I would have given my right arm for a crack at that convoy. Well . . . duty . . . had them right there . . . right there! . . . ah, to hell with it!”

  Soon enough, the promised long transmission came in and was laboriously decoded. Harry took it up to the bridge. By this time it was nearly 1530 hours on a bright and beautiful day. Most of the crew on a submarine never got to see the light of day, so Harry always felt privileged to go up through the hatch.

  As usual, the first thing he noticed was the captain’s famous red hair blowing back as the 311-foot warship sped along at full speed, a shade over eighteen knots.

  Still smarting, Phelps said, “Okay, Harry, read it.”

  “FLEET ORDERS # 58-601 . . .”

  Phelps interrupted, still agitated. “Hey, they are serious about this, aren’t they? Sorry, go on.”

  “Yeah, looks like it,” Harry said. He looked up from the paper at the sour expression on Phelps’ face.

  “Harry, you in there for the decoding?” the Captain asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, cut through the crap and just give me the gist of it.”

  “Okay. We’re to rescue this German national from his plantation on this island, part of the Green Island atoll. Fleet must want this guy real bad. They repeat this as High Priority and you know what that means.”

  “Yeah. We’re supposed to ‘sacrifice all elements of the command, including men and materials, to the mission at hand.’ So why would we want to put ourselves out for some German guy?”

  “They don’t say, Red. There are quite detailed directions, though, as to lying off the easternmost point of the island, appropriately called East Point, and how to get through the reef. Then his plantation is about two miles off down the coast road to the south. They think there are no Japanese there. Looks like there are three islands in this oval-shaped atoll. Nissan is the biggest one, looking like a lowercase ‘j.’ It goes about three-quarters the way around the whole atoll. Then you have two little islands, Sirot and Barahun. I’m guessing that Fleet wants to knock this place over and construct the usual bomber strip, so they can use it to blast Rabaul. This guy must know something. Goes on to say that the surf where we go in is very rough. They call it the Devil’s Cauldron.”

  “Oh, that’s just great! Doesn’t this place have the usual passageways into the lagoon?”

  “Yeah, but only on the Rabaul side, the west side in between those little islands. Fleet says the Japs run up and down the west side like there’s no tomorrow, so avoid that at all costs. Besides, this guy lives on the east side.”

  “So, why not send a seaplane in, have the guy row out, and fly him out?”

  “Got me.”

  “What’s his name, this German traitor?”

  “Vandelmann.”

  “So, what’s this ‘Cauldron’ they talk about?”

  “Doesn’t say. Just says that we must land there at 1600 hours tomorrow afternoon because the tide will be right just then. We have to find our way through the surf, go to his plantation, get him, and get out.”

  The phone buzzed. Phelps pushed the little lever down. It was Rudy Ferrell. As executive officer, Harry was supposed to do the navigating. But Ferrell was the best navigator either Red or Harry had ever seen, so they let him do it instead.

  “Red, here’s what I’ve got. I recommend we come down to Standard speed. We’ll still make the place with a couple of hours to spare.”

  “Thanks, Rudy, come to Standard now,” Phelps said.

  Soon, the boat seemed to hang still for just a second, and the hum of the motors lost a little of their intensity.

  “Harry,” Phelps said, “that’ll give us time to look the place over before we go in. I’d better see the orders myself. I’ll study them in my cabin. Take the boat for me for about thirty minutes.”

  Harry nodded.

  Phelps sidled past, with the orders blowing in his hand. As he did, he said something that would change Harry’s life.

  “Harry, I want you to command this thing. Okay?”

  That’s new, Harry thought. “Sure, my pleasure. Can I pick who I want?”

  “Take whoever you need.”

  Harry watched Phelps go back down through the hatch, then looked out at the choppy waves and thin blue horizon again, his stomach twisting with nervousness and anticipation.

  Everything seemed to go well enough to start with. Bluefin arrived off what was obviously East Point at a little before 1400, as planned. For two hours, she ran up and down the coast submerged, taking sightings through the periscope, trying to figure out how to get in through the surf.

  Red and Harry had talked in some detail about the shore party. They had decided to send in eight men in two inflatable rafts. The first, a large eight-man raft, contained Harry, Torpedoman First Class Tony Polavita, Able Seaman Herman Czarik, and Pharmacist’s Mate Jim Botel. The second and smaller raft held young Ensign Howie Bennish, Chief of the Boat Ulmer “Duke” Osborne, Sonarman Second Class Ma
ldin “Mike” Ketchel, who had had some high school German, and little Radioman Third Class Petey Minton, whom everyone called “Phoebe.”

  It took nearly two hours to make it through the coral reef, a maze of solid rock pathways, most of which went nowhere. Only the unusual calmness of the sea and the high tide the orders referred to made it possible to carefully explore and edge the rafts in. The best way in was down two particular corridors, and then directly between two extraordinary pinnacle rocks, the so-called Devil’s Cauldron.

  They made it in to shore at 1725, just as the sun was waning. After hurriedly covering the rafts in palm fronds, the men picked a spot for their camp. Harry split them into two groups. The young ensign, Bennish, along with Osborne, Ketchel, and Minton, were to head south along the coast road in the direction of the Vandelmann plantation, which they thought they had glimpsed seaward on the way in.

  Bennish and his team left long before dusk. Understanding the time limits, they started jogging immediately down the coast road, and soon disappeared from view. It seemed like a good split to Harry. They didn’t come any better than Duke Osborne. Ketchel was a good man too. So Minton was a little bit young, but Bennish was a good young officer, well respected on board.

  The men from Harry’s boat were to hold the landing spot, which Polavita jokingly called “our little beachhead. Hey, it’s closer to Tokyo than any of us have gotten so far.” They crouched in the underbrush as the sun began to set, listening to the soft lap of the waves and the sounds of birds in the jungle.

  Harry saw an insect that resembled the walking stick he was used to at home on the prairie, but this one had what looked like leaves for legs. Birds of many varieties flew past. They all seemed to have curved beaks. He watched carefully for spiders and snakes, but saw only one small red spider, ambling past a few feet away. There was a beautiful parrot, some flying thing that looked like a bat, and worms on many of the leaves. He knew to watch out for mosquitoes as carriers of the dreaded malaria, but the wind blew steadily across the little peninsula, and he saw none.

  The last sunset glow gave way to darkness, broken only by a three-quarter moon and a scatter of stars. The group stayed quiet, alert for any signs of trouble in the distance. No gunfire was heard, though the noise of the surf and the distance meant they might not hear it if there was any.

  Harry looked at his luminescent watch, which said 0230, and felt his stomach drop. Five hours! They had figured Bennish’s group would need only two, maybe three, hours. What if the whole thing was an enemy trap? Fleet wasn’t always right! Earlier in the patrol they had said that the harbor at Kavieng was loaded with fat transports, but when Bluefin showed up, the boats had mysteriously disappeared and the harbor was clear.

  With no other choice, Harry and his team remained spread out in the uncomfortable grass. The men whispered to each other for the first few hours, but gradually became quiet. Harry checked his watch again. It was 0330. His men seemed asleep; he was oddly comforted by the faint sound of one of them snoring. Maybe the men on the patrol were okay, were just held up by something. Maybe after the darkness closed in on them they couldn’t get back. If the patrol didn’t show up by morning, Harry’s men would have to go looking for them.

  Periodically, Harry felt some insect crawling over him and brushed it off. In the time before nightfall, he had noticed the incredible life around him. Some plants he recognized, bananas, breadfruit, pawpaws, and coconuts, but there were many more he had never seen before. The jungle, though it wasn’t especially dense, held countless nonfloral examples of life. He could still spot some of the bugs in the moonlight: four or five types of beetles alone, one with pincers that were as long as its body. Armies of ants seemed to go in every direction. Luckily, they didn’t seem interested in him. Several times he noticed ants or swarms of caterpillars on leaves.

  He wasn’t sleepy. On his farm in Dorance, Iowa, he might have been lulled to sleep by the sound of the land, but not here. This island was a forsaken land, with its permanently rotting vegetation. Its smell was nauseating and kept him awake. I would hate to have to make a life for my family here, he thought. There was certainly plenty of rain and the soil was wonderfully fertile, both great for farming. But it was too much of a good thing. The land was spoiled. It smelled like that one time when he was a boy and his father-in-law-to-be, Ray Woodson, tried to save a heifer that had cut her underside open trying to get over a barbed wire fence. The poor animal’s intestines fell on the ground, and in the end Ray had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. The island smelled like that, like decaying flesh.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The moon had set, throwing the surroundings into darkness, and Harry didn’t want to check his watch again and possibly draw the attention of anyone who might be out in this jungle.

  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!