The Recommend (A Word War 2 Naval Adventure), page 13
The chart had said “Sand”. That cartographer had apparently not seen Bondi Beach. They squelched through the stinking, glutinous mud, seeing in the starlight myriads of crabs scuttling sideways to safety. Formed-up on solid ground, crouched under the scrub, Wouk ordered:
“Single file to the head of the bay. Now—not a sound!”
Through the mangroves, through bottle-trees and swamp oaks, up to a small creek which flowed into the bay on their right. Wouk stepped into the water without hesitation. Bellet followed, and then it was Meredith’s turn. He moved cautiously, trying not to splash, feeling the cold water round his thighs, and stifling a mad desire to plunge to safety the other side. It was possible that this creek could be alive with crocodiles.
Maybe Wouk doesn’t know that, he thought—he’s not a Queenslander. But it was too late now. He was more than halfway across. Behind him he heard a splash, and a stifled curse as a man stumbled. His spine was crawling when he clambered up the other bank.
Tense, their eyes squinted in concentration, the twelve men moved on.
Then Wouk stopped suddenly and Meredith bumped into Bellet. Through the scrub ahead, almost shocking because its presence was so alien in this remote and empty land, flickered the red light of a camp-fire.
Afterwards, Meredith was to wonder at how suddenly it all happened, and how quickly it was over. Days of training and planning and guts twisting thoughts and apprehensions resolved in a few violent minutes.
They crept on, fanning out now, rifles and machine-guns held ready before them. On their right the waters of the bay, whispering under the suasion of the wind, stretched empty of any craft.
They were fifty feet away from the camp when a shadow moved across the fire. Sentry. Meredith’s staring eyes picked out half a dozen sleeping forms on the ground—there probably would be as many more not in his sight. But he was sure there was only one sentry—the Japs, reasonably enough, would expect no interference on this remote coast of a vast continent, inhabited solely by a few nomadic blacks.
The sentry turned, and halted. They froze: and Meredith was conscious of twelve fingers on twelve ready triggers. One careless shot ...
The sentry was fumbling with his pockets. His hands came out and in the brief flare of the match they could see his helmet, and the coarse Mongoloid face. Then the match went out and there was only the fire and the red point of his cigarette. The Jap walked leisurely on towards the scrubby edge of the clearing in which the rest of the party lay.
“I’ll take him,” Meredith heard Wouk whisper, and then he was gone.
Not you, Meredith cursed silently—the sentry’s important, but you’re the leader. Bellet, me ... And he knew as he thought it that he was glad it wasn’t him stalking that sentry.
He did not stop to reason that his reluctance was natural—in the Navy your killing is all long-range, remote. He felt only a perverse savageness at his weakness. Then he saw the sentry halt at the edge of the scrub, saw him bend forward a little, peering.
He’s seen Wouk! flashed through his taut mind. If Wouk goes ... What happens then? What do we do? And he was abruptly glad that the solid form of Petty-Officer Bellet was a few inches in front of him.
He had no time to analyse this brief coming-up against the responsibilities of authority. The sentry had turned back on his return beat. A shadow had slipped from the bushes, was trailing him a few feet behind.
Meredith saw it happen clearly. There was the light of the fire, and the reflecting water was throwing its starlight into the clearing. Wouk leaped, his great arm going out and hooking round the sentry’s throat. Meredith saw the head jerk back, saw the arms flailing in abrupt desperation, and the rifle drop to the ground with a clatter. And heard the sound of a terrified, half-articulate scream.
Wouk, unpractised like all of them in hand-to-hand killing, had botched the job.
Then the violence erupted.
Wouk went down on top of his enemy, his free hand punching. A form nearby leaped up and resolved itself into a man with upheld arm; the firelight gleamed on the bayonet. The bayonet down towards Wouk’s rolling body and Bellet was yelling:
“Open fire! Open fire!”
Sick in his guts, actuated only by a response to a fire-order, Meredith lifted his machine-gun and pulled the trigger. He kept it pressed, the gun held hip-high, spraying indiscriminately into the clearing. He had emptied half his magazine before a semblance of control returned to him. Then he brought the smoking gun up to his shoulder and fired into the milling mob round the fire.
Bellet and someone else at the end of the line had sense enough to shine torches into the melee. It helped their firing enormously, and it sealed the petty-officer’s fate.
From the camp-site the scrub was dark, pitted in different places by brief stabs of red. But now a bright revealing light was shining. One Jap, lying prone on the ground, aimed his automatic “wood-pecker” at that light. The range was fifty feet. Bellet fell without a sound from his mashed face, and the noise of his collapse into the scrub was unheard in the staccato chatter of the machine-guns.
A second after he died the man who had shot him was cut across the stomach by a swathe of bullets. He crumpled forward on his machine-gun.
Meredith was to suffer the sharp pangs of shame for a long time afterwards at his failure to appreciate the fact that his own lieutenant was in the middle of that cone of murderous fire. And it was not to help him when he learned that Wouk’s brain had not been stultified to anything like the same extent.
Wouk had either killed or slammed his man into unconsciousness. He did not know the Jap’s state, nor did he care. He heard Bellet’s fire-order and at once he had rolled over, pulling his enemy on top of him. A second later the man who had bayoneted him fell dead on top of him.
Even in the face of an untrained fire the Japs would have had no chance. Bemused with sleep, they were hit by the concentrated fire of five machine guns and as many rifles. And after the first shock of actual combat Termagant’s men had fired as they had been trained to do—fast and accurately.
The clearing was still lashed with bullets, the fire was spouting sparks, and nothing moved in it when Meredith realised that their battle had been won. He looked about him, glaring for Bellet, waiting to hear the cease-fire order. When it did not come he shouted:
“Cease firing! Cease firing!”
The staccato fusillade stuttered away to silence. Splinter said beside him:
“Bellet’s dead. Caught a packet in the face.”
His nerves taut, Meredith nodded. He knew now what had to be done.
“Follow me,” he ordered, “watch it now.”
They crept behind him to the camp-fire, the stench of burnt cordite smarting in their mouths and nostrils. Cautious, strung to piano-wire tautness, they prowled round the scene of their carnage. Nothing moved.
“Gawd, we were lucky,” Splinter said in a soft, strained voice.
Someone laughed, nervously. Meredith ordered:
“Check every man. Stow the dead near that bottle-tree, there. Wounded, out of sight in the scrub. Splinter, douse the fire.”
He was a leading-seaman, and they would have obeyed his orders at any time; but now they jumped to it with alacrity.
Meredith pulled his torch from his hip pocket and walked quickly towards where he had last seen Wouk.
A seaman was pulling a body aside when he got there. He glanced up.
“Both these have had it,” he told Meredith, his voice defensively rough. “There’s another one underneath ’em.”
Meredith bent down, shielding the torch with his fingers curved over the glass. The light shone into a brown distorted face, and the bulging eyeballs reflected the light with horrible and inanimate glassiness. Meredith had never seen a strangled man before, but he knew he was looking at one now.
With his free hand he heaved the Jap aside, and saw Wouk.
The big prone body, with the bayonet protruding from the right shoulder, the six inches of free steel and the handle sticking straight up, looked so much like the lurid covers of pulp magazines he had seen that he wanted to laugh. He crushed the hysterical tendency and reached round to his back for the first-aid kit.
He knew only elementary first-aid, but when he gingerly drew the bayonet clear, and saw the dark blood begin to well from the wound, he knew that there was a live heart pumping. He was pressing a thick pad of sterile cotton-wool over the lips of the wound when Wouk opened his eyes.
“How do you feel?” Meredith asked stupidly, realising as he spoke that the only thing that mattered was whether Wouk’s lung was pierced. Wouk tried to rise and he pushed him back firmly.
“Take it easy,” he told him, “you’ve had a bayonet in your shoulder. But there’s no froth on your mouth—I don’t think it got the lung.”
“My leg,” Wouk said, wetting his lips, “a bullet, I think ...”
“All right, I’ll get to it in a moment.”
He secured the pad with clumsy strips of plaster, then held his water-bottle to Wouk’s mouth. The lieutenant drank thirstily. Meredith let him have the bottle and wriggled himself down to the other’s legs. He found the wound at once—the khaki trousers below the knee were stained and stiff with blood.
He cut right round the trouser leg with his knife and peeled the cloth back. There was a small neat hole in the calf.
“I think it’s missed the bone,” he said, feeling.
“For God’s sake ...!” Wouk groaned.
“Sorry.”
Wouk lay back, breathing heavily. In the torchlight his face was strained and grey-looking.
“What happened?”
“We got all of them. Most are dead, I think. I saw the piles of supplies just inside the scrub.”
“Our men?”
“Bellet. He had a torch ...”
“Dead?” The word came out weakly, and Meredith peered at him.
“Yes. You’ve got to have a transfusion—there’s a lot of blood from that shoulder. I’ve sent two men round for the boat.”
“No.”
“They’ve already gone.”
“Damn fool ... the sub could be coming in now ... hear the boat …”
“But you’ve got to get back on board. That shoulder ...”
“No!” The voice was weak, but Wouk managed to infuse vehemence into its tone. “The submarine ... you’re in charge. When the boat comes, keep it here. If the sub hears it she’ll go for her life. You’ll wait here till first light.”
“But I don’t know if I’ve stopped your bleeding ...”
“Damn you, Meredith, you heard my orders! You’ll stay till ...”
Meredith bent closer. Wouk had fainted, without a sound.
“Well,” Splinter said in a low voice, “what happens now?”
Meredith had walked back to the group gathered about the dead camp-fire. In the dim starlight he felt their questioning stares on him.
“In a minute,” Meredith said, and started to walk towards the water. A voice stopped him.
“Hey, Baron.”
He stopped and turned his head back.
“What’s up with you?” In the turmoil of his thoughts, under the stress of his new responsibility, his voice was harsh.
“Nothin’ wrong with me. It’s the wireless.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She’s U.S.,” the voice told him laconically, “four bullet holes, valves smashed.”
You fool, Meredith wanted to shout, why the hell did you let it get hit! He said, dully, “All right,” and walked on.
He stopped at the water’s edge, staring out to sea. He had to think. Now he was in charge. Now he was the officer, the responsibility his. That was what he wanted his recommend for, wasn’t it? The irony of it would have made him smile cynically at any other time—now he felt only the pressing weight of his responsibility, the need to make a plan.
How the hell did you trap a Fleet submarine? This wasn’t a Hollywood set. He was ashore on a deserted coast, ten men waiting for his decision, their lives in his hands. He could send the boat and have the destroyer here in half an hour. And scare the sub back out to safety?
What about Wouk ...? If he kept him here, if he kept the boat here, Wouk might bleed to death. But Wouk had given his orders. Had he been rational? Were you obliged to obey orders like that? And he knew that Wouk had been perfectly rational, and that you did obey orders like that.
With the first small decision made, to stay, he felt easier. He stared about him, rubbing at his bristly chin, feeling his mouth dry with reaction. His mind, working overtime to formulate a plan, caught at a memory—something he had seen. He concentrated, frowning. The memory swum into the forefront of his conscience, clear and stark and hope-bringing.
Alertly now he lined-up the position of the camp-fire and the entrance to the bay—he saw at once that the imaginary line led right through the middle of the entrance.
The camp-fire ... Why had they kept a fire burning? The night was stifling. A fire would serve no purpose except to give their position away. Give their position ... purposely!
A shock of understanding thrilled through him. That fire was kept alight to guide the submarine in through the entrance, clear of the reef. His squinted eyes grabbed at the shore on his left, ran out to where his memory of the chart told him the reef waited. The plan was formed almost as he stared—he knew it would work; it had worked before, hundreds of times. Worked on coasts in the old days by wreckers ...
The fire had been kept alight. Therefore the submarine was expected tonight.
He ran up the slope towards the restless group.
“What’s got into you?” Splinter growled. “Had a bright idea? I bloody well hope so!”
Quickly he told them his belief and his decision.
“You could be right,” Splinter said slowly, “about the camp-fire, I mean. But we ain’t got a hope in hell of tacklin’ a sub on our own. Fair go, fulla.”
“Listen,” Meredith said earnestly. He could order them to do his bidding, but he wanted their belief in him and his plan. “I’ve read about Diggers in the Middle East jumping up on a tank and putting it out of action.”
“The boy’s been to the pictures,” a voice sneered. It was the man who had told him about the radio.
“All right, Bennet,” Meredith said curtly, “now let’s have your plan.”
“I ain’t paid to think,” Bennet growled.
“Then button your flap!” Meredith ordered. He stared round at their silent, sceptical faces. “Look. We relight the camp-fire over there, dead in line with the middle of the reef. One man walks back and across in front of it—yes,” he said quickly, “dressed in a Jap’s uniform.”
Bennet, a heavy two-badged seaman with red hair, cleared his throat noisily and spat on the sand.
“And sets himself up as a perfect bloody target,” he sneered
“You’ll find out about that,” Meredith said coldly, “you’re the man.”
“Like hell I am!” He leaned forward to glare into Meredith’s face. “An’ what if I don’t, officer boy? What are you gonna do about it?” He laughed.
Meredith answered calmly, “I’ll have you up before the captain for insubordination in the face of the enemy. Just as soon as we get back on board.”
It was a shrewd move. The reminder that the ship was only a mile and a half away served to bring the full force of its disciplinary code right into the lonely clearing.
“The Baron’s in charge here, fulla,” Splinter said ominously, “you’ll do as you’re told.”
Bennet made no answer. Meredith, his point gained, went on quickly:
“She could be due in any minute. As soon as the boat’s back we’ll get aboard and go out again just to seaward of the reef. Then we’ll wait.”
“Sounds too simple,” Splinter shook his head, “why can’t that sub find her way in anyhow, without the fire?”
“A ship doesn’t manoeuvre by guesswork,” Meredith told him patiently, “from out at sea on a night like this the bay won’t be visible at all—all she’ll see will be the unbroken line of coast. And the reef is sub-surface. The more I think of it the more I’m certain that camp-fire was kept lit as a guiding mark.”
“He’s right,” a voice from the back came in, “there’s every reason not to have a fire here at night, and only one why they should. I’m for it, myself.”
Meredith was grateful for the support, but he recognised that a man in charge cannot rely on possible voluntary support from the men under him. He said:
“We’re all for it because that’s what we’re going to do. Two men will stay here with the wounded and Lieutenant Wouk. The rest ...”
He broke off. Every head turned to stare at the bay. Clear in the night came the sputter of an engine. For one electric moment, while his stomach twisted, Meredith thought it was the sound of the submarine’s diesels. Then he realised the noise was not deep enough.
“There she is,” Splinter pointed, “right in against the far bank.”
“That proves it,” Meredith said, his eyes on the dimly visible motor-cutter, “even from the boat they can’t tell where the reef is. But the sub can’t come in close inshore like that.”
They muttered among themselves, and he knew he had convinced them.
“All right,” he ordered, “you in front of the fire, Bennet, Savage and Dorter watch Lieutenant Wouk. Don’t move him unless you have to. If things go wrong, drag him under cover of the scrub. Don’t worry—if she opens at us with her four-inch the ship will hear it. Those wounded, now—if a man makes a noise, starts to yell, clout him over the head. Okay, Bennet, start the fire over there near that swamp oak. Don’t make it too big.”
Bennet slouched off and Meredith’s eyes swung to the boat, now coming into the beach a few yards away.
“The rest of you with me,” he ordered, “and check your guns and grenades.”
