Shadows In the Jungle (4 page)

“I've been out in the jungle too long,” Bauer said, reacting to the women.

“At least you know it still works,” Ray quipped. “Out here you start to wonder.”

Offered platters of food, the team spent the morning relaxing and munching on fresh fruit. Through the interpreter, they were able to learn that the Japanese in the sector were poorly armed, and that many were sick and hungry, confirming what Dove and his men had observed.

With the information the natives gave him, coupled with what he and his team had seen, Dove felt satisfied that his mission was accomplished. The Japanese in this sector were definitely pulling back. More important, they were not a cohesive force, but rather a sick, badly armed rabble. They would be launching no organized counterattacks.

That conclusion reached, Dove called for the radio. After some doing, he finally made contact with an army scout plane, which relayed his request for a pickup that night back to 6th Army HQ at Hollandia.

“We're heading back,” he told the men. “Hot showers and clean beds tomorrow.”

Just then the interpreter approached with some of the native men.

“They are inviting you to go hunting with them,” he said.

“Hunting?” Hall said.

“Yes,” their native friend said in pidgin English. “Killim e Jap-man.”

Turning to his men, Dove said, “They want us to go Jap hunting with them.”

Their mission done, the team chomping at the bit for some action, they followed the hunting party into the jungle. The Americans had no success but the natives flushed one unfortunate soldier. He fled in panic as the natives chased him, caught him, and clubbed the screaming man to death.

“Jesus Christ,” Chapman said, simultaneously awed and repelled.

“Beats the hell out of any hunting I ever saw back in Rhode Island,” Ray added.

Following this macabre expedition, Dove and the team took leave of the village and struck off toward the coast. All were eager to get back to their base camp, nicknamed “Hotel Alamo” due to all the luxuries the Scouts' S-4 supply officer and expert scrounger, 1st Lt. Mayo S. Stuntz, had provided for the men's comfort.

As darkness settled in and the Dove Team approached the pickup point, the heavens opened up and a heavy storm broke. Parts of New Guinea average as much as one hundred inches of rain a year, and to the drenched Scouts it felt as though all one hundred inches were coming down on their heads. Brisk winds kicked up the water off the beach, turning the sea into a witch's cauldron of churning spray. The team assembled for their departure until Dove, after conversing by radio with Miller, reluctantly agreed to a twenty-four-hour postponement.

The men spent a wet, miserable night on the beach, and their mood was not improved by the coming daylight and the return of the hot sun and sweltering humidity. As the men waited, Dove heard some natives approaching from the east and stopped them for information. They told Dove that a small group of Japanese soldiers was heading in his direction.

Feeling his men needed a vent for their pent-up anxiety, he said, “Hey, why don't we declare today open season on Japs.” The men stared at him.

“Just follow me,” he said, and they struck off through the kunai grass and back into the jungle. Finding a spot along the coastal trail where underbrush crowded the path, the men concealed themselves in the thick vegetation and waited. Within half an hour, a trio of Japanese soldiers trudged toward them. Knives in hand, the Scouts sprang from the underbrush as the enemy passed by.

The quiet, deadly work was over in moments. After stripping the bodies of any letters and documents and stashing the corpses in the brush, the team moved to a new ambush site, where two more enemy soldiers quietly died.

Looking for a third ambush site, Dove spotted four Japanese filling canteens at a small stream. He was signaling the team to fan out when one of the enemy soldiers, perhaps having heard a slight sound, looked up.

In the excitement of the moment, only one command came to Dove's mind.

“Charge!” he yelled, and the team rushed forward, weapons blazing.

Above the rattle of the gunfire, Ray's voice boomed, “That's what we get for having a lieutenant from Hollywood!”

By the time the sun sank below the horizon and the men returned to the beach, Dove and his team had conducted five ambushes and killed twenty Japanese. This, in addition to the eight they had dispatched since landing, put their total at twenty-eight enemy dead for the mission so far. Plus, they had collected two jungle packs of documents.

As the night deepened, another storm began blowing in from the Pacific. Still, the
Aces Avenger
arrived around midnight and the Scouts reinflated the rubber boat with the CO
₂
tank.

“It's pretty rough out here, Jack,” Miller's voice crackled over the radio. “Waves are about ten feet. Are you sure you don't want to try again tomorrow night?”

“Negative,” Dove replied. “My boys and I are wet, tired, and ready for some hot chow. Stand by. Some of us are heading out now.”

Not wanting to overload the rubber boat, Dove, Fisher, and Chapman remained onshore while Ray, Bauer, Roby, Hall, and the interpreter went ahead with the captured documents. Rowing away from shore was damned near impossible. The waves seemed to push the boat back several yards for every few they edged forward. The eight-hundred-yard trip took nearly two hours, but the rubber boat and its exhausted rowers finally nudged up to the 363's pitching hull. The interpreter crawled on board first, followed by Roby and Hall. Ray handed the captured documents to a sailor on deck and said, “We're going back for the rest.”

With that, he and Bauer were off. The trip to shore was no easier, and halfway to the coast a wave upended the rubber boat and dropped Bauer and Ray into the dark, angry sea. Nearly pulled under by the strong current, the two men struggled.

Onshore, Dove, unaware of Ray and Bauer's dilemma, paced as he waited. Then Chapman said, “Look.”

It was the rubber boat, washing toward shore. Dove waded out to grab it and drag it to the beach.

“Where are the guys?” Fisher asked.

“I don't know,” he replied. “Boat must've tipped.”

Then he said, “The oars aren't here. They have to wash up. Spread out and find them.”

The three men conducted a frantic search along the beach, watching the waves for any signs of the missing paddles. After what seemed like hours, the oars finally appeared.

With the wayward oars returned, Dove ordered, “Get the gear in the boat and let's go. We'll try to find the fellas on the way out.”

After throwing their weapons and the heavy radio into the rubber boat, the men pushed off.

The Scouts, drenched with spray, paddled frantically against the stormy sea for ninety arduous minutes, climbing one side of the large waves and sliding down the other, but seemingly getting nowhere. They were still three hundred yards from the PT boat when Dove saw a pinpoint of light on the water.

“There!” he cried, and the rubber boat was rowed in the direction of the light. As he had hoped, it was Ray, who was holding a small jungle flashlight with one hand while clutching onto Bauer with the other. With great effort, the two exhausted men were hauled sputtering into the bobbing craft. But their respite was temporary. Barely were the two on board, gasping from their ordeal, when a large wave hit the small boat head-on, lifting it and dumping everyone into the turbulent water. The wave engulfed the boat so violently that the weapons and radio shredded its rubber skin. Within seconds, everything disappeared into the sea from the torn and rapidly deflating boat.

From the tossing deck of the PT-363, Miller saw the Dove Team's boat flip.

“Goddamn it,” he swore. “Get that spare boat inflated. Quick.”

A CO
₂
tank hissed and the new rubber boat took shape. Roby and Hall grabbed it without a word, lowered it over the side, and climbed in, followed by Miller. They pushed off and rowed toward their comrades bobbing in the water, sometimes visible as a clump of floating heads, other times hidden completely by the rolling waves. Twice over the next forty-five minutes they tried to reach Dove and the others, and twice they were turned back by the rampaging storm.

Clinging to the wreckage of the rubber boat, Dove saw the hopelessness of the rescue attempt. He signaled the others to follow and turned back toward the dark coastline.

Once safely onshore, drenched and exhausted, Dove took stock of their bleak situation. With the radio now on the bottom of the ocean, there would be no more rescue attempts or rendezvous with PT boats. He and his men would have to walk out, and it was not a trip he relished. When the rubber boat sank, it took with it all of their weapons and much of their gear. The vicious current swept away the knife of every man except Dove. Worse, all of their food supplies were gone, and only one canteen survived. Two men had even lost their shoes, although their comrades were able to give them spare socks to pad their feet.

“Looks like we walk home,” Dove said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“How far?” Bauer asked. “Hollandia's thirty miles away.”

“We did twenty-six miles back in training with a full pack, so this will be a piece of cake, right?” Dove said with an air of humor he did not feel. “Let's go.”

Arming themselves with wooden clubs and coconuts, the five soaked and bedraggled men headed eastward.

* * *

By the afternoon of June 10, Dove and his men had spent the day pushing their way through jungle, wading across murky streams and rivers, hiding from enemy patrols, and passing the bodies of Japanese who had died in the retreat, their rotting corpses now home for a myriad of insect life. Hungry and dehydrated, the Scouts' only source of water was a few sips from the single remaining canteen, which was replenished during periods of rain. They passed streams but dared not refill the canteen, since they had no halazone tablets with which to purify the water.

Ahead in a clearing, Dove spotted a village and signaled the men to halt. At first glance, the small cluster of nipa huts appeared to be abandoned. Then Dove noticed a grass-thatched lean-to, beneath whose shade lounged two Japanese soldiers.

Gathering his weary men around him, Dove said, “We're going to take these two. They may have weapons and food. We'll move in as close as we can, then rush them.”

The fight that followed was short but fierce. With a rush, Dove and his men sprang forward. Two Scouts grabbed the first Japanese soldier and pinned him down as Dove drove his knife into the man. The other fought more determinedly for his life, kicking and flailing at his assailants. The Scouts beat him senseless with coconuts and he sagged to the ground, where Dove finished him quickly.

The bodies yielded up little of use other than a bayonet, two pocketknives, and a little bit of rice. After his men stashed the corpses in the underbrush, Dove distributed both the knives and the rice, then ordered the team to move on.

* * *

The sun was just starting its climb the next morning as the ragged men, their faces sporting several days' growth of whiskers, and their bodies sporting open sores from fungal infections known to the GIs as jungle rot or the New Guinea Crud, neared the village of Tarfia. Dove left his weary group in a clearing to rest—they'd covered close to twenty miles since they began the hike—and, along with Ray, conducted a two-man reconnaissance. In the lead, Dove came to a clearing. He was just was about to step out of the underbrush and into the open when Ray said aloud, “Don't go out there.”

Dove, with one foot in the air, froze. His first reaction was anger that Ray would break the cardinal rule of talking out loud on a mission. Then he realized the young soldier had possibly saved his life. Strung along the ground where he would have stepped was a wire rigged up as an alarm to warn against infiltrators. The clearing was an ambush—a killing zone—that he had nearly walked into.

“Ray, this is what we're looking for,” Dove said, recognizing the U.S. Signal Corps wire used for the alarm.

Stepping over the wire so it would not vibrate, Dove circled the clearing. He reached a small clump of trees and called out, “Hey, Yanks. Everything quiet in there?”

“Yeah,” came a cautious reply. “Who are you?”

“I'm Lieutenant Dove. Alamo Scouts. There are two of us. Can we come in?”

“Sure. Come on in. But slowly.”

Dove and Ray rose and, with hands visible, calmly advanced.

“You got some water?” Dove asked. A GI handed him a canteen. He passed it to Ray, who drank deeply before handing it back. Dove took a long swig, capped the canteen, and returned it to its owner.

“Thanks,” he said. “I've got a Scout team out ahead of you. Can I go and bring them in?”

“Go ahead,” the GI said. “We'll watch for you.”

By the time Dove returned with his men, the officer in charge of the observation post (OP) had called for a guide from Tarfia, who led the team into the village. There, the native chieftain welcomed them, laying out a feast of assorted fruit and fresh water. The tired, hungry Scouts wolfed down the food, in exchange for which Dove presented the chief with the two pocketknives and bayonet, whose late owners lay along the jungle trail.

After Dove and his men had eaten and rested, the chief arranged for their return. Dugout log canoes with teams of rowers waited. The Americans climbed into the native boats and were soon gliding swiftly along the water, arriving at Demta, well behind American lines, by afternoon.

Using the infantry's radio, Dove reported his location. Sergeant Miller and a PT boat picked them up for the return trip to Hollandia.