Whip (28 page)

Whip had second thoughts about Arnie going into Kanaga but he brushed them away.

They went down-slope and it was easy and they had the dry lake bed in sight, and everybody pulled back to give Arnie all the room he needed. Arnie played it by the book, coming down with gear and flaps only when he had everything made, holding a steep approach so that only one engine gave him plenty of room for modifying the approach.

The trees and brush were already out of the way. Damn, they're getting good down there, mused Whip, watching Arnie's B-25 sliding down the groove. Arnie took her in neat and they saw the dust spurt back from the tires. Down safe and rolling and —

Kessler's voice was almost a scream. "Don't
land! Don't land! Japs! Japs! They're all over
the field! They're
—"

The frantic warning died away as a spear of flame shot skyward from the field where Japanese troops poured fire into the helpless bomber on the ground. Whip was already on his own final, number two in the slot, and his hands were a blur as he went hammering forward on the throttles. "Clean her up!" he shouted to Alex, but the copilot's hands were already hauling up the gear and pulling in the flaps and then through the long cut in the trees he saw them, swarms of little figures firing into the blazing B-25, others turning their weapons up at the approaching bombers, and the windshield took a round and cracked, and something screamed past his head. He felt a stinging sensation, but he didn't give a damn, he'd charged the guns and he accelerated now, engines thundering, and then the weapons were alive, the fourteen machine guns ripping into the suddenly scrambling figures. He walked rudder, sweeping the massed fire of his weapons from side to side in a terrible scythe, and heard himself shouting into his mike, "

Break! Break! The field's lousy with Japs
!" They knew that already, of course, they'd heard Arnie's frantic scream to warn them and they saw the B-25 mushrooming into the air in great blazing chunks because the tanks had let go, and he was still firing when the guns bucked and chattered into silence. Out of ammo. He'd never called off his men before but he did now. "Pull up," he ordered. "Form up on me. We're going to Seven-Mile."

He didn't look behind him because he was already sick thinking of the mechanics and ground support people and the pilots who hadn't flown. He wondered how a Japanese force had managed to work its way through the jungle, escaping detection, but obviously they had known where they were going, and they had come to kill.

Arnie Kessler and his crew were simply the last ones to die on the field, and he wondered

—

It hit him so violently he thought he would vomit.
Lou! My God, Lou
…

He squeezed his eyes shut, a fierce, painful gesture, and then he remembered. Lou Goodman had left late yesterday with Smyth to fly down to Seven-Mile.

28

"We're packing it in, Major Russel. As of right now, and you may consider this official, we are standing down the special mission of the 335th. The aircraft and the crews will be brought into the 48th Bomb Group. However, all those men who were with you when you started your outfit are being returned to the States for leave." General Smyth paused. He was rushing his words, trying to get everything out as quickly as he could.

The news of what had happened at Kanaga had unnerved him, as it had Lou Goodman.

But in a way it had solved their problems. There was no more special field for the Death's Head Brigade. There were no more arguments about the 335th still flying as lone wolves away from the larger pack. Smyth took a deep breath and hurried on.

"As you may have anticipated, Whip, you're grounded from combat. That's an order."

He tried to smile but it came out crooked. "What goes with that order isn't so bad. You're in for lieutenant colonel and —"

Whip shrugged off the news. "Save it for the press, General." His lips were tight, cold. "Is there anything else?" After a bare pause, he added, "sir."

"No."

Whip glanced at Lou Goodman, started from the room. Then he stopped, and the chip on his shoulder was gone. "General?"

"Yes, Major Russel?"

"There's no way I can talk you out of this, is there?"

"Strangely enough, Whip, I'm sorry that there isn't. I know what —"

Whip had a half-scowl, half-smile on his face. "Strangely enough, General, I know you're a good man."

Lou Goodman found him an hour later in the tents assigned to transient crews. He pushed aside the flap. Whip, Hoot Gibson, Macintosh and Dusty Rhodes looked up at him. "You allow officers in this joint?" Goodman asked.

Dusty gestured for him to take a seat. "Why not? This is supposed to be a wake but no one can play a fiddle." Dusty gestured again. "You break your arm, Colonel?"

They saw that Goodman had been holding one arm behind him. "No. I was just prepared to bribe my way in," he said, holding forth the bottle of Scotch.

"Jesus, Joseph, Mary and the Emperor himself," Dusty breathed quietly. "Will you look at that."

Hoot Gibson took the bottle, cradled it carefully. "Lock the door. Kill the next son of a bitch who comes in here. No matter who he is."

"Who's got a glass?"

"What's a glass?"

"Round and round the mulberry bush. Who's first?"

"The fat man said he was an officer. It's first dibs for him."

Lou Goodman started it off with a long pull. He smacked his lips and blinked rapidly.

"Now I know what we're fighting for."

Dusty took seconds. "I heard something once about Mom's apple pie."

"Screw Mom."

"I tried but her old man walked in on us. That's how I came to be a hero in the air force."

The bottle reached Whip. He brought it to his lips, hesitated. He looked at all of them; together, then one by one. He held up the bottle.

"To a bunch of very great people," he said quietly. "May they have smooth skies all the way west."

He never again mentioned the 335th.

Lou Goodman and Whip walked along the side of the runway. They weren't accustomed to a cool breeze and a moon sliding between silvered clouds. The darkness pushed the war away.

"You know, I'm supposed to pack," Whip said to break the silence. "But I can't."

Goodman came up short. "Why not?"

Whip's chuckle came out of the gloom. "Because I haven't
got
anything to pack.

Everything I own in the world is on my back."

"I'll take care of it. They got supplies up the ass in Melbourne. Uniforms, equipment, personal gear. Smyth is signing the chit. Take everything you want."

"What time do I leave, Lou?"

"Zero eight hundred. B-17's going down. You have a seat."

"I've forgotten how to be a passenger."

"I'll be there with you in the morning."

"Hell, I knew that."

"It's late. I better get some sleep."

"Okay."

Goodman tried to make out his face in the dark shadows of the moon. "How about you, Whip?"

"No way, Lou, no way," he said softly. "I couldn't sleep tonight."

"What are you going to do?"

"It's the last time. I think I'll go talk to my airplane."

They had parked the four surviving bombers of the old 335th at the far end of the field, off to one side in a clump of trees. Whip stayed with the ship. He sat in the cockpit. He could almost see the ghostly form of Alex next to him. Then he climbed down and sat on the ground by the nose wheel. He fell asleep that way.

A big engine grinding around slowly, the starter screeching at the world, brought him out of his sweat-soaked stupor. A hand shook him roughly and he opened his eyes to look up at Lou Goodman.

"Wake up, kid. Goddamnit, snap out of it."

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. "Jesus, is it morning already? I — "

"It's all off, Whip. Your going back. It's off. For a while, anyway."

He was awake now, alert. "What the hell's going on?" Even as he asked the question he heard more engines rumbling and coughing to life.

"Someone's pulled out the plug. A reconnaissance plane just got in. There's a big Japanese convoy coming this way. A whole invasion fleet, for Christ's sake. They're coming in from the Admiralties and Kavieng and Rabaul, and, there's just a whole goddamned ocean full of them."

They started for the operations tent. "It's what we've been looking for, waiting for.

Intelligence figures they'll work their way down between here and New Britain and then come around from the south. Land at Milne Bay, land here at Moresby."

"How many?"

"Don't know yet. Troopships and destroyers up the ass from the looks of it. We don't know about any heavy stuff yet."

Whip's mind was back in its old groove. "How about navy? Carriers?"

"The Japanese timed it perfectly. There's nothing in the area that can move in here in time. Oh, we have one carrier that could have made it, but —"

"Could have?"

"It took a couple of tin fish during the night. Still afloat but out of action."

"Neat."

"More than you think. They've launched heavy attacks on Guadalcanal. The marines are in it up to their necks. Every plane the navy and marines have in that area is tied up.

Same goes for the army stuff there."

Whip slowed to a halt. "The picture gets clearer every second. It's up to us, isn't it?"

"Yep. The glorious Fifth. And whatever the Aussies can get together." He slapped Whip on the shoulder. "Let's move, kid. You're due in operations."

"Wait." Whip grasped him by the arm. "How many gunships do we have in commission?"

"Your four. The other four we were working on. Three more came in. We've also got a bunch of A-20s with four-gun noses. And you'll have about a dozen Beaufighters."

Whip ran them through his head. The Aussie Beaufighters, stumpy twin-engined jobs, would do well. Four cannon and six machine guns each. A good wallop to that ship.

"Whip, for Christ's sake, come on."

General Harry Spaulding wore two stars on each shoulder, walked with a cane, showed the world a bristling mustache and was as tough as two wildcats in heat. He didn't have to tell anyone in the emergency briefing that this one was for keeps.

"Our information leaves much to be desired," he told the hastily assembled pilots. "At least fourteen troopships, a dozen destroyers, maybe twice that many. They were making rendezvous from several points so our final reports need updating. But you can count on at least two to three dozen vessels out there."

He looked around the tent, crusty, not needing to say he wanted to fly this one himself.

"We're sure they're going for speed. That means modern troopships, not some old clunkers. They'll be fast and you can expect very heavy flak. The same for their tin cans.

Speed and firepower. We can't let them get those troops ashore. The Japanese have been throwing heavy attacks all along the Owen Stanleys since yesterday morning. They've infiltrated with heavy forces deep behind our own lines. If they succeed in landing men from those ships, then we'll be squeezed badly.

"Get my message, gentlemen. You've got to keep those troops from getting on land."

He turned and the cane tapped the situation map. "You're going to have lots of company in the air. At least seventy, more likely about a hundred and fifty Zeros for escort, all the way from the deck on up. Also, we expect them to try to hit us with some pretty heavy bombing raids, starting at any moment from now.

"You will take off as soon as we get some light. We're throwing in every airplane that can fly. If you have any extra space, take bricks with you. Anything.

"Get the bastards. That's all, gentlemen."

29

Everything that could carry a bomb or a machine gun was prepared for flight. New ships with gleaming aluminum skin and old clunkers with leprosy on the wings; if it could fly it was committed to the mission. The Fifth Air Force managed to get 112

bombers into the air. If you weren't too strict in what you called a bomber. The navy sent down four lumbering PBY flying boats that clunked through the sky at 105 miles an hour. But each of the battered old Catalinas had some very brave men behind the controls and each carried two torpedoes. Their only hope of survival was that there'd be some fighters to punch a way through the Zeros for them. And that would take some exquisite timing. The fighters couldn't slow down enough to stay with the PBYs. If they tried they'd fall out of the sky. So while the land-based bomber crews were still being briefed the night air echoed with the deep droning bass of the Catalinas heading off to the north.

They would make their torpedo runs with first horizon light. That way the Japanese would have poor targets, but theirs would be unmistakable ship silhouettes on the horizon. If the Japanese had Zeros in the air — and no one doubted they would — then the fighters would try to cut a swath for the Catalinas. Timing, gloom and courage. They all had to come together at the same moment.

Six Lockheed Hudsons of the Royal Australian Air Force spent most of the night flying up to the Port Moresby area.

The exhausted crews wolfed down breakfast, left their twin-engined light bombers to be fueled and bombed, got their briefings and were scheduled as latecomers in the attack so the men might sleep for two or three hours.

Twenty-two B-17 heavy bombers were made available for the raid. Their orders called for a high-level strike. Major General Harry Spaulding pulled the plug on that one. "I want you people to hit something this time," he told them unkindly. "Because if you don't then the real estate you're sitting on could be Japanese next week." The pilots shifted uncomfortably under his glare. "You've been bombing from eighteen to twenty-five thousand feet. You will not do that today. You will bomb from no higher than ten thousand."

The pilots stirred and uneasy murmurs ran through the room. "Gentlemen, you will do a hell of a lot better today than you have ever done before. Or you will all learn how to use a rifle. You are going out against destroyers and troopships. The same Zero fighters that go after the other aircraft may have a crack at you as well. But you will
hit
your targets.