they gave up. But the night before, the Japanese had launched a brutal assault. Now they were besieged, and in an hour or two the last of the food, ammo and morphine would be gone. It was a matter of hours.
All around him the general saw fear, panic, anger. You can’t win a war with broomsticks, he thought, and that’s about all they had left. Still, his men had held this beleaguered finger of land for three months against staggering odds. Now Japanese shells were falling on the base. A nearby maintenance shed erupted suddenly in a cloud of black dust, disintegrated and showered the area with bits and pieces of wood and tools. Something inside — a lawnmower, gasoline, something — blew up and what was left of the shed burst into bright-orange flames.
Hooker ignored the chaos around him, the screaming shells, the sudden shock of the explosions, fire and falling trees, and stood rereading the message that had just interrupted his coffee:
The message had been decoded and reconfirmed and he reread it with ambivalent feelings. He was humiliated by defeat. But he knew his rescue meant he was destined eventually to wreak an even more horrible revenge on the Japanese. He had an hour in which to select ten key officers from his battered staff and leave the place that had been his home for so many years. The boy, of course, would go with him He checked the time. Six-ten. The boy was safe in the bomb shelter with those civilians who, because of age, sex or infirmity, could not fight,
They had moved headquarters into a concrete cannon emplacement near the bay, and it was there he found Garvey, eye-weary and body-sore, unshaven, his clothes in tatters, hunched over a chart of the Bastine Peninsula, dictating orders into a field phone. Their telephone lines had been obliterated weeks before.
Garvey stared at him bleakly. ‘The Japs’ve got two destroyers and a cruiser in The Sluice. They’re shelling Sackett from the sea, bombing him ... shit, there must be fifty thousand Japs coming at us on the ground.’
‘What’s your estimate?’ Hooker said.
‘Three hours, maybe. No more than that. They’ll be shelling us from out there in the bay, another hour or so. What the hell’s the difference, General? When Sackett and what’s left of the Third Battalion get here, there’s no place else to go.’ He waved toward the point of the peninsula, a few hundred yards to the north. ‘We’ll have to swim.’
Hooker knew what he was saying. They had been discussing when to surrender for days. Both men were burned out, exhausted far beyond the ability to make keen decisions. And neither of them could face the final one.
‘A lot of our boys are using personal pistols and their own shotguns. We’re just about out of rifle ammunition.’
The situation dictated immediate surrender, but the paper in Hooker’s hand changed that. Hooker handed him the order and Garvey read it and handed it back.
‘If the message were from anyone else, I’d ignore it,’ Hooker said. ‘Now we’ve got to hold this point until the Navy gets here.’
‘Good,’ Garvey said, ‘at least one of us is getting out of this shit hole. Who do you want?’
‘Who’s left?’
‘The best man we’ve got is Sackett, but he may be dead by now. If he’s not, I doubt that he can fight his way back here. He was in a box surrounded on three sides when I talked to him half an hour ago. He only had a dozen men left at the command post in Capice and he was going to hold it as long as possible.’
A heavy shell landed nearby and the thunderous explosion showered dust down from the roof.
‘Damn! Why did they wait until now to issue this order.’
‘The laps didn’t break through at Capice until late last night, Up to now we’ve been fighting a pretty good holding action, considering we’re outnumbered maybe fifty to one on the ground, and we haven’t had any air or sea support for over a month.’
‘I suppose you’re right. They realize the issue is in doubt here.’
‘Doubt! Hell, it’s a matter of hours now. Moving you out fast like this, at least we don’t have to worry about a security leak.’
‘I’ll round up my people immediately,’ Hooker said. ‘Perhaps the Navy will get here early.’
‘How about the boy?’
‘He goes with me, of course.’
They sipped coffee and drew up a list of the key officers in the company.
‘I’m leaving Irv Kaler with you,’ Hooker said. ‘He’s a fine field officer but he also has the best command of Japanese on the base. You may need him to interpret for you for the next few ... months. But I want Sergeant Finney. I’ll need a first-rate top kick.’
When they finished the list, Hooker called a runner and ordered him to have the men report to the dock. He looked at his watch. Six twenty-five. Another shell hit close on and the earth shivered underfoot.
Hooker stood at the doorway for a moment and then put out his hand.
‘I wish you were going with me, Jess,’ he said.
My God, Garvey said to himself, the old man’s got tears in his eyes. Garvey smiled. ‘You’ll come back and get me,’ he said.
