Hooker suddenly embraced the tough little colonel. ‘You can bet your pension on it, General,’ he said. His voice was trembling with sorrow and anger as he took his old brigadier’s star from his pocket and pinned it on Garvey’s collar. ‘I know how long you’ve been waiting for this,’ he said. ‘Sorry it couldn’t have been under better circumstances. I’ll be back for you, Jess.’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
Hooker marched back to headquarters and walked through the wreckage of the sturdy old teak-panelled building. Papers and files littered floors already covered with shards of glass. Doors hung askew and thin layers of smoke drifted in through broken windows and clung to the ceiling like puffs of dirty cotton.
He stood in the shattered remains of his office for a moment or two, then turned sharply and headed for the pier.
Fifteen miles away, two PT boats roared up The Sluice, staying close to the shore of the main island. Sailors on deck watched the terrifying battle on the peninsula opposite them through binoculars.
‘Jesus,’ one sailor said. ‘They’s fuckin Japs everywhere! It’s like watchin’ an ant hill.’
Captain Leamon was in contact by phone with the commander of the other PT boat, Peter Coakley, a lieutenant from Boston, only out of Annapolis two years. Coakley was a brash red-headed youngster with a John Wayne attitude about the whole stinkin’ mess.
‘Remember your orders, Lieutenant,’ Leamon had told Coakley an hour before. ‘We’re to proceed with extreme haste to Bastine. Do not — repeat do not — engage the enemy for any reason. Just ... get by them.’
Leamon was watching the three Japanese naval vessels through binoculars. ‘They aren’t ten miles from the Bastine pier,’ he said.
Coakley was watching too. ‘They’re sittin’ ducks, Al,’ he said. ‘The cruiser’ll be between us and the destroyers. We could pick—’
‘Do I have to tell you again, Lieutenant? Our mission is to take VIPs off Bastine.’
‘Nursemaids, that’s what we are,’ Coakley said bitterly.
‘You want to burn in hell, you’ll get a chance soon enough. But not today.’
‘Goddamn taxi service,’ Coakley growled.
‘Lieutenant, you want a court-martial?’
‘We ignore the surface vessels. Is that goddamn clear, Lieutenant?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I mean is it goddamn clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then let’s roll.’
The two destroyers and the cruiser were hardly a mile in front of them, concentrating their fire on the narrow peninsula. The steady pum of their big guns grew louder.
‘Okay, I’ll take the first run. You stay close to the shore, wait’ll I’m clear, you run for it.’
‘Got it,’ Coakley yelled back and cradled his phone. He turned the slim high-powered boat into shore, throttled back and lay close to the trees. Leamon was moving up The Sluice like hell’s bat, the bow sitting high out of the water, the stern settled deep. Blossoms of death burst overhead, showering the sea around them with flak. Shells geysered fore and aft, starboard and port. The sleek torpedo boat streaked up The Sluice and the shelling got heavier. The sky was black with the smoke of antipersonnel bombs. Leamon kept right on going.
‘Son of a bitch, he’s gonna make it,’ Coakley yelled. ‘Okay, buckos, hang on to your balls, here we go.’ And he edged the boat away from shore out into the narrow isthmus and slammed the throttles forward.
Hooker and his men were watching the sea drama from the pier.
‘Here comes the first one,’ a West Point major named Forester yelled. Hooker stood beside him, his small group of officers huddled around him. Hooker had decided to leave his son in the bomb shelter until the last minute. Now it was time.
‘Sergeant Finney.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Please go to the civilian bunker and bring the boy to me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Finney was a tough professional soldier. His shirt was button-less and lay open to his belt and one sleeve was hanging by threads at the shoulder. He handed his BAR to one of the officers, jumped in the general’s jeep and took off across the lawn toward the bunker. It was no more than five hundred yards from the pier. He was almost there when the shell exploded directly in his path. The jeep went up on its back wheels, skittered sideways and turned over. Finney vaulted out of the seat, hit the ground and rolled over several times. The jeep slid to a stop a few feet from him and exploded.
‘I’ll get him,’ the young baby-faced lieutenant named Grisoglio said and started to run toward the bunker, but Finney got up on his feet, shook his head and ran the rest of the distance.
‘Hold your place, Lieutenant,’ Hooker ordered.
Leamon was guiding the fast little torpedo boat into a narrow channel that had been cleared through the wreckage of sailboats and fishing craft. There was barely room for the sleek torpedo boat to fit through. He talked the long, narrow vessel through the junkyard, gently steering it past the burned-out wrecks.
‘Hold the lines, don’t tie us down,’ Leamon yelled to his skeleton crew. ‘Tell the general to come aboard fast. We don’t have any time. Coakley’s right behind us.’
