“Your people did some good work, today, Mick,” said Jones. “It was a hell of a thing, watching those old A- Ones go tear-assing through the brush again. I haven’t seen anything like that since Iran. It really took me back.”
The Australian brigadier nodded gruffly, but it was clear that he wasn’t in the mood for banter. He had just come from the prison camp.
Combat medics had choppered in right behind the assault and set up triage on site. The worst cases were being treated by Marine Corps and 2 Cav medics at the local hospital, but it was unlikely that many of the original inhabitants would survive the ordeal. A couple of hundred at best, out of a town of thirteen thousand. WCIU investigators from the
Jones could see that Toohey was struggling with the urge to place his gun upside the general’s head and just pull the trigger. But although they had already signed the warrant authorizing his execution, it would be some time before Masaharu Homma was taken to the edge of one of those mass graves. He was a high-value prisoner who would spend months being interrogated before meeting his ultimate fate.
“I think we should be okay to start the interrogation, now,” announced Major Coulthard.
“Go ahead,” Jones told her.
Coulthard turned on the two cameras. She spoke directly into one of them. “I am Major Annie Coulthard, battalion intelligence officer with the eighty-second MEU. With me are my commanding officer, Colonel J. ‘Lonesome’ Jones, Colonel Michael Toohey, and Brigadier Michael Barnes of the Australian Second Cavalry regiment, and an interpreter from the Southwest Pacific Headquarters, Lieutenant Andrew Stafford, USN, contemporary.”
Coulthard moved aside and adjusted the focus to sharpen up the image of the prisoner.
“This is General Masaharu Homma, commander of the Imperial Japanese land forces in Australia. He was captured at the Battle of Bundaberg, on October tenth, nineteen forty-two, at roughly sixteen-thirty hours. Colonel Jones and Colonel Toohey have already authorized Sanction Four summary field punishment of General Homma for crimes against humanity. Execution of the sentence has been delayed to allow the prisoner to be interviewed.
“The prisoner is a Japanese male, age fifty-five, roughly seventy-six kilograms in weight. He was disabled for capture with a one-second minimal charge from a Texas Instruments Model Nine-forty-two taser. At twenty-forty- five hours, on October tenth, nineteen forty-two, I administered ten cc’s of Trioxinol Five to the prisoner. It is now twenty-forty-seven hours. The interview has begun. Lieutenant Stafford is working from a list of questions prepared by me in consultation with General MacArthur’s Intelligence Liaison at SWPA in Brisbane.”
“You are General Masaharu Homma?” asked Lieutenant Stafford in Japanese.
“The black barbarian. The giant,” replied Homma in a weak voice.
Stafford repeated the question twice. Homma agreed with him after the second try.
“And you are the officer responsible for the extra-judicial killing of contemporary Allied personnel, and the incarceration and killing of the population of this town?”
Homma shook his head. “I have not killed anyone.”
Stafford rephrased the question. “Are you the commander of the Imperial Japanese forces in this town?”
“Yes.”
“Did those forces, under your command, execute Allied officers and enlisted men when they took control of the town?”
“Yes.”
“Did those forces incarcerate civilians?”
“Yes.”
“Did those forces execute civilians?”
At that Homma seemed to lose focus. He closed his eyes and his head drooped to one side. A thin line of drool stretched from the corner of his mouth to the pillow.
Major Coulthard tapped him lightly on the cheek, pushing his face back toward the glo-sticks. “Did Japanese forces execute civilians in this town?”
“There was resistance,” Homma whispered, his voice cracked. “Much resistance.”
“Did Japanese forces execute civilians because of this resistance?”
“Yes.”
The interview continued in this fashion for over an hour. Jones had seen plenty like it before. He knew that if it was him on the cot, with ten cc’s of T5 in his bloodstream, he’d be giving up whatever was asked of him, too— state secrets or his wife’s bra size, it wouldn’t matter.
Just after midnight, Stafford asked Homma about the convoys. “Why did you bring Chinese soldiers to fight here?”
“We did not.”
“There were Chinese soldiers on your troopships.”
“Not soldiers,” said Homma. “Prisoners.”
“Why were there Chinese prisoners on your troopships?”
“They were targets,” said Homma.
“Decoys?” asked Stafford.
“Targets, for your rockets and death beams.”
Stafford translated the reply.
“Decoys,” Jones muttered to Brigadier Barnes. “They were never meant to set foot on land.”
The Australian just nodded.
Jones leaned over and whispered into Coulthard’s ear. “See if you can get him to tell you what the fuck he was doing here, anyway. I think this whole invasion was a fucking sideshow.”
Coulthard checked her watch. “I’ll need to boost the dose in ten minutes, sir. We should wait until then. He’s beginning to resist the drug.”
Homma was shaking his head, refusing to talk about the Chinese anymore. Stafford switched the angle of his attack, asking the general why the army had let itself be duped into quitting China.
Homma looked like he was attempting to bristle, but nothing came. Just a sigh. “Yamamoto,” he said quietly.
She knew she was going to be haunted by this place for months, if not years to come. Bundaberg was one of the worst atrocities she’d ever been witness to. The tiny hospital was overwhelmed. They’d begun to set up emergency facilities at a nearby high school, but had to find a new location when it became obvious that the Japanese had used the place as a torture and interrogation center.
One civilian health worker, a Rhodesian doctor named Michael Cooper, had survived his imprisonment and proved himself invaluable in triage. He told her of the appalling mistreatment meted out to the most vulnerable members of the community. Hundreds of survivors owed him their lives, but Major Margie Francois knew that wouldn’t be enough to save him from himself. He was going to spend the rest of his life mourning the ones he couldn’t save. She knew that particular level of hell only too well.
They were standing in the entrance of a giant hospital tent as dusk fell, discussing the likely treatment needs of the surviving locals when a passing corpsman stopped to tell them that the field punishments had already begun.
The major watched as a sickly grimace stole over the doctor’s face. His cheeks first drained of color before flushing bright red. His Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he struggled to say something.
Francois placed a hand on his arm, which was twitching with nervous tension, or possibly exhaustion.
Cooper croaked at her. “We were told that the uh . . . procedure . . . was open to the public.”
“Why don’t you go have a look, Doc,” she said softly. “It helps. Sort of. Helps me sometimes anyway. You’ve done more than enough here. Go on, if that’s what you want.”
She gripped his arm a little tighter. “But if I was you, I’d be getting some rest, too. You look like a man on the edge of collapse. You’ve earned a break.”
The Rhodesian shook his head. His eyes were a thousand miles away. “No, Major,” he said, “I’ve earned the right to see justice.”
“Okay, then, take this,” she said, handing him a stick of gum packed with a very mild stimulant. “It’ll get you through the next two hours, but then I’m going to send a corpsman to make sure you get some sleep. Two hours,
