Krause was right, of course. He was smart and more than a thug, which was why Braun had wanted him as the second man on his two-man team. Despite the disparity in their ranks, their long relationship went beyond simple respect.
“Krause, have you heard anything about the
Krause laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of bringing up the topic, but every now and then somebody wonders where she is and when she’ll be coming back, but nobody seems to know.”
In his own wanderings and listenings, Braun had picked up pretty much the same thing. One rumor that kept repeating itself was that the top brass had told the admiral in charge of the
Nor could he and Krause get any help locally. They were swimming alone in a hostile sea. They had to maintain the facade of Swenson Engineering, which meant they periodically had to drive the truck or station wagon to fictitious work sites, lest the neighbors get suspicious and call the police.
Braun took a long swallow of the cold horse piss and weak beer. “What we will do is quite simple. We will continue to send reports saying how hard we are working and what difficulties we are encountering. In the meantime, we will continue to look for targets to destroy, along with anything new that comes up. I am not quite ready to write this off as a useless venture, no matter how frustrating it might be.”
Ruby Oliver thought that Colonel James Gavin was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. The rugged-looking thirty-five-year-old commander of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment had arrived at Fairbanks a couple of days earlier along with the leading elements of his regiment and immediately made his presence known.
The first units of the 505th had parachuted in, which was dramatic and joyous to the Americans in Fairbanks. They’d waved and cheered as the paratroops floated down from the sky. Ruby and her group had arrived the day before by truck. She would not admit that they’d stolen it from an abandoned farm.
On first meeting her, Gavin had laughed and stripped her of her own little detachment of soldiers, but not until commending all of them for jobs well done. They had been interrogated by both Gavin and other officers. They told all they knew about the Japanese force that even now might be heading toward them. Ruby was able to confirm that the Japanese had no armor, little artillery, and few vehicles. They were not going to come up the road at thirty miles an hour like she had. Ten miles a day was more like it and she assured Gavin that the weather would begin to get truly shitty before long.
Now she was part of a volunteer group led by a big professional hunter and trapper named Bear Foley. Bear was well named. Although he was only a little over six feet tall, he weighed more than two hundred and forty pounds and he was indeed hairy. Foley now had close to four hundred men and fifty women in his volunteer brigade that Gavin chose to use as scouts. They’d already picked up on the fact that the Japanese were beginning to probe up the road to Fairbanks, which was why Gavin was there with his new command.
The lead elements of the 505th quickly improved the small and primitive airstrip to where C47s could land with their cargo of either twenty-plus troops or three tons of supplies. Both men and supplies were kept below maximum load weight because of the need to conserve fuel. Ruby and her cohorts noted with amusement that many of the military planes were painted over civilian DC-3s, and some still had passenger seating.
What was maddening was the time it took to develop a base so far away from the forty-eight states. The first planes unloaded fuel, much of which they promptly consumed for the trip back. After that, planes alternated between men, fuel, and supplies. Now, after a couple of hectic days and nights, more than two thousand men of the 505th were on the ground along with several hundred support personnel and a working supply of fuel and food. Talking to the troops, Ruby found that the regiment was someday going to be part of the newly forming 82nd Airborne Division and be entirely made up of paratroops.
Gavin was openly concerned about their lack of ammunition and artillery. The Alaskan Volunteer Scouts and other sources estimated the Japanese force at close to six thousand men now that it had been “reinforced” by the few survivors of the naval force the battleships had sunk.
Ruby sat on her sleeping bag in the tent she shared with Foley. He was a couple of years older than she and they’d hit it off immediately. He was a skilled hunter, something she admired since she thought she was pretty good herself. She was dressed in bra and panties and was intent on sewing a tear in her blouse.
“Looking good, Ruby,” Bear said with a grin as he stepped in.
She returned the smile. She’d lost twenty pounds and firmed up dramatically since the first Japanese attack. One thing good about war—it kept the weight down. Her dyed red hair was returning to its normal reddish-brown with disconcerting hints of gray that Bear didn’t seem to mind.
War also heightened the senses. She hadn’t slept with a man in more than a year, but now the urge was imperative.
“Join me,” she said. He laughed again and stripped down to his shorts after first closing the tent flap. He reached for her and she held up her hand.
“First tell me what Jim said.”
Bear laughed. “Jim? Damn it to hell, Ruby, he makes me call him Colonel. Anyhow, he said that the Japs will be heading for us because they have no place else to go. He says they’re starving since their support ships were sunk and they see Fairbanks as a way of staying alive. He says they’ll attack us with unbelievable ferocity because getting our supplies is their only hope of not starving to death. He says they would rather die in a suicide attack, not starve, which they feel would be cowardly. Gavin said he was stationed in the Philippines and helped them prepare for war with the Japs, so he’s studied them extensively. So, yeah, he sees a suicide attack by the Nips if things get real bad for them.”
Wonderful, she thought. She slipped out of her bra and panties and he got out of his shorts. She smiled when she saw he was more than ready. We could all be dead very, very shortly. Live and love while we can.
Beer runs qualified as emergencies, or so Stecher happily thought. Using rank for the privilege, he commandeered a jeep and drove the few miles to the hamlet of Bridger. Neither he nor Lieutenant Farris thought much of anything was likely to happen at nine o’clock this sunny Tuesday morning. As to their beloved company commander, it was highly improbable that Lytle was even awake, much less likely to stop by on an unannounced inspection. And who gave a shit if he did, he thought happily.
There had been a euchre tournament last night, and the men off duty had managed to wipe out their supply of suds; thus, the beer run to Sullivan’s small store in Bridger. Usually the lieutenant did it, but he was off someplace.
Stecher thought that life was not bad at all. He’d begun to get control over his fury regarding the loss of his brother. He recognized the helplessness of his situation. Until and if something changed dramatically, he would continue to spend World War II in southern California. And after talking to some navy pilots, he’d grudgingly come to accept the fact that soldiers on the ground were fair targets for pilots in planes. The enemy you spared today could come back and kill you tomorrow. What had happened to his brother was war, not murder.
He’d talked with a number of others who’d lost loved ones in the all too numerous defeats suffered by the United States. They’d commiserated, had a beer or six, and told how they controlled their anguish and sealed off their hate. If they didn’t it would consume them. Stecher would never get over the loss of his brother and would never want to, but he was beginning to understand what older people had said about life moving on after the death of someone dear. Someday, though, he would like his chance to personally kill at least one fucking Jap.
He pulled up in front of the single-story white frame store owned by Sullivan. He’d recently found out that Sullivan’s first name was Patrick. What else, he thought.
Stecher entered the store. No one was behind the counter, which was unusual. There was no way he could have sneaked up on Sullivan. There wasn’t that much else around in Bridger and anyone in the store had a clear view down the road, so somebody should have been there to greet him. Maybe Sullivan was in the can? He waited a few moments but heard nothing. He tapped on the wall by the door to announce himself, but still no one came. Should he help himself? Sullivan’s was an old-fashioned store where you told the clerk what you wanted and he got it for you. None of that supermarket stuff where you wandered around with a cart and filled it. Sullivan said there was too much opportunity to steal in such a situation.
So where was everybody? What the hell’s going on, Stecher thought. He heard the sound of something
