Green Hell Page 12

  “Corporal Taguchi!” he shouted.

  The door opened and Corporal Taguchi entered the office. He saw Joanna lying on the cot, blood on the side of her face.

  “She tried to escape,” Lieutenant Karuma said. “I had to subdue her.”

  Corporal Taguchi's brow became furrowed with thought, and Lieutenant Karuma realized he'd made a mistake. If the girl had tried to escape, what was she doing in his bed? He was afraid Corporal Taguchi would suspect he'd tried to take advantage of her sexually.

  “After I subdued her, I set her down on the bed,” Lieutenant Karuma muttered. “Couldn't leave her on the floor.”

  Corporal Taguchi's eyes swept the floor, but he could see no blood, and Lieutenant Karuma knew it. Then Lieutenant Karuma decided that the only thing to do was get tough and be the base commander.

  “She wouldn't talk, but I still think she's a spy. I'll have to notify Colonel Nishikawa; maybe he'll want to interrogate her. In the meantime, take her away! The bitch is lucky I didn't kill her.”

  “But, sir,” said Corporal Taguchi, “how could you expect her to talk if you and she don't speak a common language?”

  Lieutenant Karuma looked coldly at Corporal Taguchi, and Corporal Taguchi averted his gaze. Corporal Taguchi knew he had no right to ask an officer a question like that, but sometimes he forgot he was in the army.

  The girl moaned and stirred on the cot.

  “Get her out of here!” Lieutenant Karuma said.

  Corporal Taguchi walked to the cot and bent over the girl.

  “Are you all right?’ he asked gently.

  “I said get her out of here!”

  “Come on,” said Corporal Taguchi, lifting Joanna from the cot.

  Lieutenant Karuma sat behind his desk and scowled as he looked over pieces of correspondence and communiques from Colonel Nishikawa's headquarters. Corporal Taguchi helped Joanna stumble toward the door. Her head was clearing, and the side of her face stung from Lieutenant Karuma's blow. She licked the blood off her lips as Corporal Taguchi opened the door. Pausing a moment, she recalled what Lieutenant Karuma had done to her, and she became furious.

  Turning around, she screamed, “You son of a bitch!”

  Lieutenant Karuma pretended not to hear her. Corporal Taguchi eased her outside and closed the door behind them.

  “You shouldn't antagonize him,” Corporal Taguchi said. “He has a very bad temper, and sometimes I think he's not right in his head.”

  Joanna looked at him and wondered what his game was, because he was being gentle with her. They descended the steps and walked across the open space to the stockade.

  “The cut on your face is still bleeding,” Corporal Taguchi said. “I hope that other woman can do something.”

  “She's a nurse,” Joanna said.

  “I'll see if I can steal a bandage from the hospital.”

  “You're so different from the others,” Joanna told him. “And you speak English very well. What are you doing here?”

  “I was drafted into the Army, but before the war I was what you call a commercial traveler, and I spent a lot of time in these islands. I've even heard of your father.”

  “Really!”

  “Oh, yes. He was a legend to the natives—the Australian who lived all alone in the hills, looking for gold. You should never have come here to see him.”

  “I wouldn't have if I'd known that the Japanese army was going to invade.”

  “Didn't you know that the situation here in the Pacific was deteriorating? Don't you read newspapers?”

  “I hate newspapers, but I'll read them from now on if I ever get out of here.”

  Corporal Taguchi didn't reply, because he didn't think she'd ever get out of there alive.

  “Do you know Miss Brockway?” she asked.

  “No, but I've heard of her. The natives consider her an angel.”

  “She is, but I'm not, and if I ever get the chance, I'm going to kill that son of a bitch back there.”

  “It's not a good idea for you to think that way,” he said. “The lieutenant is a very dangerous man.”

  “Maybe so,” Joanna replied, “but this time he's picked on the wrong person.”

  Corporal Taguchi smiled. “I can't help admiring your—how do you say it?—spunk! Yes, I think that's how you say it. Anyway, I can't help admiring your spunk, but I wouldn't do anything foolish if I were you.”

  “You're not me,” Joanna said.

  Corporal Taguchi didn't reply. If the girl wanted to do something foolish and get herself killed, that was her problem. One can only help another person so much. They arrived at the front gate of the stockade.

  “Good luck to you,” Corporal Taguchi said.

  “Same to you,” she replied.

  Corporal Taguchi muttered something to the guards, and they opened the gate. Joanna walked inside, and the natives looked at her with concern on their faces. Miss Brockway stood and walked toward her.

  “My God, what have they done to you?” she exclaimed.

  The cut on Joanna's face still hurt, and she had a terrible headache. “It wasn't so bad,” Joanna replied.

  “Let me look at that wound!”

  Joanna sat on the ground, and Miss Brockway tore a length of material out of the hem of her dress, spitting on it and cleaning the cut. Joanna closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, trying not to be aware of the pain.

  NINE . . .

  The Reverend Billie Jones slept deeply next to a bush, snoring and gurgling, as bugs flew around him and came to rest on his skin, had a short meal and then flew away again.

  The bugs didn't bother Billie because he was shot full of morphine and feeling no pain. He was having an erotic drugged-out dream about being alone with Lana Turner in a fancy hotel in Hollywood.

  Billie Jones had never been in Hollywood in his life, but he imagined it to be a fabulous paradise, and he'd always had the hots for Lana Turner, whom he considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Although he'd been a wandering preacher before the war, he'd always had an eye for beautiful women and a taste for a glass of fine whiskey. If the good Lord didn't want men to have sexual relations with women, he wouldn't have made women so beautiful.

  The dream was in Technicolor, and Billie Jones didn't know if the room was Lana Turner's or his own, but he'd just closed the door and she had taken off her mink stole, throwing it over the back of a chair. Underneath she wore a white gown covered with diamonds and cut low in front so that he almost could see her nipples. He was wearing the same fatigue outfit he had on as he was sleeping.

  They looked at each other, and passion simmered between them.

  “Kiss me,” she said in her most sultry voice.

  Billie Jones walked three steps and took her in his arms, squeezing her tightly against him, kissing her famous lips, becoming intoxicated by the fragrance that emanated from her wonderfully supple body.

  “I love you so much!” she said.

  He found the zipper in back of her dress and pulled it down. The dress fell off her and he stepped back, letting it drop to the floor. Underneath she wore nothing except her amazing perfume. He picked her up, carried her to the big wide bed, and laid her down. Then he tore off his uniform and dived on top of her.

  His head landed between her breasts, and he feasted on them, licking, slobbering, and sucking her nipples, which were now hard like the erasers on the ends of pencils and tasty like fresh oranges.

  “Oh!” she said, moaning, moving her head from side on the pillow, her beautiful golden hair thrashing about. “Don't stop!”

  Billie Jones couldn't stop even if he wanted to. He held both of her breasts in his hands, moved the nipples close together, and placed both of them into his mouth.

  “Not that!” she cried. “I'll go crazy if you do that!”

  He ran his tongue across both her nipples, and she whimpered like a defeated dog. Her chest rose and fell with her deep breathing, and Billie knew he really had her all worked up. The famous, fabulou
s movie queen was crazy about him. He decided it was time to get down to some serious fucking.

  He crawled up her body and prepared to stick it in. Their eyes met, and he fell under her enchantment.

  “Do it to me!” she begged. “Don't make me wait any longer!”

  “Anything you say, Miss Turner,” he replied in his most ingratiating voice.

  He held his banana in his hand and angled it toward her valley of dreams, when suddenly she raised her hand and pushed his shoulder.

  “Why are you pushing me away?” he asked.

  She smiled mysteriously and pushed him again.

  “Am I doing something wrong?”

  She pushed him again, more forcefully this time, and he opened his eyes. He was lying on his back in the jungle and a native was bending over him, shaking his shoulder. Billie Jones blinked. He was back on New Georgia.

  Billie Jones didn't know whether the native was friendly or not. He'd heard that there were headhunters on those islands who'd kill an American as quickly as they'd kill anybody else.

  “Wake up!” said the native.

  “What do you want?” Billie replied.

  “Wake up. You go see Captain Eadie now!”

  “Who?”

  Billie Jones sat up and looked around. He saw more natives waking up the other men in the recon platoon. The native held out his hand and helped Billie to his feet. Billie walked unsteadily toward Butsko, who was conferring with one of the natives. Butsko had his map out and the native was looking at it.

  “How far?” asked Butsko.

  “Maybe one mile, maybe less.”

  The men from the recon platoon and the natives, who numbered five, gathered around Butsko and the native looking at the map. Lieutenant MacDoughal joined them, his face swollen with mosquito bites.

  “What's going on here, Sergeant?” he asked, pushing his way through the men and looking at the map over Butsko's shoulder.

  “We're about a half-mile from the radio station on Segi Point.”

  “What radio station is that?”

  “It's one of the Australian stations. We're supposed to contact Guadalcanal by radio from there and see about getting picked up.”

  Lieutenant MacDoughal grunted, because he knew about the system of coast watchers throughout the Southwest Pacific. Manned by officers from the Royal Australian Navy, they reported Japanese air and sea movements in their area to a central information center and had warned the Allies many times of impending attacks.

  “Let's get this show on the road,” Butsko said. “Saddle up and get ready to move out.”

  “What about breakfast?” asked Homer Gladley

  “We'll eat when we get to the station. Let's go!”

  The men hoisted their packs and slung their submachine guns. Butsko lined them up and motioned for the natives to lead the way. The natives headed into the jungle, and the men from the recon platoon followed them.

  Butsko was happy, because he thought the worst was over. The natives knew their way back to the station, and there were few Japanese patrols on this end of the island. All they had to do now was wait for the submarine to pick them up.

  Except for a few bad moments, like the one in the swamp with the crocodiles, it hadn't been a difficult operation at all, Butsko thought.

  “Uh-oh,” said Miss Brockway.

  Joanna turned around and saw Lieutenant Karuma walking toward the stockade, accompanied by twenty men. It was morning, and the sun shone brightly on the stockade, which was in the open and broiling in the sun. Some of the natives were at work strengthening the lean-to erected hastily by the Japanese. A bucket of water had been brought to the stockade shortly after dawn, but no food. Joanna relieved herself in the latrine that morning while the Japanese guards watched avidly, but she had no choice. When you've got to go, you've got to go.

  Lieutenant Karuma wore his samurai sword strapped to his waist and walked erectly, the proud picture of a Japanese officer, but he was still troubled by his disagreeable encounter with the Australian woman the evening before, for she had caused him to be embarrassed in front of a common soldier in his command, Corporal Taguchi. Lieutenant Karuma was angry beneath his stern countenance, and when he was angry, it always made him feel better if he could make somebody suffer.

  The native men mumbled to each other, because they knew Lieutenant Karuma wasn't coming to wish them good morning. Joanna gazed hatefully at Lieutenant Karuma, unconsciously touching her hand to the bandage on her cheek where he'd hit her with his pistol. Lieutenant Karuma stopped in front of the stockade, his men on either side of him, and Corporal Taguchi stepped forward, making a brief speech in the native dialect.

  “What's he saying?” Joanna asked Miss Brockway.

  “He asked if we're prepared now to tell him where the Americans are, and if we're not, they're going to kill another one of us.”

  Joanna swallowed hard, and the cut on her cheek throbbed painfully. What kind of madman was this Japanese officer? She thought him the cruelest person she'd ever seen.

  Miss Brockway stood up and addressed Lieutenant Karuma in Japanese. “See here,” she told him, “we don't know anything about any Americans. How many of us do you have to kill before you realize that?”

  “Woman,” replied Lieutenant Karuma, “if you speak to me again like that, I'll have you shot!”

  Miss Brockway decided to keep her mouth shut from then on.

  “What did he say?” Joanna asked.

  “He threatened to have me shot.”

  “That bastard.”

  Lieutenant Karuma murmured something to Corporal Taguchi, who turned and faced the prisoners in the stockade again. He repeated his previous statement in the native dialect, and once more the natives didn't respond. Lieutenant Karuma said something to his soldiers, and six of them marched toward the gate of the stockade. The guards opened the gate and the Japanese soldiers stormed inside.

  The native men didn't run away or try to hide. They stayed where they were, and the Japanese soldiers seized the nearest native to them, a short fellow wearing only a lavalava skirt. They dragged him out; he didn't struggle, but his head hung low and it was clear that he was resigned to his fate.

  The guards closed the gate and the soldiers carried the man before Lieutenant Karuma, who pulled his sword slowly from its scabbard. Miss Brockway covered her eyes with her hands, while Joanna watched with horrified fascination. The soldiers laid the native on the ground and Lieutenant Karuma raised his sword in the air, his eyes glittering with pleasure. The blade of his samurai sword flashed in the light of the sun as he swung it down, and whump, the native's head was chopped off.

  Lieutenant Karuma smiled faintly as he stepped back, blood dripping from his sword. He turned to Corporal Taguchi, murmured a few words to him, and walked back toward his headquarters, holding his samurai sword out to his side, trailing tiny drops of blood behind him.

  Corporal Taguchi made another statement in the native dialect, and Joanna could figure out that he was warning them about more executions if the natives didn't furnish the information Lieutenant Karuma wanted. Then Corporal Taguchi and the other soldiers walked away, leaving the decapitated native lying on the ground, his head a few feet away, turned face up to the sun.

  Miss Brockway was pale, and she sat on the ground. Joanna dropped to her knees beside her.

  “Good people have no defense against such baseness,” Miss Brockway said.

  “We have to do something!” Joanna replied.

  “There's nothing we can do,” Miss Brockway said, resignation in her voice.

  “There must be something,” Joanna told her. “We can't just let the swine kill us one by one like this.”

  The coast watcher station was on a high wooded plateau overlooking the ocean, and the recon platoon arrived at ten o'clock in the morning after an arduous climb up the hill. Natives ran forward to the thatched hut in a grove of trees, and a few moments later two white men came out.

  One wore tan shorts and a
tan shirt with the markings of the Royal Australian Navy on the collar, and the other wore dirty white slacks and a tan shirt with no markings. The first was of average build and had military bearing, with a beat-up cap like General MacArthur's on his head, while the second was tall and gawky, with a black mustache and a floppy straw hat perched forward on his head.

  “Well, hello there,” said the one with the military insignia on his shirt, holding out his hand. “I'm Captain Eadie, and this here is Jimmy Hughes.”

  Butsko raised his hand to shake with Captain Eadie, when suddenly Lieutenant MacDoughal shot in front of him and grabbed Captain Eadie's hand. “I'm Lieutenant MacDoughal, sir, and this is Sergeant Butsko.”

  “Oh, yes, Sergeant Butsko. We've been expecting you.” Captain Eadie smiled and shook Butsko's hand. “You're a day late.”

  “Got a little tied up back there,” Butsko said.

  “Anything serious?”

  “I haven't lost any of my men, if that's what you mean, and we blew the ammo dump.”

  “Good show!” Captain Eadie said. “Come in to my hut here and we'll have a little talk.” He looked at Lieutenant MacDoughal. “You, too, Lieutenant. By the way, where have you come from?”

  Lieutenant MacDoughal opened his mouth to reply, but Butsko beat him to the draw.

  “He got shot down yesterday and we found him in the jungle,” Butsko said.

  Lieutenant MacDoughal's mouth still was wide open, and Captain Eadie slapped him on the shoulder. “You're lucky Sergeant Butsko found you , Lieutenant. Many pilots who were shot down died before natives could reach them.”

  Butsko turned around and looked at his men. “You can have your breakfast now, and stay the fuck out of trouble!”

  The men from the recon platoon found places to sit, while Butsko entered the hut with Captain Eadie, Jimmy Hughes, and Lieutenant MacDoughal. A large round table was in the center of the room, and bunks covered with mosquito netting were against the walls. Facing the ocean, in front of a large window, was a table with a shortwave radio transmitter on top of it.