Red randalls one man war, p.10
Red Randall's One-Man War, page 10
The next hour was a sixty-minute nightmare to Red Randall, and to Jimmy Joyce, too. A nightmare filled with darkness and thorny hands and looped roots and patches of silver moonlight and stretches of grass and pitch-black forest and rocks that cut and bruised. And always full speed ahead, though their lungs seemed about to burst.
And then suddenly there came a scream of rage such as they had never heard in all their lives. There was a blur of movement off to Randall’s right, a human form leaping at him, and the flashing gleam of a rifle barrel reflected in a thread of moonlight. And there was a roar of sound that seemed to split his eardrums. Instantly the leaping figure ceased all forward motion. It seemed to hang forever in mid-air before it dropped in a heap to the ground.
Randall had skidded to a halt, and so had John Smith. But Jimmy Joyce didn’t stop. He took one more step that sent him bumping into Randall, and the redhead saw the service automatic in Jimmy’s hand. It was then that he realized that Jimmy’s fast wing shot had saved him from the lone Japanese who now lay dead at his feet. He wanted to pour out his thanks. But he had no air left in his lungs to permit him to speak. Then John Smith was panting out words.
“Too bad!” the big man gasped. “Now we must leave the trail and go to a place I know. The scouts with the carabao cart are but a mile ahead. But that shot will frighten them, and they will take the cart back to the village and go back to camp themselves. It is the best thing for them to do, but we will go to a place I know. If there are Japs behind us, that shot will give them direction. Too bad, but we cannot expect to be lucky in everything. Come. We must leave the trail at once. I know a place.”
“Not lucky in everything?” Randall heard his own voice more or less wheeze out. “Man, I never want any more luck like that! Jimmy boy, I—”
“Skip it, pal,” Joyce cut him off. “John Smith’s on the move already.”
It was true. Without waiting for any comment from either of them the big man had turned off the trail they had been following and was moving rapidly through some heavy growth that seemed to grow right up out of solid rock. Not hesitating an instant longer, Randall and Joyce turned off the trail, too, and dogged the footsteps of John Smith. Then the ordeal began all over again, but somehow it did not seem such an ordeal to the redhead. Perhaps it was because that momentary stop had allowed him to get his second wind, or perhaps it was a feeling that Joyce’s quick shot, which had saved his life, was a good omen.
Though the pains that shot through him were doubled and his body seemed consumed with white fire, the driving force inside him was greater than before and he did not falter or even stumble once during the next half-hour. And then finally John Smith came to a halt. They were on a shrub-studded shelf of rocky ground. Directly ahead the solid wall of a hill rose upward, and at its base was a dark oval-shaped shadow.
“Keep close and follow me slowly,” the big man panted. “Keep your head down or you will hit it against the top of the cave opening. When we are inside, stop and wait. I have been here often. I will make a light that cannot be seen from the outside. We are safe here. The Japs will never find us, even if they dare venture this far. Come, keep your heads low.”
“Lead on,” Randall managed to get out.
Then bending over in order to be sure to keep their heads low, he and Jimmy followed John Smith through the cave opening into the jet-black interior. A clammy smell assailed Red’s nostrils the instant he was inside, but in a way it was a balm to his burning lungs. He didn’t mind it at all. In fact, the way he felt he would not have minded anything, save the appearance of Japanese soldiers.
“Wait here,” John Smith’s voice stopped his rambling thoughts. “I will put him down, and then make a light.”
Still bent over slightly, Randall and Jimmy Joyce stopped where they were. John Smith, a few yards in front of them, scratched a match and applied its flame to the wick of a candle. Then both Jimmy and Red straightened up. The cave was some twenty by twenty-five feet, domed in the middle, and the rear wall showed a trickle of water coming out of a crack. There were a couple of grass mat beds, and in one corner three or four woven leaf baskets.
Randall swept it all with a single glance, and then went directly to where John Smith had laid Lieutenant Jackson down on one of the grass mat beds. The gallant Naval officer wore only tattered shorts and a pair of native sandals that were worn paper thin. From the bottom of his feet to the top of his shaggy black head the man was a mass of welts and bruises and tiny cuts. His face, half-hidden by a growth of beard, looked like the face of a man long since dead. But the man was not dead. At least not yet. His chest heaved as he struggled for air, and unintelligible mumblings came off his cracked lips. His eyes were closed.
“Look what they’ve done to him!” Randall said hoarsely as rage shook him. “The dirty rats. There’s not one speck of decency in them. I only hope—”
The redhead suddenly stopped and looked up at John Smith.
“He is Lieutenant Jackson, isn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes,” the big man said with a nod. “But if I had not known him well once, I would hardly know him now. Those dog devils have changed him a lot. But, yes, it is Lieutenant Jackson. I will get water. We can bathe his face, and perhaps he will drink a little.”
John Smith turned away, but was back in a moment with a wooden bowl of water and a piece of cloth. He handed the bowl and the cloth to Randall. The redhead took them without comment and began to bathe the half-unconscious man’s face. Then when Smith gave him a cup of water, he let a few drops trickle down between the man’s cracked lips. The Navy man drank the first few drops, but when Randall gave him more, the water simply spilled out the corners of his mouth.
But the cool water on his face, and the few drops he had swallowed, revived Jackson a little. He opened his eyes, but the glassy stare he fixed on Randall’s face and then on Jimmy Joyce bending over him, was dazed and uncomprehending.
“You’re okay now, Lieutenant Jackson,” Randall said impulsively. “It’s okay now. The Japs aren’t here. Everything’s going to be all right, sailor.”
The redhead’s words obviously fell on deaf ears. Lieutenant Jackson closed his eyes, but a moment later his cracked lips moved and a few half-gasped words dropped off them.
“Hundred...fifty...poor devils. Three years...must...free...or...die...three years...”
That was all. The effort to speak had taken the last of the man’s strength and his lips went silent. Randall clenched his two fists helplessly and looked at John Smith as he listened to Jackson’s labored breathing.
“What’s the situation now?” he asked. “How long do we have to stay here? When can we get him to the guerrilla camp? He’s in bad shape and there is nothing much we can do for him here. Perhaps one of the Filipinos at the camp knows something about—”
“No,” John Smith shook his head, “there is no one at the camp who could help him in a medical way, if that is what you mean, Captain. You are right. He needs the care of a real doctor as soon as possible, if he is to live. However, we must remain here until sunrise. Then we can start on again. The camp is about thirteen or fourteen miles from here, but the ground is rough and we will have to go slow because of him. We cannot possibly reach the camp before early tomorrow evening.”
“Well, you can’t carry him all that distance,” Jimmy Joyce spoke up. “We’ll have to rig up some kind of stretcher and take turns.”
“Yes, that would help,” the big man said gravely. “We will be able to move a little faster that way, and it will not be so hard on us. Yes, that is a good plan. But we still will not reach the camp until late afternoon.”
“Is there any food here we can give him while we wait?” Randall asked as he stared down at the deathlike face of Lieutenant Jackson.
“Yes,” John Smith replied instantly. “I keep a small store of supplies here in case I must hide from searching Japanese patrols for any length of time. It is not much, but food will help him if we can get him to eat a little.”
Randall nodded approval, but actually he was only half listening to the words. He was thinking of something else, and the more he thought about it, the more sure he became of his decision.
“Jimmy,” the redhead suddenly said turning to his comrade. “There’s a job for you to do. A tough one, but I know you can pull it off.”
“Maybe,” Joyce said and gave him a searching look. “But suppose you tell me about it first.”
“It’s this,” Randall said taking a deep breath. “We’ll get Jackson to the camp tomorrow night. Well, the next dawn you take him in the TBF and fly him back to the Tipton.”
“You’re nuts!” Joyce blurted out. “You know I wouldn’t take him without you. I—”
“Skip it, Jimmy,” Red cut him off. “I meant just what I said. Jackson needs a doctor as soon as we can get him to one. There’s a doctor on the Tipton. But only one of us can go with Jackson. When we checked the TBF yesterday I noted that the gas was lower than we’d hoped because of the storm. If I rode in the gunner’s tunnel I would be just so much extra weight. You know that. That extra weight would use up gas that could mean the difference between reaching the Tipton and going down on the water. No, kid, just one of us can go with Jackson. You’re elected because I thought of the idea.”
“The hell you did!” Joyce said hotly. “I was thinking of it myself. Of course our only hope is to get him to the Tipton as soon as we can, but I’m darned if I’ll take the job. You rate it. I’ll stay here with the others.”
Red Randall opened his mouth to argue further but the set look on Jimmy Joyce’s face made him change his mind. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He balanced it on his thumbnail and looked at his friend.
“It must be only one of us, Jimmy,” he said. “We’ll toss for it. Heads I fly him, tails you fly him. Right?”
Joyce’s face twitched slightly as he waged an inner war with himself.
“Right!” he finally snapped out.
Randall flipped the coin into the air and let it fall to the floor. It rolled and turned a bit, and then finally settled with tails showing.
“So you’re still elected,” Randall said and reached for the coin.
But Jimmy Joyce beat him to picking up the coin. He examined both sides. There was a head on the other side. He gave it back to Randall with a little crooked grin.
“Not that I don’t trust you, you lucky stiff,” he said in a strained voice. “Okay, I go, you stay.”
For a moment their eyes locked, and something seemed to well up in Randall and explode. He took his eyes off Jimmy Joyce and turned abruptly to John Smith who stood silently watching them.
“Well, what about that food, Smith?” he barked. “Can’t you go get it and bring it out?”
The big man stiffened at the tone, and he knitted his bushy brows into a dark scowl. But suddenly he saw what was deep down in Red Randall’s eyes. The scowl vanished at once, and with a quiet nod John Smith turned and walked over to the woven leaf baskets in the corner.
Chapter Fourteen – Heroes Part
THE MOON WAS down but the shadows of night still shrouded the island of Luzon. Dawn, however, was not far away. The telltale pink line marked the eastern horizon, and the dome of heaven was swiftly turning from black, to gray, to a muddy blue-green.
Down on the grassy field below the guerrilla fortress Red Randall, Jimmy Joyce, John Smith, Sergeant Murphy and three scouts, stood in a group before the Grumman Avenger. Its propeller was slowly ticking over. The TBF had been un-camouflaged and hauled to the far end of the cleared strip, and Joyce was now waiting for sufficient light to insure a safe take-off from the tricky field. He had checked his flight chart with Randall, and unless the unexpected happened or had already happened, he should meet the carrier Tipton exactly at the prearranged rendezvous point, and right on time.
Lieutenant Jackson was strapped securely to the seat in the rear pit. The Naval officer was still too weak and exhausted to notice what was happening to him. As John Smith had predicted, the rescue party had reached camp the day before just as the sun was sliding down behind the Pantabangan Hills. Great had been the rejoicing among the guerrillas when they saw their beloved leader. But Jackson himself had taken no part in the rejoicing. All night long he had remained in a state of semi-consciousness, but Randall and Joyce had been able to get a little food and water past his lips. That obviously had helped, and when big John Smith had tenderly carried him down to the plane the Navy man had ceased his continuous incoherent mumbling, and most of the glazed look in his eyes was gone. His breathing was less labored, too, and though it was difficult to tell for sure, because of his beard, there seemed to be some color coming back into the man’s sunken cheeks. In other words, if Jackson survived the ordeal of the flight back to the Tipton, he would stand a good chance of recovery.
“Well, I guess the light is good enough now,” Jimmy Joyce broke the short silence that had settled over the group. Then reaching for Randall’s hand, he said, “I’ll be back, even if I have to swipe a plane off the flight deck. Be good ’til I get here, mister. And next time, so help me, I’ll spin the coin. Maybe I’ll make it two out of three, as I should have this time. Well, so long, Red. Be seeing you soon, and I’m not kidding.”
“So long, kid,” Randall said as a deeper emotion than he had felt in a long time swept through him. “Remember I won’t be there to correct your mistakes, so don’t make any. And no detours just to smack a Zero or two for luck. You just skip back and turn him over to the medics fast. Catch?”
“I catch,” Joyce grinned over his shoulder as he legged up into the Avenger. “I’ll do just that, and then get back here fast. Take care of him, John Smith. And you, too, Sergeant Murphy. Make him eat his spinach and things. So long everybody!”
“So long!” they all chorused, and then stepped back and to the side as Joyce revved the Grumman’s engine.
He let it thunder its mighty song of power for a moment while he checked the readings on the instrument dials. Then he throttled slightly, waved one hand in final farewell, kicked off the wheel brakes and fed high test to the engine again. With a mighty roar the TBF moved forward slowly over the fairly soft ground, but it picked up more and more speed with every revolution of the propeller. In no time at all it was thundering forward at top take-off speed.
Breath clamped in his lungs, and a fervent unspoken prayer on his lips, Randall watched Jimmy guide the thundering Grumman down the cleared strip, then lift it clear and nose it up into the dawn sky.
“Made it, and I knew he would!”
Randall was not sure whether it was his voice that spoke the words. As the Grumman climbed higher and swiftly flew out of sight beyond the crests of the hills to the east, a great loneliness filled Red’s heart, a great loneliness and a great fear. No, it wasn’t exactly a fear. It was more a great worry.
Not for a single instant did he doubt Jimmy Joyce’s ability to fly the TBF straight to the rendezvous point with the Tipton. In Randall’s opinion there was no better pilot in the Army Air Forces than Jimmy Joyce. No, not worry that Jimmy would fail to reach the rendezvous point, but worry that the Tipton would not be there when he did arrive. Memory of that fleet of Japanese bombers heading out to sea in the general direction of the small task force came back to Randall as vividly as though he were seeing them now.
Had those Japanese bombers and fighter escort found the Tipton’s force? And, if so, what had happened? Was the Tipton at the bottom of the Pacific, a bomb-crushed hulk? Or had the Tipton escaped, and was it even now steaming toward the rendezvous point, as General Denton said she would do every morning until they were forced to abandon all hope of the TBF’s return?
On the bottom or steaming along on the surface? The question hammered at Randall’s brain as he stood there staring at the dawn sky into which the Grumman had disappeared. The Tipton had to be there, because Jimmy Joyce was flying the man who could unquestionably shorten the war in the Philippines. In Lieutenant Jackson’s fever-racked brain was the knowledge that would mean so much to the success of the Luzon invasion. The knowledge that might even mean the difference between a speedy victory and a costly defeat.
At first they had planned that Joyce would have the Tipton’s radioman send out a code word that would tell those listening to the radio in the guerrilla fortress that the TBF had arrived safely and that Jackson was under the ship surgeon’s care. But a careful examination of the guerrilla radio had dashed that hope to the ground. The radio was broken down and the few materials the guerrilla force had on hand were insufficient to repair it. Sergeant Murphy had been mistaken. The radio had not been in working order ever since the day the Japanese had pulled their sneak plane landing trick. And so they would have no news until Jimmy Joyce returned, if he ever did return. Good old Jimmy, the finest comrade a guy ever had. Would he ever see Jimmy’s grinning face again and laugh and joke and horse around with him as of old? Or was this the final parting of two who loved each other as brothers? Had the long road of war that they had traveled and flown over together come to an end? Would there be no more laughs together, no more flying wing tip to wing tip as they slapped Japanese down out of the air—no more of anything with Jimmy Joyce?
Randall didn’t realize that John Smith’s hand was gripping his shoulder until he heard the big man speaking softly and with deep feeling.
“He will arrive safely, Captain Randall,” John Smith said. “It is so written, and I feel it here inside of me. He will arrive safely, and he will come back. Come, we will go back to the camp.”
“The Fire-Ball is right, skipper,” Sergeant Murphy said firmly as they started back up through the tree-choked gorge. “He’ll be back before you know it. I’ll bet on it!”
“Thanks,” said Randall.
The rest of the trip back to the guerrilla camp was made in silence. By the time they arrived, Randall had succeeded in pushing his own personal sorrows and worries to one side. His brain was active on something he had been mulling over ever since it had first occurred to him, when he stared at Jackson’s haggard face as the man lay fighting for breath in John Smith’s secret hideout in the Pantabangan Hills.
