James Benn - The White Ghost

“Here,” Jack said, laying out several photographs on the table. “I got these reconnaissance photos from Garfield. This shows the beach right next to the village. There’s an opening in the reef that runs offshore; see where the water is calm? We can bring you in close and put you on a rubber raft.”

“How about rigging up a dummy crate of weapons?” Kaz said. “We could ask Porter to come back with us to get more. Once aboard, it would be simple to secure him.”

“If he buys it,” I said. “If not, we’ll need a length of rope to tie him up.”

“We’ll have both in the raft,” Jack said. “I’ll have the boys put K rations in a crate; that ought to work fine in the dark. We have enough canned pickles for a regiment.”

“We shall have to take him quickly,” Kaz said. “John Kari might intervene, if only out of confusion and shock.”

“They’re both in the thick of a fight right now,” Jack said. “They’re going to be keyed up, ready for anything. Watch yourselves out there. The Japs aren’t the only ones to worry about.”

“Jack,” I said, “if we’re not back pretty damn quick, don’t wait more than those twenty minutes. If it takes longer than that, we’re done for.”

“Don’t worry, Billy. I like you two fellas, but I’m not going to endanger this boat. Now get some shut-eye if you can. Be onboard by eighteen hundred hours. We’ll be in the Slot by dark, and then it’s a hundred-mile run. Don’t be late. If you’re not here, I’ll have to go after the bastard myself.” Jack flashed one of his patented grins, all white teeth and lively eyes. It was hard to resist his eagerness and his charm, and as we faced this hazardous mission together, I really didn’t want to.

Sleep had been elusive in the heat and thick, humid air, with sunlight blazing and baking our canvas tent. But that didn’t matter now; we were slicing through the waters of the Blanche Channel, Lumbari at our backs and a cool wind on our faces. Explosions reflected off the low clouds, the sounds and sudden flashes of light like fireworks on a summer’s night. Deadly up close, but at a distance, in the full South Pacific night, it was otherworldly, even glorious.

“They’re pounding the last Jap stronghold on New Georgia,” Jack said, his voice raised to be heard over the motors. “We might spot some barges bringing troops out.”

“Be hard to see,” I said. It was a cloudy night, not even reflected starlight to see by.

“We finally have radar,” he said. “If they’re out there, we’ll find them.”

Kaz and I exchanged glances. That wasn’t what we were out here for. I gave him a little shrug that told him not to worry. Jack wanted Porter taken as much as we did. He also wanted revenge, but I was hoping he’d hold off on hunting Japs until the return trip.

“This is Blackett Strait,” Jack said, his voice grim. He slowed the engines and turned to one of the crewmen who’d come from PT-109. “Mauer, get the boys up here.”

The four other veterans of PT-109 stood with Jack on the bridge as he raised his arm to the port side, out into the inky-black night. “Right about there.”

They stood quietly for a minute, hands on shoulders, crowded together on the tiny bridge, holding each other close, as they must have done that night in the water while flames licked the waves and every other PT boat left them alone and adrift-nothing between them and the Japanese but sharks, sharp coral reefs, and guts.

Then they broke up wordlessly, hustling back to their duty stations, scanning the sky and the horizon. We turned north, picking up speed as we moved along the perimeter of Kolombangara, the almost perfectly round island off New Georgia.

“Radar contact,” said the radio operator. “Bearing one-four-nine.”

“Changing course to one-four-nine,” Jack said. “Distance?”

“Two miles out, heading west by northwest.”

“Jack?” I said. He didn’t respond. Kaz and I stepped back, grabbing hold of the radio mast as the boat accelerated and Jack went for the targets ahead. So much for caution.

Less than a minute later, I made out two dark hulks churning through the water ahead. Japanese Daihatsu barges, each about sixty feet long, crammed with soldiers, and armed with machine guns mounted at fore and aft.

They were no match for Jack’s gunboat. He kept straight on course for the second barge, the forward forty-millimeter firing away, joined by the twin fifties in the turrets on either side of the bridge. A burst of bright orange leapt from the barge, an explosive burst of fuel catapulting men into the water and scorching those who remained on board, their uniforms catching fire as they scrambled through the flames and over the side where machine-gun rounds stitched the ocean into geysers of blood and fire.

Jack slowed and turned, coming at the first barge with a full broadside. It didn’t catch fire, but splintered and broke apart under the heavy machine-gun and cannon fire, bodies broken and shattered, dancing under the staccato light of tracers as the impact of multiple rounds sent them careening against each other. Ending in death’s calm embrace only when Jack signaled cease fire.

He did a circuit of the barges. Screams-whether in agony or anger, it was impossible to tell-echoed out over the water. Jack ordered full speed ahead, leaving the carnage behind, a satisfied grin on his face, delight showing in his eyes as they met mine.

“I had a crewman when I first came out here. He was wounded on patrol, and transferred to another PT boat after he recovered,” Jack began, in answer to the question I hadn’t asked. “A few weeks later, they sank a barge, like that one, and pulled four survivors out of the drink. He had them covered with a tommy gun. One of them begged for water, and being a nice kid, he leaned forward to give him his canteen. The Jap grabbed the Thompson and killed him with it. That’s what comes of doing the decent thing out here.”

“Decency and war seldom go together,” Kaz said as Jack turned away, fiery eyes forward. “But here, they seem not even to have a nodding acquaintance.” That was something coming from Kaz, who’d lost his family as well as his nation to the Nazis.

“Jack,” I said, stepping up on the bridge. “If we’re making good time, I wouldn’t mind going ashore before oh-one-hundred.”

“So you can get a drop on him?” Jack asked. I nodded yes. “But we’re still only waiting twenty minutes, there’s no way around that. We’ll put you in the rubber raft about quarter of. The twenty-minute clock starts ticking once you hit the beach. Clobber him over the head and paddle back as fast as you can.”

We crossed the open waters of the Slot at full throttle, more than making up time for the brief, one-sided engagement. As the island of Choiseul showed up on the radar screen, Jack slowed the boat, lessening the phosphorescent wake and the chances of being spotted by a Jap lookout. We moved slowly, the sound of breaking waves increasing in volume. I could make out the whitecaps where the tide drove water against the coral reef, a rolling, crashing tumult that threatened to rip open the hull of any small craft that went against it. Or the feet of any man swimming over it, as Jack had done trying to signal a friendly vessel in Blackett Strait.

As I was considering the chances a rubber raft had of riding those waves, I saw the opening. A river of calm water between the breakers. I looked at my watch, the luminous dial reading quarter of one.

“Ready?” I said to Kaz. He nodded, and we both slung our rifles and went aft, where Chappy and Mauer were putting the raft over the side. The crate filled with food and two coils of rope were in place. Next was us.

“Good luck,” Jack said. “As soon as you get onshore, the countdown starts. Don’t dawdle, fellas.”