James Benn: The White Ghost

“Running short on these things,” Porter said, accepting the pills and the proffered canteen. I figured Johnston was deliberately giving me an opening, so I stepped in while he had the canteen raised to his lips and relieved him of the Sten gun hanging loosely off his shoulder.

“What the bloody hell!” Porter roared. “Give that back. Are you mad?”

“Not me,” I said, holding the Sten on Porter. Kaz darted in and took the.38 revolver out of Porter’s holster. Even though I knew his real name now, Porter stuck with me.

“Lieutenant Johnston, are you going to let this idiot get away with this?” Porter’s face turned red and his eyes widened, rage building up inside him. “There’s a company of marines that needs help up in those hills.”

“The knife,” I said. “Drop it on the ground.”

“I will not, not until you explain yourself, damn you.” Veins bulged on his neck, his hands balled into trembling fists.

“Josh Coburn is alive and well,” I said, stepping closer, the short barrel of the Sten gun aimed at his belly. “It’s all over.”

The fight went out of him. His face collapsed, the rage dissipating in the heat of the sun and the burning truth. There was still a witness alive. His deception and his crimes were out in the open. He fumbled weakly for the knife, not even realizing that Ariel had stepped in silently and slipped it out of its sheath.

“Dig in!” Johnston commanded. “Set up the thirty-caliber over here.” The machine-gun team hurried forward with their gear and began digging out a firing pit with their entrenching tools. We were on the crest of the hillock we’d spotted from the ridgeline. It had a good field of fire covering the coconut grove, with a commanding view of the route to the river. The slope was a tangle of fallen trees, and Kaz and I helped to drag several of the trunks to the crest to help shield the machine-gun nest.

“What’s the plan, Lieutenant?” I asked Johnston as I took a gulp from my canteen, careful not to spill a drop. The late-day sun was still withering on the exposed hilltop.

“Anything more from Porter?” Johnston said, sitting on the edge of the foxhole he’d excavated.

“Nope,” I said. “Just the general direction of G Company, and that he ought to be the one to contact them.” Porter was slumped glumly against a log, his legs stretched out in front of him, oblivious to the work going on around him.

“He is playing his last card,” Kaz said, wiping the sweat that dripped into his eyes. “There is a chance he is sincere about getting back to Major Bigger, but if so, I wouldn’t trust him one second after he does so.”

“Agreed,” Johnston said. “Making contact with Bigger is too important to leave to the likes of him. I’ll take Ariel and another man and go myself.”

“You won’t make it,” Porter said, his voice dull and low, his eyes on Johnston. “Send me.”

“Not happening,” Johnston said.

“When are the landing craft coming?” I asked.

“Oh-seven-hundred,” he said. “It’s too late to bring them in today; we’d never get G Company here in time. So the plan is I make contact now, then we come back through here at first light, and head for the landing area. My platoon will provide covering fire and be the rear guard if we’re pursued. Then everyone goes home.”

“You’ll be pursued,” Porter said. “We should bring them back tonight, quietly, in small groups.”

“Negative,” Johnston said, without looking at Porter. He handed his binoculars to Sergeant Trent. “Trent is in charge while I’m gone. I’ll see you fellas bright and early.”

We wished him luck, and waved to Ariel as he jogged off with Johnston and the sergeant who’d wielded the Aussie commando knife. Kaz and I finished scraping out a trench behind one of the coconut logs, and pulled Porter in with us.

“They’ll kill him in no time,” Porter said. “Why don’t you send me? I’m a dead man anyway.”

“Shut up,” I said.

Kaz rummaged in his musette bag and came up with three cans of chopped ham and eggs, and a supply of crackers. Porter looked surprised when Kaz handed him his share, but took it eagerly.

“I’m not an evil man, you know,” he said, running his finger around the edges of the can to get the last of the egg mix. “Just a bloke from Sydney who started down a road without thinking about where it might end.”

“You murdered three people on Tulagi,” I said. “Not to mention the deaths you caused on Pavau.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” he said. “At least not directly.”

“What really happened?” Kaz asked, using a few drops of precious water to rinse his fingers. Ever fastidious.

“What I told you before was true enough,” he said, licking his fingers. “Except it was me who went to hide the boat and Silas Porter who gathered the workers together. They were scared, having heard stories about the Japs on Bougainville. No one wanted to stay.”

“You took Porter’s Ross rifle,” I said.

“Right. He gave it to me to take away so the Japs wouldn’t find any weapons in his house. On my way back, I saw Japs coming up the road from the dock. They had two natives in tow, and it looked to me like they were being forced to carry supplies. They were stooped over with heavy packs on their backs. One of them tripped, and this Jap officer took out his sword and chopped his head off. For tripping.”

“So you shot him,” Kaz said.

“I did. Without thinking. I was ahead of them, in the bush along the roadside. Good concealment, only a hundred yards or so. Put the bastard down with one shot. But then I realized what I’d done, and tried to get back to warn the others.”

“Doesn’t seem like you did,” I said.

“No, I couldn’t get there, even though I tried my best. If I’d taken the road, they would have spotted me. I hoped the shot would have alerted the others, but even so, I tried to make it through the bush. About a quarter mile out, I checked the road and saw the Japs coming at a trot. I figured I’d riled them up plenty, and they were looking for anyone to take it out on. I fired one shot wild, to slow them down, but that only got them screaming and running faster.”

“So you ran off,” Kaz said.

“Yes! I ran, and no man can say he’d have done different, unless he was there. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that, but it did. I ran into the nearest grove and climbed a coconut tree. I watched Silas stand in front of his workers, trying to protect them. The Japs killed them all, shooting and bayoneting everyone. They set fire to the main house after that. Their blood was up, and it was likely my fault.”

“Likely?” I said.

“Well it was, I guess, but you never know with the Japs. I heard in some places they were almost polite to the plantation owners. In other places, they burned them out. So the same thing might have happened even if I’d never pulled the trigger.”

“Either way, you decided to take advantage of the situation,” I said.

“Yeah, I did. Silas didn’t have any family I knew of, and no friends, really. The only visitors had been Josh Coburn and Sam Chang. Josh had set off for Bougainville the day before the Japs invaded, so I figured him for a goner. I’m kind of glad to hear he’s alive, even if it did bugger me. He’s a good old bloke. As for Chang, I heard the Japs were murdering Chinese everywhere they found them. So why not take a chance? Folks aren’t big on paperwork in the Solomons, so I decided I’d take over as Silas Porter and work the plantation after the war. A fresh start, after I’d done my bit.”

“So far, you have only committed the crime of fraud,” Kaz said. “What made you decide to become a murderer?”