Chapter 15

We had been given a code book to help unscramble the messages that were being sent by the US Pacific Fleet. It was to be the first thing destroyed if we were attacked. Every so often a message would come directed to us giving us information about where Japanese warships were likely to be. It came in the form of coordinates that matched only our map. The map was to be the second thing destroyed if we were attacked. We maintained radio silence ourselves. The last thing we wanted was to have our location identified by triangulation. Strangely we were more worried about the unseen presence of Japanese submarines. They were off in search of bigger more valuable ships than us, but I was concerned they might want some target practice. Griselda was sluggish and unable to move out of the way of torpedoes. Sonar would have been wasted on our fishing boat. By the time we spotted a submarine and turned the wooden hull would be well ventilated. It might have been handy when we nearly sailed over that whale though. I wasn’t sure whether it knew we had right of way, whether it thought we were a possible mate, or it was absently mindedly just going about its own business. Lucky it didn’t surface directly underneath us, but it did bounce us around to the point I thought we might capsize. I didn’t know what I’d write in my log if that had happened. Perhaps BUGGER! with a picture of Captain Ahab underneath. My log was the third thing in line for destruction.

Storms came and went quickly on the equator. They were whipped up by the constant hot sun followed by the cool of the evening. Toss in some changes in wind direction and most evenings we’d get a downpour. Rarely were there typhoons right on the equator, but as we were further north of that there was a chance we might get the tail end of one. We could have stayed further south where that was less of a possibility but there were far more islands down that way, and islands meant Japanese.

Sometimes I wondered whether I was the most expendable one on this whole sortie. We had a great navigator and helmsman. The engines were running sweetly and we had experts for that. I didn’t have to touch the radio. Everyone could sail. Wilf was more than capable of leading the mission. It seemed my only purposes were to make decisions, write a log and ensure discipline and morale were high. With the likes of the people in Z force units, the latter was hardly necessary. I figured also that the men thought that I should be the one to deal with higher ranking personnel. Given some of their attitudes towards ranks, well founded they may be based on some of the officers we’d met, it was probably in the mission’s interest that I did the speaking. The Aussies had quickly exerted their influence on the couple of Poms in our lot and if there was a tall poppy around, they had the sharp tongue to cut it down to size.

One thing that I had learnt in the time I had been in the army was that war was a strange beast. It had a few short periods of ferocious battle punctuated by long boring bits of waiting. I think that is why the army gets you to march, so that you have something to do. We didn’t march on Griselda, but Wilf had us all doing PT exercises, including, and I think at times especially, me. Rank gave you no privileges, in fact you were forced to work harder. I wondered how some of them would cope once they joined the desk jockey higher ranks. Our muscles were bulging and our physique taut and trim. I couldn’t imagine any of us ever being overweight even when this bloody war ended and we went home. Wilf would never. He had that strange metabolism where he could shove as much food in and it didn’t show. His mind was always in action, planning, predicting and challenging himself. I figured this was where he burnt up all that energy intake.

Two in our team took regular turns to cook. They were pretty good, but there is only so much you can do with tinned beef. We caught a lot of different fish, however carefully selected the ones that we actually ate. There was quite an array and we chummed with food scraps and fish heads and entrails. Always there seemed to be a line out. Rods weren’t necessary, fish would throw themselves onto our handlines. Some days there was nothing and on other days there would be huge shoals, general surrounded by either sharks or dolphins. On those occasions everyone stopped and watched in fascination as fish leapt from the water to escape the predators. Once a large bluefin trevally landed in the back of the boat seeking refuge. It wasn’t tossed back. I did wonder what we would have done had the shark chasing it launched itself into the boat in blind pursuit, or worse still if there was something higher than a shark on the top of the food chain forcing a shark into the boat. It would have added a little bit of entertainment and some change to our diet.

Griselda was like a leper. Everyone around steered clear of her apart from one miscreant whale. If we had known, we would have spent more time during the day above decks, run the engine and properly sailed her. But then again, if we had done those, who knows what we may have come across. Timing is everything in life. Perhaps we were the right team in the right place at the right time, but with what ensued I wouldn’t have wanted any team to experience the wash up of what took place on *****.

We came close to it and actually overshot it, but that was to our advantage as we came from the north-west side, hugging the cliffs that rose out of the ocean. From this side the mountain looked like a well-positioned castle fortress and we were in a moat with not a drawbridge in sight. We headed south keeping in the lee of the cliffs. There were only three people visible on upper deck. One was in the wheelhouse, one reefing the foresail and the other concentrating on the swinging boom, ready for a tack. The motor was down to its lowest revs, just above stall, ready to add power for a quick movement if we drew any fire. It was unlikely until we moved away from the cliff-face and headed towards the lower side of the island. We heaved to on the southern side of the island where it became more coral atoll than volcanic landform. Wilf went up on deck and sent the other three down below. It was time to tell them what we were here for, what each person’s role was and the overall plan of attack. I mentioned a lot of variables that Wilf, in the main, had told me. The lagoon itself was navigable but I was reluctant to take the boat in because we didn’t know the force we were dealing with and what weaponry they had. The idea would be to use rubber dinghies loaded to the gunwales with the equipment we would need on shore. Only one person actually in the boat, all the rest would be hanging on to hand holds on the side. There wasn’t a murmur, no discussion about sharks, jellyfish or things like that. A decision had been made and they accepted the professionality of what we were doing. We would head in during the night. It would be a slow trip in because each dinghy’s motor had been doctored to make it as quiet as possible. It reduced speed, but we didn’t need speed, we needed stealth. It was too far to paddle and if the men were in the boats it would mean two trips and therefore more risk. I didn’t have to tell them that, however I felt that they should know. I then called Wilf down and we swapped places. He would lead the actual assault. I knew exactly what he was going to say. We had been over it many times.

Wilf had drawn a map of the island and a layout of the army base. He had marked in the village and said that was where landfall would be made. There would be three teams. One would be led by me, one by Wilf and one by Corporal Sayers. Sayers’ team had the less savoury job. They would be acting as observers of the main base and only intervene if there was some disturbance at the base. If that happened, they would need to act quickly and as silently as possible, killing everyone there so that an escape route to the dinghies was clear. They were to use the crossbows we had brought and knives. Grenades and rifle fire which would be heard up at the mountain outpost, was only to be used as a last resort. Such noise would alert the troops up at the mountain outpost and make Wilf’s and my teams’ tasks that much harder, if not impossible. Wilf and I were to breach the entrance to the tunnel he had seen. My team was then to isolate the Japanese in their living quarters in the cave complex and keep them pinned down while Wilf’s team went down to where the main work was being done, assess what it was and then destroy it. We would fight our way back to the beach and board the dinghies and sail off east into the rising sun. Yes, the rising sun, the symbol of the enemy we were fighting. That was the plan we had formed and as we waited for the sun to set, we inflated the dinghies, trailing them behind the boat, moved the explosives and weapons up on to the deck and each team leader went through with their respective teams again what their roles were in this master plan. But as that Scottish poet Robbie Burns said “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men go oft awry.” I am not sure that he was thinking ***** at the time.