Chapter 19

I must have dozed off. When I woke, Wilf was nowhere in sight and Sayers was busy organising a wider dispersing of guards now that he had more men at his disposal. I didn’t tell him that no-one was coming. The sun had risen and it looked a perfect tropical day. Last night’s clouds had disappeared, but not the dark ones inside my head. I was trying to shut out the mental images of men being burnt by an alkaline solution or suffocating from lack of oxygen. If the inundation of carbon dioxide from the burnt limestone hadn’t got to them, the fire would have sapped all remaining oxygen and produced even more carbon dioxide as well. I was inwardly cursing myself for assuming that the Japanese would have had escape tunnels. I just nodded to Sayers and asked where Lieutenant Downs was. He pointed to the village up the beach and further on to the main Japanese base. I made my way there walking in the footsteps of Wilf.

He had been through each of the huts including the long house. Daylight filtered through the holes in each roof where the aircraft cannon fire had ripped through. No-one inside would have survived and luckily no-one was there at the time. I walked on and found Wilf in the officer’s quarters separate to the main barracks. The aircraft fire here was similar to that of the village. Any person seeking refuge would have been killed based on the peppered holes in the roof. Wilf had told me that Nakamura was the only officer he was aware of on the island. Nakamura’s desk was virtually cut in half by the bullets and its splintered remains filled the small room. I found Wilf sitting on the floor in the adjacent bedroom. He didn’t acknowledge my presence. Instead he just sat there staring at a photograph he had found. I reached over and gently prised it from his hands. He was reluctant to let go and sighed deeply as I freed it from his grasp. The photograph was of a young Japanese woman, her hair high in a bun in typical Japanese fashion. The kimono she wore was beautifully decorated and probably would have been even more stunning if the photograph had been in colour. She was holding a baby and smiling at the camera. Tears started rolling down Wilf’s cheeks again. There was no point telling him that perhaps it wasn’t Nakamura’s wife and maybe just a distant relative of his. It would have made no difference. I placed the photograph in my pocket and helped Wilf to his feet. He had trouble meeting my gaze.

“We have a job to finish. We have all the men on the beach and the men in the boat. They all need to get to safety. They all need to make it home,” I told Wilf forcefully. I was sure that he would come back at me about all the Japanese in the mountain would never see their home again, but he didn’t. Instead he smeared the dirt and wetness on his face, took a deep breath, pulled himself upright and without a word walked out into the sunlight. He was a professional soldier once more and acted accordingly. When we got back to the rubber dinghies, he called a few men in to check them to ensure that they were watertight and then had the dinghies turned around and packed with everything we were taking back. He berated a couple of soldiers for leaving the wrapping of the ration chocolate lying on the beach and ordered them to bury it, saying something about not honouring the people who once had lived here and one day would return. Suddenly, our makeshift camp near the dinghies became spruced up. Wilf was one of those lucky men who didn’t say much, but when he spoke those words mattered. I envied him that manner with the men. He had high expectations of them and of himself as well. He would brook no shortcomings in the men and they responded willingly to his demands. I didn’t know how he would go with himself though.

Nearing eleven we called the outlying guards in and they reported no sign of the Japanese. None of them had sounded surprised by that as if they assumed that the Japanese were trapped or unsure of what force they were dealing with outside the cave. I chose not to inform the men of the truth. It served no purpose. The dinghies entered the water and with less explosives a few, including Whitby were able to ride high and dry. Wilf, myself and the others in the water didn’t mind just hanging on to the side. The water was warm, almost transparent and bright blue when seen from a distant. I ordered the muffling devices taken off the engines and we skimmed across the surface out to the reef which enclosed the lagoon. Beyond the channel we could see the Griselda bobbing on the light swell. I signalled with my torch in a pre-arranged pattern and we saw the barely noticeable wake bubble and froth as she turned in a slow arc and made her way back towards us. When she came up close, we left the security of the lagoon, again barely clearing the coral. I looked back as we pulled aside the Griselda. Apart from the rusting hulk of the Japanese patrol boat, the island of ***** looked like any other atoll. It had a beautiful sunbathed lagoon, white sandy beach and lush verdant rainforest fringed with coconut palms. In the background was the dark brooding mountain that overlooked it all. A mountain full of secrets from years gone by and a horrific one gained last night.

Our helmsman and radio operator hadn’t been idle while we were on the beach. They had been in contact with the US fleet and had been plotting on the map we had, just where the fleet was and where any Japanese ships might be. They also told me of the progress that had been made by the Allied forces in bringing the western Pacific back into our hands. I was pleasantly surprised and it meant that we had far less to travel to get back to safety. My biggest fear was that we would run into either the Japanese fleet or the US fleet and not have the chance to escape either of their guns. There was every possibility that we would be mistaken as an enemy by either of them. I sat down at the back of the wheelhouse and with a codebook began to write out a message that would be passed off to Z Force command and be forwarded on to various defence forces. It was simple and to the point.

“Japanese had been constructing a secret underground base to launch and provision small to medium sized submarines. Base destroyed. Island of ***** now secured.”

There was no need to go into details. I would be fully debriefed when we got back. By then I would have come up with a story that might have been believable. I’m sure that the full truth would have been acceptable to many in high command, but those with a sense of history and a knowledge of the chemical weaponry and gas used in the Great War, might be wondering what to think and do. In years to come, should the mountain give up its secret, someone would be held to account. I would put my hand up for that, but I didn’t want to see Wilf have to. He was being more than adequately punished by himself. I had been ordered to deal with ***** by whatever means it took. But if and when I was to be called to account, I doubted that any of my superiors would stand beside me. One man would and in doing so would quite possibly be destroyed.

Back on deck we watched the island disappear slowly over the horizon. The peak of the mountain, the last to go. I had been on it for just one night. Wilf had spent far longer there and now had escaped from it twice. I couldn’t read his thoughts. His face had an implacable look on it, his mask fully back in place. Was there some wistfulness floating in his mind? Was there some regret and a wish to have had last night’s action somehow changed? He stared westward long after the mountain had gone, perhaps trying to imagine how it once was before war destroyed it. Both of us knew that even if the opportunity came sometime in the future, neither of us would return, but both of us would find it very hard not to think of it.

Wilf didn’t ask what message I had sent off. I didn’t tell him. It was of little consequence right then and there. We sat in silence in the stern next to the deflated rafts. The engine chugged on monotonously and we could hear the sounds of a friendly card game being played on the foredeck. Wisps of cigarette smoke trailed back towards us. Not for the first time did I question why some people reacted totally differently to different situations. For most of the unit, the overnight sortie was just another job; was just something that broke the ongoing boredom. People were killed because they needed to be. The Japanese were our enemy and they weren’t really seen as thinking and feeling human beings, merely obstacles that needed to be removed. I’m not saying that all of the unit had those thoughts, but I am sure some did and some partially did. As a leader, I had to force myself to think like that to get the job done and probably to save my sanity. Wilf on the other hand, though he had killed a lot more people than I had, was totally different underneath. His almost robotic attitude and behaviour was a cover for what he had seen and done. I had heard he had made it from Malaya through to Singapore and escaped just before Singapore surrendered. Perhaps something happened there as well, something that caused the shield that was now around him to be forged. He never spoke of that time just as he would probably never speak of what happened on *****. However, he would never forget no matter how hard he tried.