He stood in the shattered remains of his office for a moment or two, then turned sharply and headed for the pier.
Fifteen miles away, two PT boats roared up The Sluice, staying close to the shore of the main island. Sailors on deck watched the terrifying battle on the peninsula opposite them through binoculars.
‘Jesus,’ one sailor said. ‘They’s fuckin Japs everywhere! It’s like watchin’ an ant hill.’
Captain Leamon was in contact by phone with the commander of the other PT boat, Peter Coakley, a lieutenant from Boston, only out of Annapolis two years. Coakley was a brash red-headed youngster with a John Wayne attitude about the whole stinkin’ mess.
‘Remember your orders, Lieutenant,’ Leamon had told Coakley an hour before. ‘We’re to proceed with extreme haste to Bastine. Do not — repeat do not — engage the enemy for any reason. Just ... get by them.’
Leamon was watching the three Japanese naval vessels through binoculars. ‘They aren’t ten miles from the Bastine pier,’ he said.
Coakley was watching too. ‘They’re sittin’ ducks, Al,’ he said. ‘The cruiser’ll be between us and the destroyers. We could pick—’
‘Do I have to tell you again, Lieutenant? Our mission is to take VIPs off Bastine.’
‘Nursemaids, that’s what we are,’ Coakley said bitterly.
‘You want to burn in hell, you’ll get a chance soon enough. But not today.’
‘Goddamn taxi service,’ Coakley growled.
‘Lieutenant, you want a court-martial?’
‘We ignore the surface vessels. Is that goddamn clear, Lieutenant?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I mean is it goddamn clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then let’s roll.’
The two destroyers and the cruiser were hardly a mile in front of them, concentrating their fire on the narrow peninsula. The steady pum of their big guns grew louder.
‘Okay, I’ll take the first run. You stay close to the shore, wait’ll I’m clear, you run for it.’
‘Got it,’ Coakley yelled back and cradled his phone. He turned the slim high-powered boat into shore, throttled back and lay close to the trees. Leamon was moving up The Sluice like hell’s bat, the bow sitting high out of the water, the stern settled deep. Blossoms of death burst overhead, showering the sea around them with flak. Shells geysered fore and aft, starboard and port. The sleek torpedo boat streaked up The Sluice and the shelling got heavier. The sky was black with the smoke of antipersonnel bombs. Leamon kept right on going.
‘Son of a bitch, he’s gonna make it,’ Coakley yelled. ‘Okay, buckos, hang on to your balls, here we go.’ And he edged the boat away from shore out into the narrow isthmus and slammed the throttles forward.
Hooker and his men were watching the sea drama from the pier.
‘Here comes the first one,’ a West Point major named Forester yelled. Hooker stood beside him, his small group of officers huddled around him. Hooker had decided to leave his son in the bomb shelter until the last minute. Now it was time.
‘Sergeant Finney.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Please go to the civilian bunker and bring the boy to me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Finney was a tough professional soldier. His shirt was button-less and lay open to his belt and one sleeve was hanging by threads at the shoulder. He handed his BAR to one of the officers, jumped in the general’s jeep and took off across the lawn toward the bunker. It was no more than five hundred yards from the pier. He was almost there when the shell exploded directly in his path. The jeep went up on its back wheels, skittered sideways and turned over. Finney vaulted out of the seat, hit the ground and rolled over several times. The jeep slid to a stop a few feet from him and exploded.
‘I’ll get him,’ the young baby-faced lieutenant named Grisoglio said and started to run toward the bunker, but Finney got up on his feet, shook his head and ran the rest of the distance.
‘Hold your place, Lieutenant,’ Hooker ordered.
Leamon was guiding the fast little torpedo boat into a narrow channel that had been cleared through the wreckage of sailboats and fishing craft. There was barely room for the sleek torpedo boat to fit through. He talked the long, narrow vessel through the junkyard, gently steering it past the burned-out wrecks.
‘Hold the lines, don’t tie us down,’ Leamon yelled to his skeleton crew. ‘Tell the general to come aboard fast. We don’t have any time. Coakley’s right behind us.’
Hooker turned to his group, picked out six officers and ordered them aboard. He could see Sergeant Finney and the boy leaving the bunker and running toward the pier.
‘With the General’s permission, we got to clear this pier fast,’ Leamon yelled.
Hooker nodded curtly and immediately jumped aboard. ‘Lieutenant Grisoglio, you’re senior officer on the second boat. Tell Sergeant Finney to keep an eye on the youngster, please. I’ll bring the lad over here with me when we stop for the night.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Grisoglio, who was shot in the leg and was using a tree limb for a crutch. He threw Hooker a sharp salute.
‘All right, Captain,’ Hooker said to Leamon, ‘move out.’
They backed through the wreckage and Leamon spun the wheel and the PT boat turned in the water and headed out toward the bay and open sea.
Hooker watched as the pier grew smaller and finally saw Bobby and Finney with the rest of the officers. Thank God, he thought. He waved, and the eight-year-old youngster stood erect and threw him a sharp salute and Hooker watched until the smoke obliterated the dock and he could no longer see him. Hooker turned his attention to the second boat, now speeding up through The Sluice, adjacent to the destroyer, dodging the shells.
Coakley was running wide open, adjacent to the destroyer when the shell hit. It tore into the side of his craft. It was a hard hit. The boat shuddered, debris erupted from the deck and was wafted away in the wind. One of the crewmen soared head over heels over the side. Seconds later, a sky bomb exploded over the foredecks. The boatswain was hurled against the main cabin, his chest riddled with flak. The master’s cabin was ripped open like a paper box. Glass showered to the winds. Coakley was hit with a blast of scorching hot air. Hot metal ripped into his side and shoulder. The wheel was wrenched from his grip and he felt himself tumbling across the deck into the railing. He was stunned for a moment and then he realized he was on his hands and knees, staring at his own blood, dribbling onto the deck. He heard a crewman yelling ‘Fire!’ heard flames fanning in the wind. His boat was burning around him.
Coakley got to his feet and grabbed the wheel. He ignored the pain in his body; it no longer mattered. He whipped the stricken PT boat around and headed straight toward the destroyer. Flames twirled in his wake, and sizzled up the side of the boat, but it was still skimming across the water like a zephyr, racing through the smoke and din, straight at the enemy ship.
‘Motherfuckers,’ Coakley screamed. ‘Motherfuckers, motherfuckers, motherfuckers...’
Leamon watched in shock as Coakley’s torpedo boat raced straight into the side of the destroyer. There was a moment when everything seemed suspended in time. Then the torpedoes went, then the big ship’s ammunition holds went. The destroyer lurched and rolled in the water. An orange ball of fire roiled from the hole in her side, and then they heard another explosion and another and another.
‘God, oh God!’ Leamon cried out. He turned to the general, who was standing beside him watching the death throes of the warship. ‘Do we go back, sir, for the rest of your people?’
Hooker looked back at Bastine, but there was nothing to see, just black smoke, endless explosions and flames, billowing up through the black pallor.
‘I have my orders,’ Hooker said. ‘And so do you.’