Until the explosion. A soft pummpf echoed across the water, and a belch of flame erupted, probably from an engine. We’d hit her, caused some damage. A cheer went up, and we waited to see what she would do. Head for home, or try for one more attack?
Cotter throttled the engines down to idle. We began to drift, the telltale wake dissipating behind us. The sound of the Kawanishi’s three remaining engines slowly faded into the night. Home was their choice; they’d die another day for their emperor. Our engines roared back into life, but not at full throttle. I saw Cotter glance back at our wake, slowing a little until he was satisfied, sacrificing speed for survival, reducing the glowing arrow that signaled to our potential destruction to less obvious dimensions. I wasn’t about to ask him to step on it.
Dawn broke as we eased around the western side of Rendova, hugging the coast, ready to dart for the cover of overhanging palms at the first echo of aircraft. We soon entered a protected bay, shielded from the currents by a string of small offshore islands. Within the bay was a larger island. Lumbari, our destination.
It wasn’t impressive. It was marked on military maps as a PT boat base, but all I saw was a line of PTs tied up along a crescent-shaped stretch of sandy beach. Tents and Quonset huts were scattered beneath the palms, camouflage netting strung up between them in an attempt to disguise crates of supplies and fuel drums stacked everywhere. Burned trees and the blackened hulks of scattered oil drums marked the hits from yesterday’s raid.
The netting may have worked on land, but there was nothing to cover the PT boats on the shore. Bomb craters dotted the landscape near the beach, where one of the PTs sat low in the water, still smoldering from a hit on her stern.
“Welcome to Lumbari,” Cotter said from the bridge, slapping a mosquito on his neck as he guided the boat to a spot on the beach. The sun was barely up, but the temperature was already climbing and the bugs were feasting. Sweat soaked my khakis, making them feel thick and heavy against my skin.
“This place is worse than Guadalcanal,” Archer said, “which is not something you’ll hear too often.”
“Why is the PT base located here then?” Kaz asked.
“It’s a fair anchorage, protected from the heavy currents,” Archer said. “But I think the real reason Commander Garfield selected this spot is the bunker.”
“It’s a spectacular one,” Gordie put in, seeing the questioning looks on our faces. “The Japanese are quite good at constructing bunkers made from coconut tree logs. This one is two stories deep, covered in vegetation, expertly disguised. Has a decent view of the channel and New Georgia in the distance.”
“Safe as houses,” Archer said, sending a stream of spit into the water. “The way Garfield likes it.”
“Word is he never leaves,” Gordie said.
“Sure he does,” Cotter shot back as he eased up on the throttle, letting the bow bump into the sandy beach. “It doesn’t have a latrine.” His crewmen laughed, enjoying their skipper taking a shot at a superior officer. Cotter had taken enough shots after PT-109 went down, so I figured he liked dishing it out in another direction.
“What about missions?” I asked.
“Commander Garfield does not go out on missions,” Cotter said, his voice lower now. “He directs missions from his bunker. He doesn’t ride on PT boats. He’s an Annapolis man, in all the worst ways. He probably wishes he were on a battleship instead of running a forward base for PT boats.”
“He wouldn’t authorize a search for Kennedy and his crew,” Gordie said. “Or so I heard.”
“That’s right,” Cotter said. “If Jack wants someone to blame for being left out there, he doesn’t have to look any farther than Garfield. He wouldn’t let us search, and he sent us on operations in other sectors the two nights following.”
I was going to ask why, but the look on Cotter’s face told me to drop it. He was caught up in a triangle of guilt, blame, and bad feelings. He’d had enough of Jack and the drama of PT-109, I could tell. It was a familiar feeling.
We took a rickety gangplank ashore, as work crews clambered aboard to rearm, refuel, and repair the 169. She had a fair number of bullet holes, and I didn’t envy Cotter and his men the job of getting her shipshape. After the long night’s journey, I planned on some shut-eye before moving on to find Josh Coburn and his coffee plantation.
We found the tents allocated for PT-169. Two for the crew and a third, smaller one for Cotter and his XO. The officer’s tent was in the high-rent district, given that it was on slightly higher ground than the other two, avoiding the overflow from a languid trickle of foul-smelling water that ran alongside the path. We looked inside one tent, frightening off a snake that had curled up under one of the cots.
“Don’t worry about him,” Gordie said. “It’s a brown tree snake. They hunt at night. He was only looking for a place to rest in the shade, as we are. No wariwari, as our native friends say.”
“I would wari if I weren’t so tired,” Kaz said. He tossed his musette bag on the floor and sat to take off his boots.
“Best to keep your boots on,” Archer said. “You might find a surprise inside if you have to put them on in a hurry.”
Archer and Gordie laughed, the kind of good-natured laughter you’d get from experienced hands showing a new guy the ropes. All in good fun. But they kept their boots on.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sleep didn’t come easy, or stay long.
Heat, humidity, visions of snakes snoozing beneath me, and the sounds of a forward base at work all conspired to get Kaz and me moving before noon, first in search of java and food, and then Commander Garfield. We made it to the mess tent seconds before wind whipped the palm trees into a frenzy and rain came down in hard, hot sheets, heavy drops beating against the canvas and blowing in sideways. It ended in less than a minute, leaving thick, humid air and steam rising from the muddy ground.
We went through the chow line and got a plateful of powdered eggs and biscuits. At least I think the yellow stuff had been eggs at some point in the distant past.
“What’s our first move?” Kaz asked, grimacing as he sipped coffee from a chipped enamel mug.
“We report to Garfield, arrange transport to the main island and find out where Coburn’s plantation is. That’s assuming Kari and Porter are already on Choiseul. If they’ve been delayed for any reason, we interrogate John Kari.”
“You are still thinking he is the killer?” Kaz asked, in a way that said he certainly wasn’t.
“He fits the bill better than anyone,” I said. “He had the opportunity and a motive. Plus he’s no stranger to killing.”
“But you have to agree,” Kaz said, “all that is a weak motive to support three savage murders.”
“A weak motive is better than none,” I said, trying to muster a belief in my own theory. “Besides, we know John Kari hid his past from us. Even if he isn’t our man, who knows what else he’s hiding?”
“Secrets,” Kaz said, attacking his eggs with grim determination. “What would we do without secrets to discover?”
I grunted my agreement and did my best with the food at hand. The coffee cleared my head a bit, and as I drained the last dregs from my cup, I thought about the natives vanishing into the jungle last night. Why did that image stay with me? Was it a key to some secret? What did it remind me of? I had no idea, no way even to form a question and ask Kaz about it.
We got directions to Garfield’s bunker, stomping through muck and ooze on our way. The thing was impressive, shaded with layers of camouflage netting, two stories of crisscrossed coconut logs covered in dirt. Plants and small trees had sprouted, making it look like a small hillock, except for the antennae bristling along the length of the dugout.
A sentry let us in. As soon as the door shut behind us, I understood one of the attractions of the place. It was cool. Steps led down to the first level, which opened out into a spacious room with a concrete floor, lights strung along the walls, and wooden tables where sailors filed papers, typed orders, and fiddled with radio knobs. We found Garfield at the far end of the room, huddled over a map table with a couple of junior officers.