The next day dawned clear and warm. When Marek woke, the sun had almost ascended entirely above the eastern horizon, bathing the Pacific in welcome radiance. Only a few white clouds were hanging far overhead.
Marek squinted against the glare and brushed his hair away from his face as he sat up. A few metres away, the Captain was sitting on the deck with an assortment of metal components strewn across the deck in front of him, his cape billowing leisurely behind him in the mild breeze. He had one of the pieces in his hand, a long barrel, and was using a thin brush to clear the inside of the tube, blowing away any detritus that it caught each time he pulled it free.
“Where are we?” Marek asked, though he realised he hadn’t known where they were the night before. Still, it would be good to have an update now. There was nothing to see around the boat at the moment except for endless vivid blue waters.
“Just over a hundred kilometres from the Santa Cruz Islands,” the Captain replied, “on a heading to pass just east of Utupua.”
Marek nodded, but he had no idea where any of those places were. The Captain could just as well have said ‘the Pacific’, and it would have been no less specific. “And where are we going?”
The Captain kept cleaning his gun, not bothering to look up. “To Nouméa, about another thousand kilometres to the south.”
Marek remembered now that the Captain had said as much the night before. That they would keep watch over him until they got to Nouméa, then hand him over to the military. Marek didn’t like the sound of that, though a part of him was still hoping this was all some sort of elaborate fantasy.
The Captain continued to meticulously clean the rest of the gun’s components. Marek sat in silence, finding the whole process oddly relaxing. After a time, the pieces were all clean, and the Captain began carefully assembling the weapon. Each aspect was deftly set in its place, gradually reforming the gun with machined precision. After sliding a magazine into place, the Captain pulled back the top slide, chambering a round with a sharp click.
“Expecting trouble?” Marek asked.
The Captain glanced up, eyes shining beneath the brim of his large hat. “Always better to be prepared.” He gestured with his hand, waving it out towards the right side of the boat. “The Japanese took Guadalcanal last month, a few hundred kilometres that way. They’re most likely focused on digging in there, but there may still be some reconnaissance elements this far out.”
Marek didn’t know what to make of that. What the Captain was saying did make a certain amount of sense, but it was about 80 years out of date.
“The Japanese… army?” Marek said tentatively. He recalled his knowledge of the Guadalcanal campaign. “Operation Watchtower…” he added in a whisper.
The Captain arched an eyebrow, then gave a grim smile and waved his arm around in a circular motion. “It’s the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and we’re all just fighting in it.” His focused narrowed. “But surely you must know that?”
Marek stayed silent.
“You seem both knowledgeable about strange things and ignorant about obvious things, young Marek,” the Captain continued. “A most interesting detail, and one which we will have to revisit.” He stood up, brushing out his coat and straightening his cape as he did so. “For now, though, please – enjoy the scenery. We may see some action soon enough.”
The next few hours passed by without much of note, the Iron Sparrow continuing on its steady course while the Captain, Keresi, and Beck fussed around doing odd jobs and preparations. Keresi had given him some friendly looks and apologetic smiles, but neither he nor Beck had talked to Marek. For much of the morning, Marek stood at the bow of the ship, enjoying the breeze through his hair and the odd pod of dolphins that raced and leaped alongside the hull. An island, once a distant point on the horizon, was growing ever larger, and seemed to drift further to the Iron Sparrow’s left as it did so. Marek began to notice more and more details as they sailed closer – gradually rising hills that pushed upwards at various points across the island, a blanket of bright and deep green vegetation, a shoreline slashed with bright white sands and gentle tides. In one place along the beach, there stood a grouping of large, thatched huts, supplemented by several dugout canoes pushed up onto the beach. Midday was approaching. Eventually, the Iron Sparrow drew close enough that Marek could see villagers milling around, though they stopped and pointed at the strange metal visitor as it sailed past. The children were dancing about and yelling, and Marek waved back at them, smiling despite himself.
Then something rounded the island swiftly from the right side, catching his eye. Another boat. He squinted, but couldn’t make out what it was.
“Captain?” He called backwards, not taking his eyes off the new vessel.
The Captain walked up, boots clomping along the deck. “Marek?”
Marek pointed.
The Captain immediately dashed away, returning with a pair of binoculars. A few seconds passed. “Japanese scout.” He muttered tersely.
The other boat must have seen them too, as it had now veered on a course straight for them.
Keresi and Beck had walked up to see what the commotion was about, and the Captain immediately started giving orders. “Keresi, take the centre gun. Beck, hang back out of sight with some grenades and a rifle. If they get close, you can give them a little surprise.” He took a deep breath. “Marek, you’re on the forward gun.”
Marek was confused – he had thought he was effectively a prisoner – but he just nodded, not eager to remind anyone of that.
Marek walked up to the forward turret and looked at the gun, a long assemblage of metal perched on a tripod facing out towards the sea, fronted with two large steel armour plates on either side of its barrel. Up close, the weapon looked heavy, powerful, menacing.
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Keresi had walked with him, and noticed Marek’s look of apprehension.
“Browning M2HB .50 calibre. You shot one of these before?” Keresi asked quickly.
“No.” Marek hadn’t shot anything before, but he didn’t think now was the time to be too specific.
Keresi took a quick breath in. “Alright, no matter. There’s nothing to it.”
He grabbed a belt of ammunition from a nearby crate and clipped it into the left side of the gun, before racking the slide handle on the right three times. As he did so, the belt clicked through the body of the gun, and on the last click a piece of metal detached itself and fell onto the deck.
“It’s that simple.” Keresi said. “You can fire away now. When it clicks and nothing happens, you’ve run out of ammunition. So just line up and clip on the next belt just like I did, and rack the slide three times until the belt link comes out, and you’re good to go again. And don’t fire for too long, or you’ll run through your belt too fast.” He held his index and thumb a small distance apart. “Small bursts.”
Marek nodded. He knew, or rather was beginning to feel, that this was it, the real deal. Any hopes that this was some sort of ruse were now firmly pushed to the back of his mind. He glanced over the gun’s sight and saw the Japanese boat cresting the waves towards them. Behind him, Keresi had made his way to the central turret that jutted out from the ship’s cabin, and was racking his own gun’s ammunition belt into position. The Captain stood a few metres behind Marek, holding his newly pristine rifle at the ready – a Thompson submachine gun. His bright white cape was flapping and cracking madly in the wind, and his gaze grew dark and focused as he looked towards the oncoming ship. Beck was out of sight, ready to be revealed if needed. The air seemed heavy with potential.
The enemy vessel was around two hundred metres away when the Captain yelled out the order to fire. Marek aimed his gun in the Japanese boat’s general direction, and squeezed the trigger for a second. The large gun immediately thundered and kicked back several times in his hands, and Marek saw tracer rounds cutting slender trails through the air towards of the other ship. Had he hit anything important? Or anything at all? The first burst had been over so quickly that he hadn’t been able to process where his rounds had specifically gone. Well, he thought, at least I’ve got the first one out of the way. He barely registered that the gun was indeed all too real.
The enemy ship was plunging over the waves towards their right side now, drawing near parallel. From behind him, Keresi sent a shower of bullets towards the enemy, getting a few solid hits on the hull and cabin.
Marek swung the gun around slightly to take aim at a small turret at the front right side of the other boat, which was being operated by a sailor in a white uniform, though he was still too far away for Marek to distinguish any particular features. The barrel of the enemy turret lit up as it sent a number of poorly aimed rounds arcing towards the Iron Sparrow.
Marek squeezed the trigger, and his gun thundered again, sending a shower of rounds tearing towards his target. The first ones hit the enemy ship’s hull below the turret, just above the waterline, and Marek instinctively adjusted his line of fire by angling the gun up. He saw the next few rounds impact steadily higher, tearing through the other turret’s thin frontal armour, and then two rounds tore crimson holes in the enemy sailor’s white torso, before another vapourised his head into dark red chunks that tumbled across the deck and into the ocean below.
Marek immediately stopped firing, his head spinning. He felt like he was going to pass out. Up to now, everything he had been doing had seemed real, and he hadn’t doubted the guns would shoot bullets, but still… this was something else. The image of the sailor’s head exploding kept replaying rapidly through his mind. On the other ship, the dead man’s limp and lifeless body lay collapsed haphazardly on the deck behind the destroyed gun where he had been standing only moments before. One arm dangled off the side of the deck, as if pointing to the waters below. Then the boat kicked over a wave, and his body slid unceremoniously into the water with a dull splash, disappearing beneath the waves.
“Nice shooting, kid!” Keresi called out from the other gun turret on top of the Iron Sparrow’s cabin.
“Marek, keep firing that gun!” The Captain yelled from somewhere else.
Marek found himself unable to move. He wanted to get away, to escape from this mess, though he knew it was impossible. Just what the hell kind of a situation had he gotten himself into?
The enemy boat had roared past them now, and was starting to swing around for another pass.
Marek’s shocked stupor was broken as a sequence of sharp cracks rang against his turret’s frontal armour plates, jolting him into awareness. He was being shot at.
----------------------
The three Douglas C-47 Skytrains were holding formation a few thousand feet above the ocean, though all that could be seen below them were three small shadows flickering over the endless banks of fog. A fledgling sunrise had cast the world in a dark red light.
“Approaching the drop zone. Descending to 700 feet.” The pilot of the centre plane’s voice crackled and distorted through the radio in his oxygen mask.
Corporal William Rubens stood up, shackling onto the rope that ran through the middle of the plane’s cargo area. He felt the power of the plane’s engines shaking through his feet, and it was difficult to think above their ear-crushing drone. To either side of him were his fellow paratroopers, twenty in total, arranged in drop order. The squad’s Commanding Officer opened the side door, and the engine noise was soon clashing with the roar of the wind whipping past the plane’s fuselage.
The Commanding Officer had to shout at the top of his lungs in order to be heard. “ALRIGHT, MEN. RENDEZVOUS AT RALLY POINT ALPHA. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.” The CO gave a morale-boosting smile to the men. “GOOD LUCK. I’LL SEE YOU ON THE GROUND.”
The men shuffled forward to the open door, and after passing a final equipment check by the CO, began to jump out, disappearing into the open sky.
The CO counted them as they went.
“1 AWAY.”
“2 AWAY.”
The line moved forwards, and William moved like an automaton, the hours of training taking over.
“8 AWAY.”
“9 AWAY.”
Despite all the training, William still felt a level of nervous anticipation. He had tried not to think of what was waiting for them all down there. The mission briefing had remained characteristically vague. All he knew was their drop point was above a remote island, Elingi – otherwise called Obelisk Island – which was a part of the Duff Islands. The Duff Islands themselves were technically part of the Solomon Islands. That summed up the entire Pacific pretty well, really: islands, belonging to islands, belonging to islands. No doubt, their CO had been briefed more thoroughly, but William felt confident this all had something to do with the fog that was playing on everyone’s minds so much back at Pearl Harbour.
The fog that had appeared almost overnight a few days ago, and wasn’t going away.
It’s just fog…
He tried to convince himself as much, to still the jitters. But he knew that failed to explain why it wasn’t just persisting, but growing.
“13 AWAY.”
William was next, and there wasn’t any point hanging around. The CO did his check, then guided William towards the door.
William stared out, greeted by hundreds of feet of clear air. And below all, the fog. The wind lashed against his face.
He took a deep breath and with a small jump, exited the plane.
Immediately, the parachute deployed via the plane’s in-built system, arresting his fall considerably. Even so, the plane was long gone by the time he could glance around, and it wasn’t even audible above the constant wind in his ears and the noise from the parachute fluttering above him.
The fog, which had looked rather bright from the plane with the dawning sunlight reflecting off it, began to dim and deepen as he drifted closer.
William looked around, noting a few of his fellow paratroopers as specks quite far off to either side of him. He breathed in.
Just fog.
He continued to descend, and the dark mists enclosed him.