Reluctant Warriors by Jon Stafford

some
kind of liquor, just roaring laughing. So, we knock again, walk in, he looks surprised,
and damn if he didn’t shoot me.”
    Botel leaned over Bennish and started examining the wound.
    “Jim, how does it look?” Harry asked.
    “It doesn’t hurt much, Harry,” Bennish said woozily. “Let me stand up.”
    “Stay down, Howie. Jim?”
    “Harry, the bullet went right through his side here.” Botel pointed at the open wound
that he had slowly unwrapped. By this time it had gotten reasonably light and there
was no need for the torches anymore. “He’s bled a lot. But it’s a clean wound, not
bad if we can get him out of here soon.”
    Harry turned to his men. “Let’s not waste any time in getting out of this dump.”
    They headed to the rafts. Osborne, who had settled down a lot, but still regularly
waved his pistol at the German, added something.
    “Harry, I almost forgot. While this damn German was shooting Howie, Phoebe went up
the line to scout and found two Japs.”
    Harry had noticed a smile on the face of the diminutive little sailor, but hadn’t
thought anything about it.
    Phoebe immediately began to talk, almost boasting.
    “Yes, sir, I found these two Japs in a hut and I plugged ’em, sir, with my .45. They
were dead for sure. I watched ’em fall over and they didn’t get up. Just after that,
I heard the shot and ran back toward the plantation.”
    “There wasn’t supposed to be any enemy presence on this island!” Harry had a very
bad feeling about this.
    “Funny thing about that, sir,” Phoebe continued. “When I turned to run back to the
plantation house, a phone rang in the hut they were in. I didn’t think they had phones
on this rock.”
    All of the men stared. Osborne, Polavita, and Harry yelled at the same instant, “A
phone!”
    Phoebe looked hurt. “So they got phones?”
    “They don’t have phones on this heap, Junior,” Osborne said caustically. “That was
an enemy field phone. You never said anything about a phone. Sir, I didn’t know or
I woulda gotten out of there and not spent those hours looking for that damn cart.”
    Polavita chimed in. “Yeah, kid, who do you think was on the other end of that thing,
my little sweet grandmother?”
    “Phoebe, you sure you heard a phone ring?” Harry asked softly.
    “Yeah.” Phoebe’s voice sounded dispirited. “I thought it would be a good surprise
and you would be happy with me.”
    “Was it a short ring?” Osborne asked.
    “Yeah, a funny sorta ring.”
    “Yeah, a field phone,” Duke said. The rest nodded.
    “Ketchel, give me that Morse lamp,” Harry said. He pointed it at the submarine, whose
hull-down silhouette could not be seen between the waves, and sent:
    HAVE GERMAN. HOWIE SHOT. JAPS ON ISLAND.
    In a moment, he could see the answer as it came back.
    ROGER.
    Harry sat down to take stock. He looked at Botel, who had been leaning over Howie
the last few minutes. The little officer was no longer talking.
    “His wound’s beginning to fester in this heat,” Botel said.
    Meanwhile, the German had sobered up just enough to begin nonstop talking. He was
in a jovial mood, still sitting on the cart.
    As each man passed he would ask, “Wie heissen Sie?”
    Ketchel finally looked up and said, “He wants to know your name.”
    None of the men answered, but the German kept on asking.
    Harry stepped back and thought. The whole thing was becoming clear to him. The German
had lied, perhaps about everything. Maybe he knew important things and maybe he didn’t.
He had a plantation, so he was in the copra business. The information Rudy Ferrell
had come up with was that the Green Islands had been German up until the end of World
War I, when they had gone over to Australia as a mandate. So this guy had come here
as a young man. But for the last thirty years he had done business with the Australians.
    It was also a good bet that the German had continued sneaking copra out to his Aussie
clients after the Japanese bypassed the