"Is that all right with you, Lieutenant Howard?"

"Steve's the expert," Howard replied. "Whatever he says."

"Well," the RAAF officer said, after a moment's thought, "unless there are any other questions, I think that wraps it up."

Steve looked down at his steak and eggs.

He was suddenly ravenously hungry.

"Can I finish my breakfast?" he asked.

"Yes, certainly," the RAAF officer said.

(Three) Buka Island 0725 Hours 8 June 1942 The pitch of the Lockheed's two Pratt & Whitney 1,050-horsepower Twin Wasp radial engines suddenly changed, bringing Sergeant Steve Koffler back to the tail section of the Hudson. He had been in the neat little bungalow he was sharing with Mrs. Koffler, the former Yeoman Daphne Farnsworth, in postwar Melbourne, Australia.

He'd seen such a bungalow, a whole section of them, on curving little streets on a hill. From the top of the hill you could see the water in Port Phillip Bay. On the way from Port Moresby, he had picked the exact house and furnished it, paying a lot of attention to the bedroom and the bathroom. In the final version of the bathroom, there was a shower-not just a tub with a shower head and a curtain, but a pure shower, with a door with frosty gla.s.s, so you could see somebody taking a shower inside.

When the sound of the engines changed, slowed down, he had just come home from work. He didn't know exactly what kind of job he had, but it had something to do with importing things from the States to Australia, and it was a pretty good job. He wasn't rich, but there was enough money for the bungalow and a car, and the steaks and stuff he'd brought home from the grocery store. Daphne wasn't in the kitchen or the living room. When he looked in the bedroom he heard the sound of the shower, so he stuck his head in the bathroom, and just stood there admiring, just that, admiring, nothing dirty or anything. Daphne was just standing there on the other side of the frosty gla.s.s, and she was letting the shower hit her on the face and a little lower.

Then he went to the shower and opened it just a crack and said, "I'm home, honey. I got some steaks."

And she covered her bosom and down below with her hands, because she was modest, even if they were married and had done it several hundred times, not just three the way they really had.

And Daphne smiled and said, "Steaks are fine, but I'm really not hungry right now. Don't you need a shower?"

And he knew what she meant. He put the steaks down and started to get undressed so he could get in the shower with her; and then the f.u.c.king engines changed pitch, the way they do when the pilot is slowing it down and lining it up with the drop zone. And he was back in the rear of the Lockheed, wearing an oxygen mask and fifty pounds of sheepskin jackets and pants and boots and hat and still freezing his a.s.s.

He felt like crying.

He pushed himself to his feet so he could look out the window, and at that moment the Lockheed began a steep, descending turn to the left. He slipped and fell against one of the aluminum fuselage ribs, and pulled the oxygen tube loose from the bottle.

He had a h.e.l.l of a time trying to plug the d.a.m.ned thing in again, with the heavy gloves on, holding his breath until he did; Sergeant Keyes had told him he would lose consciousness in ninety seconds without oxygen.

He took several deep breaths when he had it back on, and then tried to look out the window again. All he could see was clouds and far below, water.

The Flight Sergeant navigator came back, carefully making his way past the bomb bay. He was wearing a walk-around oxygen bottle. When he got close to Steve, he pulled it away from his face.

"You all right?"

Steve decided if the Flight Sergeant could take his mask off, he could too.

"Fine."

"We're over Buka, making our descent."

Steve nodded.

"It won't be long now. You'd better 'chute up."

Steve looked around until he saw the parachutes, then made his way to them. Lieutenant Howard came up; and following Steve's lead, he started to take off his sheepskin flying clothes.

It was still so cold that Steve started to shiver as, with difficulty, he worked into the harness. The Flight Sergeant gave the straps a couple of good jerks, drawing them tight around his legs.

If they weren't tight, they slapped and burned the s.h.i.t out of your legs when the canopy opened, and Steve had heard stories of what happened to guys who got their b.a.l.l.s between the harness strap and their legs when the canopy opened.

If the straps were tight enough, they were too tight, and your legs started to go to sleep, like now.

Steve motioned for Lieutenant Howard to stand with his hands holding on to the fuselage frame above him, and then he checked Howard's harness, tugging the straps very tight.

He felt very sorry for Howard. Making your first jump was bad enough. Steve clearly remembered his. But when that had happened, he had had a lot of training, and a reserve parachute, and there had been medics on the ground in case something went wrong.

Lieutenant Howard must be scared s.h.i.tless. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

It seemed like it took forever to make the descent. Steve remembered a Clark Gable movie where a test pilot had torn the wings off an airplane by making it dive too fast.

Then the plane started to level out. Steve looked out the window again, and all he could see was green. Trees. Not even a lousy little dirt road. He wondered how the h.e.l.l the pilot knew where they were.

The moment the plane was level, the bomb-bay doors started to open, and there was a h.e.l.l of a rush of air and the surprisingly loud sound of the slipstream.

Steve made his way to the bomb bay. The bombardier was on the far side of it, wearing a set of earphones. He had secured the two bundles on either side of the open bomb bay, their static lines already tied to a hole in one of the aluminum fuselage ribs.

The Flight Sergeant touched Steve's shoulder and, when Steve turned to look at him, gestured for Steve to get in position. Very carefully, Steve lowered himself to the aircraft floor, and then scooted forward so that his feet hung over the edge.

He looked over his shoulder again, and saw the Flight Sergeant giving a good jerk to the static line he had tied to a fuselage rib.

Steve looked across the open bomb bay, where Lieutenant Howard was getting into position. He smiled at him, to show that he wasn't scared.

I am, after all, a member of the elite of the elite, a Marine Paratrooper.

Howard smiled at him, and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

What he's doing, Steve realized with surprise and admiration, is trying to make me feel good!

There was immediate confirmation. Howard cupped his hands and shouted. Steve could hear him, even over the roar of the engines and the whistling slipstream.

"How you doing, Koffler?"

Steve cupped his hands over his mouth, and shouted back, "Semper-f.u.c.king-Fi, Lieutenant!"

Lieutenant Howard smiled and shook his head.

Steve smiled back, and then looked over his shoulder to smile at the Flight Sergeant.

The Flight Sergeant was doing something weird. He had his hands in holes in the fuselage ribs, and was hanging from them, with both of his feet in the air.

And, in the moment Steve understood what was going on, the Flight Sergeant really did it. Steve felt an irresistible force on his back.

That sonofab.i.t.c.h really kicked me out!

Arms flailing, face downward, Steve fell through the bomb bay. He felt the rush of air from the slipstream, and then a slight tug. He didn't hear, or sense, the pilot chute being pulled loose. Just all of a sudden, the canopy opened, and there came the shock, the sensation of being jerked upward.

He looked up and saw the other parachutes. Lieutenant Howard's canopy filled with air as he watched, and then, almost together, the canopies of the cargo chutes opened. The load in one of them began to swing wildly back and forth. The second load was hanging just about straight down. Both were going to land on the field.

Steve looked down between his legs. He had three or four seconds to realize that he was going into the f.u.c.king trees, and to realize that there was not one f.u.c.king thing he could do about it.

"Oh, s.h.i.t!" he said.

He pulled his elbows against his sides and covered his face with his hands and waited to hit.

There was a brief sensation of his feet touching something, and then of pa.s.sing through something, and then something was lashing against his legs and body and the hands he had against his face. And then he felt another jerk, even harder than the opening shock, and he stopped.

He opened his eyes. Everything was fuzzy at first, but then came into focus. It was dark, and he wondered if something had happened to his eyes, but then he saw bright spots, with rays of light coming through them, and understood that the reason it was dark was because the branches and leaves of the trees came together, forming a roof.

He was swinging gently back and forth, forty or fifty feet in the air. When he looked up, he could see the canopy, torn and collapsed, with tree branches holding it. Above the canopy, the branches of the trees had closed up again.

I've got to get the f.u.c.k out of here before the canopy starts ripping and lets me fall the rest of the way.

He started to make himself swing, by jerking his legs, with ever increasing force. Twice the canopy ripped and he felt himself falling, once about six feet. But both times other branches caught part of the canopy and stopped his fall.

Eventually he was able to reach a branch with his hand, and then, carefully, to pull himself onto a substantial limb. He straddled it, holding it tightly between his legs, pulled the safety from the quick-release, and shoved on it. The harness came free and moved upward with surprising and frightening speed, propelled by the elasticity of the branches on which the canopy was caught. One of the metal ends slashed across his forehead, hurting him like getting hit in the head with a rock. When he put his hand to it, it came away covered with blood.

He probed his face with his fingers and they all came away b.l.o.o.d.y.

"s.h.i.t!" he said softly.

After a moment his heart stopped pounding so quickly, so he moved his extremities and limbs enough to know that while he was sore all over, nothing was broken. Then he started, very carefully, to climb down the tree.

Twenty feet off the ground, he ran out of branches to stand or hang from. He wrapped his arms around the trunk, putting his fingers in ridges in the bark. They were more like ribs in the tree than bark.

Like handles! I can even wedge my toes in them!

He started to very carefully climb the rest of the way down.

He had gone perhaps two feet when, at the same moment, the bark his left hand was holding and the bark his left toe was jammed into gave way.

He fell to the right, on his back. He felt himself hit something squishy and then everything went black.

Someone was slapping his face. He opened his eyes.

A man was looking at him, so close that Steve could smell garlic on his breath. He was sharp-featured and had a bushy black mustache. Steve started to try to get up.

He felt strong hands pushing him back.

"See if you can move your legs," the man ordered. Steve moved his legs. "And your arms." Steve moved his arms.

The hands that had been pushing him down now pulled him into a sitting position.

"I'm Jacob Reeves," he said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Corp-Sergeant Koffler, United States Marine Corps."

"United States Marine Corps? Well, I will be G.o.dd.a.m.ned. A sodding American!"

"Yes, Sir," Steve said.

Steve felt a sting, and slapped at his face, and then looked at his hand. It was the largest mosquito he had ever seen, if it was a mosquito. He also became aware of a stench, something rotten.

"What smells?" he asked.

"At the moment, old boy, I'd say that's you. The jungle stinks, but not quite that much."

Oh, my G.o.d, I s.h.i.t my pants! he thought in horror. And then he had another horrifying thought: Lieutenant Howard! Where the f.u.c.k is he? Did he go into the trees, too?

"Sir, there's somebody else. And two cargo parachutes . . ."

"We have the mattresses," Reeves said. "Your other man landed in the trees."

"Is he all right?"

"I don't know. We're still looking for him. The girls are already carrying the packages to the village. Are you all right to walk?"

"I think so," Steve said.

"Good," Reeves said. "The sodding j.a.p chose to send another of his sodding patrols looking for us. We're going to have to do something about that."

"You think they're going to find us?"

"We have to find them," Reeves said. "They must have seen the aircraft and the sodding parachutes, so they know there's something going on up here except some unfriendly natives."

"I don't understand, Sir."

"The j.a.ps are now headed down the hill," Reeves explained, "to report what they saw. We have to make sure they don't make it. Otherwise, the j.a.p will send troops up here and keep them here until they do find us."

Steve got to his feet. He had to steady himself for a moment against a tree trunk, but then he was all right.

He slapped at another mosquito.

"What about Lieutenant Howard?" he asked.

"I told my head boy he has five minutes to find him," Reeves said.

"And if he doesn't find him in five minutes, then what?"

"Then we'll have to stop looking, I'm afraid. What has to be done is stop the sodding j.a.ps from reporting what they saw."

"f.u.c.k you," Steve said. "I'm not going anywhere without Lieutenant Howard."