Somewhere in the South Pacific (The Todd Ingram Series Book 7) by John J. Gobbell

Author:John J. Gobbell [Gobbell, John J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publishing
Published: 2022-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

24

29 July 1943

Lumbari Island, Rendova Harbor

Rendova Island, Solomon Islands

Al Cluster had scheduled a briefing to start at 1630 in the so-called meeting room, a large bullet-riddled tent that also served as a mess hall. When they entered, he was fussing with presentation materials up front. He had propped a blackboard up in a corner, an eraser on its shelf. Chalk was smeared over faded scribblings from previous briefings. A large chart was pinned to the canvas off to one side.

Gathered were the skippers and execs of: PT 72, PT 88, PT 94, PT 109, and PT 114. The rest of Al Cluster’s boats were either up for maintenance or destroyed, the latter group mostly from the numerous uncharted reefs in the area. Coral heads seemed to pop up where they weren’t a day earlier. Navigation charts were useless. In some cases, they dated back to the 1750s. Before one could say anything, the boat’s bottom would be holed, or a propellor or two ripped off, or worse, the whole boat stranded up on a reef, a sitting duck for Japanese Rufes slinking about the next day.

While they waited, Tubby White scrawled out the last of a four-page letter.

Jack Kennedy sat next to him. “Jeez, Tubby. That looks serious.”

He grunted with, “This is bullshit.”

“What?”

“Faith Cromwell, my kind-of girlfriend.”

“Kind-of?”

“Well. She’s rapidly becoming a girlfriend. I’ve known her for ages since we were in high school. And now, I’m beginning to notice. She turned out to be quite good-looking. And she has a great personality. So, I’m no longer taking her for granted.”

“I get it.”

“Her family emigrated from Canada. But they naturalized and everything was copasetic. Now she works for my dad at North American. Hell of a secretary, Dad says.”

“Nice.”

“Well, I just got a letter. North American conducted a routine personnel review. They lost her naturalization certificate. Nobody can find it. So now, they had to re-classify her as an alien and they’ve fired her. All because some paper-pushing, 4-F weenie lost her naturalization certificate.”

“Jeeeez. Can’t you—”

“She’s applied to the Immigration people for a duplicate and they say they’re working on it. But it’s been eight weeks and she’s out on the street. Things are getting tight financially. She tells me she’s taking a job at Leo’s Burgers down on Ocean Boulevard. My dad’s making noise, but the company is getting pissed at him. They say there’s nothing they can do.”

“I wonder if–”

Al Cluster turned and said, “Gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please?” He gestured to a chart. “Here’s the picture so far. As you’ve seen, the Allied invasion of Munda Point has been going on for nearly a month. Our Marines and Army guys have landed from all points of the compass around the airfield. But their advances through jungles are slow or stalled, either from bad weather or just poor planning. But our guys are drawing closer to the airfield. In support, the Japs are sending more and more barges laden with troops and supplies down the coastlines of Bougainville, Kolombangara, and New Georgia Islands.

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