Last Flight of the Buffaloes - a World War II Story on the Fall of Java

Chapter 9 - You got a better idea?

So Jack did what he was told to, went to the aid station, and told the surgeon in charge, a Dutch captain, to load up the wounded on two out of the four American trucks. Every man available went to load them up, even the light wounded. Severely wounded would be loaded up first, then followed by the walking wounded, then those who could still fire a rifle may were given to choose whether to stay and fight or be evacuated. Most, being Dutch and Javanese KNIL soldiers, decided to stay and fight. They loaded up with whatever assortment of ammunition they could—American Springfields, British Enfields, Dutch Mannlichers, Thompsons, and all—and headed back to the frontlines.

As they loaded, he tried to find Nescu. He noticed the Romanian as he was being carried over on a stretcher. He came by him. Jack could see his eyes turning, weakly, to notice him.

"Well, shit. You made it."

He shook his hands, weak, weak but still alive.

"They got me good, Jack. Pretty damn good." He said, half his face covered in bandages, so was his chest and stomach and right arm. He uttered a slight grin on the good side of his face. He was loaded up.

With the last wounded and evacuating medical personnel on the trucks after about two hours, they finally headed off. Jack picked two orderlies who helped out to ride with him. One was an American medic, a private first class, the other was a Dutch civilian. The American introduced himself as a PFC Galveston.

"You ain't no aid man no more." Said Jack. "Take off that cross. You know how to shoot?"

"Yes, sir."

He handed him his rifle and his ammo pouches slung in bandoliers. He picked up another one that was piled up from the wounded, a Thompson, and took several magazines while he was at it, jamming them in ill-suited pockets, but they held.

They headed off, Jack's jeep riding up front. Driving down the road, the two guardsmen from last night had gone. As they went further away, Jack could hear gunfire erupting once more in the distance. He wasn't a praying man, but then he uttered a silent prayer, for the fighting men of the 131st, for himself, and for the lucky coincidence that the Emperor's Imperial Japanese Army Air Force was not going to shoot them up as they headed for Bandoeng.

Going down the bumpy, bombed out road, at some point between Leuwiliang and Bandoeng, they encountered an open field, what seemed like cleared out woodland. As they passed, they noticed an anomaly: there was a fighter plane, with broken wings and a shattered tail, filled with holes, stuck to the ground. Jack remembered that it was the plane that was shot down yesterday. He then stopped the convoy, and told all the armed men to dismount. Leaving a few to guard the trucks, he spoke to them in Dutch and they followed him to the wreckage, spreading out around it, rifles raised. There were six men.

Jack inspected the wreckage himself and saw that the pilot had left the cockpit. He then saw that there was an abandoned Dutch pickup truck, one commonly used by the logistics corps, but its occupants, too, had gone.

He led the Dutch troops over to the nearby tree line to find any sign, and then, he heard someone shouting from the treeline. In Dutch, he yelled "No! Don't! Go away!" and then there was a shot fired. Hearing the direction of the shot, Jack opened up with a short burst from his Thompson, then, the six men went up as he continued his short bursts.

They were met with enemy fire, though only slightly. Spotting one, a Javanese KNIL soldier smartly went on one knee and fired two shots, the second one hitting a Japanese soldier. The rest fired back, and after one or two minutes of firing, Jack realized that their attackers had gone deep into the woods.

He went into the treeline, when one of the KNIL men called him to see. There were three men, one of them a medic, They had been shot dead—while prisoners of the Japanese—from what seemed like close range, and only recently.

One man, however, was lying on the ground, his hands and feet tied, his eyes blindfolded, his mouth muffled. He was wearing ML-KNIL uniform, and Jack figured out that he was the pilot. He went by him, took out his knife, untied his blindfold and cut open his binds.

"Well, shit, flyboy." Said Jack. "You just got real damn lucky today."

"I... I am Lieutenant Francis Drebbel of the Royal East Indies Air Force." He said in accented English. "I need to get back to my base, in Bandoeng."

"Well ain't that right?" said Jack. He continued in Dutch. "You wounded?"

"I was treated. Clean exit... I can still fight."

Seeing that the dead Dutch were a rescue section of some sort, it seemed like they were saving the pilot when they were ambushed by a Japanese reconnaissance unit, and the Japs sure as hell interrogated the hell out of them.

"OK. Let's go. You can walk, huh?"

"Yeah. Yeah."

"Smoke?"

"Absolutely."

Jack offered him a cigarette and lit it for him. Lieutenant Franky Drebbel smoked the American's cigarette while holding his wound, in the stomach, as he walked,

"Meneer," A Dutchman warned. "We need to get moving. The Japanese are here soon."

"OK. Double time to the trucks!" he raised his voice, waving his hand in a circular motion. He helped the Dutchman walk quicker by putting his arm over his shoulders. He swore every several steps, and Jack could see he was in great pain. He set him down on his jeep as the trucks were full.

"You OK?"

"Yeah. Just need painkillers. This is temporary field medicine, but it won't take long to heal. Went through clean."

"I'll take your word for it. Galveston, you mind checking on him?"

"While you drive?"

Jack turned the jeep's engines on. "You got a better idea?"

[***]