The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [54]
Medendorp knew that his men would never be able to make the climb. Loaded down with extra weight, they were exhausted. Medendorp instructed them to make camp; he would hike up to the village along with the patrol’s radio crew. From there he would radio regimental headquarters and request a special airdrop.
Keast set down his pack and leaned against the trunk of a tree. Earlier in the day, he had wrenched his knee. It was sore and swollen. To take his mind off the pain, he took out of his fieldpack the only two photos he had brought with him to New Guinea. In one, his pretty wife Ruth was sitting on the running board of the family car, holding their baby son. In the other, his oldest boy Harry was standing in front of the car, smiling at the world.
Keast had not seen his family since the summer of 1941. Unlike Zelma Boice and Katherine Bailey, Ruth Keast never made it to Fort Devens. That would have required traveling by train or car from Michigan with young Harry, who was six at the time, and with Roger Jr., who was very young. Keast did not mind Ruth not being there. He felt more comfortable knowing that she was at her parents’ farm with the boys. Besides, she had already said good-bye when she and Harry left Georgia.
While Keast was at Fort Benning during the summer of 1941, Ruth and young Harry rented a shack the size of a one-car garage outside town. Farther back off the road, a creek coursed through the woods and alligators lounged along its muddy banks. Occasionally, feral pigs emerged from the thickets, raiding and spilling the garbage cans and rooting among their contents. Ruth could tolerate the alligators and the pigs; what she could not stand was the humidity. Though she had grown up on a farm outside of Dimondale, Michigan, and was no stranger to the outdoors, she wilted in Georgia’s sticky summer heat.
Back in New Guinea, Medendorp needed a cigarette and a break before climbing into the clouds, and sat down next to Keast. Wiping his dirty hands on his sleeves, Medendorp asked his friend for a look at the pictures. He had seen them before, but that did not diminish his interest. He enjoyed Keast’s photos almost as much as he enjoyed his own. Medendorp smiled—it was good for a guy to remember that he had family back home.
After looking at the photos, he and Keast studied their crude map of the trail. Even with the map, both knew that navigating the terrain ahead would require a good amount of guesswork—accurate depictions of the Papuan Peninsula extended only fifteen miles inland. Daunting river crossings also awaited them. If a guy lost his balance and fell, the Mimani’s current would wash him away before his buddies had time to drag him out of the water.
Medendorp was certain of another thing—the march to Jaure would be a “daily hell.” The route took a roller-coaster ride through the mountains, falling abruptly from cloud-covered peaks into deep, dripping valleys. Medendorp and Keast were discussing what lay ahead when someone interrupted them.
It might have been Sergeant Schmidt.
“We lost eight more, Captain,” the sergeant said.
“What do you mean, Sergeant?”
“Carriers, sir. Eight more ran out on us.”
The warnings had clearly had little effect.
Medendorp kicked the ground in disgust, and leaving Keast in charge of the camp, he assembled the radio crew and climbed to the village. He knew from Boice’s report that the patrol would need to resupply before it entered the high mountains. Despite the assumption that Laruni was a poor choice for an airdrop, Medendorp inspected the area and realized it would be ideal. The village was located on a broad ridge among bare grasslands. From the ridge, Medendorp radioed regimental headquarters. Maybe the weather would clear long enough to allow the planes in.
Medendorp wanted “50 raincoats, 75 shelter halves, 50 native blankets, leggings, sweaters, denim coats, pants, handkerchiefs, flashlights, batteries, matches, and mail.” The men had not received any mail in over a month, and Medendorp hoped that a letter