The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [55]
At dusk, the communications team descended the mountain in the fading light and rushed to the makeshift hut the carriers had erected for Medendorp to report that they had received a message from Boice: Boice and his pathfinder patrol were still in Jaure and had sighted a group of Japanese. They did not have an accurate count, but the Japanese looked to be marching to meet Medendorp and his men.
That night Medendorp posted sentries. If he thought that this precaution would ensure his men a night of rest, he was mistaken—no one could possibly sleep with a Japanese patrol in the area.
The next two nights passed uneventfully, and then on the morning of the patrol’s third day in Laruni, three C-47s with fighter escort rumbled out of the clouds. The men were jubilant at the sight of the planes. They grabbed each other and danced and jumped in celebration. The U.S. Army had not forgotten about them.
Their elation was short-lived, though; the drop was a disappointment. The regimental band members who assisted with the drops kicked the food out of the side of the planes. Much of it, though, fell into the surrounding valleys, and lay scattered in the rain forest. The men knew that it would be their job to retrieve it, and the prospect filled them with dread. Finding small bundles of food in the jungle was like searching for needles in a haystack.
That afternoon Medendorp and the Wairopi Patrol set out for Jaure already tired from the morning’s food hunt. Medendorp left Laruni with a heavy heart. Because of the injury to his knee, Keast was unable to walk and Medendorp ordered him to remain behind. He hated to leave behind the man he described as “an intimate personal friend,” and knew that he would miss Keast’s spirit and physical strength. “Keast,” he wrote, “had more endurance than anybody else. Each morning he went ahead and selected a bivouac area for the night, and took care of the tired troops as they came in.”
But Medendorp had spent the last two nights listening to Keast “crying out with pain.” Although he was concerned about his friend’s health, he was even more concerned about the patrol. They needed to make good time, and they needed to be mobile, especially if Japanese soldiers were marching to meet them. With Keast, Medendorp left behind Sergeant Ludwig and fifty-two men who Medendorp decided were unfit to cross the mountains.
It was a mixed bag for the men who stayed behind. They were grateful for the much-needed rest, but being left behind frightened them. Keast and Ludwig were accomplished soldiers, but fifty-two tired men would be no match for a sizable Japanese patrol.
Before setting off for Jaure, Medendorp radioed regimental headquarters. Using the code words that the regiment had established for the villages along the route, which the men had named after cities in Michigan, Medendorp informed Colonel Quinn that Keast would remain in Laruni.
“Starting for Holland,” Medendorp said, referring to Jaure by its code name. “Keast has bad knee. He is staying at Coldwater (Laruni) with fifty men. Received supplies.”
Only a mile out of Laruni, it looked like the end of the line for the Wairopi Patrol. A dense fog crawled up the mountains, and the trail disappeared. The native carriers were almost a liability now. In the jungle they had often helped Medendorp to locate the trail; to find cold, pure water, filtered by stones; to distinguish between harmless and killer snakes; and to forage for food to supplement the soldiers’ rations. But in the mountains, they were lost and terrified, and had to be alternately encouraged and berated to continue.
Everything that Medendorp had feared about the march to Jaure was coming true. “Words,” he wrote later, “cannot describe the hardships of that march over the mountains.” The rain that fell the previous evening turned the trail into a pit of shin-high mud that sucked at the men’s boots. The patrol made excruciatingly slow progress