An Aussie officer appeared, climbing halfway down a ladder.
"We're ready for you, Mr. McCoy," he announced courteously.
Hart followed McCoy up the ladder. When he reached the level of the next deck, there was the absolutely delicious smell of fresh air.
We're on the surface, and the hatches are open, otherwise there would be no fresh air.
While he waited his turn to follow McCoy and some Aussie sailors through a hatch, the Pelican's hull trembled. It was her diesel engines starting.
He stepped through a hatch onto the deck. It was light enough to see that the surface of the sea was smooth, so smooth it looked oily.
Thank God for that!
McCoy started aft. When Hart started to follow him, McCoy stopped him and gestured toward the bow of the submarine, where Aussie sailors were manhandling the radios and supplies through hatches.
Two minutes later, as he watched Staff Sergeant Kelly kneel beside one of the two rafts to inflate it, McCoy spoke in his ear.
"Just one, Kelly," McCoy said.
"Sir?"
"There's no way we can get loaded rafts through that surf," McCoy said. "The waves are ten, twelve feet, close together." Hart felt light-headed; this was instantly followed by a sudden chill. He knew why McCoy only wanted one raft. It was because he'd decided they had to shift to Plan B. He had confided this plan only to Chief Wallace and Sergeant Hart, since they were the only ones who'd be involved in it.
If the surf was so rough that passing through it in heavily laden rafts was impossible, Plan B would be placed into effect.
They had not rehearsed Plan B as carefully as Plan A, but Plan B was a little simpler. It required only one raft to attempt making it to shore. This would contain Lieutenant McCoy, Chief Signalman Wallace, and Sergeant Hart. They would carry with them only their personal weapons, three days' supply of rations, and two of the radios Chief Signalman Wallace had modified so they could communicate with both HMAS Pelican and aircraft (on air-to-ground frequencies).
When they reached the beach, McCoy and Wallace would wait to see if Hart's tests of the beach sand suggested that an R4D aircraft could land successfully. The results, one way or the other, would be radioed to the Pelican, for relay to Townsville.
If the test results were favorable, Lieutenant McCoy and Chief Signalman Wallace would head for Ferdinand Six, while Sergeant Hart would remain on the beach, there being no good reason to subject him to the hazards of the trip through the jungle. Presuming McCoy and Wallace found Ferdinand Six, they would radio Townsville the estimated time of their return to the beach. Then they'd return there with sufficient manpower to handle the supplies which would come in with the R4D.
If the tests indicated that a safe landing could not be made, Sergeant Hart would go with Lieutenant McCoy and Chief Signalman Wallace to Ferdinand Six. And they'd all wait there until some other, better, workable plan to reinforce Ferdinand Six and extract its garrison could be devised.
It had to be presumed, finally, that if they couldn't land on Buka through the surf, then that was it. There was no other way in. Swimming was out of the question. Sharks.
"You're going to try it with just one rubber raft?" Staff Sergeant Kelly asked, a little confused.
"Chief Wallace, Sergeant Hart, and me," McCoy replied.
"None of the equipment."
"Lieutenant, I'd like to try," Staff Sergeant Kelly said.
"You would only be another mouth to feed," McCoy said.
"But thanks, Sergeant Kelly."
"I really want to go, Lieutenant," Kelly said.
"When you get that raft over the side, Sergeant, you better start getting everything else below."
"Shit!" Sergeant Kelly said.
Lieutenant McCoy did not seem to hear him.
About a hundred yards from the beach, the surf turned the rubber raft end over end, and George Hart found himself suddenly underwater, instinctively swimming toward the surface.
I am going to drown on this fucking beach!
He broke through the surface much sooner than he expected to. When he glanced around, another wave was about to fall on him; he took a quick breath and ducked under the water.
When he came up again and started treading water, he became aware that the bag containing the sand-density measuring equipment was banging against his back. He had looped the rope handle around his neck. It was a good thing he had his life preserver on, he realized. That stuff was heavy.
Then he saw McCoy. The Lieutenant was in the act of wrapping the weapons package in a life preserver, with the idea it might float in to shore. The next person he saw was a stranger.
But in a moment he became recognizable; it was Chief Signalman Wallace. When Hart was previously with Wallace, his hair was a six-inch-high support for his Chief Petty Officer's brimmed cap. Now that it was soaking wet, Wallace's hair was hanging down over his face, almost to his chin. He looked like a really ugly woman.
Hart pointed at him. McCoy followed the pointing hand and laughed.
Wallace at first looked surprised, and then his face clouded.
"Sod you both!" he called. Pushing the hair out of his face, he turned and started swimming toward the beach. He was towing two other packages, also hastily wrapped in life preservers.
That's all of them, then. The weapons, the radios, and our clothes.
Another wave came in and crashed over Hart. It took him so much by surprise that he breathed some water in.
He coughed and gagged a moment or two, and then he started swimming after McCoy and Wallace.
Ahead of him, he saw the rubber raft. It was now right side up, and a wave was gently depositing it on the beach.
Forty yards from the sand, treading water again, his feet touched sand.
So he started walking the rest of the way ashore.
He almost made it, walking in water not even waist high, when another wave took him by surprise, knocked him down, and scraped him along the bottom.
The beach turned out to be much wider than they expected, even wider and flatter than it appeared from the raft. Even so, the first thing he started to do was what they'd told him to do: He began taking measurements right down the middle.
But then he decided that they'd given him those instructions because they'd been thinking of beaches like the ones in Florida. This one was twice, three times, that wide. With a beach that wide, there was no telling where the tide would go-how far the water would come up the beach at high tide.
Instead, because the beach stopped dead in a mass of roots and trees, he stepped off from its inland side a distance that was twice the length of the wing of the Air Corps C-47 (he'd measured one in Florida). Then he looked around again, saw where he was, and stepped off that distance again. And then, after another look around, he stepped off one more wing length.
Even taking into account the foliage, there was room for at least two R4Ds to sit wingtip to wingtip between the trees and the place where he decided to pound the cone into the sand.
And to seaward, there was even more sand.