10 DAYS A Matt Cole Mystery: The Beginning

By D. W. Drake

Former Marine Matt Cole comes home from World War Two a shattered man.

Not only afflicted with a crippled leg and a fractured skull, he also is a borderline alcoholic, experiences terrible nightmares and hears voices in his head. Unable to return to his pre-war job as a police detective, he becomes a struggling private detective. His tenuous existence is further threatened when he is framed for a murder he didn't commit.

Finding himself in serious trouble with the West Coast Mob, as well as the police, he blunders his way through wartime Los Angeles. He’s not only trying to clear his name but to also solve four murders.

Humor, intrigue, and scenes from L.A. of the forties abound. The beginning volume of the MATT COLE MYSTERY SERIES, written by D. W. Drake, the author of the 5-star rated book "Lennie, Guido and Me".

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. W. Drake
• Release date: Jul 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463984307

D. W. Drake

I have been a United States Marine, gold miner and superior court bailiff. The bulk of my working life, however, I served as a police officer, police sergeant, detective and S.W.A.T. team leader in the Los Angeles, California area. Because of this experience I have seen just about everything people can do to one another, good and bad, in the seamy, often hidden side of the human condition. I taught myself to write by composing crime and investigative reports in serious criminal cases, where vague or imprecise language would provide an opening for a sharp defense attorney. I enjoy writing Detective Mystery Novels that include a bit of humor with a generous sprinkling of sarcasm. My other passion is to write historical fiction dealing with World War Two. My hobbies are oil painting, fine furniture woodworking and leather crafting. However, my greatest joys are my two grandchildren. I live with Nancy, my wife of forty-eight years, in La Quinta, California.

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10 DAYS

A Matt Cole Mystery – The Beginning

D. W. Drake

Savanat Press

Copyright © 2019 by D. W. Drake

Savanat Press

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved under International and Pan- American Copyright Conventions

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Author’s Photo by Jane Chouteau

Book edited by Carol O’Donnell

Visit author’s website: www.savanatpress.com

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

CHAPTER ONE

MAY 28, 1944

SUNDAY

11:40 PM

Rain pelted down on my steel helmet and the rubberized cloth of my poncho, drowning out all other sounds. I strained my eyes in the direction of the edge of the Guadalcanal jungle which I knew was only sixty yards away, trying to see something, anything. But I couldn’t see shit because the night was darker than the inside of a Holstein cow. And thanks to the roar of the rain, I couldn’t hear shit either. The Japs could drive up in a fleet of Greyhound buses and disgorge attackers six feet from my hole and the first I would know of it would be the smell of sake on some Nip’s breath as he slid his long, sharpened bayonet into my belly.

This was no normal rainstorm but a torrential downpour that had been gushing down from the sky since before dark. It was as if my buddy Pickle and I had dug our hole underneath Victoria Falls. Compounding my misery, my feet were sloshing around in about two feet of slimy ass water in the bottom of the muddy hole. I suspected that all kinds of small, disgusting jungle creatures infested the water seeking an opening in the cloth of my dungarees to get at my waterlogged white flesh to bite and suck my blood. Unfortunately, the cloth of my faded and ragged uniform had plenty of holes in it. At that moment, I hated the Marine Corps, Guadalcanal Island, the candy-ass college boy lieutenant in charge of my platoon, but most of all, right then, I hated the idiot designer of the poncho I had been issued. The numbskull had made the hole for the head too big, allowing rainwater to run off my helmet in rivulets directly down my back, no matter how I positioned it. I was very pissed at myself for giving up a cushy, draft deferred job as a police detective to travel to the other side of the world, stand in a water-filled hole and wait for five thousand fanatic little Nips to come and try to shoot me or skewer me like a pig. I couldn’t help thinking what my life would have been like if I hadn’t volunteered to become a Marine. I would now be sleeping between crisp white sheets, eating decent food, sipping cocktails and chasing women every night. But no, I had to join the Marine Corps to get back at those sneaky Japs for bombing Pearl Harbor.

Although I couldn’t see the jungle, it was impossible not to feel its brooding, malevolent presence all around me. Within its steamy closeness, there were scum covered swamps infested with crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and slimy leeches as long as a man’s finger, as well as microscopic enemies like malaria and dengue fever, that could fell a man as surely as a Japanese bullet. At the bases of the soaring trees, vegetation grew so thick that patrols from both sides could pass each other within yards and be unaware of each other’s presence. In clearings, open to the searing tropical sun, kunai grass often grew tall as a man with edges so sharp they could slice human skin like a scalpel. It was a hostile, inhospitable place and at times it seemed to us that the jungle was as much of an enemy as the Japanese.

Without warning the rain suddenly stopped. It was as if the Guadalcanal rain god had declared, enough of this shit, and turned off the spigot. It was like that in the jungle; everything came at you abruptly, without warning. The resulting silence was creepy. All I could hear were loud plops, as drops of water fell from vegetation to the jungle floor and the reassuring soft whistle of the breathing of Pickle in the hole beside me. Pickle, whose proper name was Johnny Doyle, was a husky Iowa farm boy who had some defect in the upper reaches of his nose that caused him to whistle when he breathed, especially when he was asleep. One night, in frustration, when the First Marine Division was living in tents at New River, North Carolina, I had knocked over his cot, spilling him to the ground and shouted, breathe through your mouth, fucker!

Tonight I didn’t mind the soft whistling, it gave me reassurance that a buddy was near, although I couldn’t see him in the dark. The enlisted men in my battalion, the First Battalion of the Seventh Marine Regiment, referred to each other almost universally using nicknames. In my squad, there was Pickle, Quarter-wit, One-ton and several others. Because I was so much older than most of my mates, twenty-six, they called me, Geezer. To the Marine Corps and specifically, officers of the battalion, I was Private First Class Matthew Cole of the Sacrificial Pawns Platoon, Cannon Fodder Company.

In the month since coming to the stinking island, our battalion had had several sharp fights with the Japanese. Every Marine in the battalion had gotten a taste of battle in the savage, no-quarter war fought there between the men of the American First Marine Division and soldiers of the Empire of Japan. After every successive encounter, I felt a little less sanguine about my chances of ever getting off the island alive. In our latest deployment, we were dug in on a section of low lying jungle between two ridges, about a mile south of Henderson Field, the airfield that was the reason for invading the otherwise useless island in the first place. We had about a thousand men to cover a front 2,500 yards wide. Spread incredibly thin, riflemen were paired up in fighting holes and the line was reinforced by machine gun emplacements covering all the likely Japanese approaches. Each machine gun was carefully nestled in its own deep pit, with a roof of coconut logs to protect against grenades. Because of the shortage of men, there were gaps in the line that were registered by artillery and mortars as the only defense. It was a hell of a way to run a war.

We hated the Japanese with a fiery passion, calling them Japs, Nips, Monkeys" and worse. This hatred stemmed not just from the attack on Pearl Harbor but from a much more personal incident that occurred in the early days of the invasion. A Japanese prisoner we only captured because he was knocked unconscious by concussion from a grenade claimed that some of his mates at Matanikau village, a few miles west of our perimeter, were starving and sick and wanted to surrender. A humanitarian mission was hastily organized and included the division surgeon and a good number of medical corpsmen. Upon arrival at the supposed surrender site, the Marines and sailors were ambushed and wiped out, with Japanese officers hacking up the wounded with Samurai swords. Since then we killed every Japanese we encountered without mercy, just like they did to us.

Not long after the rain stopped, the Japanese in the jungle to our front started making an awful racket. Long, loud, jabbering speeches could be heard in the distance, followed by group shouts of Bonsai! Every fifteen minutes or so, one particular enemy soldier would erupt with a long maniacal laugh, worthy of an insane asylum. Closer in, another Nip called, Marine you die! every few minutes in a high falsetto voice. So much for the myth of the stealthy Japanese soldier. Random shots were fired in our direction with the intent of drawing fire from the Marine machine guns so they could pinpoint their location. The gunners, of course, weren’t that stupid and didn’t react to this obvious trick.

I was well aware that the calls and the crazy laughing were a form of primitive psychological warfare designed to instill terror in us and heighten our fear. And, guess what, it was working on me. I was jumpy as a neurotic cat. I had the familiar, lump-in–the–gut feeling of suppressed, naked fear that was always present with me when a battle was imminent. Waiting like this was the hardest part. When the shooting started, I knew I would be too busy to think and wouldn’t have time to feel scared until after the action when I had time to dwell on how close I had just come to getting shot, blown apart by a mortar round or getting a Jap bayonet in the belly.

Standing in the humid darkness, listening to the Japanese taunts, I suddenly began to see little bright fireflies buzzing around in front of my eyes and started to get lightheaded. I became alarmed until I realized that I had been holding my breath in anxiety and I exhaled quietly, a little bit at a time. Drawing in another breath, I almost gagged with the stench. Guadalcanal Island stank like a cesspool of corruption. Rotting vegetation, rancid water and the sweet putrid aroma of rotting human bodies permeated the air. We Marines buried our own dead and burned the Japanese bodies when we could do it safely. When we couldn’t, the enemy dead were left to swell and burst open in the tropical heat.

Earlier in the day the battalion commander, the famous Lieutenant Colonel Chesty Puller of Banana Wars fame, had ordered hot chow to be trucked in and fed to us by sweating cooks. They served us our usual fare, weevil infested captured Japanese rice. Timid Navy Admirals, after landing us on the island, had been shocked at the fury of the Japanese response. They got cold feet and promptly abandoned us and sailed away, taking our supplies with them. We had no choice but to live on what the enemy had left behind.

While the men were eating their nasty rice, Puller called the battalion’s non-commissioned officers into a meeting. He was a colorful figure. With his lantern jaw and enormous chest held up by two matchstick legs, he wasn’t impressive physically, but his aggressiveness in combat was legendary. He had such confidence in his men that he thought his battalion could lick Satan and all his legions of fallen angels if the brass would stay off his back and let him run the battle like he wanted to. He loved his men and they responded by loving him right back, even cynical old me.

"Chesty’ told the assembled sergeants and corporals that the battalion was going to be attacked that night by at least one Jap regiment, maybe more. Speaking in his soft Georgia drawl, between puffs on his pipe, he added that if the battalion didn’t hold, the Japs would overrun the airfield and every Marine on the island would be dead or a prisoner by morning. The NCOs dispersed and told the men. It was a sober group of Marines that scampered back to their fighting holes to await the night, each of them alone with his thoughts and marshaling his courage for the coming trial.

Each individual Marine emotionally prepared himself as best he could. Some of them fingered rosary beads or pocket New Testaments, imploring God for protection. Others adopted a fatalistic attitude, spouting phrases like, If it’s your time to go, it’s your time and there’s nothing you can do about it. A lot of guys told themselves this, but few actually believed it. As for myself, I concentrated on the present, preparing my equipment and armaments and trying not to think about the impending Japanese onslaught. I must admit that my technique failed. I was scared shitless.

About fifty feet to my right was a Marine machine gun emplacement of two guns. It was commanded by a tough, competent sergeant nicknamed Manilla John. The machine guns were thirty caliber Browning M1917s, with water jackets surrounding the barrels, connected to water cans by rubber hoses. These guns were capable of sustaining a much higher rate of fire than air-cooled light machine guns.

My own weapon, as well as Pickle’s lay, propped on the edge of our hole, muzzles pointed outward toward the jungle. Mine was a bolt action, .30 caliber, M1903 Springfield rifle of Great War vintage. The ammunition issued to me in five round clips was head stamped 1918. Most of the time the rounds fired just fine; occasionally you got a dud. Beside my rifle sat four yellow, pineapple shaped hand grenades with pins loosened, their bases pushed into the mud, ready for instant use. Pickle’s weapon was a Browning Automatic Rifle. It fired the same round as my rifle but was automatic. If you held down the trigger, it would fire until its twenty round magazine was empty. Pickle wore a web belt around his waist with twenty boxy, loaded magazines for his weapon.

We had dug our hole deep like the Japanese did, so we could stand to fight. A standing man could move quicker in combat than one lying down or kneeling. Hour after hour, I stood there with my feet in slimy water listening to the Jap calls and the dripping of the jungle with nothing to do but wait in mounting fear and dread. My body cried out for nicotine, but I dare not light up a cigarette. Not only would the Japs spot the glowing ember and shoot me, but Pickle, though he was my buddy, would beat me to death first for drawing fire.

When the battalion had first dug in, after clearing vegetation from our fields of fire, we had staked several continuous strands of barbed wire fifty yards out from our holes. Fifty yards further out from the first line, inside the jungle canopy, we had strung another single strand of wire. On it, we suspended c-ration cans filled with pebbles that would fall to the ground and make noise when the Japs cut the wire. We also set up booby traps using grenades with loosened pins, attached to trip wires. A little after midnight, the silence was shattered by the clatter of the pebble-filled cans falling to the jungle floor. A second later, one of the booby trap grenades went off with a boom and a brief muted flash filtered through the thick jungle vegetation.

The misery of my muddy hole was instantly forgotten as the tension rose in me almost to the snapping point. I shouldered my rifle and flipped off the safety. Frantically, with my eyes opened as wide as possible, I tried to see through the darkness. I could hear Pickle beside me, sliding back the bolt of his BAR.

Here they come, I whispered.

Watch yer’ fuckin’ ass, Geezer, he replied hoarsely. I could hear the fear in his voice.

Abruptly, Japanese mortar rounds started to fall all around us and detonate. They were ineffective due to the mud smothering most of the shell fragments. Nevertheless, we ducked down in our hole until the barrage was over, then stood and re-leveled our weapons.

Someone on our side sent a flare whooshing up into the sky. When it burst, it lit up the area in front of us. In the pale, greenish light I saw a solid mass of Japanese soldiers, hundreds of them, in their khaki uniforms and mushroom helmets. They were carrying long rifles with bayonets attached, almost as tall as themselves, and were milling around at our barbed wire, hacking at it with their bayonets. To my right, the machine guns of Manilla John, erupted with a cascade of sound and whole groups of Japanese started to fall. Tongues of flame were leaping out three feet from the machine gun’s muzzles. But the enemy had machine guns too that now began to fire back. Bluish white tracers flashed out from the Japanese infested jungle toward the Marine line. Red hot bullets made plopping sounds in the mud when they missed, hollow thumps when they found something substantial, like a Marine’s helmet.

The flare burned out and now the scene was only illuminated by the muzzle flashes of the weapons of both sides. It was like a kaleidoscope from hell of jerky motion or like hundreds of flashbulbs going off continuously. I was so stunned by the sudden eruption of sound and lights that for a few moments I didn’t fire my rifle but only stood and gaped, frozen in awe. The sound of Pickle’s BAR firing next to me and his ejected shell casings clanging on the side of my helmet jarred me back to reality and I began to fire my rifle. It was impossible not to hit a Japanese soldier with every shot, so numerous and packed together like they were.

A Marine mortar counter-barrage rained down on the mass of charging enemy that were bunched up at the wire. Our shells were bigger than the ones used by the Japs and were more effective. Khaki-clad bodies and body parts were flying through the air. Still, through this fiery hell, the determined Japanese charged, as fresh groups of them emerged yelling from the jungle using the bodies of their fallen comrades as ramps to scale the wire. I fired my rifle as fast as I could work the bolt, stopping to reload after every five rounds.

For some reason, the Japanese came in waves with short lulls in between rushes. It was a good thing, if they had come at us in one big mob, they would have overwhelmed us. Again and again, tightly packed bunches of attackers emerged from the jungle, only to be cut down by the machine guns and the individual weapons of the young Marines. The line bowed but did not break. This was war without conscious thought, at its most primitive, all hasty action, reaction, and counter-reaction. Still, lurking in the back of my mind was the reality that if the Japs weren’t stopped, I was as good as dead and thus it became a personal battle for survival. Our own guttural, primal yells rang out, to counter those of the attacking Japanese. For my part, I wasn’t fighting out of heroism or the desire for later recognition My only choice was to either keep fighting or die like a cornered rat.

During one of the furious attacks, I heard a whang sound close beside me over the general din of battle. I looked to my left and saw that something had knocked Pickle’s helmet off and carried away half his head with it, spattering me with his blood. He was slumped down in the hole and obviously dead. There was no time to feel grief for my fallen buddy. I was too busy. I reached down and unfastened his canvas belt containing the loaded magazines for the BAR and took up the heavy weapon. Firing short bursts at the charging Nipponese soldiers, I steadily worked my way through the store of magazines until the weapon’s barrel glowed red hot.

I glanced to my right. Manilla John’s machine guns were still in action, spitting flame, but they couldn’t stop all the Japanese. I caught sight of four Khaki-clad soldiers who had come through the murderous machine gun fire unscathed and were now charging directly toward me. I leveled the BAR at them and triggered a five round burst. Three of the soldiers went down, but I had used up all the cartridges in the magazine of the BAR and the weapon fell silent. The fourth Japanese continued his charge. He had a rifle with a wicked looking bayonet attached to the muzzle. About fifteen feet from my hole, the soldier fired his rifle from the hip. I heard and felt the bullet zip by near my left ear, missing me by inches. While I was frantically trying to reload the BAR, the enemy soldier rushed up to the edge my hole and thrust down at me with his bayonet. I was just able to deflect the blade with the barrel of the BAR as I groped frantically with my right hand for anything to use as a weapon. My hand somehow found the handle of my entrenching tool, that I had stuck in the side of the hole when I finished digging it. It was a miniature shovel with a T handle. I shoved the blade of the shovel up under the Jap’s chin with all I was worth. He uttered a high pitched cry that was cut off as the blade of the shovel severed his windpipe. I was suddenly blinded by a gush of warm blood that flew in my face and its coppery taste was on my lips and tongue. The Japanese soldier went limp and collapsed on top of me.