Further resistance was pointless, given that no help would be coming. Cunningham gave Devereaux permission to surrender; the major had then walked all over the island, accompanied by a Japanese officer under a white flag, persuading his Marines to surrender one strongpoint at a time.
Japanese losses in the Wake action were not known for sure, but numbered at least nine hundred dead, and well over twice that many wounded. The Americans lost 121 dead; 470 military personnel and 1,146 civilians were taken prisoner—none too gently, as it happened. The Japanese were still stinging from their earlier setback, and several prisoners were summarily executed.
Major Devereaux spent the next four years in a Japanese POW camp in China.
With Wake fallen, the Japanese conquest of the Philippines had been assured.
So much had Chesty been able to describe to Jeff, though he’d already been familiar with the general history, of course. Marines were fanatics when it came to their own history and their own heroes. What the tale had not prepared him for, however, was the emotional reality of a similar strategic situation—a tiny garrison on an isolated outpost, far, far from any possibility of help.
And there would be no relief expedition.
Devereaux’s decision. It might be best to surrender now, before another Marine died. There was little advantage to be won by holding out, by playing the strutting, macho hero and fighting to the death. Gallant last stands generally took place only when the enemy didn’t give the defenders any choice—the Alamo, the Little Bighorn, Camerone.
There was little point in adding Cadmus Crater to that bloody, if heroic, list.
In Jeff’s mind, though, there was a serious question as to whether they could surrender. The Chinese forces had been hit pretty hard these past six days. Another ship might be here within the week, but did the Chinese forces now on Europa have the supplies and space to take care of almost seventy Marines and civilians? He doubted it. The Marines now held nine POWs themselves, Chinese soldiers captured in the various actions in and around Cadmus Crater. They couldn’t be given the run of the base, certainly, nor could they be left in one of the sheds on the surface. At the moment, they were crammed into two storage compartments inside the E-DARES facility, requiring a constant guard on both rooms, and an extra security detail each time food was delivered, or when it was time to walk the prisoners, two at a time, down the passageway to the head to relieve themselves or shower. Four of the prisoners were wounded, requiring a lot of Doc McCall’s time, and more security each time there was a dressing change or time for medication.
It was bad enough that Jeff honestly wasn’t sure what they would be able to do if they took many more prisoners; Kaminski had half-jokingly suggested yesterday that the Charlies could win the fight right now simply by surrendering.
He didn’t think the Chinese CO would be any happier at having to accommodate forty-one Marine POWs. He certainly wasn’t going to trust the guy unless he received some pretty damned strong assurances.
He looked at his staff, weighing the expressions, which ranged from Biehl’s dour pessimism to Kaminski’s self-assured acceptance of whatever the next order might be.
“Captain Melendez,” he said. “You’re the XO. Your assessment?”
“Ski’s right. The men will follow you to hell right now, skipper. I think we hunker down, ride it out, and see what Earth can deliver. If they can’t deliver, we get the best terms we can, rather than spending any more lives for this ice ball than we have to.”
“That’s right, sir,” Graham said. “Earth doesn’t care. Why should we?”
“Because we’re Marines, damn it!” Jeff flared. “Because we have a job to do, and we’re damned well going to do it!” He paused, breathing hard. It was worrisome to know that the enlisted men would follow him to hell, but that he was going to have to convince his officers. “Look. We have to buy more time for the politicians, okay? Maybe they can pull a negotiated settlement out of the hat. If that settlement means we surrender and accept a ride home in a Chinese transport, so be it.
“But until I receive direct orders to cease fire and turn my command over to my counterpart out there, I will not surrender! Do we have an understanding, gentlemen?”
A mumbled chorus of “yessirs” and “aye, ayes” sounded from the others. There was little enthusiasm, and for a moment, Jeff was tempted to pull the old boot camp routine: “I can’t hear you!”
But that kind of artificial rah-rah would have been out of place, even insulting. These men knew what the score was, and, in the U.S. military, at least, it wasn’t enough that men follow orders blindly.