Sgt. Hawk 06.Sgt. Hawk and the Lost Temple

SGT. HAWK AND THE LOST TEMPLE SGT. HAWK BOOK SIX PATRICK CLAY Sgt. Hawk and the Lost Temple Kindle Edition Copyright © 2023 Patrick Clay Rough Edges Press An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing 9850 S. Maryland Parkway, Suite A-5 #323 Las Vegas, Nevada 89183 roughedgespress.com This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews. eBook ISBN 978-1-68549-256-4 Paperback ISBN 978-1-68549-257-1 CONTENTS Join the Rough Edges Press Mailing List 1. Off the Line 2. The Clouds are on Fire 3. The Night Beast 4. Deep in the Heart of the Dutch East Indies 5. Riverboat Attack 6. The Forbidden Volcano 7. The Treasure of the Chinese Emperors 8. The Queen of the Jungle 9. The Reptiles 10. The Head of Ishakawi 11. Attack on Sacred Blood 12. The Fall of Man 13. The Abomination in The Temple 14. War Nights 15. The Battle for Delivalung If you like this, you may also enjoy Blazer: Ghosts of War Join the Rough Edges Press Mailing List About the Author JOIN THE ROUGH EDGES PRESS MAILING LIST It’s no secret that you love books as much as we do. If you join now, you’ll stay up to date on our newest releases, news and sales. To Marissa Suzanne Clay SGT. HAWK AND THE LOST TEMPLE 1 OFF THE LINE They brought those killed out of the draw. The front line moved toward the Japanese defenders at a brutally slow pace. Superior American technology and manpower had proven to be of little advantage in the grim struggle. Sergeant James Hawk fell, as much as he climbed, out of the back of the truck. He muttered half-hearted instructions to his men falling beside him. Most of them were young and new, but a few of the older ones had made it this far. The truck engine idled impatiently, sounding like rocks revolving in a metal barrel. The clutch popped and the truck began sliding away before the last two men could hit the ground. The truck driver had other runs to make, and he could hear all that he wanted to hear of the conflict up on the line. Dead bodies lined both sides of the dirt road, their boots jutting from beneath the covering ponchos. The wind rippled the coverings. The truck left behind another layer of dust on them. Hawk watched the lumbering cloud of smoke fleeing toward safety, leaving behind the world in which he lived. He smelled the burning air. The air itself had been set afire, like all remaining decency. The smell was familiar to him. He glanced at the eyes of the men, studying the bodies all around them. It was a hell of a place to dump these new kids, he thought. Some of the dead were only partially covered, and a few even looked uninjured and unmarked. Healthy, young, muscular—dead—bodies, lined in rows. Hawk turned from the faces of the living. He didn’t want to see anything that might make a man unique to him. It made it easier when they transitioned to a position beneath the ponchos. He rubbed his hard palm across his forehead. Behind the lined forehead lay the few cubic inches of hell that defined him. His eyes glided with a threatening slowness. They were the pellucid and hooded eyes of a leopard. Blue and oddly detached from his surroundings, they recorded all of the unimaginable scene for his simmering brain. One look told observers that the eyes had seen too many horrible things. He seldom blinked, finally looking down and searching the rock beneath his faded boots. For something that wasn’t there. He sighed and tried to think. It wasn’t the ability to think that he was losing, it was the ability to feel, both emotionally and physically. His face felt numb, as if he had too much alcohol, or had been hit with a shovel. He had no reason to think, because there were no answers. He was in a numb hell. “Finally got there,” he said to himself. The crystal eyes floated imperceptibly back and forth, missing nothing. Nature had designed James Hawk for war, however. The evolving mental state would only make him better at making war. He would be an unfeeling, unthinking actor. There was nothing about his slouching, menacing presence that aroused any sort of sympathy. Joe Canlon stopped and stood beside him. “This looks like some shit, don’t it. Just throw you out on the road like garbage.” Canlon could see the shards of what had been an old castle in the distance, sharp and twisted against a yellow sky. Black, battle air clung to the remnants of the old structure, and rose into the sky above it. Between himself and there, Joe could see drab colored men moving across blasted drab ground. On the horizon, gray and black explosions occasionally sprouted, and closer in were the colorful red and orange bursts, topped by gaseous mushroom evaporations that quickly rose and disappeared. The men walked between them, as if the bursts were nothing but a rain storm. Joe lit a cigarette. Hawk slid a block of chewing tobacco from his herringbone twill shirt pocket, stenciled with the anchor, globe and eagle of the Marine Corps. He tore off a piece with some method habitual to him and stuck it in his mouth. “It does,” Hawk agreed. A few years ago, he would have said, “It do.” But now, he knew that wasn’t right. It branded him as a person, from a certain place and time. He wasn’t a person anymore. He was a U. S. Marine. The Marine Corps had taught