Close to the Wind

by David B Hill

  The Japanese pulled on his joystick and pushed his right foot down, rolling his aircraft up and over the top of the tiny vessel, the roar of the engine pummelling those below. He raised his hand to them in acknowledgement, and flew off to rejoin his group.

  ‘Magic! Bloody magic!’ said Jock, exploding with the tension. ‘They went for it. Hook, line and sinker!’

  He laughed uproariously at his own joke, and waved defiantly at the disappearing aircraft.

  ★ ★ ★

  They paddled into the late afternoon. It had been almost three days since they had left Laboe and the relative security of coastal waters for the open sea, and it was invigorating to again see the landscape in some detail, and to be able to gauge their progress against it once more. In fact, they had made outstanding progress, but at some cost. They had carved out about 300 miles over nearly seven days of almost continuous rowing, across a constant procession of south-easterly fronts, and were in a seriously fatigued state. Kneeling or crouching in the confines of the tiny vessel, they were beginning to reach the limits of their physical endurance.

  The closing light of day prompted Johnny to take one last reading with the compass before darkness prevailed.

  ‘At this rate, we’ll be in Batavia some time tomorrow,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps as early as midday tomorrow, weather permitting. But we have to cross the Sunda Strait.’

  Len, who had been watching the gathering sky ahead of them, sensed another test.

  ‘It looks like a bit of weather ahead.’

  ‘The current will be a factor. We’ll have to be on our toes.’

  They stopped rowing and contemplated the sky. The sun was setting in a blazing orange conflagration behind burgeoning black cloud, and it was clear the generosity of the weather was about to expire. Night began to overhaul them, and rising winds and mounting seas drove them harder towards the southern horizon. A seething blackness waited for them, hovering over the Sunda Strait, which separated them from Java and safety.

  The storm was much more powerful than anything they had experienced. When Tāwhiri began to whip the wave caps white, he forced them to drop the sail, and with every blast of wind that followed, began to push them south towards the Strait. If they had kept the prahu sailing with the wind, they could have surfed with the following seas, but to do so would have meant being swept into the Indian Ocean. When Tangaroa began to impose himself, every trough and swell further drove them towards the Straits, towards oblivion. There were moments of absolute blackness, when Len thought he saw the ghastly face of Hine Nui Te Pō, and felt her frozen fingers probe his viscera. They had no choice if they wanted to survive but to turn the prahu into the wind and row as they had never rowed before.

  Again, Len and Jock took an oar each while Johnny hung on to the sweep oar. Nicolaas and Dawi bailed. For hours they fought to survive. There were times when Nicolaas had to help Johnny hold the steering oar hard against relentless wind seeking to force the prahu beam-on to the waves, which would have sunk them. It became impossible to use the oars, and Jock lent himself to bailing while Len took up a paddle. He wedged himself into the bow once more, reached as far out as possible, and dug it deep into the water, in order to keep the boat into the wind. At the height of the storm, the rain lashed down and the wind created breaking waves of great size, big enough to fill the boat and swamp it easily.

  They did not paddle so much as bail for their lives. At the worst moment, a wave slewed right over the port gunwale and into the boat, passing down its length. They were left wallowing at the bottom of a trough with barely six inches of freeboard inside the prahu and another wave looming out of the black. All of them worked furiously with their hands and bailers to empty the water and recover buoyancy before the next wave hit them. They were not exactly ready when it arrived, but fortunately this one wasn’t as big as the previous one. While it caught them beam on, Len was able to snatch up his paddle and dig it into the water as the wave arrived. His paddle became a pivot, around which the wave-swept prahu rotated, to point safely into the waves once again.

  ‘Good on you, mate,’ roared Johnny above the wind.

  As the prahu slid down into another trough, the men’s spirits lifted, and everybody began to sense that this night would be survivable. Jock, bailing maniacally with a coolie hat, burst into song. Turned towards the wind and letting the rain pelt onto his face, he sang:

  You’ll take the high road,

  And I’ll take the low road,

  And I’ll get to Scotland a’fore ye …

  Half drowned, they all laughed at the madness of it all, and Jock milked it for all he was worth. He sang on in a strained falsetto, while Dawi and Nicolaas bailed with him in unison, shouting out the odd word they thought they recognised. Len and Johnny between them steadied the prahu until they were floating higher in the water, when the rowing resumed in earnest. Determined to survive, they threw themselves into the search for another dawn.

  ★ ★ ★

  To their great relief, the glimmer of the sun rising coincided with the passing of the storm. As the light advanced they became more aware of their situation. At sunset, the Sumatran coast had been to starboard, but in the confusion of the storm, the Javanese coast now presented on their port side. They had also travelled a lot further than the direct course would have required. In the still that followed the storm they collapsed, mute and exhausted. Only Johnny continued to work, slowly flinging water overboard.

  Len’s back muscles ached so badly he felt as if he had been beaten with batons. His eyes burned with exposure to salt and lack of rest. His hands hurt as he unwound his grip from the paddle, and his blistered palms bled. His knees and his backside ached too. There were tender patches that he couldn’t bear to touch, pressure points that constant immersion in the water had softened, to create sores. The tropics were not kind to open wounds. His lips were cracked and peeling, and his saliva was like glue. His tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. His head pounded, such was his dehydration, and for a while he lay unmoving against the framing. He wasn’t the only one.

  Johnny sanctioned the consumption of both remaining coconuts and another round of bully beef, and they finished their silent repast with a little water each.

  The waves still jostled and the wind still gusted, but for a while they sat slumped, resting and waiting for the restoration of their energy. The sun began to force its way between rain-swollen clouds scudding low overhead in the wake of the storm. They were in the process of preparing to start off again when they heard the unmistakeable sound of aircraft. Johnny didn’t need his glasses to confirm it this time. ‘Look,’ he called out, and pointed into the Strait, where nine aircraft flew low over the waves about a mile away.

  The noise grew louder, and they could see a second group of planes flying a parallel course to the first. Still the noise increased, behind them this time, and they all turned in their seats to see more low-flying planes between them and the shore. They didn’t have time to disguise themselves; nor did they need to. Had the pilots bothered to look, they would have noticed a prahu of weathered fishermen apparently making an early start to the day.

  The noise reached a thunderous crescendo when nine more planes, clearly bombers, roared over the prahu and, along with the rest, flew on towards the shore. The red roundels of Japan were clearly visible.

  ‘Jesus. Some bastard’s going to cop it.’

  Jock wasn’t the only one who felt a pang of empathy for the intended victims of the raid. They saw the flecks of other clusters of aircraft pass through the sky, before they and the noise eventually disappeared.

  Johnny had unfolded his chart and compass, and was squinting purposefully towards the shore.

  ‘I can’t see enough yet, but I’m guessing if those planes are heading anywhere important in this part of Java, it is probably Merak.’

  ‘Where’s Merak?’

  ‘Merak is where we are headed. It’s a port and, likely as not, our best chance for maki
ng contact with the authorities. Batavia is out of reach. We’re heading for Merak.’

  There was no equivocation. Nicolaas and Dawi had long since placed their trust in Johnny’s hands, and nodded when they recognised the name of the port, and Len and Jock already had their oars in the water. With the sail up, by now fairly tattered but still functional, and the current behind them but now working in their favour, they set off on the last leg of their voyage, faster now than ever.

  Johnny kept their course close to the shore. Everybody felt more relaxed when they could see the landscape and read its detail. It was therapeutic, energising – safe. Staying close to shore was an exercise in caution. Even so, there was a lack of certainty. They all understood the risk, but within themselves each man believed that the Japanese could not possibly have seized the Dutch Indies in the time they had taken to voyage from Singapore. But they could not be sure.

  As they drew closer to Merak, they soon saw that Jock had been right; some bastard had definitely copped it. But Len felt his spirits rise as the five men in the tiny prahu paddled the final couple of miles to what they hoped would be safety.

  ★ ★ ★

  It was eleven o’clock on the morning of 27 February when they entered the port. After nearly six hours of constant paddling and bailing, Johnny ordered his men to stop. For the last fourteen days their physical world had been unimaginably distorted. Now they had to take stock.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ Johnny said. ‘The Japs are hardly bombing their own, so we can safely assume this place is friendly. But it’s still dangerous, and we may have to look after ourselves.’

  They had been passing a cup of water around, and he paused to take some.

  ‘So … let’s sort ourselves out. Get out your caps, boys, and drop that damned sail. Let’s raise something a bit more impressive.’

  He stooped down into the bag at his feet and began to haul out a length of sheet. This turned out to be a Navy White Ensign, which they attached to the mast. There was very little wind at this point, but when they rowed it would flare, and they would certainly be identifiable.

  They made their way, cautiously, into the harbour.

  Merak had some of the atmosphere of Singapore, being a city under assault from the air, and they stopped rowing to absorb the scene. A number of grey-painted warships lay at anchor, from which muted klaxons sounded, and over which sailors moved swiftly, assessing, repairing and re-arming. Thick clouds of smoke and the odour of cordite drifted towards them on the breeze. Fires were burning from go-downs and defence installations along the shore. The ships were of various sizes and types, and apparently unharmed. Len thought one of the smaller ones seemed familiar.

  ‘Isn’t that one of the Aussie corvettes?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right,’ answered Johnny.

  Jock recognised it. ‘It’s the Maryborough, sir.’

  A shout rang out. ‘Keep your distance! Do not approach!’

  ‘A fine fucking welcome,’ muttered Jock.

  ‘We will send a boat!’ the same voice called.

  Already a squad of sailors was piling into a small motorboat being readied on the water. Johnny reached between his legs once more and this time produced a bottle.

  ‘I think we have earned this,’ he said.

  He unscrewed the top off the whisky and passed it forward.

  Nicolaas crossed himself before taking a long draught and handing the bottle on. Dawi took a short draught and then choked, coughed and spluttered when he tried to swallow. Jock rescued the bottle. Gesturing melodramatically, he took a healthy draught of his own and then swallowed, presenting to the hapless Dawi a saturnine look of self-satisfaction, followed by a deep growl. He handed the bottle to Len, who drank as if he was receiving his first communion, tentatively at first and then eventually filling his mouth and raising his face to the sky, letting the burning liquor flow slowly down his throat, set his stomach on fire, stoke the warmth in his tired and aching limbs and reinvigorate his spirit. Then the bottle went back to Johnny.

  The five men sat idly in their prahu, rocking to and fro, and waited.

  Another shout came, from the approaching launch this time. ‘Johnny Bull! Is that you? Johnny Bull?’

  Johnny stood up and stared in the direction of the other boat. ‘Yes, it is. Is that you, Glen?’

  ‘Yes, it is. Mate. How are you going?’

  The question was rhetorical; even at a hundred yards, Johnny’s friend could see the parlous state of the little prahu and its crew. Lieutenant Glen Cant RAN, in command of HMAS Maryborough, had worked closely with Johnny during the coastal raids in Malaya, before Cant and his flotilla had been sent to Java.

  ‘How the hell do you think I’m going?’

  And for a moment it was as if they were all standing on a street corner somewhere, marvelling at some serendipitous encounter.

  As the launch approached the men, all five refocussed. There were several armed men on board, who had their weapons pointed straight at them. All five involuntarily raised their hands, not in a full gesture of surrender, but enough to demonstrate they were unarmed, as the launch came around and glided to a halt beside them. Johnny and his Aussie mate shook hands, while the others relaxed. One of the Aussie sailors handed Len a rope. He winked. ‘Gidday, mate. Been rowing long?’

  The men on the launch helped the five as best they could to unwind their stiffened legs and stand before transferring to the launch. Each of the five carried his bundle of personal items, and Len had the little case with all the mail. They went to the Maryborough first, where Johnny disappeared to brief Glen Cant. Glen told Johnny, who in turn told the crew, what was known about the fate of their fellow escapees. It was a grim recitation. Virtually all of the boats that had departed Singapore on 13 February and their passengers and crews had been lost. ML311 and HDML1062 had been sunk; most of the crew, and the two commanders, Ernest Christmas RANVR and Colin McMillan RNZNVR, were lost. Another HDML had been destroyed before even leaving Singapore, though HDML1063 was believed to be safe.

  The four men from the prahu sluiced themselves under a freshwater hose before accepting mugs of hot tea and sliced bread, smeared with tinned Australian butter. Glen Cant had seen service in the Mediterranean, commanding the destroyer Vendetta, but his corvette’s ratings were largely new recruits.

  ‘Jeez, you bastards,’ one of them commented, watching them eat. ‘Looks like you were lucky to make it, eh?’

  It was Jock’s turn for understatement. ‘Nae, laddie. It was a fucking holiday. A Nippon holiday – haven’t seen one for days.’

  ‘Come on, you lot,’ Johnny said. ‘Grab your stuff. There’s so much going on, we’re going to the Sirius to sort it out. We need to report to the Dutch.’

  Somewhat reluctant to leave their Aussie friends, they put down their half-drunk mugs and made their way in the launch to the Sirius, a Dutch light cruiser, towing the prahu behind them. On the Sirius, Johnny and Glen Cant disappeared again, while the others gladly surrendered themselves to the care and curiosity of the Dutch crew.

  They were taken to the ship’s galley and given hot coffee this time, with spoons full of condensed milk, and sandwiches thick with cheese and sausage. Len and Jock hadn’t had it this good in Singapore. Now it was Nicolaas who was able to speak at length; the Dutch sailors asked him questions, and occasionally he repeated them in English for the benefit of the other two. ‘They asked me if we had seen Japanese, and what was Singapore like? I told them I was not there. I told them to ask you.’

  ‘Tell them to look outside,’ Jock answered. ‘And multiply it by a hundred.’

  The noise of activity banged and echoed through the ship, and shortly the four were left to their own devices. They sat, a little dazed. Jock stared unblinking at a bulkhead, thinking of something far, far away. Dawi was already asleep, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back to the same bulkhead. Nicolaas, too, was apparently asleep, in the middle of reading a local newspaper, several weeks old,
that a sailor had given him. Len felt his eyelids begin to droop and shade his vision.

  The banging was suddenly usurped by the squawk of the ship’s klaxons and an announcement in Dutch. The urgency of both was easy to interpret, and was confirmed when one of the Dutch sailors returned briefly, to speak to them. ‘Hello! We see more enemy aircraft. Take these. Stay here!’

  He threw five life jackets onto the floor and disappeared. The noises associated with imminent attack rose: shouting, the whine of winches and turrets and the first, sporadic firing from the Sirius’s anti-aircraft defences. The cacophony increased as the enemy pressed home their attack. At first it was the sound of bombs, then the roar of aircraft engines immediately overhead, when the flurry of anti-aircraft fire concentrated into a storm.

  ‘Fighter-bombers again. Fuck this,’ said Jock. ‘I’m going up on deck. Maybe I can do something. Are ye coming, Lenny?’

  Len didn’t need a second prompt, but Nicolaas and Dawi stayed put. Len and Jock raced towards the ladder, and were about to scale it when Johnny and a young Dutch ensign reappeared, sliding down the ladder from above.

  ‘You two! Get the others. We have to leave. Now! Meet me here in two minutes.’ Johnny disappeared back up the ladder again. All around them the explosions and firing raged as the enemy planes attacked.

  Two minutes later the five met again.

  ‘Right. Get on with it. Down the ladder and onto the launch. The fleet is leaving. Right now.’

  No sooner had Johnny spoken than they heard the sound of the anchor winches. All of them – Johnny, Jock, Len, Dawi and Nicolaas – climbed swiftly down the ladder, to where the launch with Glen Cant and the Australian crew waited. They untied from the ship’s ladder, pulled away and headed for the shore. Johnny turned to his two ratings and explained what was happening, as best he knew. Because they spoke Dutch, Nicolaas and Dawi already understood what was going on.