by Peter Watt
‘I know you, Jack,’ the Australian major retorted. ‘And I also know about this Yank sheila you seem to have a peculiar interest in.’
Jack was momentarily taken aback at his superior’s knowledge, but then guessed that the signals sergeant must have said something; he couldn’t really blame him, he was only covering his back. ‘She’s not just any Yank sheila, Bill,’ he said, leaning forward slightly. ‘She’s my daughter.’
Travers stiffened in surprise. ‘I thought you only had young Lukas.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Jack replied. ‘But she’s definitely my daughter. I only met her briefly, back in ’42, and I am afraid we lost contact – until now.’
‘Jesus, Jack!’ Travers exclaimed. ‘Our intelligence chaps tell me she’s the daughter of a high-ranking German intelligence officer who defected before the war. Apparently he gave away a lot of their secrets, and now, it seems, the Huns want their revenge.’
‘He’s her stepfather,’ Jack said in a tired voice. ‘By birth she is my daughter, and I will do anything within my means to rescue her from the bloody Japs.’
Travers pushed himself away from the desk and went to the map on the wall. He glanced at the reported location. ‘It will be bloody difficult, Jack,’ he mused. ‘We can’t spare any personnel or resources. You might be best waiting it out until we win this war and hoping that the Japs don’t get a chance to hand her over to the Germans.’
‘That’s not likely. The Germans must want her pretty badly to be going to so much effort to get her,’ he replied. ‘I don’t imagine the Japs have been treating her well, but it’ll be nothing compared with what the Huns will do to her. Bill, I need your help to get her back before it’s too late.’
‘She’s an American citizen,’ Travers said. ‘It’s really a matter for them to organise a rescue mission. After all, the report also identified another Caucasian prisoner and, from what I have heard, the Yanks think it is most likely one of their staff officers who was on the same flight.’
‘Bill, you and I both know that the Yanks are only interested in defeating the Japs in the Philippines. As far as they’re concerned, New Guinea is just a backwater to be mopped up at a later date. By then it will be too late for Ilsa. We have to act now.’
Bill Travers returned to his desk, pulled open a drawer to retrieve a military form and proceeded to write on it. When the form was duly signed he passed it to Jack.
‘That is your movement order to catch the next plane to join our boys up north,’ he said. ‘You have instructions to coordinate intelligence on my behalf in the region your daughter is being held. Needless to say I am not condoning any operations to rescue any Allied personnel. You have a month before you are to return to Moresby. You will coordinate with our man on coastwatching duties and will take all orders from Captain George Vincent in command of our detachment. Just don’t make it as hard for George as you do for me – he’s a good bloke.’
Jack’s face widened in a broad smile of gratitude and he thrust out his hand. ‘Thanks, cobber. When this is all over I’ll shout you beers for a month.’
‘Yes, you will, Jack,’ the major replied. ‘And put me at the top of your list. You’ve called in so many favours you’ll be buying beers for the rest of your life – and I can’t wait that long.’
Jack grinned again. ‘I suppose I had better get back to the office and collect my kit then,’ he said, gripping the precious piece of paper as if it were the winning slip on a long shot.
‘Get out and good luck,’ Travers said with a sigh and turned to the requisition forms on his desk.
Jack raised his hand in a salute and walked out.
*
Major Karl Mann kept his eyes closed until he heard the reassuring crack and felt the bite of the parachute straps against his body. Overhead he could hear the drone of the aircraft engines leaving him to enjoy briefly the coolness of the air high over the Malayan jungle as he descended.
Far below he could make out the smoke rising up to indicate the drop zone clearing. Within moments the air changed and he felt the heat rising from the ground. He readied himself for the impact with the earth. The pilot had judged well and Karl allowed his limp body to roll with the contact. Several Asian men rushed forward to assist him, and with them were three taller bearded Europeans, one of whom Karl knew.
The Chinese guerrillas were a fearsome sight, with their array of modern weapons and ancient long knives at their waists. Karl knew from his briefing that the Allied mixed team of SOE and OSS men was training and leading Chinese communist troops against the Japanese Army in Malaya.
Karl was helped to his feet and he watched as more parachutes appeared like flowers in the sky, to float earthwards with much needed stores of ammunition, food supplements and medical stores for the small guerrilla army operating deep behind enemy lines.
‘Well, old chap,’ said a heavily bearded and bronzed soldier. ‘Welcome to our little private war at the arse end of the earth. You didn’t happen to bring a crate of cold Aussie beer with you, by any chance?’
The speaker was a captain Karl had met in the commando training camp in Victoria years earlier. He had been a barrister before the war and now dispensed his own justice at the end of a .45 calibre Thompson submachine gun.
Captain David Carlton was as big and broad as Karl but, Karl noticed, the time in the jungles and hills of Malaya had taken a toll on the captain’s health. Under the tan was a pallor associated with fever, and Karl could see that he had lost a lot of weight since they had last met.
‘Sorry about the beer, Dave,’ Karl said, dusting off his uniform and recovering his Owen gun. ‘Good to see that you’re still alive. I heard a rumour you copped it back in New Guinea.’
‘That would not surprise me,’ Carlton answered with a sigh. ‘When Featherstone sends you off on a mission, you may as well be dead to the world. But I hear you won’t be with us for very long. Your Froggie friend is back at camp awaiting your arrival. He’s just returned from a trip across the Gulf of Siam to God knows where.’
Karl followed the column of jungle fighters as they carried the supplies from the drop zone. He found himself beating through the thick undergrowth of tropical rainforest, anxious not to be left behind. They were not only under threat from potential ambushes from Japanese patrols but also from man-eating tigers and deadly snakes, so Karl moved cautiously behind the silent men until they broke into another clearing, overlapped by the canopy of giant trees. Here he could see a few Chinese women armed as heavily as the men sitting in cramped huts made from forest materials. They glanced at him with little curiosity then went about their duties, preparing meals with rifles slung over their shoulders.
Karl was escorted to a hut made from bamboo and thatch.
‘Just make yourself at home,’ Carlton said, waving into the gloomy hut adorned with a few tattered maps. ‘This is our HQ and mess area,’ he added, plonking himself down on a log and beginning to examine his ankles and legs for the leeches. There was always a danger that the wound a leech inflicted could turn septic in the tropical conditions of the forest.
Karl followed Carlton’s example and found numerous leeches engorging themselves on his ankles.
‘Good afternoon, Major,’ the Free French officer said, appearing at the doorway. ‘If it would be convenient, Captain Carlton, I would like to talk to Major Mann alone.’
‘Sure thing, cobber,’ Carlton said, heaving himself from the log and wandering out into the compound. ‘I’ll introduce you to the rest of the mob when you’re through with Captain Pham.’
Karl turned to the Vietnamese officer. ‘I heard that you did a run across the Gulf.’
‘Yes, I was able to pay fishermen to transport me to the coast of my homeland without incident, and from there I made my way to Saigon to ensure that our contacts are in place. Before the end of the week you will travel with me across the gulf in a fishing boat.’
‘Just like that,’ Karl said with a note of sarcasm. ‘I presume we�
�ll receive a warm reception.’
‘The people you will meet with accept you as a German engineer,’ Pham said. ‘I have all the papers required for you to move around freely – so long as you are able to convince those you meet that you are who you claim to be. I will accompany you as your interpreter. The rest is up to you.’
It all sounded so straightfoward, Karl thought, but something about the whole operation worried him. There were too many loose ends, as if Featherstone had not told him the whole story.
‘In the meantime,’ Pham said, ‘we are guests of Captain Irving Goldstein, an American from their OSS. He is in command of this section.’
‘A real Allied spirit of cooperation,’ Karl said, scratching at a leech.
‘Captain Goldstein has been very helpful in getting me to the coast; he has been instructed by his government to provide all the assistance we require,’ Pham replied. ‘I don’t like his choice of allies in the Chinese communists. My guess is that after the war is over the British will be fighting these people, as will be my government. The communists will settle for nothing less than complete domination of a postwar world – both in Asia and Europe.’
The Vietnamese officer’s reflections grated on Karl as he looked around at the men and women prepared to risk all in the crusade to defeat the hated Japanese Empire. Any suggestion that the Germans and the Japanese would only be replaced by another enemy once this war was over was too dispiriting to contemplate, so he shrugged and returned to his leech search-and-destroy mission.
NINE
The days in hell passed slowly for Ilsa. She was brought food, mostly by Fuji, and allowed a short time out of the cage. Ilsa was at least grateful for the fact that she had not been raped or beaten by her captors, but she wondered at the absence of the American colonel, who had been taken from his cage days earlier and had not returned.
On one seemingly endless day, Ilsa was sitting with her back to the wooden cage when she became aware of a stirring in the village. It was late afternoon and she noticed that the Japanese soldiers were gathering in the clearing, bringing the sullen villagers with them.
It was then that Lieutenant Yoshi appeared in his spotlessly clean uniform, wearing his sword at his waist. The soldiers on parade were brought to attention, and Ilsa watched as the Japanese commander gave a speech. She noticed Fuji standing at the end of one of the ranks, and he stepped forward when the Japanese officer had finished talking. He addressed the gathered villagers in a dialect she had learned was universal to the people across Papua and New Guinea; it sounded a little bit like English, but she thought it had German words as well.
There was a disturbance from one of the huts, drawing the attention of the villagers. Ilsa gasped. Two soldiers were dragging the American colonel from the hut. His arms were bound behind his back; he had a black rag tied around his eyes and he was stripped to the waist. His pitifully thin body was covered in sores and welts and his chin rested on his chest. The colonel was dragged to the centre of the clearing and Ilsa watched, horrified, as he was forced to his knees. The Japanese officer slid his sword from the scabbard, stepped back and lifted the shining blade above his head. The American remained silent, head bowed, obviously knowing what his fate was to be. He did not cry out or beg for mercy but simply muttered something Ilsa could not hear; she guessed he was praying.
The sword came down, hacking into the back of the American’s neck and severing his head from his body. A cry of ‘Banzai!’ went up from the gathered soldiers as they watched the execution of their enemy.
Ilsa thought she might be sick. She looked away from the headless body twitching on the ground, bleeding out a great red gush. She swore, using words that she had never used before in both German and English, and then broke down and cried.
She did not look up as the colonel’s body was dragged away and the soldiers stood down from the spectacle intended to impress both them and the villagers with Japanese justice.
That night Fuji came to her with her ration of rice and fish.
‘Why was the colonel murdered?’ Ilsa asked as she took the bowl of rice and fish pieces floating in a dark liquid.
‘He was executed, not murdered,’ Fuji replied. ‘He had no further use to us and would have become a burden.’
‘Will I be executed?’ Ilsa asked.
Fuji frowned. ‘You are enjoying our hospitality until our German allies take you,’ he answered. ‘Until then, you will be treated with courtesy. Tomorrow, Lieutenant Yoshi wishes to speak with you. You will have the opportunity to wash before you meet with him.’
Fuji’s statement chilled Ilsa to the bone. She had seen at first hand the butcher’s cruelty and was now feeling real terror of what might await her in the presence of the enemy commander. Suddenly the thought of food made her feel sick, despite her hunger. She placed the bowl on the earth by her feet and considered a way of killing herself. Maybe she would be able to cut her wrists with a piece of sharpened bamboo she had stripped from the cage.
As if sensing her fear, Fuji crouched and spoke softly to her. ‘He will not harm you. He has orders to deliver you to our German allies in good health.’
Ilsa was slightly reassured and nodded her thanks. Fuji straightened up and left her alone with her fears.
*
Inside his billet, Fuji met his friend Petty Officer Oshiro, who had returned from radio piquet.
‘The Americans are making progress in the Philippines,’ Oshiro said, passing Fuji a small bowl of sake. ‘But our comrades are making them pay for every foot of ground.’
They were alone in the native hut that served as their quarters.
‘We are losing this war,’ Fuji said, accepting the fiery rice liquor.
‘That is defeatist talk,’ Oshiro reminded Fuji with a note of sarcasm. ‘How can our master race be defeated by big-nosed barbarians?’
Fuji swilled down the last remnants of the sake and placed the bowl on a small table he had crafted from jungle timber in his spare time.
‘I fear that it will only be a matter of time before the enemy attack my homeland,’ Oshiro sighed.
‘Remember, that is defeatist talk,’ Fuji mocked, and received a baleful look from his friend.
‘My family will be in harm’s way,’ he said sadly. ‘And here you and I are at the arse end of the world, sitting around in a place our army and navy have forgotten. We were told that we were to go on a special mission and all we do is sit around this village, cleaning our weapons and guarding one American woman. The commander should kill her and release us to join our forces defending the homeland.’
Fuji shrugged. ‘Maybe we will survive the war and return home to our people.’ Papua had been his home before the war. How would he be received back at Port Moresby if the Allies won the war? Once, he would never have entertained such a question. Defeat had seemed impossible early in the war, when the armed forces of Japan had swept virtually unopposed south across the Pacific and Asia. But this was January 1945 and the war had gone badly for Japan. Fuji knew he would have no home if the war went against them.
A year earlier a letter from his mother had reached him via the international Red Cross. She had written to him from an internment camp on the Australian mainland; she said that she and his father were being treated well. The officer who had passed on the letter to Fuji had said with contempt that his mother’s words were propaganda from the enemy, who had no doubt forced his mother to say such an unbelievable thing. Fuji had bowed and agreed with the officer but had known enough about the Australians to guess that her words were probably true.
His mother had also said that Mr Jack Kelly had ensured they were looked after and this was what had confused Fuji. Why would his old enemy be kind to his family, knowing that their son was a dangerous foe? There had been a time before the war when Fuji’s father owned a small boat building business near Port Moresby. Lukas Kelly had caused his father to lose face when Lukas had stepped in to defend a native worker from an unjustified assault. The incide
nt of Lukas striking Fuji’s father may not have meant much to the Europeans but it had brought great shame on Fuji’s family. Fuji had vowed never to forget the grave insult and carried the grudge with him into the war.
But Fuji had lived long enough with the barbarian Australians to understand that they were a tough but compassionate people. When they recovered their bodies, had they not granted full military honours to the Japanese submariners killed in the midget submarines that had penetrated the defences of Sydney Harbour?
As Fuji accepted a second cup of sake he reflected on the fact that the man he hated most in this world was his commanding officer. He had sworn to kill him, yet he knew this was not possible whilst Lieutenant Yoshi remained in command of their small unit behind enemy lines. That would endanger the lives of them all and he was not prepared to sacrifice his fellow soldiers for his desire for personal revenge. That could wait.
Fuji drank sake with his friend until he noticed that the walls were closing in and the floor was beginning to spin. Eventually he let sleep take him from a world at war, but even his sleep was without peace, filled instead with images of violent death.
*
The following day a guard came for Ilsa and beckoned for her to follow him to a creek. Ilsa knew that she was supposed to wash whilst he watched her but she shook her head when he tried to force a bar of soap into her hand. The guard got angry and waved his rifle at her in a threatening manner, but she refused to take off her rags in front of him. Besides, she thought that if she was filthy, Lieutenant Yoshi, who was clearly fastidious about cleanliness, would be disgusted by her and less likely to rape her.
Defeated by her determination not to bathe, the guard marched her back to the village, where he took her to a hut on stilts that had had a small verandah added to the front.
Here he was joined by Fuji, who looked ill. When Ilsa was close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath, she realised that his condition was self-inflicted.