The Guns of Muschu

by Don Dennis

  The operator admitted that it was also possible that what he’d heard had originated a long way away—high-frequency transmissions had the ability to skip off the ionosphere for thousands of kilometres. It was probably just a bizarre coincidence that someone had transmitted the patrol’s call sign, or maybe it was part of a longer transmission that had faded in then out again. There were a dozen explanations.

  The commander agreed, then ordered the radio operator to continue his listening watch, but not to acknowledge any more transmissions until they’d conferred again.

  After another ten minutes, there were no incoming rounds from the island, so the commander ordered the original course be resumed.

  30. OFF MUSCHU ISLAND:

  17 APRIL, 1900 HOURS

  Dennis was two hours into the crossing when the first shark came. He was paddling through calm water alive with phosphorescence, every stroke leaving a fiery trail that flamed and sparkled with blue-green light. He heard splashing behind him, then the hiss off a fin cutting through the water. The shark swept past his right side, trailing phosphorescence, then arced around and headed back towards him. Dennis stopped paddling, raised his arms out of the water and tried to keep his balance as the shark streaked past his left side like a glowing torpedo. It then slowly circled.

  For what seemed an eternity the shark cruised around, approaching close, then suddenly turning about as if taunting him. Finally it lost interest and swam lazily away.

  It was almost half an hour before Dennis summoned enough courage to resume paddling. Imagination now fired, every stroke in the water left a vivid trail he was sure would attract more sharks. Raised near the ocean, Dennis had talked with fishermen and sailors who all claimed to know someone who’d lost a limb to a shark, and all agreed it wasn’t the biting-off that hurt, because sharks had rows of razor-sharp teeth that sliced painlessly—it was only when one had time to gape at the severed appendage that the pain set in. So as he paddled he found he was checking each arm, fearing he’d suddenly find a bloody stump where his hand had been.

  Dennis could see down into the black water, where deep below, fish— or sharks—were leaving trails like meteors in the sky. In some way’s this was even more frightening than coming face to face with a shark. As a boy he’d read Jules Verne, and who knew what monsters lurked down there? Expecting to be seized by giant tentacles or hit by a shark at any moment he paddled on, trying to remain calm, telling himself that his imagination was his worst enemy. At least with the Japanese he could fight back, but against unknown sea creatures or sharks there was little defence.

  After another hour, a rain squall hit, lashing the water, driving waves that broke over him and threatened to wash him off his plank. He clung on, tried to stay head-on to the waves, and waited for the wind to stop. Eventually it did and an eerie calm descended, the water becoming oily and flat. Dennis resumed paddling, judging direction by the moon and straining to see the mainland. However, he’d lost all sense of time and had no idea where he was.

  Still the shapes swam past him, below him, around him. It took every ounce of strength to keep going, making one stroke after another . . .

  Forget the sharks, if the Japs find you out here at daybreak they’ll torture you, then have you stuffed and mounted. You’ll spend eternity as a trophy above the Emperor’s fireplace...

  Another squall hit, this one seeming to come from all directions. The rain lashed until it stung his skin and the world around him became choked with foam. Barely able to breathe, he closed his eyes, clung to the plank and prayed he’d survive.

  31. SYDNEY:

  17 APRIL, 2400 HOURS

  In a large brick bungalow in the suburb of Kensington, a light snapped on in one of the bedrooms. Throwing back the covers, Emma Golding found her slippers, then after pulling on her dressing-gown left her room and headed down the corridor. Coming to a door, she rapped on the polished wood, pushed it open and flicked on the light.

  In her bed her twin sister Mary opened her eyes and turned to her. Emma quietly told her to get dressed as they had to go to the church.

  ‘Mick needs our help,’ was all she said.

  Such was the relationship between the two sisters that Mary didn’t question her but merely nodded, then went to her closet. It was a cold autumn night and being of slim build she needed to dress warmly.

  Ten minutes later the sisters were striding purposefully up the road leading to Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church. A heavy fog hung over the city, damp shadows relieved only by the dim glow from the wartime street lamps. Neither of them were afraid of being out at such an hour, for they firmly believed that a higher power watched over them. Tonight they were going to seek the assistance of that deity to protect a loved one.

  Emma and Mary were related to Mick Dennis by marriage. Their brother George had met Mick’s sister Clare at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics when she was the pin-up girl of the Australian team. George, then the Australian 200 metres track champion, vowed he’d one day marry Clare, but as she was only sixteen he had to wait until 1937 before he could do the ‘respectable thing’. Once married, Clare moved into the big house in Kensington, where she lived with George along with his brother, Emma and Mary.

  George was then a detective in the Sydney Criminal Investigation Branch and because he was always pursuing what he called the ‘villains of society’, he was something of a rough diamond. Being exposed to the underworld, his pragmatic view of life differed greatly from his sisters, and while he hadn’t totally rejected the Catholic faith, he regarded religion with a somewhat jaundiced eye. The sisters, though, embraced their religion and became ardently devoted to church work, at one time even considering entering a holy order.

  The two families got on well together. Before the war, both families would often gather for Sunday lunch, the women preparing the meal while the men sat around on the veranda drinking beer and discussing Saturday’s horse races, the cricket, boxing and politics.

  After a huge Sunday lunch, everyone would retire to the drawing room. Here the men played poker and drank more beer while the women talked and indulged in a glass or two of sherry. During those afternoons it was customary for the women to gather around the piano—Emma was an accomplished pianist, and both sisters were beautiful singers, their voices trained from youth in the church choir.

  After an hour of vigorous singing, with the men often joining in, the dark side of George Augustus Golding would suddenly emerge. Raised in the outback, he had an incredible memory and had amassed an enormous repertoire of bush poetry. George not only knew every Australian poem ever written, but many that weren’t yet on paper. So he’d rise, take the floor and give renditions of ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ or ‘The Man from Snowy River’, then sing one or two bush ballads—often launching into the seamier versions of popular Australian verse.

  The sisters, despite their prudish facades, would soon be doubled with laughter, but drew the line when he inevitably came to reciting his all-time favourite, ‘The Bastard from the Bush’—a bawdy version of Henry Lawson’s ‘Captain of the Push’.

  On hearing this Emma and Mary would excuse themselves, leave the room and prepare for evening mass. On their way out they’d remind George that as he hadn’t been to confession for twenty years he should consider making amends with the Lord before it was too late. His reaction was usually predictable—he’d recite another verse, which would send the sisters scuttling out the door, convinced their brother and anyone associated with him was doomed to suffer eternal damnation.

  Of particular concern to them was young Mick Dennis, who’d fallen under George Augustus’s wicked influence, for he’d taken up a job teaching policemen the ways of cracking skulls and twisting limbs using Oriental techniques that were outside the Marquis of Queensberry Rules. The sisters included Mick in their prayers, along with their beloved but very misguided brother. When war came and Mick was sent to New Guinea with the 2/5th commandos in 1942, they continued their intercession. Despite incredibl
e odds, Mick returned a year later, thinner but whole—living testimony to the power of prayer.

  Inspired, the sisters made it their duty to pray for those in the neighbourhood who’d gone to war, irrespective of their religion.

  When Mick was again shipped off to New Guinea in late March 1945— this time with a unit whose function they didn’t understand, nor could he explain—they resumed their prayers for him, never doubting that he’d return.

  So on the night Mick Dennis was crossing Muschu Strait, his sisters–in-law were in the local church praying for his survival. They of course had no idea where he was or what he was doing: all they knew was that he was somewhere in New Guinea and that he was in great danger.

  A little after sunrise, Emma and Mary returned to the house and found George eating breakfast before going on duty. Seeing the rosaries in their hands, he didn’t press for an explanation. He’d become used to their expeditions to Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church; however, this was the first time they’d ventured out on a midnight pilgrimage, so someone must have really been in deep strife—or so they believed.

  Emma, noticing the question in his eyes, smiled at him and said confidently ‘Mick will be safe now.’

  32. OFF MUSCHU ISLAND:

  18 APRIL, 0500 HOURS

  Dennis had lost track of time. He’d been paddling for what seemed an eternity, his arms feeling as if they’d been pulled from his body, yet they continued in an endless rhythm, pushing him slowly towards the mainland.

  Lift, reach, stroke. Lift, reach, stroke.

  Dennis had gone beyond fatigue, drawing on strength and a determination he never knew he possessed. Gone too was the fear of the unknown—long ago he’d figured that if the sharks hadn’t taken him it was because they’d decided he wasn’t worth eating.

  So he persisted, setting himself a goal of ten strokes, then another set of ten, then another, not daring to think how many more sets of ten were needed to reach shore, or how many he’d done. He remembered how his sister Clare, a skinny kid who thought she could beat the world, had trained herself for the Olympics. No coach, just the family to encourage her as she stroked up and down the pool in all weathers. She’d be up early, walk alone to the pool in the rain shivering, while he remained warm in bed wondering what was driving her.

  She’d endured the taunts, the sceptics in the press who called her the ‘fish from Coogee aquarium’—even the jibes from school friends who shunned her because it wasn’t considered a girl’s place to compete.

  Yet she ignored them all and two years later went on to become the world’s best. If she could persist and win, so could he.

  Lift, reach, stroke . . .

  He’d survived three storms, each one more intense, yet somehow he’d remained glued to his plank. He now realised that being waterlogged, it acted like a ship’s keel, steadying him against the waves.

  Lift, reach, stroke . . .

  To divert his mind from his aching arms and the cold that was seeping into his bones despite the tropical water, he thought of home, the family, of those wonderful Sunday lunches in winter, with mountains of roast beef, roast lamb, baked potatoes, peas, pumpkin and steaming boatloads of gravy. And beer—endless brown bottles that marched clinking around the table, crowded the centre and overflowed onto the floor. His brother–in-law George seemed to have an endless supply of beer. But then he had secret hoards of everything. Even poetry . . .

  Pity the Japs didn’t understand English, he mused. If they did, they could ship George up here and he could quote his own brand of poetry at them until they surrendered . . .

  Several times he thought he heard engines nearby, muted and rumbling, but afraid he was imagining them, Dennis refused to stop paddling, fearing that if he did he’d never start again. Then he’d slip off his plank and sink into the deep where strange glowing creatures waited to pick his bones clean. So he went on.

  Another ten, another ten . . .

  He wondered about Lieutenant Barnes and his group. Were they paddling about on their logs nearby? Where were Chandler, Hagger and Weber? Were they following, or ahead of him? Or had those voices he’d imagined been real? Had the Japs caught them?

  Time became meaningless, punctuated by endless stroking.

  Below him the water was losing its black mystery as the rising sun shimmered into the depths. It happened so gradually that his numbed mind barely registered the change. A sandy bottom alive with fish gradually came into focus. The sun sparkled across coral. A crab scuttled along the bottom and burrowed into the sand. Swarms of fish darted. There was a world down there going about its business, oblivious to his presence. He stroked on, watching the fish, seeing nothing there that could harm him and wondering if he’d really been afraid. The sand came closer, rippled like dunes in a desert. It looked so close he could reach out and touch it. His hands were now stirring up clouds with each stroke.

  Something bumped against the plank. Annoyed that a shark would dare attack him now, he looked up to see the plank was nudged up against a beach. Twenty metres beyond was jungle tinged by the rising sun. He blinked, then looked back over his left shoulder. The sun had only half risen above the water and low on the horizon he could see Muschu Island.

  He was on the mainland. But where?

  Then he froze. Among the palms ahead was a large concrete bunker, and in it, a gun with a barrel the diameter of a sewer pipe aimed directly at him. For a long moment he stared into the muzzle, expecting his world to end in a sudden flash. The irony was overwhelming: he’d come so far, and by a fluke of rotten luck ended up at the wrong end of a Japanese artillery piece.

  He waited.

  Nothing happened—no flash, no shots, no shouts or swarming Japanese. Rolling off the plank, he untied his gear, then finding his legs were numb, collapsed in the shallow water. Forcing his body into action, he dragged himself up the beach and lay beneath the weapon’s barrel. Suddenly it didn’t look so threatening. Just a lump of iron painted dull green.

  After massaging his legs he was able to stand. Clutching at the concrete walls, he gingerly hobbled into the gun emplacement for a quick look around. The gun was an 80 mm weapon—a quick loader capable of punching out about ten rounds a minute, accurate against aircraft or shipping. It was clean and well maintained, with ammunition canisters stacked ready around the walls. From the look of the place it was regularly manned. Deciding sabotage would not be a good idea, he checked outside and found a small cooking area built into the wall with a kerosene stove. There was no food.

  Removing his gear and boots from his trousers he dressed quickly in the soggy clothes. Checking his Sten, he dragged back the bolt and applied the safety. It was rusting, but though a little stiff it moved smoothly. He’d clean it later. There was no time now—he had to get clear of the area.

  Twenty metres behind the emplacement was a dirt road running parallel to the beach. From the tyre marks and footprints it was obvious the road was used regularly, at least up to the gun emplacement where the tyre marks made a wide circle. Further north, it was overgrown with grass. He crossed the road and found a hiding place among tall bushes. There he took his map from its waterproof wrapping and laid it flat. After sighting along the coast and across the strait, he calculated he was at Cape Pus on the northern fringe of the Wewak coastal defence zone, well south of his intended landing point. That meant it was about 30 kilometres to the Australian lines near Dagua—maybe less if he could find one of the Australian patrols from there that were pushing south towards Wewak.

  The easiest route would be to remain close to the coast, where there were plenty of roads and tracks—but also plenty of Japs. If he went inland, he had a better chance of avoiding the enemy, but inland the terrain deteriorated into steep hills and plunging valleys clogged with jungle. To make any progress he’d have to stay on the tracks, and that meant risking being seen by the Japanese. So he had no option other than staying with the tracks while hoping he could remain alert enough to see the enemy before they saw him
.

  He decided to try the coastal route first. The dirt road he was now on looked as if it was once well used, so it probably linked their coastal defence positions as far north as the Hawain River. Chances were the Japanese weren’t patrolling the road, as they would be expecting the Australian advance to come from the north.

  Folding his map away, Dennis was about to settle in and clean his Sten when he heard a vehicle approaching from down the track. Peering between branches, he watched as a truck pulled up at the gun emplacement and eight Japanese soldiers climbed out. They chatted as they unloaded a Juki machine gun and two boxes of ammunition, then fixed the gun on a tripod beside the emplacement. After loading a tray of ammunition, they sat down and began lighting cigarettes and talking. The truck driver joined them, carrying a small bag of rice as one of the crew lit the kerosene stove and prepared to boil water in a large pail.

  It was obvious this was their daily routine: cook up tea and rice, then spend the day hoping no one attacked while lazing about in the sun. Dennis smiled. Not a bad life actually—pity for them it would soon be spoiled by the Sixth Division. He watched one of the soldiers pull a throw net from his pack and hang it out to check the weave. There were plenty of fish about, so they’d probably net the high tide and cook the catch for lunch.

  Dennis groaned. He was down to only two malt tablets and even the sight of boiling water was making his stomach rumble. For a moment he toyed with the idea of taking their food. They were all bunched together, and being only 20 metres away would make an easy target. But common sense prevailed. Even if he did manage to get them all, the firing would alert others to his presence.

  Then Dennis realised he might have to kill them anyway. If the Japanese looked at the beach they’d see the plank and the marks in the sand where he’d dragged himself ashore. Even from his position almost 50 metres away, he could see it laying there like a giant finger, pointing accusingly.