Papua

by Peter Watt

  George looked back at Jack. ‘Might he not be better off with your sister?’ he asked gently. ‘From what you have told me the boy is missing a woman’s touch this early in his life.’

  Jack thought about the Englishman’s statement. What he said made sense. Given the chance to return to Papua he might find enough gold to set himself and his son up for life.

  ‘He is. But why are you so keen on me heading north?’

  George frowned at Jack’s question. ‘Because I want to go with you.’

  ‘To Papua! Why in hell would you want to go to somewhere like Papua after surviving the last few years? It’s no tropical paradise. It’s a place of malaria, swamps, crocs and blackfellas who would just as much eat you as take your head for a trophy.’

  ‘Ah, dear chap,’ George sighed. ‘The answer to that is somewhat complex. But it has its roots in a little boy who once read a book written by a Frenchman almost a half century ago. I vividly remember the title: Adventures in New Guinea: The Narrative of Louis Tregance, a French Sailor. Nine Years in Captivity Among the Orangwoks, a Tribe in the Interior of New Guinea. That little boy would sit in his father’s library and devour every word of the book and pore over the illustrations. And when he survived the trenches he swore that he would go in search of the Orangwoks.’

  ‘That sounds like a simple explanation to me,’ Jack grinned, ‘ except I have heard of the mad Frog’s book and it was a total fabrication. His stories of natives riding around on horses and having shields made of solid gold sounds more like Gulliver’s Travels. There’s no bloody Orangwoks in the interior. Nothing but uninhabited mountains and jungle.’

  ‘That may it be,’ George conceded, ‘but the fact remains that no one knows to this day what is in the interior. It’s still totally unexplored when even Africa has been mapped.’

  ‘There has to be more reason for putting your life on the line than a whim to go dashing off in search of fictional lost tribes.’ Jack took a long swig from his glass. ‘It all costs money and I can think of better things to spend it on.’

  ‘In ’15 we signed up to go on what we thought was some romantic adventure,’ George said. ‘Was what we did back then any less romantic?’

  ‘A good point. But we were fighting for the Empire. There was more to what we did than just the adventure.’

  ‘It was not the Empire for you, Jack,’ George said quietly. ‘You, a German mother and Irish father, fighting for the King. No, you are a man who must seek what is beyond the horizon. The war gave you a chance to travel at the King’s expense.’

  ‘Gold is what I seek,’ Jack answered. ‘And all that it can buy. Not some romantic idealism about the horizon.’

  ‘I will make you an offer here and now,’ George said. ‘I will pay all expenses to get us to Papua and outfit us for gold prospecting if you will come with me.’

  ‘Why ask me?’ Jack questioned. ‘I am pretty sure that you could go in search of your Orangwoks without me.’

  ‘Because, old chap, you are the most capable man I have ever known,’ George said, fixing Jack with a stare that was so intense it was almost unsettling. ‘I have to find the Orangwoks for private reasons concerning my family. For reasons I would rather not talk about in this place – and at this time.’

  Jack couldn’t question his former company sergeant major’s reasons. He knew that all Englishmen were mad. Something in their nature made them want to go to places no sane person would seek out. But it was the same nature that had provided the tiny island nation with one of the greatest empires in history. Mad or not, the offer was generous – and Jack Kelly admired generous men. ‘I will think it over,’ he replied as he finished his beer. But he had already made up his mind.

  The Burns Philp coastal trader was steaming from Sydney to Port Moresby the following week. Jack stood on the wharf with his duffel bag at his feet. It was an awkward moment. Mary was trying not to cry although Jack cynically suspected that her tears would be more of joy than sadness to see him go. Little Lukas stood solemn faced, holding her hand. She had jumped at the opportunity to mind her nephew whilst his father went away.

  ‘He will be looked after as if I were his real mum,’ she had reassured Jack who did not doubt her words. Even in the week that he and George waited for the trader to arrive, Lukas had not drawn any closer to his father. They remained virtual strangers and the lack of closeness hurt Jack. He felt so clumsy around his own son. But Mary at least had a rapport with the boy. And leaving Lukas with her helped fill a void in his beloved sister’s life. It was not that he was giving him away as much as leaving him in the best care possible.

  ‘Give your father a kiss, Lukas,’ Mary said gently.

  Jack bent to receive the brief brush against his cheek. Impulsively he grasped his son and hugged him fiercely. ‘I love you, son,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s about it, old girl,’ Jack said as he straightened. ‘Got to join George aboard.’

  Mary hugged her brother. This time the tears were for him. ‘You be careful, Jack,’ she said with a sudden fierceness. ‘You always seem to be getting yourself into bad situations.’

  ‘You know me,’ Jack grinned. ‘Got all my bad ways from Dad.’

  Mary stepped back and watched as her brother once again swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and walked away with the step of a man very sure of himself. He was in some ways like Dad, she thought sadly. But at least he was not a drunk.

  Jack made his way up the gangplank without looking back. To do so would remind him that the two people he most loved in the world stood on the wharf watching him go. Before him lay the jungles, malaria, hostile natives and the adventure of Papua. Behind him a war, a son and little else. With him was a pile of old letters and a photo of a woman he felt he had fallen in love with, although he had no chance of ever meeting her.

  THREE

  Hunched against the bitter autumn winds and wearing his old great coat, Major Paul Mann trudged the street he had known so well before the war. What he had feared had come to Germany in her defeat: the famine worsened and with the flurries of the first sleeting rain pestilence had come for his first born. Paul’s daughter had died from the terrible influenza pandemic that had swept the world and killed more people in a few weeks than all the soldiers killed in years of war. Theda had only been six years old when death came for her with its high fevers, aches and terrible coughing fits. Paul had received the news through the services of the Red Cross whilst he was still a prisoner of the British in England.

  So much had changed in his twenty-eight years of life. The Kaiser and his royal retinue were gone, fled to neutral Holland for safety. The days of family gatherings in his house, which once wafted with the rich aroma of roast stuffed goose, were just a memory. Such thoughts came to him as he made his way to the butcher shop. He was fortunate as his family still had some money, although its value had dramatically decreased with the rampant inflation.

  His return from the English prisoner of war camp had been delayed by his visits to the hospital to remove the scraps of iron from the grenade blast. But the British had been humane and he could not complain about the treatment he received at their hands. When he returned to his home in Munich he was met by a family that rejoiced at his survival. To have lived was all his wife Karin had ever wanted – although he was a stranger to his five-year-old son Karl.

  Only his sister Erika seemed to resent his survival. Young and beautiful, she harboured, he suspected, a resentment that the Gods of War had not taken his life in lieu of that of her beloved Wolfgang. But her reception was cordial enough. She lived under his roof and respected him as the provider for the family.

  When he reached the butcher shop he was not surprised to see that it was closed. A notice in the window read that it would open when a supply of meat came in. That could be never, Paul thought bitterly. The British Royal Navy’s blockade of German ports well after the Armistice had guaranteed that. It was rumoured that over half a million civilians had died of starvation a
s a result of the barbaric blockade. How could he provide for his family? His thoughts turned to a world where the sun was warm and food was plentiful. It was a world of tropical palm trees and a gentle sea breeze wafting off the straits of the Huon Gulf. For just a moment he was back in New Guinea on the family copra plantation and all was well. Christmas there was still the traditional fare of roasts but after the great feast he sat on the verandah, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, while Karin played with the native children amongst the sweet smelling frangipani flowers. But the reality around him now was the silent unsmiling expressions of returned soldiers with pinched faces and gaunt expressions. Of women and children who stared with accusing eyes at the men who had lost the war and brought misery to a once proud nation.

  In the distance he could hear a different sound. It was the noise of a crowd rowdy in its expectation of something to come. Paul thought about returning home empty-handed but was curious as to what might be causing such a commotion. Shrugging his shoulders he trudged towards the intersection of the street where a large crowd of men had gathered. It was obviously a political meeting of one kind or another. Such gatherings had become common events on the streets of Munich. Men in their desperate circumstances were attracted to those who might provide the magical answer to their despair at seeing their families starve.

  Although Paul had been imprisoned in England at the end of the war he had heard of the Spartacus revolt. It had been an indication of just how much Germany had changed from its days of imperial glory before the war. So named after the revolt by a slave of the Romans, the communists had raised the red flag on the steps of the royal palace. They had dreamed of a socialist state for Germany like that which existed in the new Soviet Union. Weakened by bickering opposing factions from within and right wing opposition from without, the movement had not seized power and ever since the streets had seen violent and bloody clashes.

  And along Germany’s eastern borders a war continued against the Red Army’s aggressive push to seize German territory. Peace had not come to his country with the signing of the Armistice. Just more war, civil unrest and famine while power-hungry men bickered over idealisms to suit their own means of controlling the people. Now it was a time of German killing German. The Bolshevics had been most vocal as they harangued the crowds with promises of a new workers’ world underpinned by the equality of mankind. Paul had little faith in their ambitions after speaking to returning German soldiers who had been prisoners in Russia. They told tales that all was not well in Russia under the new order there and that the Allies were currently fighting on that front against the Red Army. It did not take a military man to work out that his former enemies – the British, French and Americans – feared the new force as much as they had feared Germany. For the Allies to commit troops to the Russian front put credence to that fear.

  As he approached the crowd he heard his name called. ‘Major Mann!’

  Paul glanced around the faces in the crowd and vaguely recognised a face from his past. The former soldier stepped forward and saluted.

  ‘We are not in the army anymore, soldier,’ Paul said gently, without returning the salute. ‘But it is good to see a familiar face. Sadly I regret to say I cannot remember where I know you from.’

  ‘You would not remember me, sir,’ the man said.

  Paul noticed that the young man was standing with the support of a walking cane. The former soldier was in his early twenties but war had stripped the youth from his rather handsome face. He stared at Paul with the eyes of an old man. ‘I was wounded only a few days after I joined your company. Then I was captured by the Tommies and got sent back and ended in a prisoner of war camp at Traunstein. I am Private Gerhardt Stahl.’

  ‘I must apologise for not recognising you,’ Paul said. ‘You were wounded in the leg?’

  ‘Almost lost it,’ the private replied with a grimace. ‘The war took a lot more than part of my body though. The damned Allies are crippling Germany as surely as if they had put us all in their prison camps.’

  Paul had to agree with the former soldier’s opinion. The blame for the war was placed solely on the German people although Paul had long come to the realisation that the war had been the result of family ambitions amongst Europe’s royalty. It was they who should have answered to the world for their raw and bloody ambitions for power. He was not unhappy to see that the Kaiser was gone from Germany.

  ‘Ah, but I should introduce you to a remarkable man I was fortunate to meet here in Munich,’ Gehardt continued. ‘He is one of the speakers at the meeting today for the German Workers’ Party.’ He turned and beckoned to a man whom Paul guessed was in his late twenties or early thirties. The stranger was of average height and sauntered over to join them. Although the man who joined them wore civilian clothing Paul noticed that he was wearing the high decoration of the Iron Cross First Class.

  ‘This is the officer who I had the honour of serving with when I was wounded,’ Gerhardt said to the former soldier who joined them.

  ‘I have heard of you through my comrade in arms,’ the man said, without any introduction and somewhat coldly. ‘It was fortunate that you survived the war. We are going to need every able-bodied man to build this country back to the greatness it once knew before we were sold out to the enemy.’

  Paul stared into the man’s eyes and saw the utter conviction in his words. ‘You actually think that we can survive this winter coming to us?’ he asked.

  The former soldier answered without blinking. ‘Yes – it will be hard but we will survive.’

  The crowd around them stirred and Paul could see that the first speaker was about to address the crowd. There were few women or children, the listeners were mostly former soldiers.

  ‘I must excuse myself,’ the man said. ‘I am to speak next.’

  ‘Of course,’ Paul answered. Alone with Gerhardt, he asked, ‘You think that this collection of party people have any of the answers to our problems?’

  ‘I believe that if we do not counter the Bolshevics now then they will take control as they did in Russia. I believe that the German Workers’ Party is the best means we have of getting the masses of unemployed back to work without a dictatorship like that existing in Russia. Yes, if we gain enough support from the people we will fight our way back to recovery.’

  Paul listened to the words so passionately delivered by his former soldier. It warmed him to see that the courage and tenacity of the battlefield was still alive in the men that the Allies thought they had crushed. ‘Not that we have much to offer,’ he said, ‘but if you and your friend would like to visit me and my family after the meeting I can give you both a hot cup of real coffee. No doubt your friend’s inspirational words will be just what we need to keep us warm this winter, but a coffee may help too.’

  Gerhardt seemed oblivious to Paul’s lighthearted statement and accepted the offer. For Paul it was a matter of honour to provide hospitality to one of his former soldiers, as that was the role of the man who once held their lives in his hands. He did not remain to hear the speeches. Politics had never been an interest to him. It had been, after all, blustering politicians who had put Germany where it was today.

  That evening Gerhardt and his companion arrived on the doorstep of Paul’s house. His sister Erika answered the door and introduced herself to the two men. ‘Paul, we have guests,’ she announced, ushering the two men inside.

  Gerhardt’s companion eyed the young woman as he shook off the cold.

  ‘You are very beautiful, Fraulein,’ he said. ‘A true daughter of Germany.’

  ‘I notice from your accent that you are Austrian,’ Erika countered, blushing under the intense gaze of the man. ‘Would I be right?’

  ‘I was born at Braunau-am-Inn. Do you know the town?’ he asked.

  ‘It is just on the border,’ Erika replied. ‘We once visited when I was a little girl.’

  ‘Gerhardt,’ Paul said, interrupting, ‘would you like to join us for dinner?’

  Gerhardt
ducked his head. He felt guilty at wanting to accept but suspected from the relatively opulent appearance of the house that his former officer could afford such an invitation. ‘I would be honoured, sir . . . if that is acceptable to your wife?’

  ‘My wife is preparing some cold sausage and bread. And we have coffee made from real beans, courtesy of my days in New Guinea. But I must confess that in the events of the day I did not get your friend’s name.’

  ‘That is my mistake, Major Mann,’ Gerhardt replied apologetically. ‘Sir, I would like to introduce my friend Herr Adolf Hitler. He was a corporal with the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. He was gassed at the Ypres salient and was in hospital when the war ended.’

  ‘Well, Herr Hitler, you are welcome in my home,’ Paul said, thrusting out his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Major Mann,’ Hitler said, accepting the handshake. ‘I will not forget your hospitality.’

  That evening the three men sat around the dining room table discussing politics. It bored Paul. Their ideas seemed too idealistic. What people really wanted was food and jobs – not a vague ideal of a new Germany.

  ‘Adolf recruited me to the party,’ Gerhardt said. ‘He is quite a speaker and a man of many talents.’

  ‘I gather that,’ Paul replied politely as Hitler sipped on the rich coffee laced with the little cream that Paul had been able to scrounge on the black market. ‘It is not often the Iron Cross First Class is awarded to a non-commissioned officer.’

  ‘Adolf is also a man of culture,’ Gerhardt added with a note of pride. ‘He was an artist of some renown before the war.’

  ‘You paint?’ Paul asked, and Hitler’s face clouded.

  ‘I was able to pay my way as an artist,’ he replied. ‘But I was denied the opportunity to enter the Vienna Academy by men who would stifle creativity.’

  Paul did not pursue the subject. He could see that it touched a raw nerve.

  Karin had said little during the evening and withdrew early to the bedroom with Karl. The boy still slept in their bed although this annoyed Paul, who thought he was too old for such things. But Karin, despite her joy at his return, had been strangely distant with him. The death of their daughter had somehow put a ghost between them. It was as if Paul was being accused of not being with her when he was needed most. He hoped that time would return what they had together before the war.