Papua

by Peter Watt

  Paul nodded. In one year he hoped that she would change her mind with exposure to a new world. She had never been to the tropics and he prayed that the scent of frangipani would hold her to a new life away from a war-ravaged Europe. A year was a lifetime in Paul’s experience of war. He hoped that it would be so for his sister.

  Paul was pleased with the price that the family house fetched, and he felt little regret in relinquishing it to the new Jewish owners. The man had been an officer on the Russian front and Paul had warmed to him as a fellow soldier who had experienced the brotherhood of fire. They shook hands and the paperwork was drawn up for the transfer.

  When the purchaser had departed Paul hurried to Karin with the news. Her enthusiasm was equal to his own. They both knew to leave Germany was to be reborn in a land far from the crises of a nation shattered by war. It was also a chance to leave the terrible ghosts of their pasts behind: for Karin the spirit of her dead daughter, and for Paul the memory of too many happy times before the Great War with friends who had lost their lives on Europe’s battlefields.

  Only Erika met the news with resentment.

  ‘You sold our parents’ house to a Jew!’ she shrieked in her anger. ‘A dirty Jew who has profited from the sacrifice of our people.’

  ‘The only sacrifice Herr Rosenberg knew was that of his men on the Russian front,’ Paul replied calmly. ‘There was no profit for him in the last few years unless you call the loss of an eye from shrapnel a profit,’ he added bitterly. ‘I also believe that it was a dirty Jewish officer who recommended your precious Adolf for his Iron Cross.’

  Erika glared at her brother, speechless. Finally she turned her back on him and stomped away.

  The incident would have been forgotten in the busy days ahead as Paul and Karin packed and prepared for their journey – first to Australia, then on to Papua and New Guinea – except for a visit from Gerhardt Stahl a week later. He was not alone and when met at the door by Paul invited himself and the two surly men accompanying him inside.

  ‘Herr Mann,’ Gerhardt said without a courteous greeting. Paul noticed that the former soldier had not used Paul’s old rank of major to address him. ‘I have been informed that you have sold your house to a Jew.’

  Paul bristled at the man’s accusing tone.

  ‘Who I have sold my house to is of no concern to you, Herr Stahl,’ Paul replied coldly, glancing at the two men standing silently beside Gerhardt. ‘There is no law that dictates who I may – or may not – sell to.’

  ‘I do not wish to offend Herr Mann but you of all people must know of their treachery. You were a fine officer and a man I once trusted with my life. So it does not make sense that you would betray our country to the Jews.’

  ‘Betray our country!’ Paul exclaimed with just a hint of amusement at the accusation. ‘The war is over, Herr Stahl. How could I betray the country when we no longer have enemies to fight?’

  ‘We still have enemies within,’ Gerhardt replied softly. ‘Jews, communists and deviants bent on keeping us on our knees. It is a well-known fact that international Jewry is behind a conspiracy to keep us in poverty.’

  ‘If that is all that you have come to say I would be very much pleased if you would now leave,’ Paul said, holding the door open to the three men. ‘I have much to do before I leave Germany.’

  ‘I believe that you are travelling to New Guinea, as the British have renamed Kaiser Wilhelmsland.’

  ‘That is right,’ Paul conceded. ‘We leave in five weeks – not that our future plans have anything to do with you.’

  ‘One day we will occupy our lost lands again,’ Gerhardt said ominously. ‘And when that day occurs I hope that you are not in league with the communists and Jews as it seems you have been here.’

  ‘Selling a house does not constitute a conspiracy, Herr Stahl. Now leave my home.’

  Gerhardt nodded to his henchmen and they departed in silence. Paul closed the door behind them and drew in a deep breath. What was happening to Germany when men like Stahl made it their business to threaten him? He glanced up the staircase and saw Karin standing at the top. She was pale and trembling. Obviously she had witnessed the short but menacing confrontation.

  ‘I will be glad when we leave here,’ she said. ‘The Germany we knew is gone forever.’

  Erika sipped at the coffee without tasting it. The dingy coffeehouse was almost empty as Gerhardt sat opposite her.

  ‘I will regret you leaving, Erika,’ he said. ‘But it will only be for a short time.’

  Erika held the cup in both hands with her elbows on the battered table. ‘I wish that there was some way I could serve the cause,’ she sighed. ‘New Guinea is on the other side of the world.’

  Gerhardt placed his hand over hers. If only you could see how I truly feel about you, he thought, with an aching feeling for his unspoken love for the beautiful young woman who only had eyes for Adolf. From the moment he had met her he had desired her for himself, but she had attended their meetings and concentrated her attentions on the young man with the fiery speeches and hypnotic eyes. ‘I will write to tell you how we are progressing,’ he said. ‘Then you will return to join us again.’

  Erika did not resist his gesture and looked at him. She was vaguely aware that he was a handsome man, but since the death of her beloved Wolfgang on the Hindenburg Line she had entertained the idea of going to only one other man’s bed. Her energies were now directed to being a disciple of the new man who had come into her life with words of passion for a greater cause – a cause to resurrect her country from the ashes of defeat. She had been vaguely aware of Gerhardt’s attention but did not feel for him as she did for Adolf.

  ‘You can never be with Adolf,’ he said as if reading her thoughts. ‘He is destined to be a man of the people and human love is something such men can never experience. You should look elsewhere for a man who can love you.’

  With a start Erika withdrew her hands and placed her cup on the table. ‘I have never considered Adolf in the way you suggest,’ she said defensively. ‘I see him as the man who can lead us in the future.’

  Gerhardt smiled grimly at her lie. ‘Then that is good,’ he said. ‘We have that in common.’

  ‘I would like to return home now, Gerhardt,’ Erika said, rising from the table. ‘You may accompany me.’

  Gerhardt bit his lip in his frustration and anger. But he obeyed Erika’s wishes and escorted her through the cold, grey streets to her brother’s house. They walked in silence and parted with polite but distant farewells. Erika watched the former soldier stride away down the street until he was out of sight. Gerhardt’s parting words echoed in her thoughts: ‘If you ever return to Munich, I will be here for you.’

  She hoped that she would not meet her brother on her way to bed, where she would allow carnal dreams of Adolf and her in an explosion of mutual lust.

  A week later Paul and his small family stood on the docks in Hamburg. Cold sleet whipped around their legs while the ship that was to take them halfway around the world was tied to the wharf. Karin gripped her husband’s hand and then turned to take young Karl’s. He seemed confused and glanced at his Aunt Erika who stood sullenly a short distance away with her hands encased in a fox skin muff.

  ‘Are we going away for very long?’ he questioned his mother.

  ‘I cannot answer that question,’ she replied with a sad smile. ‘Maybe we will return home one day for holidays.’

  Paul glanced at his sister and knew that she was still angry. No matter, he thought. The sea voyage might change her disposition. But deep down he knew he was being overly optimistic. Erika was a strange young woman he had never truly understood. He could only think that their father had spoiled her too much when she was growing up. And there had been almost forgotten disturbing incidents in her past that he dismissed from his thoughts. They were not memories he wished to dwell on. Maybe her attraction to Adolf Hitler had a basis in her past. He frowned. Not that the man would amount to much in the future. By the ti
me Erika turned twenty-one, Herr Hitler would be long gone from the political scene and just a forgotten memory for his beautiful but enigmatic sister.

  Paul turned his attention to the ship that was to take them across the sea. For a fleeting moment he thought about a link the war had established with their final destination in New Guinea, the Australian captain he had met on the Hindenburg Line in the last weeks of the fighting. What was his name? It was not German, although he remembered the Australian said his mother was German.

  Irish – he had an Irish name, the same or similar to the bushranger he had once read about who wore an iron suit in his battle with police forty years earlier in the Australian colony of Victoria.

  Ned Kelly! And Jack Kelly was the Australian captain’s name. He wondered if the easy-going Australian had survived the war. And if he had, did he return to the country they both shared in common? He hoped so, as he would very much like to meet up again with his former enemy who had shown such compassion on the battlefield.

  SIX

  Jack’s first night on Papuan soil was not restful. When sleep finally came to him he was once again in a world rent by shell bursts, screams and the pungent smell of cordite. He vaguely remembered a gentle shaking of his shoulder and a disembodied voice soothing him with, ‘It’s all right, old chap, you are safe, it’s all over.’ The screams faded and he woke to see the vague outline of his old company sergeant major bending over him.

  ‘Sorry, George,’ he apologised. ‘I hope I didn’t wake the neighbourhood.’

  George stood and stretched. ‘Couldn’t sleep myself,’ he sighed. ‘Thought I might have a stiff drink to knock myself out.’

  ‘Think I will join you.’

  Jack sat up and slipped on a pair of short pants to cover his nakedness. Together the two men moved to the verandah, oblivious of the danger of mosquitoes. They sat side by side on cane chairs and George produced a bottle of black rum. After he had swigged from it he passed it to Jack.

  ‘The nights are a bastard,’ Jack said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It all comes back.’

  ‘I know,’ George replied. ‘I wonder if it will ever go away. Or are we a generation doomed to terrify others with our nocturnal memories of what happened over there?’

  ‘Good thing we’re not married. Think our nightmares would cause some consternation with our spouses.’

  ‘Never thought much about marrying,’ George said as he swigged at the bottle. ‘At least until now.’

  Jack glanced sharply at his friend. ‘She’s Chinese. You know there is no future in that.’

  ‘Iris,’ George replied in a dreamy state. ‘Iris is only half Chinese – and why do you conclude that I was alluding to her?’

  ‘Pretty obvious – you were like a school boy around her,’ Jack scoffed. ‘Not like the man I remember who was one of the toughest soldiers I knew.’

  ‘Well, yes, meeting such a divine creature does make one think of settling down,’ George conceded. ‘I have never met anyone like her in all my life.’

  ‘Not that you have told even me much about your life,’ Jack prompted. ‘About all I know is that you are a pom with an educated accent. That before the war you were an officer in a British regiment and that you are one of the best men I have ever had the privilege of knowing.’

  George seemed to soften at the final compliment. He stared into the darkness and for a moment saw his past in the shadows. ‘One day I will tell you who I was, Jack,’ he said softly.

  Jack was undeterred. ‘Obviously there is money in your past – and for that matter in your present, given the supplies you were able to purchase for our expedition.’

  ‘Oh a lot of money, old chap,’ George said with a slight smile on his face. ‘But money does not buy you happiness. Believe me, I know. What has brought me happiness, in an odd sort of way, has been the friendship of the men I served with in the battalion. And knowing you.’

  Jack coughed lightly. In all the time they had served together, through hell and high water, neither had expressed his deepest feelings. It was not the way of tough men to do so and both recognised it was time to discontinue the conversation and seek sleep. But Jack had sensed that the crack in their tough façade had been inserted by the existence of a woman – Iris.

  That night Jack sat on the edge of his mattress on the floor and gazed at a now well-worn photo of a beautiful young woman. He would never meet Erika Mann but the thought that she was out there was strangely reassuring.

  When sleep did finally come to him he dreamt of a little boy who was at the same time both himself and his son Lukas.

  The following day Jack decided that he and George should visit the hotel in Port Moresby. Sen lent them his horse and buggy and both men dressed in their white suits and hats for a day of drinking and socialising. It was the perfect place to possibly meet with past acquaintances from his days of prospecting before the war and chat about the latest gold news from the old hands.

  The journey took them along a dirt road and past villages of natives wearing very little other than cast-off European-style dresses for the women and native skirts from waist to knee for the men. Friendly waves and greetings followed them and Jack could see George was well at home already in a world new to him.

  In a quiet dusty street they brought the sulky to a stop outside a primitive looking building of corrugated iron and timber. It was close to midday and the sun was hot overhead. A sign above the door identified the establishment as a hotel although the inside did not beckon with the coolness George remembered as characteristic of hotels in Australia. The hotel sported a billiard table with a sign posted on the wall that read Men are requested not to sleep on the billiard table with their spurs on. George was rather alarmed at what appeared to be large bloodstains on the floor. ‘They hang a butchered sheep here once a week to bleed,’ Jack said when he noticed the Englishman’s concerned expression.

  ‘Then it is not just a case of poor losers settling the disputed outcome of a game with knives,’ George commented from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘That sometimes,’ Jack responded with an evil grin. ‘Just don’t play for money around here.’

  Other than the sweltering conditions once they were inside the main bar, George’s impression of an Australian outback pub was confirmed. A handful of men leaned on the bar, a simply hewn wide plank, with their backs to the door. The shade was at least a compensation to the heat outside. One of the men at the bar turned to appraise the strangers. He was a grizzled, bearded man whose sun-blackened face reflected years living a rough outdoor life. He could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty years. For a moment he blinked at Jack then his face split into a slow but broad smile.

  ‘Young Jack Kelly, back from the war,’ he roared as he thrust out a dirt-grimed hand. ‘Thought the Hun might have done to you what them blackfellas up north failed to,’ he said. ‘Seems the luck of the Irish is still with ya.’

  ‘How you going, Harry, you old bastard?’ Jack replied with a grin, pumping the man’s hand vigorously. ‘I thought you would be dead by now from some jealous meri’s husband out there in the bush.’

  The rest of the men at the bar turned their attention to the meeting. A couple of them moved forward to shake Jack’s hand in turn. George could see the pleasure in Jack’s face at being once again recognised by men he had trekked with in the wilds of the jungle in search of gold. The mere appearance of the men in their ragged shorts and shirts marked them as working men, unlike the few government men he had met on the ship to Moresby. Those men wore clean suits and had clean hands.

  ‘Everyone,’ Jack said loudly to call attention to his announcement. ‘I want you to meet a real fair dinkum mate of mine, Mr George Spencer. And although he’s a bloody pom, he was also the finest company sergeant major Australia ever had sail for France.’

  ‘Pleased to meet yer’ followed and a couple of brandies were thrust in their hands. For the next few hours George said little as the conversation spok
en in unintelligible prospecting terms flowed with the spirits. Even so, George allowed himself to mellow into the camaraderie of the men. There was talk of the war as two of the prospectors had served in the army, but mostly gossip about the fates of the old hands. But one thing George did note was how Jack would appear to dismiss much of the gossip and hold onto other parts. This was not just a chance to catch up with old mates but an intelligence gathering opportunity.

  By the time they were ready to leave towards mid afternoon, Jack had compiled a list of updates ranging from the current price of native labour to where gold may be found, from who was in the country to the availability of permits from the government men who controlled the territory.

  For the trip back to Sen’s residence George took over the reins. As they passed through the ramshackle town of plain European houses and dusty rutted streets that was Port Moresby, he had noted that he was just a little soberer than his former commanding officer. Jack was sleepy from the effects of the many rounds of strong spirits and mumbled something that attracted George’s attention. The Australian appeared either angry or disturbed. It was a name – something like O’Leary. Whoever O’Leary was he was certainly not a friend to Jack Kelly.

  Recovering from his hangover, Jack rose from beneath his mosquito net and ambled into the tropical garden dressed in shirt and shorts. George and Iris were admiring the splash of brilliantly coloured flowers. Jack smiled. They were like two young lovers in the way they communicated with subtle body movements. But Iris was rather young, Jack realised. George was at least fifteen years her senior and he was the one acting like a lovesick school boy. Loath to intrude upon them, he was about to return to the house when George glanced in his direction.

  ‘Jack! Thought you were dead,’ he greeted warmly. ‘It seemed that the bottle did you more damage than Fritz ever could.’