by Peter Watt
Jack and Lukas spent half the day chatting, renewing their deep bond with one another. The other half of the day was spent in the hotel bar getting blind drunk until an air raid came. They spilled out onto the street to seek a slit trench, which they tumbled into, roaring with drunken laughter in the midst of the earth-shattering explosions around them. It was the only weapon they had to hide their fear of losing each other. When the bombing was over they stumbled back to the wharf to see that their schooner had escaped undamaged. The three were still together despite all the Japanese threw at them.
The following day Jack rediscovered the painful world at the end of a drinking binge. He lay in his bunk listening to the water lapping at the hull of the boat and the irritating, clanking sound of men at work on the wharf. Through the haze of his hangover something started to niggle at Jack’s memory. Not a matter of great importance it was just that the name Stahl rang a bell somewhere. Where had he heard that name before? He groaned and closed his eyes. Stahl, it had something to do with Paul Mann, he remembered, and then promptly forgot to remember anything else lest it tax his brain and cause a worse headache.
It had only been forty-eight hours since Megan had taken up her duties at the hospital and already she had held the hands of two dying young soldiers. Both had been victims of the terrifying bombing raids and their horrific injuries were beyond repair by medical science. In peacetime she was used to witnessing the death of the elderly but in time of war it was the young.
Weary and emotionally drained, Megan found herself in the garden of the hospital. She sat on a bench staring listlessly at a native gardener, the final words of the second young soldier echoing in her head. He had cried for his mother before fading into the grips of death. Why was it that young men did this? She had heard the plea so many times in the last few months.
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ a voice said softly.
‘Wha …?’ Megan snapped from her gloomy thoughts to see Lukas standing awkwardly in the garden, a sprig of bougainvillea in his hand. She had not noticed him enter the hospital garden.
‘You looked so tired and sad,’ Lukas said, passing the flowers to Megan. ‘I thought these might make your day better.’
Megan smiled sadly at the gesture, noticing that in wrenching the small branch from the shrub Lukas had pricked his hand on the thorns. ‘Let me look at your hand,’ she said, placing the flowers on the seat beside her and reaching for Lukas’s hand in her professional way. The cut was not severe but she continued to hold his hand.
Lukas sat down beside Megan, his hand in hers. ‘Looks like you are having a bad day,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Maybe I have the remedy.’
‘And what is that?’ Megan asked.
‘Well, if you can get a little time off – at least be away overnight – I can take you from here to a place of tranquillity, safe from the bombs.’
‘Australia?’ Megan asked with a wry smile.
‘Ah, no, not Australia, but my aunt and uncle’s plantation not too far from here,’ Lukas said. ‘I promised my Aunt Karin that I would check in on their place whenever I got the opportunity. I have a couple of days off before I sail again and thought that you might also like to get away. It is recommended medicine for what seems to be ailing you.’
‘I would like that, Doctor Kelly,’ she said with a smile. ‘I will ask for a day off. The matron here is very nice and I am sure that she will be sympathetic if I promise to do a double shift down the road.’
‘Well, if it is possible we can leave this afternoon,’ Lukas said brightly.
‘I think that is a possibility,’ Megan responded. ‘I have just come off my shift, so I will go see the matron straightaway.’
‘Good,’ Lukas said, reluctantly releasing his hand from Megan’s. ‘I will drop back this arvo to pick you up.’
Megan glanced up at him. ‘Lukas, thank you for the flowers. They mean a lot to me.’
‘Ah, it was nothing,’ he said awkwardly.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Megan replied. ‘You had to spill some of your blood to get them.’
Lukas grinned, waved his hand and walked away with a spring in his step.
That afternoon he returned in an old T-model Ford truck. He had borrowed it from a friend who worked at the harbour, with the promise that he would get his crew to catch a good feed of fish. Megan was waiting in front of the hospital, a small suitcase by her feet. She was wearing a colourful cotton frock and broad-brimmed straw hat. The sight of her made Lukas think of the healthy country girls of Australia’s Outback. He smiled. She was from Australia’s Outback. Leaning over, he opened the passenger side door. ‘Hop in,’he said. ‘We should get to the Mann plantation in a couple of hours.’
Megan threw her suitcase on the back tray of the truck and stepped inside. That he had not stopped the truck, got out and opened her door, did not concern Megan. He was, after all, an Aussie male. But one she was attracted to and the anticipation of getting away from war-ravaged Port Moresby with him was something she knew would be an adventure in itself.
TWENTY-FIVE
A native boy, wearing the traditional lap-lap of his people and carrying a machete, greeted Lukas upon his and Megan’s arrival at the old Mann plantation.
‘Who are you?’ he asked suspiciously in pidgin.
‘Masta Lukas Kelly,’ Lukas answered with a broad grin, recognising the grown up son of Dademo. ‘Don’t you know me, Rabbie?’
The young man stared at Lukas for a brief moment and broke into a broad smile of his own. ‘It is you, Masta Lukas,’ he said. ‘Me think maybe you are dead. Me think you been killed across the sea.’
‘Not dead – just feel that way sometimes. I have come back to look at Masta Paul’s place for him.’
‘I have looked after the masta’s house and trees,’ Rabbie said, puffing out his chest. ‘I don’t let those bush kanakas go near the house.’
Lukas could see that Rabbie was staring at Megan. ‘This is my woman, Missus Megan,’he said by way of introduction.
‘Good to meet you Missus,’ Rabbie said in halting English. ‘Good you be here, Missus. Name belong me, Rabbie.’
‘Good to meet you, Rabbie,’ Megan said, offering her hand in friendship, which Rabbie accepted self-consciously.
Lukas informed Rabbie that he would like to have a look around and the young man led the two up to the house with its tin roof and wide verandahs. He opened the gauze door which squeaked back on its rusty hinges and Lukas and Megan stepped inside the former residence of the Mann family. Although everything had a layer of dust, Lukas was surprised to see that the house and its contents were intact despite the absence of its owners. Rabbie had been telling the truth when he said he had been looking after his former masta’s interests.
‘Place all correct, Masta Lukas,’ Rabbie said in pidgin, and Lukas paid him a compliment on the good job he had done looking after the place.
‘Me and the missus will be all right now,’ Lukas said. ‘We will be leaving in the morning. I have some money for fish if you have any?’ he asked.
‘Me have big fish caught today,’ Rabbie answered. ‘For you, the fish is a gift.’
‘Thank you, Rabbie. I will tell the masta that when he returns he is to give you a raise in your wages for the good job you are doing.’
Rabbie beamed. ‘I will get the fish for you,’ he said, turning to walk out the door.
‘What did you say to Rabbie when you introduced me to him?’ Megan asked suspiciously, taking hold of his arm. ‘I do not speak pidgin but I thought there was something about me being your woman.’
Lukas looked sheepish. ‘I kind of said that you were my missus,’ he replied. ‘It was just a simpler way of explaining your presence here.’
‘Am I?’ Megan asked.
‘Are you what?’ Lukas replied, feigning ignorance.
‘Your woman?’
‘That’s a question that only you know the answer to,’Lukas answered with a warm smile. ‘As for me, I already kno
w how I feel about you.’
‘I think it is time that we went for a swim in that delightful bay I noticed as we drove into the plantation,’ Megan said, evading the line that the conversation was taking. ‘I hope that you brought your swimming trunks because I packed my cossie. So where is my bedroom?’
‘I guess you get my Uncle Paul and Aunt Karin’s room,’ Lukas said. ‘I will show you.’
Lukas led Megan to a large well-ventilated room with a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling over a big double bed. Megan immediately stripped the bed of its musty sheets and rummaged in a tall wardrobe to find a clean set. Lukas left her changing the sheets while he went in search of a few items they would need for the overnight stay.
In a matter of minutes Megan appeared beside him in the living room wearing her one-piece swimsuit and bathing cap. Lukas gave a wolf whistle. He had already changed into a pair of swim shorts. ‘Last one down to the beach has to cook dinner,’he said, allowing Megan to get her foot out the door first.
Neck to neck they raced down to the beach with Megan splashing into the placid warm tropical waters first. ‘You have to cook!’ Megan yelled as she fell back to luxuriate in the cleansing water.
‘I was kind of hoping that,’ Lukas muttered, throwing himself at her. Laughing, she moved quickly away and he splashed face down, missing her altogether. For an hour they larked about like two children on holidays, then swam to a sandbar not far away where they could stand with water to their waists, gazing back at the little beach fringed with coconut trees swaying gently in the late afternoon breeze. It was then that Lukas took Megan in his arms and kissed her. This time she did not resist, returning his passion with her own. They remained in the embrace until Megan suddenly broke away.
‘Race you to the beach,’ she said breathlessly. ‘The loser has to find the kindling for our cooking fire.’
It was Lukas who, as the sun began to set, scrounged around under the grove of coconut trees for the driftwood to make a fire on the beach.
Lukas disappeared for a moment back to the house and returned with a cane basket, an old army blanket and a big coral fish that Rabbie had left in the kitchen for them. Megan had removed her bathing cap and her hair flowed to her shoulders. She had already lit the fire and Lukas, preparing the meal in the traditional way of the coastal people of Papua, placed the fish wrapped in plantain leaves into the colder coals of the fire, along with some yams. From the picnic basket he produced a bottle of red wine. ‘No one seems to drink this froggy stuff,’ he scowled. ‘I would rather have a beer but couldn’t get my hands on any. I just hope that you like plonk.’
Megan stretched like a cat beside the fire. ‘It just so happens that I was brought up on wine,’ she said. ‘My father served in France in the last war and acquired a taste for it. We always had wine with our meals. They were mostly sauternes and hocks.’
‘Well, I don’t think wine drinking will ever catch on in Australia,’ Lukas growled, prying out the cork with some difficulty using a length of fencing wire. The cork finally came out and he poured equal measures into tin mugs. Megan sniffed, then sampled the wine. ‘Not a bad choice for one who professes not to like wine,’ she said.
Lukas took a sip. ‘It could grow on you if you couldn’t get a beer,’ he grudgingly conceded. ‘Well, here’s a toast to this moment lasting forever,’ he said, raising his mug.
‘And to the hope that we are not forced to once again partake of corned beef sandwiches,’ Megan responded, raising her mug and sighing.
‘Not this time,’ Lukas said, kneeling before the fire to poke more wood into the flames. ‘This time you will see just how well a Kelly man can cook.’
‘A surprising feature for a man as rugged as Lukas Kelly,’ Megan said teasingly. ‘I thought you might be a man who feels a woman’s place is barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.’
‘I might have, once,’ Lukas replied. ‘But this war is changing everything. It’s not right that women like you, being virtually in the front line, should be subjected to war without a lot of respect from us men.’
‘Like it or not, we are,’ Megan said. ‘I doubt that all men are as sensitive as you.’
‘Sensitive?’ Lukas asked, glancing at her. ‘What’s sensitive about me?’
‘It is just something that I see in you,’ Megan said dreamily, rising to join Lukas, who was kneeling by the fire. Without a further word she placed her arms around his shoulders and drew his face to hers. This time, having initiated the embrace, she did not break it. Together they lay back against the old army blanket and Megan rolled over onto Lukas. The kiss continued, Megan’s tongue probing his mouth. ‘Are you sure?’he gasped as she lay over him. Megan sat up, straddling his hips, and rolled down her swimsuit, revealing her small but firm breasts. For a moment Lukas thought he was dreaming. He reached up to gently touch her rigid nipples with the tips of his fingers. She continued to undress, struggling from the swimsuit and dropping it beside the fire. No words were needed. Lukas quickly stripped off his shorts and they knelt face to face by the fire. Lukas felt his world reeling as they came together in the act of giving body and soul to each other. Megan’s nails dug deep into Lukas’s back but he scarcely felt their sharpness. He had made love to many other women but for the first time that he could remember, this experience was wonderfully different in a way he could not fully understand. All he knew was that he did not want the moment to end.
Megan suddenly shuddered and fell limply across Lukas’ chest. He held her to him, feeling the sweat from her body mingle with his.
Hours later they were forced to eat corned beef sandwiches again as somehow the fish had been forgotten. Naked on the blanket, they lay back, softly whispering words of love to each other while gazing at the seemingly endless stars.
‘I never dreamed that you felt that way towards me,’ Lukas sighed. ‘You always seemed to be avoiding any attempt I made to show you how I felt.’
‘I have always been attracted to you,’ Megan said. ‘From the very moment I saw you standing on the verandah of the hospital. But I tried to tell myself that nothing could come of it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Lukas said softly.
Megan rolled on her side, pulling gently at the hairs on Lukas’s chest. ‘I am frightened that I will lose you in this war. I have already seen friends lose the ones they loved and I swore that I would wait until the war was over before committing my feelings to any man.’
‘So I caused you to break your oath,’ Lukas teased. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It must have been the wine,’ Megan replied, rolling back beside Lukas to stare at the night sky.
‘You hardly had any before you attacked me,’ Lukas grinned, and Megan straddled him again. Before the sun came to rise over Papua, Lukas Kelly knew he was truly in love.
Paul Mann counted thirty-four bombers high overhead and carefully plotted their bearing. From under the canopy of the rainforest he could see them fill the patch of blue above as slow-moving cruciform in the sky. He knew that they were the Japanese bombers now designated with the Betty name by the Americans, because he had trained himself in aircraft spotting from a chart issued to Irvin Rockman in his coast watching duties.
‘Time to get back to camp,’ he said to Amaiu, who knelt beside him, using his rifle as a prop. The former native policeman, dressed in little else than a pair of shorts and a bandolier of .303 rounds across his chest, stood, stretching his legs. Amaiu was tall and solid for a Tolai man and that, along with his high intelligence, had secured him a position in the colonial police force and made him such an asset to Irvin’s small unit.
Amaiu led the way. Silently the two men cautiously moved along the half-hidden trail back to the base camp where the radio transmitter was located. For weeks now Paul had been with Irvin and his party of coast watchers waiting for news of whether there was a way to evacuate him from the island. When Irvin came down with a bad bout of malaria Paul had automatically assumed the tasks of reporting enemy shipping and
aircraft movements to Allied headquarters in Australia using Irvin’s code name.
The two men had forged a friendship based on being of similar age and both having had experiences as soldiers in the Great War. They knew that their short bursts of radio transmissions would have been noted by Japanese signallers using radio direction finders. They also realised that they would be high on the enemy’s agenda for capture and execution because of their valuable role. Thanks to their work and that of other coast watchers in the Pacific region, the Allies had been able to scramble aircraft to fly out and sink Japanese landing craft filled with troops, thus impairing their military objective of continuing south. It was a holding war, but critical to the overall American strategy of mobilising its vast industry to produce even more munitions. The war that the coast watchers waged was one of the loneliest and most dangerous being fought by any soldiers anywhere at the time. A game of cat and mouse with the numerically larger forces detailed to hunt them.
‘Paul, old cobber,’ Irvin greeted his unofficial colleague when the two men returned to their camp deep in the rainforest. ‘I heard the bastards flying overhead. Did you get any info on them?’
Paul knelt by Irvin, who lay in a hammock strung low between two rainforest giants. ‘How are you feeling, my friend?’ he asked before delivering his report for transmission.
‘Had better days, but I am up to sending any information you might have,’ Irvin replied, hoisting himself unsteadily from the hammock. Paul could see how sweat-stained Irvin’s shirt was and knew that he had probably weathered another bout of high fever followed by chilling sweat.
‘I counted thirty-four Bettys on a bearing of one ninety south at ten forty hours.’