by Peter Watt
A mere few miles away Ilsa Stahl had finished her first assignment. She had been talking to the soldiers from an American engineers unit working at the Seven Mile airfield, having been granted permission by their commanding officer to obtain their views on the war in the Pacific. The soldiers were taken by her elegant beauty and charming accent, and talked freely of how they missed families, girlfriends and wives back home. Ilsa took down her notes in shorthand while Gene Fay stood to one side, smoking a cigarette and gazing across the airfield shimmering under the heat of the tropical sun. From sandbagged emplacements scattered around the vital air-strip, the long barrels of anti-aircraft guns aimed skyward. Around the adjoining scrub lay the shattered fuselages of airplanes caught on the ground by Japanese fighters and bombers. In the distance the low hills baked in the tropical sun. With any luck he might be reassigned to London where the real war was, Gene thought. Albeit it was a place where bombs were a regular disturbance in the night but it was also still somewhere where you could find a bath and a good bottle of scotch. Port Moresby was the end of the world.
‘I have enough for an article,’ Ilsa said, strolling across the dusty field dressed in baggy trousers and an ill-fitting fatigue shirt.
Gene realised that he was ogling the young woman but so too was the group of men she had just left. She certainly had a fine figure, despite the camouflage uniform she wore.
‘I had a talk with an Aussie contact of mine,’ Gene said, joining Ilsa as she walked towards their car. ‘He’s a police sergeant based in Moresby by the name of Groves who does a bit of liaison with the Aussie army. He said he knew your uncle and his family well.’
Ilsa turned towards the journalist. ‘Does he know where he is?’
‘Sorry,’ Gene said, shaking his head. ‘It seems that your aunt is down Townsville way and your Uncle Paul was assigned to do something over in Rabaul about the same time the Japs hit. No one Sergeant Groves has spoken to knows his fate since then.’
Ilsa’s expression showed her disappointment as the American newspaper man hurried to add, ‘I might have some good news for you on the other guy you asked about, Jack Kelly. The Aussie sergeant said he has seen him around Moresby on sick leave from his unit.’
This time Gene could not read the change of expression of Ilsa’s face. When they reached the car he flicked his cigarette into the dust.
‘Does your police contact know where I might contact him?’ she asked quietly.
‘Sure,’ Gene replied, opening the door to the driver’s side of the car. ‘You came in on his son’s schooner from Finschhafen. It seems that Jack Kelly stays over on the Independence with his son while they are both in Moresby.’
Ilsa gripped the open car door to prevent herself from fainting. Lukas Kelly! She had not known Lukas’ family name when she had been aboard the schooner. Now she was learning that it had been captained by her half-brother!
‘Are you okay?’ Gene asked when he noticed the shocked reaction to his news.
‘Just a little too much sun,’ she said, regaining her composure and slipping into the passenger seat. ‘It is nothing more.’
She sat silently on the short trip back to their tent tucked away from the airfield at the foot of the hills. She was now wondering whether she should even attempt to make contact with her biological father.
Jack Kelly returned to the wharf at twelve thirty in the morning. It was dark and guarded by nervous sentries. ‘Just heading down to the Independence,’ he informed a soldier challenging him. The guard recognised Jack and let him pass.
Jack strolled to where the big cargo ships were silhouetted against the moonless night sky and froze when he stared into the empty space where the Independence had been docked.
‘She sailed about an hour ago,’ the sentry said to Jack when he hurried back to him. ‘I thought you knew.’
Jack shook his head and cursed. So the little bugger thought he could do it on his own, Jack reflected bitterly. ‘Damn you, Lukas!’ he roared. ‘You stupid bugger, you will get yourself killed.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Lukas Kelly did not feel guilty for leaving his father ashore. He knew that he had done the right thing and that his father would return to his unit when his leave was up in Port Moresby. Now Lukas could attempt the rescue of Paul without his father’s life being endangered in what amounted to a near-suicidal mission. He was now better armed, although no real match for the Japanese navy, but at least he had the firepower to take on any Japanese aircraft that should attempt to sink him – so long as they were alone and not in squadron strength.
The sun was just rising and the sea was choppy as Lukas steered the Independence on a course eastward. Momis was at the helm and Lukas pored over his charts of the coastal region east of Port Moresby. Navigating a course was hard enough, let alone having to consider being intercepted by an enemy surface ship.
Ilsa sat in her tent and stared at the canvas wall. Missed him by mere hours, she recriminated herself. The police sergeant had told her that Jack Kelly had been returned to his unit. He had been put aboard a lugger two days after his schooner had sailed from Port Moresby, supposedly to resupply a post down the Papuan coast. The police sergeant could not tell Ilsa exactly where Jack Kelly’s unit was. ‘Just somewhere up around the Bulolo–Wau area.’
So Ilsa started asking questions about her father’s unit. She was establishing contacts – aided by Gene – and heard of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles. From what she could gather it was a strange collection of men who were truly affiliated with Papua: gold miners, plantation owners, public servants and a few adventurous regular army types. It was as if the unit had sprung up like some sporting club to have a go against the Japanese, and from what she could glean from her contacts they were the men most in contact with the enemy’s front lines – tough bush men who had come to consider themselves a match for an enemy most saw as supermen.
She was able to read an order sent to the NGVR from the Australian army headquarters: ‘YOUR TASK IS TO PREVENT ENEMY CROSSING MOUNTAINS.’ The Australian liaison officer, smitten like most men around her, laughed at the order. ‘The poor bastards are outnumbered, suffering from lack of essential medical supplies and weapons, and our government sends them this signal. It’s a bloody joke. Not that you got this from me, but I think they are heroes and the people back home should read about what they are doing collecting intelligence right under the Nips’ noses. And keeping the gate closed on our flank. They are the only ones currently standing between us and the Japs who have landed all along the east coast.’
Ilsa was intrigued by the little bits and pieces she was collecting on the Australian military unit tasked with holding off the whole Japanese army, from their bases in the goldfields high in the mountains west of the ports of Lae and Salamaua, where the Japanese had landed to seize the vital airfields. She was learning more about the mysterious Jack Kelly from men who had known him at different stages of his life: war hero, gold prospector, prosperous gold mine owner, skipper of coastal sailing ships and finally a soldier again. All spoke highly of a man of honour who was good for his word and a handshake.
Ilsa also learned of the tragedy that came to her father with the loss of his American wife, Victoria. It was rumoured that his schooner was almost sunk after being rammed by a Japanese submarine in a time when the two countries were supposed to be at peace.
Her half-brother was also an interesting young man who, it was said, had killed an infamous criminal when he was still in his teens in defence of her Uncle Paul’s family. The more she heard about this side of her biological family, the more she started to understand the impulses of her own life. The man she had long thought was her father had often told her that she was nothing like her mother except in physical appearance. He had said she must have taken naturally after her real father. Ilsa had resented Gerhardt Stahl for saying that she had not taken after him. She still loved and mourned for the man who had risked his life to get her out of Germany. He would always be her real father.
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nbsp; ‘Knock knock,’ Gene said, entering the tent that served as their office. ‘Do I see a pose in pensiveness before me?’ he asked lightly when Ilsa glanced up at him from behind the tiny fold-down table that served as her work desk.
‘I was just thinking how boring reporting from Moresby is,’ she replied. ‘When do we see some real action?’
‘This will do me,’ Gene grunted, searching about for a field chair to sit on. ‘The goddamned Jap air raids are as close as I want to be to this war.’
‘How would I go about getting up to the goldfields around Wau?’ Ilsa asked.
Gene stared at her with a look that questioned her sanity. ‘You don’t,’ he replied, rummaging in his shirt pocket for his crumpled pack of cigarettes. ‘It’s all Aussie stuff and not much interest to readers back home. We are down here to await the great white armada, should it ever arrive in these waters, and then tell the folks back home how we are winning the war. At least here you can still get a cold beer and a hot shower. No doubt the first may not appeal to you as much as the latter.’
‘I would like to write an article on the unit that was responsible for evacuating American missionaries from Finschhafen a few weeks ago. That would be of interest to readers in the US.’
Gene lit a cigarette. ‘I didn’t know that anyone was opposing the Japs,’ he answered.
‘From what I have heard, an Aussie unit called the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles has men out in the bush monitoring Japanese movements on the east coast around Lae and Salamaua. The unit is composed of men recruited locally from Papua and New Guinea.’
‘They sound a bit like our Minute Men from the War of Independence when we fought against the Limeys,’ Gene said. ‘A kind of militia made up of civilian soldiers.’
‘I suppose they are,’ Ilsa conceded. ‘That could be the angle for my story.’
‘They are Aussies though and I know the folks back home wouldn’t even know where Australia is let alone be interested in any story about them. Forget it – besides, you haven’t got a snowball’s hope in hell of getting up there. It’s too rugged and dangerous, and if the Japs don’t get you malaria or starvation will.’
‘But my fath–’ Ilsa checked herself. ‘Maybe you are right,’ she ended and stared out at the shimmering heat. Soon dusk would come and she had been invited to the American engineers’ club for drinks. There she would ask some more questions and possibly find a way up to the front. Ilsa smiled to herself. She was aware of the impact she had on men and knew it gave her the edge in a male-dominated world.
The itch of the sweat under the beard he had let grow upon his return to the NGVR was driving Jack Kelly mad. He knew the slightest move could mean death as the Japanese patrol of ten moved across their front. Lying beside him was Rifleman Andrew Pettit and between them they only had one Webley Scott revolver. The choice had been made to leave rifles behind to allow the two-man observation patrol to creep as close as possible to the airfield now under enemy control. They had lain for three hours, watching the activity around the airfield, counting aircraft types and the number of take-offs and landings. The information would be relayed back to Moresby via radio from a base in the mountains.
The two men considered their hide at the edge of the scrub to be reasonably secure from view but not from any enemy patrol that might get lucky and stumble on them.
Jack could see that the patrol was not at full alert. The men had no doubt been roused from lighter duties at the Lae airfield and sent out on a clearing patrol of the perimeter. They carried their rifles slackly, and had Jack been in command of a better armed fighting patrol he could have easily ambushed and wiped them out.
The Japanese patrol came to a stop a mere ten yards from where Jack and Rifleman Pettit lay under their camouflage of grass and tree branches. Jack could hear them chattering. Rifles lay on the ground at their feet as they sat around wiping sweat from their faces and smoking cigarettes. Jack could see that the senior NCO in command of the patrol had not put out sentries to provide a forward alert system. From what Jack knew of the Japanese strategy it seemed that the enemy was consolidating the Lae area and continuing to stick, in the main, to the roads with motorised patrols. It seemed that the threat of the NGVR in the hills was working. The Japanese did not have enough intelligence about their actual strength and were being cautious. If nothing else, the NGVR had contained the enemy’s forces to the coastal region – at least for the moment.
Very slowly – inch by inch – Jack reached under his neck to scratch the itch. He glanced sideways and could see the fear in the young rifleman’s wide eyes. Jack flashed a broad grin to reassure him. It appeared to work as Andrew Pettit returned the gesture with a weak, sickly grin of his own. He had the revolver and it was pointed at the nearest Japanese soldier only about five yards away. Should they be detected, Pettit would fire at the nearest soldier and both men would leap up and run like hell. It was their only means of surviving.
Ten minutes passed and the patrol continued to sit around chatting, laughing and smoking cigarettes. Ten minutes felt like ten hours to the men watching their enemy from ground level. The itch returned but this time Jack did not attempt to scratch it.
The Japanese soldier nearest them stood, stretched and bent down to pick up his rifle, turning to stare directly at Jack and Andrew’s position. Both men felt the fear grip them. Life had come down to split seconds of decision. The enemy soldier wore glasses but still appeared myopic. Jack knew he was actually staring directly at them and he watched the soldier’s face from under hooded eyes to see if there was any change in his expression.
The NCO in command of the patrol shouted an order and the soldier staring at them turned his head. The rest of the patrol were rising to their feet, picking up weapons. It was obviously time to move and Jack thanked God for the sergeant thinking about getting back to his mess and indulging in a sake drinking session. Maybe he thought the idea of the patrols a bit idiotic, Jack considered as he lay hugging the hot earth, thinking too that no sane man would attempt to creep in this close to his enemy and stake out an observation post in broad daylight. The patrol sauntered away and when they were out of sight Jack let himself take a deep breath.
‘Bloody too close for comfort,’ Andrew whispered. ‘I thought we were goners.’
‘You kept your head,’ Jack replied. ‘I was worried that you might bolt when that Jap was looking in our direction.’
‘I was watching to see what you would do,’ Andrew replied. ‘I figured that you had done something like this in the last war.’
‘Not if I could help it,’ Jack grinned. ‘It’s too bloody dangerous.’
When night fell the two men wriggled from their hide to make their way cautiously on foot back to base along the Markham River. Their report was more valuable to the Australian military than their lives. They were, after all, in the opinion of the Australian government, expendable in these dark and desperate days.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The jungle-covered ridgeline finally levelled off and Paul Mann felt the throbbing in his body ease when Irvin signalled a rest. Collapsing against the buttress roots of a rainforest giant, Paul Mann sucked in air for his tortured lungs. The climb had taken from first light to midday and the torrential rain had turned the route into a river of thin mud, which streamed down to grease every inch of ground. They struggled hand over hand, then as if on cue, the rain ceased as soon as they found the level ground, but only to be replaced by a steaming, water-logged air.
Irvin was on his feet but used his rifle as a crutch to support his weight. He lifted his head and smiled weakly at Paul. ‘Getting too old for this,’ he rasped. ‘A man should be back in Rabaul at the club sipping a gin and tonic and discussing the local cricket selection.’
Kesanarulu moved past Paul to take up position on the trek to their new base of operations. The forward scout cast the German planter a sympathetic look and wondered why old white men would want to be in a young man’s war. In seconds he had disappeared into the
thick green scrub.
‘I was …’ Paul froze mid-sentence when he saw Irvin suddenly raise his hand for silence. Paul slipped his hand to the pistol at his hip and wrapped his hand around its butt.
‘You hear anything?’ Irvin hissed.
Paul could see the former native policeman tense. He shook his head. He could not hear anything except the silence. No bird calls – just the pounding of his heart in his ears.
Then it came. A burst of machine gun fire from the direction Kesanarulu had just gone in, then a strangled scream and the explosion of rifle fire.
‘Japs!’ Irvin shouted.
His men looked about desperately for a place of safety and Paul could hear the excited chatter of a single Japanese voice calling out orders. He guessed it was a Japanese commander redeploying his troops because when the shooting stopped he could hear men crashing through the scrub, pushing along the ridge towards them. Paul knew what he must do.
‘Give me your rifle!’ he screamed at Irvin, who was for a second transfixed by indecision.
Irvin swung on Paul. ‘What?’
‘Give me your rifle and ammo,’ Paul replied, holding out his hand. ‘I will hold them at bay while you get the boys back down off the ridge.’
Irvin appeared confused at Paul’s request. ‘Your bloody rifle and ammo!’ Paul screamed again. Irvin quickly gathered his thoughts, shaking off the confusion. It was obvious what his friend had in mind. ‘C’mon, get out,’ Paul urged. ‘We don’t have time to argue.’
Paul rose from behind the buttress of the tree and strode over to Irvin. The Japanese had already begun probing the undergrowth in front of them with rifle and machine gun fire, the bullets flicking fragments of vegetation down on them. He snatched the rifle from Irvin. ‘Get out of here while I hold them off,’ he shouted at the coast watcher. ‘I will follow you down later.’