by Peter Watt
Irvin slipped the bandolier of .303 rounds from over his shoulder and handed it to Paul. ‘Make bloody sure you do,’ he said, taking Paul’s revolver from him in exchange for the Lee Enfield. Without answering, Paul walked back to the flat rising buttress of a tree and placed himself in a firing position behind it as Irvin rallied his men to follow him back down the ridgeline and off the side into the steep, jungle-covered ravine below.
Paul laid the belt of ammunition beside him and flipped open the pockets on the bandolier for ease of reloading. He quickly slipped the sights to minimum range and waited. He did not have to wait long as a bullet smacked the timber beside his cheek, showering him with chips of wood. He could not see the man who had shot at him but nonetheless fired into the dense bush to bring the Japanese advance to a cautious halt while they redeployed to neutralise his position. At least he had bought time for Irvin and his men.
Paul worked the bolt to eject the spent cartridge, reloading and seeking a target. Fortunately he noticed a flash of movement to his right as one of the Japanese attempted to outflank him. The soldier was good, going to ground, Paul thought grimly as he swung his rifle and fired three shots into the area. A strangled yelp of pain gave him satisfaction. A hit.
Sweat poured into Paul’s eyes and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. The bush to his front seemed to explode as two squat Japanese soldiers rushed at the tree with bayonet-fixed rifles. Paul fired point blank, hitting one of his attackers in the chest, but he did not have time to work the rifle bolt and reload so he rose to confront the second soldier. He was vaguely aware of the smell of fish on the man’s breath as the bayonet slid into his stomach. The pain was like fire and his roar of rage a combination of pain and anger. With all his strength he slammed the brass-plated butt of the Lee Enfield into the Japanese soldier’s face, splitting his forehead. His opponent teetered and blood splashed them both as the soldier went down at Paul’s feet, dragging the rifle and bayonet from Paul’s belly.
Paul Mann screamed but his cry was cut off by the hammering of bullets stitching his body from a Nambu machine gun. He crumpled forward over the two dead men at his feet and lay in a strange state. The pain had gone from his body and he knew that he was dying. ‘Karin,’ he whispered as the blood flowed from his wounds. ‘My love, I…’A bullet fired from a few yards away smashed the final words and life from the former German officer. There had not been time for tears as Paul recalled the one person who had loved him without asking anything but his love in return.
The Japanese emerged from the bush warily. Surprised to see the age of the European who had so quickly taken the lives of three of their comrades, they vented their rage by repeatedly stabbing at Paul’s body with their bayonets.
Irvin had heard the short but sharp battle on the ridge while picking his way down into the ravine. He guessed Paul was probably dead by now. The shooting had stopped and the Japanese would rally to pursue him and his party. At least they now had a chance of disappearing in the thick undergrowth and evading their hunters. Paul Mann’s sacrifice was not in vain.
Irvin’s war was one of stealth and cunning. At this he had become very good and by nightfall he had succeeded in losing the Japanese. Within a day he and his men had established a new base in the mountains and transmitted a brief account of the presumed death of the heroic German planter from Papua. Signing off, Irvin reflected on whether those safe in Australia would ever recognise the lonely, unobserved courage of a man who had chosen to put his life on the line with little chance of survival. Holding his head in his hands, Irvin sighed at the futility of it all. Would what any of them did ever be recognised? Not if the Japs won the war, he thought.
Lukas Kelly was only a day’s sailing from the southern end of New Britain when he was relayed the news of Paul Mann’s death over the schooner’s radio. With a heavy heart, the young Australian now abandoned the mission and turned the Independence about, for the return trip to Port Moresby.
Lukas had signalled the Australian authorities of his mission when he had cleared the southern tip of Papua near Milne Bay. It had been in a rough code of his own making, which he knew the receiver would understand if he was a follower of cricket. No doubt any Japanese listening into his frequency would not have long to decode what he had said. But it did not matter. His mere schooner was of little consequence to the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Lukas had been correct in his assumption and the translation was passed on to a Japanese duty officer in Rabual who pigeon-holed the information as low priority. In due time the target list was re-coded and transmitted to Japanese surface ships and submarines working in the waters around the Papuan coast and northern Australia. To all naval commanders who received the signal, the schooner was simply classified as a target of opportunity should they come across it in their patrols.
All, except one. The commander of the I–47 put the schooner at the top of his list. It was a matter of saving face to destroy the Independence. Lieutenant Kenshu plotted the last estimated location of the schooner and guessed its destination. This time he would use a torpedo, despite the cost to the Emperor of deploying such an expensive weapon against a light surface craft.
Part Three
FUJI’S WAR
Early 1942
TWENTY-NINE
The sweet song of a butcher bird warbled from the tall eucalyptus trees close to Karin Mann’s house outside Townsville. The distinctive Queensland-style bungalow built on stilts had been the first property Paul had purchased when they originally reached Australia after the Great War and it had always been their Australian home away from Papua. Karin was sitting on the front verandah shelling peas when she saw the distinctive red bicycle pedalled by a telegram boy from the Post Office. Squinting against the haze of the hot day she saw that the tiny figure at the end of the track leading to her home was cycling towards her house.
‘Angelika,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘The post office boy is coming.’
Angelika wiped her floury hands on her apron and emerged from the kitchen, where she was preparing dough for bread-making. She joined her mother on the verandah and watched the boy approach. Karin gripped Angelika’s wrist as the boy dismounted from the bicycle. He leant it against the fence and walked into the yard. In his hand he held an envelope.
‘You Mrs Mann?’ he asked from the bottom step.
Karin nodded and the boy could see how pale she appeared. He had seen that same pale expression on other women’s faces when he arrived with a telegram.
‘I got a telegram for you,’ he said and walked up the steps to pass it to Karin. Without another word, he turned and walked back to his bicycle; he had two other telegrams to deliver this day and a long way to go.
‘I would rather you open it,’ Karin said to her daughter, who could see how her mother’s hand trembled as she passed the envelope to her.
Angelika reluctantly accepted the telegram and slit open the envelope. Karin watched the expression on her daughter’s face and knew that the message was not good.
‘Is it my darling Paul?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘Yes, Mama,’ Angelika answered, tears welling in her eyes as she dropped the telegram on the verandah. ‘It is about Papa,’ she said with a sob. ‘The telegram says that he was reported missing in action somewhere in New Britain. But he wasn’t even in the war,’ Angelika stumbled back inside the house where she could go to her room and sob.
Stunned, Karin retrieved the telegram and read the terse words from a government official telling her that she no longer had a husband. Missing in action was tantamount to being dead. Why had the telegram been sent by someone in the government when, as far as Karin knew, her husband had nothing to do with the Australian military? He was a German by birth, after all, and thus an enemy alien. For some reason she thought of Jack Kelly, then she shook her head. No, Jack had always promised to keep Paul out of danger. It was not possible that he had anything to do with Paul being MIA.
Karin collapsed onto the chair,
spilling the shelled peas across the verandah. What was worse than knowing that Paul was most probably dead was not knowing how this had all come about. Her beloved husband was supposed to join them in Townsville, not be missing in New Britain.
‘Paul,’ she gasped, the reality of her loss slowly dawning on her. ‘Oh, Karl, not you next,’ she sobbed, knowing that she would not be able to live if another telegram arrived at her little house.
Captain Karl Mann’s posting was to No 7 Infantry Training Centre in the beautiful but rugged national park of Wilsons Promontory in southern Victoria. No one in the military district’s headquarters in Melbourne seemed to know much about the infantry training centre’s activities when he asked around.
As soon as Karl was trucked to his new assignment he was acutely aware this was not a standard infantry school. The security was tight and when they drove in he immediately noticed the establishment had few soldiers. Those he saw appeared in all sorts of strange dress and carried a variety of unusual weapons. The men themselves had a hard, confident look about them, and the training school was not laid out in the orthodox manner. There was definitely a very secretive air about the whole place, accentuated by a series of explosive blasts echoing from the thick scrub not far from where he had been dropped by his driver.
‘Captain Mann?’ a soldier asked after popping out from a tent with its sides up to catch the cold air. ‘The boss will see you straightaway.’
Karl noticed that the soldier did not salute him as protocol dictated but he had enough sense to ignore the infraction of rules.
‘Thank you,’ Karl replied, hefting his kitbag over his shoulder to follow the soldier to a tent at the edge of the scrubby bush. Karl stood at the entrance until a voice bade him enter. He stepped inside and blinked in disbelief. The face that greeted him was all too familiar but certainly out of place in Australia.
Karl immediately saluted.
‘Ah, congratulations on your promotion and gong,’ Captain Featherstone said with a broad smile. ‘Good to see that you accepted our invitation to join us.’
A little dazed, Karl accepted his handshake. ‘I am kind of surprised to see you in our part of the world, sir,’ he said. ‘I thought that you were returning to London.’
‘Have a seat, old chap,’ Featherstone said, indicating a fold-out army-issue canvas chair. ‘Smoke if you wish. We have a lot to talk about.’
Karl guessed that the British SOE man was not about to go into any discussion on why he was in Australia. And Karl was not about to ask him.
‘I must say that it is good to renew an old and respected acquaintance,’ Featherstone continued, lighting up a cigarette and taking a seat opposite Karl. ‘As you have probably noticed already, this is not actually an infantry training unit. The name is just to divert any unwanted interest from our friends on the other side. It is a commando training unit established to train you Aussies in a new kind of warfare. Well, old to us, but new to you chaps. We call it guerrilla warfare and it takes a very special kind of chap to fight that kind of war. In my opinion, knowledge of guerilla warfare is going to be invaluable in the years after the war. I am not able to convince all my colleagues of this as they cannot see how the Japs have destabilised the Far East with their idea of the Greater East Asiatic Co-Prosperity Sphere. I suspect that when we eventually drive the sons of the Emperor back to Japan they will leave in their wake armies of nationalist guerrillas to resist our return to our former territories of Malaya and the Pacific. Our armies will require men with the expertise you will learn here as a commando.’
‘You really think that we will win this war?’ Karl asked with an edge of cynicism.
Featherstone looked at Karl as one would a child. ‘Of course we will win. We have the industrial might of the USA on side now and our intelligence sources tell us that even Admiral Yamamoto, who carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor, has advised the Emperor that he can only promise that he will win the opening battles but not the war against our American cousins. I personally met Yamamoto whilst he and I were in the States on attaché duties back in the 1930s. Good poker player and an expert on oil supplies. As I remember he was a good chap on the wrong side. You know, the Yanks were so impressed with him that some of their oil companies actually approached him to leave the Imperial navy and go and work for them in the American oil industry. Needless to say he declined, but that says a lot for the dedication of the man to his country. But we are digressing from the topic of your role with us in the future,’ the British naval officer continued. ‘I think that you are made of the right stuff to have a future in your army after the war.’
Karl was rather surprised at the patronage he sensed that he was being given by the British, given he was the son of their former enemy and a colonial to boot. ‘I was not thinking about a career in the army,’ Karl replied. ‘When this bloody war is over I hope to return to my old job as a patrol officer in Papua and New Guinea.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Featherstone answered. ‘That is why I think you are just the man to deliver a talk to the lads here tonight.’ Karl raised his eyebrows. ‘Your experience is quite considerable in that part of the world and we are deploying a company or two there. A highly trained small force up against the Japs will help slow them down. As a matter of fact they will be working alongside the NGVR and I believe you have a couple of friends serving with them – a Sergeant Jack Kelly and his son, Rifleman Lukas Kelly.’
Karl was stunned. Lukas serving in the army? Karl knew from his mother’s letters that his best friend was not medically fit to do so, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Jack probably had something to do with bending rules. ‘If qualifying as a commando gets me back to Papua, then I am in, sir,’ Karl said.
‘Good man,’ Featherstone said. ‘As our rather enthusiastic Captain Calvert says, he will teach you to blow up everything from bridges to brigadiers. You will learn how to kill with your hands, live off the land, use every type of weapon available and escape from the enemy if captured. You will become the new kind of warrior for a new kind of war.’
Six weeks later Captain Karl Mann marched out of the No 7 Infantry Training Centre a much fitter man with a new range of deadly skills. His training had been more gruelling physically and psychologically than he had ever imagined. As promised, Karl learned new deadly skills of hunting and killing the enemies of the King. He proved to be one of the top students and gained the respect from all ranks for his demonstrated abilities in commando warfare.
Karl did not see the enigmatic British SOE man after the first week of training. He disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived in Australia but somehow Karl knew that he would again meet this man who had taken so much interest in his life. At times Karl suspected that his destiny was being guided by faceless men working out of offices in London and Canberra, and whatever they had planned for him was unknown. For now he would be returning home to fight a guerrilla war against a tough and relentless enemy in the jungles of Papua and New Guinea. All he had to concern himself with was just staying alive.
When Karl reported to army HQ in Melbourne he was taken aside and informed of his father’s death in the Pacific Islands. He was given no other facts as to why or specifically where, only told his death had occurred on the island of New Britain. But now Karl had a personal reason to wage his war against his new enemy, the Japanese.
At sea Lukas Kelly sometimes found it hard to comprehend that he was in a war zone. And on such a day as this, as Lukas stood at the helm, guiding his schooner south with a gentle nor-easterly in his sails, pushing his ship through gentle seas of frolicking dolphins gliding on the wake of his bow, he found it especially difficult to believe his country was at war.
Only Momis sitting cross-legged at the bow cleaning his beloved .50 cal machine gun reminded him of the conflict that was always ready to intrude into this peaceful world of blue seas and even bluer skies.
The loss of his much loved Uncle Paul weighed most heavily on Lukas during the nights when he was at the helm. On
such nights he could reflect on his life and the people he loved. His father, for instance, should have been retired but the war had forced him back into service as a soldier in the NGVR. When Lukas was in a reflective mood the gentle memories of his precious time with Megan at the Mann plantation came to him. Just thinking of her smile and kiss alleviated the stress of skippering the Independence in enemy-patrolled waters. She had a way of gently growing on a man, he thought with a warm feeling.
‘Radio fella call you, Masta Lukas,’ one of the crew called up from the hatchway.
‘Take the helm,’ Lukas called back and the Solomon Islander clambered on deck to steer the big schooner.
Lukas went below, placed the headphones over his head and clicked the button to respond to his code name. The message transmitted across the waves from a radio operating out of Port Moresby ascertained his latitude and longitude. Lukas had calculated that he was about twelve hours sailing from Port Moresby just off the Papuan coast.
‘Stand by, Independence,’ the voice replied. Lukas sat patiently in front of the radio as a long silence followed.
‘Calling Independence, over,’ the disembodied voice finally broke the silence.
‘Independence, over,’ Lukas said into the mike.
‘Independence, you are to continue your current course and investigate possible enemy activity at loc able charlie. I repeat, loc able charlie, niner.’
‘Roger, loc able charlie, niner,’ Lukas confirmed.
The Moresby operator signed off as did Lukas. Transmissions were kept short to avoid interception and fixing by Japanese radio monitors scanning Allied frequencies. Lukas took the headphones off and placed them on the table. He did not have to record the code for the pre-assigned area of operations as he was already familiar with it from past visits. He swore softly. The area of operations was near his father’s friend Kwong Yu Sen’s house. What did the Chinese man have to do with this?