Eden

by Peter Watt

  They caught a ferry back to Circular Quay and sat side-by-side on the seats outside the passenger cabin talking about their lives. The conversation came easily, with laughter just as easy. When they stepped off the ferry at the end of the trip Karl realised that he was only a few hours from travelling out of Marie’s life, possibly forever.

  Karl walked Marie back to Tom Sullivan’s office just before the staff streamed out to catch trams and trains home.

  ‘Well, it has been a wonderful day,’ Marie said, extending her hand to his. ‘I wish that you were not going.’

  Karl felt her warm touch. It was almost painful to say goodbye and he vehemently cursed the war to hell. How could it be that a stupid war was keeping any chance of love and happiness from the young? ‘I would like to thank you, Marie,’ he said softly. ‘I hope that we can see each other again, one day.’

  Marie gazed up into his eyes. ‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘Please be careful.’

  Karl nodded. He could no longer bear standing amid the rush hour crowds walking around them and hurrying to their transport to the suburbs. At that moment he would have given everything he had to be one of those civilians if it meant staying in Sydney. With a sad smile, he turned and walked away, leaving Marie standing alone watching his retreating back.

  Soldiers and kitbags, crying women and confused children farewelling loved ones off, stood on the railway platform. Steam from the great locomotive’s coal-burning engine hissed and wreathed its way along the raised concrete siding. Sydney was falling under the influence of night as Karl stood beside his kitbag waiting to go aboard the train.

  Soldiers passing him saluted self-consciously and he returned the gesture absent-mindedly. Only a couple of hours earlier he had been gazing into Marie’s eyes, smelling the sweet perfume of her body and touching her hand. Never before had he felt so alone.

  A whistle blew and a uniformed guard called to the predominantly khaki-clad men, with their slouch hats and rifles over their shoulders, to board. Karl bent down to pick up his kitbag and suddenly heard his name called. He stood up and turned to see Marie hurrying down the platform through the milling crowd of boarding soldiers.

  ‘Karl!’ she called again and threw herself into his arms.

  Karl held her body against his and could feel the pressure of her hips. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘I could not let you go without telling you that I think I am falling in love with you,’ she said and suddenly pulled his head down to hers. The kiss was long and sweet. ‘Come back, mon cheri,’ she gasped. ‘I will miss you.’

  ‘That was the progression I mentioned this afternoon,’ he said with a broad smile on his face as he held her to him and took in the scent of her hair. ‘Kind of makes the going worthwhile so I have a very good reason to return.’

  ‘All aboard,’ echoed down the platform and Karl was aware that his train was about to pull out. He snatched up his kitbag, grabbed Marie one more time and kissed her on the lips, as her arms wound around his neck. A couple of soldiers hanging out of a window cheered them as Karl dashed for the open door of the already moving train. He leapt aboard and waved to Marie, who was now a diminishing figure amongst the tearful women and children left on the platform. ‘I love you,’ he called, but his declaration of love was obliterated by the long, loud tooting of the train’s whistle. Soon, he could see her no more, except in his heart.

  Lieutenant Kenshu called Fuji to the conning tower when the I–47 was on the surface. ‘Leading Seaman Komine,’ he said, staring into the inky night of scudding rain-squall clouds. ‘I have orders to put you ashore to locate and ascertain whether your agent, Krait, is still not compromised.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Fuji responded.

  Kenshu turned his attention to the sailor who had gained a reputation as an outsider amongst a tight-knit crew. Living outside Japan for many years in Papua set him aside as almost a foreigner to the young crew of men who hailed from the home islands of the rising sun. Not that he was held in suspicion by any of them, when it was so apparent that their captain held Komine in high regard for what he had done in the opening days of the war. It was just that Leading Seaman Komine was a taciturn and brooding man who rarely attempted to fit in.

  ‘It is a dangerous mission,’ Kenshu said softly. ‘I have a feeling that counter-intelligence thinks that the man you recruited may have gone over to the enemy, otherwise they would not dare risk my boat in these waters so close to Port Moresby. I just thought that you should know how important the navy feels this mission is.’

  Fuji bowed his head. He had great respect for his captain but had come to detest working in the claustrophobic confines of the smelly submarine’s belly. He missed the smell of the earth and forests. He had often pondered how strange it was that he should consider Papua home more than the islands of Japan, where the snows came in winter to freeze his fingers and toes. There was a rumour that a fleet was being assembled to carry out an invasion of Port Moresby, and Fuji, who rarely prayed to his ancestors, did so, begging that the invasion would take place soon so that he could be posted to Port Moresby to follow the progress of Keela’s pregnancy. The thought of her bearing his child had more of an impact on him than he thought it would, although it still disturbed him that their child would be born mixed race. As much as he had attempted to put the Emperor’s divine mission to conquer the Pacific first, Keela haunted him in those times when he would retreat into gentle memories to escape the realities of life in the submarine. At least there was a chance he might be able to make contact with Keela on this mission.

  ‘You will be armed,’ Kenshu continued. ‘And you must not be taken alive under any circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Fuji replied. The captain’s order went without question. He knew that to be captured and interrogated by the enemy might allow them to locate and destroy the I–47 should he be weak and break under torture. He knew that he was still a mere man and not a god, like the Emperor. ‘Do we know when I will be put ashore?’ was the only question Fuji asked before going below to resume his duties in the engine room. It was bold of the sailor to ask a question without invitation but Fuji sensed that the young captain was also a compassionate man.

  ‘Soon enough,’ was all the captain answered before continuing to scan the dark horizons for any signs of enemy surface ships.

  ‘I feel that the Japanese are growing suspicious of my transmissions,’ Sen said, pacing the garden of his home. ‘Only, it is what you call a hunch.’

  The Australian major standing in the garden with him lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the hazy morning air. Butterflies drifted in and out of the blaze of tropical flowers. Major Colin Shaw was in his fifties and had seen service in the Great War as an officer in Palestine with the Light Horse. In the intervening years he had worked with the New South Wales Police Force where he had risen to be a detective investigating violent crime in Sydney’s back streets. He had also belonged to a militia unit and now both jobs combined to put him in the intelligence service and have him posted to Port Moresby. The free meals in greasy cafés during his police service had added weight to the once hard body and stretched his army uniform more than it should have, but it was his keen brain the army needed in its counter-intelligence war against the enemy, not his body.

  ‘You say you have a hunch about being compromised,’ Major Shaw said, puffing more smoke into the air and watching it drift on a breeze. ‘Then I am prepared to back you. As a copper I often had to trust my feelings about some situations. It’s a kind of instinct we hone from working with some real bad bastards. You have anything you can recall that makes you think the little yellow bastards on the other side are onto you?’

  ‘It is in the tone of my radio contact,’ Sen said slowly, exploring the reason for his concern. ‘Just something in the way he accepts the information I transmit for you.’

  Major Shaw pulled a pained face and scratched his forehead. ‘If I have to close down this operation I don’t know what w
ill happen to you.’

  Sen had already considered the options he faced at the hands of the Australian authorities; he would be of no real use to them once the operation to deceive the Japanese was terminated and would be left facing treason charges – unless they quietly killed him and he was simply listed as a missing person.

  ‘It does not matter what becomes of me,’ he sighed, gazing into blank space. ‘I do not know the fate of my family. My life means little to me now.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Colin Shaw interrupted. ‘Don’t go thinking that we are going to do away with you. We’re not some kind of drongos to do that to a man who has helped us. You might do a bit of time for your activities before coming over to us but I doubt that you will end up hanging.’

  Sen was surprised at the Australian major’s seeming kindness towards him. ‘I would like you to know, Major, that my assistance against the Japanese was willing. I am a man of conviction and the threat to expose my past by the Japanese was the greatest punishment that could be inflicted on me – not the threat of death, as you may think. I was ashamed that I was living a life betraying the people of this country who were my true friends. Now, I would welcome death in the knowledge that I was able to redeem just a little face.’

  Major Shaw was impressed with the Chinese man’s remorse. He prided himself in being able to judge a man’s character from years working the streets and here, he sensed, was a man who was truly contrite and even prepared to go further to redeem himself.

  ‘You know, Mr Sen,’ Major Shaw said, flicking his cigarette butt into the shrubbery, ‘even if we close down your work here I am sure that I could trust you to work for us in some other capacity. You would be a free man but, I will warn you, whatever is ahead will be dangerous and the only reward your redemption. I am sure that we can make any record of your subversive activities disappear. You interested?’

  ‘Major Shaw,’ Sen said sadly, ‘I have nothing to lose except my shame.’

  The Australian officer thrust out his hand in an unexpected gesture. ‘Welcome to my world, Mr Sen,’ he said. ‘Nothing to lose and a war to win. And now, all I have to do is make you disappear in a blaze of glory for the Emperor so that your controllers think that you were killed before you could be compromised. That should convince them that all your transmissions were fair dinkum.’

  Sen knew that once his old identity was destroyed he would rise from the ashes newborn. It would be a new – but dangerous – beginning for him.

  ‘You will be sent back to Australia,’ Major Shaw said formally to Iris as she sat in the living room now being efficiently rid of any semblance of military counter-intelligence operations. Boxes were being filled around them with papers and pencils, tea cups and radio equipment. ‘I will be arranging your transport but you will only be allowed a single suitcase for your personal possessions. Needless to say, you are sworn to absolute secrecy on all that you have seen and heard here. I do not have to elaborate on the penalties for breaking the oath that I am about to have you sign under the Official Secrets Act. I should emphasise that it is well and truly in your interests to comply. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  Iris could not believe her ears. How ironic, she thought. After having her readmission into the country questioned by immigration authorities she was finally going to be sent to Sydney where she would be reunited with her daughter.

  ‘I understand what you are saying, Major,’ Iris replied. ‘I am sure your trust in me will not be misplaced.’

  ‘Good,’ Major Shaw replied gruffly. ‘I also believe that you are in line to inherit a fairly large amount of money.’

  ‘That is true, Major,’ Iris replied with a note of surprise. ‘How did you know about the inheritance?’

  ‘Jack Kelly is an old mate of mine,’ the major finally smiled. ‘He told me to make sure you two were well and truly looked after or he would do something bad to my manhood.’

  Iris warmed to the army officer, who she had first perceived to be a gruff and imposing bully. ‘Did you know Mr Kelly from the Great War?’

  ‘No, I met him in Sydney years ago when he was a big name in business circles. Jack was well known for his work looking after the interests of war widows and the blokes who had served and were looking for work during the Depression. He is one fair dinkum cobber.’

  ‘I have not been told of the fate of my brother-in-law,’ Iris said, changing the subject. ‘I would have liked to say farewell to him and thank him for his hospitality.’

  ‘He is being taken care of,’ the major replied uncomfortably, clearing his throat. ‘You do not have to be alarmed,’ he added when he noticed the concerned expression cloud Iris’s face. ‘He has been taken from here to work elsewhere.’

  Iris had to be satisfied with the explanation as it was clear the major was not about to elaborate.

  Iris quickly packed the very few personal possessions she had and a truck drove her into Port Moresby, where Major Shaw had prearranged passage on a cargo ship returning to Australia.

  She stood sadly on the wharf, clutching her suitcase and staring vacantly at the island in Port Moresby’s bay. When she turned to gaze across to the shore she noticed a scraggly frangipani tree with its creamy, delicate flowers in bloom. It made her sad thinking of the loss in her life of this place that could have been her home.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘You’re going back, Jack, whether you like it or not,’ Captain Michael Higgins said, standing over Jack Kelly, who was lying on his back under a mosquito net on a camp stretcher. The camouflaged post, halfway from the base camp in the mountains to the west of Lae, nestled amongst the damp, dripping foliage, was a long way from any facility that could cope with Jack’s recurring bouts of malaria. His delirious dreams took him into a surreal world inhabited by ghosts and monsters. Even as the commander of the outpost bent over him, Jack shivered uncontrollably in the grips of the deadly illness.

  ‘I can ride this one out, Mick,’ Jack replied through gritted teeth, struggling to raise himself to a sitting position. ‘Couple of days and I will be back on my feet.’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ Captain Higgins said. ‘I am organising for you to be littered down the track and back to Moresby. I can’t afford any man to be laid out so close to the Japs. Jack, you are going, and that’s an order.’

  Jack slumped back on the sweat-drenched blanket. He knew that the young officer – a regular and graduate of the military college of Duntroon in Canberra – had made the same decision that Jack would have made when he had been a company commander in the Great War. He realised that his stubbornness to remain was merely a manifestation of his fierce pride – and his need to prove to himself that he could still stand and fight for his country despite his age. He was into the fifth decade of his life and still a fit man, but age was slowing him down. His body had cried out in agony with every strained muscle and torn ligament. Jack faced the fact that he no longer wanted to fight in another war, he was just too tired. All he wanted to do was go south, collect his inheritance and build that house on the hill overlooking the Tweed River. He would then be able to sit in a little boat fishing for flathead or bream in the magnificent wilderness of lakes adjoining the Tweed.

  Jack Kelly lay on his back, shivering and remembering. The tears flowed – not for himself but for the memory of Victoria, who he missed so much. Not a day passed since her death that he did not think of her and he called her name whenever he was in the grips of the fever. She would not be with him to bask in the serenity of the Tweed Valley’s unspoiled rainforests and drift on the tranquil waterways edged by the mangroves.

  The blackness came once again and Jack drifted back into his fevered dreams whilst a soldier watched over him in the shadows of the jungle hell west of Lae and the enemy.

  Creeping cautiously forward, Fuji gripped the butt of his pistol with a sweaty hand. The drop from the I–47 had gone without incident and Fuji had come ashore alone as he had been ordered to ascertain why Sen had ceased transmitting. Now Fuji crou
ched in the darkness not a hundred yards from Sen’s bungalow. The dark night hid the house from him and he could barely see his own hand in front of his face. The eerie silence worried him. Not a dog barking, he mused, nor the sound of native labourers chatting around a kerosene lamp, chewing betel nut. It was all silent darkness. Knowing that he would have to wait until first light before making his next move to contact Sen, Fuji relaxed. He would snatch a short sleep and allow the touch of dawn to wake him.

  When the first rays of the sun appeared Fuji rubbed the sleep from his eyes and was shocked at what he saw. Where the house once stood was nothing but a burnt-out shell. The storage sheds and any other substantial buildings had also been burned, leaving blackened sheets of corrugated iron on the ground amid the charred timbers that once supported them. He could not see any sign of the native people who had once worked there and the ghostly silence from the night before continued into the day. No wonder Krait had ceased sending messages, Fuji thought. The Australian military had discovered the existence of the radio and either captured or killed the Chinese man. Something did not feel right about that assumption, however. Fuji knew the Australians well enough to know that they would not simply burn down a man’s house just because he was captured or killed. From what Fuji could see, the destruction had been very systematic.

  The I–47 was not scheduled to return for another three days so he had enough time to seek out one who might be able to answer his questions. He might risk discovery and probable death but at least he was home and in a world he knew much better than the land of the rising sun.

  On his first day of being back on Papuan soil Fuji stripped off his naval uniform and changed into a native lap-lap. He used a dye he carried in a bilum to taint his skin colour so he could pass as the offspring of Motu and Chinese parents. His pistol and uniform were buried in a shallow hole not far from the beach where he had first met Keela. He also buried a small canvas bag of essential supplies: a compass, dried fish, rice, a full water bottle as well as extra ammunition.