by Peter Watt
The crack of a pistol caused Lukas to start with such force that he literally felt his heart thump in his chest. It had come from his right and Lukas swivelled his body to meet the threat. As he did so he suddenly felt weak and experienced a dull pain in his chest. I’ve been shot, Lukas thought, the revolver slipping from his hand as the pain overcame him. Slowly, he slumped to his hands and knees on the hot earth. The pistol! I must get my revolver! Fuji had to be close by to have shot him with a pistol. The heavier echo of a rifle shot followed. Sergeant Groves, Lukas thought, searching the undergrowth for his revolver. The single shot was followed by a rapid volley. Lukas could hear the rounds thumping into the trees around him. He also heard Fuji swear in English and the sound of a man scrambling away through the undergrowth.
Lukas found the revolver, snatched it up and lay on his side pointing the gun in the direction he thought the shot that had claimed him came from. If Fuji was about to finish him off he would not go down without a fight. Blood welled in his mouth and he spat a glob. As it trickled down his chin he realised grimly that he was having trouble breathing. Maybe Fuji did not have to come for him, Lukas thought.
Lukas let go of the pistol and rolled on his back to ease the pain. In the blue sky above little powderpuff clouds spotted the heavens. There had been so much to do in his life and now a tiny projectile made in Japan had cut short all plans for the future. Lukas closed his eyes and began to whisper the Lord’s Prayer.
The sudden appearance of the figure to his right had taken Fuji unawares. The Japanese sailor knew the limited range of his pistol and also knew that he would have to wait for the rifle-armed man to get close to him before he could fire. The outflanking manoeuvre by the second man, who had almost stumbled over him, had caused Fuji to snap a shot off.
He was not sure if he had been successful and knew that he would have to relocate after having disclosed his position by firing. He would also have to ensure that he had neutralised the man on his right before he could escape. He began to warily creep forward to where he calculated the ambusher had been. A furious crackle of fire from the rifleman chopped twigs, dirt and leaves into a shower around him. Fuji had a great respect for the penetrating power of the Lee Enfield .303 round and clutched the earth on his belly. Whoever the man with the rifle was he appeared to be experienced in what he was doing. Fuji opted to crawl away, leaving the man who had almost ambushed him to his own devices.
The firing ceased momentarily. Changing magazines, Fuji thought as he continued to make his way through the undergrowth to safety. When he felt he was sufficiently concealed by the bush he rose and ran east, putting precious yards between him and the two men who had attempted to pin him down. Night was not far away and he had to make his rendezvous with Keela – presuming she had been able to steal one of the canoes from her village.
Momis was nervous. He sat behind his beloved .50 calibre machine gun on the deck of the schooner watching the sun slide below the horizon. Masta Lukas had not returned and during the late afternoon the Solomon Islander thought that he had heard gun shots on the breeze.
‘What should we do?’ one of the crew asked.
Momis shook his head. ‘We wait for Masta Lukas to return.’
It was halfway to the middle of the night before Momis left his post to go to the galley and make himself a mug of sweet, black tea. His comrades were above deck, sleeping under the stars and oblivious to the tension Momis felt. A single lantern lit the cabin, its feeble light trapped inside by the curtains drawn over the portholes. ‘No good,’ Momis muttered as he raised the mug to his lips.
They would be the final words he would utter. His world exploded around him as the Independence rose out of the water to break its back and slowly sink in two pieces. The torpedo from the I–47 had found its target and there were no survivors left aboard.
THIRTY-FOUR
It had always been Megan’s worst nightmare that someone she cherished would be brought in on her shift. Her nightmare came true in the early hours of the morning when Lukas Kelly was delivered to the hospital by an army patrol, which had come across Sergeant Groves attempting to bring the critically wounded young skipper back to Port Moresby. Bent over in the saddle of the horse that the police sergeant led on foot, Lukas was barely conscious, his body fighting desperately to keep him alive.
The army doctor was roused from his quarters whilst Megan prepared Lukas for the operating theatre. Lukas recognised her through his pain and attempted a weak smile when he saw her stricken expression. ‘When I get out of here I thought we might go for a picnic down the coast,’ he said with great difficulty and coughed up a glob of dark blood.
‘Don’t speak,’ Megan said, unconsciously gripping his hand in hers as two orderlies placed him gently on the operating table. ‘The doctor is going to be here soon and he is very good. We will talk when you are in the ward recovering.’
Lukas closed his eyes as if that could block the agony and Megan continued to hold his hand, watching his pain-racked face and forcing back the tears. She was a nurse, and this was no time to break down. Later, in the privacy of her nursing quarters, she would have the opportunity to be human again but for now she was a professional with a job to do.
From what she could ascertain from her preliminary examination Lukas had been shot through the right side of his chest. She guessed that the wound had been caused by a low velocity projectile rather than the devastating higher velocity of a rifle round. From the blood on his mouth and the trouble he had breathing, it was obvious that the bullet had at least penetrated his lung. Like his father though, Lukas was tough, and sheer force of will had kept him breathing. Despite everything that said he should die, Megan entertained a small hope that the wound would not be fatal. Only God knew his fate and Megan prayed silently that this man would not be taken from her life.
The doctor arrived in a dishevelled state, having been woken from a deep sleep. Grumpy but efficient he barked out his orders to those present. ‘Sister Cain, you will scrub up and assist me,’ he said, peering at the tiny discoloured spot marking the bullet’s entry in Luke’s side. ‘Where’s the bloody anaesthetist?’ he growled – and as if on cue the anaesthetist arrived, also dragged from his sleep. In a matter of minutes Lukas was ready for theatre, with his fate now in both God’s – and the doctor’s – hands.
Captain Kenshu had come to rue the day he had sworn to sink the Independence. Overhead he could hear the propellers of the Australian frigate on its second run across the submerged submarine. Already the I–47 had taken a terrible concussive pounding from the depth charges bracketing his boat and he suspected that it was the explosion of the torpedo hitting the schooner that had attracted the Australian naval ship to him. Selfish ambition had motivated him to destroy the schooner which he felt was taunting him with its invulnerability against the might of the Japanese navy. Now from its watery grave it seemed that the spirit of the schooner was wreaking revenge against him.
Kenshu stood in the control room, gripping the periscope whilst his crew stared with frightened eyes at him. No matter how much they had been indoctrinated in the ethos of dying for the Emperor, when the time came to face death they were still only human. The captain felt a wave of sympathy for his frightened young crew.
‘We will be safe,’ he said. ‘Soon it will be our turn to go after the Australian ship.’ But his words fell on deaf ears as the next barrage of depth charges drifted down into the dark, tropical waters to explode at pre-timed depths.
The blast of concussive air hammered the hull of the Japanese submarine, stationary at its most extreme depth. There was a hiss of water from a tiny crack and then a sudden blackness as the electrical system failed. One of the crew cried out and Kenshu was glad that he did not know who it was, as he would be compelled by the Emperor’s naval law to punish the man for cowardice. How could he have done that when every nerve in his own body screamed to be away from this terrible place of death?
‘Seaman Horrie,’ Kenshu said in the
total darkness. ‘Get our lights going again.’
A muffled voice acknowledged the order and the boat’s electrician flicked on the torch he always carried, casting a ghostly dim light in the control room.
Kenshu’s young executive officer stood at his elbow. ‘What do we do, sir?’ he asked, attempting to keep his fear under control.
‘We sit it out,’ Kenshu answered. ‘The enemy will have no indication of whether he has sunk us.’ The lights in the control room flickered on and Kenshu muttered praise for his electrician who had performed well under the difficult circumstances. Kenshu could see that his executive officer had an expression of doubt. ‘Either that or we die for the Emperor,’ he added matter-of-factly.
The executive officer was only twenty-three years of age and had a wife and baby daughter living in Nagasaki. He was not convinced that dying for the Emperor was all that good an idea – but he had faith in his captain.
On the surface the Australian frigate made two more passes over the submarine’s suspected position, which it had detected on its sonar. All the depth charges had been used and all the frustrated captain of the frigate could do was radio for assistance.
Kenshu noted the change in the ship’s pattern and suspected that it was his turn to become the attacker.
‘Our torpedo room has sustained too much damage to fire the fish, sir,’ his torpedo officer reported from the bow.
Now it was Kenshu’s turn to feel the frustration. He could surface and possibly use his deck gun to engage the Australian frigate but knew that he would be matched shell for shell. Besides, the American or Australian air forces may have been called on, and on the surface they could blow him out of the water.
‘Prepare to get under way on a course fortyseven degrees east,’ he said softly to the men who navigated. ‘We will return to Rabaul for repairs.’
Kenshu could see the expressions of relief on the faces of his men. His mission to pick up Leading Seaman Komine had failed, the young spy had not answered the lamplight signal to shore. But whatever Fuji’s fate was, it was not as important as the safety of his own boat and crew. They had survived the best the Australian navy could throw at him below the surface of the Papuan Gulf and at least the submarine could be repaired and readied for the great invasion of Port Moresby that he knew must come soon, considering the current naval strategy. It did not take a tactical strategist to understand that the key to denying the Americans their sea routes to Australia lay in the capture of the vital facilities in Port Moresby. When Moresby fell the Australians would be cut off from any American assistance – and that inevitably meant the fall of Australia to Japan.
‘Captain, sir!’ the young sailor manning the rudder control cried out. ‘The boat is not responding. We are diving out of control.’
Kenshu swung on his rudderman. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, knowing the sailor was not really in a position to answer. ‘Get the chief engineer up here now,’ Kenshu bellowed, and even as he issued his order he could feel the slope under his feet become more acute.
‘The forward quarters are flooded,’ someone cried in a panicked voice, and the Japanese submarine commander took a deep breath to steady his taut nerves. The depth charges had caused damage to the hull that had not been immediately recognised. Behind him a tightly strung voice called the depth. ‘Two hundred, two fifty, two seventy-five …’
‘Get the rudders working,’ Kenshu said loudly but calmly. His ashen-faced crew crammed around him in the control room. The dim lighting flickered on and off as somewhere water short-circuited the system. Then the lights went out completely, pitching the submarine into a darkness only found in the grave. ‘Get a torch going,’ Kenshu called in the darkness, and at the same time he heard the creaking, groaning sound that all submariners recognised as the prelude to their deaths: the sound of the metal-skinned hull imploding under the massive weight of water outside. A torch beam illuminated the terrified faces, sweating even in the creeping chill of the control room. The executive officer turned to his captain and bowed from the waist in a last gesture of comradeship. Kenshu knew that they were descending too far and too fast to stop the inevitable. The hiss of water under intense pressure muffled the sound of sailors praying to their ancestors or softly sobbing for those they left behind.
Kenshu returned the salute as the submarine reached a depth guaranteed to crush the boat to twisted metal. His last thought as the hull burst inwards with a rush of cold sea water was that somehow the spirit of the Independence had wreaked its awful revenge. He and his crew would join it at the bottom of the sea.
The stars were rapidly being obscured by the dark clouds billowing in from the sea. There would be a storm, Fuji thought, standing at the edge of a small rocky outcrop being sprayed by the rising waters beating against the shore. From where he stood he had a good view of the mangroves and in the distance he could hear the crump of the exploding depth charges coming from the west. He shuddered. Maybe his escape had been in vain. All he had was a hope that Keela would be successful.
Fuji remained at his vigil throughout the night, fighting off a need to sleep by humming songs popular in Japan before he had left a year earlier. But Keela did not come and the Japanese sailor’s hopes faded. What were his options now? At least he would get some sleep before he made any decisions.
With the sun’s first rays touching the night sky he retreated from the small, rocky promontory to seek a place in the jungle to camp for the day. He knew of a brackish creek behind the mangrove swamp so water was not a problem and he still had a small supply of dried fish and rice. With a sigh, Fuji slipped into the jungle.
Fuji did not know how long he had slept but when he awoke he was not alone. The closely shaved hair of his scalp prickled and very carefully he moved his hand over the pistol under his chest.
‘Fuji!’
The Japanese sailor rolled over, his pistol outstretched to meet the threat. ‘Keela!’ he cried in his utter surprise at seeing the woman he thought he may never see again. ‘How …?’ he did not know what he should ask as she knelt beside him with an expression of utter joy.
‘I had to hide when I stole the boat,’ she said. ‘I knew my people would come looking for me when they found the canoe missing so I pulled it into the trees. Then I saw a ship dropping bombs in the sea and I was afraid to go out again. In the dark I saw my people in their canoes also but they turned back when they saw the big ship dropping bombs in the sea. I walked all night until I came to the place you said we should meet. I could not find you until I began searching the jungle. Then I found you here asleep.’
Fuji sat with the pistol between his legs, shaking his head and grinning at his woman’s initiative. ‘You would have made a good soldier in the Emperor’s army,’ he said, looking up at Keela. ‘Maybe our son will be a great warrior in the service of the Emperor. Well, I will prepare a meal for us and tonight we shall go back for the canoe.’
Keela slumped to her knees beside him. No matter what the future held she did not care as long as she was with her man. Together they would face the sea and sail to the islands beyond her clan’s influence. She would go to Rabaul with Fuji – although he did not know that at the moment. In time she would convince him that they should never be parted again.
THIRTY-FIVE
Under cover of night Keela led Fuji to the hidden canoe, and the small outrigger was launched into a slowly rising swell. Keela had stolen a good supply of yams, cooked pig meat and water contained in gourds. If used sparingly it was enough for three days.
Both rowed at a steady pace until Fuji was able to catch some wind with the single woven sail. Growing up on the edge of the Gulf of Papua he was an experienced sailor and guided the craft skilfully through the rising roll of the waves. The stars were hidden behind a low, dark blanket of clouds but the Japanese sailor had an uncanny sense of direction, navigating in an easterly direction by keeping in sight the Papuan coast on his portside.
Keela proved to be equally adroit as a sailor and
between them they were able to rise with the rolling seas and slide into the troughs without capsizing. Eventually the wind and seas conspired to force the sail down, leaving them with the oars to continue their passage to safety.
Just before dawn Fuji felt that they should make for shore to find a place to hide up for the daylight hours. In this part of the world the Allies had aircraft flying recon missions and at sea – close to the shore – they might be spotted. It was unlikely that a couple of natives in a canoe would attract much interest but he was not about to take any chances. Landing ashore would also give them the opportunity to replenish their store of meagre supplies.
Fuji could not see any lights that might mark a village. Nor could he see what was ahead, so he listened intently for the sound of anything unfamiliar. He knew this part of the coast well and did not expect any trouble landing on the narrow strip of sand. He was tempted to use his torch to see what was ahead but preferred to trust his instincts. The sudden jolt of the canoe coming to a halt, only to be tossed forward on a small wave, told him he had been on the right course.
Fuji leapt from the canoe and began to haul it up the narrow strip of sand to the trees he could vaguely make out in the dark. Keela helped and he marvelled at her strength. But being a native girl she knew what hard labour was.
With the canoe concealed in the underbrush, they slumped exhausted together to sleep. When they awoke in the early hours of the morning Fuji could see that the skies had cleared. It was a good omen and now he would relax with Keela and eat some of their supplies before setting out to find a water source. He knew from past experience that he was on a part of the coast with very few villages and this at least gave him a sense of security.