Eden

by Peter Watt

  The pilot of the Dakota was leaning out of the window and signalling urgently for Jack to board, having just received word that a flight of Japanese bombers escorted by fighters was reported on its way to Port Moresby. The pilot was eager to be out of the area before they arrived. Already fighter pilots were scrambling to the cockpits of waiting aircraft and the transport pilot knew he only had a minute or two to get his plane off the runway before the fighters needed to be airborne.

  Jack sprinted to the doorway in the fuselage and hauled himself aboard with the help of a crewman just as the car skidded to a halt and a young woman leapt from the driver’s side, frantically waving. From a distance Jack could see that she was young and pretty but he was not in a position to do anything except wave back. Her urgency surprised Jack but whatever she had wanted to see him for would have to wait.

  The pilot revved his engines to roll the plane onto the airstrip ready for take-off. Jack stared out the window and watched the girl standing alone below until the plane banked and took a course south over the Gulf of Papua and away from the war. Jack wondered about the American girl. There was something familiar about her, he puzzled as the plane droned upwards into the rolling bank of clouds which would help hide the transport until it was clear of the area of operations. Buffeted by turbulence, Jack tightened the seat belt across his waist. Stahl, he thought. She was related to the Mann family through marriage, he vaguely remembered. And then he stiffened. Ilsa Stahl! She was possibly Erika’s daughter and now wanted to make contact with him. But why, considering the circumstances of his stormy relationship with her mother? Jack frowned. It could wait until he returned to Moresby, he concluded, and attempted to get some sleep before they put down at Cairns.

  Fuji had cleared the China Strait and within five days of relatively easy sailing reached the southern end of the D’Entrecasteaux Islands. Keela had worked hard with him to paddle when the wind was not in their favour. Although the critical shortage of food was an ongoing problem, the occasional squally weather provided enough fresh water to keep them alive. Their attempts at fishing were not successful however and the sight of land on the horizon was welcome and spurred them on to navigate north-east.

  Fuji was worried for Keela. The rigorous demands of the voyage were taking a toll on her health and she was becoming listless.

  ‘It won’t be long and we will be eating fresh pork,’ he said reassuringly, stroking her cheek with a tenderness he rarely displayed. Keela smiled, taking his hand in her own but not replying. She simply stared with tired eyes and sighed.

  Within a half day the little outrigger canoe slid onto a deserted beach. Fuji helped Keela from the boat and up the beach to a stand of tall coconut trees. He left her to rest in the shade while he struggled with the canoe. He did not know how he would find them fresh supplies but at least he was in a part of the world he knew. He also knew that it could be under Allied control. Slipping the pistol from the bag where he carried his most essential supplies, Fuji checked its action but as it had been cleaned religiously each day, it was in good working order. For now he would let his woman rest whilst he went into the bush to scout out something to eat.

  Fuji hunted all afternoon and was fortunate enough to come across a cuscus in the trees. A wellaimed shot brought down the creature. He had never eaten cuscus meat but he was so hungry he would try anything. With it over his shoulder he made his way back to where he had left Keela and was shocked to find her sitting under the tree, happily chatting to a young native boy of about ten years old.

  Fuji dropped the dead animal and pulled the pistol from the waistband of his lap-lap.

  ‘I have been told that there is a village not far from here,’ Keela said, looking up at Fuji striding towards her with a grim expression on his face. ‘Loko has said that we can go with him to meet his family.’

  Fuji stared at the young boy, who stared back with big brown curious eyes. He had hoped to avoid all contact with the natives in these islands as they may be dealing with the Australian coast watchers.

  ‘Ask him if there are any Japanese soldiers or sailors close by,’ Fuji said, with the pistol at his side.

  Keela asked the boy in his language. Her people had contact with the people in this part of the world and she knew some of their words – enough to ask simple questions.

  ‘He says that there are none of your people near his village, as far as he knows.’

  ‘What about Europeans?’

  Keela asked again and the boy nodded. Yes, there was an Australian coast watcher but he did not know where.

  Fuji signalled to the boy to come to him and the boy understood. He approached warily, eyeing the gun at Fuji’s side.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Keela asked.

  ‘The boy and I are going into the jungle so that he can show me the path to his village,’ Fuji replied, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder and smiling down at him reassuringly.

  Satisfied, Keela did not ask any more questions and watched as Fuji and the boy turned to disappear into the thick undergrowth. She sat back against a tree to rest further and was dozing when she heard the single shot. Starting awake, Keela glanced around to locate Fuji. He was not to be seen, but within the half hour returned.

  ‘Where is the boy? Did he show you the way to his village?’

  Fuji did not answer but walked back to the carcass of the cuscus. ‘We will cook this animal and eat,’ he said without looking her in the eye.

  With dawning horror Keela realised that her man was being evasive. ‘Did you shoot the boy?’ she asked.

  ‘He might have told his people about us and the Australian coast watcher might have been told that we were here,’ Fuji said, slicing open the now stiffening cuscus to remove the entrails.

  ‘He was only a boy,’ Keela gasped accusingly. ‘His mother will miss him. You did not have to kill him.’

  ‘If we are to survive I must do everything to ensure that we reach Rabaul,’ Fuji snarled, continuing to gut the creature. ‘This is war and I am a warrior of the Emperor. I cannot allow my personal feelings to interfere with my sacred mission.’

  Keela rose to her feet. ‘He would not have betrayed us,’ she said, standing unsteadily on her feet facing him. ‘He was my friend.’

  ‘You do not have any friends amongst those who have contact with the Australians,’ Fuji snapped. ‘Now, gather wood for a fire so that we may eat.’

  Keela glared at the man she had considered strong and gentle. Now she only saw a ruthless man, devoid of feelings for those who were helpless. She hated herself for loving the Japanese man whose child she carried but knew – despite what he had done – she would remain with him and so, without a word, turned and went in search of kindling.

  Although the meat gave her strength they both remained silent in the tiny glow of the fire that night. When it came time to sleep, Keela lay beside Fuji without touching him. Fuji stared up at the stars. Killing the boy had given him no pleasure but he could not risk the chance of the boy disclosing their presence on the beach. It had been necessary but Fuji could not help consider how he might have felt if the young boy had been his son and someone had dealt with him so cold-bloodedly. He tried to justify his misgivings with the consideration that he had too long been exposed to the weak European ideals concerning the sanctity of life. At least when Japan had conquered the Pacific such notions of compassion would be eliminated. The Japanese were, after all, the master race.

  Jack Kelly found Sydney had not changed much with the advent of war. He stood yawning on Central Station with his kitbag slung over his shoulder after sitting up all night on the train from Brisbane. He was sick of trains, having spent days travelling down from Cairns. It had been a slow trip as his train had often been side-tracked as trains travelling north with war supplies and troops had priority on the tracks.

  ‘You got here, old chap,’ the man said, hobbling his way down the concrete railway platform with his hand extended. ‘It’s been a bloody long time between drinks.�
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  Jack broke into a broad smile and they shook hands with a firm grip. ‘Good to see you, Tom,’ Jack said to the friend he had known for over twenty years. ‘See you still haven’t grown a new leg.’

  ‘You still haven’t grown up,’ he retorted. ‘What bloody madness made you enlist for a second go when you could be back at home in Australia running the canteens?’

  ‘Home for me, Tom, is Papua, and right now it’s under threat from the Japs.’

  Tom Sullivan nodded. He knew his friend’s great love for that rugged country of head-hunters, cannibals, mountains and impenetrable jungles full of fever. ‘I have a car outside and feel that our first stop should be for a cold beer,’ he said as they made their way to the ticket stand at the exit to the platform.

  To Jack the most discernible change to Sydney was its people. There were so many uniformed men and women in the streets it really seemed as if the city was involved in a war. Also noticeable was the number of smartly dressed American soldiers in their flasher, well-fitting uniforms.

  Tom showed Jack to a shiny black Dodge sedan where an older man sat in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Doing well,’ Jack commented, getting in the back seat with Tom. ‘Got yourself staff.’

  ‘Have been making a bit of money out of the real estate market,’ Tom replied, taking off his hat and fanning himself. Unseasonably sultry hot weather had struck at the end of the Sydney autumn. ‘A lot of good properties have been going for a song since the outbreak of the war with the Japs. Lot of people living on the Harbour are selling up, fearing the Japs are going to come storming through their lounge rooms any day now.’

  ‘The way things are going up north they might be smarter than you for buying them out.’

  ‘A few of my clients have as much faith as I do, in us holding off the Japs now that the Yanks are arriving in force,’ Tom said. ‘So I have been able to turn over the properties at a good profit. You know there is always a job working in my companies if you get any sense and get yourself out of military service. You are getting too old to go running around with the young lads up there.’

  Jack appreciated his old friend’s offer as he too was beginning to recognise that his age was beginning to show in the front lines of such unforgiving country as the Papuan mountains. War was for younger men. His thoughts turned to his own son. Where was Lukas at this moment? Was he safe with the NGVR?

  The driver dropped them at Tom’s favourite pub. He had already told his partners that he was taking the day off and not expecting to return to the office. The two men made their way into the hotel packed with American servicemen, and pushed their way up to the bar where Tom ordered a couple of beers. ‘To the old battalion,’ they muttered and swigged the cold beers, leaving frothy moustaches on their upper lips.

  ‘Tomorrow, Iris will attend my office to sign the papers with you,’ Tom said, wiping the froth from his lip with the back of his coat sleeve. ‘Then both of you will be very rich people judging from the last estimation on Lord Spencer’s estates in England, despite the Poms taxing the hell out of everything for the war effort over there.’

  Jack nodded, sipped his beer and gazed around at the bright young faces of the American servicemen drinking in the cool confines of the hotel. ‘How is Iris?’ he asked, wondering at how young the Americans looked.

  ‘She is good,’ Tom answered. ‘I extended a bit of money from the estate on loan to her at your suggestion so she could secure some decent accommodation. She had nothing else to support them when they arrived in Sydney.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Jack said. ‘I owed that to my old mate, George Spencer.’

  ‘What are you going to do with your share of the money?’Tom asked.

  ‘The first thing I am going to do is buy a boat,’ Jack replied. ‘Preferably a schooner – or even a lugger. Then I am going to sail back to Papua and hand it over to Lukas.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘You are mad. Why would you head back to a place we both know is going to fall to the Japs sooner rather than later?’

  ‘For that very reason,’ Jack answered quietly. ‘It is the only guaranteed ticket I can buy for my son to get out of the place if the proverbial hits the fan.’

  Tom understood now and admired his friend’s logic. He had a daughter who he doted on and knew that he would have done the same had she been in the same situation.

  The two men drank the afternoon away and when it was time to leave, Tom had his driver pick them up and take them to Tom’s fashionable mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour.

  War was profitable for some, Jack thought as he carefully exited the car, ensuring that he did not fall flat on his face.

  ‘Home, old chap,’ Tom said, waving at his newly acquired property. ‘Home is where the heart is–or what a lot of money can buy.’

  At the mention of money Jack realised that within hours he also would be a very wealthy man. His heart though was still in the jungles with his comrades facing the Japs in the hills around Lae. It was strange but he knew that when he returned he would probably die in those same rugged mountains. Whether from disease or enemy action, he would die and all the wealth in the world would mean nothing to him. At least he had made out his will, leaving his half of the fortune to his only heir. Nothing else mattered except that Lukas lived to see out the war and enjoy the fruits of peace.

  The following day Jack met Iris in the waiting room of the offices of Tom’s legal practice in the heart of Sydney. She was dressed smartly and wore a small hat and gloves, the style of her hat seeming to highlight her delicate cheekbones.

  Tom Sullivan ushered them into his office. It had changed since the years when Jack had spent many hours there discussing his legal affairs after becoming wealthy in his own right from the gold he had mined from his claims in New Guinea’s Morobe fields. Once an office of organised chaos, it was now neat without a file in sight: just a shiny desk and expensive cabinets of exotic polished timbers.

  Tom gestured for them to take a chair, each in front of his desk, and retrieved a manila folder crammed with an assortment of papers. He droned through the terms and conditions of the will until finally it was time to sign the most important paper of all – the one transferring the late Lord Spencer’s estate and finances to Iris and Jack.

  ‘It’s only been twenty years,’ Tom said lightly, holding out his hand to Iris and Jack. ‘But you are now both very wealthy people.’

  Wealthy and soon probably dead, Jack thought sadly, taking his friend’s hand. Now it was time for him to return to the war.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Fuji was sure he could hear the distant throbbing of an engine out to sea and instinctively grabbed his pistol, signalling for Keela to move deeper into the trees adjoining the beach, while he moved forward in an attempt to identify the craft now appearing around the corner of land jutting out to sea. It was a landing barge, flying the ensign of the rising sun and filled with Japanese troops.

  ‘Keela,’ he called. ‘We are saved – it’s one of ours!’

  Fuji stepped onto the beach when the barge was only a few hundred yards from him and waved his hands above his head. He was immediately seen by those on the barge and a machine gun was swung on him. ‘I am Japanese,’ he called at the top of his voice, looking nervously at the weapon trained on him. ‘I need help.’

  The barge altered course but the machine gun remained trained on him. The craft chugged into the beach and ten fully kitted Japanese marines spilled out to surround him with a ring of bayonets. Fuji guessed that as he was dressed in nothing more than a native lap-lap he must have cut a suspicious figure to his countrymen.

  A junior officer strode up to him. He wore glasses and at his side was a samurai sword. ‘Who are you?’ he asked and Fuji came to attention to answer.

  ‘I am Leading Seaman Fuji Komine with His Imperial Majesty’s submarine I–47 under the command of Lieutenant Kenshu.’

  The officer was young and from his accent Fuji guessed he was from a noble family.


  ‘Can you prove your identity?’ the young officer asked, and Fuji realised that he did not have any papers.

  ‘I am sorry, sir, but I cannot prove who I am at this very moment. I am sure if you have any means of contacting Lieutenant Kenshu he can verify who I say I am.’

  ‘That will be very difficult, Komine,’ the officer answered in an icy tone, causing Fuji to feel a rising fear that something was wrong. ‘The I–47 is missing, presumed sunk by the enemy and, if that is so, how is it that you are alive and here? My only guess is that you are a deserter since no others have been located. It is therefore my duty to place you under arrest and take you back with us under guard.’

  Fuji felt sick. He and Keela had sailed over three hundred miles through waters heavily patrolled by Allied shipping and aircraft. They had weathered storms, thirst and near starvation in search of his own countrymen, only to be arrested for desertion. It was at that moment that Keela appeared from the bush, thinking that all was well.

  The officer noticed her. ‘Seize that woman,’ he commanded, and two of the soldiers immediately broke from the ring to physically grab hold of the confused pregnant native girl, dragging her struggling towards the officer in command, where they dumped her beside Fuji who still remained at attention.

  ‘Who is this native woman?’ the officer asked Fuji.

  ‘She is my woman, sir. She helped me escape from the Port Moresby district many weeks ago.’ The soldiers were ogling Keela and Fuji’s fear for himself was forgotten. ‘I would beg that she not come to any harm, sir,’ he added, his mouth suddenly dry with fear.