A Place Called Home (Cannibal Country Trilogy, Book 2)

by Andrew Wareham

  The colonel subsided; from the sitting position he could see through the door to the terminal building, recognised his bags sat outside the front entrance.

  "Why are my cases over there?"

  "How do I know? You must 'ave left them there."

  "I told the man to bring them across and load them into the hold!"

  "They're your bags, mister. You want 'em, you fetch 'em. We don't carry bags for nobody!"

  The colonel ran out of the door and across the tarmac, out of breath at the unwonted exertion. As he did so the steward ordered the steps away and slammed the door and whistled to Hans to taxi.

  It was the sole flight of the afternoon and the two clerks in the terminal closed and locked the doors and left by the back way; they did not like staff officers, either.

  They left the colonel in isolation; they thought he might be jumping up and down in rage. The passengers all showed their faces at the little windows, peering at him. Some of them waved.

  "I say, Lieutenant, will he be left there on his own all night?"

  The speaker was a middle-aged gentleman wearing a suit and tie, very English in his manner. George assumed he was a public servant and fairly senior, but he was polite and deserved an answer.

  "There's three or four mechanics still in the hanger, mate. One of them will give him a lift into town, drop him at the Cairns Hotel overnight. They'll put him on a plane out in the morning. One of the De Havilland Rapides probably, dropping into every airstrip on the York and taking five or six hours to get to Moresby. Half the men here served with ANZAC at the Dardanelles or the Western Front last time and they none of them got any use for staff officers, especially Pommy ones!"

  "Did you note his name, Lieutenant?"

  "He never told me, sir."

  "No doubt I shall discover it. By the way, I am Major-General Wythenshawe, tasked to set up a structure in Port Moresby. I see you are Militia, so I presume you are a resident of the Territory?"

  "Hawkins, sir. My father is a plantation owner on the Gazelle, outside Rabaul since 1914. I am based in Lae at the moment, running a small firm there. I have just left my wife on our station near Cairns."

  "What do you think we should do, Mr Hawkins? Canberra has its ideas, but very little local knowledge."

  George shook his head doubtfully, he was no great strategist.

  "Port Moresby is in the wrong place, sir; whichever direction the Japs come from it's well back from the action. You know what they say, sir - 'the Papuan Gulf is the backside of the Universe, and Port Moresby is half-way up it'. We need a big base down in the Trobes, sir, to command the Coral Sea. The navy will use it and the Air Force will when they get some planes. For the rest? Lots of anti-aircraft. The Buffalo aircraft won't last ten minutes against the stuff the Japs are using in China. Recruit heavily among the locals - they are warriors and will fight anybody for a couple of shillings a week. If you can't make them infantry then put them on as labourers, engineers and road-builders and such. Keep an eye on water supplies - a failed Wet Season and there's drought already in Moresby without adding soldiers to the mix."

  "What of defences?"

  "To sea, you could use some coastal guns, I suppose. They won't be coming from inland - can't be done. They might, just, land down coast from Moresby and hoof it along the lowlands - it could probably be done, but they'd take months and lose half their men. They would have to cut their own roads as they went, there's not even a single-file track most of the way. They would either have to carry all of their own stores or bring 'em along the coast by ship, and the navy should be able to deal with that until they manage to build an airfield down towards the Trobes or right down the Gulf towards the Fly River. That's another reason why you need a base down there."

  Wythenshawe raised an eyebrow, said that he had heard the inland was not so bad as had been originally thought. He had been given a report of a young survivor from an air-crash who had walked out of the inland just a few years previously; a youth of seventeen or so.

  "That was me, sir. Went down on the run from the Bulolo goldfields down to the coast, no more than twenty miles from Salamaua. Took me a week and damned near killed me. I'll show you the scars on me feet, if you want! I was reasonably well kitted out and not carrying a rifle and all of the gear the army dumps on its blokes. I still get guts aches sometimes from the water I had to drink. I was young and strong and born up here, used to it; been in the bush before as well. I only just made it, one more day and I'd have gone down, I reckon."

  "So, a landing at, Salamaua - that was the place mentioned in the reports, certainly - would not open a beachhead for the invasion of Port Moresby from inland?"

  "No."

  "As simple as that?"

  "Fifteen miles of swampland that can be walked through at three miles a day, if you're strong and not carrying too much. You might be able to build a track - you'd need twenty or thirty bridges and you'd never drive a truck across it. Maybe you could get light artillery through, if you were willing to kill a lot of men carrying. Then you've got savannah and valleys - good walking land and easy to make a road - perhaps twenty miles, maybe thirty. Then you get to the mountains, the Owen Stanleys and the Astrolabes, and they've got passes at about six thousand feet. Light planes go through them to get to Lae - you should fly it, then you can see the chances of getting an army across. You might, just, be able to walk the distance, making a track as you go, as there's some upland plateaus if you once get up there, but the foothills are covered in thick bush and they're steep. I reckon I could take a patrol across, but I wouldn't want to try to supply food to an army, especially in the Wet Season."

  "So... no invasion from inland."

  "No, not realistically. You might get light infantry across, but there's only two or three ways down from the bluffs behind Moresby and a battalion could hold them with artillery support, sir."

  "Could you get an army up from Port Moresby to defend inland, or to drive them back if they got to these 'upland plateaus'?"

  "If you've got time and bulldozers and a lot of road-builders - probably, but not easily and you'll never get trucks all the way."

  "So... if they come at all, it will be by sea, you say?"

  "Don't see any other way, although you can always hope they got the same report as you - that way they can kill themselves trying. If they do get inland then you've got problems, especially if they've got the sense to arm up the locals. The Administration won't because they're afraid it would end up like India."

  "In what way?"

  "From what we hear, which admittedly ain't a lot - but we get ships calling in Bombay and places on their way to Sydney - the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force are all building up with their own people. When the war ends they ain't going to give their guns back and kiss the sahib's arses again. She'll be independent within a couple of years - because she's too bloody big to fight against."

  Wythenshawe said nothing - he knew that the politicians in the Indian Congress were calling for their freedom, and that they were going to get it because they could not be stopped.

  "Mr Churchill says that he has not become Prime Minister to preside over the destruction of the Empire."

  "That's his bad luck. He wants to remember that he's never been elected, sir, and probably wouldn't win if he called an Election now. What he wants don't matter too much to people out on this side of the world. It's what the Yanks say that's going to count and they ain't going to fight for the British Empire."

  The general had already discovered that the Australians were none too happy about the progress of the war, particularly with the way that the English were calling their troops to Europe and leaving the home country defenceless.

  "So... what do we need up here to defend us, Lieutenant Hawkins?"

  "Planes and ships, sir. Fast, modern fighters and light and medium bombers, like the Germans use, and small, fast ships that can get into convoys with torpedoes. For the rest, submarines would be useful. All the newspapers have worked tha
t out, sir - I ain't saying anything new."

  They were out over the Papuan Gulf an hour later and George wandered up to the cockpit, had a chat with Hans.

  "No co-pilot, mate?"

  "Short of bodies, George."

  "Good enough. How's the fuel?"

  "Full tanks - I never fly on half up here, just in case Moresby's closed down and I've got to find a strip somewhere else."

  "Good. Take a quick run up the coast to the north and west, will you, mate, then bring her back lowish, couple of thousand, say. I've got a general in back and he ain't never seen what the bush looks like up here."

  Hans nodded - an extra hour mattered little one way or the other, he was not due to fly back till the next morning. He dropped the port wing and turned on a more northerly heading.

  "We're going a bit out of our way, sir, so that you can get a look at the swamps and bush along the coast - it's pretty much the same as up Salamaua way."

  The general started to wonder just who this young man was that he could turn a plane off its official flight-path. Lieutenants did not have that sort of authority; his father must have a degree of power.

  From eight thousand feet it was just possible to pick up the nearer peaks of the Highlands, and as they lost height the foothills and coastal plain showed themselves.

  The general looked down at the tangle, swamp and coastal mangrove showing apparently impenetrable.

  "You walked out of that, Lieutenant?"

  "Only just, sir."

  "Luck or knowledge?"

  "A lot of good fortune sir. I could have been snake or spider bitten and gone down in the first five minutes. I shot one croc that took a chance at me - emptied the pilot's Colt into its head and didn't miss."

  The general nodded - he had a suspicion that the young man was understating his own abilities, but he had no doubt that there was a strong thread of truth in all he was saying.

  "That's swamp inland for what, ten miles?"

  "More in some places, less in others, but there's some pretty much everywhere. Malaria; Dengue; Scrub Typhus - all waiting in there, carried by the mosquitoes and ticks, sir. Dysentery is always a possibility. You never go anywhere without a bottle of kaolin and morphine, sir. Bring in a thousand Diggers from New South Wales and five hundred will be on the sick list inside three months, no matter what you do. Half of those who get sick you've got to evacuate - they won't ever get well up here. Queenslanders will do better because they've got a bit of an immunity, living closer to the wet bush. If you bring in sailors and airmen from England or the States then you will need an awful lot of hospitals, sir."

  The general could accept that - he had been posted to India and to West Africa between the Wars, had some knowledge of the bush and the jungle.

  "What should we do when the Japs come, Lieutenant?"

  "Evacuate, sir, pull back to the Papuan coast. Empty every warehouse, pull out every family, of all sorts, and let the Japs try to make their bases. Then bomb the shit out of them and sink their supply ships and shoot down their transport planes. When they've starved, then move back in and kill the few that remain."

  "Let the country do the killing for us, you say."

  "Just that, sir. They will come in the Dry Season, if they've got any sense, and we'd better assume they have. Their army has been fighting in China for the last ten years and must have learned a lot. They will be too many to stop without a full fleet and air force to back the army. So run, and let them overstretch themselves in hostile country. Sink their supply ships and solve the problem that way. This is a hungry land, sir. The people here were cannibals to a great extent, and you know why, sir? There wasn't no other food to hand! The Japs won't be able to live off the land - the local people can't! Small forces to fall back, doing whatever harm they can to the leading Japanese infantry, and the rest of the army to sit in solid bases back on the Gulf, holding the airfields and ports. When the Wet Season comes the Japs will stop dead, and probably never get going again."

  "What is planned for your battalion in Lae, Lieutenant?"

  "Very little, sir. They don't really believe the Japs will come, and when they do - well, they're only little yellow men and who cares about them? One Digger is worth a dozen Japs, well known fact, sir!"

  Wythenshawe was impressed - he had been told the same in Canberra and had disbelieved it there.

  "What do you plan, Mr Hawkins?"

  "Kill a few as they land in Lae - isolated units if there are any, from ambush. Pull back as they come at us, get out into the hills and then make for the overland track to Bulolo and the goldfields. Destroy the claims there as far as possible and get out with whatever dust there is. Then work either to the coast or, more likely, south and slowly overland to Moresby. Two months, probably. Might get half the lads out."

  "We can do better than that, I would imagine. Make a plan when you return to Lae - if possible to get down the coast to a pick up point. Send it to me in Port Moresby, by name for my eyes."

  For the first time George became hopeful that he might survive.

  Mary returned to the station and the lonely house. She wandered indoors and sat staring at her hands for ten minutes. Then she got up, kicked the nearest chair, swore and marched down to the kitchen.

  "Cooking, Mrs Kelly, Australian style. The cakes and tarts and things you have baked for us. I do not know baking and wish to learn. I can show you Chinese prawns and other things..."

  "Fair exchange, missus! Better than sitting on your backside and weeping. Healthier for the babe, too."

  "I will always have him, at least."

  "You ain't lost George yet, lass."

  Mrs Tse arrived in Cairns two weeks later; sent by her husband and more inclined to accept male authority in her life she had taken a plane obediently, accompanied by a dozen large leather suitcases. Mary, forewarned by letter, met her at the airport, Danny the yard foreman at her side, a happy smile on his face as he greeted the officials at Passport Control. As a woman, and a Chinese at that, Mary would have been greeted by nothing other than obstruction; a weathered Queenslander with the look of a brawler about him was a very useful means of cutting through red tape.

  Another month saw Jutta striding off a Dakota, rigid backed and angry, mostly with herself for being persuaded to leave her home. She slapped her passport down on the counter and silently invited the uniformed little man to say a word; he took a look at her face and chose not to. Customs waved her two bags through.

  "I saw George in Lae, Mary. He is well but says he misses you. He tells you not to worry - the new general in Port Moresby knows something of what he is doing, he says. They have plans now. He knows what he must do when it comes to the end. Herr Ned sent his love."

  A Place Called Home

  Chapter Eight

  Word came through of the attack on Pearl Harbour, of the destruction of the Americans' Pacific Battle Fleet. It was followed by accounts of landings at Hong Kong and then on American islands. After a couple of days news came through that the Japanese had missed the American aircraft carriers. The old-fashioned big-gun sailors bewailed the loss of the battleships; the modernists shrugged them off – it was air power that counted, they said. They argued their cases, and waited to see what would happen.

  Most Australians simply sighed in relief; the Americans were in the War and that meant that the Germans and Japanese were beaten. It would take some years and it would not be easy, but the result was now certain – the biggest, richest, most industrialised country on Earth was in, and angry as well that it had been stabbed in the back.

  The colonel in Lae, a regular in the Australian forces, was inclined to regret the American presence – he was sure that they would not need help to defeat the little yellow fellows and the Americans would serve only to confuse the issue.

  “You just wait, young Hawkins! When the war ends the Yanks will claim that they won it. What do they think England has been doing these last two years?”

  “Losing, sir.”

&nb
sp; The colonel was not impressed.

  “It is the last battle that counts, Lieutenant Hawkins!”

  “Yes, sir. That will be fought mostly with American men, guns, aircraft and ships – they will certainly claim they won that, sir. Germany is a smallish European country, one that was smashed flat in 1918, sir – yet they have taken the whole of Europe and driven England into a corner. It should have been the other way round, sir. England is rotten, sir, and it is nearly dead as a result!”

  The colonel had never heard the like in his whole life – had the young man never heard of the British Empire?

  “I expect you will tell me that is dead as well, Mr Hawkins!”

  “India will be independent as soon as the war ends, sir. With India gone there will be no Empire, just a collection of colonies queuing up to go.”

  “India will never be independent, Mr Hawkins. A little of self-rule will keep those Congress chaps happy.”

  “Like the Irish, I suppose, sir!”

  The colonel gave up; he had no business arguing with foolish junior officers who knew nothing about the wider world. He retreated to the other side of the Mess, to the company of the Regular officers.

  The adjutant, a Regular, Captain Curzon, came in, frowning.

  “Hong Kong’s gone, sir.”

  “Gone? Surrendered?”

  “Came through on the wireless a few minutes ago, sir. A few small ships escaped. Not many from the looks of things. The Americans are in trouble as well, sir, under attack in some of their islands in the mid-Pacific.”

  “That will have to be the end of it – they won’t be able to get any further.”

  “Intelligence reports that there are invasion fleets in readiness, sir. There is a probability, I quote, that there will be attacks on Malaya and the Dutch possessions and then on New Guinea as a precursor to invasion of Australia.”