For a while we tried to cut our way through, moving on a rough compass-bearing. It was a scene I shall never forget: a dozen or so natives and two white men hacking like fury in the moonlight at the wall of jungle ahead of them, knee-deep in the slime, swearing, grunting, whimpering occasionally as bare feet encountered the savage thorns of the sago-palms.
When dawn broke we found that our progress had been disappointingly slow. Given time, we could have cut a pathway to the Markham, but we had no food and were near exhaustion. We felt our strength would never be enough to carry us through. After consultation with Kari and Watute we retraced our steps to the main Markham road, which we had crossed a couple of hours earlier. There were a number of prints of the enemy’s well-known black rubber boots, but none seemed to be of recent origin. We followed the road, scouts well out ahead, as far as the old Wawin rest-house, and then turned south down the track up which we had come on our way out – two months ago to the day.
The track showed no footprints, and to judge by the way the grass was growing on it had not been used for some time. All the way to Chivasing we saw no people, and the hamlet halfway was deserted. We were weary, sore-footed and aching all over, but we kept kidding ourselves along with the thought of the cup of tea we would soon be drinking at Kirkland’s, and of the European foods we would eat there. ‘Not far now,’ we would murmur each time we crossed a creek.
The hot Markham sun blazed down on us and the sweat squirted from our bodies. The dust from the dry track rose slowly round our feet, sticking to our wet skins. We did not care. The end was in sight.
By about three o’clock we had reached the large coconut-grove at the edge of the village, and looked up longingly at the cool green nuts. A crowd of Chivasing natives, with the tultul and doctor-boy, appeared suddenly at the other end of the grove and advanced to meet us. Some of them climbed the palms to get green coconuts for us to drink. We sat in the shade and let the cool fluid trickle down our dustfilled throats.
‘Are there any Japanese about?’ we asked at length, our inevitable question, which we hoped would be for the last time. There was a silence. The steaming quietness of the Markham afternoon descended.
‘Are there any Japanese about?’ we repeated sharply.
‘No-got, master! Me-fella no lookim some-fella Japan!’ The answer came readily enough this time.
‘Better make sure,’ Les said. ‘We’ll send Arong into the village to have a look round.’
We called to Arong, who had had a drink, to move into the village. He was wearing no uniform, and there was nothing to mark him out from the Chivasing kanakas, so he would be safe enough even if there were Japanese there. While he was away we tried to make conversation with the natives. They seemed strangely uneasy, but they said they had expected us and had the canoes all ready to take us down to Kirkland’s. We wondered whether we imagined the tension in the atmosphere – whether the long strain now ending had made us oversuspicious. We were cheered when Arong came back a few minutes later with a smile on his face, to say that he had taken a look round the village and that all was as it should be. Then, Arong leading the way, and Les behind him, a few paces ahead of me, we walked into the village. Most of our boys stayed in the grove, still drinking coconut milk.
As we neared the clear space at the centre of the village there was a sudden burst of machine-gun fire and a volley of rifle-shots from one of the houses. Bullets kicked up the dirt all round us. We both made a dash for the creek that runs through the village, and as I jumped down into it there was another burst of fire from the house. Les gave a cry, fell, and lay still. Japanese – there seemed to be dozens of them – then jumped down from the houses and rushed over towards me. I lost my footing and fell into the water, got my clothes and Owen gun tangled in a submerged branch, and finally struggled across the creek and into the bush minus Owen gun and most of my shirt. Bullets were clipping the leaves all round me. I did not go far, but buried myself deep in the mud of a place where the pigs used to wallow, with only my nose showing, and stayed put.
For a few minutes all was quiet, but soon I heard the Japanese calling out to each other, and their feet sucking and squelching in the mud as they searched. I could not see, so I did not know exactly how close they were, but I could feel in my ears the pressure of their feet as they squeezed through the mud. It occurred to me that this was probably an occasion on which one might pray, and indeed was about to start a prayer. Then something stopped me. I said to myself so fiercely that I seemed to be shouting under the mud, ‘To hell with God! If I get out of this bloody mess, I’ll do it by myself!’ It was no doubt a childish sort of pride, but I experienced a rather weary exhilaration that, terrified and abject, lying literally like a pig in the mud, I had not sufficiently abandoned personal integrity to pray for my skin to a God I didn’t really believe in.
I lay there motionless, buried alive in mud and pig-filth, feeling, or imagining, creatures of unspeakable loathsomeness crawling over me in the slime. The voices became fainter and the squelching footsteps died away. I eased my face out, blinked the mud away from my eyes, and carefully pulled some leaves over my head in case the searchers returned.
For half an hour or so there was no sound. Then several natives walked round the outskirts of the village calling out to me. I heard their voices clearly, just a few yards away through the bushes:
‘Master, you come! Japan all ’e go finish!’
I did not move. They continued to call out encouragingly for a quarter of an hour. Then one of them said, apparently to someone near by, ‘’Em ’e no hearim talk belong me-fella. I think ’em ’e go finish long bush.’
The Japanese started talking to each other again after that, having given up hope of capturing me, it seemed, now that the trick had failed. I stayed in the same place until it was nearly dark. The mosquitoes were swarming on my head so thickly, and buzzing so loudly, that I thought they would give away my position. Then I crept out of the mud, wiped the mud off pistol and compass, and began to break bush, moving on a line south and west, which, as I remembered the map, should at last bring me to the bank of the Markham, some distance upstream from Chivasing, more or less opposite the mouth of the Watut River.
In a couple of years packed with bad journeys, that night’s travel is the worst I can remember. Near the village it was essential to move with absolute quietness, no easy matter when the rows of hooked thorns on the vines caught at me continually and one hand was always occupied holding the compass. It was no use trying to free myself from the vines – as fast as one row of barbs was detached another took hold. It was easier, if more painful, to let them tear straight through the flesh. After the bush came the pit-pit – cane-grass eight or nine feet high, growing so thickly as to make a solid wall. It was impossible to part it and walk through it, and I was forced to push it over by leaning on it, and crawl over the top on all fours. It had leaves like razor-blades, which hurt terribly on bare legs; mine were soon dripping with blood from the cuts. Worse, the flattened grass left a trail a blind man could have followed. Though I had my compass handy the grass blocked all view of any object to sight on, and there were no stars, for it was a cloudy night. The two luminous points on the instrument danced and swung before my eyes. Sometimes I had to pause, close my eyes and force my nerves to calmness before I could see properly. Every time I tried to march by sense alone, I found myself going wrong.
Hours later, during one of these pauses, I heard the dull swish of swiftly flowing water. The Markham! I had got there sooner than I expected. It would take every scrap of my energy to swim it, and I removed my clothes, such as they were, and buckled on again the belt which carried revolver, compass and sheath-knife. Then I stumbled forward, heading for the sound of the water. When I reached it I found it was nothing but a small creek flowing down to the river. I nearly cried with rage and disappointment, and decided to go no farther that night, but lay down naked where I was. The mosquitoes were terrible, settling all over my body in swarms, and th
eir bites nearly closed both my eyes. Finally, to escape them, I dragged myself into a shallow puddle of mud at the edge of the stream, and slept there.
*
Shortly before daylight I moved on, weak and stumbling, my heart jumping in the frightening way I had noticed in the mountains. The last few miles were easier, for the pit-pit gave place to kunai, through which one could at least walk upright. At any moment I expected a volley of shots, for the country was flat, and if, after sunrise, the Japs had taken the trouble to post a few men in trees, they could not have failed to see me. I crossed one new track through the grass, which showed many enemy footprints, and reached the Markham about mid-morning. As I looked across its swift brown streams I knew that I was too tired to swim it before I had had a rest, so I crawled into a patch of bush and dozed until about midday. Then I swam as silently as possible from one island to the next, resting for a short while on each one. Every time I touched a log or floating piece of rubbish I was terrified it was a crocodile, and struck out with renewed vigour. I really believe it was this fear, coupled with the expectation of a burst of machine-gun fire from the north bank, that enabled me to make the distance.
On the south bank at last, I lay breathless in a patch of grass. Voices came from not far away. I eased my pistol out of its holster and peered through the grass. Two Chivasing natives, with their women, were walking straight towards me, chattering happily, quite unaware of any alien presence. As soon as they drew level I jumped from cover, shoving the pistol into the ribs of the nearest one. The men trembled, but made no sound, and the women moaned faintly. They were too terrified to shout – apparently they thought I was going to shoot them out of hand.
‘You fella got canoe? ’Em ’e stop where?’
They nodded, and pointed to a spot on the bank nearby. I made them lead me to it and ordered them to take me to Kirkland’s. They were so terrified that I was afraid they would faint, but I jabbed them in the ribs with the pistol and forced them to get aboard.
Although I felt certain in my mind that Les was dead, I did not have positive evidence. I did not want to ask the Chivasing people directly, so I phrased the question in a way which did not reveal my ignorance.
‘What are you going to do with the other white man?’
Their reply snuffed out the lingering spark of hope that Les might be alive.
‘We will bury him in the cemetery at Chivasing,’ one said in pidgin.
‘We will see that he gets a proper funeral,’ added the other man ingratiatingly, as if that would atone in some way for his people’s treacherous share in Les’s death.
The rapid muddy stream was sweeping us down towards Kirkland’s, and I made the natives hug the south bank closely, to keep out of the range of Japanese who might be on the north side. When Kirkland’s came in sight I stood up, waving my arms above my head and cooeeing, and I was shortly answered by a hail from the low kunai hill behind the camp. As the canoe nosed in under the foliage to touch at the landing-place, several Australian soldiers stepped out of the bushes and helped me ashore. Half carried, half supported, I made my way with them to the wretched little huts, and sat down in the mosquitoproof room while they brought me tea and some army biscuits.
Nobody said anything much, and I sat there dully, staring at the swamp. I had no sensation of joy or relief, though I knew in a remote and abstract way that I was now safe. I had no thoughts, no feelings whatsoever. I felt neither grief on account of Les nor anger at the Japanese or Chivasings. Nor did I feel any sense of warmth or companionship towards the soldiers who were now preparing water for me to wash, and giving me articles from their own scanty clothing to cover my nakedness. I was too spent, emotionally, to feel or think or care, and I know now that such a state is the nearest one can come to death – an emptiness of spirit much more deadly than a grievous wound.
After I had been sitting there for a little while, Kari, Watute, Dinkila, Pato and all the other boys limped up to see me. They managed a salute, but I could see they felt as dispirited and weary as I did. They were cut about and tattered, and caked with grey Markham mud that cracked and dropped off in little flakes as the skin stretched beneath it. I shook hands with each one, and they shuffled back to the little hut, where they were crowded together. Kari and Watute remained for a few moments to talk. They had stayed across the river looking for me, they said, and when they found my tracks leading to the river, concluded I would be all right, and floated themselves down to Kirkland’s on logs. Arong, the boy who had entered the village with Les and me, had been captured by the Japs and taken to Lae, Watute added.
Next day a horse was sent down for me, and I rode to Wampit. Here I had a proper hot shower, and willing helpers gathered round with needles and dug dozens of thorns out of my limbs and body. There was no skin at all on my legs, and my feet were so enormously swollen that I thought boots would never fit on them again. Months later, I was still digging out odd thorns that had been overlooked at Wampit.
The following morning I set out on horseback for Bulolo township, which had replaced Wau as the military headquarters of the area. The police and other natives followed on foot, and during the several days which for me were occupied in writing the long report of the patrol they straggled in by twos and threes, still very weary.
After a few days I went to the store to get new clothes. I was wearing a woollen shirt, a pair of ragged green shorts and some old sandshoes, but no hat or socks. All of these had been given me either at Kirkland’s or Wampit.
‘Where’s your pay-book and your other papers?’ demanded the quartermaster.
I explained the fate of my clothes and papers and other possessions.
‘Good God, man, that’s no excuse!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you realise it’s a crime in the Army to lose your pay-book? You can’t be issued with any equipment here without a pay-book.’
I didn’t argue, but let the district officer arrange a new issue of clothing for me. But I started to wonder all over again if wars were really worth the trouble.
The Soldier’s Calvary
Osmar White
When human history was beginning, New Guinea and the islands and seas surrounding it were already a barrier between two worlds. To the north and west were the animals and plants of Asia, and to the south and east were the animals of Australia. There was little interpenetration.
The barrier stood through history, and today still stands. On New Guinea’s narrow beaches the teeming east ends. Its mountains and jungles and rivers are the green armour guarding the empty south.
Osmar White, born in New Zealand in 1909, had knocked around Asia as a journalist before the war and was a natural choice to become an official Australian correspondent in 1942. He was not one to sit around in Port Moresby. White with Damien Parer made the arduous trek to Wau taking a team of porters with supplies to Kanga Force – mainly the 2/5th Independent Company who were among the earliest Australians fighting the Japanese in New Guinea in early 1942. A few months later, with Chester Wilmot and Parer, White was in the dark heart of the front-line on the Kokoda Track at Isurava. He was later badly wounded in the Solomon Islands when the American ship he was aboard was bombed by the Japanese.
Green Armour was written in Australia in 1943 while he recuperated. It was published first as Green Armor in 1944 in New York, and in Australia in 1945, and became an instant classic.
White’s descriptive writing in this and his later books about New Guinea is that of a writer fully engaged with the landscape, the history and the people – which in the case of Green Armour are the soldiers he met on the front-line
*
Wilmot took the radio sound truck as far as the road-head, which had then been pushed out through the fringes of the rubber country almost to the village of Uberi.
There were already signs of the great adventures in military engineering that were, within a few months of this date, to alter fundamentally the haphazard nature of New Guinea campaigning. Road-making in such country was a Homeric u
ndertaking. Bulldozers, scoops, power shovels, graders and rollers were ripping a canyon through the jungle and a wide, deep gutter in the glutinous soil. Thousands of tons of metal, crushed coral, pumice, logs and gravel were poured into the seemingly limitless belly of the road’s foundations. Even so, it was still a river of mud in which every wheeled vehicle but the unconquerable jeep sooner or later stuck fast or skidded into the ditch.
But afternoon rains had been exceptionally light for three or four days, and the sound truck made it. We were spared a 15-mile slog through morass. We had stopped at the native labour compound on the way to pick up three native reject carriers to carry half-loads of Parer’s camera gear. It looked then – and proved later – to have been hardly worth the trouble. They were Pari boys, ruined by tourist and poor missionary influence. The second day out, we kicked their behinds down the trail and carried the gear ourselves. It was a bad thing in principle, but it saved hours of precious time.
*
It did not take me long to realise that carrying a 50-pound load up and down razorbacks demanded quadruple the energy expended in straight, unburdened climbing. We made Uberi after a three-hour scramble over a stiff ridge. The forest was comparatively open and the trail in fair condition. No rain had fallen for nearly a week. The main body of troops had gone through four or five days before. Since then there had been just enough traffic on the drying ground to settle the clay.
The engineers had done considerable work on the old native path already. Before that, travelling had been almost impossible. On one clay slope elements of the 39th Battalion were reported to have taken 17 hours to travel 600 yards. They had to cut their way up the chute as mountaineers would cut a traverse on a snowfield.
Eyewitness Page 22