by Peter Ryan
The tultul of Orin, an old friend, greeted us warmly, and the people of the village seemed much better disposed than those of Bawan. There was no house-kiap, but they offered to clear out a couple of their own dwellings for us.
‘I’m against sleeping in the villages now,’ I said to Les. ‘It’s too risky. Even if the kanakas don’t give us away deliberately, the Nips might wander in any time.’
‘Yes – it’s better in every way to keep out in the bush. We won’t compromise the kanakas with the Nips then and to keep themselves in the clear they won’t say anything about us hiding in the bush.’
‘It’s just a question of where to go. Look up there.’ I pointed to the towering mountain which overshadowed Orin.
Les gave a low whistle. ‘Do you reckon we can climb it?’
‘I don’t know, but let’s ask the tultul. I’d like to have a go.’
The tultul was dubious. There was a way up, of course, he said, but it was not easy, and with all our cargo…
‘Come on, tultul,’ we said encouragingly. ‘You show the way, and let us try.’
I have seldom seen a wilder place. We climbed almost eight hundred feet, straight up from the village, mostly over well-nigh vertical sheer rockfaces. In two places we had to pass beneath a torrent of water which drenched us and almost sent us flying into space. When we reached a small level clearing which looked as if it would do for a camp, we flopped to the ground.
‘Fair enough! This will do me for the rest of the war!’ I panted.
‘Me too,’ Les agreed. ‘If the Nips get us here, they’ve earned the scalps.’
The Orin people helped us build two rough shelters out of the large shiny leaves of the wild breadfruit-tree, and we sat down to take careful stock of our situation.
Though safe, it was a miserable spot, for even when the sun came out, which was seldom, it did not penetrate the thick foliage. All next day it poured with rain, and our crude huts leaked badly. Only with difficulty could Dinkila and Tauhu keep a fire alight long enough to make a billy of tea. The rest of our food we ate cold from the tins.
I spent the day wrapped up in blankets, pretending I wasn’t cold, while I read Noel Coward’s autobiography, Present Indicative. Dusk was approaching when I put the book aside. I looked round in the green twilight and marvelled that for a short time I had forgotten my surroundings and been so lost in the picture Coward had painted of the bright footlights and the brilliant uniforms of Cavalcade. Uniforms! What grubby rags Les and I were wearing! What sodden felt hats, without chin-strap, badge, or pugaree! There had been a time when we had both appeared smart and shining on parade, but it was so long ago, and so much had happened in the meantime, that we could hardly remember it. In fact, everything seemed far away and long ago – dry clothes, cleanliness, safety, music, love – everything except green foliage, endless rain that hissed down through the trees, and natives squelching the mud between their bare toes and swearing continually at one another.
The momentary spell of Coward’s stage had gone. I was aware of Watute and Pato standing beside me, legs caked in mud and wet sweaters steaming.
‘Well, what is it?’ I snapped.
They understood that I had not meant to be rude, for they just grinned and said they wanted to talk to me about an idea which had occurred to them. I passed them tobacco, and while they rolled themselves cigarettes Pato spoke for the two of them.
He was a local man, and knew both the Wain and Naba dialects. From remarks overheard in Gewak and Orin villages, he had learnt that the Japanese had put in a supply of food at Samandzing. He had discussed the matter with Watute, and between them they had evolved the theory that the food must be intended for Japanese troops being evacuated from Lae. Pato and Watute thought the party which was supposed to have crossed the range might have been looking for an escape-route.
‘Evacuated? Escape-route? What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Do you think the Japanese are going to give up Lae?’
They shrugged their shoulders. The air raids were getting heavier. No ships could get in with supplies. The submarines could not feed them. It was not for them to say whether the Japs were going to abandon Lae, but it was possible.
(As we discovered later, it was indeed the purpose of some of these Japanese patrols to discover tracks by which troops might be evacuated from Lae, and when the attack by the two Australian divisions came in September, the commanders were surprised at the enemy’s extensive knowledge of the mountain trails, over which a great many of the Jap Lae garrison had made their way to safety. Our generals need not have been so surprised however, for having thought over what Watute and Pato had said it seemed to us more and more likely that they were right, and we therefore passed on the idea, for what it was worth, to headquarters. Apparently they did not think it was worth much, for they did nothing about it. And so the brilliant deductive work of two ‘simple’ natives was wasted.)
The present purpose of Pato and Watute was to visit Samandzing and see whether the information about the dump of food was correct. They would also do what they could to prove the other part of their hypothesis, and generally listen to the gossip around the villages. Pato said that his kinsmen would conceal their presence from the enemy if any Japanese were encountered, and he was sure they would be quite safe.
‘It sounds a good idea to me,’ said Les, who had been listening to the whole discussion intently. ‘What do you think?’
‘I agree. I think they ought to take plenty of trade goods, to buy food and information. I don’t see how it could possibly do any harm, especially since Pato has all the local contacts.’
‘All right, master. Tomorrow long too-light, me-fella go.’ And having announced their intention of leaving at dawn next day, the two elderly warriors moved out through the rain to their own shelter among the trees a few yards away.
During the night I heard several of the boys coughing.
‘Les, are you awake?’ I asked softly, not wishing to arouse him if he should be asleep.
‘Yes. I suppose you’re thinking what I’m thinking? Those coughs…’
‘Yes – they aren’t too good. Several of the men come from warm coastal villages, and aren’t used to this sort of climate at all.’
‘It’s serious for them too. Colds turn to pleurisy or pneumonia so damned quickly.’
‘It’s no wonder, of course – this spot is so dark and damp. We’ll be sick ourselves if we stay too long.’
‘Tell you what. The tultuls of Orin and two other villages are coming up tomorrow. Suppose we go for a walk round this mountain with them and look for a better camp? They ought to know of a decent spot.’
I agreed that we should do this, and to the sound of constant coughing we fell asleep, rain still falling about us and plopping in big drops from time to time upon our beds.
Next morning the tultuls came as expected. We set off at once with them on our quest for a drier and warmer camp. While we were winding our way round a steep, grassy section of the hill overlooking Orin, two of the tultuls gave sudden startled cries and vanished into the bush. We looked at our one remaining tultul, the one from Orin, in astonishment, but he was just as amazed as we were. The mystery was soon solved. From the road below came a rapid succession of rifle
-shots, and buzzing bullets seemed to fill the air round us, clipping through the grass and ricocheting. The three of us hurled ourselves into a narrow watercourse out of sight, and the firing ceased. We sorted ourselves out, and helped the tultul out of the mud. He had been first in, and Les and I had landed on top of him.
‘That was a surprise!’
‘To us, but not to those other two black swine!’ Les snarled. ‘They’ve been as nervous as a couple of cats all morning. They were waiting for it to happen.’
We crept to the edge of the gully and carefully parted the fringe of long kunai-grass which grew on its lip. Down on the track we counted seventeen Japanese, most of them with rifles held ready to let us have it again if we showed ourselves.
‘Oh for a Bren gun!’ Les wailed. ‘We’d get the lot – we couldn’t miss them!’
‘That one with the white topee on must be the officer,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t miss him.’
But our only weapons were Owen guns, and for them the range was so great as to make a hit the merest fluke.
We remained there for some minutes, noting with satisfaction that none of the Japanese made any attempt to come up the hill after us. The tultul drew our attention to a great crowd of native carriers, and a pile of boxes which had been left farther down the road. Apparently this was no shoe-string expedition, but was travelling well equipped. It was clear, too, that the Japanese were having no trouble in getting native carriers.
After perhaps ten minutes the leader put his pistol back in its holster, and we heard him shouting to the natives to pick up their loads. A few moments later the whole procession moved off towards Gewak.
‘Well, they seem to have given us away.’
‘Let’s hope they aren’t going to try and sneak up again tonight. We’d better get back to the camp and see what’s going on there.’
We set off as fast as we could, through the bush and round the steep hillsides, still accompanied by the loyal tultul of Orin.
At the camp we found that Watute and Pato had heard of the enemy’s arrival and had hurried back to warn us. By the time they reached the camp, however, we had gone.
Kari had taken charge of the situation in our absence. The radio had been dismantled and packed into its box, and all our stores hidden in scattered spots in the bush. Each boy was standing to with a rifle or sub-machine-gun, and hand-grenades had been issued all round. We complimented Kari on his efficiency, and then called a council of war with him, Watute, and Pato.
‘Do you think we ought to shift?’ I asked Les.
‘It depends what the Nips are likely to do. We don’t want to credit them with over-confidence. They’re new to these mountains and they won’t feel sure that there are only two of us. The natives will tell them, but they’ll still be pretty suspicious.’
‘They seemed to lose interest in us as soon as we ran away. Do you think you could find out anything about them, Pato, if you went down to the villages? Do you think it would be safe?’
Pato grinned. It would be safe enough for him, he said. He thought if he went down about evening he might even be able to find the Japs himself.
We decided to let Pato go, and that for the present we would stay where we were.
Towards evening we said goodbye to him and wished him luck. After we had radioed our headquarters to tell them what had happened we sat down, with what patience we could, to wait for his return. We dared not light a fire, so we boiled up some coffee on a little tin of solid fuel, and huddled round in blankets, trying to keep warm. We could hear the roar of the waterfall below us, and soon the rain started again. Every hour we changed the sentries, one near the camp at the edge of the cliff, and another about ten minutes’ climb down the hill. As time went on we became more and more nervous. Perhaps Pato had been captured and the Japanese would try to surprise us?
I saw Les peering at the luminous dial of his watch.
‘Two o’clock,’ he muttered. ‘Time drags, doesn’t it?’
‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ I murmured. ‘I almost wish the Nips would show up, to put an end to the waiting.’
I had hardly finished speaking when a grunted challenge from the sentry nearby caught our ear:
‘Who’s ’at ’e walkabout?’
‘Me Pato! You no can shoot!’ came the hurried response. Pato, realizing that the suspense would make us all a bit trigger-happy, was taking no risk of getting bullet by mistake.
We hurried him into the house, wet through, covered with mud, and panting from his rapid climb up the hill, and Dinkila at once prepared a mug of steaming beef-tea for him.
Meanwhile, the whole party of natives crowded into the little hut to hear Pato’s story, muttering excitedly beneath their breaths. It was so dark that as we looked around we could not distinguish any of the boys: only their whispers or movements told us of their presence. We made notes by the faint light of a lantern while Pato talked, and all we could see of him was the flashing whites of his eyes behind a cloud of vapour rising from his mug.
Pato had gone right up to the Japanese patrol, he told us. They were camped in my old house at Bawan, and had a wireless set, a lot of rice, tinned meat, and fish. They also had about ten wooden cases whose contents he could not ascertain or guess at; but when he showed interest in them he thought the officer in charge of the patrol looked at him suspiciously, so he wandered off.
Les and I glanced at each other as Pato calmly related all this. If only that Jap officer had known!
‘Did you find out where they were going?’ I asked.
‘Yes. My cousin in Bawan says they are going to Boana tomorrow, and the next day they will go on the way to Lae.’
‘Do they know anything else about us?’
‘They know it’s your house they are camping in, but they keep asking whether there are only two of you. They don’t seem to believe it.’
‘Thank God for that! I hope they think there’s a hundred of us!’ Les said fervently.
We thanked Pato warmly for his good work, and lay down to sleep for the remaining two or three hours of darkness.
Early next morning we radioed Moresby, asking whether planes could be sent to strafe Boana next day, and suggesting dawn as the best time, in order to catch the enemy party before they set out on the next stage of their journey to Lae. We were told that this would be considered. The following day we would have to move on, in case a special party of Japs should be sent out to hunt us down.
About ten o’clock Watute and I walked back to Bawan, approaching cautiously through the bush for fear the enemy were still about. They had gone, but so had our camp. The house had been burnt, the vegetables dug up, and the whole area fouled.
‘Look at it!’ Watute said disgustedly. ‘The dirtiest kanaka out of the bush isn’t as filthy as that!’
We retraced our steps to Orin and found that Les had already decided upon a place to move to – a village called Kiakum, higher in the mountains of the Naba country.
We went there next day, not following the tolerable track that wound round the edge of the valley, but moving along obscure hunting-trails which ran across the mountains, used by the natives when they hunted possums in the
forest. The path was rough and steep, and not a little dangerous in some places.
Nearing Kiakum we passed several independent homesteads standing alone in little clearings among the tall cane-grass. It was a sign that the people had not acquired the village habit encouraged by the government, but still preferred their own way of life. Obviously these families had never been seen by the patrol officer in peacetime. It was a reflection on the superficial patrolling of the peacetime administration, but not really to be blamed on the officers themselves, who had to work so hard, and cover such enormous distances, that they could not possibly do more than pay fleeting visits to each village. Quite often one would see entered in the village book a remark by a patrol officer to the effect that the people lived in their village only at census-time, and spent the rest of the year in their real homes among the gardens. There was something to be said in favour of the more scattered dwellings: during epidemics infection was not likely to spread so rapidly as when the people lived all crowded together.
The inhabitants of the homesteads that we passed near Kiakum must have thought we would be angry with them for living in this way, for upon our approach they fled into the bush with startled cries. This, again, seemed to be a sign that the administration had not really enjoyed the confidence of the population. How could the natives have much affection for people who came to see them only to inspect things, and probably to complain, or to make investigations when there had been trouble? To them the patrol officer was at best a nuisance who, once or twice a year, stirred up a lot of trouble, had to be carried for, and then disappeared. The system made it humanly impossible for most of the officers to establish any solidly based relationships of real understanding and affection with the remoter settlements. Perhaps the blame, in the final analysis, should be placed on the Australian governments, of whatever political colour, which, before the war, had consistently starved the Territory of funds and forced district administrators to manage on shoe-string budgets. It was the legacy of that sort of patrolling which was now making it difficult for us to have any influence, in any real sense, on the people, though my stay at Bawan had convinced me how ready they were to be friends once an interest was taken in them as individuals and not just as entries in the village book, to be censused and, probably, censured.