Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  There’s plenty of dry wood lying around and I gather an armful and cut two long green twigs. I build the fire and bend the twigs, on either side of the fire, so that the points are pushed into the ground. ‘Take your gear off, I’ll dry it,’ I say to Tommy and start to undress. Tommy hands me his wet clobber.

  I never cease to be astonished at Tommy’s body, his shoulder is sort of crushed in and one arm is thin as a stick and he’s sort of a bit lopsided and thin as a rake. If you look at him in the nude, you’d think he was a broken man but he can go all day and walk the legs off any of us. I think I should wash the bloodstains and the dirt out but I know Tommy wouldn’t want me to do that, he’d think I was demeaning myself. Instead, I drape both our gear over the looped sticks to dry and set the billy to boil.

  So there’s Tommy and me having a cup of tea, sitting up to our necks in hot water, letting all the aches and pains flow out of us. After a while Tommy clears his throat, ‘I guess you know some part of it, eh?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Malaya?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Singapore?’

  ‘Only the poem you told us which says it was like a fortress that couldn’t be took, only the Japs captured it in a week.’ It’s not strictly true, I know a bit more, but I want to hear Tommy’s version, the way a bloke who was there would say it.

  ‘Singapore don’t make sense unless you know what happened before, what happened in Malaya.’ Now Tommy laughs. ‘Only the bloody Poms! They’ve got this idea that no army can cross Malaya. The jungle’s too dense, the swamps too deep, it’s what they maintain all along. They should know, they tell everyone, they’ve been in Malaya for donkey’s years, planting rubber and running the show, they know it inside out. Can’t tell them nothing.

  ‘The suggestion is that if the Brits can’t do it, march an army from the north to south, no bastard can. Simple as that. So they prepare Singapore with their big guns armed with armour-piercing shells to be used against invading warships. Only problem was, the Japs took no notice and decide to come overland instead, ride in on bicycles down from the north of Malaya, down the pensinula to the southern tip.

  ‘The intelligence coming through from Malaya says that’s what the Japanese plan to do, Thailand has given them permission to march across its territory. Bullshit, says the British High Command, we’re not stupid enough to fall for that old trick, nobody can get through that jungle.

  ‘Later when we are on Singapore Island, the Brits shell Malaya. We hear the shells passing over, even saw one or two, but being armour-piercing when they landed in Johore they didn’t detonate. Right idea, wrong shells, another Pommie fuck-up.’

  ‘Dad, I want to know everything!’ I burst out suddenly,

  ‘Everything that happened, don’t leave nothing out!’ I tell myself even if it’s stuff that’s a bit technically wrong but is what the ordinary soldiers believed was happening, that’s okay. I also know that Tommy’s telling it from the Australians’ side and that he might be a bit one-eyed.

  ‘Tell you the truth, I’m whacked, mate,’ he says. ‘Been a long day. What say I’ll tell you about Malaya, then you make us a bite of bunny stew and we’ll have a few hours’ kip and then I’ll carry on with the rest?’

  We sit in the pool nearly an hour as Tommy tells me the story of his battalion, the 2/19th, and how they fought in Malaya.

  The fire has burned down to embers when we get back from the hot pool and our clobber is dry again. We dress and I set about making rabbit stew. But first I cut two sticks that branch into a Y and put them in the ground either side of the embers, then run a long stick through one of the rabbits and place it on this bush spit to roast. I take the other rabbit and cut it up for stew with a bit of salt and the two carrots I’ve brought. One rabbit isn’t going to make much of a stew, but I reckon we’ll have a little less to eat tonight and save the other rabbit roasted. We’ll need to eat tomorrow night as well and there’ll be nothing to be taken off the land until then.

  We wash down the stew with another mug of billy tea and it can’t be much later than about half-past seven when, after building up the fire so it will last until about midnight, I crawl into my sleeping bag.

  There’s still a little light coming through because of the missing canopy to the massive old tree. That’s the thing with truly old trees, after about three hundred years they lose most of their canopy, I guess it’s a tree’s version of going bald. Anyway the birds have all shut up and the frogs have now took to croaking and I reckon I’ll be dead to the world in a matter of minutes. But not before I’ve made Tommy promise to wake me at midnight to go on with the story.

  However, tired as I am, I can’t go to sleep. What Tommy’s told me sitting in the hot pool is working itself out in my memory. I hear his voice, the way he says things, going on and on in my head like it’s a record playing back to me. I suppose I’ve waited so long that my mind doesn’t want to lose a single detail, even though I know a fair bit about Singapore and even Changi, because that’s history you can read and Mrs Botherington has let me take books about it out of the library.

  I tell myself, history is one thing, telling’s another. Tommy was there and he saw it like an ordinary bloke sees things and not like the writers who write it from the general perspective or like the generals in their memoirs, who want to cover their arses and come out smelling of roses.

  So there it is, Tommy’s voice. ‘Mate, Singapore was a complete shambles, a stuff-up that you wouldn’t believe unless you were there yourself. I heard tell about a wireless broadcast from one of the Pommie military big shots to the civilian population that happened before we get there. He’s said we might get attacked from the air by day, but the antiaircraft guns were strategically placed to give the Nips hell if they tried, but not to worry about night attacks, because the Japanese pilots all suffer from poor eyesight and it is a fact that the Japanese can’t see in the dark.’ Tommy chuck les, ‘Maybe they didn’t eat raw carrots like we did when we were kids, eh?’

  I laugh as well, I don’t know if it’s a true story, but I’ve heard it before, maybe read it somewhere. ‘Must have been the same bloke fired the shells that wouldn’t detonate.’

  ‘Could’ve been, though there weren’t that many in top command had a bloody clue. Too many gin slings before curry tiffin at the Singapore Club, I reckon.

  ‘Well, the Japs weren’t taking no notice of what they were supposed to do and at last the blokes in command realise that we’ve got a very likely invasion on our hands, jungle or no jungle. So, we’re sitting there waiting for the Japs to get in among us, there’s not even a roll of barbed wire on the island to stop them. We’ve been fighting in Malaya, back-pedalling all the way, thinking that once we get to Singapore they’ll have had time to get ready and the defences will be in place and we can stand and fight for a change. Not a sausage, mate. They done bugger-all!

  ‘General Wavell, who’s in command of all the troops from Burma to the Philippines, and that includes us and the Americans, the Dutch and the British, goes over to Singapore to take a look-see. He finds there’s no defences anywhere.

  ‘“Where’s the defences?” he asks General Percival.

  ‘“We ain’t got none,” Percival replies.

  ‘“What do you mean you ain’t got none? Fucking Japs are on the way!” Wavell shouts.

  ‘“Yeah, well, we thought it would be bad for civilian morale if we started building bunkers and stuff,” says General Percival.’

  I guess that’s Tommy’s version of the conversation between Wavell and Percival, but I reckon it amounts to the same thing. The English generals may have said it more posh but the records show that Percival did say he thought it would be bad for civilian morale when Wavell questioned him about the lack of defences. The point is they’ve been sitting on their arses in Singapore, spouting about the impenetrable virgin jungle being the natural enemy the Japs ca
n’t defeat and suddenly the Japs are knocking on the back door.

  Tommy continues, ‘We expect to see these massive concrete fortifications, anti-tank traps, pillboxes and weapons pits. Gawd knows they’ve had all the time in the world to construct them. There’s nothing! Sweet Fanny Adams! Like I said, not even a strand of barbed wire.

  ‘Our own general, Gordon Bennett, is a pretty good bloke and we’re happy with his leadership but there’s bugger-all he can do. He’s under the direction of General Percival of the low-morale quip and also General Wavell, who finds himself retreating fast as his troops can go.

  ‘The Brits have been fighting in Malaya long before us, starting right up in the far north at Jitra and Kota Bahru when the Japs first landed. I don’t know that much about their part, except I heard how at Kota Bahru way up north, the Japs attempting to land were met by Indian troops under Brigadier Key who fought with great gallantry but, despite holding the high ground, were eventually hopelessly outnumbered by the Japs coming ashore.

  ‘Far as I know, it was much of the same elsewhere, they fought best they could but the odds were too great. Percival, gawd help us, is in charge at this stage and when the Japs cross Thailand into Jitra, the defences aren’t organised, the anti-tank mines are laid in clumps dead easy to avoid, the trenches aren’t wired for communications and, besides, are waterlogged. Well, the rot sets in right there at the very beginning and from then on they’re chased all the way down Malaya until they’re in the south. That’s when the Australians are brought into the fray.

  ‘The 2/19th, which is us, is on the east coast way down south with the rest of the Australians in Johore, we’re supposed to be the last-ditch stand. After Johore there’s the straits separating the mainland from Singapore Island, at low tide you can practically spit across it. Judging from the way the Japs are moving, it ain’t gunna take too long before we’re tested.

  ‘When we were first brought across from Singapore to the mainland, we know bugger-all about the jungle.’

  ‘Wait on!’ I say to Tommy. ‘How’d you get to Singapore? I need to know everything. Can you start at the beginning?’

  Tommy grins. ‘You’ll probably be one of them historians or something when you grow up, Mole. Never known nobody who has to have all the facts like you do. That’s nice, that’s an inquiring mind.’ He pauses. ‘Okay, let me see. Well, I’m in the permanent army, not long trained when it’s known to one and all there’s gunna be a war. I’m not yet attached to a battalion and me and a sergeant and a captain are sent up to Delegate on the New South Wales side of the border to help start a recruiting drive up through Goulburn, Bombala, Cooma and Queanbeyan.

  ‘The drive works pretty good and eventually there’s about one hundred and forty recruits, which become known as the Snowy Mountains contingent. I like these blokes so I put in for a transfer and join the 2/19th Battalion, which is a New South Wales unit and is known as The Riverina Battalion cause most of the blokes come from Griffith, Leeton, Wagga, Hay, Cootamundra and then there’s us from the Snowy area. The 2/19th is one of three battalions in the 22nd Brigade, the other two are naturally the 2/18th and 2/20th.

  ‘We done our training and on account of me being already trained I’m made a corporal, which don’t mean a lot. I’m sort of the spokesman for the troops to the platoon sergeant and that’s about it. Corporal ain’t a rank really, all it means is you’re the senior shit-kicker among the troops and are equally despised by the sergeants and warrant officers.

  ‘In February 1941 we board the Queen Mary for destinations unknown. Some of the blokes think we were going to Egypt, most think Europe.’ Tommy shrugs. ‘Why not? The Japs ain’t in the war yet and we know bugger-all about Asia. I reckon you could have asked any bloke in the battalion to pick out Singapore Island in the atlas and he wouldn’t have a clue. I know I didn’t.

  ‘We arrive in Singapore and entrain for Malaya and we’re stationed first at Seremban and then at Port Dickson. That’s where Bennett’s good. He spends what time he’s got training us in jungle warfare, so we’re not completely raw and, besides, we’re pretty well-disciplined troops before we leave home, so we can act like soldiers, or think we can. We’re a cocky lot and by now we know the Japs are preparing for war. “Just wait till the Japs have to fight real soldiers, eh?” we tell ourselves.

  ‘We’re at Port Dickson from March to September and in May our platoon sergeant is killed by a truck while we’re out on manoeuvres and we get a replacement, a bloke named Roger Rigby. He’s a big bugger with knife scars all over his arms and chest. I don’t know how he got them, but about a week later he’s got these truck springs, you know the steel blades used on a truck. He’s got us all together and he points to the truck blades.

  ‘“Righto, them’s reinforced steel them blades, best metal there is to make a fighting knife.” He looks around, “I’m willing to teach you stupid buggers how to fight with a knife because I reckon you’re gunna need to know. But it ain’t compulsory, you have to volunteer and there’s a catch.”

  ‘Some bloke in the platoon says, “So what’s the catch,

  Sarge?”

  ‘Rigby picks up one of the springs, “Make three fighting knives out of one of these, but it’s gunna cost. I’ve got a mate in Malacca reckons he can make them according to my specifications for two quid each.” He reaches into a knapsack at his feet and brings out this knife. It’s a thing of beauty but dangerous-looking and I’d shit myself if someone pulled it on me. “This is a fighting knife, blade seven and a half inches long, handle, solid, tapered at the end, grip serrated, one inch at the widest point, copper crossguard slightly ‘s’-shaped, three inches long. Personally I think you can do without the heavy crossguard, we’ll leave it off, leather sheath fourteen inches long.” He flips the knife in the air and catches it by the handle. “That’s the weight and size of this knife, but we’ll make them tailormade to fit the size of yer hand and the weight of your body.” He points the knife at the steel springs at his feet. “It began its life as one of those, high-tensile spring steel, so make up yer minds.”

  ‘I look around at the faces of the men and I can see they’re not too sure. Who is this bloke anyway? He’s only just become our sergeant, we ain’t done any real work with him. Seeing I’m the corporal, I guess I have to say something.

  ‘“Sergeant, we’ve done our jungle training, there’s no knives mentioned. Bayonet and grenade is for close-up work, no knives are issued as standard equipment.”

  ‘“Maloney, you ever fought in the jungle?”

  ‘“No, Sarge.”

  ‘“You ever been in the jungle?”

  ‘“Just around here, Sarge, also the bush at home.”

  ‘“Where’s home, North Queensland?”

  ‘“No, Sarge, Yankalillee, north-eastern Victoria.”

  ‘There’s a bit of general laughter, most of the blokes are from the bush. “Must be tough goin’ hackin’ through the blackberry and all,” he says.

  ‘I’m real embarrassed, “Yeah, tear yer to pieces soon as look at yer, Sarge.”

  ‘He grins, paying the reply. “Okay, Corporal Maloney, fix bayonet.” I do as he says. “Righto, try and kill me.” He puts his knife back in the knapsack and he’s standing in front of me empty-handed.

  ‘The platoon laughs, thinking he doesn’t mean it. I’ve got this stupid grin on me gob. “You for real, Sarge?”

  ‘“Never more serious in me life, son, go ahead, kill me,” he says again.

  ‘I shake me head and look down at me boots. “Couldn’t do that, Sarge.” See, I fancy meself a bit with a bayonet and I’ve put in a lot of extra practice with some of the city blokes who don’t come natural with a rifle.

  ‘Sergeant Rigby is suddenly aggro, “Dammit, try and kill me, Maloney. Yer know yer fuckin’ bayonet drill, don’tcha?”

  ‘I can see he’s not fooling and I charge him in the regulation manner. Cou
rse I’m not gunna kill him. Next thing I know I’m on me back and he’s got my own rifle and bayonet pointed at me chest. If he’s the enemy, I’m dead meat.

  ‘“Okay, get to yer feet, Corporal. Don’t mean to make a fool out of you in front of the men.” Then he turns to us all, “There ain’t a Jap soldier don’t know how to do that. A bayonet is a big knife at the end of a very clumsy stick named a rifle. You can jab it in the enemy’s gut providing he gives you permission or ain’t lookin’, but that’s about all. The only advantage is that, if you manage to do it, the enemy is three and a half feet away from you. But first you’ve got to stick him and he won’t be standing there like a sack of sawdust waiting to be pricked.”

  ‘Then Rigby picks up the knife again. “The human arm isn’t as long as a rifle and bayonet, but even in a bloody midget like Maloney, it’s two foot long. On your average Jap that’s not much more than he can manage with a bayonet. Now some Japs have this thing called jujitsu and you better hope you don’t meet one, because he’ll disarm you before you even decide where you’re gunna stick him. But, thank gawd, most don’t have the skill, so if you know a bit about handling a knife you just may have the advantage in a close encounter. In the jungle you can be two feet away from the enemy and not see him. When you do, you just may have to be quicker than him and that’s where the knife comes in.”

  ‘“What’s wrong with a bullet from your rifle?” some bloke asks.

  ‘“If you have time and see him coming, sure.” He looks at us, “But I promise, you won’t, he’ll be behind the next branch you part, or jungle tree you pass, little yellow bastard comin’ ter kill yer.”

  ‘I’m still not entirely convinced, using a knife to kill, well . . . it ain’t Australian, is it? But I can see the rest of the platoon are now pretty keen even though two quid is a big ask, so I go along with the ploy and we all agree to take knife-fighting lessons.