‘It’s dark when I come to. They’ve pulled the four of us off the track, left us on the side of the mountain. I lie there in the jungle and pass out several times during the night. It ain’t the rainy season but it rains early morning and I force me mouth open to let me get a drink. Daylight comes but I must have passed out again, because when I wake up there’s these snuffling sounds and grunts. I manage to get up on me good elbow, it’s a wild boar, he’s ripped open the stomach of one of me mates and is eating his intestines. I can’t shout, me jaw and cheekbone is broken. I can’t do nothing. I lie on me back and with me good arm feel around me till I find a small rock, I sit up slowly. The boar ain’t noticed and he has his snout buried in me mate’s gut. I throw the rock and hit the bastard on the top o’ the head.
He looks up, there’s intestines hanging from his pig mouth. When he sees me, he runs into the jungle, carrying the string of sausages with him.
‘After a while I manage to get to me feet and I totter over to the body of one of me mates and somehow manage to get his loincloth off his body. I dunno how I done it, but, using it, I make a sling for me broken shoulder. I can feel me face and neck and chest is crusted with blood, and the pain in me jaw and shoulder is almost more than I can take. I’m terrible weak and I shuffle back on to the path, finding the spot where I’ve killed me mates, and pick up me stick.
‘I don’t want to die here, there’s a big tree back down the hill, I’ve seen it on past occasions we’ve carted rice, it’s a jungle giant, as big as the one at Sandakan. If I can make it to the tree I can die there. I don’t want the pig to eat me. I want to be cradled in the buttress of that big tree.’Tommy looks at me. ‘It’s not that I’m thinking them thoughts at that very moment, it’s just that they’re returning to me then. I’ve thought it all out before. Every working party that goes out carrying rice loses men and I know my time will come. I’ve already thought that if it does, somehow I’ll manage to last until I get to that big tree and they can shoot me there. It’s the last thing I’ll see and I’ll remember the Maloney tree as me last thought, remember these great giants are the roots of heaven. Now it’s just me instinct working, telling me this stuff, because I am in too much pain to think straight. I don’t know yet that I’ve lost me eye and think that maybe it’s just closed from Kawakami’s rifle butt.’
Tommy pauses. ‘When I’d escaped and I was getting better in the hospital, I’d have nightmares about the pig, that pig eating me mate. I’d wake up screaming and it would be hours before I’d be calm enough to go to sleep again. Then when I was testifying at the War Crimes Tribunal, I heard about the group left in Sandakan, there’s over two hundred of them too crook to go on the second march. One of the Japs, Lieutenant Moritake, and a guard named Hinata murdered a POW only known as Honcho. I never knew this Hinata when I was in Sandakan, but we all knew and hated Moritake, who was called “The Mad Butcher”. Although he was an officer, he loved to slaughter the Japanese officers’ pigs, hanging them up alive by their front legs, then butchering them slowly, keeping them alive as long as possible.
‘Anyhow, Honcho has managed to steal one of these pigs which he killed and shared with the other starving men. Like I told you, stealing food was a capital offence and Honcho doesn’t stand a chance. He was taken to a large wooden cross which Moritake has ordered erected in the grounds of the Jap barracks. Moritake instructs Hinata to lift the prisoner so his feet can’t touch the ground and then to press his body against the pole and hold the prisoner, who is too weak to resist. Moritake, a short-arse, stands on a small stool and drives a six-inch nail through the palm of Honcho’s outstretched right hand and then through the other. Hinata tells how he stuffed a piece of rag in Honcho’s mouth to stop him screaming. After that Moritake nails both his feet to the horizontal board Honcho’s standing on. He steps off the ladder. Hammer in hand, he examines his handiwork before he climbs up again and drives a six-inch nail into the centre of Honcho’s forehead.’
Tommy can hear me gasp, ‘Mate, you ain’t heard nothing yet,’ he says. ‘Moritake slips on a rubber glove and, taking a butcher’s knife, he cuts two pieces of flesh from the abdomen and puts them aside before he slits the torso from neck to navel. Sticking his hand with the rubber glove in the innards, he tears out the heart and the liver. Those are the only parts he wants, the remains of the corpse is left hanging on the cross.’
I can’t believe me ears. ‘You mean ...?’ I don’t want to say it.
‘Yeah, mate, towards the end it was not unusual, the official war instructions the Japs got from their general and the war cabinet in Japan was that they could eat their enemy but they must not do the same to one of their own. Anyway, when I heard that at the Tribunal, I said to meself, shit, I’d rather be eaten by a wild pig than by a Jap and from that time on the nightmares about the pig stopped, never come back neither.’
I want him to tell me how he escaped, so I ask, ‘Was it all jungle when you were escaping?’
‘Mostly, that and the rivers. Weren’t for the river, I’d never have made it. I can’t stay on the track it’s too danger ous, so I spend the next three days in the jungle looking for the big tree. Mostly I’m delirious, lurching about, not knowing where I am, not caring neither. I’m terrible weak and I’ve got a bout of malaria and, of course, the dysentery is always there. I’m sitting on a log and I’m quite lucid, must have been on the third or fourth day. I can see these insects crawling everywhere, but there’s nothing I can eat. I’m sitting still as death and this large snake goes by and past me toes. I reckon it’s time to die and I move me foot, but the bugger don’t strike, he moves off fast. It’s then that I think to meself, I’m such a useless bugger I can’t even get meself properly killed, might as well have a go at staying alive.
‘So I get up from the log and I ain’t moved three feet when I come across this little pool, it ain’t more than maybe a foot across and stagnant, the water’s black. I realise it’s swarming with tadpoles, yiz can hardly see the water for the tadpoles. I ain’t eaten much, I can’t chew because of me jaw though I’ve found some fern tips and crushed them in me hand, pushing them in me mouth very slow and tried to swallow. It weren’t enough to keep me alive much longer. So now I feast on them tadpoles, cupping them in me good hand and ramming them in me mouth, some spilling, but some go in and they slips down without me needing to chew. After that I drink some of the water. I reckon I must have had live tadpoles swimming around in me guts for hours.
‘If it weren’t for them tadpoles, I don’t reckon I could have gone on. Not just me eating them, it was like a sign. So I stumble on and then I see a wild pig and I’m angry. It’s bloody stupid I know, the pig could’ve killed me sooner than me it. But I hate the bugger and I lurch after it, following the sound of it crashing through the undergrowth.
Suddenly the jungle parts and I’m by a river. There’s a small stony beach where I can lie. I spend the night by the river and in the morning I see this canoe coming towards me. I can’t shout, I can’t even speak. In me head I’m callin’ out “Abang!”, which is the Malay word for “older brother” but nothing’s coming out. I’m waving my good arm, hoping the native in the canoe will see me. He sees me and comes over. His name is Ackoi and he signals for me to get in, but I’m too weak so he gets out of the canoe and helps me. It turns out Ackoi’s the headman from Tampias Village. He speaks in Malay to me as he soon realises that I understand him but I can’t talk back.
‘He says the villagers hate the Japs and are in contact with the local guerilla leader, who he promises will help me. I don’t know if it’s a con, but I don’t care no more, nothing I can do. I’m dead meat anyway. Ackoi don’t give me the name of the guerilla, which is good or bad, I’m not sure. Good if he’s protecting his identity, bad if he’s made the whole thing up and he’s taking me back to the Japanese for the reward.
‘But he’s good as his word, the people of Tampias look after me. An old woman uses herbs and s
tuff on me eye and I learn that it’s dead, that I’m blind in that eye. They can’t do nothing about me jaw or cheekbone, but they make a sort of wooden splint for me broken shoulder and the top part of me arm. Every day a young girl sits beside me and feeds me tapioca and sweet potato and bananas mashed up, once or twice a turtle egg. She can’t get a spoon in me mouth so she puts a little of whatever it is on the end of her forefinger and works it slowly into me mouth and laughs every time she done it. She had lovely white teeth. Them villagers were so kind to me I want to cry just thinkin’ about them.
‘Then after a week, when I’m a bit stronger, Ackoi himself takes me down river in his canoe to Telupid, where, after a day or two, I am transferred by another head man down river in another canoe. By now my shoulder is never going to be right again, I know that for sure. As for my face, well, it was never much anyway. I’m still in a fair bit of pain from both and, once, when we hit some rapids with the canoe jumping up and down in the water, I pass out from the pain. Tell you the truth, I don’t remember much about the rest of the trip because when I’m not out of it with the pain, I’m delirious with malaria. Apparently they keep passing me from village to village, and by the time I’ve come to my senses, we’re at a place called Muanad, about fifty miles from Sandakan.
‘I reckon I must have come a bloody long way from Telupid, the last place I remember clearly, because the river is now very wide. The headman here is Kulang, chief of the Dusans, who hate the Japs with a passion.
‘As soon as it’s dark, Kulang takes me to a new village, deeper into the jungle, which they have built to avoid harassment from the Japs, who regularly patrol this part of the river.
‘At Kulang’s house I have a bath. Can you imagine, it’s me first bath in over three years. I’m also given some clean clothes and a bowl of soup. They give me a shave and a haircut, which Kulang, laughing at my long beard and hair, does himself with an ancient cut-throat razor, though I must say it’s sharp enough and he’s skilled enough and doesn’t nick me too bad. I begin to feel like a human being again.’ Tommy looks up, ‘I mean that, we were reduced to animals, wild animals just trying to stay alive. Now, for the first time since I escaped, I think I might make it. I’m skin and bone and with me ulcers, which Kulang also treats, and me bunged-up eye and gawd knows what me gob looks like, though I know how it feels, which ain’t good.
‘I stay there a few days and then Kulang decides it’s time to move again. We’re going to some place called the Bongaya River. It’s got to be to buggery down the river because we’re in a big canoe and we’re taking quite a lot of tucker with us. We set off before daylight just in case the Japs are on the prowl.
‘Kulang’s got me lying under banana leaves in the bottom of the canoe, but it wouldn’t have been much use if a Jap river patrol had stopped him. We’re going with the flow and moving along at a good pace, but it takes us three days to cross the estuary and another three to reach the Bongaya River.
‘About six hours later, Kulang gets me from out the banana leaves and tells me we’ve got about an hour to go. After a while I look up and, there, standing on the bank, is a bloke dressed in jungle greens. He’s wearing a slouch hat and he looks about nine feet tall standing like that at the edge of the river. He’s an Aussie from a Special Ops unit, which has been working behind enemy lines. Kulang is waving madly and shouting to attract the soldier’s attention as we come into the riverbank.
‘Two blokes come out of a tent and come down to the water. They’re both six-footers and healthy as sin. One’s a sergeant and the other a lance corporal, don’t know why I remember that. The first words the sergeant says are, “Christ, look what the cat brought in!” Then him and his mate and the first bloke we saw are running, they’re splashing up to their waists in the water, coming for me, pulling the canoe into shore. The sergeant lifts me out like I’m a small child, later I find I weigh sixty-eight pounds, and I’m shaking like a leaf from malaria.
‘The lance corporal who is splashing through the water beside me is saying, “She’s right, mate. It’s all over. You’re going home.” I can’t make no sound, but there’s tears running out me eyes, the good one and the bad. The big bloke carrying me keeps saying, “The bastards, the dirty, fucking bastards! Look what they’ve done to you, digger!” I can’t believe it, he’s crying. He’s crying over me, Tommy Maloney.’
Don’t know about them, but I’m crying again as well. I must have let a sob go or something because he looks up, ‘Ah, mate, it was all a long, long time ago.’ He looks up into the giant Ash. ‘In the history of this tree it ain’t nothing, things go on.’ The white bark of the Alpine Ash can be seen clearly, even in the dark of night. ‘There’s not many like it,’ Tommy says, trying to change the subject and calm me down. ‘Most Alpine Ash have got the tough fibrous blackgum bark we seen on the spur, not too many like this old fella, white, smooth all the way up to the top.’
But then he goes on. ‘They do the best they can for me at the camp, but they’ve only got a medical orderly and he gives me morphine for the pain, quinine for me malaria, pills for the dysentery and fixes the sling and dresses me eye. Funny that, first meal they bring a plate of food, best tucker I’ve seen since leavin’ home. I smell it and I throw up. Just the smell is too rich for me stomach. Some weak tea and them plain digestive biscuits, it’s all I can take, with a bit of banana and tapioca, which they get from a nearby village.
‘After two days they take me out to sea and a seaplane flies me out to a Yank aircraft carrier that’s anchored off the coast. They’ve got a hospital on board and I’m took good care of, like I’m a hero, the Yank sailors saluting me and calling me “Sir!” When they reckon I’m strong enough, they fly me to the Philippines and eventually to Darwin and, later, home to the repatriation hospital.’ Tommy stops briefly. ‘Of the 1793 Australians who remained at the workers’ paradise all but six of us are dead, the six of us that escaped. Counting the Brits, there’s 1381 died at Sandakan and 1047 on the death marches, at Ranau and on the rice-carrying track to Paginatan.’
Tommy looks over at me, ‘That’s it, mate, that’s the story of me war. It’s near dawn, Mole, forget them possums, we’ll find something later, reckon we should both kip down a bit, maybe sleep until well after sun-up, eh?’
I nod, then I say, ‘Thanks, Dad. Thank you for telling me.’
Tommy’s silent a moment. ‘Yer know, Mole, it’s you done me the favour. I’ve never told nobody the story, except a bit as testimony at the War Crimes. I’ve never told nothing about how me mates died. Couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face the shame of it.’
‘There’s no shame, Dad. You did the right thing for yer mates. I hope I’d have done the same.’
Tommy doesn’t reply. Just digs down into his sleeping bag and pulls the zip up, lies down and turns away from me. ‘Sleep well, Mole, no point in hurrying home, mate. Few hours won’t make no difference, yer mum’s gunna go ape-shit anyway.’
I get up and put the last of the wood on the fire and get back into my sleeping bag. It’s always cold that time of the morning, an hour or so before dawn. My head is spinning, but I’m also exhausted, glad there’ll be a bit of a sleep-in. Eventually I fall asleep crying for my old man, who isn’t really my dad but is and always will be. I’m proud to be a Maloney, proud to be a part of Tommy.
I wake up suddenly, like you do in the bush. The sun is high, though I can’t see it properly through the trees, I know it’s late, maybe ten o’clock. I lie there a moment, stretching in me sleeping bag, working my arms out, yawning. I think, should I make Tommy the last of the tea, there’s no tucker to give him? I turn to where Tommy is, but he ain’t there. His kitbag is there and I can see the groundsheet strapped to the bottom, the sleeping bag will be packed inside its cover. My rifle is also gone. He’s gone to find some breakfast, I think. Tommy’s much better than me at tracking possums, he’ll find where they have their lair. Only needs to look up into a tree trunk
or hollow log and knows they’re there.
I climb out of me sleeping bag. The fire is dead but the ashes are still warm, a tiny wisp of smoke curls up. I’ll make another fire so when he gets back we can have a brew. I’ve decided to use the last of the tea and cook whatever he’s brought for breakfast.
I walk towards the big tree to start gathering wood. Then I see that into its smooth white bark Tommy has carved a list of names. It’s been done careful, the names cut real deep, past the bark into the wood fibre, each about six inches high so they’ll stay put and scar over permanent. He must have waited until I was asleep and somehow taken the torch or waited for first light and done the names. There’s eight in all.
BLADES RIGBY
TROPPO SMITH
FROGGY MARSH
CURLY FRANCIS
DUNNO WATT
RICHIE MURRAY
ALBERT CLEARY
WALLY CREASE
1942–1945
R.I.P.
Tommy has remembered the names of his mates and carved them into the roots of heaven.
I laugh, pleased as punch. Tommy’s got over something very important in his mind. I feel a bit proud that I’ve been a part of it. I think he’ll be back at any moment so I can tell him how happy I am. I’ll build up the fire meanwhile, boil the billy. I’m expecting to hear a shot when he gets a ringtail. Or maybe he’ll just find the possums asleep in a hole in the hollow of a tree, they’re pretty dozy in the day, and he’ll grab a couple and wring their necks, save the bullet. He won’t want a ranger coming after us. Mount Buffalo is a national park, we’re not supposed to use firearms except for rabbits and foxes, even then you need permission.
Four Fires Page 80