They nodded in unison – they all knew of the unwisdom of using Abos, the town-dwelling sort, that was. Soldiers learned that very early in their enlistments when they saw the careless go down.
“Out in the bush, there will be far less chance of catching the pox, but the men will put an axe in your head if they catch you anywhere near their women. Your choice. Any questions?”
Corporal Killigrew felt he should ask the obvious.
“Why are all the women round here poxed, George?”
“They weren’t until the whiteskins came up. It’s a new disease up here. You might call it getting your own back. I blame the missionaries, meself.”
Almost all laughed; the very few of the devout showed horrified.
“What about the fruit, George. Is it worth bothering with?”
“Pawpaw is the best kai on Earth, I reckon. The big yellows, the size of a rugby ball, are like a cross between a peach and a watermelon; there’s reds as well, but I don’t like ‘em quite so much. They’re still good. There’s dozens of different sorts of bananas, eating and cooking and most of them tasty. Guavas and mangos are good. Star fruit are a bit acid for my taste. Soursop is no good to eat, but if you crush it down in water it makes a really good drink in the heat. But wash fruit before you eat it, and don’t keep it for too long and keep the bloody flies off it. Anything you drink, cover it except when it’s up to your mouth. Most of the Territory hands keep beer mats with ‘em, and put them on top of their glasses or mugs, not underneath. I’m told it’s the same in Queensland?”
There were murmurs of agreement; flies were a menace.
They nodded wisely and said they would be good; some of them would have to learn by experience, George knew. With luck, their first bout of dysentery would persuade to be careful in their hygiene; without luck, it would kill them.
“We’re going to stay up here for three days probably, to give you a bit of a feel for the place. Most of you are used to the Tropics. For those who ain’t, learn quickly! Watch out for snakes and spiders, but they ain’t so bad as down in Queensland. The ants are buggers. Dogs are dodgy – most of them are half-wild and think any hand is going to hit ‘em; don’t try making pets unless you are very sure of yourself as a handler.”
“Rabies, George?”
“Don’t know. Possible, so good reason to be careful.”
Most of the men came from the land rather than the towns of Queensland; George hoped they would be able to learn quickly. The townies would be slower in adapting to the bush, in the nature of things.
“You will have noticed the absence of Sergeant Baker. It’s permanent. Private Baker is posted elsewhere.”
George ignored the bellow of approval that greeted the announcement.
“Mr Jerningham is also being replaced, he believing that he can do more for the Army in an office at headquarters.”
He did not hear the laughter.
“There will be stand-ins for them. There will also be a pair of staff officers who are to walk inland with us for a few miles and get a feel for the country. I am sure you will treat them with the respect they deserve.”
He stepped back and dismissed them to their tents, hearing nothing at all of their reaction to that final piece of information.
They ate rations from tins that evening, not especially pleased with the process. George saw and heard nothing – he expected them to work out how to cook for themselves. He noticed that each platoon had scavenged wood sufficient for a fire to boil up a brew of tea; more than that was up to them. It was Dry Season and camp fires were practical.
He gave his night orders – all weapons to be kept in the lorries with a pair of armed sentries to each vehicle. He found the inspector at the police station and asked him to have his men watch the camp overnight.
“Machine guns, rifles and shotguns and thousands of rounds, Inspector. My men are all new to the place, don’t know what’s what yet.”
The inspector was a young Australian, only three years in the job, but he knew enough to wish to protect the weapons very thoroughly.
“I’ll have twelve men under a sergeant on the duty, Captain Hawkins. Four stationary, in two pairs; four patrolling the perimeter together; four asleep; two hour turns.”
“Thanks, Inspector. How are you off for three-o-three rounds for your rifles?”
“Could use some, that’s for sure.”
George had a box of a thousand rounds pulled off the thirty-hundredweight and carried into the station. The police in Rabaul and Kokopo had always been short of ammunition, intentionally so to prevent them indulging in clan warfare. In and around Port Moresby the policy was the same, restricting their ability to fight; it was less necessary, however, the policemen here themselves drawn from many clans not just the one,
“Tell your men that we’ve got a kitchen here, Captain Hawkins. They can use the stoves to cook up a stew, if they supply the food and the pots for it.”
The QM had supplied a full set of bush cooking equipment; it made sense for the men to start using it. George passed the word to the corporals.
A Steamships truck with a local driver pulled into Boroko in the morning, soon after six o’clock, stopped long enough to drop off a single passenger and two kitbags. There was an exchange of farewells and thanks in Police Motu, more widely used on the Papuan Coast than Pidgin, and the soldier picked up his bags and wandered across to George while the truck pulled away en route to a nearby plantation to load copra.
“Sergeant Muldoon, mate. You’re George Hawkins, ain’t you?”
“That’s me, mate.”
“Thought it was. Saw you up at Bulolo a couple of times when I was passing through. I did some welding on the gold dredging barges there.”
George knew that the barges had been cut up and flown up in two ton lumps which had been welded back together on the river. He had seen some of the planes flying in with machinery sticking out of holes cut in the top of the fuselage – it was not the sort of thing ever to forget.
“I walked my lads from Lae across to Bulolo a couple of months ago, Sergeant Muldoon. What’s yer name?”
“Pat. Not Clancy.”
“Thank Christ for that. We’ve got a separate tent for you. Four corporals, one for each platoon, and a lance-jack each. Should have a lieutenant turn up as well. Going up Sogeri way to mark out a track leading inland as far as we can get. Hopefully, we can get a road up towards Brown River and then up the Laloki Gorge and over the hill to Sogeri, even if we can’t get further than that.”
“Should be a laugh, anyway, George.”
“Moving out in two days.”
“No worries, mate. We can get this lot together in that time. Where they from?”
“Queensland. More outback than town.”
“They’ll be right, mate. I’ve been working for Steamies this last couple of years. There’s another truck coming up behind us. Should have picked up some stuff from the company, donations to the cause, you might say. If we can’t use it, we can drop it off up the road. There’s a Militia battalion camped out near Nine Mile, just up the road where it splits off up to the north. They’re short of almost everything.”
The Militia battalions had been raised and equipped by their states. Some of the states had been richer, some had been prepared to spend more. Some had arsenals containing Boer War surplus and nothing else; others were better equipped.
The second yellow Steamships truck turned up and dropped off a good two tons weight of cartons and a locked trunk which was given into Sergeant Muldoon’s care.
“Fray Bentos? That’s a bloody sight better than the Army bully beef, Pat. I’ll get the lads to do a swap, tin for tin. Is it right with you if I drop a couple of cartons in at the police station here?”
“No problems, George. Just make sure it’s beef in the boxes not beer.”
George looked more carefully, saw that at least half of the load consisted of bottles.
“Good on yer, mate. Their throats are getting a bi
t dry.”
There was not enough to get them too drunk, and they needed a bit of relaxation.
George spoke to the Inspector and almost all of the Army bully beef disappeared into the station.
“Most of it will get into the married quarters, Captain. Much appreciated, too. The boys ain’t paid much – they live on rice and tinned fish mostly.”
Pat Muldoon opened his tin trunk and fished out the stock and barrel of a Bren Gun followed by twenty magazines and a cleaning kit.
“There’s four snake pistols in the corner, George. Cut down twelve-bore barrel mounted on a wooden pistol grip, bolt action. They told me you had four platoons. Shall I dish ‘em out one each?”
“Do that, Pat. Where did you pick up the Bren?”
“Ah, found it thrown out in a dark corner, George.”
“Well done, mate. Do you want to carry it?”
“Too heavy for me, mate.”
George nodded – Muldoon was not a big man and had been thinned out by the tropics. In his mid-forties perhaps and bald-seeming under his hat, tanned almost mahogany and casually hard – typical of the men who had wandered New Guinea since the First War had turned their lives upside down.
“Give it to the biggest of the lance-corporals instead of his rifle. We’ve got a couple of Remington pump-action twelve bores to hand. One to you, the other to the lieutenant when he gets here. Got ball and snake rounds.”
“Do me well, George. Who’s that coming now?”
A battered Model T Ford was on the road, pottering along at twenty miles an hour.
“I’ll deal with it, Pat. We’ve got a dozen Lewises with us. Can you get them out ready for anti-aircraft?”
An enormous red-headed lieutenant squeezed out of the passenger seat of the Model T and grabbed a kitbag and a long case of the sort used for carrying fishing rods.
“G’day, George. How they hangin’, mate?”
“Ah, pretty vertical, Blue. What daft bastard made you an officer?”
“Never did find out his name, George. Some sort of general, they reckoned. Said if I was brave enough to carry a Boys, I ought to be a lieutenant.”
“That’s it in the bag, is it? Good on yer, mate. Bloody handy that. You know what we’re supposed to be doing?”
“More or less. Trying to pick out a route to get inland, over the Owen Stanleys and down to the coast somewhere on the Bismarck Sea?”
“So they reckon, mate.”
“Could be a laugh.”
“Just that. I’ll pull the men together, tell them you’re here, officially. Make sure they don’t mistake you for a staff officer. We’ve got a pair of them due to inspect us and see what we’re doing.”
“Going up the Laloki River, George? They won’t make it half way up to Sogeri. Soft bastards, all of ‘em. The ones who were any good got sent across to the Middle East with ANZAC. Same for the generals – them who knew their arse from their elbows took the fighting battalions away with them. Left the training blokes and the useless behind and they’re the buggers who had to come up here two years later.”
George had not considered that; it made sense.
“Could do with some of them back here again, Blue. The Militia are doing their best, and a good best too, but a couple of battalions of Regulars would come in handy. Sergeant Muldoon’s over there with the Lewis gunners, better meet him first.”
“Pat is that? Know him. Good bloke.”
The community of Australians in the Territory had been very small; most of them had met at one time or another, passing through the club in Moresby or Lae or Rabaul.
George brought the men together.
“Sergeant Muldoon has just joined us; you will have met him in the last hour. Lieutenant Piggott has also been posted in; he’s from Lae originally and knows the Territory as well as Pat Muldoon and I do. Makes a useful change.”
Corporal Killigrew caught George’s eye.
“Is the lieutenant to permanently replace the other man, George?”
“Yes. Mr Jerningham will not return from the desk he has so thankfully found.”
“What a pity, sir. We shall all miss him; I was looking forward to hitting him, one day.”
“I did not hear that, Corporal. While we’re together, I intend to move out tomorrow. If it works out, then we’ll go up the Brown River track and then along the Laloki to the head of the valley. We’ll set up a camp there and spend a day or two working out the best route from there. After that, the work starts.”
They nodded thoughtfully.
George eyed the four platoons, trying to spot any looking unwell. It was too soon for malaria to show, but there could be a dysentery already, and there might be men who simply could not tolerate the heat and humidity, both higher by a little than they were used to in Queensland. They looked fit enough, at a distance.
“Bob, anything to say?”
“No, all well at the moment, George. Need to watch out for sunburn, that’s all – the back of your hands can catch it, and you don’t look out for that as a rule.”
“Pat?”
“Lewis gunners need to keep ready for planes coming in. The Japs hit the airstrip most days and wander about the whole area machinegunning anything they can see afterwards. Watch the sky as soon as you hear bombs going in at the strip. It’s not far distant in a straight line.”
“That’s all for today. Take it easy, have a beer or two, and don’t give any booze to the locals – the police will have you if you do. The coppers don’t count as locals, by the way. I’ll drop a couple of cartons into the station.”
They laughed – it seemed that coppers were the same the world over.
They drove the dirt, slowly, out to Nine Mile where it forked, a lesser track going to Brown River, the right following the Laloki valley with its own river which joined the Brown a few miles distant to the west. There was a Militia camp at edge of the valley there, located near the water and close to a small village with rich gardens on the edge of swamp land that could supply some fruit and vegetables. Most of the Moresby area was poor soil but the village at Nine Mile was well off for food.
The warrant officer from the Armoury was waiting for them with a pair of trucks and their drivers.
“G’day, sir. Just been issuing Lee-Enfields to the battalion in place of their old rifles. Happen to have come across a couple of cases of grenades, sir, while sorting through the stores. I was able to locate four of Vickers on high-angle mountings for the Militia while I was at it, sir, and they have handed in the pair of Lewises which was all they had, sir, if they might be of use to you?”
The Lewises and grenades were put up into the lorries, a carton of beer going the other way.
The convoy turned up into the Laloki valley, under the tall rain trees which grew thickly for a few miles.
“Not so dry as Moresby and better ground, George. Road takes a rise up onto the side of the valley in a mile or two, above the flood water level in the Wet. Not such good growing along there.”
The track was rough and potholed but was usable. George could see tyre marks.
“Three copper workings still open along the valley,” Pat explained. “They ain’t big, but the ore’s rich and has traces of silver with it. They smelt on site. Worth keeping a few men working, and copper’s at a good price thanks to the war. They make a good living, for the while. They reckon Errol Flynn was here a few years back, before he went over to Hollywood.”
“They reckon he was everywhere in the bloody Territory, mate. I heard tell he was running a junk down South, carrying opium, when he was almost caught and had to bugger off on a freighter to the States, quick time.”
They shrugged – anything was possible, and it made a good story.
They passed the mine workings and crawled further along the valley, not much faster than walking pace but far more comfortable. Mid-afternoon brought them to a plantation at the foot of the gorge, the hills rising steep to their front.
“Used to be the Papuan Rubber
Company, George.”
“Where my old man started out when he first came up, a few years before the last war. Get the men out, Pat. We’ll make a base here. I’ll go over to the plantation house, make me number there.”
George came back with a hand-drawn map.
“There’s three tracks going up to the top, Blue. Two of them are foot only, and not much used since the big rains a couple of years back. The third will take a small truck part way, up to the first side-stream coming into the gorge. Given a bridge, you could drive further. There’s sections which are impassable to wheels at the moment, but which could be made good, so the manager here says. He reckons the land rises two thousand feet in four miles.”
They stood back and stared at the gorge, half a mile wide and narrowing rapidly, turning sharply round an outcropping of hard old rock.
“Sounds good, George. Nothing to worry about, just a gradient of one in ten. Make your map big enough and it seems easy, don’t it.”
George nodded.
“You see these three sections, marked in red? The first is four hundred yards long and rises three hundred feet – and that’s one in four, which is bloody hard work for any truck. So the bloke says, anyhow. The second one is only three hundred yards, but it goes up six hundred feet – you need steps to walk it. The last one is twice as long but rises about the same amount, about one in three.”
Blue glanced at the map and shrugged.
“Can’t be done, George. No motor will get up those stretches.”
“Not unless they’re cut out, Blue. Carve out zig-zags to either side. If the road winds its way up, then the gradient can be reduced and the trucks will make it. Still be steep, and a hell of a drop to the side, but it can be done. Need a lot of men with picks and shovels, but it ain’t impossible. Probably. First thing we need do is take a look see for ourselves. After that, hire on a couple of hundred labourers to carry stuff up to the top and set up out a construction camp there to work downwards to meet the road coming up.”
A New Place Page 7