“No. Better get on our way first thing. Let the lads know that we ain’t playing. What’s the time?”
“About four.”
“Better get moving. Show willing. The lads who’ve drawn cookhouse duty will have been going for half an hour already. They’ll see us up and active, pass the word to the others that we ain’t idle buggers.”
“Good enough. Trouble is, I am. Do you hear an engine?”
George stood still, one leg in his shorts, listening.
“Yeah. Coming this way. Distant yet.”
The nights were silent this far from town. There was no traffic and no electricity for lights.
“Headlights down the valley. Bet it’s that bloody staff car.”
“With the dickheads inside it, unless we’re lucky and they’re sending their apologies.”
“’Terribly sorry, can’t come to your party. Double-booked’?”
“If we’re lucky.”
They were completely out of luck.
The car drew up and Colonel Billingham emerged, followed by Carter and Arkenshawe-Mathers. The junior pair were dressed for the bush, in new shorts and shirts, and boots; each carried a Thompson Gun and a pack which they were slinging onto their shoulders.
“G’day, gents. Have you walked those boots in yet?”
“No, sir. They are new.”
“God help yer feet, mate.”
Colonel Billingham thought they would be able to cope.
“Experienced officers, you know, Hawkins.”
“They better have experienced feet as well. They get open blisters they will likely ulcerate. Get ulcers and there’s at least half a chance they’ll die. Whatever, they’ll take four men each to carry them back down.”
Colonel Billingham thought that was to look on the gloomy side – it probably would not happen.
“What’s the plan for today, Hawkins?”
George pulled the map out of his pocket.
“Ten miles to the top, sir. Two thousand feet, but most of the climb done in a total of about two miles. Three separate sections really steep, look. According to this sketch, there’s space left and right of the steep bits to cut in a zig-zag road. If that can be done, you’ll be able to get trucks up to the top. Beyond that, I don’t know yet. The plantation manager drew this map up years ago. If any of your people had come out here to speak to him, you could have been working on this stretch two months ago.”
It was not Colonel Billingham’s fault – he said so, repeatedly. He had asked Brigadier Curtis, as he then was, for permission to take a first party out and had been refused. He had been ordered to wait for a surveying party with local knowledge – they had more important things to do than go out walking in the bush. In any case, none of the local Australians would tell them anything.
“Can we set up a camp here, Hawkins?”
“Ask Burns Philp, sir. They own the plantation and they’ve got the clout Down South. If they say no, that’s it. It’s not a particularly profitable place, this one, so they probably won’t object. They might even cooperate, though that would be out of character. Mention my name, say I’m asking for their help. We’ve worked together in the past and they knew me old man well. Point out that you will be putting in an all-weather road at least this far if they let you build a camp here.”
Colonel Billingham was most unwilling to be obligated to George, but he wanted a camp set up quickly. If he could get cooperation from Burns Philp then he would be in good odour with the General, for he had trodden on their toes in his first days in Port Moresby and had been cold-shouldered since.
“Thank you, Hawkins. I shall do so. What do you intend for these two gentlemen?”
“Nothing for a couple of days, sir. They must get used to the bush first. No tents and rough food; long hours of walking. Just keeping up is all I want of them today and tomorrow.”
The pair were sure they would have no difficulties – a stroll in the countryside, you know. Both were used to going out with their guns, rough shooting. They could not imagine that this would be any different.
They might be right, George thought. He was not wasting men on them if they were wrong.
“Pat, are we ready to pull out?”
“When you give the word, mate.”
Colonel Billingham called George to one side.
“Are you sure that is the correct mode of speech, Mr Hawkins? Diggers together and all that. Is it right for the Army?”
“Maybe not, but it keeps these blokes happy. They ain’t soldiers, sir, they’re Militia, up for the fighting then chucking their uniforms in the rag bin when it’s over. Treat ‘em right, they’ll fight till they drop. Try bullshit on them, Army style, and they’ll do nothing. Most of them are from the Outback and they’re all Queenslanders. They don’t play games, Colonel.”
“On your head be it, Captain Hawkins. General Curtis will not approve.”
“He won’t last, either, sir. A few more weeks and he’ll be seen to be useless. He should have had this road well on the way already, but he’s sat on his backside and done sod all. The Yanks will notice if no bugger else has. Forget him, Colonel. Just make a big play of finally being allowed to do something – get the Engineers going and have people out here by this time tomorrow. You might survive that way.”
Colonel Billingham was driven off, looking thoughtful.
“Why did you give that dick a hand, George?”
“I’m a businessman, Blue. I’ve traded with people I wouldn’t give you tuppence for, because they were useful to me. Think on it, mate. When Curtis goes down he’ll be trying to blame anybody and everybody else, me especially – if Billingham’s on my side, he’ll be useful. If Billingham joins Curtis in calling me a bastard, I’ll be in trouble. If Billingham reckons it’s the best way he can come up smelling of roses, he’ll back me. The road builders will be out here so fast now you’d think their arses were on fire, Blue.”
“Didn’t think of that, mate. Let’s get going. I know how to walk the bush, at least.”
The first couple of miles were easy going, the track narrowing and climbing a few feet up the side of the gorge, away from the flooding of the Wet, but rising overall by barely a hundred feet.
“Need to cut her wider, George, but you could probably get two lanes here. Don’t look so pretty just in front, but.”
There was an outcropping of darker rock, harder and jutting out into the gorge. They could not see where the track went until they were within a few yards of the first bend.
“Jesus, mate!”
The track took a tight curve back and up in a series of short bends, rising three hundred feet and making almost no forward progress. It was just walkable, in parts climbing at a gradient of about one in three.
“What did that bloody map say, Blue? Bugger can’t count, or measure! Too much work for too little gain for the locals to do it, but you could extend each of these legs by the better part of two hundred yards, Blue. Do that and you could make the gradient workable for a powerful truck, provided it wasn’t too long on the wheelbase. You’d be buggered in a convoy if one broke down, mind you. Never get started again if once you stopped and I wouldn’t fancy reversing down here to the bottom.”
Blue had seen something like it on the escarpment behind Cairns.
“Escape roads, George. An extension on the roadway where it turns, kept level so you can get off the road and park up or have a way out if your brakes fail. Wouldn’t fancy it, but they say it works. They say they do it in the Alps, but I ain’t going over there to find out.”
They sketched the area and inserted a suggested route for a new road. George noted that it was ‘practical’.
“Meaning what, George?”
“It can be done, but by some other bugger, not me.”
The vegetation changed as they made a little height, turning from tree cover to straggly grass mixed with tall tree-ferns. The soil could be seen in great bare patches – thin, reddish, not particularly fertile.
&n
bsp; “Washed out by the rain and the run-off, Blue. Useless for growing, like too much of the land round Moresby.”
They spent the better part of an hour making that first climb, then sat down to light fires and brew-up.
“First of three, and not the worst, according to the map the plantation manager gave us.”
Lieutenants Carter and Arkenshawe-Mathers came in last, breathing heavily, collapsing rather than sitting on the ground next to George.
Pat Muldoon appeared with pint mugs of tea, black and fearsome, terrifying to Lieutenant Carter.
“What is this, Sergeant?”
“Brew-up, sir. Hot and wet and sweet – you need the sugar. You must drink or you’ll go down.”
“No milk?”
“No cows.”
George grinned and intervened.
“You must keep up the fluid in your body, Carter. If you don’t drink, you don’t live up here. You need that tea, all of it. Drink your water bottle dry and refill it at every one of the side streams. You’ll see the men doing the same. Only use running water, never drink anything standing; among other reasons, it will have frogs or toads near it and some of them exude a poison from their skin. Make you sick as a dog if you get that down you. Don’t take your boots, off Mather!”
“But, my feet hurt, sir.”
“They may well do so, but it’s better not to let your feet out. They can swell. Keep them on unless you have got spare socks and another pair of boots.”
Amazingly, he had both.
“The quartermaster chappie said that I must take the extra weight.”
“He was right. In that case change your boots and your socks whenever we stop. Tie both onto the back of your pack, let them air out. They’ll dry off that way and stink less.”
George glanced at the sweaty, bloody feet exposed.
“Bob!”
The medical orderly walked across, took a look and shook his head.
“Wearing creased socks – you must make sure they’re smooth under your feet, you daft bugger. Stay still a minute.”
The offending foot was washed and dried and dusted with talc.
“I’m not putting a dressing on – marching on it would start more sores round the edge. Get your new socks on, carefully. Roll them on and keep them flat! Do your boots up, tightly now! Don’t let the boots flap up and down and rub you raw.”
Half an hour and George gave the signal to move.
“Should rest longer, but the sun’s hot already. It’ll be a little cooler, higher up, not much but some. I’ll try to stop in the shade next time round. Good view down the valley already.”
They were not in the mood to appreciate the scenery.
The track rose steadily but not too steeply, and they made good time, except for the four small creeks, torrents more like, none as much as twenty feet wide, that had to be crossed on wet stepping stones.
“Hold hands, boys! Don’t fall!”
The steam beds had cut their way down the side of the gorge, were almost vertical in places and flowing very fast. A man who went down would be lucky to survive.
“Rain last night. All it needs is an hour and the creeks run twice as high.”
An hour of easy walking brought them to another outcropping of hard black rock, twice as high as the last, sticking out into the gorge in a great cliff face.
“This is the bad bugger, according to the map.”
“People on it, sir.”
They looked up some six hundred feet, saw a short line, mostly of women, dressed in drab brown lap-laps and blouses, heavily burdened, making their way down.
George turned to Blue and the two staff officers, who had gravitated to his side, the instinct to keep close to the powerful overwhelming their desire to avoid the vulgar men of action.
“Going to Boroko for tomorrow morning’s market. Sweet potato and mountain taro mostly.”
Arkenshawe-Mathers made a rare contribution to the conversation.
“I say, sir. The men don’t seem to be carrying much.”
“They ain’t. A bush knife or an axe, maybe, to show that they’re warriors, that’s all the weight they’ll handle. The men don’t work, not on food. Depends on the clan. In some of the them the men fight and do nothing else at all. In most, the women till the land but the men clear it – cutting down the bush to make the gardens. Mostly, it’s men who build the huts, but not always. Every clan is different, but in most I’ve seen, the women work a bloody sight harder than the men.”
They watched as the party made its way downhill, not running but making faster time than seemed reasonable, sometimes actually jumping down short stretches.
“They live a hard life. They ain’t pampered like our people.”
Eleven of the locals walked past, the women averting their eyes from so many foreigners, the men, bare-chested over a brown lap-lap, watching warily. George raised a hand to the last of the men, probably the most important because of his place, spoke quickly in Police Motu, asked him whether it was raining up on top.
It was dry apparently.
George nodded and thanked him and produced an ounce packet of mutrus, black and tarry rolling tobacco and much prized by the local men.
The man nodded back and asked whether they were King Georgy’s soldiers.
George said they were, sent up to look at building a road.
He received the reply that it was a long bloody walk; a road would be more than welcome.
They walked off, the local man saying nothing to his own womenfolk – roads and such were not, in his opinion, any of their business.
They lost three men on the steep climb; one stumbling, sliding thirty feet downhill and breaking or badly spraining an ankle, two to stay with him and put up a tent.
“We’ll use the radio when we get up to the top and send for a party from Moresby to get you back to the hospital. It’ll be tomorrow before they get to you, if you’re lucky. Take it easy. If nothing happens tomorrow, stay put. If you’re still on your own the day after, then next morning make your way down slowly and get to the plantation. It ain’t likely that we’ll find Japs up on top, but it ain’t impossible. Or the wireless might not work. Keep a sentry awake overnight. You’ve got rifles and they’re a temptation to the locals.”
“I thought they were on our side, sir.”
“Are you on theirs?”
The climb out along the track was steeper on this side of the precipice but was still within reason easy. The final stretch of cliff was not as bad as the two previous, or perhaps they were more used to it, but was made complicated by a deep feeder stream sat in a hundred feet deep valley of its own. The stream was narrow, and a pair of trees had been felled a mile or so distant and rolled down to make a bridge across.
“If we had a rope, George, we could set it up as a handrail.”
“Not having a rope, we can’t, Blue.”
“Those tree trunks are bloody slippery from the spray, George.”
“The kanakas walked across, mate, and most of them were women and carrying more than we are. Barefoot, not boots, which helps, but we can’t stay here.”
The trees were long and strong, but their trunks were not especially wide. The whole bridge was not three feet across, and there was a gap in the middle, between the trunks.
“First Platoon, lead the way. Behind me.”
George stepped out onto the bridge and paced casually across, doing his best to show unconcerned. He wondered if he had fooled anyone as he stepped onto firm ground on the other side. He stayed at the end, giving a hand to the men as they crossed, laughing as they cracked their jokes. Carter and Arkenshawe-Mathers came last of all, hobbling on very sore feet.
“Last leg. First bit of flat ground we come to, with a creek nearby, and tree cover. That’s where we camp up.”
Barely a mile saw them on dry ground, setting the tents under cover and swearing as they took their boots off and stretched cramped legs and formed a queue by the aid post for their blisters to be tr
eated.
“Half the men have blisters, Captain Hawkins. You do not.”
“Harder feet for being used to the heat, in part, Carter. Well worn-in boots and thick, woolly socks. Six pairs in me pack. Thick socks get hot as hell, and they stink – I’m not looking forward to taking me boots off tonight. But, they absorb the sweat and they’re soft. The blokes will get the message about socks. Next time they’re in Moresby they’ll go to BPs or Steamies and buy their own.”
“So shall I.”
“Keep your feet dry when possible. If they get wet, wash and dry them soonest. Always have spare boots and socks. The man with working feet is the winner up here. Duty – I’ll take One Platoon and run guards tonight. You take Two tomorrow, Carter. Three for you Mathers, next night. Blue has Four last of all. Two men on duty for two hours, rotating. Officer to make at least two inspections during the night. Don’t bother about uniforms, except that they must not be barefoot; can’t risk them treading on something sharp or getting bitten or stung. Make sure they are alert and not smoking, that’s all. A fag can be seen at one hundred yards and smelt at two. Call the alarm at the least suspicion. Stir the cooks an hour before dawn.”
George had learned the basics on the trek from Lae to Bulolo, was confident in taking a party through the bush.
He stood on a higher point with the other three officers and stared north at the rolling hills that transitioned into ridges and then, distantly blue at the edge of visibility, into mountains. “No way to get a road through there. Seen it from the air. The valleys intersect. Rough and deep. We can maybe drive a few miles, and anything is worth the gain, but most of it’s walking only.”
They ate bully beef hash, knowing that they would do so more often than not over the next few weeks.
“I say, sir. This is not the best of food, you know.”
“It keeps you alive, Mathers. When we get to a village you can buy fruit. If they’ve got kaukau spare, I’ll buy that to add some bulk to the stew pot. Sweet potato, that is. If possible, I’ll have an airstrip cut out of the bush. Probably won’t be – not much flat land around here, and what there is has generally got hills too close.”
The signallers announced they had contact with their people at the bottom of the gorge; they had told them of the injured man and his companions awaiting pick up,
A New Place Page 9