“Do you know if any of the plantations are back in business yet?”
“None, mate. When you get to your place, check the grass carefully, for bombs and shells and anything else left where it fell. The Japs dumped stuff all over the place and they say that two percent of the bombs dropped never exploded, and they raided Rabaul and the Gazelle all day every day they could for the better part of three years.”
“Jesus!”
“Tread carelessly and you’ll be talking to him, mate.”
A New Place
Chapter Nine
Mick was waiting at the airfield, a vast American staff car behind him.
“G’day, George. How’s it going?”
“Pretty good, Mick. How’s it with you?”
“Not bad, mate. Daft bastards have made me a major and put me in charge of ‘disposal of surplus material’. Not just that, but I’m the bloke who says what’s surplus!”
“Christ, mate! Have you made a million yet?”
“On me way, George. I’ve used your two places as stores, by the way. Got to have somewhere secure to keep stuff to ensure it ain’t thieved.”
George fought for a straight face.
“No transport arranged for passengers generally, George. They reckon that every bugger who comes up here should be expected, so there’s no need for buses. I get a list radioed up to me every morning – always handy to know if there’s a copper coming in.”
“Just so, Mick. What state are the plantations in? Can I live there?”
“The house is gone, George. Bombed. For the while, I’ve taken over part of the old administration buildings in Kokopo, converted them into a mess for my people. There’ll be a room for you, mate. I’ll get you a jeep as well – there’s dozens hanging about. You’ll be able to keep it – written off as non-running and sold for scrap. No scrap merchants here, so the price is a quid. Got to have a price – can’t give it away for free.”
George allowed a smile. He had not expected the old house to have survived; it still hurt a little to have lost its memories. He would be able to rebuild, quickly, with Mick’s help.
“You’ll want trucks as well, George – they’re more expensive, they come in at a fiver.”
George started to laugh, then he looked around him as the staff car Mick was driving came closer to Kokopo itself.
“What’s the damage like, Mick? That was Gunantambu, Queen Emma’s place, we’ve just passed. Nothing left of it other than the big stone stairs leading up to the front.”
“Bombed flat, George, and Ralum village. Most of the wharves along the coast here are the same. Half the buildings in Kokopo are gone. One or two still standing, but not much of any size. The Yanks have thrown up dozens of huts, their temporary things. They’ll last for five years, time enough to rebuild what’s possible. There’s a load of tunnels into the cliffs hereabouts – a Japanese hospital and barge docks and arsenals still full of bombs and torpedoes and Christ knows what else. The soldiers ain’t too keen on going into the tunnels – reckon they might be full of spiders and that.”
“Not many spiders on the Gazelle, Mick. A few redbacks is about all I’ve ever seen.”
“One of the sergeants reckoned he saw funnel-webs in one of the tunnels.”
Funnel-web spiders were common in Queensland, but George had not heard of them on the Gazelle. They were deadly.
“Was he pissed?”
“Sober as a judge.”
“Then I ain’t going poking me nose into dark old tunnels, Mick. Especially if they’re full of bombs.”
“Same here, mate.”
They came to the buildings Mick had appropriated – old and airy, probably the best of the surviving structures in the town.
“This is the German governor’s old place, Mick, or part of it, anyway. We used to use it as the Club.”
“Bloody good thing it wasn’t bombed out then, George. I wondered why it had such big fridges. They didn’t work anymore, but I got a Yank engineer to replace them, for a minor consideration. Fancy a coldie, George? Got most of the Queensland beers.”
The beer was welcome. The weather was at its least pleasant in the last months of the Dry and coming up to the doldrums. The afternoons reached little more than ninety degrees, but the humidity was high, and walking was sticky.
“Have the storms started yet, Mick?”
“Nah. The locals say they won’t for another four or five weeks.”
“They’ll know, mate. Have you talked to the puri-puri man?”
“Saw him a couple of weeks back, George. Dropped him a dozen cartons of bully beef and half a dozen sacks of rice. He promised me that we wouldn’t be struck by lightning this year.”
Both men had been long enough in the Territory to firmly disbelieve in rain-makers; they had also been there for sufficient years to treat them with respect and certainly not to offend one of the fraternity. Add to that, both would be more than surprised if they experienced lightning strikes.
“Who must I make me number with, Mick?”
“Got an inspector of police who’s just come in, George. You’ll want to be on side with him – he knows his arse from his elbow. Put in some years on the Gazelle before the war and knew your old man. Apart from that – most of the army and air force officers will be through the mess here during the evenings. Might be the odd sailor as well. I’ve got a board at the door, names of residents in the mess on it. Stick yourself down, rank as well, so they know you’re one of the right sort, not a bloody public servant type. You’ll want to make sure some of the locals know you’re back, I suppose?”
“Is the market back in business?”
“Yeah. Built a couple of open-sided sheds for the women to sit under, first thing I did, pretty much. They was back within the day of the building finishing.”
“Good. I’ll wander down first thing in the morning. They’ll pass the word across the whole of the local area.”
Mick nodded – he was familiar with the speed with which information could be passed through the bush.
“What’s happening at Vunapope?”
“The sawmill’s opened already. Useful for building. They’re making good the damage – the small wharf is working. No missionaries back yet. Fellow by the name of Schultz – mixed race – is running everything.”
“The Schultzes have run the place since Queen Emma’s day, Mick. Oldest son is always Joe. He’ll have done what he could while the Japs were here – he survived the Germans and us, he won’t have let the Japs disturb him too much.”
“Met him. He seems a capable sort of bloke.”
“They always are, Mick. Keep an eye out for him – maybe a petrol generator or a truck or something handy for the sawmill – and he’ll be a useful bloke to have on side.”
“What can he do for us, George?”
“Everything. You want food supplies – he’ll talk to the Catholic villages and get them to sell to you. You need good timber for building? He’ll pull out stuff from his hidden stocks out in the bush – seasoned hardwoods which he won’t have let the Japs get hold of. You need tradesmen? Carpenters, especially? He’ll point them in your direction. Need a vehicle mechanic? Ask Joe Schultz. He can’t work miracles, he leaves that to the Fathers, but anything much short of that he’s good for.”
“You want to have a word with him for me, George?”
“I’ll see him tomorrow, Mick.”
Seven in the morning saw George wandering through the little market, acknowledging greetings from a few, introducing himself to unknown faces. The women sellers were all Tolai, he saw, most of them with the ginger or dark blonde hair that distinguished the clan. He spotted a house girl from Vunatobung, worn and tired-seeming, grinning from ear to ear as she yelled across to him.
“Master Georgie! Missus come back too?”
“Not yet, Vinnie. Waiting for the house to be made ready. Soon. When she comes, she will need people to work for her.”
Vinnie had learned English, was proud t
o speak the true language in front of the other women. George heard the comments from the others, all of whom were quickly told that he spoke fluent Pidgin and good enough Kuanua, the local tongue of the Tolai.
“Will there be work, Master Georgie?”
“Steamships and Carpenters and Burns Philp will be back soon. The Oil Products yard will be up and running as soon as I can get it. There will be jobs for drivers and for clerks and for men to work the stores, within a few months. All will start again.”
“Some of the men will talk to you, Master Georgie. They will show you the things they took from the Japanesi. Big knives. Rifles. Other things.”
“When I left, I said I would pay for everything the brave warriors took. Ask them to see me. Did the Japanesi do you much harm?”
There was a general shaking of heads – the little men had left them alone in their villages.
“They stole pigs and chickens, nothing else. They gave us money, but there was nothing to buy with it, so they were thieves. Some of them got lost in the bush, Master Georgie. Silly men! Some went on patrol in the Bainings and never came back. We said it must have been the bushmen from the Bainings who killed them. They had no planes left and could not drop bombs on the Bainings villages, or shoot at them, so they stopped sending patrols out. Then they died in the plantations out on the roads towards Toma and mountains, and we said the Bainings warriors were raiding into our villages. The Japanesi believed us, because we were just stupid monkeys, so they said, too frightened to fight or look after ourselves.”
George laughed his appreciation.
“Silly men! What did they taste like?”
There was a howl of outrage – as if they would do such a thing!
“Fishy, Master Georgie! They ate seaweed and fish and nothing else – no beef for them. Not good, Master Georgie, but there was no canned beef!”
George shrugged, they had had no choice.
“Don’t tell the kiap, or the police big man.”
“No kiap here, Master Georgie.”
“There will be. A new man. He will do all he can, and the Administration will be back too. They will have some money and will build some schools, so they say.”
“Will the Fathers come back?”
“And the Pastors?”
George answered both questions in the affirmative – nothing would keep the missionaries away.
“Master Georgie? The Japanesi killed Master Ned and threw his body into the sea. We could not find it. No grave, Master Georgie. Sorry true!”
George shook his head, said they had done all they could, and more than he had expected.
“My father did what he had to. He lived here many years and this is where he would have wished to die – even if not yet. I shall try to do as he would have wanted. I have a son now; his name is Ned. My missus will have a second baby soon. We shall stay, while we can.”
They said nothing to that, knowing that many of the clan were inclined to ask for a council at least, so that they might start to govern themselves. This was not the place for such a discussion.
“I must go to Vunapope, to talk with Joe Schultz. There will be much to do.”
“Joe? Good to see you again. I am back and will be staying for a while. When I get the house up again, the missus will come back. I will want to buy timber to rebuild the house at Vunatobung. For the while, you have met Mick, the major in Kokopo?”
Joe had, but had kept his distance from him, waiting for him to make any contact he wanted.
“He is my partner. We worked together in Lae and owned the planes that flew the Islands route. We shall be partners again. He will want to do business with Vunapope. What do you need?”
“What sort of things has he got, Master Georgie?”
“Trucks; electricals; jeeps; hand tools, perhaps. He can bring in most things. He will be looking for good timber, especially. There is much building to be done. I shall suggest to him that he should come here to speak to you. He is a safe man.”
“The hospital, Master Georgie, has nothing. One trained aid worker and six of the nurses, our girls. Nothing else. No doctors. No medicines.”
“I will see what can be done, Joe.”
George drove the jeep back into town, buttonholed Mick immediately.
“Hospital buildings, George?”
“Fully equipped, or were, mate. Bombed out by now, I should reckon.”
“No worries. We need a proper place, been making do so far. I’ll send the Medical Corps across in the morning. We’ll get wards built and put the sick in them. That will force them to rebuild and equip the rest of the place as fully as they can, mate, and send out some doctors. I’ll try to get some Yanks in as well. They worry about hospitals, not like our army. I’ll get the road graded while I’m at it. I can put a few hundred Japs onto that – we need to keep them busy. When are you going out to your plantations?”
“Tomorrow, mate.”
As Mick had told him, the house was gone, bombed and burned, the concrete footings for the stilts it had rested on the only thing remaining. One of the water tanks had survived, somehow, and the big warehouse had been rebuilt. Most of the huts on the labour lines were still there, the bulk of them showing holes where they had been machine-gunned from the air. There were filled-in bomb craters in the yard and for nearly a quarter of a mile around it; the planes had not been very accurate, it seemed. The bulk of the trees stood, coconut and cocoa alike, and showed some evidence that they had been worked; presumably the Japanese had wanted chocolate and glycerine.
There was a lorry park as well, at least fifty of three- and ten-tonners and a few dozen of smaller jeeps and utility vehicles. The warehouse had been turned into a mechanics’ workshop, was busy repairing and maintaining the fleet. A glance suggested that racks had been constructed inside and were full of boxes and cartons, no doubt all surplus and written off.
A suspicious sergeant trotted across to Ned.
“Army property, sir. Off limits to civilians, sir.”
“No, it ain’t. I’m George Hawkins. I own this place, and the one up the road. They’re mine and I’m back to put them into production. Mick has been using my property with my permission – we were partners in Lae before the war. You’ll be getting orders today or tomorrow. Probably be to get ready to move out some of your gear, enough so that I can get the plantation producing again. Are you using the huts in the labour line?”
“The ones with sound roofs, the dry ones, have got stores in, sir. We let a bunch of natives live in the rest; they work for us.”
“Jesus! I want those roofs made good within the bloody week. You don’t treat my people that way, mister!”
“Look, mate, owner or not, you don’t give me bloody orders! No bloody civilian gives me orders!”
“For your second mistake, private?”
“What? I’m a bloody sergeant.”
“You’ll be lucky to be as high up as a private by this time tomorrow morning, mate! No bloody soldier gives me shit!”
“You want to watch yourself, mister…”
“Look behind you, soldier.”
Men were running up from the labour line, some of them carrying bush knives, at least one with a felling axe. George spotted his father’s old foreman, Luke, a Madang clansman who had come across to the plantation in the Twenties.
“Morning true, Luke!”
“Morning, Master Georgie! You come back? You stop here?”
“I’m back. Payday next week for all of the men on the line.”
George’s words were translated into at least four different languages.
“You like we rausim soldiers, Master George?”
“No got. They can stay while they behave themselves.”
“All right, boss.” Luke turned to the sergeant. “Shut you mouth, soldier-boy. No more shout at us.”
George laughed.
“Good on yer, Luke. Is there corrugated iron in the stores?”
“Plenty, boss.”
“Good
, get it, and hammers and nails and saws if you need ‘em. Take any timbers you need as well. Mend the huts today and tomorrow. Is the fermentery good?”
“Japanesi want cocoa, master. They build’im new when the Yanks bomb’im.”
“All for free as well!”
They laughed, sourly.
“Get men picking and podding cocoa, Luke. Copra can wait. How many labourers? Do we need more boys?”
“No got, Master Georgie. Plenty boys come to us. Stay at Vunatobung, long way from Tolai villages. Japanesi no like fighting. They shoot fighters. Plantation men stay far from Tolai men. Better that way.”
“Good. I will pay every man who works. Even if they go back to other masters one day, pay them now.”
“Master Ned would say that, Master Georgie. Good men.”
They were interrupted by the sound of another jeep arriving, low gear up the pot-holed track.
Mick drew up, stopped to light a cheroot, joined George in the yard.
“What the hell’s that, Mick?”
“Got two thousand of ‘em off the Yanks, George. Try one?”
“Not bloody likely, Mick. I’ve just been telling this prick of a soldier the time of day, Mick. He used to be a sergeant of yours.”
“Every bugger’s allowed one mistake, George. Sergeant Ayres get your gear together. Report to the office in Kokopo for reassignment. Now.”
They watched as the sergeant trotted across to his billet and quickly packed several kitbags and called a pair of private soldiers to load them into the back of a thirty-hundredweight truck. Ten minutes saw him gone.
“If he’d argued or hung about I’d have searched his bags, George. Be full of souvenirs, I’ll bet. Those Japanese swords fetch a couple of hundred dollars apiece from Yank officers. Badges and whatever are worth a few bucks as well.”
“His business. I don’t like blokes who keep stores in the dry huts and make the labour line sleep in the wet buggers, Mick.”
“Fair enough, George. Are they working on them now?”
“Too bloody right they are, mate.”
“Good. I’ll leave a ten-tonner and two three-tonners as well as your jeep and a couple of small runabouts, George. Spares as well, and a fair bit of fuel and oil. You’ll need tyres – not easy to get hold of. Paint as well. Better have the plantation name and colour on them. I’ll send a petrol generator out later in the week. Anything else you can think of?”
A New Place Page 20