“A letter every two weeks, Georgie. Provided you reply.”
“Mary will if I don’t, Ma.”
“Ja, is a good girl you married there, Georgie. I did not know, when first Ned said it to be a good idea, but he was right to give you your head to do as you wished there. I thought, maybe a Chinese girl is trouble for you. Maybe, it still will be, but worth every bit of it.”
“So I reckon, Ma. Only girl I was ever interested in – from the point of view of being a wife, that is!”
Jutta had been well aware of George’s activities in Lae; she made no comment.
“What of Vunapope? Have the Fathers come back?”
“Not yet, ma. They will, I don’t doubt. Joe Schultz held the place together during the war – they will have a working sawmill and wharf. Mick, the man who was my partner in Lae, is in charge of a lot of what’s going on in Kokopo and he is getting a big hospital built up for them. There will be military doctors at first. Should be possible to keep at least one volunteer doctor there for the long run, and local nurses and plenty of medicines from here.”
“Good. Father Joe was a good man, despite his religion. With luck, there will be more. No doubt there will be Protestants on the North Coast as well – some of them were good men.”
“They’ll be all new as well, Ma. The word was that they stayed and were mostly taken prisoner by the Japs and sent back to Japan with the soldiers, except they didn’t get there. Their ship was torpedoed by an American submarine and all of the prisoners of war drowned, or almost all, the details weren’t entirely clear. It was a merchant ship, no Red Crosses, so the sub was right to put it down, but just about every bugger who survived the invasion was killed then. None came back, anyway.”
“Too many died in that war, Georgie. Not like the first one – few died then. What of the Tolai and our labourers?”
“Not too many, it seems, Ma. The Japanese left them alone, to an extent. When I go back, I shall have to talk with the Tolai in our villages. I have warned them to keep quiet about it, but it looks like they did in a good few Japs, on the quiet, and probably ate them. I’ve said that I’ll pay for any swords or rifles or other proof that they killed our enemies. The new kiap, when he appears, won’t like it, and the Administration will have blue fits, but good luck to them – they’ve shown whose side they were on as far I’m concerned.”
Jutta shrugged – the Tolai had long been cannibals and had been loath to give up the habit, regarding canned beef and mackerel as rather inferior substitutes for long pig.
“What do they say, Georgie? ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’? If the Japanese did not like to be eaten, they should not have come to the Gazelle. As for the kiaps – good men, most of them, but often not quite the wisest. They know what is right in Brisbane or London, but they ain’t exactly certain what makes sense in Kokopo.”
“So say I, Ma.”
Mary had been asleep, taking the afternoon rest believed to be essential for ladies in her condition. She brought her eight-month belly into the big living room, smiling for both.
“I am glad that Kathleen is here, George, to look after Ned for me. How women get on with their ordinary lives carrying a great lump like this around, I do not know. You see those girls out in the market, pregnant like me and with three piccaninnies trailing behind and a pair of bags with half a hundredweight of kaukau on their backs – how do they do it?”
Jutta answered, sadly.
“They are old before they are thirty and dead by forty, most often. That is how, Mary. Poor souls, I have so many times been sad for their lives – and thankful for mine!”
“That is true, Mama Jutta. Poor souls indeed. Perhaps things will get better for them, one day.”
A New Place
Chapter Ten
“A little girl, George.”
“Jutta Mary?”
It seemed good to both.
“When do we go back home, George?”
“In three or four months? Towards the end of the Dry?”
“No. Let it wait for the Doldrums to finish. Early in the Wet will be better for the little one – not so sweaty. Say five or six months would be better.”
“So be it, my love. I must go back for some of that time, but I can come down every month now that there are civilian air services running again.”
“Expensive, George!”
“We have the money. The war was good to us. When does your father go back, do you know?”
“Very soon. He is delaying while he buys some ships. Small island boats, he says, ‘landing craft’, I think.”
“Designed to run in shallow water and if need to be to go onto a sloping beach, as long as it’s not too steep. Useful around the Islands at the moment. Damned near every wharf was bombed or shelled during the war and it will take years to rebuild them all. Can’t blame the Yanks and the Air Force for doing it, but it’s a bloody nuisance now. Enough, you look tired, love, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Mr Tse was happy to find a few minutes in his busy day for George.
“I’m thinking of buying a couple of Dakotas, Mr Tse. Start up the airline again. Passengers, not cargo.”
“I would advise against it, George. Too many thinking the same. The war has trained up thousands of pilots, and there might be ten thousand bombers and cargo planes surplus to military requirements now. A lot of them, men and planes both, will end up out here. I suspect there will be a dozen of one and two plane airlines starting up this year coming, and almost all of them to go broke next year.”
George thought a few seconds before surrendering. Post-war was going to be different, he realised.
“You will deal with the shipping side, so Mary says, Mr Tse. No need for me to get involved there. A garage and service station do you think?”
“Definitely, George. The hotel as well. Put a bit of cash into the Club in Rabaul, not too visibly and not for profit. Get a good name when it leaks out – as it will – that you got the place running again. Be useful to have people on your side when you run head on into the Administration, which you will, for sure.”
George thought that to be probable as well.
“Do you intend to sell out in Cairns, sir?”
Mr Tse shook his head.
“No. I am an Australian citizen and must show my loyalty to the country that has so generously adopted me. The government offered me citizenship…”
George nodded in his turn – there was no need to say that what one set of politicians had given, another could take away, if offered provocation. Mr Tse had been made welcome for his wealth and it was wise to ensure that the bulk of that wealth remained in Queensland.
“Mary must have told you that I’m doing the same, Mr Tse. I’ve had a few talks with generals I know, and they say that the British Empire ain’t going to survive. The Yanks believe they won the war – which is true – and they won’t spend their money and lives to keep the Poms going. They won’t go to war with Britain, but they ain’t going to bail her out. Why should they? So the colonies will all go. Who gets them? You tell me, sir.”
“Most will be called independent, George. Too soon, before they have developed a Western economy. God help the poor people who live in them. We will stay while we can do some good, and still make money, George. Then it will be time to go. The Administration will not believe a word of it. There will be governors and kiaps and they will believe that Queen Victoria still rules and that nothing can change. It will be tempting to try to be helpful, to join a political party seeking independence for the Territory and to offer them experience in business. I shall not, George. Too big a risk for my liking.”
“And mine, sir. The Administration would see the act as treachery. I shall pay good wages and do my best to train young men and women. We will make sure the local schools can do their work. The plantations will have their aid posts and we will put some money into the hospital at Vunapope. The Administration will not like any of that. They will want low pay and ignorant people. The ki
aps will accuse me of making their villagers unsettled, and they’ll be right. Sod it, sir. I will go back, but not to stay. A pity, but the end is in sight, even if it takes another forty years.”
“Agreed, George. Business now - I have an agreement with a baker down in New South Wales, George. Navy biscuits. Good quality and I can land them in Rabaul at ten per cent under Steamships’ price.”
“Put me in for at least two tons a month, sir. More if you can get them. The locals like them better than rice.”
“Will do, George. Payable in Cairns.”
“Can do. Any chance of getting hold of canned mackerel or edible bully beef? The stuff that’s to hand at the moment ain’t that good. Army rations, that sort of thing – produced cheap and sold dear to the military.”
“Not so easy, George. I’m looking for myself. If I get hold of anything, I’ll put you onto it.”
George flew north and found his house ready and habitable – Mick had been able to discover furniture and a full set of kitchen equipment. There were plates and dishes and cutlery as well. George said nothing and paid him in cash.
“Your two blokes, Blue and Killy, have been busy while you’ve been away, George. The plantations are producing and they’ve managed to feed the labour line as well. Oil Products loaded a small tanker last week. Still a call for glycerine – it looks like the Yanks at least will stay on a war footing until they know what’s going on in Russia and China. The new kiap turned up last week, mate. He’s a dick.”
George was disappointed to hear that, but not especially surprised.
“Wants to bring in driving licences, and says that nobody who can’t read road signs in English can have one.”
“Christ! That’s all we need. If he pushes the Tolai off the road then they’ll really be upset. Half of the drivers on the Gazelle are Tolai and a few of the villages owned their own truck before the war. Now that army-surplus is so easy to come by, I would reckon that a fair few more have got them.”
“That’s why he’s doing it, George. He don’t reckon it’s good for the villagers – give them ideas beyond their place, it seems. Better far they should ‘settle down and live the right sort of existence’, and that’s a quote. Some of the elders from Raluana have tried to speak to him and they got nowhere.”
Raluana was the largest village of the Gazelle, and in its own opinion, the most important. The men were prominent in the councils of the Dukduk Society and the women were renowned for their wisdom in the less public but probably more important network of women’s groups in the villages. Where Raluana led, the majority of Tolai would follow.
“Who is he, Mick? Where is he based?”
“Office here in Kokopo, George. Next to the police station. He’s fallen out with the local inspector already. Word is that the inspector is ready to resign. He did well as a Coast Watcher – you know that, George – and he’s been offered a place with the Northern Territory police. Senior sort of job in Darwin. He’ll probably go, which will be a loss here. Means there’ll be no restraint on the kiap.”
“Shit! What’s the dick’s name?”
“Reynolds. James, not Jim. Learned the job down in Milne Bay before the war. Spent the whole of the war in Moresby. Knows everything. Very good friend of every important man in ANGAU, as he has told us all. Single, naturally for a kiap, and drinks too much in the Club and keeps bottles in his house.”
“Housegirls?”
“No. Keeps a houseboy to look after the place. Might be no more than he seems. Don’t know. Haven’t asked, ain’t going to.”
It was none of Mick’s business, and probably not his, George accepted.
“Fair enough, Mick. I had better meet him, I suppose. In his office or at the bar, Mick?”
“Office – better be formal in the first instance.”
“Right. I’ll do that now, if he’s in.”
“It’s Wednesday. He’ll be in. He goes out to the villages on Monday and Thursday, visits plantations on Tuesday and does his paperwork Wednesday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday, he takes off.”
George was disgusted.
“I’ve never been down to Milne Bay, Mick, but if that’s the way they do things there, it ain’t much of a place. Kiaps I’ve known patrolled six and a half days, took an afternoon off to write their reports and then were out again for another week. Has he got the Bainings?”
“Eastern and northern parts. Wherever the Tolai have penetrated, he’s supposed to keep an eye out.”
“Can’t patrol those mountains in a day. No roads after you get to Toma. Might be able to take a jeep a few miles along the tracks, but I doubt it. The roads past the Warongoi River must be knackered now – they were never that good and won’t have been graded during the war.”
“He says the Bainings are almost empty. No need to spend time on them. He’ll poke his nose in once a year, maybe.”
“They’ll be fighting there already, Mick.”
“He says not.”
“What a prick!”
George walked down to the kiap’s offices, discovered a sign outside announcing the presence of the ‘District Officer, Kokopo’. Signs had never been needed pre-war – the kiap was known, and valued.
There was a clerk at a front desk, a Milne Bay man, not a Tolai. A foreigner taking one of the rare paid jobs would not be popular, George thought.
“I’m George Hawkins.”
“Yes, sir. I shall see if Mr Reynolds is free, sir.”
The clerk trotted into an inside office, came back two minute later.
“Mr Reynolds is very busy, sir. If you would wait, he will be able to find you a few minutes later.”
George saw that as a deliberate snub and reacted appropriately.
“I’m busy, too. If he wants to see me, he can come out to the plantations. I might be able to find time for him.”
George walked out and found his jeep; war had been declared.
On the road out, he spotted a new store building, saw that Steamships had returned. He pulled up and introduced himself.
“George Hawkins. I’ve got Vunatobung and Tomorang, up the road a few miles. Have my people set up an account with you?”
“Yeah. Set up in Moresby. Your manager, Killy, has organised it. I’m Jack, by the way. Got the first of your consignments of rice and bully aboard the boat. Due in day after tomorrow.”
“Good. How do you want the account paid? I can do cash up here or cheque if you prefer or pay off in Moresby or in Cairns. Be a bloody sight easier when the banks open in Rabaul again.”
“Bloody right it will be, George. I don’t want too much cash floating about up here, if I can avoid it, and cheques will be a bloody nuisance, having to post them to Moresby to clear them. Best bet will be to pay in Moresby or Cairns if you can, every three months. I can send the bills down to them and they can deal with you direct.”
“Right, mate. No worries. Is there anything to go out today?”
“No. Sent the truck up yesterday. Had to drive it me bloody self. The kiap refused my driver boy a licence, would you bloody believe!”
“Something about needing English to read the road signs, ain’t it?”
“Yeah. Bloody dickhead! How many signs have you seen on our roads, George?”
“None that I know of, Jack. I thought maybe the soldiers had put some up.”
“Not a chance, mate. The Diggers can’t write, mostly, and the Yanks don’t talk English. Won’t find soldiers putting signs up.”
“Sounds right, mate.”
“There’s a forty mile an hour speed limit now, George.”
“Another one from the kiap? Bloody idiot! Since when have we been able to make as much as forty on these roads?”
“Born stupid and been practising ever since, George. Don’t see him lasting, somehow.”
“No more do I, and I don’t want the bother that will lead to. If the Tolai chop him, then there will be police investigating, sent up from Melbourne most likely. They won’t know their arse f
rom their elbows, that’s for sure. I don’t want the place crawling with ignorant coppers.”
“Can you talk to the locals, George?”
“Sure. No problem. They’ll listen and thank me very politely and tell me how sorry they are that my father died. Then they’ll bugger off and do whatever seems sensible to them. They’ll go out of their way not to drop me in the shit, but they ain’t going to let me give them their orders.”
“That’s what I thought, George. How about going to Rabaul?”
“When they’ve got a few more places up and running – not much point beforehand. Depends who’s there, as well.”
George kept himself busy for the next while, avoiding Kokopo in the evenings and making the rounds of all of the local villages, talking and trying not to get too much involved. He was a little surprised to discover a pair of trucks busy at Bitapaka village, over towards the Bainings side of the Gazelle. He asked what they were doing.
“Working for Steamships, boss, three days a week. Carrying our copra the other three. Taking everybody to church on Sunday.”
The answer was given in Pidgin – there were no English speakers in the village.
“How?”
The Milne Bay clerk in the kiap’s office was charging a pound a time for licences, it transpired. Lay down your twenty shillings and the licence was slapped into your hand – no driving test, no language skills.
“What about the kiap?”
“He’s a dick, boss.”
“The clerk must be getting rich.”
“All in money, boss. Must be he’s got a great big bag of shillings somewhere.”
George said no more. The man was a foreigner, not a Tolai. As such, he had no rights on the Gazelle, including the right to breathe.
“The kiap will be angry if his clerk is chopped.”
“No he won’t, boss. The kiap is useless. As bad as the Japanesi. Maybe we don’t need kiaps now. No kiaps when the Japanesi came, they all ran away.”
A New Place Page 22