The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Sir, it jes’ ain’t right to send a man inta combat wid a empty belly.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, planes comin’ in all da time; Colonel Woon, he only Intelligence, he ain’t gonna know what B-17 you gonna be arrivin’ in.’

  ‘But it’s 1700 hours, knock-off time. He isn’t going to be happy.’

  ‘Knock-off time?’ he asked, then realised my meaning. ‘He ain’t going home ’til he’s seen you, sir. Dere’s a war on, donchaknow.’

  What did he mean by combat? I thought, as I hastily tried to tidy my crumpled blue serge naval uniform that was completely inappropriate for the tropical conditions. I remembered thinking that it would be crushed to buggery if I stuffed it in my kitbag with the Owen submachine-gun, and that since I would probably have to front up in Luganville and report to Intelligence HQ I’d better try to look like an officer instead of an oversized schoolboy in the standard tropical Australian Navy uniform.

  Big, big mistake, Nicholas Duncan! Now I was sweating like the proverbial pig and the collar of my white shirt was rimmed with dirt. I was making a pathetic job of being a smartly turned out navy lieutenant.

  I tried to brush the creases from my jacket, pulling at the hems below the pockets and smoothing the lapels. I should have removed it when I’d entered the aeroplane but it was bloody cold at altitude and I’d kept it on. I must have looked like a derro who’d salvaged a tired-looking naval uniform from a rubbish bin. I dusted off my cap, only to see that somewhere along the line I’d picked up a grease mark on the crown that was half the size of my fist. So much for the trappings of my new unentitled rank.

  Sergeant Polanski must have sensed my nervousness, and in an attempt to comfort me increased my anxiety by saying, ‘Colonel Woon, he a good guy, sir. Only sometimes you get on da wrong side o’ him, he got him a fine temper dat go off like one o’ dem Chinese firecracker.’

  That must have been what he meant by my going into combat with a full belly. I was about to meet an irascible American colonel. Equipped with this warning and hoping he wasn’t a stickler for dress code, I followed the marine sergeant to the colonel’s office, came to attention at the open door and saluted, then announced, ‘Lieutenant Nick Duncan, sir. Royal Australian Navy!’

  ‘Come in, Nick,’ the colonel said, in a pleasant enough voice.

  I fronted, bringing myself to rigid attention, hoping that my smart salute might make up for my untidy turn out, and said again, ‘Nicholas Duncan reporting for duty, sir.’

  ‘Well, hello there, son. It’s real good to have you with us.’ He smiled, indicating a chair with a sweep of the hand. He had an open face and a nice smile; a big man, not that tall, but built, as they say, like the proverbial brick shithouse. ‘Please sit, you’ve had a long flight, never easy. I was in your country, in Bris-bane, a month back, real nice folk. Getting back to Luganville was bad enough, now you’ve added another four hours. How you feeling, son?’

  ‘Not too bad, sir.’

  ‘That’s good. We’re mighty pleased to see you. I’ve read your dossier. You’ve packed a fair bit into a short life. How fluent are you in Japanese? Could you, for instance, translate a radio broadcast?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Japanese radio operators are selected for their clear diction.’

  ‘What? In the field of battle?’

  ‘Yes, sir, they are specifically trained. It’s the Japanese way. For example, the mechanic that works on the engine doesn’t know anything about the gearbox or the diff. They do one thing and do it very well. Personal initiative is not a prized component in their society.’ I was mouthing off, being a smart-arse, but was too nervous to keep my answers short and crisp. ‘There aren’t too many Japanese who are jacks-of-all-trades,’ I said, gilding the lily further.

  ‘And you learned all this by the age of eleven?’ he asked with a half smile, his eyes amused.

  He’d obviously read my dossier. ‘No, sir. My father is an academic who took a First at Oxford in Japanese studies. He worked for thirteen years as a teacher in Tokyo. I guess I picked all this up from listening to him. He is also somewhat of an anthropologist who has made a life study of the Japanese.’ Shut up ferchrissake, Nick, I said inside my head. My replies were becoming much too garrulous.

  ‘Interesting,’ Colonel Woon remarked, then stretched back in his chair. ‘Well, son, we can certainly use your talents.’ He suddenly changed the subject and, leaning slightly forward, said, ‘You know, Nick, I feel sure I know you. That we’ve met before and, if not, that your name has cropped up somewhere over something…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘I wouldn’t think that likely, sir. Though, of course, both Nick and Duncan are fairly common Scottish names, a bit like John Brown with the Brits. Someone else with the same name, perhaps?’ Dammit! Still too many words!

  He seemed to be thinking. ‘Yes, possibly.’ Then he suddenly lunged forward and slammed his fist down onto the surface of his desk. ‘Yes! Goddamn, yes! Tjilatjap airport! What was her name? Anna, that’s right, Anna! The most beautiful young creature I’ve ever seen. Violet blue eyes, remarkable!’ He pointed at me. ‘She gave me a letter for a Nicholas Duncan, care of the Archbishop of Perth! I promised I’d see it got to him. That you?’ He could see by my expression that he’d hit the jackpot. ‘Goddamn yes, it is.’

  ‘Anna? You met Anna — in Java, sir?’ I stammered, overcome by surprise.

  ‘You get the letter? I sent it in a top Army Air Force priority bag from Colombo.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you very much. It… it was astonishing. I mean, er… unexpected, wonderful!’ I had lost it completely, overwhelmed by the coincidence.

  ‘Anna? She your sweetheart?’ he asked, smiling.

  ‘Yes, sir, very much so. I was expecting her to arrive in Australia by boat even before I got there myself.’

  ‘You mean in the yacht you renamed Madam Butterfly?’ The colonel was proving once again that he’d read my dossier thoroughly.

  ‘Yes, sir, when she didn’t… well, I’ve been terribly worried ever since. The letter… at least she’s… she’s alive,’ I stammered, suddenly close to tears, hating myself for showing my emotions in front of the American colonel.

  ‘We don’t have much news coming out of Java, Nick. With the natives cooperating with the Japanese there’s no resistance movement to tell us what’s happening. But the little we have suggests that the Dutch women and children are only now being rounded up and placed in concentration camps. With no resistance, I guess the Japs saved themselves from having to feed them for the first six months after their invasion. Chances are, if she got through those, she’ll be okay. That’s a little girl with one hell of a lot of initiative,’ he said, attempting to comfort me.

  ‘Sir, if you hear anything — anything coming out of Java, could you, would you please let me know?’ I said, using influence I didn’t possess.

  ‘Of course, Nick. It isn’t my theatre any more, but I’ll make a point of finding out what I can for you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘The yacht, Madam Butterfly, did you name it after her, or because you’re a butterfly collector?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, yes, sir — after Anna. The “Madam” was sort of… in anticipation,’ I grinned.

  He laughed. ‘Well, let’s hope for the best, eh, Nick? War and loved ones — never a good combination.’ He’d been sitting forward with his elbows on the desk, or rather folding table, and now he straightened up and leaned backwards again. ‘Well, I suppose you’d like to know why you’re here, son?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, yes, sir. Actually it’s a tremendously nice surprise. I thought I was going to be stuck in a translator’s office in Luganville.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how much you know, but stop me if you do. We landed here on the 7th of this month with very little fuss. There were just a few Japanese engineers and a labour force of about two thousand Koreans building a large airstrip at
Lungga Point. They offered almost no resistance and we were most grateful for the airfield, which we named Henderson Field. Later we put down the marsden matting. Your Mr Martin Clemens had informed us in July that it was almost operational, one of the major reasons we sent the marines ashore at Guadalcanal.’

  I should just mention here that while he referred to Martin Clemens, the famous coastwatcher, as one of us (meaning an Australian), Clemens was in fact a Brit, and had been a district officer who had elected to stay behind to support intelligence operations using native police to spy on the Japanese.

  Colonel Greg Woon continued. ‘When the US 1st Marines arrived under the command of Major General Vandegrift and we took the airstrip, Mr Clemens came out of the jungle the following day and briefed me, giving us a comprehensive picture of the Japanese troop build-up here. It became immediately apparent to me that intelligence sent from your men out there, the coastwatchers behind enemy lines, was going to be invaluable to us. When Clemens again sent Sergeant Major Vouza, one of his native policemen, to warn us of the impending attack from the Alligator River that occurred five days ago, we realised that information from the coastwatchers was going to be an essential aspect of winning the war in these islands, in fact, in the whole of the south Pacific.’

  ‘Sergeant Major Vouza, sir? Lieutenant Marty Kellard, who met my plane at Luganville, mentioned him; said it was, or he was, remarkable. But then the noise from the B-17 prevented him saying anything further.’

  ‘Well, yes, if I had my way, he’d get the Medal of Honor. Let’s hope the Pentagon responds well to my report. Sergeant Major Vouza was on his way to bring us the message about the impending attack when he ran into a Japanese patrol. They tied him to a tree and bayoneted him, leaving him for dead. He chewed through his bindings and staggered through the jungle to alert us that the Japs were going to mount a major attack at the crossing at the Alligator River.

  ‘Well, we had time to position ourselves and set up our machine-gun posts and when they crossed the river we cut them to pieces with heavy machine-gun fire. God knows what might have happened if he hadn’t reached us.

  ‘The Japanese were led in the attack by Colonel Kyono Ichiki, a name that may not mean too much to you, but the sonofabitch goes back a long way, to the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge that started the Japanese war with China in 1937.’ He looked up. ‘You are right about their single-minded attitude, Nick. In a last desperate attempt to get to us, despite the fact that they were being cut to ribbons by our machine-guns, Kyono drew his samurai sword and, waving it above his head, led his battalion in a series of frenzied banzai charges against our position. When we found him he had more holes in him than Huck Finn’s eel bucket.’

  The colonel spread his hands and jerked his shoulders. ‘So you see, we’ve quickly learned to take you guys seriously and that’s where you come in, Nick. I want you to monitor the radio network, bringing in all your guys on the various islands on a regular basis, in particular the coastwatcher reports from Bougainville and New Georgia. Given even half an hour’s warning of an impending Japanese air attack, we can get our fighters to take off and gain height to attack their aircraft from above and west of Henderson Field. If you could intercept and interpret Japanese unit radio traffic, that would be immeasurably valuable to us. It seems crazy that the internment camps in the US are full of young Japanese–Americans who are loyal to the Stars and Stripes, and we go to war in the Pacific with hardly any radio operators who can speak Japanese! You’ve got to wonder about the cockamamie brains that run the Pentagon.’

  ‘Sir, you do understand? I’m trained as a coastwatcher, who speaks and understands Japanese; I know how to use a field radio, of course, but I’m not a radio technician.’

  ‘Yes, understood. Corporal Belgiovani is to be your offsider. I’m told what he doesn’t know about setting up a radio transmitter and receiver isn’t worth broadcasting.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I guess that means I stay here on base, no field work?’

  He looked regretful. ‘Afraid we need you here, son. Later I’ll see what I can do. Get your set-up working efficiently. That’s our number one priority.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.’

  Colonel Woon looked directly at me. ‘Yes, Nick, I think you will.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I think you will, son.’ If this bloke had a quick temper then he was bloody good at hiding it; he’d managed to assuage my disappointment and give me confidence at the same time. He glanced at his watch. ‘Can I buy you a beer, Nick? Bud is all we’ve got at the moment but it will be cold. When we arrived we inherited a newly built iceworks from the Japs, an excellent unit that is now under new management!’ He suddenly slapped the top of his head. ‘Jesus Christ, son, I guess you haven’t eaten in a while?’

  What could I say? I wasn’t going to start my career with the Americans by dobbing in Sergeant Joe Polanski. And so I grinned. ‘I’m an Australian, sir. The beer always has priority.’

  He laughed. ‘Well said, but we’ll get you something to eat anyway. You look hot in that uniform, would you mind if I suggested you use our jungle fatigues? I’ll get someone to sew your naval rank onto your shoulder tabs.’

  ‘I’d be enormously grateful for the fatigues, sir. Don’t worry about the rank insignia.’

  ‘No, son, anyone who’s made a naval lieutenant at your tender age is worthy of recognition.’

  ‘Well, yes, maybe, but in my case it’s not strictly true, sir.’ I proceeded to tell him about my dubious promotion from snotty to lieutenant, the sole reason being not to diminish my position with his mob.

  ‘It will be a pleasure to watch the marines salute you, Nick. Anyhow, I have a hunch you’re going to more than earn your rank.’

  The officers’ mess was an identical set-up to the sergeants’, although I wondered if Colonel Woon knew the sergeants and not the officers had the fancy chef from the Waldorf Astoria. He ordered two Budweiser and when they came he opened them both and handed one to me. ‘Butterflies, eh? I find that interesting. Tell me about it,’ he said, taking a slug directly from his can.

  I had begun to relax a little in his company, so I grinned. ‘Are you sure you want to hear, sir? In my experience it’s a subject few people outside of small children find enchanting.’

  ‘My father was an entomologist, a professor at Yale,’ he replied. ‘Before I could recite “Little Bo-peep” I knew the Latin names of at least two hundred insects. In me you have a kindred soul, Nick. But first let’s order something to eat; you must be starving.’

  I guess at eighteen there’s always a hole to be found that remains unfilled. I ordered a hamburger that turned out to be the usual shit on a shingle, chopped beef on a bun, and served with mashed potatoes. I proceeded to tell the colonel about my boyhood hunting butterflies in the jungles of New Britain and New Guinea.

  ‘Some childhood — from the streets of Tokyo to the depths of the jungle, Japanese to pidgin English! Not too hard to see why you want to get back into the field,’ he said, when I eventually, and not too tediously I hoped, came to the end. ‘Do a good job for us here and I’ll see what I can do.’ Then he asked, ‘With all that time spent in the jungle, do you suffer from malaria, Nick?’

  ‘Everyone does, sir, it’s only a matter of time. The dreaded anopheles mosquito leaves no vein untouched. However, I’m fortunate; some people fare better than others. When I go down with a bout it’s not too bad and only lasts two or three days, then I’m right as rain again.’

  ‘Yah, the first casualties are beginning to come in. Nasty business, culicidae,’ he said, perhaps showing off a bit with the Latin name for the mosquito family.

  ‘I guess the enemy has the same problem,’ I ventured.

  ‘Quinine, disgusting taste, lingers for hours,’ he spat.

  The existing radio set-up was a tribute to Corporal Belgiovani, and inside a week we had the coastwatchers on Bougainville, New
Ireland and the Solomon Islands coordinated and making regular incoming calls and, in turn, receiving our messages. The reception was in morse code, or by voice spoken in English or pidgin English. The brilliant, over-chatty Belgiovani soon had us receiving Japanese field unit transmissions, many of them uncoded. Most of the traffic wasn’t very helpful, but every now and again there was a real gem. When I got something good I reckon I made Colonel Woon’s day; he would take it to the general wearing a smile on his face like a Cheshire cat.

  It didn’t happen immediately, but after a few days I began to translate the meaning of unspoken Japanese. Allow me to explain. The Japanese language is built on extreme politeness: what is said is seldom what is meant; it is the unspoken meaning that often counts the most, the underlying interpretation being overlaid with a pattern of words that appear harmless. It is how the words are put together that counts. Now, suppose you’ve spent your entire lifetime (as has every Japanese person) speaking this silent language. You develop your own pattern of pauses, inflections, glottal sounds or whatever, but the unspoken language is still perfectly understood by everyone. The patterns are known. Emotion, excitement, panic, anxiety, important information, even the deliberate attempt to be obscure, lies in the silent gaps, the unspoken syntax, if that isn’t an oxymoron. I understood this aspect of the Japanese language and so I believed I came to read, in a sense, what was really going on in the Japanese radio operator’s mind. I began to be able to pick a deliberate piece of false information or obscuration that was meant to lead us away from what was really happening. I even believed that we could put together the bits of ‘unstatement’, if that’s a word, so that we could become aware of the true situation.

  For instance, the knowledge that the Japanese were running hopelessly short of supplies was reported through listening to ‘silent’ language long before it became known by our high command. With our aircraft controlling the beaches during daylight hours, the Japanese could only bring their supply ships in to unload at night and they simply couldn’t resupply their troops at a rate that was fast enough.