A Place Called Home (Cannibal Country Trilogy, Book 2) Read online

  “Elephant gun, sir? Sent here because they think we’re in India?”

  “Not even the Army believes Lae is in India, Sergeant Hawkins! Most of the staff think we’re in Fiji.”

  “The staff must have improved since the Great War, sir. Every old soldier I’ve ever come across was convinced that staff officers couldn’t think at all.”

  The lieutenant made no comment – even Diggers had to display some sort of military decorum, occasionally.

  “It is an anti-tank rifle, Sergeant Hawkins, the latest thing, only came into service in ’37. A Boys Rifle, to be precise. Fifty-five calibre, five round magazine and kicks like a mule. Said to be accurate over a quarter of a mile and able to penetrate a tank’s armour at one hundred yards. Also said to have dislocated more shoulders and broken more collar-bones than any other weapon the British have ever produced; ideal therefore for a very large soldier.”

  “I’ll give Blue a run on it tomorrow night, sir. If he fancies it, we’ll take it to the range on Saturday.”

  Blue was entranced by the Boys Rifle. It was big enough to get a grip on, he said.

  On the range he was able to fire rapidly and accurately, his huge hands holding the massive weapon with ease. He was made anti-tank specialist, with rank of lance-corporal, immediately.

  There was only the minor problem that the Japanese apparently had no tanks and certainly no landing craft that would ever be possible of putting them ashore in the Islands.

  “There will be trucks and maybe an armoured car or two, sir. If they dig in then the Boys will do no good to the average little blockhouse. Not so good as a field gun, maybe, but useful in a scrap, sir.”

  General opinion was that they could certainly find a use for the Boys somewhere, and if it was only as a sniper rifle then they would give one or two Japs a hell of a surprise.

  “Trouble is, sir, they don’t really believe it. They don’t see that the Japanese could be a real threat to us. Sure, they’re killing Chinamen by the million – little yellow men against their own sort, they reckon. They’ve read their Edgar Wallace and all the rest of the cheap writers and they know that one ‘White Man’ is worth a hundred monkeys – so the Japanese can’t be anything to worry about. Everybody else is a Wog, and Wogs can’t beat White Men – that’s a known fact!”

  The lieutenant was much inclined to agree with them – he had been to the same schools and read the same literature and believed all that was printed in the newspapers.

  “Well… one must admit, Sergeant Hawkins, that there is something in what they say. The Japanese are successful in China, but, what have they ever achieved against White Men?”

  “Tsu Shima, sir?”

  “What’s one of those, Sergeant?”

  “The naval battle that ended their war against Russia, thirty odd years ago, sir. The Russkis sent a fleet half way round the world, because the Japanese had already sunk everything they’d got in the Pacific. They got to Japanese waters and found them waiting. The Japs sunk damn near every one of them. Then their army beat the Russians to a standstill. The Americans stabbed the Japs in the back then – which they haven’t forgotten. The Yanks offered to organise a peace deal between them and rigged the negotiations so that the Japanese got nothing out of them despite winning the war.”

  “Ah… I had not heard of that.”

  “From what my father tells me, most people haven’t, sir. He thinks that the Japs won’t have forgotten, though. He tells me as well, that his Chinese business contacts say that the Japanese and the Russians have got a war going on just now, out on the Manchurian border, but they don’t know who is winning.”

  “Your father has plantations out on the Gazelle Peninsula, beyond Rabaul, I believe?”

  “Two, sir, and a pair of stations outside Cairns and other businesses besides.”

  “MBE and something else as well, I have been told.”

  “King’s Police Medal, sir – he was a senior officer before and during the last war, sir.”

  “Sort of man who knows what he is talking about, then. He knows the Chinese well, does he?”

  “He does, sir, and so do I. I am to marry Miss Mary Tse in less than a month’s time, sir. My leave application was accepted last week, you will remember. If you can get across to Rabaul, sir, you will be very welcome.”

  Lieutenant Carter thanked him for the invitation but did not know whether he would be able to accept it. When George left the office he took out his recommendation for a commission and tore it up – the sort of man who would marry a Chink was obviously not officer material!

  He sent a memo to his captain in Port Moresby stating that his previous report on Sergeant Hawkins had been sent in ignorance of his moral failings, which he detailed.

  “A pity,” he murmured to himself, “but you can never tell – weakness can show up in the most unlikely men.”

  Lieutenant Carter returned to Brisbane two weeks later, posted back to his battalion with a black mark against his name. His colonel was completely open with him.

  “The elder Hawkins is one of the most important men in the Islands. When he gives advice the government thinks about what he says. They don’t often put it into policy, as such, but more than once they have changed their mind on what they were about to do. His son did very well just a few years back, no more than seventeen when he walked out from inland after an air crash – and I saw no mention of that in any of your fitness reports on him!”

  “I did not know, sir.”

  “Which means you never asked! Your senior sergeant, and you never asked what was known about him. Rather poor, Carter! He is to marry a Chinese lady, I understand – who is her father and what is he worth?”

  “Well, really, sir – am I to know about Chinks now? Surely, sir…”

  The colonel cut him short.

  “This gentleman is worth more than a million, probably far more. As soon as he becomes related to the Hawkins family he will be invited to accept Australian citizenship. There is no guarantee that he will wish to accept the offer, I would add.”

  Carter was silent, outraged that such ingratitude might be possible.

  “You are surplus to establishment temporarily, Lieutenant Carter. You will be occupied with training the new recruits, as we are making our numbers up to full strength. I expect officers to be detached to courses and possibly to the Staff College over the next year and you will be useful to fill in for them until there is a vacancy as second in a company. I do not recommend you to expect a company of your own in the foreseeable future, sir!”

  Carter’s family had some money and no doubt could find employment for him. He came close to sending his papers in before colleagues in the Mess pointed out that conscription was inevitable at the very beginning of the next war. As a civilian who had chosen to resign commissioned rank he could be certain of being called up as a private, and staying at that level.

  No policy had been developed for the training of newly commissioned Territorials, and George was simply informed that he was now a Second Lieutenant and that he should purchase the appropriate uniforms before reporting to his unit. This presented a problem inasmuch that the nearest military tailor was to be found in Brisbane.

  The new regular officer, Lieutenant Weare, talked by radio with his superior in Port Moresby and they sent an urgent telegram to Brisbane, together with a money order. They were assured that a full outfit would be put on an ‘early’ ship north.

  “It will be a cock-up, sir! It always is. Trousers with two left legs will be the least of it!”

  “But, that doesn’t make sense, Hawkins!”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Nothing ever goes right, sir – that’s one of the rules for living up here. My father ordered a six inch bore water pump two years ago; they sent six hundred yards of one inch rubber hosepipe up on the next ship. He complained, so they apologised and sent one hundred yards of six inch earthenware drainpipes as a replaceme
nt. He got the pump when he went down on holiday.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Straight, sir. It’s one of the things you learn, sir. Always do it yourself, never rely on those daft buggers down in Brisbane – and Cairns is worse! Working as an importer, sir, bringing in basic foodstuffs, is a nightmare! The thing is, you can’t refuse what they send up, for fear next time will be worse. We put in the orders for so many tons of flour in two-pound bags, or rice in half-hundredweight sacks, or bully beef in half-stone cans – and then we look to see what we get, hopefully, like. So long as we get some of each we don’t argue about the details. My partner, Mick, told me he got a telegram from Brisbane five years back, saying that they had no fifty-six pound, half-hundredweight, cans of bully beef in stock and were making a special order to Fray Bentos in the Argentine. We’ve heard nothing since, but one day…”

  “What will you do?”

  “Throw a big party?”

  Lieutenant Weare was not certain that George was joking.

  “To business, I think, Mr Hawkins. Training camp is arranged for next month. What are your plans for training your platoons?”

  “Fly up as far as we can into the Highlands and then take a walk for a week, sir, rather than have a camp as such. Make contact with a couple of new clans, if we can. Map out a bit of new ground. Get an idea of what we can sensibly carry on our backs in the mountains. Pass the word, quietly-like, that if the Japanese come then we’ll remember who were good Diggers after we throw them out.”

  “I don’t wholly understand, Lieutenant Hawkins?”

  “Just tell them that we’ll pay up for every genuine Japanese head or rifle they hand in, and for any of them fancy swords they’re supposed to carry. The clans are fighters, sir – they’re at war with each other all of the time and they know all about ambushes and axes in the back of the head. Get the warriors on our side and the Japanese will come to learn not to move outdoors except in company-size patrols.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No bull, sir. We ought to be recruiting young men now, sir. Pay them two shillings a week and put them on full rations and teach them how to use a rifle; you’d get some bloody good infantry in short time, and they’d be at home in the country.”

  “Not a very good idea, Mr Hawkins. I have orders, in fact, to take care that none of the kanakas get the opportunity to watch us at rifle practice and learn anything themselves.”

  “Good politics, sir, but piss-poor soldiering!”

  Weare ignored the comment – it would only make sense if the Japanese ever did come, and he was not at all sure that was a certainty. War was going to occur in Europe and the Anzacs, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, would be called for again, and would go willingly, but conflict in the Pacific was only a slight possibility.

  War in Europe came inside a year, and found George a happily married man, working at his business and training with his platoons and thoroughly pleased with his life. The Anzacs took ship for Europe and the Australian Air Force took delivery of modern fighter planes from America, and discovered them to be slow and cranky – the Brewster Buffalo, well-named for its resemblance to a cow. The aircraft were better than the ancient biplanes they had had before, but were much less effective than the new machines the Japanese were showing off in China; they were useful for training up youngsters, however, and the Australians were sending scores of pilots to Europe every month.

  The battalions in the Islands were put onto warning for service, the men told they could be put aboard ship at a day’s notice, and almost all of the Regulars were taken away, bringing promotions for those left behind.

  George became a full lieutenant and was given a half-company to work with. He put them aboard a boat for a week of coastal familiarisation and sailed them up towards Madang, not too many miles along the coast to the north-west. They landed at a mission station, borrowed the services of four local men and set out inland, up into the low hills.

  The hills were covered in primary bush and were almost impenetrable – five miles in a day was good going. Three men took the lead carrying bush knives, heavy blades much like the machete; they were rotated every half an hour having slashed their way through cane and bamboo and thorns of every description.

  Mosquitoes bit them and ants injected formic acid; leeches crawled down their necks and up their trouser legs; wasps, hornets, flies and tiny, almost invisible, mites landed on their skin and itched or stung. Things rustled in the undergrowth, just out of sight.

  On their third day they broke through into a river valley and saw cultivated gardens and screaming, fleeing women.

  Twenty minutes later they saw near-naked men and warning arrows lobbed slowly at their feet. They stopped and waited.

  George pulled his twenty-five men together into two lines and ordered them to load but under no circumstances to fire without his order.

  “The local men might have a language in common with these people.”

  Every valley had its own tongue, each as distinct as French and German; most local men would speak three or four languages as well as Pidgin or Police Motu and often English. Most of the uncontacted clans traded with their neighbours and had some knowledge that there were whiteskins hanging about now and possibly had picked up another language. The missions especially tried to employ local men with a knowledge of many tongues.

  Contact was made, speaking in the language of an immediate neighbour, and the new clan told them to go away; they had heard of whiteskins, they said, and did not approve; they were unnatural and should not be encouraged.

  George passed word that there might be some new folks coming, Japanesi, a little yellow of skin and different in the shape of their eyes. If they came they would kill people. When the whiteskins came back, they would pay a good price for Japanesi heads or for their rifles or the big knives some of them carried. For the while, they had some blocks of salt and strings of shell money - properly made, finest quality; these they would offer as gifts. They also had some kina shells they would wish to trade.

  Kina shells were greatly valued – crescents of golden, gleaming enamel a foot across.

  The unknown clan conferred and made an offer of pigs in exchange. They could not carry the pigs back to the coast, refused the trade.

  “Greenstone axeheads, master – one for one. A very good offer, that!”

  “Accept the trade and give them a pair of bush knives as a thank you. Tell them we appreciate the quality of the greenstone – it is better than ours. Have they any metal at all?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Then give them a piece of sandstone and show them how to hone a blade.”

  They backed off carefully and walked three hours back along their trail before they stopped. They were rich and tempting and they would not halt in the clan’s hunting area.

  George turned to the mission boys, took out his notebook.

  “Have you got any names for them?”

  “The People of This River, sir, as far as I could make out. They do not need a name for themselves – they know who they are and do not care who anyone else might be.”

  That was entirely normal – the local habits with regard to names were different to those of the outsiders. They looked at the map – which was more of an aerial chart and contained a large number of blank spaces – and pencilled in a rough location of This River and its people. Another thousand or so went down as ‘contacted’; if they were very lucky the missionaries would be unable to put an expedition together until after the war and they would remain free from pox for a while longer and the current generation of children would grow up unmolested.

  Most of the militia were townsmen, used to conditions in Lae and occasionally flying up to the goldfields or venturing downcoast to a plantation or trading post. The expedition served notice to them that war would not be conducted on the civilised streets.

  George wandered into his house, tired, dirty, bug-ridden; he called from the back door that he was home. Mary came runnin
g, ready to leap into his arms; she stopped dead, sniffing – pointed an arm to the laundry room, separate from the main building.

  “Out! Strip off and I shall come with carbolic soap and salt. Drop your clothes near the hosepipe!”

  She shouted to the housegirl to fill up the boiler and build up the fire.

  An hour later, scrubbed, deloused and leech-free, she greeted him, enthusiastically.

  “I have listened carefully to the radio, George. Germany has taken the whole of Western Europe while you have been away and the Poms have all run away back to England. Chamberlain has gone and Churchill has been made Prime Minister.”

  George shared the Australian opinion of Churchill as the ‘Butcher of Gallipoli’, was unimpressed.

  “God help the Anzacs – he used them as cannon fodder last time. I doubt he’ll have changed his habits.”

  They ate and talked quietly, happily in each other’s company.

  “I want you to be ready to fly down to Cairns at a couple of hour’s notice, love. A suitcase packed and ready, all of your papers in the travelling bag. If the Japanese start to move, or if I am posted away, then I want you Down South in safety. You can’t stay up here on your own.”

  She raised no objection – she knew the course of wisdom and her father had in any case given her the strictest instructions to go to a place far from the fighting zone if the war actually happened.

  “I shall be flying across to Rabaul next week, Mary. Would you like to come too? You could see your parents.”

  He did not add the words ‘for the last time’, but they were there unsaid.

  She nodded; she would be at his side whenever possible, for the future was black, more than uncertain.

  Ned took pains to get George away from his mother, out on a tour of the plantations so that they could talk freely.

  “The Poms are losing the war, George. Best they’ll manage without the Yanks coming in is to fight a draw. That means they’re going to lose India, and without India they can’t keep any place in the East. The Yanks may decide to take the Pacific for themselves, but they ain’t going to fight for England’s benefit – why should they? So Australia’s on her own. That means the New Guinea Side will be lost for sure, and Papua may not hold for long; the Diggers may end up fighting the Japs in the Far North of Queensland or in Northern Territory. Depends on the Americans.”