Corrigan's Run

by Colin Falconer

  ‘Very well, if you say she is to be trusted, I am willing to take your word.’ He laid his head back on the stretcher and closed his eyes, assuming a look of patient forbearance.

  Corrigan leaned against one of the bloodwood poles and stared into the rafters, watched a gekko stalking its prey. ‘What if she doesn't find him?’

  ‘We must trust in the Hand of the Lord,’ Father Goode murmured.

  ‘The Hand of the Lord. That's what you celibates use, isn't it?’

  Corrigan's ribald attempt at humor was lost on the priest. ‘Whatever happens we will stay here. There is no question of leaving.’

  ‘It's Manning I feel sorry for. He's got a tough enough job in front of him without having to take care of a cripple and a woman.’

  Corrigan heard a sharp intake of breath. Rachel got up and advanced on him so fiercely he took a step backwards. ‘I may be a woman, Mister Corrigan, but I do not see how that is a liability. I do not recall breaking down in fits of tears at any time during the journey here. I carried my end of the stretcher and I got the bullet out of my uncle’s leg while you were fanning yourself like … like a schoolgirl.’

  Corrigan blinked first. ‘Well, I suppose there is that to it,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘All the same, he shouldn't have put you in this damn position,’ Corrigan said to her, pointing at the priest.

  ‘It was God's will,’ Father Goode said.

  ‘No it wasn't. It was yours! Your bloody arrogance and stupidity. If you'd minded your own business instead of marching into the Japs' headquarters like Winston bloody Churchill, none of this would have happened. I'd be on a boat to Australia and you'd still be singing hymns in Sunday school.’

  ‘Mister Corrigan, I have observed you for some time, and I have often wondered what it is you are running away from. It has struck me as an enigma that a man can be so obsessed with his own survival on one hand, and on the other, work so hard to bring about his own destruction through strong drink and recklessness. The only conclusion that I can come to is that you are a physical and emotional coward.’

  Corrigan’s took a deep breath and held it, his fists clenched at his sides. Rachel waited, terrified, for an explosion that never came. Father Goode, his eyes closed in contemplation of the divine, was quite unaware of the effect his words had had.

  Finally Corrigan turned around and stamped away towards the beach.

  ‘Sometimes you are an unspeakable thug,’ Rachel said and his eyes started open in surprise at the venom in her voice. But then she was gone, also, running after Corrigan down the jungle path.

  An hour later they returned. Corrigan had collected some bananas and a green coconut from Ngatu's garden. He divided up the meager meal between them and they ate in silence. The priest's words were never mentioned again.

  *****

  Manning's lookout, high in the branches of a banyan tree, was invisible from the air.

  The platform and the ladder that led to it had been expertly constructed by Sergeant Lavella and his men from bamboo and loia cane, and lashed in place with vines and liana creeper. The roof had been covered with fern leaves so that it blended perfectly with the jungle.

  Cane loops had been nailed to the tree so that scouts could ascend or descend in less than a minute. There was a sentry high in the platform from dawn to dusk; he would lower a bucket for food, or water or to replenish his supply of betel nut.

  The sentry was also armed with a conch shell. Manning had quickly learned that to the islanders all warships were ‘men o'war’ - a hangover perhaps from the early colonial days - so he could not rely on them for accurate information.

  So that afternoon, when he heard the blast on the conch shell, he raced from his hut and began the dizzying climb up the banyan tree. When he got there, the sentry handed him his field glasses. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, then brought them up and focused them on The Slot, the deep-water channel running between the western and eastern islands. Sweat trickled into his eyes; he wiped it away with his arm.

  It was his third alarm that day and he felt a thrill of fear and excitement; the war was getting closer. Out towards Cape Tavu he could make out the silhouettes of three destroyers and a half a dozen transports heading south towards Guadalcanal.

  He knew from Australian news broadcasts that he picked up on the teleradio that the United States had started to hit back at the Japanese. There had been massive naval battles at Coral Sea and at Midway; and although the details had been sketchy and somewhat confused it had given him hope for the first time in many long dark months.

  He told the local villagers that soon the white men would return, even though he scarce believed it himself.

  The rain and cloud of the monsoon season had given way to clear blue skies, perfect weather for Coastwatchers. For three days now he had been able to record every Japanese ship that passing up and down The Slot. It was as if he had a seat at the Japanese High Command.

  He had noted every detail in his notepad. A resourceful clerk in the Allied Intelligence Bureau in Townsville had torn out some pages of Jane's Fighting Ships and sent them to him back in December, when he had received his commission in the Coastwatchers. They had proved invaluable.

  He made some more notes in his logbook and clambered back down the tree. When he reached the bottom he steadied himself against the massive trunk until the roaring in his ears subsided and his vision cleared. As he was walking back towards the radio hut Sergeant Lavella burst into the clearing, waving his beloved Lee-Enfield in the air to attract his attention.

  Manning's first thought was that the Japanese had tracked them down. He felt his knees turn to water but he maintained perfect control. ‘Lavella! What is it?’

  ‘White fellers!’ Lavella gasped. ‘Maybe that feller Corrigan and that missus belong Jesus Christ. Come this way. Carry some fella longa bed.’

  Manning gaped at him in astonishment. Corrigan? The missionary’s niece? What on earth were they doing up here in the hills? And how had they found him?

  He followed Lavella back up the track to the clearing.

  Lavella and his scouts had spotted their procession long before they reached the clearing. It was almost half an hour later that Corrigan appeared, he and Rachel struggling with the stretcher up the steeply winding path, Sanei loping ahead of them. She had Corrigan's knife in her right hand, to slash a path through the liana and hanging vines.

  Manning waited for them, his hands thrust into the pockets of his khaki shorts, a twisted smile on his lips. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said as Corrigan finally came into view. ‘Nice to see you again, Patrick. Come to help the war effort?’

  Corrigan scowled.

  ‘How did you find us?’

  ‘The natives. Some fellow called Kumasi told Sanei where to find you. Even lent her a scout for most of the way.’

  ‘Kumasi . . . yes I know him. He's the headman at Marmari Point.’

  ‘That's him.’

  Manning frowned. ‘If you can find me this easily so can the Japanese.’

  ‘Come on, Manning. They may not understand what's going on, but they're still loyal to the British bloody Empire, though I'm buggered if I know why. They know enough to realize the Japs aren't looking for you out of any concern for your health.'.'

  ‘It only takes one bad apple, old chap.’

  Corrigan shrugged. ‘Well, you're safer up here than you've any right to be, if that's any consolation.’

  ‘My God, look at the state of you. Looks like you need a drink!’

  *****

  Manning went to one of the boxes in the corner of the hut. He pulled off the lid and took out a bottle of Johnny Walker whisky.

  ‘Time for a little refreshment after your hard journey.’

  ‘You're a gentleman and a scholar.’

  Manning brought over two enamel mugs and splashed some whisky into each. Then he sat down on the packing crate next to Corrigan.

  ‘Your health, old boy.’r />
  Corrigan drained his mug, and held it out for another refill. ‘Your health needs a lot more drinking to than mine.’

  ‘Didn't think I'd ever see you again, Patrick.’

  ‘Make the most of it. I won't be around for long. I'm getting off this damned island as soon as I bloody well can.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

  ‘Heydrich's going to lend me his boat. He just doesn't know it yet.’

  Manning stared into his cup. ‘I suppose it hasn't crossed your mind to stay and help the war effort?’

  ‘No, it hasn't. And it's not going to either. So you might as well save your breath.’

  ‘I hoped you might have had a change of heart, that's all.’

  ‘What made you think that?’ Corrigan said, holding out his cup again.

  ‘My God, man, you’re like a camel at a waterhole.’

  ‘Just pour me a drink and stop fussing.’

  ‘Why did you help the priest and his young niece? The Japs would have shot you if you'd been caught.’

  ‘They didn't catch me though, did they?’

  ‘It was a very great risk.’

  ‘Blame it on my generous nature.’

  ‘It had nothing to do with the girl, I suppose?’

  Corrigan drained the cup and slammed it down on the wooden trestle table next to the radio. ‘Don't be daft.’

  Manning shook his head. ‘I don't think I'll ever quite understand you, Patrick. I never quite know what you'll do next.’

  ‘You can think about it after I'm gone. I'll rest up here for a day or two if it's all the same to you, then I'm off.’ He got to his feet. ‘Thanks for the drink. I suppose you wouldn't have one of those bottles to spare?’

  Ruefully Manning handed him the bottle. ‘Plenty more where that came from, if you decide to stick around.’

  ‘Nice try, but my guess is you've only got one case of the stuff at the most. You'll run out in a week. Australia won't.’

  And he turned and walked out of the hut.

  Chapter 23

  Manning squatted on a packing box in the radio hut, and staring at the cards he’d been dealt; three of hearts, three of clubs, six of spades, six of clubs and the ace of hearts. Two pairs. He smiled to himself.

  ‘All right, old boy. See you two fingers and raise you two fingers.’

  ‘See you four fingers and raise you another two,’ Corrigan said.

  Manning sighed. ‘Good God, Patrick. That's almost half a bottle.’

  ‘If you can't pay, don't play.’

  ‘All right, I'll see you.’ He laid his cards triumphantly on the upturned crate. ‘Two pairs.’

  ‘Tough luck,’ Corrigan said, throwing down three queens and two jacks. ‘Full house.’

  Manning stared at the cards, then at Corrigan. ‘That's impossible.’

  ‘Are you calling me a cheat?’

  Manning considered this question carefully. ‘Yes, Patrick old boy. I am.’

  Corrigan grinned. ‘Ah well, you're probably right. But you didn't see me, so it won't do you any good now.’ He checked the pad at his side, licking the pencil in his right hand and adding carefully. ‘That's three bottles you owe me.’

  Manning went to the radio. He sat down on one of the crates and tuned the dial to 7 megacycles, listening for interesting aircraft traffic. As he twisted the dial the hut suddenly came alive with the chatter of the US Carrier pilots and their ships.

  Corrigan stared at him. ‘What in God's name is that?’

  ‘I'm not sure. But it sounds like we're sitting in the middle of it.’

  *****

  A blast from the conch shell sent Manning scurrying outside the hut. He looked up into the lookout on top of the giant banyan. Sergeant Lavella was leaning over the side of the platform, gesticulating wildly to the north-west.

  ‘Japoni he come!’

  They heard them then. The distant drone of the engines soon grew to a deafening roar and a packed formation of bombers raced across the empty sky just a few hundred feet above their heads. Manning caught a brief glimpse of the red discs painted on their fuselages. He tried to count them.

  A few seconds later, a second formation roared overhead.

  He ran back inside the hut and twisted the dial to the Coastwatchers' frequency.

  Half an hour later, on the Australian cruiser Canberra, anchored off Guadalcanal, the captain piped this message over the loudspeakers:

  ‘This ship will be attacked at noon by twenty-four torpedo bombers. All hands will pipe to lunch at eleven o'clock.’

  When the bombers arrived over Guadalcanal later that morning they found the transport ships had dispersed, the anti-aircraft batteries on the warships were manned and ready, and the fighters from the carrier escort were in the air and waiting for them.

  Just after 2 pm, the sole surviving plane of the original force of twenty- four landed at Kavieng airfield. Manning had scored his first victory.

  Chapter 24

  Henderson Field had been carved through the razor-sharp kunai grass on the Lunga Plain, a just a mud-black field with a gravel airstrip, already pocked with shell craters. Because of the constant shelling, the few palm tree still standing looked ragged and bald.

  The first dirty light of the day silhouetted the makeshift skeleton of the control tower, just an elevated platform on the edge of the airstrip, and the unlikely oriental shape of the Pagoda, the operational headquarters originally constructed by the Japanese. When the American First Division had landed on Guadalcanal Colonel Tei Monzen's engineers were just a few days from completing the airstrip. Ironically, the first planes to use it were American Wildcats.

  The Japanese had been quick to respond. In the two weeks since the landing, the Japanese had thrown everything they had at them. Guadalcanal was one of the few islands in the group wide enough to support an airstrip. It was virtually an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

  It was also the first defeat the Americans had inflicted on the Japanese since Pearl Harbor. They weren’t about to let them take it back.

  Major James Mitchell strode across the khaki shamble of the tents towards a dug-out on the edge of the strip. Corporal Cates was already at work with a bulldozer, digging a ditch for the bodies of Japanese snipers shot during the night. When he was done he would start filling in more of the bomb craters.

  The night before Mitchell arrived on Guadalcanal the Japanese had attacked along the Ulu River, four miles to the east. The Marines, numerically superior, had won a crushing victory, but the ashen faces of the wounded as they filtered back into the camp told a different story. They had all been stunned by the ferocity of the Japanese attack; of eight hundred Japanese, only fifteen surrendered. The rest were scythed down by the new American Browning machine guns in wave after wave of suicidal Banzai attacks.

  Mitchell wondered how long they could hold out in the face of such commitment. The Japanese were landing troops unhindered on the western end of the island. An attack by a much larger force was inevitable.

  Mitchell stepped into the radio dug-out, hidden among the first row of stunted palms beside the airstrip. A battered Japanese tent that stood nearby served as an office for the three marine radio operators on constant watch in the radio post. It looked ragged and forlorn in the grey half-light, jagged holes punched through the canvas by shrapnel.

  The dug-out was a narrow covered trench, fifty feet long and just five feet deep. It was impossible to stand straight in it. It was roofed with coconut palm logs, some decaying sandbags thrown on top. There was a ledge running along one side, scraped out of the soft black earth, and it was on this ledge that the teleradio had been assembled.

  By the side of the radio stood a pad and a field telephone that had a direct line to the operational headquarters in the Pagoda.

  It was not quite five star luxury. When it rained the water dripped from the log beams onto the floor, and the black, gluey mud clung to everything. The R/O’s covered their precious radios with their own waterpr
oofs to protect them from the cascading water while they themselves got soaked through.

  Thankfully this morning there was blue sky overhead. A fine day for fighters.

  A gangly youth with a buzz cut and a thin blonde beard was bent over the radio dials. There was a whine and crackle of static. He glanced up as Mitchell stepped inside.

  ‘Nothing yet, sir,’ he said.

  Mitchell sat down and took out a packet of cigarettes. He grimaced as he drew the smoke into his lungs; it was a Shikishima. There were no American cigarettes on the island. All they had was the supplies they had captured from the Japanese.

  What a place to fight a war; searing heat, torrential rains, voracious hordes of mosquitoes, and meager half-rations. ‘If someone wanted to give the world an enema,’ Mitchell had heard one of his pilots mutter, ‘this sure would be a good place to stick the hose.’

  They slept in soggy, blacked-out tents, and their cots sank into the stinking black mud. He had still not learned to sleep through the constant rattle of small arms fire from the jungle.

  Every afternoon at exactly one o'clock the Japanese bombers arrived. The Marines called it ‘Tojo Time’. The lone Betsy that made another run every night was ‘Louie the Louse’. The Japanese destroyers that landed troops on the western end of the island, then lobbed shells on them from the blue waters of Iron Bottom Sound before sailing leisurely back up The Slot to Rabaul were the ‘Tokyo Express’.

  He admired their stoic humour, how they stuck it out day after day. Aerial combat over Coral Sea or Midway required a different kind of courage; a fighter pilot was, in a way, in command of his own fate. Being under siege asked different questions of a man. What Mitchell couldn’t take was that feeling of helplessness, lying huddled in a trench, hearing the scream of a shell with nothing to do but wait. He didn’t know how much more of it he could take. His hands shook as he lit his cigarette.

  The fact was, they had been abandoned. With the disaster of Pearl Harbor still fresh in his mind, force commander Admiral James Fletcher had chosen to withdraw the Navy from Iron Bottom Sound, taking most of the Marines' heavy artillery and half their supplies with him. They had been left without cover from the air or the sea.