by Peter Watt
‘American?’ Karl queried, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his long cotton shirt. ‘You sure he got that right?’
Pham turned to the messenger, a boy barely in his teens.
‘He says an American woman who is also German. But does not know her name.’
Karl frowned. ‘Does he know when the transfer is to be done?’
‘He says that the woman will be taken by convoy to the docks, to join a ship going to Japan in the next twenty-four hours.’
‘I don’t know what is going on but I know we cannot wait for an answer from up north as to my request for a force of Viet Minh. It looks like we will have to ambush the convoy before she gets to the docks.’ Karl knew that this mysterious woman might not be Herlinde Kroth, but he was not prepared to leave until he found out for sure. He was a determined soldier and did not want to let Featherstone down; besides, if the woman were an American prisoner of war, the prison would be a living hell for her, and he had a soldier’s duty to try to rescue her.
‘What you are asking is almost impossible,’ Pham groaned. ‘We don’t have the resources to stage an ambush, and even if we did, how would we extricate ourselves afterwards?’
‘You said almost impossible,’ Karl retorted. ‘We figure out the almost bit and then prepare ourselves for the operation.’
Pham picked up with his chopsticks a piece of green vegetable from his bowl. ‘I will talk to Dr Nuyen. I think he will be able to supply us with some weapons and maybe a few men. He is currently in the city, working at the hospital. I will go to him there.’
Karl smiled, thrusting out his hand to Pham. ‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully. ‘When this is done, we can get out of this bloody place and go home.’
Pham accepted the proffered hand. ‘You forget,’ he said. ‘I am home.’
As soon as the meal was finished, Pham left with the young messenger and made his way to the city hospital, leaving Karl alone to ponder how he would carry out his operation. He had obtained a map of the city and surrounding villas from the Chinese resistance fighters, and now he rolled it out amongst the food bowls on the short-legged table. Karl had already identified the location of the prison, and he ran his finger along a road that led directly from the prison to the docks. Not only was he thinking of places to spring his ambush, but also their means of escape. He had at least one major military principle on his side – surprise. Deep behind enemy lines, the Japanese would never consider that anyone would be foolish enough to take them on; the transfer would be considered routine, with a minimum of armed guards. The young messenger had known the expected time of the convoy and was sure that he had the route. But a good soldier also carries out a reconnaissance of any area of operations. As soon as Pham returned, they would go out in the night – despite the curfew – and make notes on all they could.
Time, however, was at a premium, and Karl wondered whether it would be possible to put together an operation like this in such a short space of time. Even if he could, how successful would it be? After all, he might be able to snatch the woman from the Japanese but where would they go after that?
*
Jack did not want to go on leave, but his old friend and superior Major Bill Travers had insisted and now he found himself on an aeroplane flying to Townsville in northern Queensland. He at least knew the town and was looking forward to catching up with Karin Mann, Karl’s mother and the widow of his best friend, Paul, who had been killed on a mission to New Britain earlier in the war.
After landing, Jack hailed a taxi to Karin’s house, which was on the outskirts of the town. The battered old sedan pulled up in a cloud of dust in front of a modest wooden house built high on timber pylons, in the manner of many houses of the tropical north. He hoisted his kitbag over his shoulder and paid the driver, who scowled at him when he did not tip.
‘Bloody Yanks give a man a bit more,’ he growled, then grated the transmission into gear and drove away.
For a moment Jack stood staring at the house, which was surrounded by a few stately gums. There was a chicken coop to one side and about half-a-dozen chooks scratched around in the front yard.
‘Jack!’
Jack glanced up at the verandah and for a moment felt the strange sensation of having come home.
‘Karin,’ he said as she lifted the hem of her long skirt to hurry down the stairs to greet him.
They met at the bottom of the stairs and Karin threw herself into his arms in a tender embrace.
‘It is good to see you again,’ she wept and Jack felt just a little self-conscious at causing this beautiful woman to cry. ‘I have had no news and didn’t know if you were dead or alive.’
‘I’m not a big writer,’ Jack apologised sheepishly, pushing Karin back gently to look into her face. It seemed that she had hardly aged, looking much younger than her fifty years. Her skin was unmarked and still retained a European smoothness. Her long golden tresses showed streaks of grey but her eyes were young, although her smile was sad.
‘What of my little boy, Lukas?’ she asked.
Jack had been dreading this.
‘Lukas was killed,’ he choked and saw the colour drain from her face.
‘When? How?’ she gasped.
‘A couple of months ago, up north,’ Jack answered, holding her elbows lest she faint. ‘I was with him.’
‘Oh, Jack,’ Karin sobbed. ‘He was so young. This war is taking everyone I have ever loved – first Victoria, then my wonderful husband, and now my little boy. When will it end?’
Jack held Karin as she cried, near to tears himself. Finally Karin had cried herself out, and she took Jack’s hand and led him up the stairs to the verandah.
‘I will make us a cup of tea,’ she said, using the end of her flour-spattered apron to wipe away the tears from her face.
Jack dropped his kitbag on the verandah. Breezes played amongst the gum trees and the sun shimmered on the horizon as he removed his slouch hat and sat down in a big, comfortable cane chair. Karin returned with a silver platter, teapot, milk jug and two dainty teacups. She placed the tray on a rickety table that Jack idly thought should be fixed.
She poured the tea, and handed Jack a cup.
Neither of them spoke as they sat side by side, lost in memories. They remained so until the sun settled into a thin shimmer of heat haze to the west.
‘I’ll turn down your bed,’ Karin said, rising from her chair. ‘You will stay here tonight.’ Jack was about to protest that he could walk back to town but she stopped him by raising her hand. ‘I have lamb chops for dinner, and I know that you like lamb chops.’
Jack smiled his gratitude. There had been so many times that Karin, Paul, Victoria and he had sat on the verandahs of their respective plantations in Papua, playing cards, drinking and laughing. They had danced together, and shared both the good and the bad times as families. But that had been a lifetime ago, between two terrible wars, and they could never return.
That night Karin came to Jack’s bed and lay down beside him, and cried for the loss of those years, while he held her and felt his own pain.
In the morning he got up and fixed the rickety table on the verandah.
*
Karl was aware that they were taking a grave risk carrying out the recon during curfew hours, but Pham knew the city like the back of his hand, even in the dark, and they were able to avoid the Japanese roadblocks and patrols.
By early morning they were huddled around the map of the city, safely back in the Chinese quarter, and Karl was fixing the location of the ambush.
‘We will need help,’ Pham said. ‘I have been informed that we can get the assistance of four Viet Minh fighters for the operation.’
‘That will be enough,’ Karl said wearily, feeling the need for sleep creeping up on him. The adrenaline-charged hours dodging the Japanese patrols had taken their toll on both his energy and nerves. ‘What kind of weapons do we have?’ he asked Pham.
‘From what I have been told, we have a couple of r
ifles and three submachine guns – British Stens, I think – as well as a few grenades.’
Karl stared at the map, thinking that in a few hours the lines marked would become real streets to him. Pham had worked on the withdrawal, and organised for them to be conveyed by a waiting car to a village on the outskirts of the city via a route rarely patrolled by the Japanese, as it had until recently been in the jurisdiction of the Vichy French police.
It was a simple plan: hit the convoy, predicted to be one truck accompanied by a police car; release the German woman and escape to the village. Karl knew that if they moved quickly, and no one betrayed them, they had a chance of being successful; but he was also acutely aware of the military maxim that all well-planned operations had a way of going astray as soon as the first shot was fired.
Never had Karl felt this uncertain about an operation. So many things could go wrong. He was conducting a mission in a foreign land with people he hardly knew. He did not really know whether he could trust Pham, or the Viet Minh fighters; he did not know whether the weapons they were being given were reliable. What he did know, though, was that he needed to snatch some sleep if he were to be ready to meet and brief his tiny army of liberators.
EIGHTEEN
Jack armed himself with hammer, saw and axe, and went about fixing things up around the house. He felt at home here, and in Karin’s bed. Paul had been dead for over three years, and Jack and Karin comforted each other in their loneliness.
Stripped down to his shorts and with sweat glistening on his body, Jack swung the log splitter against iron-hard wood. Just then Karin appeared on the verandah with a tray of tea and scones.
Jack glanced up, saw her smiling down at him and reached for his shirt before joining her on the verandah.
‘Do you have any idea where Karl may be?’ Karin asked, pouring him a cup of tea. He had told her about the last time he had seen her son, in Moresby with Lukas, and that he was off on an operation he couldn’t tell them about. She had listened apprehensively, as though not wanting to hear the worst. Now she seemed ready for more information, except Jack didn’t have it.
‘I don’t, I’m afraid,’ he answered. ‘But I do know that Karl can look after himself. He’ll be home to you before you know it.’
Jack felt a little guilty about not telling Karin the whole truth – Karl’s mission was both very secret and very dangerous, but this was not something he wanted to share with an anxious mother who had already lost a husband to the war.
‘Karl wrote to me and said that if he did not return, I should contact a British naval officer by the name of Captain Featherstone,’ Karin said, cupping her mug of tea in both hands.
‘Did he say anything else about this pommy officer?’ Jack asked.
‘Only that he had worked for him before, in Palestine,’ Karin said. ‘Do you think you could use your contacts to find this Captain Featherstone?’
Jack had had an inkling that Karl was working for the British SOE, from rumours picked up from old mates working with the very secretive special forces based around Cairns. That meant that this Captain Featherstone must be one of his bosses, and Jack had heard the man’s name mentioned at the wharf in Port Moresby before Karl had disappeared on his last assignment. ‘Even if I found him I don’t think he would entertain the idea of telling me anything.’
‘Karl has done more than any soldier is required to do,’ Karin said and Jack could hear the pleading in her voice. ‘It is not normal for soldiers to have no contact with their families. Mrs Eggleston down the road receives letters from her boy in New Guinea, so why should I not hear from my only son?’
Jack knew the answer to that, but to explain would only add to Karin’s fears. ‘I will try,’ he answered. ‘But I can’t promise anything.’
‘Thank you,’ she responded, leaning over and touching his forearm. ‘Paul always said that you were capable of moving mountains when you had a mind to.’
‘I miss the bastard,’ Jack reflected. ‘He had no reason to volunteer for that job back in ’42. Now Karl is off God knows where.’
‘Karl has always had two fathers,’ Karin said sadly, and Jack knew that she was referring to the fact that he had personally intervened to ensure that Karl was commissioned into the Australian Army, despite his place of birth. Jack had done so because he knew how important it was to Karl to prove his loyalty to his adopted country. As he had once said to Jack, ‘A man cannot choose where he is born, but he can decide where he will die.’
The two sat enjoying the serenity of the day until Jack decided to finish a few more chores before he departed the following morning to report back to the army. His leave had been all too short but had taken an unexpected twist. He had not anticipated his feelings for Karin manifesting in the way they had, nor that she would reciprocate those feelings. Jack knew his life had taken a different direction and he was glad of it; he had felt bereft after Lukas’s death, full of hopelessness about the future, but now he had something to live for, something to return to. He had already made his decision and he only hoped that Karin would agree.
He rose very early the next morning, leaving her in a deep sleep. He shaved, changed into his uniform of shorts, shirt, boots and gaiters, slipped on his slouch hat and moved quietly around the cottage, gathering together his belongings.
Before leaving the house he removed the little leather pouch from his dog tags and placed Lukas’s engagement ring on the kitchen table beside a note. Then he closed the screen door behind him and stepped into the early morning sunshine, making his way into the town along the dry, dusty track.
*
Karin awoke some time after Jack’s departure and sleepily stretched out her arm to touch him, finding only an empty space instead. Annoyed, she rose and stumbled to the kitchen, where she saw the note and ring on the table. She picked up the note and read it. Then she burst into tears and slumped down in a chair at the table.
‘Oh, Jack, yes I will,’ she whispered softly. ‘Just please come home to me, and bring my son back safely with you.’
*
When Jack reported for duty, he was informed that he would be flying out that evening on a Dakota scheduled for Port Moresby. In the meantime he occupied himself in a hotel with a wide shady verandah that was already crowded with men from America and Australia who were drinking as much beer as they could before returning to their units scattered across the Pacific.
Jack elbowed his way to the bar, ordered a beer and looked around to see if he recognised anyone. He was pleasantly surprised to see a quartermaster sergeant he knew from Port Moresby. Jack took his beer and sidled over to the beefy QM talking to a fellow sergeant. He saw Jack and greeted him warmly.
‘You AWOL, Jack?’ the QM asked with a grin. His expression turned sombre. ‘Sorry to hear about your boy.’
Jack nodded and was introduced to the QM’s drinking companion, who had a wiry build and stood around five foot five. Jack could see by the ugly purple scar on the sergeant’s face that he had been severely wounded, and recently, by the look of it.
‘Jimmy got that one up north,’ the QM said. ‘Decided wisely that a better place to be was counting blankets in my section. Jack, meet Jimmy Cotter. Jimmy, this is Jack Kelly.’
The two men shook hands.
‘Where are you posted now?’ Jack asked the QM.
‘Jimmy and I are back on the mainland,’ the QM answered. ‘How about you?’
‘I fly back to Moresby tonight,’ Jack answered, taking a long sip from his beer. ‘I’m stuck in PIB HQ.’
‘I heard you got yourself a Jap bullet on some op up north,’ the QM said conversationally and that pricked Jack’s interest. The operation to save Ilsa was not known to many outside his own unit.
‘Whereabouts are you counting blankets?’ Jack asked.
‘Cairns,’ the QM replied without elaborating.
‘You blokes with the hush-hush boys?’ Jack said. ‘That’s about the only way you would have heard of the PIB op I was on.’
>
The QM squirmed and glanced around the crowded bar. ‘Not supposed to talk about what we do,’ he said and Jack could see from the expression on Sergeant Cotter’s face that they were both uncomfortable with Jack’s line of questioning.
‘Cobber, I’m not any kind of security risk and I would consider it a great favour if you could tell me one thing. I promise to shout you blokes beers all afternoon if you can tell me if you know – or have heard of – a pommy naval officer by the name of Featherstone. That’s all.’
The sergeant and QM glanced at each other.
‘Featherstone drops in from time to time at our camp,’ Sergeant Cotter said. ‘He’s a queer coot but seems to be able to throw a lot of weight around. I last heard he was up in Moresby – I can’t see any harm in telling you that, as you’ll probably bump into him.’
‘Thanks, Jimmy,’ Jack said, raising his glass in salute. ‘A promise is a promise, and it’s my shout for the next couple of hours.’
Jack continued drinking with the two men until late afternoon, when he knew he must make his way to the airfield to catch his flight. He could feel the effects of the beer and hoped that the flight would not be too bumpy.
*
Lightning flashed and thunder rolled over Saigon. Karl could feel sweat rolling down his body under his clothing, as shadowy figures emerged to join him and Pham at the prearranged rendezvous site on the street. Karl was surprised to see Dr Nuyen appear with three tough-looking men, standing by bicycles, bags slung over the centre bars.
‘These are my men,’ the doctor said, accepting Karl’s extended hand. ‘Today we will strike a blow against our occupiers.’
‘Striking the blow will be easy,’ Karl replied. ‘It will be getting away with it that’s the hard part.’
‘Pham has told me the outline of what you propose to do and I can help,’ Nuyen replied. ‘When you kill the Japanese escorts, I will drive you and the woman away to a village east of here called Vung Tau. There I have a place for you to hide until a fishing boat is able to take you out of the country to meet with an American submarine.’
