by Peter Watt
Christmas day soon came with the patter of four very excited feet in the early hours before dawn. There were presents under the scraggly young gum sapling Paul and Jack had dragged from the bush. It had been adorned with coloured paper cut from women’s magazines by Karin and shaped into stars and angels. The previous evening they had all sat up singing carols in German. Karin had left the men by the tree to reminisce about their days at the Front. Although on different sides, the conditions were basically the same for both men: mud, barbed wire and hideous death.
A highly agitated Lukas shook his hungover father awake and dragged him to the decorated tree to see what Father Christmas had left for him during the night. Stumbling after his son, Jack felt the throb of each footfall on the timber floor. Karin was already sitting by the tree in her long nightdress with her legs tucked under her knees, her hair like a golden fountain down her back. She smiled up at him when he entered the room.
‘A happy Christmas to you, Jack Kelly,’ she said sweetly.
Jack responded, wishing the clanging of Christmas bells would leave his head.
‘Look Daddy,’ Lukas shouted. ‘Father Christmas has left me a real cowboy gun and hat.’
Jack peered curiously at the present Lukas held up to him. He had not been able to buy Lukas a present but a knowing look from Karin explained it all. He mouthed a thank you and she looked away. Karl had also received a cowboy outfit and the two boys blazed away at each other in the small living room dominated by the sapling, which already had wilted in the heat of the hot Australian Christmas morning.
And so Christmas 1920 was one of the best Jack could remember in a long time. Not since he was a boy growing up in the colony of South Australia could he recall experiencing such warmth and happiness.
But Christmas got even better over a lunch of a roast haunch of beef with baked vegetables, followed by custard and fresh fruit. Then, after the meal, Paul announced that he had been able to purchase a copra plantation just down the coast from Port Moresby. Sen had helped him with the red tape and after Christmas they would all return to live on their new property. ‘And I will need a manager, Jack,’ he said leaning onto the table. ‘How would you like the job?’
Jack glanced at Lukas. ‘If the offer is open, you have your man.’
As they shook each other’s hands Karin served coffee. The day couldn’t have been happier, Jack thought. Not only had Lukas been part of a real Christmas but now Jack could spend more time with his son. Next time he would make sure he put the present under the tree himself. Maybe 1921 would prove to be a better year than the one that had passed.
TWENTY-ONE
Quentin Arrowsmith always ate sparely at breakfast. The hard-boiled egg and fingers of toast were his limit although he had a busy day ahead of him with meetings and documents to peruse and sign at his office in the city.
Already 1921 looked to be a promising year. Consumer spending was rising and the land development side of the companies was turning a good profit. Men were returning to civilian life and government contracts were being filled. His competitors felt the established power behind the ruthless giant that was Arrowsmith enterprises and fell like nine pins.
‘We have a small problem,’ Caroline sighed as she poked at her own hard-boiled egg with a small silver spoon.
‘What problem?’ Arrowsmith grunted from behind his morning paper. He kept his eye to the troubles still being stirred by the army of unemployed former servicemen.
‘I am afraid Erika is pregnant.’
Arrowsmith stopped reading and stared belligerently at his wife. ‘She is your plaything. I expect that you can take her to someone who knows how to dispose of such problems.’
‘I have already attempted to convince the poor girl that is her only alternative but she has a dread of termination. She told me of friends who died under the most terrible of circumstances as a result of such procedures. And I fear she is already too advanced for an abortion to be attempted anyway.’
‘Well, it’s not my bastard,’ Arrowsmith growled. ‘She has been your exclusive property, despite what you may be thinking.’
‘I am not accusing you of being the father. Erika has told me that she knows beyond any doubt that the father has to be that man Jack Kelly.’
‘You do realise, of course, the scandal that her pregnancy would cause me? A woman living under my roof suddenly gets pregnant. It is obvious that our friends would think that I was the father.’
‘Well, Quentin,’ Caroline replied smugly, ‘you can see that the problem is not mine alone and that I need your help in finding a solution to our problem.’
Arrowsmith pondered his wife’s words. ‘We could send her away with some money to keep her quiet.’
‘I have become rather attached to my little kitten,’ Caroline said. ‘I would not like to see her in dire straits despite her stupidity. She should have known better, however.’
‘I could telegram that bastard Kelly in Papua and tell him what he has done,’ Arrowsmith muttered savagely.
Months had passed but he still smarted from the confrontation in his office when Kelly had forced his way in. Quentin Arrowsmith had never before been exposed to a threat where he actually feared for his personal safety. Such had been the rage blazing in the former soldier’s eyes that for a moment he thought the man might kill him. The memory was a cancer eating at him. Oh, how he wished he had challenged Kelly’s rage. But the man had shown him up and it had somehow become known around the companies that he had backed down to the challenge. For that he would do everything in his power to crush the man.
Arrowsmith had been fortunate in marrying a woman from a highly respected family who encouraged his ruthless desire to be the richest and most powerful man in Australia. Caroline was the only daughter in a family not unlike his own. The Arrowsmiths had a line of noble ancestors. He and Caroline had recognised in each other a dark side. In their unbridled pleasure seeking he had catered to her sexual whims.
His consideration to now telegram the administration in Papua and inform them that Mr Jack Kelly had left a poor young girl pregnant back in Australia appealed to his twisted sense of vengeance. What would the conservative administration think about one of their respected citizens then? Quentin Arrowsmith had learned in his private inquiries about Jack Kelly that he was a man respected by Sir Hubert as a man of honour. Was it honourable to leave a young girl pregnant to face the streets in a country foreign to her?
‘I would rather not have you even tell that horrible man,’ Caroline cut across his brooding thoughts of revenge. ‘Although I’m loath to see her go, I think that it would be easier to allow the girl to have her way and return to Germany. She has expressed that desire to me.’
Arrowsmith had not known of Erika’s desire to return to Germany but now considered the solution to their problem had been found. Germany was a long way from Australia and out of sight was out of mind. What happened to her there was not his problem.
‘You should have told me that first,’ he said. ‘I can arrange to buy her passage on one of our ships to Europe. It is as simple as that.’
‘We must give her enough money to tide her over during the pregnancy,’ Caroline said across the table. ‘She deserves at least that much from us and I know you can well and truly afford. Oh, and she travels first class to Europe on a passenger ship and not one of your cargo steamers.’
‘You are asking a lot, Caroline,’ Quentin said in a pained voice. ‘She is of little consequence. A young and confused girl who has got herself knocked up by a man of no significance.’
‘Don’t be so boorish,’ Caroline retorted. ‘She has been devoted to us these last few months. She deserves just a little consideration.’
‘I will make the arrangements,’ Quentin sighed as he made his first business decision of the day. ‘She will be gone from our lives this time next week.’
‘Good. And when are we next going to visit Europe?’ Caroline asked sweetly as she pushed her silver egg cup aside. ‘I
would love to visit Paris sometime soon.’
‘That is another matter,’ Quentin grunted.
He had more important things on his mind than sharing space with garlic eating Frogs – he had a financial empire to run. An empire he had hoped one day to hand on to a son and heir. But that aspiration was already doomed, as he well knew. He stared at his beautiful wife and considered the cruel irony of life. All his money could not buy him an heir.
Erika was ushered to her cabin by a smartly dressed steward for her first class passage to Hamburg via the Suez Canal. Caroline had not bothered to come to the pier and bid her farewell. Instead the chauffeur had driven her to Circular Quay and promptly left her on the wharf to fend for herself.
When the steward placed her single bag by her bunk and left, the young woman finally broke down and collapsed on her bed. How had it all gone so wrong, she thought, as the sobbing racked her body? She had always wanted to return to her true home but not pregnant and possibly destitute. The money was generous but not enough to keep a woman without a husband. For a fleeting moment she thought about Jack. She had even considered trying to contact him and informing him of her circumstances. But that option was rejected once her suspicions that he had killed her beloved Wolfgang were recalled.
From the wharf Erika could hear people bidding friends and relations a bon voyage. Would there be anyone to welcome her when she finally reached Munich? And what would she do with the child of the man who had murdered her fiancé?
She dried her tears away with the back of her hand and sat up. She was returning to Munich and to the man she had replaced Wolfgang with in her life. She wondered what Adolf would be doing at this very moment. In a few weeks she would again join him in his struggles to make Germany a great nation once more.
TWENTY-TWO
Just over two years had passed in relative peace for Jack on Paul Mann’s plantation. He had adapted well to managing the operations of the copra plantation alongside Paul. The sweet white flesh of the coconut was usually in demand on the overseas markets, although it fluctuated at times. Jack now had the pleasure of Lukas in his life on a daily basis and the little boy had grown to love the man who had once been a stranger to him.
Jack and Lukas lived in a comfortable tin and timber hut not far from the main house occupied by Paul and his family. They had a commanding view of the Coral Sea through the rows of stately coconut palms. For Lukas, growing up in the tropical paradise could not have been better. He had everything a boy could want in life: a best mate in Karl, the ocean to swim in, a horse to ride and a .22 rifle to shoot pigeons for the dinner table.
Jack appreciated Karin’s maternal concern for Lukas. He was very close to her and called her Aunt Karin. She had taken to the old life in the tropics much as Paul remembered her as his young wife in the pre-war days at Finschhafen. Her days passed with a routine of tutoring the boys in their schooling – much to their dismay when the time, in their opinion, could have been better utilised fishing, swimming and hunting with the native boys from a nearby village. She had the assistance of a girl from the local village with the cooking and cleaning and an old native villager assisted with other chores around the house.
The years passed in serenity, following the Wet and Dry seasons of the monsoon climate. Karin loved the Wet because it meant that her two men would be at home sitting on the wide verandah and waiting out the torrential downpours. Paul and Jack would sit in silence, puffing on their pipes, as the deafening roar of the rain on the tin roof made any semblance of a conversation difficult. Karin would sit beside them and sew or read. It was a time of peace, a time to reflect on the fruits of friendship.
And when the heavy clouds were replaced by the gentle powder puffs in the vast blue skies, the birds of paradise with their brilliant plumage sang and the villagers at work filled the coconut groves with their lazy laughter. Karin hardly even remembered her life before their return to the paradise they had left behind in the terrible year of 1914.
Karin’s announcement in early 1923 that she was pregnant disrupted the two boys’ idyllic existence. They would sit on the beach and discuss how a girl might come into their lives and ruin everything. It was agreed that she would want to hang around them and be a pest. But it was also mooted that another boy might arrive and that would not be so bad.
Both Paul and Jack got resoundingly drunk when Karin announced the news, and Paul broke out a supply of big, thick cigars to celebrate. He and Jack sat under the stars – as they had often done before – to take in the beauty of the clear night sky with its magnificent display of twinkling lights. Like the two boys, the men had grown as close as brothers in the time they had sweated beside their Papuan plantation workers, bringing in the coconuts for processing.
It was not a big plantation, however, and its future as a commercial concern had always been dubious. Copra prices had been falling and as Paul sat at a rickety desk made from wooden crates in the corner of a packing shed he stared forlornly at the neat row of figures in his battered accounts ledger. Outgoing costs outnumbered incoming profits. He did not have the heart to tell Karin in her time of expectant joy that they were facing bankruptcy. She had never been happier in all the years he had known her. He too had finally found peace in their tropical paradise, but the meagre savings left from his family estate in Munich were decreasing as quickly as the price of copra.
Paul sighed and flipped the accounts book closed. He gazed across the dusty yard to the flat blue sea beyond. Maybe he would talk to Jack and warn him that he might be better off seeking employment elsewhere soon, but how did he break such news to a man he had grown to accept and love as family? He even suspected that Karin was a little enamoured of the Australian. He had often observed how she fussed around him when he was sick and Paul had smiled at how his wife treated Jack as she would her husband, while Jack would unconsciously respond as Paul himself did. But Paul was not jealous. He knew that Jack would never consider making any improper advances. It was not in the nature of the man.
‘Paul!’
Paul could see that Jack was flustered as he hurried across the yard from his quarters.
‘Paul you old bastard, where are you?’ Jack called as he waved a paper around his head.
‘Here, Jack,’ Paul answered from his makeshift office in a corner of the packing sheds. ‘What is the matter?’
Jack made a beeline for the desk and dropped the government paper on Paul’s ledger. Paul glanced at the official looking document and noticed that it was a copy of the New Guinea Gazette.
‘They found the bloody mother lode,’ Jack exploded. ‘Just west of where George and I were back in ’20.’
‘Who’s they?’ Paul asked, bemused by Jack’s indignation. It was rare to see the Australian in such an agitated state.
‘Bloody Park, Sloane, Nettleton and Dover have made lease applications up in the Morobe district to mine gold. I should have known something was up when I heard old Sharkeye Park and Jack Nettleton had disappeared up that way. If anyone, other than myself was capable of finding a big strike, it had to be Park. I would bet everything I have that they are onto something really big. We have to get up there by any means we can,’ Jack added. ‘Just drop everything and get there to peg claims before the word gets out and we end up at the end of the rush with nothing more than a bad bout of malaria and a Kuku arrow in our arses.’
Paul was surprised that Jack had so quickly included him in his plans of going to the Morobe district to peg claims. He was not a prospector and Jack knew that.
‘We have no other choice,’ Jack said as he calmed down. ‘I’m no fool, I have read about the falling prices of copra and I would not be much of a manager if I didn’t know what was going on around here. I was getting ready to hand in my resignation before you were forced to ask and go and see if Sen had any work for me. I know you have kept me on for longer than you should have and for that you have my thanks, old friend.’
Paul was stunned. He thought he had kept the truth of his d
ire circumstances a close secret. Even with Jack gone it was only a matter of time before he would have to cut his costs and walk off the plantation.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he replied. ‘Just that I have always valued your friendship more than you would know.’
‘Trust me, Paul, and we will make a fortune,’ Jack said with a passion. ‘I know where the gold is and I know how to get it out before the rush starts. But we have to be there before the hordes come and take the surface pickings. After that it will be the big companies with their machinery.’
‘I am no miner,’ Paul responded. ‘You would be better off with a partner who knows what he is doing.’
‘So, you are considering my offer,’ Jack said with an edge of triumph. ‘You don’t need to be a miner for what is ahead of us. I need a mate who is good in the bush, and you proved that with your expedition to find Iris.’
‘Do you really want me along?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you think we could make some money out of such an expedition?’
‘To both questions the answer is yes. I need a mate who I know will watch my back. Besides, we are going to have to do this with a lot of haste and a little bit of rule bending.’
‘Rule bending?’ Paul asked suspiciously. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The priority is to actually get in where Sharkeye Park and his mates are staking claims. We’re not going to have much time to chase permits or mining leases. What counts is getting our hands on weight before anything else. We can stake our claims through the legal channels with the administration in Rabaul once we have got the gold out.’
Paul groaned inwardly. His friend was asking him to risk legal prosecution should things go wrong. He was a German citizen and he did not think that the Australian authorities would be very sympathetic towards him. ‘How much risk is there, Jack?’ he asked with a pained expression.
