"I reckon every one of the Japs is going to fill his bottle as he crosses down by the track! Good luck to 'em!"
One of the younger men protested that it was dirty, and must be in contravention of the Geneva Convention. George agreed.
"Make sure the lads all know - no more water from the creek!"
The word was rapidly passed round the men. There was a general agreement that it was a bloody good idea.
George called all of the sergeants, Regular and Militia, to a quick meeting. The Militia knew what was intended, the Regulars did not, and they needed to act together.
"There's no back-up. The nearest of our troops will be down in Port Moresby and in the islands towards Samarai maybe. There's no point to trying to hold our position while we wait for reinforcements, because there ain't any. The General in Moresby said that when the Japs came there would be small boats working the coast to try and pick us up, but I wouldn't bet on their surviving. With a Jap aircraft carrier here they ain't going to find it easy. A few days and they'll fly in land planes as well, you can bet."
They agreed - the sea was out.
"We can't walk it to Moresby, can we, sir?"
"Maybe one man in ten could, sergeant. I don't know. It's never been tried. What we can do is hike the tracks across to the goldfields. We know that can be done - they were found by men on their feet. It takes the better part of two weeks and it ain't easy, but there's a radio at Bulolo these days and an airstrip there that takes a Junkers - you know, the three-engined ones with the corrugated bodies. You can get a Dakota in as well, if the pilot's got a sense of humour. If we can get that far then they'll pick us up from Moresby."
"Tell the men that, sir?"
"It's what we're going to try, so they might as well know. Warn them to take their quinine pills, despite all the stories. They get malaria, they ain't going to make it."
The quinine pills would prevent malaria, but they were thought to turn the skin yellow if used for too long and it was 'known' that they affected men's potency. Most of the soldiers firmly believed that six months of taking the pills and they could forget about ever getting married and fathering children.
"They reckon them pills turns you into a pansy, sir."
"I've been taking them all me life, sergeant, and my missus down in Cairns is seven months pregnant. Malaria is no bloody joke, sergeant! You can't walk for a week, let alone march though the bush, if you get a bad bout, and if you're unlucky it gets the brain and you're dead overnight or it hits the kidneys and the blackwater kills you in three days. Any of the blokes gets malaria and they won't be going home again, that's for sure."
The Regulars had never trained in the bush - the colonel had not expected them to be used outside of Lae.
"Warn your men that they must cover every cut - even a tiny graze. Stick disinfectant on any broken skin, even if it does sting! Tell them never to scratch themselves - they can put up with itches. They're going to get leeches - they ain't pretty but they don't do any harm. Best thing is to let them fill up and drop off, if they can stand it. If they can't, then burn them off with a cigarette butt or put salt on them. Don't pull them off, they leave their heads behind in the skin and they rot and cause an ulcer inside a day. Ulcers make you weak."
"What's the chances, sir?"
"If you're lucky, and use your sense, you can make it. I walked out through the swamps a few years back, on me own. It can be done."
"I read about that, in the papers. Plane crashed and you made it to the sea! I'll tell the lads you know what you're talking about, sir."
There was a quiet comment that it was a change for any officer. George would have been worried if they had said anything different - they were Diggers.
The meeting was ended by the heavy crash of the Boys Rifle, its propellant charge twice that of the Lee-Enfields most of the men carried. There was rifle fire in response, the lighter sounds of the smaller calibre the Japanese used.
"Sergeant McGuire, take command of all of the Regulars when we fall back. Take your blokes and set up your Vickers at a good place near the first crest of the track, about a mile back. There might be some of the men I sent back in position already."
"Not bloody likely, sir. Most of them will still be running. Never fired a shot and not bloody likely to!"
"Every army's got them!"
"They can forget about hiding behind me, sir."
George made his way under cover to Blue Piggott, hearing him slowly empty his five-round magazine. There was an explosion down by the creek as he reached Blue's position.
"Got his bloody petrol tank, George! That'll block the roadway for a while."
There were two trucks, one of them in the ford and on fire, the other stopped on the track behind it and showing a smashed front end. There were Japanese soldiers just in sight, some of them firing wildly into the bush.
Blue reloaded and waited.
"I watched them drive up the track, George. They didn't try to bloody clear it - they just drove straight over the bodies of their own blokes, and they didn't stop to see if they were dead first!"
"They're just bloody animals, Blue."
They waited a few minutes, the rifle fire coming nowhere near them.
"They don't know bush fighting, that's for sure. What's the country like in China, Blue?"
"Buggered if I know, George. Rice, ain't it? All wet, I suppose. Not like here, anyway. Got to be flat, I suppose."
Both knew that the Japanese army had been fighting in China for the past decade and they assumed that was all they had learned.
"You've got to stick to the tracks in the bush, Blue, but they haven't found that out yet."
They watched with some satisfaction as squads of Japanese ran forward and crossed the creek in a dozen places, most of them stopping to scoop up water as they ran.
"Should do them a bit of no good, but."
"With luck. Is than an officer behind the second truck? Looking out with a pair of field glasses."
"I can see 'im, George. Shall I?"
"One shot. Don't give your position away."
Blue fired, was amazed to see the officer literally blown off his feet, his body thrown well back by the massive round. Rifle fire came in around them, some of the infantrymen having spotted the rough location of the shot.
"Pull back, Blue."
"Wide awake, ain't they? One shot and run, I reckon, George."
"Pass the word, Blue. Keep moving. We got a bit to learn as well, by the looks of it."
They had worked exercises a dozen times from the ambush point, knew the local area even in the dark. George pulled the Militia up the track soon after sunset, certain that the Japanese would close on them in the night.
"Sergeant McGuire, take your men about ten miles tonight. You will find my truck parked up where the path to Bulolo turns off. Set up a holding position there. We'll drop back over tomorrow, hopefully doing some damage as we fall back. Don't try to make march pace on the track - you can't do it without risking falls and ankle sprains. If I don't come back then remember that clean water's the most important thing - make the lads drink more water than they think they need. Tell them to watch themselves - if they piss yellow they need to drink more. Clear water in, clear water out, that's the only way to guarantee you're drinking enough in the tropical bush!"
It was too much to learn; men would die for lack of simple training in bush survival.
The track took a bend a hundred yards below the first crest, rounding an open, rocky spur, a deep ravine to the left. There was cover enough in the rocks to set up a pair of Brens and hide three platoons with a route into thick bush and then up to the top of the ridge. George settled in there with Sergeant O’Neill and twenty men, half rifles, the rest on the Brens and with Thompsons and grenades.
The moon rose in a clear sky and soon after George saw flashes and heard the crack of grenades from their first ambush position.
“Thought they would, sir! Bet they don’t do that again!”
<
br /> “What, Sergeant?”
“Sneak in at night, sir. I set tripwires like we did in Spain. Tie a grenade down with the pin almost out and a piece of string attached and then run it across the way you reckon they’re going to come in. I put four across the track and two where Blue had the Boys. I only saw four go off, but they’ll have done a bit of no good. Probably be all four on the track – they might not have got Blue spotted to rights.”
Two more grenades exploded minutes later, then rapidly half a dozen more.
“I bet that was two parties out, sir. Throwing grenades back reckoning that we was close to hand in the bush and not knowing they was on trip-wires. Any luck they’ll be killing each other in mistake for us all night. Used to see them bloody Moors do that in Spain – they hated night-fighting and used to shoot at anything that moved, including each other.”
They slept by turns, managed a couple of hours apiece before sunrise, then they waited, chewing on biscuit and wide awake, each man with his way out planned, rock by rock, bush by bush, back into thick cover and up the remaining hillside.
“Company size patrol, sir. Eight platoons, sir, alternating left and right of the track; seven or eight men in each. Officer at the front; you can see his sword. Ought to be more than one officer to a company, so they probably lost one leading them in last night. Probably nine or ten man platoons to start with and lost one or two men from each.”
George nodded; given time he would have worked that out for himself, but he had no time to learn.
“Brens to hit the back platoons as soon as they come into clear sight. Rifles as well. Tommy guns to open up at the front of the charge as they come in?”
“That’s what I’d do, boss. Get Smithy to take the officer in hand; he’s the best rifleman we’ve got. His shot the signal for the Brens, sir.”
“She’ll do me, Sergeant O’Neill. Pass the word to the lads, please.”
They opened fire as planned, killing the officer and more than half of the infantrymen in the first seconds. The rest returned fire and hit O’Neill as he turned to fall back, a lucky, or well-aimed, shot ploughing through chest and lungs and dropping him coughing blood and dying.
George did all that he could, taking his rifle and ammunition and closing his eyes before running uphill himself.
Sergeant O’Neill was the first casualty of their party.
A Place Called Home
Chapter Nine
The aircraft came over soon after first light, carrier-borne fighters and bombers initially, spread out wide and trying to fly low enough to comb the tracks through the bush and finding that they were too fast to see anything. They reformed into their flights and came back down at little more than stalling speed, crawling as low as they could across the canopy of the rain forest. The bomber planes carried two or three man crews and could observe while the pilot concentrated on his flying, and they were naturally slower aircraft, more suited to the task. The fighters, all single engined with just a pilot, had to try to both fly and watch the ground underneath them; within an hour three had crashed within sight of the Australians, unable to pull out in time when they came to sudden rises in the hills or found a dead-end valley. They seemed unlikely to be too great a menace while the soldiers remained in the rain forest.
Then came the slow seaplanes launched from the cruiser that remained fully operative; just two of them but able to potter at less than sixty miles an hour. The fighters and bombers pulled back, presumably to refuel.
It seemed obvious to George that sooner or later the flying boats would spot them. Even if they did not they could pin them down in cover, unable to retreat further inland. He watched for half an hour before he was able to pick out their search pattern. They were flying along the track for a mile or so then peeling off left and right in a circle, combing the bush for a few minutes then coming together again for the next mile. Twenty minutes, he estimated, would bring them close to the crest where the party was laid up.
“The two nearest Brens and the Lewis, to me!”
The three men ran crouching to him.
“A quarter of an hour or so from now, those two are going to come together on the track about a couple of hundred yards away. They probably ain’t going to see us while we stay hidden. If we move they’ll pick us up and radio our position and the bombers and fighters will be straight into us. If you can fill their cockpits, first burst, and shut them up, then the planes won’t know exactly where we are and we can get out. We can be ten minutes downhill before they know the seaplanes are down, then we can hide and dodge again.”
They said nothing, checked and cocked their guns and placed themselves where they should have a clear field of fire.
They waited, swearing as the seaplanes took forever to move to the right position.
The planes came within a hundred yards, a little closer, keeping low and rigorously straight on their course; they could see the faces of the two men aboard each, peering out over the side, staring into the thick bush.
The Lewis gunner had the command, called “Now”, and started to fire. The Brens followed immediately.
The Lewis put a line of holes low along the cockpit of the left-hand plane, wounding or killing the crew. The pilot lost control instantly and the plane dived almost straight down, nose first into the bush. The petrol tanks ruptured and the seaplane caught fire, black smoke rising in a great plume.
The Brens were equally successful, the glass canopy smashing as the rifle-calibre rounds hit head and shoulders of both crewmen. The plane fell away into the creek valley, crashing nearly a quarter of a mile off, again catching fire.
“Pull out! Run! Downhill half a mile then go for cover!”
“Bloody smoke tells them just where to look, George!”
“Bad luck, mate. They’ve still got to find us.”
A few minutes later they heard truck engines grinding in low gear, working their way up the track towards them.
“Not so easy now, mate.”
“Anything but, cobber.”
They worked their way down the slope to the valley bottom, the protection less here for being covered in garden land, some in cultivation, mostly down to its long fallow.
“Bear left, up the creek to the side of the next hill. Platoons a couple of minutes apart. Keep in the bush till dark.”
As the land rose so the bush turned to grassland for the better part of five miles. The grass was tall kunai, higher than a man, but still providing little cover from the air.
“Blue, I need you and the Vickers team with me here. Soon as the first truck gets half way down the hill then you stop it, Blue, and the Vickers can kill them as they get out of the back.”
They nodded, set themselves up in as much cover as they could find.
“Sergeant McGuire! Take them across to the track and as far as you can get after dark. If you reach the Bulolo turning then get them moving on the track there. Grab what rations you can from the truck at the turning. The track drops down into thick bush inside a couple of miles so you can lie up during the day tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll put the Lewis and all of the Brens into a stop for you, up the track to the left, sir.”
McGuire trotted off before George could argue.
They could hear planes now, circling the sites of the two downed seaplanes.
“Those bastards have never trained for work with the Army! They got no idea what to do… I bet any money you like they could sink a bloody ship in two minutes flat, but they don’t know how to search on land.”
He tried to think the situation through, adding the inefficiency of the planes in. It still made no difference that he could see – the infantry had to be held for long enough for his men to get a few more miles away. That meant losing the Vickers.
“Blue, the moment you hit that truck, you get out of it, across the little creek here and off to the left. If you spot the Brens then you can lay up in a sniping position near them.”
Blue did not want to run, but he had
even less desire to stay and almost certainly be killed. He glanced across, picked out the first piece of cover to run to.
A Steamships Ford truck, still in the bright yellow livery, nosed over the top of the hill, almost stopped while the driver, completely new to the model, double-declutched into first gear.
“By that clump of bamboo, Blue. With a bit of luck she’ll catch fire and start a bloody great blaze going. We can use the smoke.”
Even this early in the Dry Season bamboo would have dead leaf and old stumps that would take light easily.
They waited – George seemed to have spent most of the last two days doing nothing but wait – Blue bringing the Boys up to firing position, flicking the safety off, taking his deep breath before squeezing the trigger.
Three rounds, into the engine first, then the driver, finally the big petrol tank visible to the side at the rear.
The tank split and the petrol gushed out as a tendril of flame worked back along the feed from the engine.
Four seconds from the Vickers and the riflemen who were not screaming in the flames were silent on the track. Clouds of blue and black smoke rose, the bamboo clump popping and banging as trunks split in the heat. The top of the track disappeared, came in sight again as a gust of wind from a low-flying plane swept the smoke away.
Blue was hidden before the next truck showed itself and stopped at the top of the hill while an officer jumped down and raised field glasses to his eyes. The Vickers gunner opened fire without asking, hit the officer and riddled the cab of the truck.
“Only got two more belts of ammo, boss! You get down the road while we fire ‘em off and tuck a grenade under the breech. We’ll follow quick as we can.”
They did not have a hope. If George stayed then he could die with them, and achieve nothing else at all.
A Place Called Home (Cannibal Country Trilogy, Book 2) Page 21
