A New Place

by Andrew Wareham

  “We ain’t going to parade through the streets of Port Moresby, Sergeant Baker, and the Japs won’t care if they see ‘em. Efficiency in the bush is all that counts, man!”

  Sergeant Baker retired to the tiny Petty Officers Mess, having been invited to join his equals in rank. The POs were all small ships men, firm in their opposition to all forms of bull; they offered him no sympathy.

  “Not the way things are done up North, mate. I thought you said you’d been up there?”

  “Two years, Thirty-Three and Thirty-Four. I was on glasshouse duty, Military Police, all that time. Got transferred across to general duty when I came back South because they reckoned I was too severe – but I just went by the book. No need for anything else. Go by the book and you can’t be wrong. Been in training ever since – making men out of bloody recruits. Now they’ve got me under a bloody Militia officer what don’t know nothing about the real Army. Thinks that he can make up his own rules – he’s wrong, I’ll tell you that. I’m writing it all down, everything he does against Regulations – he’ll see what’s what when I find a proper officer to report to.”

  “Is that right, cobber? Better be careful when you get up in front of the Japs – they ain’t never read your rulebook.”

  The gong rang, loud electric bells sounding in every compartment.

  “Action stations, stay here.”

  The sailors ran to their stations leaving their passengers sat in the mess deck.

  George sat at the wardroom table, a mug of tea to hand, waiting to be told what to do.

  A rating poked his head through the curtain that served for a door.

  “You to the bridge, sir. Your men with the Lewis Guns to their places, sir. Messenger is telling them as well, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  George ran on deck and along to the bridge stairs – ‘companionway’ he had been told.

  “Mr Hawkins – aircraft spotted. Starboard bow, about twenty degrees, distant.”

  George followed the pointing arm rather than the bearing, picked up a moving speck on the far horizon.

  “May not have seen us. Inside the reefs as we are, very difficult to pick out the different colours in the water. At this range we might look like no more than a length of reef, coral showing black against the shallows. Advantage of low speed – no great wake. Your sergeant’s a noisy bugger, isn’t he?”

  “Bloody man! Can’t do anything except at a shout. I’ll speak to him later, but I’ll probably be wasting my time.”

  They watched and waited; the plane came no closer and eventually disappeared back to the east.

  “Stand down from action stations. Post extra aircraft lookouts, Mr Carberry, just in case.”

  Captain Bonham explained to George that it was possible that the plane had spotted them but had chosen not to alert them by coming closer.

  “A seaplane armed with a single machine gun will do us no harm if it tries an attack. If it can call up a squadron of bombers – that’s a different matter.”

  “We shot down a couple of their seaplanes just outside Lae – slow and easy targets. I wouldn’t come close to a warship in one of those things.”

  “Wouldn’t catch me up in one of them, Captain Hawkins.”

  “Not my idea of fun, sir. Excuse me a moment.”

  George leaned forward and called down to the bows, no more than seventy feet distant.

  “Stand down, Sergeant Baker. Be ready to come on deck again at no notice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another series of shouts as Baker ordered his squad to unload and secure their Lewis Guns.

  “Bloody man! I shall warn him to keep his mouth shut in the bush. Whether he is capable of doing so is another matter.”

  The corvette plugged on at a steady twelve knots, following the marked channel through the Barrier Reef, undisturbed by nightfall.

  “Submarine waters in another couple of hours, Captain Hawkins. They can’t venture into the shallows, obviously. The Japanese haven’t got a base set up in local waters yet – I should imagine they will build in Rabaul eventually. For the while they will have to use their biggest ocean patrol boats and they need a good depth of water under them. They lost one of them a few weeks back. I don’t know how many they ever built.”

  George had no idea either.

  “Would they fire torpedoes at a small ship like this, sir?”

  “Probably, because we’re navy. The Japs have the rule of going for naval ships whenever possible. They don’t believe in commerce raiding like the Germans do, they want to put down warships first and foremost. Different strategy – might be they’re right, but it does mean that they take greater losses. If they miss they’ve got upset destroyers or corvettes hunting them.”

  “I suppose it fits in with what they call honour, sir. Not that I’m worried too much, one way or the other. I don’t have honour, meself, and I don’t care much whether they do.”

  “Up to you, Captain Hawkins. No chance of aircraft before dawn. Stand your gunners down but have them up on deck for first light, please.”

  George gave the orders, ate a meal and retired himself. He wondered if he should feel guilty, bunking down in the captain’s cabin while he made do with his little hutch under the bridge… but he would be out in the bush before many days had passed, he would make use of any comfort he could get the meanwhile.

  He stirred an hour before dawn, took a mug of tea in the wardroom and requested permission to go to the bridge.

  He looked down at the Lewis gunners as they mustered, shouted in disbelief.

  “Sergeant Baker. Put that bloody torch out!”

  “Inspecting parade, sir.”

  “Put it out now!”

  Baker switched off the electric lantern, moaning almost under his breath.

  “If you break the blackout again for any reason, Sergeant Baker, I will have you court-martialled for endangering the ship. Just what sort of bloody fool are you? You were told that all naked lights were forbidden.”

  “Not for inspections, sir. Got to have inspections. Regulations, sir!”

  “Shove the regulations up your rear end you hidebound bloody fool! Get below, you are relieved from duty. Who is senior of the gunners?”

  “Me, sir. Corporal Killigrew.”

  George picked out the huge figure of Killigrew, much the biggest man in the detachment.

  “Take command of the gunners, Corporal Killigrew. Give them their targets and the command to open fire when the Navy machine guns start.”

  “Sir.”

  George turned to the captain.

  “Permission to go below, sir, and deal with that bloody fool with his torch?”

  “Please do, Captain Hawkins. Kick his backside for me.”

  George stamped into the mess flat, called Sergeant Baker to him, irrespective of the listening men.

  “You are finished with this duty, Sergeant Baker. When we get to Moresby I shall report to the general, who I know, and I shall ask him to find the worst duty in the lousiest part of the bush and send you there on permanent detachment. You could have killed every man of us with your stupidity – bloody ‘inspection’ in full view of any periscope that may have been watching! I wanted a sergeant to lead soldiers in the bush, but you ain’t fit to keep company with real soldiers – you’re just a bullying, no-hope piece of shit. Get out of my sight!”

  Sergeant Baker came to attention and saluted.

  “I shall repeat your exact words, sir, and beg that you be charged for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, sir. Can’t have an army without inspections, sir.”

  “Get out! You are relieved from all duties. Keep your mouth shut and leave the men alone.”

  “Sir!”

  Sergeant Baker stamped to attention and saluted again before retiring to the Petty Officers mess. They threw him out as being unfitted for their company, having hazarded their ship. He found a corner to sit in and curled up with his miseries.

  George returned to
the bridge as the sun rose and the lookouts shouted.

  “Aircraft. Bearing 0100, sir. Three. Bombers. Five thousand yards.”

  “Open fire.”

  The four inch gun crashed almost instantly, its airburst shells exploding in the general vicinity of the three planes and hopefully causing them to veer off line.

  A few seconds and the pair of Oerlikon cannon decided they were in range and began to hose shells in front of the leading plane, trying to bring themselves directly onto it.

  George heard Killigrew shouting to his men.

  “Wait! Wait. Not yet. Leading the front man. Wait for it… Now!”

  The ship’s machine guns and the Lewises from bow and stern fired almost together, lashing into the leading bomber and then changing to the second as the first tumbled out of the air. The Japanese planes kept coming, hardly varying, their own machine guns firing.

  George could hear the captain calling his orders, bringing his ship round to face the attackers bows on and then calling helm alterations to jink her to port and starboard and prevent the planes taking an easy aim with their bombs.

  The second plane was afire, one wing dropping, falling into the sea clear of the bows. The guns all turned on the third, the Lewises able to track it as it passed overhead, rounds visibly entering its fuselage. George saw something grey flickering across his line of sight, realised it was a bomb, too high, passing over the deck and disappearing into the sea. The bomber tried to bank, to turn back on them but could not maintain height, dropped lower until the wing clipped the sea and the whole plane dived under the water.

  The guns ceased fire, amid yells from various officers. Work parties appeared on deck and began to pick up shell cases from the four inch and the cannon and throw them over the side. The machine gunners changed belts and pans so that they were fully loaded, ready for the next attack, if there should be one. The captain called for reports.

  “Two of your soldiers, Captain Hawkins. Machine gun fire. Both dead. None wounded.”

  George went below, found the pair laid out on the mess deck.

  “Wanted to see what was going on, sir. Poked their heads out on deck to ‘ave a shufti. Rest of us sat back close to the sides, sir. Up against the steel plate, sir.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat, my old lady used to say, Corporal.”

  “Kills bloody soldiers as well, sir. What do we do with ‘em, sir?”

  “I’ll ask the captain. Best if we can bury them at sea rather than take them up to Moresby and have them hanging about there waiting to be put underground. Bit bloody hot for that business.”

  The wrinkled their noses and agreed. Even a day in tropical temperatures would not be desirable.

  An hour later and the engine was slowed and the pair disappeared over the side after a brief but formal committal.

  They reached Moresby just after midnight, having seen no more of the enemy.

  George was not pleased with his own performance – he had not discovered the men’s names while they were still alive, had not spoken directly to them. He should have done better, he felt, although he had hardly had sufficient time even to register their faces.

  There was a single corporal waiting for them at the dock.

  “Captain Hawkins?”

  “Here.”

  “With me, sir. Pair of lorries to take you to the base at Konedobu, sir. There’s a meal ready and billets. You are to report to the colonel for eight o’clock in the morning, sir. I will pick you up and take you to him.”

  George had never met the colonel, had never heard his name.

  “Billingham, Captain Hawkins. Engineers. I am to build the road across to Lae as soon as you find the route for me.”

  “It is impossible to build a road to Lae, sir. The most I will be able to do is discover a route up to the plateau around Sogeri; that may be fit for trucks. Then I shall hope to identify a foot track leading into the Astrolabes and then the Owen Stanleys. The terrain is impossible for wheeled vehicles, sir. Mule trains may well be able to make it but the bulk of stores will go by foot, sir. The best hope is to take command of the air and hack out airstrips as we go, every ten or fifteen miles, say. Every time we cross a river, then an airstrip on its far side is best.”

  Colonel Billingham smiled and shook his head.

  “No, Captain Hawkins. There is to be a road.”

  “Can’t be done, sir. You might be able to put a road along the Gulf, down to Milne Bay – take ten years or more, but it might be possible. You cannot build a road north. Can’t be done. Fly or walk in this country, sir. Nothing in between.”

  “You do not understand, Captain Hawkins. The General has conferred with General MacArthur and there is to be a road built from Moresby. The High Command has given its orders.”

  George laughed.

  “I was born in this country and I‘ve flown over much of it, sir. I’ve walked a fair bit. The peaks rise as high as those mountains in Europe – the Alps, is it? They’re covered in rain forest and they’re steeper. Many of the valleys are no more than two miles wide and a thousand feet deep, water in the bottom and no hope of a bridge. Every valley is its own country, speaking its own language, and that’s because the people who live there can’t walk out and meet the clan five miles away. Along the coast and up the big rivers is swamp – I’ve only seen the Sepik from the air but that goes on for the better part of a hundred miles of bog. If you want a road then you’d better work out how to fill in every one of the valleys and make a causeway the better part of a thousand feet deep, one every three or four miles. There ain’t any roads up here, not because we’re too bloody idle or stupid to build ‘em, but because it ain’t possible.”

  “But we must have a road. Those are the orders.”

  “Can’t be done. Won’t be done. Look, sir, I was a provisions merchant in effect, selling foodstuffs up to the goldfields at Bulolo and Wau mostly. If I could have sent them by lorry, I would have cut my costs by about eighty per cent. I didn’t. I flew them up to dangerous strips in lousy weather, because there was no choice. The last few years we ran a small airline as well, because everybody had to fly, or take a boat along the coast. There was no choice.”

  Colonel Billingham was shaken – he believed in money; the argument had meaning to him.

  “We must speak to the new General.”

  “Who is it now, sir?”

  “Curtis. The previous man, Wythenshawe, went down with scrub typhus. He’s in Sydney, in hospital. General Curtis was his brigadier and has been made acting to succeed him.”

  “Pity. I flew Wythenshawe up a year and more back and was able to take him inland a bit so that he could see the terrain for himself. With the Japs controlling the air, I can’t do that for you. If I could, you would understand, sir.”

  “But, what do we do, Captain Hawkins? How can we turn round and say we were wrong? We promised a road.”

  “Say sorry?”

  “I do not think General Curtis will wish to do that.”

  “Imitate the Japanese then – fall on his sword, you know, ritual suicide as an apology.”

  “I do not believe you are taking this disaster seriously, Captain Hawkins!”

  “That’s because it’s a bloody joke, Colonel. If they had asked any of the New Guinea hands first, they wouldn’t have made bloody fools of themselves. Just be thankful the Japs are as bloody stupid as you lot are. They were winning, unbeatable, while they hopped from island to island, bay to bay. Now they’re walking overland and getting nowhere. They’ll be half-starved by the end of the year, and riddled with malaria and every other fever known to man. All you need do is get up on the plateau and set up strongpoints in the foothills. Stop the Japs and let them fall back on foot, defeated, starved and diseased. Simple, as long as you will wait a twelvemonth for it to come about. Put some of the kiaps out to pay rewards to the local clans for every head or sword or rifle they turn in. The Orokaiva are right where the Japs are coming, and they’re bad bastards – old-style cannibal
s who will kill anybody and everybody. Give them a payday or two and they’ll go out Jap hunting and love it.”

  “You must talk to the general, Captain Hawkins. Might I suggest a modicum of tact and courtesy, sir?”

  “What for? The only way to get through to you lot is to tell you straight how bloody useless and out of touch you are. You all knew there were no roads up here. Didn’t one of you ask why? Who was in charge of the planning for going inland?”

  “It was Brigadier Curtis’ department. He assured the Americans that there would be a road built for them. He was waiting for the additional manpower needed to make the survey because he thought it would only take a few days once we knew the best route – just a matter of grading a dirt track.”

  “Well – he ain’t going to be a happy man when he discovers the reality, Colonel. I doubt the Yanks will be best pleased.”

  A New Place

  Chapter Three

  General Curtis had never asked a meaningful question in his whole career – he knew all the important answers already and anything he did not know, he did not need to.

  “Hawkins? Militia? Lae, what were you doing there, of all places? Where are you from, Hawkins? What’s your father do?”

  “Nothing, sir. He died on the Gazelle in East New Britain during the invasion. That’s where I come from, I inherited two plantations there, and more down near Cairns.”

  “Hah!”

  George had no idea what that meant; it was obviously significant to Curtis.

  “What’s this about a rifle company with a dozen machine-guns, Hawkins? The rule is two guns to a battalion. You’ll have to get rid of the extras.”

  “We’re due to go up into the bush, sir. To search out a track across the ranges to the north. Fighting in the bush needs automatic weapons, sir. We are forty-two strong, lost two men to bombers attacking the corvette on the way up, sir. For that number of men, we have five automatic carbines, Lanchesters and a Thompson, and twelve old Lewis Guns. Two men have Remington shotguns, which are useful in the bush, and the medical orderly carries a pair of pistols. The rest have rifles. All have hand grenades, sir. I would like to get rid of half the rifles, sir. Replace them with Brens, if possible. If you have one spare, I would like a Boys Rifle, or a grenade thrower. Rifles are no use in the bush, sir, but can be handy out on the plains, in the kunai grass areas.”