A New Place

by Andrew Wareham

  “Good. Message for transmission to Moresby. ‘Road practical. Existing track inadequate for military purposes.’ Got it?”

  Receipt of the message was confirmed within the hour, together with a demand for a full written report each day.

  “What a dick, Carter! General Curtis wants a daily diary, in Konedobu. I’ll write it, you run it down to him every evening.”

  Carter smiled weakly, said that was a very good joke.

  “He’s your bloody general, not mine.”

  “Yes, sir. How are you proposing to obey his order?”

  “Simple. I’ll write a report and tell him I have no spare men to send it to him. If he wants it, he must collect it himself.”

  “I see, sir. As you say, it’s his problem.” Carter had seen the reality, was prepared to accept it, to a limited extent. “Listen, do you hear? There are birds actually singing, not just squawking, up here.”

  George cocked an ear. Carter was right. He could not remember hearing a songbird in the Territory; a few in Australia, but up North they yelled raucously.

  “Would those be Birds of Paradise, sir?”

  “Don’t think so. You get the Raggiana round here – bright red plumes. Keep an eye out for a nesting and display tree – they all congregate around the same one each year. You don’t see that many of Birds of Paradise though. Got none on the Gazelle, where I come from. Shot out around Lae.”

  They came to gardens and then a small village early in the morning. The women hid away but the men showed willing to talk in exchange for tobacco.

  “Hard to get hold of tobacco round here. It don’t grow locally, they have to buy it for money, and they ain’t got much of that. I should have brought more with me, only put a single two-pound block into me bag and half a dozen one-ounce packets.”

  They noted the need for tobacco in their reports, which they had decided to write every day, even though they could not be sent in.

  “There’s a way into the hills from here, they say. They have a trade line up to the other side of the Astrolabes. One of the men drove a truck for years and says that we could build a road half way but then we get to cliffs and valleys running transverse to our course. Narrow valleys, twisting and rising and falling in cliffs a hundred feet at a time. They can walk. They might be able to push a wheelbarrow in places. Nothing more.”

  Lieutenant Carter was disappointed, asked how far the road could go.

  “They don’t measure in miles, Carter. In fact, they don’t measure at all. It takes them two days to walk to the place where they trade. That’s how far it is.”

  “Have they heard of the Japanese? Do they know where they are?”

  “Nothing. They’ve never heard of them. There’s a mission station a distance away, they say. They might know something.”

  “If there’s a mission station, why did the people in Moresby not know of the track up here?”

  George shook his head, looked pityingly at Carter.

  “Did you ask them? Your bloody General Curtis spent his time shouting his mouth off and yelling out his orders. Do you think any bugger’s going to tell him anything except as answer to a direct question?”

  Carter fell into immediate outrage.

  “That is deliberate obstructionism! They are no more than traitors.”

  “They’re Diggers, mate. Work with them, they’ll do anything for you. Shout at them, they’ll just turn their backs. Like the blokes we’ve got with us. If you want them to do a job of work for you, ask ‘em.”

  Carter could not accept that he must treat mere private soldiers as people.

  “They are soldiers. They will obey orders.”

  George was openly contemptuous; Carter was not part of his Australia.

  “Your problem. Your funeral, Carter.”

  George waved a hand to Sergeant Muldoon.

  “I want a platoon left here to guard the head of the track, Pat. We’ll leave the wireless here as well; it’s too heavy and fragile to bump along where we’re going. Come the morning, we’ll head out to this mission station. With a bit of luck, they’ll have some local knowledge. What sort are they round here?”

  “London Missionary Society, I think. It’s part of their manor. The Catholics are further west, mostly.”

  “Not a lot to choose between them.”

  George turned back to the village men, asked whether the missionaries were priest or lay brothers – whiteskins or local men, that was.

  The reply was indignant and long; he fought for a straight face, turned to Carter with his translation. Blue was sufficiently fluent in Police Motu, had wandered off to laugh unseen.

  “The mission people are Hanuabadans, from the big village close to Konedobu. Coastals. The men here are of a different clan, more like the inland people. Different hair, especially. You probably noticed that the Coastal clans look a bit like Malays – long, straight hair.”

  Carter had not noticed anything about them – one set of natives was much like any other as far as he was concerned.

  “No matter. The people here are different, and they are enemies of the Coastals, or were before the law came. They would still chop them, given a fair chance and with no policemen to come up with rifles if they did. The men at the mission station are all of them from the wrong clans so these people no longer go to church at the weekend. It’s not that they no longer believe, mark you, but they ain’t going to Heaven behind those buggers, taking second place at the Pearly Gates to that bunch of foreigners.”

  Lieutenant Carter did not approve and could not understand why it should matter to them - they were all kanakas.

  “The brothers at the mission station will stay close to home. They won’t take the risk of staying out overnight, for probably not waking up in the morning. They won’t be able to tell us anything about the country round here.”

  “Well, I think that is very poor of them. Should they not be taking the Word of the Lord out to the heathen?”

  “Not if they got any bloody sense, they won’t. Missionaries have got to be whiteskins, because the uncontacted clans will know they are not local enemies. A few of the dim-dims get killed as well, but normally because they ask for it.”

  “Dim-dim?”

  “Us. Whites. Local name for us, not very polite but ignore it. About the same as kanakas for insult.”

  “But that’s just their name, it’s not offensive.”

  “Tell them that. Don’t use it in front of them.”

  “But…”

  “Take that as an order. We need these people. We want them to work for us. We need them to dig the roads and carry inland from the roadhead.”

  “But, we shall pay them good money.”

  “So we will. Where do they spend it? Can’t see any stores just locally.”

  It slowly dawned upon Carter that the inland was not the same as Lae or Port Moresby, and that the inland started a day’s walk from the coast.

  “Aircraft engines, sir!”

  “Take cover. Get out of sight.”

  The village would not be bombed unless soldiers showed to make it a target. The Japanese did not have enough of planes, bombs or time to attack every settlement.

  “Don’t fire unless they come in strafing.”

  They watched as the squadron came in low and dived down into the plain, two thousand feet below. They heard bombs burst in the distance and then saw the planes come up again, reform and return north east.

  “No losses this time, Blue.”

  “A gun battery up on top here could do some good. A couple of squadrons of fighters would do better.”

  The ridge rose to the east and south, climbing up to Hombrum Bluff which was the highest point above Port Moresby. Lieutenant Carter was indignant that the Japanese could fly in untouched.

  “Could we not take the Lewis Guns across to the Bluff, sir? The bombers passed very low across its head, sir. We could certainly shoot down one or two.”

  “We could indeed, Carter. What do we do after tha
t? We are up here to try to locate the path a road must take.”

  “Yes, sir. But it is not right to allow the Japanese free control of our air.”

  “Don’t tell me about it. Go to Konny and speak to General Curtis. It’s his problem and he’s done nothing about it so far.”

  “But, he could not. He did not know about the track leading here.”

  “He should have done. He’s the general. He wasn’t sent up here to sit on his arse and hold dinner parties. If he had spent less time worrying about officer’s servants and more on organising a proper defence, then he would have made himself a name and a career. As it stands, he’s finished. The first real soldier gets up here will sack him, and make sure he never gets a fighting command again. He should have got things done; instead he just worried about reversing the changes made by the previous man.”

  “You don’t understand, Captain Hawkins. You didn’t in Lae, you don’t now. There is a right way of doing everything, and standards must not be dropped merely because there is a war on. Officers are gentlemen and must take their proper place in the scheme of things. We cannot win a war by descending into the gutter!”

  “We win this war by killing Japanese. Nothing else is important. We do it by getting the greatest number of willing men into the right place. Our men are Diggers. So that is how we treat them. They ain’t clockwork soldiers to play on a parade ground. Their officers can’t be either. Lead ‘em from the front and fight as hard as them, they’ll follow you. Shout orders in a toffee-nosed voice, they’ll likely put a bullet in you – and no bloody loss, either!”

  “I cannot accept that, sir. There is a proper way to behave. The men must be led by their betters. They must show proper discipline in all their ways.”

  “What makes you the better of any of these men, Carter?”

  “I am a gentleman, Captain Hawkins.”

  “Bullshit. What have you done? What have you earned? Where have you been? I was born to a rich father, and I know he pulled himself out of the slums in England. I ain’t no gentleman born. These blokes know that I’ve worked for me living, and risked me neck more than once. They’ve all done the same. I’ve got a bit of education and knew the right people and so they made me an officer. Most of them could be just as good as me if put in command, and they know it, and they know I know it. They do as I ask them because they’re hard men, and they know that there can only be one boss – and they trust me not to make a cock of it. I repeat my question, Carter. What have you ever done?”

  “That is not the point, Captain Hawkins. I am an officer! That is all that sort need to know about me.”

  “You’re in the wrong Army, Carter. You don’t belong up here. If I was you, I would decide that I had seen enough of what was going on. Walk back down to Laloki and you’ll probably live. Stay up here and you probably won’t. Go back to Konny and kiss your general’s arse – you’re good at that – and go back South with him when he’s sacked. Sit in an office back in a barracks somewhere and he’ll promote you and you’ll have a jolly good war, and come out of it alive. Don’t stay up here with the fighting men, you ain’t fit for their company. Take your bloke Mather with you; he’s too dim to be left out on his own.”

  “I shall remain, thank you, Captain Hawkins. You will discover the error of your ways when your ‘Diggers’ let you down for lack of proper discipline. I shall be available for your apology.”

  “If I am wrong, I shall tell you so. What are you going to do with the dickhead?”

  “Lieutenant Arkenshawe-Mathers comes from one of the best families in Brisbane. I need ‘do’ nothing with him. He is a natural soldier by birth to a long line of gentlemen.”

  “Good. He has the guard tomorrow night. Make sure you brief him and that he understands what he has to do. Warn him that I shall inspect his guard at least twice during the night.”

  “That sounds as if you do not trust him to do his duty, Captain Hawkins. A cheap insult!”

  “You’re wrong, yet again. I don’t trust him to understand his duty, because he’s thick as two short planks. He will do what he knows; trouble is, he knows nothing.”

  “The gentleman is born, not made, Captain Hawkins. Duty is part of his very soul.”

  “Give over, man! You’ve got the duty tonight. You know the rules. The biggest worry is that local men will try to pinch rifles in the night. Make sure the cooks are rousted out of their pits at their time. Keep at least one fire alight so that they can boil up the tea. I want to move out to the mission within half an hour after dawn. I’ll give Bob the word to have his sick call for first light. Too early for most of the fevers to show yet, but there might be a dysentery or two, or blisters that have gone bad. Check any men you see hobbling.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  George shrugged as he turned away. He had tried. Carter would not live if he stayed, almost as a certainty, because he would not trust the men, and they would not look after him.

  They walked out in the morning, no rifles lost, the men fed and all apparently in good order. Bob Kiernan had made his medical report and seemed content with the condition of the men.

  “Feet are the big worry, George. If they have to wade through creeks then we could be in trouble. A dozen of the blokes have blisters which ain’t infected yet, and won’t be if they keep their feet dry. For the rest, they’ve all taken their malarial pills. Seems the last general made it a military crime to refuse them, and they’ve heard what the military prison is like up here.”

  “Wythenshawe? He was a good bloke. He was a soldier, and a gentleman too.”

  Bob was not very interested in gentlefolk, unless they were cricketers.

  “It’s still Dry season, isn’t it, George?”

  “Down on the coast, yes. Up here, the rules don’t apply. The Dry is not so different to the Wet, up here. You see those clouds over north?”

  It was difficult to miss the black mass obscuring the mountains.

  “That’s what made me ask.”

  “Well, if they stay there, which they might, or so I am told, then all that will happen will be the creeks rise with their floodwater. If they come this way, we get wet. If they do the same two or three days running, we get flooded out of the valleys. Then we sit on the slopes and wait for it to get dry again. Might be a week lost, might be three months. No way of telling. Odds are, it won’t rain on us. We march anyway.”

  The mission station was thirty years and more old – ancient by the standards of the Papuan Gulf. The gardens surrounding it were rich and well-kept, full of food crops and bordered by hibiscus and bougainvillea and hedges of crotons. It looked like a flourishing, thriving model of prosperity.

  It was also closed against the outside world; the doors were bolted and the windows barred. They had heard them slamming shut as they had come in sight.

  George stopped the half-company on the patch of grass outside the front veranda and walked up the three steps to the door. He banged on it once, shouted in Police Motu, then in English.

  “We are the Army. Come out to speak to us.”

  A head appeared in the nearest window and then the locks rattled on the door.

  A lay-brother appeared, dressed European style to emphasize his place in the world.

  “Good day and God’s blessing on you, master. Have you come to make a camp here and put the local bush monkeys in their proper place?”

  George shook his head.

  “Passing through. There will be many more soldiers coming here in the next few months. We are looking for a way to bring trucks up here and into the Astrolabe Range.”

  “There is no way, master. A little more than ten miles brings the footpath to a deep valley which must be crossed. It is only a quarter of a mile wide, but it is very steep on both sides and there is a wide and fast creek in the bottom. The ridge beyond it is very steep and narrow and falls away into another deeper valley. It is hard to walk down, and there is another creek, and then a steep side. It takes a whole day to walk that far, and
on the other side you can see more deep valleys, each one deeper and with higher sides than the one before. We have never walked those valleys.”

  “Do you know how far the footpath goes?”

  “No. The people will not talk to us. They shoot arrows at us if we come near them. The good Reverend said to us that men – masters that is – have walked as far as the place of the Orokaiva clan, and that there are trade lines beyond that. I do not know.”

  The Orokaiva were known by repute along the whole coast. They were inveterate cannibals and fierce warriors. Any party of carriers walking through their lands would need a heavy armed guard.

  “We shall march to the first valley and set up camp there. That will be the end of the road, it seems. After that, we shall see what can be done by way of a track.”

  A New Place

  Chapter Five

  Four days saw the half-company at the end of the road.

  George made his final sketch to accompany his written report. He had outlined the course the road could take from one landmark to the next and had spotted half a dozen potential sites for camps, all in reasonable cover from effective low-level air attack, sheltered by high ridges behind them. Now his report said that the terrain had become impossible for wheeled traffic.

  Looking north there was a ravine, probably three hundred feet deep and no more than four hundred wide, with a fast creek in the bottom, running east-west, directly across their line of travel. Debris along the sides suggested that the creek rose by at least fifty feet in the Wet. Ridges climbed both east and west of the track they had followed, the creek carving even deeper gullies through them; loose scree and sudden vertical faces made even walking almost impossible on them.

  Looking down and peering through binoculars, George could see a foot trace leading across the valley side to the creek and crossing at a narrow, rocky point. It might be possible to throw a foot bridge across, replacing it after each wet season. The local clansmen probably jumped from rock to rock in the Dry. The path angled back up to a slight dip in the gorge and then turned out of sight over the top.