A New Place

by Andrew Wareham

  The word was called down from the rear of the little column.

  “Pushing hard. Riflemen, by the look of it.”

  Blue dropped back to the platoon guarding the rear, set up two of the Lewises on either side of the trail, covered by the kunai and with a view of no more than seventy yards.

  “Here they come…” He waited until three men had come into sight. “Fire.”

  They emptied the pans of the Lewis Guns, traversing from side to side of the narrow, winding track and cutting into the grass for a few feet, hoping to pick up men out of sight round the bend. The riflemen fired blind, mostly to make a noise and keep the Japanese down for a little longer. The corporal held fire with his Lanchester, seventy yards an impractical distance.

  “Killed three, gave the shits to another half a dozen, with a bit of luck. Reload. Fall back.”

  They ran around the next bend, slowed to an economical trot thereafter. It was too hot to run fast.

  They reached the edge of the rain forest with no losses, decided that the Japanese weren’t that fearsome after all.

  “Hold here, do you reckon, George? Wait for the regular battalion to come up in a couple of days?”

  “We could try it, Blue. It’s an obvious sort of place to make a stop, though. Was I the Jap colonel or whatever rank it is, I’d give this spot a hammering just for good measure. There was a stream with a bit of a bluff just half a mile further down the trail, don’t I recall, Blue? Set up on the other side of that and we might do more good, until the planes give it a pasting. Pull back, mate. I reckon they’ll kick the shit out of us with their mortars if we stay here.”

  George was proved right, to his satisfaction and that of the men. They sat in the cover of thick-leaved trees on top of a fifty foot bluff overlooking a fast, narrow creek and a short section of the trail leading to it and watched while the distant Japanese laid a bombardment on the edge of the treeline and then made a bayonet charge into the craters they had created.

  “Some of those bombs were bigger than two inch, George. From what I remember, twenty odd years back, those look like three or four inch jobs.”

  Pat Muldoon had experience of the trenches of the Western front, had seen shelling before.

  George did not like the idea of the Japanese having what was effectively light artillery.

  “How heavy are they? Can you carry a four inch mortar through the bush?”

  “Base plate, bipod and tube separately – maybe. They might have designed one that was lighter for bush work.”

  Lieutenant Perceval spoke up.

  “You’d reckon maybe half a hundredweight for each piece, George, from what I was told in training. Three men to carry the mortar and a couple of bombs each and a fourth to carry bombs only. Pack mules back with the main body, that was the idea, anyway. Use ‘em like a mountain gun.”

  “So, bigger than a grenade and with greater range. Sod that!”

  Blue was not so concerned.

  “They can’t set up under tree cover. If they use them in the rain forest, they have to be out on the trail itself. Keep a couple of useful riflemen on the watch for them. Might do some good.”

  “Maybe.”

  They stayed out of sight, watching over the track from their ambush position. The track curved through the bush, never straight for fifty yards at a time except where it crossed a watercourse or a dry valley. The bluff they were on was steep sided to its front, cut almost sheer by rainy season torrents, forcing the trail to zig-zag from side to side up from the ford until it reached a shallower stretch twenty feet from the top. There was a clear killing ground for the guns.

  The first of the Japanese arrived at a jog-trot, evidently in pursuit of a fleeing enemy in their minds. An officer led from the front, shouting them on, running directly into the creek and up the slope on the near side.

  “Blue?”

  The Boys rifle crashed and the officer was snatched off his feet, thrown back into the stream. The men behind him paused, naturally enough, and the machine guns opened up at point blank range, wiping out the whole platoon.

  “Cease fire!”

  They changed pans on the guns, sat back and lit cigarettes, the powder smoke sufficient to disguise their smell.

  “Percy! Take your lads back a mile or so until you come to a sensible point to hold. Blue, be ready to pull out if it gets hairy.”

  Ten minutes and rifles and light machine guns opened up from the bush in a line along the creek.

  “Bastards know their way about, George. Came through there without much bother and without showing themselves.”

  “How many, Blue?”

  “Forty shooting just now, maybe?”

  “So I reckon. They ain’t hitting us, but if we put our heads up, they’ll see us and we’ll be in trouble. If they charge again, we won’t be able to knock ‘em down without being seen. How far can you fling a grenade, Blue?”

  “Not that far, George. What about Bob? He’s a bowler, ain’t he?”

  “No place for a run up here, Blue. Forget it. Fall back.”

  They ran, looking for the next holding point.

  By nightfall George was worried; they could not scrape the Japanese off, they were a bare quarter of a mile behind them.

  “Next creek, we put a line along the bank and wait for them to show, Blue. Two platoons up, the other two to fall back with Percy. You take them back, tell Percy we stop for the night some place where there’s cover and we can block the sods. Can you remember what the country’s like back here?”

  “Three in a row of ravines, as I recall, George. Bad buggers to cross in the dark. Maybe get over the first and hold it overnight?”

  “Do that. Take them back now, Pat with you.”

  They were on the slope of a steep hill, the track cutting through thinner bush, taller trees on the upside. Below them the bush became tangled, thicker and wetter and effectively impassable. It was dry season in the area, the creeks running low but still fast, their beds rock strewn, the banks offering firing points; George crossed the first creek he came to and knelt in cover.

  “Killigrew, put your platoon along to the right. I’ll have my lot to the left here. Wait for me to fire first. If I shout, go back at the run.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  Killigrew was carrying a Lewis, George saw. He was in the habit of handing his lighter Lanchester across to one of the smaller men in his platoon. George had no argument with that.

  The men nestled down behind rocks, trying not to leave gaps between them that the Japanese could funnel through.

  The Japanese came in view, trying to make speed and so forced to keep to the track, trotting side by side in a double file.

  “Ben, take a sight on that bugger at the front, looks like an officer.”

  Ben had kept his rifle from choice, claiming that if he could see a target, he could hit it. He had made a living shooting crocodiles in the Far North, said he had been the best earner in that game.

  “Got a line on him, boss.”

  “Kill him.”

  Two rounds from the Lee Enfield and the officer fell. The Lewis Guns fired short bursts and the Japanese ran into the bush, many of them diving flat.

  “Wouldn’t do that, meself,” George commented. “Never know what you might land on top of.”

  Firing stopped, for lack of targets.

  “Killigrew! Pull your platoon back to the rise behind us. Show yourself a bit when you get on top.”

  There was a ridge, no more than eighty feet high, running parallel to the creek. With luck, the Japanese would see Killigrew’s men and believe they had all pulled back, as they had done before.

  “Ready now.”

  Killigrew took his men back and made a show of settling in on the ridge; the Japanese did nothing for a while.

  Ben fired a single round.

  “Runner, boss, come out on the track. Bad shot. I fired high, boss, knocked half his head off. Lucky to hit him at all.”

  “Miss the next one
. He might have been carrying a message. Let the rear hear there’s problems. They might call in for bombers and wait for them to get here.”

  Nothing happened for ten minutes, then Ben fired again.

  “Missed him, boss, like you said. Gave him a fair old turn of speed, but. Took off like his arse was on fire and him trying to keep ahead of it.”

  “Good one, Ben! Lewises watch for targets, firing at will. Rifles pull back to the ridge.”

  Five men crawled and then ran back; there was a crackling of shots from the bush on the other side, perhaps half a dozen of the Japanese small calibre rifles firing. The machine guns rattled again, targeting their positions, spraying the bush in their general area.

  “Lewises pull back.”

  The Japanese were silent this time.

  “Close on me, Jim.”

  The soldier with the Lanchester crawled across, keeping low.

  “Just the two of us, mate. See those rocks, behind us to the left, fifty yards back and maybe ten feet up? The ones covered in the ferns.”

  “Got ‘em, boss.”

  “Work your way back to them, keeping good and low. Whistle when yer ready there.”

  “What shall I whistle, boss?”

  George had long decided that Jim was short on initiative.

  “Waltzing bloody Matilda – what else?”

  “What, all of it?”

  “Just the first line will do. Go.”

  Jim took fifteen long minutes to make his way to the cover of the rocks; George lay by the creek, convinced that the Japanese would swarm him under any second now. He spent the time usefully, half watching the bush for the fatal assault, the rest identifying the shadows he would move through, the hiding places that he could dive into.

  The first notes sounded, dry mouthed and quavering; George suspended all criticism, it was the finest music he had ever heard. He scuttled back two yards and then to his left behind a low rock, just high enough to hide him, lower than a dozen others to the right and therefore less likely, he had calculated. Ten seconds and he dived behind a big rain tree, growing close to the watercourse. The ground there was teeming with red kurakum ants, biters who objected to sharing their territory with outsiders; he legged it faster than he had intended, jumping over a small gully he had planned to use and hiding behind a thorn bush instead. He slapped furiously at his socks and shorts, brushing away the ants climbing his legs with evil intent. He had attracted attention and a few probing shots came his way, sounding closer than they probably were. He ran uphill, jinking left and right and hoping rather than using cover. He reached the rocks as Jim fired his Lanchester.

  “They’re in the bloody creek, boss. Standing in the open and firing, the daft bastards.”

  George came up to firing position, swept a burst across the creek from his Thompson. He suspected he had missed them all, but the heavier calibre gun sounded impressive, persuaded the Japanese into cover.

  “Off we go, Jim. Up to the ridge.”

  Ten yards from safety George fell as a rifle bullet hit him in the back.

  A New Place

  Chapter Seven

  George fell, half conscious, unable to move. Jim was able to roll to the side and grab with one hand at the edge of a small boulder, throwing the other across George to prevent him slipping back down the bluff.

  Jim shouted for help, quickly.

  “Wait!” Blue’s voice came from only a few yards away, just over the lip of the bluff.

  A minute and then every gun in the half company opened fire downhill in a sweeping blind barrage across the whole area of the Japanese positions. Bob and four men scurried the few feet down from the crest, grabbed a limb each and hauled George up, Bob cradling his head, Jim carrying the Thompson as well as his own Lanchester.

  They put George down on a groundsheet on his belly and Bob cut his shirt off and started work on the wound.

  “Blue! He’s got to go back, quick. Bullet’s inside still, came in diagonally and upwards from the centre-left. Christ knows where it’s ended up, somewhere under the right shoulder. No way I can do anything with it. I’ve cleaned it and dressed it and filled it with sulfa powder and that’s every bloody thing I can do.”

  “Three days on a stretcher back to the top of the gorge, to Sogeri. They won’t have a road up yet, so another day at least to get him down to the bottom and then into hospital in Moresby.”

  “I know that, Blue. I don’t see him making four days without treatment, Blue.”

  “With luck they’ll have an aid post up at the top by now. Should have. Knock up a stretcher and get him moving, quick.”

  Half an hour chopping at the bush provided four reasonably straight poles; lashed together with a ground sheet over the top and tied tight and they had a stretcher. Blue gave his orders, glancing anxiously down at the Japanese positions, hoping they had time before they were forced to pull back. He had to send at least ten men with the stretcher, turned to the nearest corporal to do the job – all were equally good, in his opinion.

  “Two Platoon, you will take him back. Change bearers as often as you need. Go at a trot if you can. Don’t drop ‘im. If you can pick up boys to act as carriers from any of the villages, do so. Promise to pay them with bully and tobacco and make a written note of what you’ve said. We need the locals on our side – don’t bugger them about. Don’t recruit at gunpoint! Move it!”

  A platoon of ten men was barely sufficient to carry a stretcher along a bush track in the high hills. Thirty minutes saw the bearers exhausted and having to change, and then run along behind the carriers. They heard outbreaks of firing behind them and knew that the remainder of the company was still making a fighting retreat; they hoped they would not be routed, forced to run off the track and into the unknown bush, leaving the Japanese free to overtake them.

  They carried George well into the night, risking using the one electric lantern they possessed, until its batteries were exhausted and they had no choice but stop. First light saw them moving again. The regular battalion met them soon after midday; they had carriers with them who took over the stretcher with George unconscious on it.

  The corporal made his report to a major, the most senior man he could discover.

  “Japanese are in some numbers, sir. Pushing the company back slowly. They have mortars, sir.”

  “Precise details, Corporal?”

  “None, sir. Can’t see in the bush, sir. They’ve been pushing forty or so rifles and machine gunners forward at a time, sir, backed up by mostly small mortars, about two inch, but with a few of bigger, four inch, backing them. Captain Hawkins is our first casualty, sir. Company has been holding in cover, sniping the officers, and opening up with the Lewises on the rest and then falling back, sir. The Japs been trying to get into close quarters with the bayonet, sir. Can hold ‘em with the Lewises, sir, but wouldn’t want to with just rifles.”

  “Well, I’m sure that is the case for Militia. Regulars will be a little different, perhaps. If the Japs want bayonets, well, we can give them a taste of our steel too.”

  Dick stared in amaze; he knew of Regular officers but had met none since training; he had not realised they let them out into the bush. He responded in the best way he knew.

  “Jolly good show, sir!”

  “Thank you, Corporal. What is your name?”

  “Hughes, sir. Dick Hughes.”

  Dick waved his hand behind his back, hoping to keep his platoon quiet, stop them laughing too loudly at least.

  “Is there an aid post up on top, sir?”

  “At the mission station, doctors as well. Set up as a first hospital.”

  “Good. We’ll run him down that far, sir. The boys will do better for us watching them and giving a hand on the steeper slopes. We’ll return as soon as we’ve got him into the quacks’ care, sir.”

  The major had already discovered that the old hands from the Territory had difficulties with orders; he simply agreed to the proposal.

  “Got any batteries for
lanterns, sir? Ours went out last night, made us stop until dawn.”

  There were no spares, the major regretted but he had extra carriers.

  They made best speed for two more days, a fast trot burning up the miles and exhausting the men.

  The carriers did an hour apiece and then fell out, walking slowly back to their unit with the Regulars. Men with the local languages recruited more from hidden villages – or so they appeared to the soldiers who had not spotted them on the way up. They offered money and bully and tobacco and delivered what they had with them and distributed written promises to pay with a liberal hand, knowing that if the need arose George would honour them from his own pocket. They reached the mission station in a tenth of the time it had taken them to go north on the track.

  The doctors put George on the table and swore as they made their first examination.

  “Thank Christ for sulfa powder. He’s only half rotten.”

  Three hours and they had retrieved the bullet and cleaned and debrided the long wound it had left. Then they put sterile dressings over their work, with liberal quantities of sulphanilamide powder underneath, and set him to bed with an orderly to watch over him.

  “If he’s still breathing in the morning, he’ll have a good chance.”

  Two Platoon found a floor and went to sleep. In the morning they started north again and met Blue at the end of a week with the news that George was still alive but wouldn’t be back for a long time.

  “From what the quack, said, probably never, Blue. They had to cut out a load of stuff around his back and shoulder. Reckon he’s going to be a bit short of muscle for moving the arm easy.”

  Blue shrugged; it was better than dead.

  “Turn around again, mate. The Regulars have taken over and don’t need us, so they said. Better part of six hundred in their battalion, with a pair of Vickers Guns and sod all else but rifles. All they need to do the job, so they reckoned. Poor bastards!”

  They marched back to Sogeri and found Brigadier Lowry, gave him their news.

  “You’ve got fourteen Lewises and a Bren and your machine carbines, and they did not need you, Lieutenant?”