A New Place

by Andrew Wareham

  She thought that was a good idea. They had lost Ned, had given enough to the war. George was inclined to agree; he had seen the sharp end and was happy never to repeat the experience.

  “Have you heard anything of your brothers?”

  Mary had not, or almost nothing.

  “My father has had a letter from England. My youngest brother is still at his University there and is well. He is doing something for their war.”

  George knew that the youngest boy had been studying some sort of science at Cambridge. He was at least five years older than Mary, so would have taken his degree and was presumably working in his field, safe from the army there. He knew as well that she had no memories of any of the three brothers, all having been sent away from Rabaul when she was still very little.

  “The others were in China, weren’t they?”

  “One is an officer with the Kuomintang; the other might have been in Nanking when the Japanese came.”

  The Japanese had sacked Nanking, had butchered their way through the civilian population with deaths in the hundreds of thousands. There was nothing to be said.

  “Is Ned well?”

  “At home with your mother, George. They will visit tomorrow. He is growing, George, big and strong like his father.”

  “Good.”

  George wondered if that was still true of him – he could not imagine that he was still strong, was unsure that he ever would be.

  “Silly man! You will be again. Once out of this horrible place you will recover and be as able to work as you always were. How bad is the arm?”

  “Don’t know, love. Stuck in a sling and immobilised – I haven’t been able to move it since I woke up.”

  “Then we shall find out in time. Perhaps I shall sleep in the other side of the bed!”

  They laughed and George decided that it was not so bad, after all. A nurse appeared and suggested that Mrs Hawkins had stayed long enough – she would not wish to tire her husband.

  “I shall go, George. Tomorrow!”

  “See you then, love.”

  The nurse disapproved of a farewell embrace, or perhaps she objected to the Chinese wife giving it.

  “We do not know that visiting is permitted tomorrow, ma’am.”

  “I think it will be, nurse.”

  Mary did not say ‘or else’; the threat was clearly there, however.

  She arrived with Jutta and little Ned, again at two o’clock, was escorted to the ward by a Matron, apparently senior of the nursing staff. George was not in the slightest surprised.

  “Your father spoke to the right people, it would seem, love. Mutti, are you well?”

  George rarely used the Germanic diminutive, brought her close to unexpected tears.

  “Ja. I must be, George. There is no place for a cranky old lady – I must be useful.”

  “Best you should be, Ma. A few years and you will be needed back at Vunatobung – there will be rebuilding for us to do. The villages will need help as well. Work for all of us, I think.”

  “So there will be, George. What of your arm? Will you be well for the long days when we go back?”

  “I hope so, Ma. I don’t know yet. They say it will be less strong than it was, that I will not use it so well. We shall see, Ma. I don’t think I am in the business of being crippled, Ma. Not my style. If needs be, then there will be men to come up as assistant managers. You remember Blue, Mary? He was my lieutenant in the company, should have taken over from me. If he comes through, he will be looking for something up in the Islands.”

  “The big red-haired man? He would do well, George. A strong man.”

  “Just that, love. I am allowed out of bed now. Shall we walk down to the veranda? A bit of air will be welcome. I can’t carry Ned yet, but he can sit on my lap out there.”

  The baby did not approve of the new man holding him, made his opinion known loudly. George laughed and handed him back, allowed Mary to take him on finding that he could not lift his tiny weight.

  “Bloody Hell! Will you go round the stores, love? Get hold of barbells and dumbbells for me, small at first. I’ll need them when I get home.”

  A nurse appeared with a tea tray, said it was compliments of Matron. She stopped a few minutes to play with the baby.

  “Captain Hawkins will be able to come home in a few days, ma’am,” she told Mary. “Matron says he is healing quickly. As well, ma’am, we will be needing all of our beds before long. The word is that they are loading a hospital ship in Port Moresby. Hundreds of men.”

  George nodded.

  “Fighting up on the track to Kokoda. Where I got mine, Nurse. Add to that, the numbers picking up fevers down on the coast ain’t small. There’s a few bad months ahead, I reckon.”

  The doctors agreed, told George he would be discharged within two days if he could make arrangements with a local medical practice for aftercare.

  “My own doctor, doc. We’re registered with the practice here in Cairns. I shall be up at the Hawkins Plantations, just a few miles north, until I’m fit again.”

  “Good. See your doctor for dressings the day after we send you home. He will tell you how often after that. If the wound shows infected, come straight back here. You’re going out a week earlier than I would like – I would prefer you to remain under observation for a few more days. That is not practical, however.”

  “So I hear, doc. You’ve got a few busy months ahead of you. We’ve got rooms spare up at the plantation. If you get too tired, need a couple of days relaxing, just come on up. We can feed you and give you a beer and sit you down on the deck for a day or two. Pass the word, doc. Least we can do.”

  “Have you got a phone, Captain Hawkins?”

  “No, not got a line out to us yet. Just turn up, and with anybody you can persuade to join you – there’s some pretty girls working here.”

  “A breach of military discipline, Captain Hawkins. I am a military officer myself, you know, and the nurses are almost all other ranks.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “I’ll make the arrangements for your discharge, for say ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “Do me, doc. Can you phone Tse’s office for me? They’ll organise transport.”

  Mr Tse appeared in person next morning, in his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. He swept into the reception desk at the front of the hospital, informed the sergeant there that he was to collect Captain Hawkins.

  The sergeant was not inclined to take orders from any Chinaman; he had the sense not to argue with a man who was driven in a Rolls.

  “Yes, sir. Let me just check my list, sir… Yes, Captain Hawkins to be discharged to family transport at ten hundred hours, sir. Private Mullaney! Up to Captain Hawkins’ ward, find out if he’s ready to move and assist him with any personal possessions if necessary. Hop to it!”

  Ten minutes and George was presented, in a wheelchair, much to his disgust; he had been informed that he could start walking when he was ready, but not till he reached home, and then he was not to overdo it.

  “Good of you to come in person, sir.”

  “Mary would not have forgiven me, had I not, George. How are you now? Should we stop off at the medical practice to make arrangements first?”

  “Better, sir. The dressings must be changed tomorrow and then however often they reckon.”

  By the time they had agreed the frequency of dressings with the doctor and then driven out to the plantation, George was tired and had no objection to being helped up the stairs and into his house.

  “Food, George. What are you to eat?”

  “Not bully beef and boiled rice, love! Other than that, whatever you can come up with will be welcome.”

  “Steak?”

  He hesitated then nodded.

  “You’ll have to cut it up for me, love. I don’t think my arm’s up to that yet.”

  “Ned on one side, you on the other – two to feed, George!”

  He saw the funny side, to her relief.

/>   A week and he was bored to bad temper; he had never developed a reading habit and found himself unable to exercise, forced to spend most of his days in a chair or actually in bed, trying to find something to do. Luckily, he was able to walk increasing distances, starting at a hundred yards and slowly pushing himself further, a few yards more each day. His doctor gave him permission to work with light weights and he began to force himself back to a degree of fitness.

  The right arm would never regain its full mobility, he recognised; that meant the left would have to take on more. He changed his exercise pattern to allow for that.

  An official letter arrived at the end of three months, ordering him to return to the hospital for ‘assessment’. He reported at the specified hour and found himself facing a board of three doctors, all unknown to him. They were elderly, bald, not especially healthy specimens in themselves, probably left over from the First World War.

  The most elderly, sat in the middle, spoke.

  “You have been recommended for medical discharge from the army, Captain Hawkins. We are to make a physical examination of your wound and on the degree of recovery achieved and further possible. Shirt off, if you please, sir.”

  George realised that to be the start of the test – he had some difficulty in dressing and undressing still, pulling a sleeve over the right arm requiring some amount of contortions. The arm was stiff, would still not raise beyond shoulder-high. He succeeded in removing the shirt, unbuttoning with the left hand only and struggling with the collar.

  “Face down on the couch, if you please, Captain Hawkins.”

  Unseen hands poked and prodded his upper back and shoulder, very obviously compared the musculature right and left.

  “You have been exercising, Captain Hawkins. As you should. Very good. Sit up now.”

  They shook their heads as he rolled onto his left side and used the arm to bring himself up from the mattress. The central figure, who had given most of the commands, wrote a few words on a form in front of him, turned to the left and right, an eyebrow raised, received definite negatives.

  “Quite. You are doing all you can to return yourself to fitness, Captain Hawkins. Much to be commended, sir, but you are incapable of service as an infantryman. You are to be honourably discharged, Captain Hawkins. You are with immediate effect, a civilian, sir. You will receive a full pension, sir. Have you a civilian occupation you can return to?”

  “Plantation owner, doctor. I will need to regain some fitness before I can play my part in the cane fields, and we will have to retake Rabaul before I can return to my places on the Gazelle. I can make myself busy, and useful to the war effort, doctor. I might offer myself to ANGAU, of course. The Administration Unit, in Port Moresby, that is.”

  “I would strongly discourage that, Captain Hawkins, for some considerable time, a year at least. You have been a robust figure, sir, as may be seen on examination. You will, I do not doubt, be so again. But, sir, at the moment you are frail. You would not do well in the climate of Port Moresby, or indeed of Rabaul for the while. I served in Rabaul in the last war – your father was the redoubtable police officer, I believe, who single-handedly brought the Kokopo area under control.”

  “He was, sir. He died there during the Japanese invasion.”

  “Small wonder that you wish to continue in service, Captain Hawkins.”

  George was a little surprised – he could not remember saying that. Still, give a dog a good name…

  “I have unfinished business, I believe, doctor.”

  “You may have, Captain Hawkins. But not in the Army. Nor in the Coast Watchers, if that be in your mind. A year, sir, in which you rebuild your strength first and then your mobility, if you can, and I do not know whether that may be possible. If you can bring a rifle to your right shoulder, then come back to this Board and request a reassessment. Good day, Captain Hawkins. Orderly!”

  A private soldier came in and assisted George to put his shirt on, politely and sympathetically, knotting his tie for him.

  Mary was waiting in the reception area.

  “What did they say, George?”

  “Discharged from the Army. I am unfit to serve, and not especially displeased, I would add. I am not cut out to be a soldier, love. Far better back in civvies. Shall we call in at the tailors? I am sure I need new clothes.”

  “Shirts especially, George. Loose cut and open-necked. Boots – without laces to do up. What else?”

  “Trousers, with big fly-buttons I can deal with one-handed.”

  She started to giggle, able to visualise his problems too easily.

  She drove him into the centre of Cairns, scattering a marching battalion of recruits.

  “They were on the wrong side of the road, George.”

  “I am sure you are right, dear.”

  “Honestly! They were. I am sure they were.”

  An hour of shopping and George was happy to sink back into the passenger seat and allow himself to be driven home. He started experimenting in the driving seat next morning. Changing gear was the problem; the gear lever was on the left and was immediately and easily accessible in itself, but George had to hold the steering wheel right-handed while he made the change. It was difficult going up through the gears, impossible coming down as the big ute pickup demanded double-declutching from third to second and second to first.

  “The Americans have big automatic cars, George. I have seen them in the newspapers.”

  “Shall we speak to your father, Mary?”

  Mr Tse had seen the same newspapers and knew that the automatics existed, but only in America and in tiny number until the war was over. There was no chance of procuring an Oldsmobile in Australia.

  “Drive my small car first, George,” Mary suggested.

  He shook his head and returned to the ute pickup vehicle.

  “If I rest my right arm across the wheel, and grip the top of the rim, I can probably keep her on a straight line while I change down.”

  “Probably is not good enough! Wait another month.”

  Voices raised to shouting pitch within the minute.

  Jutta appeared, stared repressively.

  “The baby is sleeping. Quiet, children. George, you may not drive for a month. You did not quite kill yourself shooting Japanese; do not attempt to finish the job now.”

  He apologised, to both women. Then he went for a long walk to cool down.

  “He is so upset, Mama Jutta. He feels he is not a man.”

  “Take him to bed and show him that he is, my dear.”

  “But… he might hurt his shoulder…”

  “Then make sure he does not, my dear. Any problem can be solved with a little of imagination!”

  Mary laughed and blushed, and took George to bed early that night. He was far less bad tempered in the morning.

  A New Place

  Chapter Eight

  “An atomic bomb, George. Two of them. Two cities destroyed.”

  George looked over Mary’s shoulder, reading the text under the bold headlines of the newspaper.

  “Hiroshima and Nagasaki both razed, it says, love. A threat to annihilate every other city in Japan, one by one…What the hell is it?”

  Neither could remotely guess what an ‘atom’ might be or how it could create so massive a bomb.

  “Vile! We become as bad as them, in some ways, George. But, after what they did to Nanking, I have no pity for the Japanese. Perhaps I should have pity for us instead.”

  George could not disagree. The paper said that as many as one hundred and fifty thousand people had died in the two bombed cities – and that was fewer than the women and children slaughtered in the days of butchery after Nanking fell.

  Jutta appeared, joined the conversation.

  “My father said that ‘he who lived by the sword, died by the sword’. The Japanese have received no more than the wickedness they offered. It is not often that my poor father was right, but he may have been in this instance. The war must end now, or there will be
no Japan left. The little one may be born to a time of peace, ja, my dear?”

  “I hope so, Mama Jutta. Three months from now.”

  Mary was showing with their second child, more than three years after the birth of their first, to the pleasure of the whole family.

  “Where is Ned?”

  “Kathleen has him, Mary. Playing with him downstairs.”

  “She is a good girl. Will she come with us when we go back home, George?”

  Kathleen had trained as a nurse, had come to them from the hospital, unable to cope with the unending flow of half-destroyed young men transported down from the battlefields of New Guinea. She had taken over the nursery, looking after Ned and helping about the house as well, at first simply recuperating from the strain of working at a job she could not handle, later as a well-paid employee. There had been a steady flow of doctors and nurses taking a break from the treadmill of the hospital, the casualties coming day after day, broken by wounds and fever, often mentally destroyed by the stresses of a climate and country so alien to them. All of the plantations had opened their doors to the medical staff and to convalescent soldiers, doing the little they could to bring them back to the realms of humanity. George still felt guilty, thinking that he might have been able to go to Moresby at least to take on some of the work there. If Kathleen wished to stay, there would be a place for her, it was the least he could do.

  “If she wishes, Mary. Easy to find work for her with us. There will be house girls for the kids, but she is a bright lady and could run the cocoa nursery and an aid post as well, or whatever else she could turn her hand to. She would probably end up with a husband in short order, up on the Gazelle. Not many Australian girls there.”

  “She might not want a husband, George. Perhaps she will be happier without a man. Maybe.”

  That was a concept George could not wholly understand, but he raised no objection. Mary almost certainly knew what she was talking about and, in any case, he suspected it was none of his business.