Love in the Years of Lunacy

by Mandy Sayer

  Rudolph offered a few words of condolence with regard to Blue, but his mumbled platitudes were hardly a comfort. While he talked, Farthing’s breathing grew heavier. He was sweating moist patches through his uniform and his face was swollen and red.

  ‘All right, men,’ concluded Rudolph, ‘unload the supplies while I meet with Thomas.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ they chorused as Rudolph strode towards the CO’s office. But Pearl ran after him, requesting a quick word, the puppy trotting beside her.

  Rudolph shielded the sunlight from his eyes with one hand and squinted down at her. ‘Well, Willis?’

  ‘We’ve refined the act. It’s much better now.’ She picked the puppy up and held her. ‘I’m still impersonating a sheila, like you told me.’

  There was an awkward silence. Rudolph looked at his watch.

  ‘I want to go on,’ she said forcefully. ‘Thomas is going to recommend that we return to Lae. He thinks it’s too dangerous to continue on to the front.’

  ‘Things have changed a bit since the last movement orders came through.’

  ‘But we’ve come this far,’ she pleaded. ‘Please let us go on.’

  Rudolph frowned. ‘We’ve got units of mad Japs up the valley and in the ranges under no central command. Some Allied posts have lost radio contact and the casualties are mounting—and that’s just the ones we know about. What’s more, Blue’s dead and it sounds as if Marks has got malaria.’ Rudolph shook his head. ‘The rest of you don’t look too hot, either.’

  ‘I feel fine, sir.’ She pulled back her shoulders and straightened her posture. ‘I’m ready to go on. To follow our men. With your permission, that is.’

  He fixed his gaze upon her. ‘It’s not up to you, Private.’

  ‘Thomas thinks we’re all idiots, that musicians have got no place in the war.’

  Rudolph’s lips tightened. ‘We’re all entitled to our opinions.’

  ‘He said he needed soldiers, not saps who sing and dance.’

  Rudolph started to say something, then stopped himself. ‘Go back and help the others. I’ll deal with Thomas.’ He began walking away and then paused. ‘Oh,’ he said, turning and pulling something from his pocket, ‘this came for you.’

  He handed Pearl a crumpled envelope. It was addressed to Private Martin Willis. She ripped it open and immediately recognised Martin’s neat, cursive handwriting.

  Dear Martin,

  All is well in peacock land. I have learned to milk a cow. There are so many chooks about I myself am almost laying eggs. You can’t buy a decent corset in Katoomba and the frost has rotted my suede high heels, but apart from that I’m still the same old girl!

  Your loving sister,

  Pearl xxxx

  Crates and boxes, tied down with thick ropes, filled the hold of the plane. Charlie, Pearl and Farthing worked as fast as they could to unload them, stacking them beside one another in an uneven wall. Farthing was still sweating and feverish and was moving at a sluggish pace. First, there were boxes of ammunition, then tinned food, then powdered milk. Dusk was sifting through the low clouds. Cicadas chirped, a frog croaked, and for a short while their world was so tranquil that Pearl thought they could be anywhere, even back in Australia, in the bush.

  They’d unloaded about only one third of the crates—mostly artillery—when Farthing grasped his stomach, leaned over, and vomited between his feet. He straightened up for a moment but then his knees began to buckle. Charlie and Wanipe caught him just before he hit the ground.

  ‘Let’s get you to hospital,’ said Charlie. ‘You can keep Marks company.’ He and Wanipe supported Farthing and walked him through the camp. Pearl knew what would be next: the aching joints, rising fever, the sweats and chills, diarrhoea. She wondered who’d be next. At this rate they’d never get beyond Nadzab, especially now that Thomas had it in for them.

  At about nine o’clock that night, she was resting on her bedroll, Charlie and Wanipe on either side of her, the puppy nestled into her armpit, when Sergeant Thomas himself appeared, accompanied by a grinning Rudolph. The three stood up to salute but Thomas waved a hand.

  ‘At ease, men,’ he said, fixing his eyes on Pearl.

  When she returned his gaze all she could think was that this was the bastard who’d tried to shoot James. She felt an overwhelming desire to put her hands around his throat and strangle the life out of him.

  Thomas pursed his lips, as if gathering himself to make a reluctant admission. ‘Good work last night, Willis,’ he said finally. ‘And Styles. We needed those supplies.’

  The puppy shifted and yawned. This, Pearl knew, was the moment to make her move. Timing was everything—in life as in music. ‘Thanks, sir. But there’s one other thing.’

  Thomas sighed impatiently, as if he’d already intuited what was coming.

  ‘Look, that’s just not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Apart from all the Japs running around, you’ve got goddamn cannibals all through the ranges—and you can bet the head-hunters aren’t siding with the Allies, Private.’

  ‘We can defend ourselves,’ said Charlie. ‘You know we can.’

  ‘Half your band’s come down with malaria.’

  ‘There’s me and Charlie left,’ Pearl said. ‘We’ll actually be more mobile than ever.’

  ‘With the dog we’ve got a trio!’ Charlie added brightly.

  ‘Me go too,’ said Wanipe. He pointed to the other two. ‘Me belonga them.’

  The three glanced from Thomas to Rudolph imploringly. The puppy gave a short bark.

  ‘What about it, Sergeant?’ said Rudolph. ‘I reckon my boys have proved themselves.’

  19

  The Markham Valley was hemmed by mountain peaks that rose six thousand feet into the sky, with streams unravelling like silver ribbons through chasms and over ridges. Sometimes the valley widened into grassy plateaus, where lilies floated on still brown water. The trio walked in single file, following the puppy, which trotted ahead through the mud with a keen sense of purpose, nosing and smelling at the ground. Their first mission was to walk to an isolated forward post about twenty miles up the river, where they would deliver some medical supplies and perform a show. They hoped to cover the distance in a single day, but the sharp bends in the river were slowing their progress.

  They’d scaled down their possessions and props even further: a bedroll, netting and a rifle each, and only a few costumes. Wanipe carried the portable organ, food supplies and a small set of bongos made from pigskin. They were to keep in touch with Rudolph via the radio transmitters at each outpost, and would receive further orders as the frontline shifted. By midday, Pearl’s boots had grown heavy and her shoulders ached from the pack. In order to save time Wanipe sometimes walked into the water and led them straight across a curve in the river, holding the portable organ high above his head. When she and Charlie followed, they stumbled over the loose round pebbles on the bed of the stream.

  After lunch, it began to rain so heavily that the mountains towering over them disappeared. By sunset, they’d only walked seven miles. Their uniforms were stained with the red silt that had been swept downstream from the dead volcanoes in the ranges. Pearl’s skin itched with mosquito bites; she was parched and hungry and beyond exhaustion.

  Wanipe paused within a thicket of sago and ficus trees and announced, ‘Here tonight. Safe.’ He put down his load and began to collect fallen palms and vines. A mortar exploded somewhere in the hills to their right, and Charlie and Pearl dropped their gear and helped Wanipe with the gathering.

  It took him less than ten minutes to build a makeshift lean-to, curtained with vines that made it disappear into the green tangle of the forest. Pearl squatted nearby and began a fire, while Wanipe vanished into the woods. Soon he returned with handfuls of wild sweet potato and showed them how to cook it in Pearl’s upturned steel helmet, along with some bully beef. After dinner, they sat around the fire, smoking and working on new material for the show. They decided to sho
rten the act to a sixty-minute concert that combined music, song and dance, comedy and impersonations, with Charlie now playing the portable organ.

  Later, Charlie sat cross-legged with a ventriloquist’s doll that had come with the supply plane two days before. He practised talking without moving his lips, telling jokes and riddles. He then began to roll his eyes back in his head, just like the doll.

  ‘What are you going to call him?’ Pearl asked.

  Charlie didn’t hesitate. ‘Mr Blue.’

  Before they retired to the lean-to, Wanipe unscrewed a metal tin and held it out to Pearl. Inside was a white gluggy substance that had the smell and consistency of lard. Wanipe dipped his hand in and rubbed it onto Pearl’s face, allowing his fingers to linger against her cheek, her jawline, in what seemed like a subtle romantic gesture. ‘Pig fat belonga,’ he said. ‘No mozzie fly bite.’

  It was then that Pearl realised two things at once: Wanipe was offering her some natural insect repellent, and he knew for sure that she was female.

  As she rubbed the pig fat further into her skin, she glanced at Charlie and mouthed the words, He knows. Charlie and the doll shrugged.

  After smoking a cigarette, he sat beside Wanipe and tried to explain, in his rudimentary pidgin and a kind of pantomime, that Pearl was only pretending to be a boy, and the true reason for her presence in his country, why she was even in the army at all. Wanipe seemed concerned at first, then quizzical, until Charlie finally thought of the pidgin word for husband. It was then that Wanipe relaxed and smiled knowingly, his mouth a flush of reddish brown-stained teeth. He took Pearl’s hand and held it, murmuring, ‘Pretty boy. Too pretty.’ And then smiled and nodded and said he would help her find the man she was looking for.

  It was a relief to have told another person and the three of them spent the night together, lying side by side within the lean-to, beneath the one mosquito net. It began to rain again and Pearl lay huddled beneath the bedroll with the puppy, listening to the gunfire echoing in the ranges. It was their first night spent out in the open, without the protection of a base camp and other soldiers.

  At dawn, she woke to blue mist scrolling down from the mountains and across the valley. Wanipe was eager to set off before the morning grew too hot and, after a quick breakfast of dried biscuits and tea, the three packed up and began walking north. The air was fresh at that time of day, cooler than the coastal humidity, and for a while, Pearl felt refreshed and hopeful. But by midday they were wading through swamps infested with leeches and swarms of buzzing mosquitoes. Sometimes, when the puppy grew tired, Pearl would pick her up and place her down the front of her shirt, where they could feel each other’s heartbeats. She felt silly calling the puppy Pearl, and toyed with the idea of renaming her James. But the dog was a female and, after some discussion with Charlie, she settled on the simple title of ‘Pup’.

  They misread the map and took a wrong turn that led them along a stream. It wasn’t until they began to smell the aroma of boiling rice that they realised they’d wandered into enemy territory. They quickly retraced their steps and, over an hour later, stumbled almost by accident into the little Allied post, which was no more than a few hammocks strung between the trunks of trees and a thatched hut with walls made from flywire. Everything was damp from the afternoon showers and the ground was covered in moss. Eight Americans were based there, three of whom had come down with dysentery and malaria and were lying inside the hut, vomiting and shitting into a halved ten-gallon drum.

  One of the gunners boiled some coffee while another administered the supplies to the ill men inside the hut.

  ‘Didn’t think you were gonna make it,’ he said. ‘Japs ain’t been very neighbourly lately. Lost four men last week.’

  Charlie asked him how long he’d been posted in the area.

  The gunner shrugged and figured that it had been eight or nine weeks.

  ‘Have you seen a small unit of Aussies,’ asked Pearl, ‘with a Negro in among them?’

  ‘What? Like a native guy?’

  ‘No, an American.’

  ‘A black American carrier?’

  ‘No, we heard about a unit of Aussies with a Negro gunner.’

  The man poured the dark coffee into four tin cans. ‘Why would a bunch of Australians have a Nigra in with them?’

  ‘So you haven’t heard of him,’ said Charlie.

  The man called to one of the soldiers inside the hut. ‘Hey, Lance! You heard ’bout a Nigra runnin’ round with a bunch of Aussie forwards?’

  Lance guffawed. ‘I reckon I’d remember that.’

  They all sipped their coffee in silence. Pearl’s back was aching from carrying the pack and her face was so badly sunburnt it was beginning to peel. She was feeling sorry for herself until she glimpsed the gaunt, wasted figures of the men inside the hut, covered in sweat and dirt, struggling to sit upright against the wall so they could see the show.

  They performed outside in the clearing, cavorting about in the mud. The puppy ran in excited circles, rolled in the dirt, and barked whenever anyone clapped. Charlie premiered his routine with Mr Blue, the doll, who turned out to be a wisecracking, slightly lewd addition to the show. He sat on his master’s knee, making jokes about army life.

  They played duets on the saxophone and organ, and as the sound of ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’ rose through the trees and vines Pearl was comforted by the smiling faces, the simple happiness the music gave these dying men. It seemed to work better than morphine. Within half an hour, two of them were out of bed, swaying back and forth on unsteady legs, mouthing the words to the songs. And it was at moments like these, even though she was exhausted and starving, that she was able to push herself beyond any known limit and improvise generously on the tunes that they begged for, turning it inside out and upside down, always aware that what she was playing might be the last piece of music these men would ever hear.

  During their final number, ‘Satin Doll’, Wanipe began tapping his fingers in time against the pigskin drum, and Pearl was surprised by the ease with which he found the beat. A grin widened across his face as he discovered the accents within the melody.

  The branches of a ficus shaking in the distance caught Pearl’s eye. When she shifted into a shadow, she could make out the faces of two, then three men hiding in the tree—slant-eyed, dark-skinned, all wearing steel helmets. She felt a flare of panic and was about to dive into the mud when she noticed that their guns were not raised, but were resting in their laps, and that their heads were bowed as they listened to the song. She’d never realised that the enemy could appreciate—even need—the music as much as the Allies did. When she squinted, she could see that they were smiling.

  Days folded into weeks of monsoonal rains, slippery tracks that led nowhere, the uneven rhythm of gunfire. They walked from one isolated post to another, slinking through tall kunai grass, trekking through streams, sleeping in filthy foxholes or beneath one of Wanipe’s lean-tos. Every two or three days, when they reached a new post, Rudolph radioed through their movement orders. Japanese detachments were continuing to operate independently throughout the upper valley, rather than under a single central command. Battles erupted without warning or apparent strategy. Sometimes Charlie and Pearl found themselves standing in a split trench three feet wide, playing standards and telling jokes to only four or five men who would occasionally break off mid-laugh to raise their rifles and fire at the enemy. Other times they’d perform inside makeshift tents, or beneath a canvas groundsheet strung over the branches of three or four trees.

  When it rained Pearl was fearful that her wet uniform would cling and betray her feminine curves, but the monotony and scarcity of army food, in addition to the miles they had to walk each day, reduced her weight so much that her body quickly assumed the taut, boyish frame of her brother. After the second month out of Nadzab, the normal flow of her period slowed to a two-day trickle. She learned to rotate two lengths of surgical gauze in order to absorb the discharge, washing and drying one while
wedging the other into the crotch of her underpants. She developed tinea; large corns grew on both feet and began to bleed; her face and arms were tattooed with scratches and mosquito bites. One night a bush tick burrowed into her left armpit and Wanipe had to gouge it out with the tip of her bayonet. Her body always seemed to be aching during those months—her feet, her joints, her hands—as if the part of herself that was merely a normal physical being could no longer compete with that other aspect of herself—her stubborn will—that was totally focused upon her goal. When she discovered lice in her hair, she shaved it all off and rubbed pig fat into her scalp. Afterwards, Wanipe ran his hand over her smooth, slippery head and remarked ruefully, ‘Not now pretty.’

  By this time the troubadours existed on emergency rations that were dropped from low-flying planes every five or six days. The rations were limited to two cans of bully beef a day, several biscuits and a pack of cigarettes. A small cake of soap and three razor blades had to last almost a week. One afternoon, in mid-July, Wanipe used Charlie’s bayonet to spear a wild pig, which they roasted and shared with a detachment of emaciated Americans weakened by malnutrition and lack of sleep.

  Wanipe also introduced Pearl and Charlie to betel nuts, mixed with seed stalks from pepper plants, which made their mouths go numb and induced in them a goofy, loose-limbed joy. It was almost as good as several shots of whisky, and under the lean-tos in the evenings they’d sometimes sing together. Pearl and Charlie taught Wanipe swing rhythms he could play on the pigskin drum to complement their performances. Wanipe, in turn, taught them songs in his native tongue. He then learned the words to ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’, and soon they were singing harmonies almost as tight and mellifluous as those of the Andrews Sisters. He also made a flute out of a hollowed stalk of sugar cane and played haunting, breathy melodies in peculiar time signatures like 7/4 and 12/8 that intrigued Pearl so much she tried to notate the music on a piece of paper, but it was like trying to transcribe the wind or the sound of a waterfall.