Chapter 12 Rendezvous at Nassau Bay; Rats of Moresby; Kokoda Trail; Bully Beef Bomber

RENDEZVOUS AT NASSAU BAY

"On the night of June 29-30 Australian troops from Mubo made contact with an American landing force at Nassau Bay, thus bringing under Allied control all the area from Mubo to the coast."

It was late in the afternoon of 29th June, just two days since we had set out over strenuous back-trails from our positions near Lababia Ridge. There was, of course, the broad, easy track following the Bitoi South, Arm down to the coast near Duali, but the Japs had a strong ambush astride it, covered by a heavy mortar. So it was an ill-marked native pad that the platoon took, tracing the blazes up the high saddle behind Mount Stewart and slithering down the farther slopes to the banks of this stony creek where we were resting. A mere 2,000 yards lay between us and the beach at Nassau Bay.

The plan was that we should move down towards evening, striking this beach midway between the Japanese positions at Duali and Bassis. There, after nightfall, we were to dig in noiselessly and await the time when three men, with the rest of us ready to ward off enemy interference, would move down to the water's edge. Then, at zero hour (2345 hours), the signal would be given, conjuring out of the void dozens of landing barges laden with hundreds of Americans-we hoped. Anyhow that was the plan.

I suppose we were a bit on edge as we prepared our tea-no doubt it accounted for the unnecessary heat with which we argued about vitamins; young "Athlone" Castle and myself as half-baked diet experts defending the Army's highly scientific Operation Ration against the sneers of Lofty, champion of "good plain food and none of this fancy modern stuff". At which moment we were interrupted by the crash of exploding bombs, big fellows, succeeded by a burst of machinegun fire so close overhead that we ducked. The debate finished abruptly. Shaddy stopped crumbling concentrated tablets into his dixie and listened.

That would be our Bostons, strafing the Jap ambush on the main Duali track. Somewhere along that track, our other two platoons, still weary from their grim defence of Lababia Ridge, would be moving up with the object of "eliminating" that Jap ambush. Somewhere farther out still, Bluey McElgunn's section would be moving up too, with the object of "eliminating" that Jap mortar. This would clear the broad track from the sea to Bitoi Ridge, so that the American Combat Team, when it landed, could proceed unopposed inland to link up with our Brigade and thus complete the grand circle around the Japanese positions at Mubo and Komiatum. That was the plan. "It's on," said Shaddy. We grunted and finished our kai in silence. It was exactly 1600 hours.

At 1630 we waded the creek and moved out. A mere 2,000 yards lay between us and the beach, but most of it was bad swamp which we had to cross before dark. Bad swamp! It was an incredibly evil swamp; the hellish climax to all we had endured in New Guinea, and that's saying a good deal. At first it looked innocent enough, though a little soggy underfoot. But suddenly the leading man let out an awful curse as he sank up to his thighs in slime.

It was like that all the way-a few steps ankle deep in the stuff, then down you'd go, with that foul porridge sucking and tugging at your loins, and stinking gases bubbling up between your legs. Was there any solid bottom to it? I don't know. You might have struck it had you gone down far enough, though you certainly would never have returned from your subterranean reconnaissance. As it was, you hastily slapped your rifle down cross-wise on the surrounding reeds until you gained enough purchase to drag your hindquarters out of the bog.

This is so often the way of it in New Guinea: a track which will easily support the quick-stepping prehensile feet of a native. will give way and finally disintegrate under the tread of heavily-built, heavily-booted Australians carrying packs and equipment. The poor Bren gunner, in particular, had a bad time whenever he stumbled, his 26-pound weapon being apt to slew round behind his neck like a yoke and bear his face down into the slush. But we beat it somehow, at the rate of a thousand yards in two hours, and staggered out on to firmer ground just at dusk.

As we dropped down to rest, the last of the daylight slipped wanly away from the high ridges, the abrupt blurring-out of shape and colour indicating to a legion of unseen birds and beasts that they might now hall oncoming night with their chorus of squeaks, coughs, hoots, yodels, croaks and hiccups. We rather hoped that the familiar Jungle clamour would smother up a certain rhythmic wheeze and whistle, and that any prowling Jap, if he did hear it, would take it for just another weird creature of the night. Actually it was the sound of our little boat being inflated. For the waters of Tabali, deep and crocodile infested, glided between us and the beach. It took more than an hour for us to cross it, twenty-six men, two at a time, in that flimsy rubber doughnut. An hour of long silences it was, broken occasionally by a muffled ejaculation or the soft plop of the aluminium paddle. But at last all were over the sombre Tabali and ready for the final push through the 500 yards of tangled scrub remaining.

It was now 2000 hours-by 2100 we hoped to be at Nassau Bay digging our beach-head defences. We hoped. Trustfully, like little children in the old game of Oranges and Lemons, we linked ourselves together in single file, each man taking hold of the bayonet scabbard or shoulder-strap of the man in front. Then off we started, into the pitch darkness.

Have you ever tried this follow-my-leader game? It worked well enough back in '39 or ) 40, on the clean, open hills of Pucka or Darley, but night in the New Guinea coastal scrub with its dank mesh of creepers and loots, lawyer vine and sago plums, is another thing. For the leader, with his carefully shaded lantern, it is bad enough, but for those who struggle to follow, it is nightmare. Out of that horrid blackness come writhing at you claws and tentacles, tough lianas fettering elbows and knees, throttling you, snatching your rifle from your shoulder, lawyer vines ripping hand and cheek and ear with vicious back-turned teeth.

Grunting and wrestling, the man in front bursts through into momentary freedom, only to drag you into the self-same tangle, so that between the tugging of the man in front and the tugging of the creepers behind, you are almost torn asunder. You wriggle free, only to be jerked back by the man following. He swears at you. The man in front swears too, and drags you on. You swear at both. A log leaps up from somewhere and butts you in the stomach; you trip over a root and are dragged by the leaders like a sack of potatoes, head long through the mud, till you end up embracing a prickly sago palm. You stop swearing. You can't swear any more. Perhaps you'd like to, weep.

I know it sounds overdrawn, but the concept is as old as the whimpering child in the hearts of men, and that's how it seems to you at night, the jungle, no longer passive, but malignant, reaching out at you and round you, and about you, with a pythonish caress. There's fear there and madness dimly at the end of it. Perhaps it's vegetable life taking its old, old revenge against the hacking, trampling animal. Too much of this would send you home seeing menace in the friendly gum-tree, and evil in the lovely heart of the poplar.

Try to imagine it, only 5oo yards between us and the sea, no more than the distance from Spencer Street to the Town Hall, from the woolshed to Cassidy's Creek, and we couldn't do it. There we were for three hours, a stumbling, straining, cursing serpent of men, lured on by the distant rumble of the ocean, and never getting any nearer to it. It became evident we were moving in a circle. We all stopped and listened-the croaking of frogs, the sullen drum-drum of the rain on our shoulders and always the rumble of invisible breakers.

Smithy had one of those machetes. It may have inspired him at this moment to take charge of the situation. Going to the front, he started hacking like fury at the black tangle, thrusting a way towards the sound of the sea. As best we could, we followed. At least it was action, something definite. Nassau Bay must lie almost due East, so I held the compass on bearing 90 degrees and endeavoured to keep the leaders in line with the flickering needle. "To your left a bit! Hold it! Go ahead! More to the right! Steady!" With the accelerated progress, the chain-gang soon broke. but, leaving the others to find their own way out we kept going, the seven leaders, the Boss, Lloyd Ellen, Jock Henderson, Bluey Malloy, Gordon Kurtz, and myself, with Smithy slashing away in front.

It was 2315 hours and half an hour to zero time, and it was better for the seven men to move fast and win through. So we forgot the Japs and concentrated on that, using our torches freely and breaking bush without caution. Then of a sudden, Smithy gave a loud cry, the scrub relinquished us and slipped quietly out of the game and, as we topped a low sand-dune, the ocean opened up with a million horse-powered roar and swallowed us and the whole world in the noise of it!

"Hell!" exclaimed the Boss. "Fair on top of the Japs! "

It looked like it. There were huts on a rise to the left, and a kind of garden enclosed by a sapling fence. However, time was too short for furtiveness, and, grateful for the covering tumult of the waves, we crossed the clearing and clambered not too cautiously over the fence. A paling snapped and someone's foot twanged on a signal wire. We cut the latter and plodded out on to the beach. Undoubtedly we had struck the shore too far south. Instead of being midway between Duali and Bassis, at least a mile from each, we seemed little more than half a mile from Bassis and the dim promontory forming the right arm of Nassau Bay loomed up much too close.

So we stumbled along through sand and weed and spray for four or five hundred yards northwards, before the Boss halted and said, "One signal here! " Jock, Bluey and Gordon crouched down on the sand. The rest went on for another two or three hundred yards, while the Boss and I stopped, waiting till Lloyd and Smithy covered the distance to the other limit of our beach-head. It seemed an age before their signal came back. It was 2355 hours, almost midnight.

"Right," said the Boss. "Here goes'. " Backing into some bushes on the foreshore, and using their foliage and our own bodies as flanking screens, we gave the signal. We paused and listened. Nothing but the thunder and crash of the tremendous surf! Again we signalled. I glanced out to the left at the
silhouette of Lababia Island and out to the right at the Bassis promontory, islanded too in a dense mist of rain and spray, praying hard that any Jap sentries on these points were behaving like all true soldiers on a dirty night, and doing their piquet in bed.

"Try her again! " said the Boss. I spread myself out and we tried again.

"Hopelessly!" That was the word that came to me as I stared out at the long, white explosions of the breaking sea. We were already three-quarters of an hour late, and the Yanks must have gone away again. Perhaps they had never come. Even if they did come, how could they ever get through such a surf?

"Try again!" said the Boss, and once more I saw his face, white and tense, framed in glistening leaves. I admired him then, and sympathized with him at the same time. It's not done in the Army to sympathize with officers, but I could sense, almost poignantly, the feelings of the big fellow. This was his job, the job he had planned for weeks back. Failure at this point would be heart-breaking!

Once again darkness, and once again the thrice-repeated signal. It was futile. The Yanks would never come now. More likely the Japs. I began to reckon how long it would take a Jap patrol to reach us from Bassis along the foreshore. Perhaps they were coming from Duali too. Perhaps they were even now creeping up on those signals. "Better give up, sir," I said. "Give the boys a chance to get away, you know!" (Not to mention myself, of course.)

"Just once more," he answered, and for the last time we gave the signal. For the last time we peered and listened. "Righto, Steve." His voice was quiet. "Get the boys in." I didn't answer, but went heavily along the sand towards the other group. It took a long time to reach them, those three, Jock, Bluey, and Gordon, huddled up on the beach. I whistled "Bless 'Em. All" in lieu of a password and called out. Back we went towards the Boss. Lloyd and Smithy were already there. "All here? Right, let's go!"

"Look out!" bawled Lloyd. "They're coming up the beach!" We looked at them just once, those figures advancing sinister and dark against the pale sand, and dived into the bushes. I found myself with Smithy. Twenty

yards through the tangle we struggled, then went to ground and listened. Someone was breaking bush not far away. A queer sensation it was. Your heart bumped, but you weren't frightened. You simply felt that it couldn't be you, that you weren't even there, and that after all the whole situation wasn't real.

I slipped a bandolier off my shoulder, ready co discard it. It was silly, because I still kept my pack. It had my last slab of chocolate ration in it, and some queer, childish obstinacy made me cling to it on that account. They were still moving about in the scrub. Smithy said: "Let's call out, Lloyd, and if they don't answer we'll shoot." "For gorsake shut up, you fool!" I replied. The idea didn't appeal to me a bit, but Smithy was like that. Sort of chap who could stroll cheerfully about in the Open, under fire, while you belly-wriggled through the undergrowth, and wished to hell that that Jap tree-sniper would go away and stop clipping twigs off just above your backside....

Then we heard it. Heard it and couldn't believe it. Then he heard it again, clearer, a strange snoring and groaning, swelling and dying and swelling again, like the noise of sea monsters wrestling !

"Thank God! Thank God!" I yelled hysterically. "They're here! The Yanks are here!" The next instant we were struggling through the creepers again, out on to the beach, and down into the surf itself, towards the roaring landing-barges and the American voices, plangent yet wonderfully sweet. Like a rabble of rescued castaways we ran to them, we and the rest of the platoon, whose wary advance had scared us into the scrub. We grabbed their hands and only stopped short of embracing them.

Quietly, the helmeted Americans returned our greeting, then went about the important business of disembarkation. A difficult business it was, too, in those 12-foot breakers, which hurtled the big square-snouted barges into the beach like so many match-boxes, sideways, and backwards and almost upside down. But they got through, those Americans, in spite of the terrible seas. Sick and shaken as they must have been from eight hours' tossing about in the barges, they sorted themselves out calmly and quickly. A top-sergeant was calling, out names from a strangely cosmopolitan roll-"Rasmussen, O'Shea, Kozminsky, Eisenstein, Smith, McGee, Mattolini, Davidson--"

Spotlights broke out from the barges, lighting up lines of soldiers and piles of gear. More barges were showing out darkly against the surf. More men were wading waist-deep into shore, staggering as the spray lashed their eyes. Miraculously, a bulldozer snorted its way out of a barge through the flurry up on to firm land.

All this time no enemy had showed up to interrupt this tumult of men and motors, though undoubtedly they were back there beyond the edge of darkness, taking it all in. But we had stopped worrying about Japs. Imperturbability had come again. An Australian voice came out of the gloom. "Got any cigarettes, buddy? , The rain was falling again. I had lost my tin hat in the scrub, my shirt and pants clung chill to my skin, My socks had shrunk to infinity, my boots were sodden and painful with grit. I was very happy. Remembering something, I felt inside my pack. The chocolate was still there.

Someone gave an order. A company of Americans moved off quietly to either flank, there to dig in and await whatever the dawn might bring.

"VX57226"

RATS of MORESBY
	"Gummy" subsided on the bed beside the recumbent figure of the corporal, carefully placed his half-eaten piece of cake on the blanket and lit a cigarette. "You know," he said, " there's been a lotta talk about the 'Rats of Tobruk' and the 'Mice of Moresby' but no one has ever written a piece of poetry about the 'Rats of Moresby'. If it didn't take me all me time to write an occasional letter home to the Missus I'd have a go at it meself.
When we first came up here about eighteen months -ago, this Joint was as rotten with 'em as that piece of Gorgonzola Jim got in his parcel was rotten with wrigglers. They knew every trick that their own natural cunning and the advent of civilization could teach ' em, and they was scared of nothing. "They was led by a big ginger bloke with handlebar whiskers. Ronnie, we called him ... Ronnie the Rodent, and I reckon he could gnaw his way through a General Grant going easy! For the first few weeks they nearly drove us crazy. They ate the collars off our shirts, our leather bootlaces and chinstraps, our soap and toothpaste, drank our hair oil and messed up our towels. This Ronnie I was telling you about, was a beaut. He'd eat anything from a tin hat and ground sheet to the photo of your best sheila, and he grew big and sleek and fat like a nicely groomed collie dog. And his kids! He had hundreds of 'em. Used to teach 'em tricks, like walking across the clothes-line, dancing on your mozzie net and chewing the buttons off your trousers. A man woulda made a fortune with 'em at the Sydney Show. "One day, about six months ago, we had a decent sort of air raid; a lot of places were done over and among the ruins of a house we found a cat. No particular kinda cat; just one of them ordinary grey ones with a terrible craving for milk. We didn't intend keeping him at first, but he was so friendly and good tempered that we became sorta attached to him, and didn't have the heart to turn him out.' We called him Oliver, because he was so hardy. Get it? "Well, things went on much the same as before, with plenty of raids, ram. and work, but not too much to eat or drink. In fact the only one who appeared contented was Oliver. We made him a tin hat out of a 'bully' tin and he could always beat me to a slit-trench even though I'm no cripple. But there was one thing I noticed, and that was that Ronnie and his mob were not so cheeky as before although you could always find traces of 'em in your socks. "Something was brewing. And then, one Saturday night, it happened. ""I was the only one home, the rest of the mob having gone to a concert at the Y.M. It was free. Oliver was zizzing peacefully on the end of my bed and I was picturing a big juicy steak, covered with onions, when all of a sudden a voice, reminding me of the old Ball and Chain, broke the death-like silence. 'On your feet, Mug,' it said, 'and come fightin'. "I was half way to the door before I realized that I was not the mug in question, 'cos there was Ronnie the Rodent, resplendent in a pair of green trunks, his evil countenance twisted in a blood-thirsty grimace, shaping up like the last of the 'Straight-backs' to poor Oliver, who was frantically trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes with one paw and swinging punches like a madman with the other three. "'Come on,' snarled Ronnie his whiskers quivering ferociously, 'what are you, cat or mouse?' At that stinging crack Oliver stopped playing windmills and drew himself up to his full height. 'Neither,' he said, his cultured voice shaking with righteous indignation, 'I am a highly domesticated feline, well versed in the ancient arts of fisticuffs and unarmed combat. If you are ready, sir, I will commence to spread your entrails to the four comers of the South-West Pacific!'-and with that he advanced to the attack. "She was the best fight I've seen for years -all in and no holds barred. Oliver showed himself more scientific but Ronnie had cunning and savagery handed down through a long line of rats, and the fur, hair and blood flew with rare abandon. Eventually however, the 'tumult and the shouting died ' and when the air cleared there was Oliver, battle-scarred, bleeding, torn and dishevelled, but licking himself happily with an air of angelic innocence on his aristocratic face. Ronnie had vanished. " 'Boy, oh boy!' I breathed, 'that was some fight, Oliver. Nice going. You certainly pack a pretty claw in your left.' "'Gummy,' he cracked (adopting an American accent), 'I was just warming up. That guy always was a rat.' He turned round three times, curled up and went back to sleep. "It's only since Oliver went out one day without his tin hat that Ronnie's gang has returned, and only this morning I heard him putting a new bunch of little rats through an assault course. But you don't want to let 'em frighten you; they're quite harmless and after a while you'll get that way you won't be able to sleep without 'em being around. Personally I love 'em! " "Gummy" reached absently for his piece of cake and his hand contacted something furry and soft. With a blood-curdling scream he flung himself from the room, just as the much punished corporal turned over and growled: "I wish to Gawd you jokers would stop playing around with a guy's hair, and go to bed! " "WX42"

KOKODA TRAIL

	EARLY in September the Brigade withdrew, heavily outnumbered but never defeated, fighting day and night, denying every mile until almost surrounded, inflicting many times its own casualties. This most difficult of military operations in mountainous country continued for nearly four weeks until the Japanese advance was finally halted and turned at Ioribaiwa. There was but one axis of withdrawal-a track which defies adequate description. Before the campaign, this route had been classed passable only to natives or trained District Officers.
Imagine an area of approximately 100 miles long-crumple and fold this into a series of ridges, each rising higher and higher until 7,000 feet is reached, then declining again to 3,000 feet-cover this thickly with jungle, short trees and tall trees tangled with great entwining savage vines-through the oppression of this density cut a little native track two to three feet wide, up the ridges, over the spurs, around gorges and down across swiftly flowing happy mountain streams. Where the track clambers up the mountain sides, cut steps-big steps, little steps, steep steps-or clear the soil from the tree roots. Every few miles bring the track through a small patch of sunlit kunai grass, or an old deserted native garden, and every seven or ten miles build a group of dilapidated grass huts -as staging shelters-generally set in a foul offensive clearing. Every now and then leave beside the track dumps of discarded putrefying food, and occasional dead bodies. In the morning flicker the sunlight through the tall trees, flutter green and blue and purple and white butterflies lazily through the air, and hide birds of deep throated song or harsh cockatoos in the foliage. About midday and through the night, pour water over the forest, so that the steps become broken and a continual yellow stream flows downwards, and the few level areas become pools and puddles of putrid mud. In the high ridges about Myola, drip this water day and night softly over the track through a fetid forest grotesque with moss and growing phosphorescent fungi. Such is the track which was once described as "being almost impassable for motor vehicles", and such was the route to be covered from Deniki to Ilolo. Along this track, day after day, the walking sick and wounded passed and plodded, those too desperate to stand being carried by native carriers. Carrying improvised stretchers-one or two blankets lashed with native string or vine to two long poles spread by stout traverse bars-as many as eight or ten native bearers would traverse the track day after day. To watch them descend steep slippery spurs into a mountain stream, along the bed and up the steep ascent, was an object lesson in stretcher bearing. They carried stretchers over seemingly impassable barriers, with the patient reasonably comfortable. The care they give to the patient is magnificent. If night finds the stretcher still on the track, they will find a level spot and build a shelter over the patient. They will make him as comfortable as possible, fetch him water and feed him if food is available-regardless of their own needs. They sleep four each side of the stretcher and if the patient moves or requires any attention during the night, this is given instantly. These were the deeds of the boongs-for us! What can we do for them? As to the walking sick and wounded, absolute ruthlessness was essential. Those alone who were quite unable to struggle or stagger along were carried, but frequently men against their will had to be ordered on to stretchers. There was practically never a complaint nor any resentment. From each staging post at dawn, the walkers-the lame and the halt were set upon their way, while the native bearers were assembled for their tasks. Late each afternoon, and far into the night, each staging post would receive its casualties. These would be fed, sheltered and tended until dawn, then on again. The courage and cheerfulness of these casualties was wonderful-beyond praise-sometimes almost incredible. One soldier with a two-inch gap in a fractured patella, splinted by a banana leaf, walked for six days and arrived at hospital in good condition. That no known live casualty was abandoned, that of the many hundreds brought out during these weeks only four died subsequently in hospital, is a magnificent tribute to the fitness and the fortitude of these men. Time and rain and the jungle will obliterate this little native pad - but for ever more will live the memory of weary men who have passed this way, ghosts of glorious men that have gone - gone far beyond the Kokoda Trail. "George"

THE BULLY BEEF BOMBER

IT was merely another day of war in New Guinea. Fine dust rose and lingered in the wake of heavy traffic; the redoubtable Jeep scurried with ease and speed in a whirl of urgent, rapid activity; a few Papuan native boys, oblivious of time, strolled leisurely on powder-white tracks, but the blistering, direct sun cast an exhausting heat on semi-stripped figures tolling at a runway. Beyond this scene of drama, lofty, dignified palms stood aloof from the spectacle.

As I approached a long, thin strip, cut from the embracing semi-jungle, the pounding throb of motors became increasingly audible. The surging stream of trucks, cars," battle buggies", motor cycles, portable fuel tanks continued, but where were the planes? Camouflage was the answer. Only when in view of a sentry grilling in the noonday sun, did I have visible proof that this was -- 'drome, like many another, a focal point of skilled organization and head of a vital artery of supply.

To a confirmed landlubber, the sight of massive, stolid transport planes and grim deadly fighters holds a first fascination and no little awe. I marvelled at the manner in which the giant Douglas maneuvered off the strip into its haven beneath concealing trees and foliage with amazing flexibility. The Cobras lurked in the trees like watch dogs. The formidable Kittyhawk was a distinct revelation with its trim, sleek body, its perfect symmetry and apt blend of deceiving colour.

"Sure you can come up," drawled a tall Yank pleasantly to my query. "I guess we'll be having lunch first," he continued, "but we'll be back on the job again, right after." With this concluding remark he ambled off in the direction of a distant mess hut and two expectant first-flighters were left to wait and admire.

It was 1.15 p.m. when pilots and mechanics returned. Meanwhile six additional transports had returned from the first flight of the day and were now at rest like huge black eagles, pending revictualling for the second mission.

A three-tonner drew alongside "our" plane.

Immediately a crew commenced to load into the craft the necessities of life, destined for troops in distant and otherwise inaccessible areas. For these warriors there were no delicacies, no luxuries, no fancy foodstuffs, no home cooking or mother's special pie. There was plain unadulterated, unadorned bully beef; hundreds of tins. To this were added generous supplies of prunes, rice, "M & V", biscuits, tinned vegetables and ammunition. Surely a hard, uncompromising diet, but it was ordained for tough men. To us there was certain personal satisfaction, that though passengers, we could have a small part in servicing a lost legion. Only when the long corridor of the transport was packed with food did the truck pull away, and we were bundled inside ready for the take off.

The ascent has been compared by various folk to sensation experienced in a lift, the thrill of Luna Park's Big Dipper, or a rough sea trip. From these my own reactions differed again, being somewhat of a blend of the bliss of an ascent into the unknown with a keen sense of gastronomical paralysis! As the plane raced along the strip flinging gravel and dust skywards, I wondered when the thunderous crescendo of the engines would reach a zenith. The administration buildings fell away and faded out of view with extreme rapidity. Slowly the giant circled lazily and climbed for height. The clear, sparkling waters of the harbour and accompanying installations flashed by as we sped out over the sea.

Perhaps nowhere else on the earth is there such vivid, rugged scenery as in New Guinea. Our course led over the most inhospitable, thickly mantled country imaginable. A slow, sluggish brown stream in the final stages of old age, wound listlessly through dense, verdant green jungle. With startling suddenness, precipitous, barren hills ushered in another new and entrancing phase. An expanse of water studded with tiny islands was yet another variation, while as the journey progressed one could see quite clearly natives working near their huts on a beach fringed with coconut palms.

On approaching the "target" area, the door of the pilot's cabin was quickly flung open. The chief loader walked with enviable calm along the corridor of piled-high food to the exit. The supreme moment was close at hand. Accuracy and split second judgment and timing might mean precious food or the total loss of it for a detachment. The stores built up in pyramid fashion as a loader strapped himself in a sitting position on the floor. There was cessation in the feverish activity for a minute, then with a fine touch of the dramatic, the pilot dropped his arm, the craft lurched rudely to port, the loader kicked impulsively and food hurled into space, twirling swiftly to the jungle beneath.

Immediately the remainder of the crew resumed toiling, sweating, pushing the cargo along the bowels of the plane. Again the warning arm, the brief quiet, followed by sharp, fast action. Eager scattering figures below told the success of the task.

The job was complete and the big ship turned for base. Suddenly there was a screaming, vicious drone and a Kittyhawk came alongside. I looked to the rear and saw five others. Escort! We were certainly being followed. The pilot in the adjacent plane grinned and waved. Perhaps, he thought, this was just too easy, a rest day. We grinned and returned his greeting. There was a final cheery salute from his cockpit, a whine of speed and he had vanished.

The broad rippling harbour loomed in view. Gracefully, confidently, the ship circled once, straightened out and glided in to a perfect landing. The roar of motors ceased and the crew set foot once more on their drome. There was still that urgent bustle, that cavalcade of motor vehicles, a wandering native, a sentry.

The bully beef bomber had returned safely.

"NX4779"

PIG TROUBLE

IT was early in the show, before the Jap had come over the Stanleys, that one day they picked six of us to go out on a patrol down into the country around Rigo. Bill and I were lucky enough-as we thought then-to be in the party. We had an officer in charge of us and we took along with us six carriers and a native police boy as guide. This was the first time we had been any real distance from our camp and we found the trip pretty interesting. The going wasn't tough and we ambled along, kidding ourselves we were Stanley and Livingstone looking for Spencer Tracy.

Our second day out we came upon a village. We had no inkling of its existence till we suddenly stumbled upon it as we stepped out of the jungle but the natives had evidently known of us because the place was as deserted as the Victoria Dock area on Sundays.

We wandered about looking for some food -we were a bit tired of the issue rations-but the "cupboards were bare".

Then suddenly Bill let out a shout, "Hey, look! Ham on the hoof!"

Sure enough, at the end of what passed for the main street were two pigs. We moved down towards them but they caught sight of us and away they went. Bill pelted after them but I suddenly remembered something they had told us back at camp and I stopped and said to the police boy, "Hey, Rochester, are they village or wild pigs?" (It is a heinous crime amongst the natives to take another village's pigs.) He took a look at the pigs hightailing it in and out of the huts with Bill in hot pursuit and said, "Think they wild pig."

His decision was a bit late, anyway, because just then Bill stopped, drew a bead, and one of the pigs stopped, with a .303 in his head. We went up to the pig and one look at him, his tall cut, like all village pigs, was enough to convince us we had made a "blue". But having got this far we thought we might as well go the whole hog (the pun was Bill's and we chased him for it), and so we cut up the pig, cooked some chops, and put what was left in with our rations.

Then we set out for our next objective, a plantation about eight hours' march away. All through the trip I had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching us though I couldn't see any one but when we pulled in at the plantation we found we had, just like rabbits from a magician's hat, about fifty or sixty very fearsome-looking natives with us.

"I don't like the look of these beggars," Bill said. "I'm going to start yelling for Tarzan in a minute."

We didn't need to. The planter came hurrying down to us and escorted us up to the house. He told us that a half-hour after the actual killing of the pig he had known of the fact. This was a source of wonder to us; it had taken us eight hours of solid marching to make the trip.

"The P.M.G. could take a lesson here," one of the boys said.

The natives followed us up to the house and there the planter went into conference with the headman. It turned out we were in the gun properly with the villagers; branded as thieves, plunderers, despoilers, and everything else in the Riot Act. The planter was talking fast but the headman seemed far from being appeased and the rest of the natives were lending him plenty of moral support.

Then the planter broke up the pow-wow and came across to us. He explained that the only way out of the trouble was to buy our way out and asked us what we had. We had quite a kit inspection, turning out everything that might have barter value, and then the planter called the headman over and we began the bargaining.

The chief was hard to placate or else he had a great business head because when he finally turned to us and looked at us without scowling we had only our rifles and a few odds and ends in front of us and the rest of our stuff was over in front of the natives.

The chief raised his hand to us, the natives picked up the result of the bargaining, and, just like that, they were gone.

"Now you see 'em, now you don't," said Bill. He turned to the planter. "What would they have done to us if we hadn't bought them off?"

He looked at us. Then he said, casually, "They'd have waited till you had left here, followed you down the track and killed you."

In the pause that followed, I wondered if my grin was as sickly as the rest of them.

"VX117689"