Chapter 3 Medical evacuation; ..and return; Torment; Behind Japanese lines

MEDICAL EVACUATION

My father was in the last war, and he told me never to volunteer for anything. But it didn't do me any good. And here I am in a base hospital with more plaster on my limbs than a statue, and several gallons of someone else's blood in my veins.

It happened on Bougainville, inland from the perimeter, up in the ridge country of the Piaterapaia sector. Our company had taken two Jap pillboxes on the top of a razor-backed ridge. A bit farther forward one of our patrols had knocked out another position and had come back, leaving a couple of Jap machine guns.

And that is where my story begins. We knew that there were more of the enemy in the area; and our "Loot" decided that someone should go and get the machine guns in the pillbox. Machine guns are valuable in the ridges, and the loss of one or two to the Japs was something for them to worry about, and one or two things less for us. Our platoon sergeant said he would go; another chap said he would go too; and I forgot my father's advice.

The Japs had the same idea, and we got to the deserted pillbox just a bit late. The sergeant jumped in to throw a grenade and was hit in the stomach by a burst. He fell to the ground, on top of the grenade. I grabbed him around the hips, and half threw, half dragged him over the side of the ridge-top. A violent explosion flung me to the ground. I couldn't see, and there was no time to think. Somehow or other I threw myself over the edge of the ridge after the sergeant.

I don't know what happened to the Japs. Perhaps our chaps started firing from their position behind us; or maybe they just decided to call it a day. The next thing I knew a stretcher party was lifting me. A short bumpy ride and voices were above and around me. I couldn't see; but there was no pain. That came later.

Someone began bathing my eyes; and I could feel hands fumbling around my numbed leg and right arm. The man bathing my eyes was talking. At first I couldn't make out what he was saying. And then his voice began to clear. "Does it hurt very much?" he was asking.

"It hurts like hell, you bloody idiot," were the first words I spoke.

Came a clucking remonstrance from my side. "My dear boy, you shouldn't swear."

"What would you do; sing for joy?"

"Yes, I know you are in pain; but, my dear boy, you mustn't swear. I am your padre. Now just lie quietly. We'll get you back to a comfortable hospital soon, and everything will be all right."

That staggered me. The padre was right up with us; up with company headquarters and beyond-and he had ticked me off for swearing. It might sound silly, but his reproof lifted my heart. It was such a warm, homely thing; and yet something more, a reminder of human dignity when no one was feeling dignified.

I was beginning to worry about my eyes. They were paining me, and still completely sightless. Soft voices moved around me, b gabbling in pidgin. I rose with a magician's levitation, and swayed smoothly as the natives carried me along the ridge-top and down, down into the valley. I had often wondered just how gentle they were as stretcher-bearers. There wasn't a jolt.

They rested at the end of the descent, and on my right I could hear the singing of the shallow, swift Laruma River. The advanced dressing station was on the opposite bank. Up on the shoulders of the carriers again, and I could sense them feeling their way carefully along the huge tree which bridges the river there. Then the final lowering, and the calm assured voices of the medical orderlies.

It was the advanced post of the field ambulance attached to our brigade. I had heard about it before. They had a surgical team there-the most forward on the island. One of the doctors used to let some of the chaps watch him operate, and explain it to them as he went along. I wondered what sort of lesson I would give them. My vanity was aroused. I was quite sure that my leg would be one of the best they had ever seen. No one told me afterwards, and I couldn't nerve myself to ask -so I don't know just how it compared.

I didn't care much about my leg, but my eyes were getting me down. It was frightening.

The doctor must have arrived, for I heard someone saying "sir"; and then firm fingers were touching my eyes, rolling back the lids. I just quaked.

"Well, old man, you needn't worry about your eyes. We'll have them as good as ever in a week or so. They are clogged up with dirt; must have been blown in by the explosion. All we have to do is to wash it out."

They were the sweetest words I have ever heard. And the voice went on: "Keep washing them in warm water, corporal."

From then on I was theirs. My leg and arm didn't matter. My eyes were all right. They operated soon after that first examination, and I came out in a ward lined with cots. I could see them in a blurred sort of way. I was the centre of interest, and everyone was asking questions. The usual old questions: "Where did you stop it?" "How is the show going?" and so on. I answered as best I could, and went off to sleep.

When I woke again, I was an old resident. The new centre of interest was a Jap prisoner who had just been brought in with a shattered leg. They gave him a packet of Red Cross cigarettes, and put a man with an Owen gun to sit at the foot of his bed. I don't know how they thought he was going to run away, but the sentry didn't mind. It was a comfortable canvas deckchair, and the orderlies gave him
tobacco and cups of tea. He said he would be happy to sit the war out there.

In another two days my eyes were back to normal, although still sore. A few more days at the A.D.S., and I was marked fit to travel back to the casualty clearing station in the perimeter. I dreaded that journey in the ambulance. The track runs down the valley of the Laruma River, and crosses it twenty-five times. Huge boulders lie in the river-bed, and the trucks flounder wildly at each ford. There were three others, and none of us was enthusiastic. But room had to be made for fresh casualties coming in. Just before leaving I heard that the sergeant had died of his wounds up on the ridge.

Good fortune was with us. A big six wheeled truck was going back empty from the supply point; and they loaded us on to it. The rear wheels work on some sort of knee action principle and the gearing, enables them almost to idle along. I was well packed on my stretcher, and had a surprisingly comfortable ride.

The worst was over. My sight was clear, and my right leg and arm were set in plaster. I had nothing to do but lie in bed and wait for them to heal up. I was feeling weak when I got to the C.C.S., and after I had had a long sleep, they dripped some more blood into me. I couldn't help wondering whose blood I was getting as I lay there with the tube in my arm, and the jar of blood above my head subsiding ever so slowly. It took about three hours to drain away, so I had plenty of time to think. My final and unshakable conclusion was that it came from some of those lovely-looking girls I saw on a Red Cross blood-bank poster in Sydney last year.

There was a great flurry in the C.C.S. about a week after I arrived. The orderlies were going about mumbling and grumbling about "damned women pushing their frames in", and rhetorically asking if they were not capable of running the place by themselves, as they had been doing for the past three months. The good old days had gone they said. Two days later the nurses arrived. They rushed about like energetic housewives, and despite the male orderlies' fifth-column talk we liked having them with us.

They took me down to the airstrip a few days later and flew me over to the base hospital at Lae. It was a splendid trip-in a C47 of the R.A.A.F. lying on a stretcher on the floor you couldn't see anything, but it was luxuriously cool. And illogically enough we all knew that nothing could happen while the roundels were on the wings.

And now I am writing this in the base hospital, watching the up-patients doing their odd jobs. Next week I'll be on crutches, and soon I'll be a regular up-patient. Then the convalescent camp with its physiotherapy to school the backward muscles, its physical training instructors and other assorted torturers; and then the long trek through staging camps back to the battalion.

And all this because I knew better than my father.

As TOLD TO "SX2663"

THREE DAYS

WE'VE been here three days now!

We haven't slept much. We daren't sleep at night and during the hours of light we don't get a chance. The big guns pound along the ridge and much of the time we lie in our holes out of the way of the singing shrapnel.

This is Labuan. Somewhere over to our left is Brunei Bay and the coast of Borneo. Around us, though, there is only heavy timber and the Jap lurking in the tree-tops.

We are spread across a track, keeping the enemy contained in the pocket in which he has elected to make his last stand on the island.

It is three days since we dug in here under fire and relieved the company which had reached the position that morning.

Men died that day. This morning we buried them. One we dragged out of that unprotected territory ahead by a long rope and interred in the gully where a dead Jap lies. Back behind us is where the Padre was shot through the throat....

But here we are now astride the track. On the left there is a native house where "Porky" mans a Bren. On the right there is a stretch of undergrowth and beyond it a ridge where the Japs are-somewhere. The artillery is trying to finger them out.

Straight ahead there is another house. It's about ninety yards away and we don't know much of what comes after that. Occasionally a Jap pokes his head over the top and takes a long look. We don't pay much attention to that sort of stuff. We've learned long since not to betray the position of our firepower.

We have little fox-holes. Back home where you are there wouldn't be much appreciation of them, but to us they're comfort, accommodation and protection. They're dug in clay and after last night's rain there are a couple of inches of water in the bottoms. A hole is about six feet long by two wide by one deep.

I'd like you to meet the boys. Here are "Sticks", "Happy", "Raghead", "Porky" and "Shorty". You haven't heard of them before; I doubt if you ever will again. But you might remember them....

"Sticks" is washing his socks in his tin hat. The water has been scooped from the bottom of his fox-hole. Beside little personal cleanlinesses like that no one has had a bath or a change of clothes since we landed over a week ago.

There comes a call to take cover and everyone dives for his hole. Mitchells are winging in low to lay their burdens on the enemy positions. The ground spouts masses of smoke shot with red where the bombs explode and the whole earth shakes and trickles clay. We lie flat with arms clutched tight about our heads. Sweat streams from bodies and shrapnel whines into the distance with an off-key note.

Then the Lightnings come and lay their Napalm flame bombs. There is no shrapnel from these and we stand erect and cheer.

It's the morning aerial bombardment.

Night is not a happy time. It's strange how the hours of dark do not add up to dawn. Time crawls, and counting the hours we find that what should be the time of sunrise is still dark. The sun would not show itself until midday if it worked on our reckoning. Maybe it's the dark; maybe it's the Japs; maybe it's the rain. Something anyway, goes wrong with our time.

There is no relaxing during night. Constantly the enemy is creeping in. A rustle down in the gully calls f or a grenade. In the morning there may be a body, there may be blood, there may be nothing at all. But something has been there and it's we who have been the objective. The other night "Porky" saw a movement a dozen feet ahead of him. We don't move at night - it's the only way we can be sure of getting the enemy and not one of our own men.

Besides, it means we don't disclose our positions. Anyway, "Porky" threw a grenade and while it was in the air a burst of Owen also flashed in the dark. In the morning a dead Jap lay by a tree-collapsed on the clay thrown out two feet from where the forward pit was dug. Beside him lay a bayonet and a pick handle. They'd be nasty weapons in the dark! "Porky" swears there was a Jap sitting by his pit the next night. He pulled the pin from a grenade, placed it beside the figure and cowered from the blast. There was no sign of blood in the morning, so maybe there wasn't a Jap.

Sometimes the artillery fires star shells around midnight. We're not so happy about that. It gives us a chance to see if there is an infiltrator in sight; but if he's lying low it also gives him a chance to pin-point us.

Even in daylight we're not so very aware of what goes on around us. Strictly speaking, we don't know to the fullest what happens fifty yards away. Rumours seep in from the next fox-hole-that's all. If a soldier is wounded at that distance there are a couple of versions to be told of how it happened.

Occasionally there are explosions out there ahead. We're not quite sure what they are. It could be a shell landing on an ammunition dump. More than likely it's one of their devilish mines. The Japs have been tying long aerial bombs in trees and letting them down from some distance away. If they hear a sound out there and think it's a patrol they're likely to detonate one. We don't go out to find the reason. There are snipers everywhere.

This morning a Jap walked temptingly in front of that house up the track. It's our guess that he was bomb happy after the bombing and barrage. Backwards and forwards he walked swinging a bucket. The target was tempting and the boys let him have it. The Vickers, the Brens and rifles sprayed him and lie went down. A patrol went forward and a sniper started shooting. We lost only one man -we were lucky !

Down in the gully there's a tank which was bogged during the first day of advance. Just ahead of it there's a dead sniper. His clothes are jungle greens, but his boots are two-toed and his feet are tied. He was tied that way in a tree until a Bren got him.

Now it's time to take cover again. The H.M.A.S. Shropshire is about to serve an iron ration of eight-inch shells to the Japs. The barrage is to fall two hundred yards away to our right and we must remain. If a breakthrough is attempted we must be here to stop it.

Lying in our holes we hear the naval bombardment team giving range and details over the air. A long way away we hear a dull thud and it seems that a full minute passes before the ring and crash on the ridge. It's close; so close that our hearts are in our mouths. Shell follows shell and all the time we hear that whining of shrapnel splashing away. We couldn't be any closer to the bottoms of our holes. We're part of them. Earnestly we hope that those shells are on target. If they're not the range will have to be lifted and that will bring them even closer. We hear the voice at the portable set again and we listen for every word. "Two gun salvo . . . same range 100 left". We breathe again

I'm telling you what has been happening for three days now. You know why we don't sleep at night; you know why we can't sleep during the day. Are you getting the complete picture?

A patrol must move out a few hundred yards after that barrage to see what's happened. We watch the half-dozen or so men go and tensely wait their return. It seems a long time till we hear a shot, and there is silence after that. Then they reappear. They have seen nothing except a house and a crying "monkey" nursing a mewling kitten. They have burned the house and we hear ammunition explode. Tomorrow we hope to get the flame-throwers up to burn the undergrowth and whatever houses may remain.

But tomorrow is another day and if I am to get this letter away to you it must go back now. There will be many tomorrows before you read it. By that time, we hope, there will be no pocket left on Labuan.

There is a flash of red and before the explosion comes we are in our holes. A bomb has exploded in the burning house. As I hit the ground "Happy" jumps on my face and I curse him.

"You took cover too quickly," he apologizes.

As if one could take cover TOO quickly!

"TROOPER"

AND RETURN

"How does it look?" Len hung beside me on the rail, his cape glistening, his hat dripping water.

"Much the same." My cigarette fell slowly, a white spot against the green, then lost in the whiteness of the side-stream. "It was raining like this the day we left."

"Where'd you come out from?"

I wasn't oriented yet. Jacquinot lay in a wide curve to the north and east, land and sea the same grey-green colour, split by the white line of beaches, the mountains behind lent mystery and infinite height by the dripping low clouds, and the plantation stretching up the gentle slope from Cape Cunningham.

"Over there." I pointed and following the line of my raised arm I saw the place exactly as it had been....

. . It wouldn't be long now. The sky hung slate-coloured and darker down on the horizon above the grey-green sea that was broken by the white-caps and down in the east there was the darkness of night edging sideways up into the sky. Here on the beach we stood, the five of us and the priest, and farther back, silent as we were, the mission natives and at their feet, on the makeshift stretcher, Tim.

"Christ, I wish they'd hurry up," Arch said.

"Quiet ! " I said and looked at the priest.

He smiled and shook his head. He wasn't coming with us. He was staying, he said, because he had to. His concern was the natives and it didn't matter whether they were ruled by us or the Japs or the Tibetans. And anyhow he had been here for eight years and he couldn't leave all his work just like that, to be undone in a week or even less. You can't blame a native if he doesn't think twice about being a Christian when a Jap is standing over him helping him make up his mind. So he was staying and he was placing his trust in God. Well, maybe some people had that much faith. I hadn't. And now, this very minute, when everything was about to begin, I wished to God I had.

"There's one of 'em!"

I don't know who said it. I was straining my eyes out to sea and I could see the long, low, grey shape against the darker shade of the sea. It was beating east, pitching with the swell, and I turned my head to look for the other one. At this time on the last three days they had passed one another at this point, two destroyers patrolling up and down the coast, looking for such as we, men trying to escape from the tragedy that lay behind them at Rabaul.

Then the second destroyer came into the picture from the east. They passed one another

without slackening speed and we saw the light of the eastbound one blinking in the greyness, a stray sunbeam in the dusk.

"What was that, Rick? D'you get it?"

"Cut it out. That was Jap Morse."

We laughed. It was so easy to laugh, but it didn't mean much. There was no mirth about it. You opened your mouth and the sound came and that was all.

"O.K.," I said. "Time we went."

We picked up Tim and lowered him gently into the boat. I was worried about Tim. The bullet had gone in at the top of his thigh, just where it fits into the hip, and the eight days' travelling before we got to the mission hadn't done it any good. We had carried him on a stretcher made from branches and palm fronds, but all it did was save him from walking-it didn't stop the pain nor the blood flowing. We hadn't wanted to bring him with us now but he had cursed us, crying in his pain and despair and anger at our intention, and in the end we'd given in. I guess we would have anyway, but these sort of things are hard to decide.

I turned to the priest. I put out my hand and as always I felt embarrassment when emotion was called for.

"Good-bye, Father. All the best."

He shook hands with the rest of the boys. When he came to Tim he picked up the limp hand and just stood looking at him for a moment. Tim's eyes were closed and he didn't see the priest make the sign of the cross over him. I'm glad he didn't.

Scottie, the dour Presbyterian, was the last to shake hands with him.

"If e'er ye think o' changin' yoor kirk, Father, we'd be glad t' hae ye in oors."

"Thanks, Scottie. I'll keep it in mind."

We pushed the boat out, easy in the smooth water close inshore, and this was the beginning. We turned over the engine. It kicked, choked, then kicked again and settled down into a rhythmic beat. We moved out away from the beach and I turned and waved. His hand went up in a slow gesture and that is how I remember him.

I wonder where he is now? I wonder if we shall find his grave there? I wonder if he knew then that he was already a dead man?

She wasn't a big boat. She was about thirty feet long, broad in the beam, and with a well deck aft. She had a diesel engine that the priest told us made six knots. We had two forty-four gallon drums of juice propped up on frames we had built in the well and if things went all right that should be enough. If things went all right.... We had two tins of rice, some biscuits, and four two-gallon cans of water. We had all that and a burning crazy hope that we'd come through.

We got out into open water and as soon as we did she started to buck. I tacked her to the south-west and gave her the gun. We had no maps, no compass, and none of us had had any sailing experience. We would be travelling by the sun all the way.

There were six of us.

"Looks like a dirty night," Spike said.

"Marvellous! Did you read that or are you forecasting it yourself?"

Spike and Rick were always like that. They chipped one another from the time they got up in the morning till long after everyone else had gone to bed, but there was never any malice in it. They were both city boys: Spike from a boot factory in Alexandria, Rick from a grocer's store in Footscray. They both thought the world was a hell of a good place to live in, even in these times.

If Spike and Rick enjoyed the world and what was in it, Arch didn't. Arch never enjoyed what he had-he was always bemoaning what he might have. For him the future was always dim and it gave him a pain to look at it. But he kept looking and as a result he gave us a pain.

"What're we goin' t' do?"

That was Scottie. Scottie was just like I have said he was, a dour Presbyterian and nothing more. He was colourless as a church tea-party. Tim, who lay quiet and shrunken in the bottom of the boat, had a girl back home, a girl whose photo he always carried, a tall long-legged girl with a figure that set you wishing you were Tim.

He was going to be married as soon as he got back home and, knowing Tim, and because of the frank generous face of the girl in the photo, you knew he'd be happy. But all that was something he talked about before he was wounded.

"We'll work in shifts. Me, then Scottie, Rick, Arch, and Spike. Three hours at a time."

We were well out now, the boat shuddering as the swells rolled at us, shooting high quickly dying spray back over us, and coming up from the east we could see rain, a grey vagueness racing the night.

"Looks dirty," Spike said.

"You said that. Or has the needle stuck."

"Pull your skull in, turtle."

"All right, you two, Shut up and get some sleep. You'll need it."

Arch was trying to make himself comfortable on the seat running along the side of the well.

"Fine lot of sleep you'll get, wet through from the rain."

"Stop laughin', Arch. I'm too tired for jokes."

I stood behind the wheel and kept her nose to the south-west. I looked over my shoulder and could see the land gradually dropping, becoming just the undulating edge of the sea. The breeze was cool and fresh in my nose and I breathed deeply, getting rid of seven weeks of jungle. Phosphorus danced in the wake behind us, fireflies at sea, and spray hung white above the bow of the boat. I suddenly had a feeling of escape and a wild surge of hope swelled in me. Maybe we would make it.

"Hoo d'ye think we'll go, Colin?"

"Dunno, Scottie. What do you think"'

"I'm not. I'll wait till I see land coom up a' then I'll start thinking again."

Maybe he had something there. But I knew I couldn't do that. I never had been able to make my mind a blank. I'd 1go to bed at night with no intention of thinking about anything, and then everything in the day disconnected things, things I had hardly noticed at the time of happening, would spring up, clear as photographs, and I would take a long time to drop off to sleep. I knew it would be like that this trip. Probably in the next few days I'd have time to look at the whole of my life. It would fill in the time if nothing else.

Suddenly we ran into rain. It came slanting into my face and I narrowed my eyes against it. It was cold and hard and it came as a shock to my sweat-wet body. It was so dark now I couldn't see beyond the front of the boat. I could only feel the rain and the spray and the shuddering of the boat as it bucked the waves. For a minute I panicked, thinking that if this rain kept up throughout tomorrow we would have no bearing for direction. Then I calmed down. It was no use looking for trouble. That was like Arch. We couldn't do anything about it anyway.

Arch was sitting up now.

"Damned rain! How can you sleep in that? I feel as if I'm lying in a flooded gutter."

"Wish I was," Spike said. "In a gutter in Oxford Street."

"Pipe down and let's get some sleep."

"Pleasant nightmares."

I heard Tim moaning and I saw Scottie move over to him.

"Here, Tim. Hae a drink, lad."

I began to wonder if we would all finish up like Tim. Though I hated to think of it I doubted if Tim would be alive when we reached land, if we reached land. We had seen so much death in the last weeks and had been so close to it ourselves that the thought didn't upset me as much as it would a few months before. You get used to anything if you're with it long enough. Not that I wanted to die. I had Marthe and the two kiddies at home; when you've just started life you don't want it cut off suddenly and sharply like long eternal night coming down across the sun.

The night was a negative passage of time composed of rain, the shuddering of the boat, the moaning of Tim, the voices of men wakened for relief, and the slow circling of the luminous hand on my watch.

It was quite clear when I opened my eyes in the morning. The sun was just above the water, still with colour and still without warmth, and there was a breeze coming from the south-east, blowing across us at an angle. I lay looking up at the sky and it was so clear and blue I knew it was going to be hot today. I sat up, leaned over the side, and dashed water into my face. It felt cool and fresh.

The others were sitting up and Scottie was doling out rice into the mess-tins. Arch was at the wheel, now and again glancing at the sun to check his direction. I looked across at Tim. He lay on the seat with his eyes closed, his mouth hanging slackly, his teeth showing, and the flesh had fallen away from his cheeks so that he looked almost an old man.

"How is he?" I asked.

Rick shook his head. "He's only just dozed off. I heard him crying during the night. I asked him what was the matter but he didn't answer."

"Here," said Scottie and handed us the tins with the rice in them.

"No prunes."

I chewed at the white mess, then washed it down with half a cup of water. We had agreed on that ration: a half-cup of water in the morning, at midday, and after the evening meal.

The sun was beginning to warm up now and we took off our shirts and shorts, torn and wet, and hung them out to dry. I looked down at my body. When I came to Rabaul eleven months ago I weighed thirteen-four. Now I would barely touch eleven. I could feel the hollows on either side of my neck, my ribs showed plainly, spars coming round to meet my malaria-swollen spleen, my belly caved so that you could see the bones of my pelvis, and the flesh on my legs hung loose and lean. I was a deep yellowish-brown and if I had walked up the Corso at Manly I wouldn't have blamed anyone for not recognizing me. Not that I was in the habit of walking naked up the Corso. I laughed aloud at the thought. "What's so funny?" "Nothing. Just thinking."

"Troppo. First day out and silly as a wet hen."

I stood up beside Arch. He hadn't said a word since I had woken, just standing there playing the wheel and turning his head to watch the sun. I'd never known him to be so quiet.

"What's the matter, Arch?"

"Eh? " He turned to look at me.

"Why so quiet?"

He swung his eyes back to the front of the boat and was quiet for a moment.

"I been thinking. I dunno - maybe we were mugs to try this. Perhaps we'd been better off if we'd 've stayed at the mission. They must be sending boats up to see if they can get our blokes off. They wouldn't just leave 'em there."

"I don't know about that. But I wasn't going to rely on it. I've given up depending on other people-I'm looking out for myself from now on."

I climbed up and sat on the front of the boat. I'd have to keep Arch quiet. I didn't think the others felt the same way as he did, but if he kept voicing that opinion among them it must take root and spread like weed in a garden. With only a blank unpromising horizon in front of us it wouldn't take much to plunge our minds into despair.

"Hey, look! Planes!"

Spike was standing up shouting, pointing to the north-west. There, moving across the sky, slowly with their height and distance, was a cluster of black dots. They were moving from east to west and they wouldn't come within ten miles of us. I was glad of that.

"Righto, relax. They're Japs."

"Ah, what's the matter with me?" Spike sat down again. "I knew it all the damn time."

"We were all like you," I said. "Wishful thinking. Where would we get that many planes? "

The rest of the day dragged on. We had some rice and biscuits and a drink of water at noon and tried to feed some of it to Tim. But he brought it up as soon as I gave it to him and I had to lean over the side, fill my hat with water, and sluice the bottom of the boat. Late in the afternoon Rick went to the back of the boat.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"Dysentery again. I think it's that rice."

I took the top off the tin. There was a greenish tint forming on the whiteness of the rice. I had known it wasn't fresh when we

Got it, but I hadn't expected it to go as soon as this.

Arch was looking over my shoulder.

"What're we going to do now?" He sat down. "Gawd, I knew we were mugs."

"Shut up!"

I was getting jumpy. If he kept this up he'd have all of us on edge by tomorrow.

He stood up and his eyes had a wild look in them and the whites seemed terribly big and I thought of the eyes of a frightened horse. His mouth worked and he was shouting:

"Turn us around! Let's go back! Oh, Christ, let's go back!"

I hit him across the mouth with my hand and he stopped, his mouth hanging open. The others were standing or sitting, watching us. I undid my holster and took out my pistol.

"Get this. I'll shoot the next mug that blubbers he wants to turn back. We've started this and we're going to finish it and I'm not turning back for you or anyone."

"That's all right, Colin," Rick said quietly. "We don't want to turn back."

I took over from Scottie at the wheel. He looked at Arch, who was sitting with his head in his hands, and then back at me and shook his head. I nodded.

During the night I woke up with a terrific pain in my belly. I knew what it was. The rice was having its effect. I went to the back of the boat and when I came back I was weak and trembling. I went to lie down again when I heard a whisper, so faint I hardly caught it.

"Colin."

It was Tim. I knelt beside him. The moon was up and in its light he looked already dead. There were deep shadows round his eyes and in his cheeks and his mouth was a black hole in his face with the teeth showing very white.

"What is it, Tim?"

He murmured something I didn't catch. I filled a cup, lifted his head, and put the cup to his mouth. He coughed and some of the water trickled down his face. He whispered again and I caught the word Ruth. That was his girl back home.

"What is it, Tim? Can't you get it out?"

But his head just lolled and I saw moisture running down his cheeks that I knew wasn't water. Spike was at the wheel and he turned round now.

"How is he, Colin?"

"No good."

"Want a hand?"

"You can't do anything. It wouldn't help."

I sat holding his head the rest of the night, now and again going to the back of the boat, and I was glad when morning came.

I took off my clothes again. We put them on at night and took them off in the day-time and tried to make some sort of a shelter for Tim. Even though we were pretty brown we had burned from the glare off the water.

Arch was at the wheel, staring straight ahead, every so often glancing at the sun. It suddenly struck me that this was how it was yesterday, exactly, the waking and seeing Arch standing there at the wheel, turning his head in the same way to check his direction; and I knew that each day would go on like this, a pattern of the previous day, till the days and the nights would mean nothing and everything would be just rain and sun, darkness and light, sea and sky, sickness and despair till we ran up on some friendly beach or we just lay down in the bottom of the boat and died.

The rice now was quite mouldy, but we forced ourselves to eat it. It made Scottie sick and he hung over the side. The water too was now beginning to get the sickly musty smell that water gets when it stands too long and I looked at the sky hoping to see some rain clouds, but it was high and clear.

I sat up on the front of the boat again. The woodwork was hot beneath my bare skin and till it cooled I was uncomfortable. The sun now bounced back from the water, tightening your skin, and glaring into your eyes, making your head ache. The water beyond the boat lay deep blue and smooth and when I looked down I could see the white water slicing away from the bows and the flying fish, disturbed, skimming across the surface, shining blue bullets that were gone as suddenly as they appeared.

"There go the planes again," Rick said.

I twisted my head and looked back to the north. There were more of them this morning and they were closer so that we could hear the high monotonous hum of their engines. Why they didn't come over to strafe us, I'll never know. They went down to the west, their sound disappearing first, then they were shimmering dots in the haze and suddenly they faded

The sun went over the sky and the day was getting cooler. We could feel the night breeze beginning across the water, when we heard the plane. I was standing at the wheel and I strained my eyes, scanning the sky in all directions, trying to place it.

"There he is!" Arch shouted, and pointed to the south-west.

He was coming across, slow and low-flying, not more than maybe two thousand feet, and I felt my heart start to thump and the palms of my hands round the wheel grew wet and lost their strength.

"It's a Cat!" yelled Spike. "You beaut!"

He was going to pass east of us. Scottie grabbed two of the shirts from over Tim and began waving them. The others wildly waved their arms and yelled like madmen. Still at the wheel, still looking towards the plane, I opened my mouth and yelled, almost screaming, a meaningless sound that would never be heard in the plane, only exploding my excitement into some articulate expression. The plane kept on, we could see the shape of it quite clearly, about three miles away, and we kept yelling and waving and he kept going, heading north, and soon he was past us and still going.

"Oh, Christ," Arch was moaning. "Oh, the swine! "

I leaned against the wheel. I felt sick and hollow as if someone had put a knife into my belly and, without pain, without my realizing it, had cut away all my insides.

"That finishes it." Spike was sitting dejectedly at the back of the boat. "We're done, finished. You can read the burial service."

Arch suddenly swung his head up and he had that wild look in his eyes again. His hair -was hanging down, black and matted, and -with his staring bloodshot eyes in his gaunt bearded face he looked quite mad.

"I told you we shouldn't've come!" he screamed. "I told you, I told you--"

"Shut up!" I yelled. "Shut up!"

I turned away from the wheel and he stumbled across the boat towards me. I hit him as he came near, bringing blood from his nose, and then he was on top of me, punching and clawing. I was too weak to hold him and I fell and hit my head. The boat spun and he blurred in my sight and then someone was pulling him off me and their voices were a jumble that was a long way off.

I struggled up and Scottie threw a hatful of water into my face. The salt stung the scratches where Arch had clawed me and I gasped and winced.

Spike and Rick were sitting on either side of Arch and he was panting and moaning like an animal.

"Cut that out, Arch," Rick was saying. "Get this straight. We're going on with Colin. We started this and we'll finish it - heading in the one direction, south. Try that stunt again and by God we'll drop you overboard."

Arch lay down on the seat and buried his face in his arms. I stood up beside Scottie who had taken the wheel.

"It's a bad business," he muttered.

Only one man in the boat had been unconcerned by the plane or the fight. Tim still lay in the bottom of the boat and he looked more shrunken than he had in the morning. His eyes were closed, but you could see the shape of his eyeballs quite clearly beneath the tight thin lids and his head lolled to one side as if his neck were broken.

Scottie saw me looking at him, and he murmured, "He won't last, Colin. The puir lad's done for."

In the morning he was dead. I woke and Scottie was kneeling beside him, cradling his head.

"He's gone, Colin. He must hae died during the nicht."

The others were sitting up now, gazing with unbelieving eyes at the body, shrunken and with the bloody rags round the hip, lying in the bottom of the boat.

"Oh, Christ," Spike said. "I can't believe it. Tim."

I put my hand into the torn pocket of his shirt and took out his pay-book. I opened it and his girl's photo stared up at me, with the wide laughing smile and the lovely long legs and it seemed so empty and mocking that I turned it over and as I did I saw the handwriting on the back, "Yours till death do us part, darling." On the open page of the pay-book written in pencil on the margin was the amount he had saved. One hundred and forty-eight pounds, seven shillings. I closed the book and put it in my pocket. Till death do us part and money will mean nothing at all.

"Give me a hand, Scottie." I bent and put my arms under Tim's shoulders.

"What are you going to do?" Spike said.

"Bury him. We can't leave him here."

"You can't throw him to the sharks! God, Col'n, that's Tim!"

"Do you have to tell me, Spike? We can't do anything for him now. Come on, Scottie."

We lifted the body and slid it over the side. The head hit the water first and the feet swung against the boat. Then it was gone beneath the white of our wake.

We sat dejectedly in the boat the rest of the day, hardly speaking, every now and again getting up to go to the back of the boat. The rice and biscuits were covered in green mould now and the water tasted of scum. But there was nothing else and we ate it and drank it and went to the back of the boat and got rid of it. The pain in our bellies was agonizing and made us sick so that sometimes we vomited with the retching agony of it.

That night it rained. I woke with the rain pelting in my face, sweet cool hard rain, and I struggled up.

"Hey! Quick! Wake up! Empty one of the tins! "

Spike was awake and he grabbed one of the tins and emptied it over the side. It seemed to take a long time to drain out and when he held it over the side to rinse out the scum I became impatient with excitement.

"Hurry, Spike! For God's sake, hurry!"

He put the tin in the bottom of the boat and Rick and I, holding our hats upside down, caught the water and poured it into the tin. It was a slow process and I was afraid it would stop, but the blessed lovely rain kept pouring down.

"Ain't it wonderful stuff!" Spike was beside himself with excitement and joy. "Look at it! Beautiful fresh water!"

He turned his face up and opened his mouth and dimly I could see the wetness of it shining. Arch emptied the other tin over the side and we began pouring water from our hats into that. It rained for just on two hours and we filled both cans and then we caught it in our hats and dipped out cupfuls and drank. It went down into our bellies, sweet and cold and fresh, and the taste of the sickness and the bad water went and it was like washing your mouth with snow. We sat there in the rain and I kept wishing we had more containers, but there was nothing; it spattered on the woodwork and lay in little pools in the bottom of the boat and we could only sit in it and feel the wetness of it, but we couldn't preserve it.

In the morning we felt much better. We were still weak but the water had given us new life. The sea was behind us now and we seemed to be scooting along on the surface. The sun came up, lighting the underside of the clouds, stretching in faint colours over beyond our heads, pink and grey tiers across
the sky. The breeze still had the cool wet feel of rain in it and we bowled along, rising with the swell and dropping down the other side to catch the next swell with a shower of spray.

It was twenty past two in the afternoon when we saw it.

"Look!" Scottie shouted and it was the only time I've seen him excited. "Look! D'ye see it? "

"What? Where? For Pete's sake, Scottie, what is it? "

We were all standing up, staring in the direction in which he was pointing.

"There! Land! Look! See? D'ye see it?"

Rick shouted hysterically, "It is! It's land! Oh, God, it's land!"

It lay on the horizon, a dark mass low on the sea. I can't remember much of the next few hours. I crouched on the front of the boat, sometimes cursing the slowness of our progress, sometimes praying aloud in thanks, and all the time my eyes, my mind, my whole being was a single idea centred on the dark shape rising out of the sea before us, like a plane coming in on a beam.

It was twenty to seven when we came into a small lagoon and ran up on to a beach. The day was dim and quiet, restful and peaceful as this haven we had come into, and I saw natives, men and women in the dress of mission natives, running down the beach towards us. I jumped off the front of the boat and my legs buckled and I fell face down in the water. I crawled on my hands and knees up on to the beach and lay with my face in the sand. I could hear the natives shouting and Arch was laughing hysterically and Rick was crying, "Oh, Christ, thank Christ," and then I went out of myself, floating into nothingness. . . .

"Bet you never thought you'd come back,"' Len said.

"Did you think I wanted to?"

We picked up our gear and filed along the deck to the gangway down to the waiting barges and the officer at the head of the gangway knew I had been here before.

"Nice to be back, eh, Phillips?"

He'll never know how close I was to a court-martial right that minute.

"NX58247 To NX15943"

BEHIND THE JAPANESE LINES

THE sun had barely risen when we reached the forward slopes of the hills which looked down on Teopasuna Plantation. The flat plain of this part of the Bougainville east coast lay mute under a sea mist. The air was warm in the foothills, and breathless.

We lay there in the friendly jungle. The jungle is always friendly to the hunted; and sheltering are the forbidding hills. Below the mist blanket were the Japanese. We could not see them, but they were there; and because we knew it, the mist breathed on our faces with foreboding.

It was foreboding mixed with hope. For under the mist were also the cattle left by the plantation owners.

We had been in the hills for months; ever since the Japanese had driven us from the beaches where we had manned coast-watching stations. There were only twenty-three of us, but we teamed up in little parties of three or four, and sat down overlooking the Jap airstrips and main ports. Our portable radio transmitters flashed their messages to Port Moresby and to Guadalcanal: "Fifty bombers with fighter escorts passed at 0900 hours heading south", or "Fifteen ships anchored Buin Harbour".

At Guadalcanal the American fighters would take off and wait in the sun for the bombers. From other island bases Mitchells and Bostons would fly to attack the enemy shipping. And the enemy knew we were sending messages. You can't conceal a radio transmitter once you start sending.

As the results of our messages became more valuable, so did the fury of the enemy increase. They hunted us in packs of anything up to a hundred. They even brought dogs into Kleta, and took them along the native pads through the hills. Most of the natives had turned their hands against us. We hated them f or it, but we couldn't blame them. The Japs courted them. The air was full of Jap planes, the sea was swarming with Jap ships, and the erstwhile Australian masters were harried fugitives. We slept at night with someone constantly on guard. At our sides lay emergency packs ready to be thrown on in a minute. Sometimes I thought of a line from Browning I learned at school. It is the only line from Browning that I remember-from "The Italian in England". I can't even recall how it started, but one phrase came back again and again-"harried from pillar to post".

There was little ammunition and little enough food. After some months Catalinas from Moresby came over at full moon and dropped food, medical supplies and ammunition. But it was not enough. We dug in the ground for taro, and for kau-kau, the native sweet potato.

One of the police-boys taught us how to make native game traps. These were wonderful structures of bamboo and wood, bound up with strips of bark and vine. Sometimes we were lucky enough to snare a wild pig; and at intervals we used some of our precious ammunition to shoot a bird.

But down on the plantations of the east coast were cattle. Fresh meat was there for the taking and the risk. We felt like ancient border harriers as we lay in the jungle looking down on Teopasuna. I muttered to myself from "The War Song of Dinas Vawr":

"The mountain sheep are sweeter,

But the valley sheep are fatter;

We therefore deemed it meeter

To carry off the latter."

The long, sweltering day droned on. Below us the Japanese went busily about their tasks. They were building huts and washing their clothes-and they were eating too. We lay there hating them. Hating them for what they were, hating them for what they were doing to us and ours, hating them for being between us and the fresh meat. Away to the right of the plantation we could see cattle grazing. From beside me came a murmur: "I could jump on one and eat it down to the hocks."

During the afternoon one stayed awake while the others slept. It was a deep sleep. We had long ago stopped dreaming. Ours was the exhausted sleep of death and we didn't think of it. Death had passed us by so often that it had become a companion. I think we would have felt a sense of loss if death had stopped hushing in our ears.

At long last the night began to fall. Softly the darkness spread; and fires sprang up in the encampments on the flat. Bright fires which looked like the fires of home. Merry, leaping fires which invited us to dream. Even the Japanese could not make campfires unfriendly.

It seemed strange that the fire which danced for my wife in the fire-grate should look like the fires which danced below us in a circle of hideous shapes.

The night wore on. The stars were blotted out in the vast sweeping advances of the rain clouds. It seemed that the windows or heaven had opened, as they did in those forty days and nights which left only the top of Mount Ararat peeping above the flood. I tried to remember the height of Mount Ararat, but couldn't. It was probably higher than our hill.

Tile fires had gone, and the blinding rain wrapped us in an invisible cloak as we made our way down to the plains. Roots tripped us and sent us sprawling on our faces. We cursed aloud in fine relief. The rain masked our noise. Down and down, through the tangled growth at the foot of the hill, on to the spreading plain.

We made off to the right, towards the cattle. Before very long we could see their darker shapes in the blackness. They stood grouped together, miserable in the rain. We closed in carefully, step by step, nearer and nearer. In my hand was a knife. A good blade which had been given me just before I left Australia. It was razor-keen, and my hand was firm and strong. A huge beast was at my left side. Sliding up towards its head I darted in and plunged the knife home and dragged it across the throat. The beast bellowed and leapt in pain. The others made off madly into tile night. The precious life-blood gushed from the gashed throat and mingled with the water and the mud. The beast fell to the ground with a vast heave.

Quickly we began hacking off pieces of meat and cramming them into our packs. It was feverish, nervous work. The Japs would have heard the commotion. It was not the first time we had made
one of these forays. We hoped it would not be the last. The others had brought us days of flight. But they had always brought us fresh meat. The risk was worth it. The vegetable diet had been weakening us; and the tinned meat dropped was never sufficient.

At last our packs were full, and we turned to flee. Lights had sprung up in the huts, and we could hear Japs jabbering their monkey talk. The full packs were heavy, and we slipped in the mud as we pushed back into the friendly hills. We would make for a hideout not far away, and wait there until daylight. The rain would wash away our tracks, and the most keen-eyed native could not guide the Japs to us.

Just before dawn the rain stopped. Hot steam rose from the ground and the clamminess was almost unbearable. There was no sight or sound of the Japanese, so we decided to start. Off we went, with a point scout well out in front and all of us ready to jump side-ways into the jungle at the first sign of danger.

From the first we knew we were not safe. You can't be safe when there are about two hundred or more men looking for you, and your only means of travelling, through them is along native foot-pads about one to two feet wide.

The Japanese were hot on our trail, and stayed there for the next five days and nights. We waded rivers for miles, crawled up rapids and up and down waterfalls. We broke away from the tracks and hacked and clawed our way through the jungle. We left the comparatively easy going of the ridge tops and slipped down into the tangled valleys. We slept only eight of those hundred and twenty hours.

But at last we threw them off, and set out direct for our hide-out. Our hard-won meat had all gone bad, and we had thrown it away days before. It was a bitter disappointment, but the raid had given us something to do and a topic for conversation, so all was not lost.

We reached the hide-out early in the afternoon; and stretched out for a long God-given sleep. We were so tired that we didn't even post a sentry. He could never have stayed awake anyhow. Sleep closed on us like an anesthetic.

Bad news met our first awakening. Two men from another watching station had come across to see us. They had sad news; vicious news that set our blood boiling and our thoughts racing with new hatred.

While we had been away the Catalina had come over, and in the full moon dropped our monthly supplies. Four fires had been lighted in a clearing to guide the plane, and the gossamer parachutes had floated down right in their square. Collecting the bundles was always a rush affair. The Japs knew that we were being supplied by air, and a lone plane at full moon rang in their rat brains like an alarm clock. All they had to do was to get a glimpse of the fires, and the chase was on. The ridges and thick timber were on our side, but it was a chancy business.

This time the Catalina crashed in the hills. The boys dropped their bundles and raced across the clearing, and thrust themselves by main force through the undergrowth until they reached the plane.

A broken thing, it lay at the end of the swath it had cut in the jungle. Three of the crew had been killed, one had a fractured thigh and one a fractured ankle. The sixth was unhurt. There was no time to be lost in getting them away from the scene.

Two rough stretchers were made from poles and shirts. The injured were placed on them, and they struck out into the hills. After ten days they thought they had shaken off any pursuit, and stayed to rest in a native village. The Japanese were closer than they had thought; and their rest changed into a brisk fight in and about the village. It could end in only one way. The ammunition ran out.

With all the ammunition gone, the lieutenant in charge gave the only command left the saddest, most poignant order that any man can give, the most desperate any man can receive-"Every man for himself". That young officer was very gallant. Escape for the two injured men was out of the question. He gave his men the order to scatter, and stayed on with the injured. The Japanese shot the man with the broken thigh, and took the other two with them. We never found out what happened to them.

The sands were running out. Long months of unbalanced and insufficient diet and the lack of medical supplies were having their effect. Malaria, dysentery and tropical ulcers were rife, and all of us were becoming run down from the continuous nervous and physical strain. If you have never had tropical ulcers, you don't really appreciate your good fortune. They just eat straight down into your flesh, with straight sides like a well. If you have any iodine to pour into them you just let it go until you hear it hit the bottom. In hospital, with drugs and antiseptics they take ages to clear up. In the field, without medical care and with no way of keeping the filth out of them, they never heal.

Our position was fast becoming untenable. All our old hide-outs were known to the Japanese, and only the new ones were safe. Well, safe until the natives found them. We were hounded night and day. The Japanese had captured all radio sets but one, and over that we received our reprieve. Headquarters had at last decided to withdraw us. There was no sense in staying longer, as without radio transmitters and positions from which to watch the enemy's airstrips and ports we were tigers without teeth. And by this stage rather a sorry lot of tigers.

At last the great day came. We had all made our separate ways down the coast. In the night an American submarine surfaced, and sent in its canvas pinnace to take us off. We stepped gingerly on its iron deck, and climbed wearily down the iron ladder inside the conning tower. It was unreal as a dream. The interminable months had come to an end.

AS TOLD TO "SX2663"