CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Faith never thought for one moment that the night she had dinner with Major Turner at Lennon’s Hotel would be the start of something between them. At the time it had seemed more like a command performance than a dinner date, something her boss wanted to do as a token of his appreciation of her work and to help her get her mind off the tragedy of Dan on Guadalcanal. But it hadn’t stopped there.

A few days later he asked her out again. At first she politely refused, but he persisted, saying that they were just two people doing a difficult job in trying times and that a little rest and relaxation in congenial surroundings could do neither of them any harm. Faith had acquiesced, even surprising herself at how quickly the polished ex-public relations man from Cohoes, New York, had been able to change her mind.

That night they went to Lennon’s again. Like the first time they had been there, the elegant restaurant was crowded with uniformed American officers and their ladies. Faith noticed most of the officers were higher ranking than Lyle, but because of his position as liaison officer at headquarters, many of them knew him well. Some had taken a moment to socialize briefly on their way back to their tables from the dance floor. Many of the ladies present were officers in US Army nursing and medical units and more than a few of them had seemed to know Lyle and acknowledged him with a smile or a cursory glance. But none stopped to make conversation. Faith had smiled to herself. It was plain the charming Major Hunter had been making the rounds amongst the ladies.

After the second dinner date, Faith somehow fell into a routine of seeing Lyle Hunter on a regular basis. They went to concerts and movies occasionally and often went dining and dancing. She enjoyed his company and the attentiveness and thoughtfulness he always showed her made her feel very special. And she also appreciated the professionalism he showed at headquarters by never displaying any sign of familiarity or favoritism toward her during the working day. Faith’s relationship with Lyle Hunter made her feel safe and secure at a time when almost everyone she knew lived with the stress and anxiety of pondering the outcome of the war and the fate of their loved ones serving with the armed forces overseas.

Faith knew there was no chance of suffering the emotional upheaval she had experienced with Dan. As much as she liked Lyle she was sure she would never feel for him the way she had felt for Dan. Because of that she felt protected against being hurt again. And she was not being unfair to him because he had never asked her for anything more than companionship and a goodnight kiss, or ever indicated that his feelings for her were any stronger than her own for him. And anyway, she had told him from the start she wasn’t ready for a relationship which demanded any commitments.

Faith knew Gus Welenski didn’t approve of the relationship and she regretted that. Gus was such a nice man and she knew that he thought the major was just trying to hang one more scalp on his belt. But Gus was a bloke and that’s what any bloke would think about a sophisticated man like Lyle Hunter. Faith knew that was what her aunt and uncle thought too. Dick and Helen had met him on a couple of occasions when he’d driven her home late at night. She’d only asked him in once. It had been a little uncomfortable all around. After that she and Lyle had just sat outside for a few minutes in his staff car before he said goodnight and drove away.

Over time Faith was beginning to get over Dan. It was over six months since they’d held each other tightly in the rain on the runway at Archerfield the morning he went back to Iron Range. Now, she could go a whole day without her heart almost stopping when she thought of him. But it seemed one heartache was just replaced by another. There had been no word from Joe for months and the papers were still full of reports of bombing raids in the Top End. And if that wasn’t enough to worry about, Helen and Dick had learned from Mike’s last letter, after they deciphered his prearranged code designed to fool the army censor, that he expected his field medical unit near Wollongong would soon be shipped to New Guinea.

*

Joe’s anger knew no bounds when he heard of Weasel’s encounter with the crew of the Groote Eylandt Lady. When the patrol arrived back at Eagle’s Nest three days after the incident, the swelling to Weasel’s face had gone down considerably, but his broken nose, black eyes and cuts and bruises were still stark evidence of the vicious beating he’d taken. When Weasel told Joe later what the hanger-on in the bar had said about the Horans and the Japanese woman in Darwin, Joe was fit to be tied. In the weeks that followed, unable to do anything about the Horan brothers, Joe’s rage gradually gave way to a simmering frustration. But he found consolation in the fact that he now knew the croc-shooters’ names.

One morning in late March, a sail appeared on the horizon to the north. There was a light south-easterly blowing over the Gulf and everyone took turns looking through the post’s powerful telescope. Soon it was plain the boat was heading towards Eagle’s Nest, but forced to tack against the breeze, her progress was painfully slow. By midday they could see that the vessel was a small sloop. She bore no markings, but as she approached she ran up what looked to be a pennant. Joe squinted into the telescope. He laughed out loud when he saw it wasn’t a flag at all but an Army slouch hat. The supply boat with the relieving section had finally arrived.

The sloop came as close to the shore as her draught would allow, then two men rowed ashore in a dinghy through water as smooth as a mill pond. Joe grinned when he recognized one of the men as Sergeant Xavier Herbert.

‘Sod of a bloody place here by the look of it, Joe,’ Herbert snapped as he jumped from the dinghy. ‘Can the boat get into the mouth of the creek? We draw four feet.’

With the tide on the make, Joe said there was enough water and the second man rowed back to the sloop to tell the skipper. By dusk the vessel was unloaded and the new section had taken over. Joe wondered how long it would be before the smart, clean shaven replacements would look as rough and ragged as the men who were departing the next morning.

That evening, with all kinds of fresh supplies to choose from, Smokey cooked a slap-up meal for everyone, washed down with beer Sergeant Herbert had kept cool in the bilge of the sloop. Later, as the Nackeroos sat around the fire drinking, singing and straining to re-read the huge backlog of mail in the flickering firelight, Herbert produced a bottle and a tin of orange juice and he and Joe wandered off along the shore in the moonlight. When they came across a chunk of driftwood lying on the sand they sat down on it and Herbert uncorked the bottle, punched a hole in the juice can and pulled two tin mugs from his pocket.

‘I’ve never much fancied beer, Joe.’ Herbert poured two measures from the bottle into the mugs and added juice. He held one out to Joe. ‘Here, try this.’

Joe took a sip and gasped as the brew seared his throat. ‘What the hell is this, Sarge?’

Herbert grinned. ‘My bother David and I make it ourselves. We call it "white lady". Knocks your socks off, doesn’t it? It’s made from methylated spirits. We dilute it with water and boil it up with beef or pork fat to get rid of the metho taste. Add a little fruit juice and pleasant conversation and its just like having cocktails in the lounge bar at the Australia Hotel in Sydney.’

Joe laughed and took another swallow. After a while he told Herbert about the incident at Borroloola and the Horan brothers. When he’d finished he said. ‘That woman those bastards bragged about screwing to death in Darwin, it could only be one person. I knew her. Her name was Aki Hamada. She was the mother of my offsider on Faraway, Koko Hamada.'

Herbert turned to Joe in surprise. ‘Good God. You mean Aki Hamada. I knew her husband Hayato well. Before he died, I ran the pharmacy at the hospital, just a stone’s throw from their cottage on Myilly Point. Hayato and I used to sit in their flower garden, drinking saki and watching the pearling boats come and go. It was the best saki I ever tasted. Hayato brewed it himself.’ Herbert took a long swallow of white lady. ‘When you told the CO at Roper Bar about what happened to your boat, it never occurred to me that your shipmate might be Koko Hamada..’

‘You knew Koko, too?’

‘Just by sight. I saw him once or twice when he came home from being at sea. It must be your boat he was on. Poor bastard is in a POW camp now.’

‘A POW camp? Joe looked horrified. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I was at that Aboriginal Control Camp at Phelp River a couple of months ago. The one where you told me your Aboriginal crewman, Monday, was detained. I made enquiries like you asked me to. They told me Monday was working on a road gang. But the talk of the camp was the ‘Japanese spy’ they’d caught. You could have knocked me over with a feather when they said his name was Koko Hamada. I talked to the lieutenant that interviewed him. He said it was as plain as the nose on your face that Koko was a spy. He said he should have faced a firing squad, but he ended up in the Japanese concentration camp at Cowra in New South Wales.

‘The rotten bastard.’ Joe took a long swig from his tin mug. He stood up quickly, picked up a pebble from the sand and hurled it angrily at the sea. ‘Are all officers so bloody stupid and arrogant?’

‘Without exception,’ Herbert said bitterly. ‘And they’re treacherous bastards too. It turns out that when Major Stanner set up the Nackeroos, he and the top brass, including the Minister for the Army, decided we were expendable. The swine sent us up here to die just to help save the cozy little patch of Australia occupied by themselves and southern commercial interests.’

‘What do you mean by that, Sarge?

‘Last week General MacArthur dropped them all in the shit. His review of his first year in Australia was published in all the papers and reported on the radio. It seems even the Prime Minister can’t censor what the Supreme Allied Commander tells the media. The opposition are calling for a Royal Commission. MacArthur said when he arrived here from the Philippines, Curtin and the Australian Chiefs of Staff planned to let the Japanese occupy all of Australia above a line drawn between Brisbane and Adelaide. They called it the Brisbane Line. Of course, they didn’t bother to tell anyone who lived north of it. And they sent poor buggers like us up here so we could let them know exactly when their new neighbors arrived—before the bastards chopped our heads off, that is.’

Joe shook his head as he pondered what Herbert had said. ‘Do you really think Stanner thinks we’re all expendable?’ he asked after a few moments.

‘Of course he does. He’s just another military donkey. So is our Company Commander. And I told them both so, right to their faces, when Stanner came up to Roper Bar last week.’

‘You really said that to Major Stanner and the CO?’ Joe said incredulously. He sat back down on the log. ‘What happened then?’

‘Stanner told his aide to “get this bloody ratbag out of my sight”.’ Herbert topped up Joe’s mug. ‘So here I am. The CO sent me off with the supply boat next morning. Stanner will be safely back sipping pink gin in the Melbourne Club by the time we get back.’

Joe stared into the sand. ‘Why did you join the Nackeroos in the first place, Sarge?’ he asked after a moment. ‘You’re a famous writer and you must be a year or two over the age limit, anyway.’

Herbert shrugged. ‘I told you at Roper Bar, Joe. I just wanted to do my bit for Australia. And besides, my wife Sadie and I needed a steady income. Writers royalty payments are few and far between, you know. So it seemed like a good idea at the time I volunteered. But even in wartime it seems you can’t avoid the smug, born-to-rule hypocritical clods in the establishment. They just take leave of absence from their boring little jobs in the ‘professions’ or the civil-service, get commissions, then bring their autocratic tunnel-vision into the armed forces.’

Joe couldn’t help but smile at Herbert’s disdain for authority. ‘But you’re brother, David, is a commissioned officer, Sarge.’

‘Yes, but he’s a practical man like you, not a mindless, academic twit. He’s a master mariner, you know. That why he’s in charge of the Nackeroos’ fleet of little coastal vessels. For once the Army put a round peg in a round hole. He’s got eight boats now, but he says he could use double that many, especially now.’

‘Why, what’s happening?’

‘The word is there’s a large Japanese force massing in Timor. If they attack the Top End, the Army wants to make sure they don’t get any more help from fifth columnists. Now we’ve got RAAF Spitfire squadrons in Darwin and American bomber and fighter squadrons at Batchelor Field, most of the Japanese air raids come at night to avoid being intercepted. Lately, just before the raids, fifth columnists have been showing lights and lighting fires along the coast to guide the Japanese bombers to their targets. There plenty of traitors around. A lot of them are probably in small boats like your mates, the Horan brothers. They can disappear for months on end and hide in shallow water, in places where naval boats can’t get into. With the end of the wet, that force in Timor may strike at any moment. Stanner told David he wants as many Nackeroo boats as possible to patrol the coast to hunt for fifth columnists.’

Joe stood up again and slammed one fist hard into the other. ‘God I wish I had a bloody boat, Sarge. I know the Top End coast better than any man alive.’

‘That what I told David when he told me he was getting another boat. It’s an old ketch they brought up from Broome called the Walrus. David’s in Darwin now making sure she’s seaworthy and ready to go on patrol.’

‘Did you put my name up to your brother for that boat, Sarge?’ Joe asked urgently.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And what did he say?’

Herbert poured the last of the white lady into the tin mugs and smiled a rare smile. ‘I think congratulation are in order, Corporal. David said, after we get back to Roper Bar you were to report to the Walrus in Darwin as her new skipper. He says there’ll only be a crew of three including yourself. He said if there’s anyone special you want to take along, you can do so.’

‘Good.’ Joe grinned. ‘I’ll take Weasel.’

Herbert looked surprised. ‘Does he know anything about boats?’

‘About as much as he knows about horses.’

‘What about a third crewman?’

‘I’d like to take Monday. He’s knows boats well. What do you think?

‘Those bastards at the Aboriginal control camp will whinge about it. They treat the blacks like chattels. But I’ll tell the CO at Roper Bar that he’s indispensable to the Walrus and get him to authorize a release.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’ Joe drained the last of the liquid from his tin mug. ‘And what will happen to the rest of the section now I’ve got a boat?’

‘Well, Snow will stay here with the new section. Smokey and young Tasker will get transferred to another.’

‘And what’s going to happen to you Sarge, now you’ve got Major Stanner and the CO offside?’

‘I’ve already made an application for discharge. If I can’t get that, I’ll settle for a transfer. Joining up was a mistake. How I ever thought I could work with such insufferable clods as Army officers, I’ll never know. But the feeling’s mutual. I’m sure they’ll be quite glad to see me go.’

*

The distant chatter of machine gun fire had been getting closer and closer all morning. Now it was much louder and more frequent and often interspersed with the roar of exploding mortars and the thunder of tank guns. Only Colonel Toki and Dan were left in the grass hut. When it had become plain the Americans were mopping up the last of the isolated pockets of banished Japanese units on Mt Austen, Toki’s men had fled to higher ground taking the last of the food and morphine with them.

Since the supply of morphine had ended, the frequency of Dan’s malarial attacks had intensified. He had spent much of the time unconscious in the grip of fever during the American push westward across Guadalcanal but somehow he had managed not to let go of his tenuous hold on life. Now, little more than a filthy, naked skeleton, he lay on the floor, saturated with sweat and listening to the sounds of the advancing Americans and the endless transmissions crackling over Toki’s field radio.

The static on the radio ended abruptly and a moment later Dan sensed Colonel Toki’s presence beside him. The Americans were so close now he could hear the dull clanking of the steel tracks on the approaching tanks. Too weak to move his head, Dan rolled his eyes slowly toward the Colonel. He saw Toki was holding his sheathed samurai in his hand.

‘You have suffered much, Captain,’ Toki said softly. ‘But your strong will to live has carried you through. But has it been worth it? In minutes we shall both be dead. We will join the tens of thousands whose lives have already been snuffed out on this awful island. And thousands more will die yet. Since the battle for Guadalcanal has been won by the Americans, what remains of our forces are left with only one honorable option—death on the battlefield.’

Now the soldiers outside were so close their excited voices carried into the hut between the bursts of gunfire and above the rumble of the tanks.

‘Captain,’ Toki continued calmly, ‘you must tell me before I die. Did you ever fully understand the messages the Navajo code-talkers were transmitting?’

Dan knew death was near. It didn’t matter whether it was in seconds at the hands of Colonel Toki, or in minutes from the deadly hail of American bullets and grenades which he knew would soon annihilate the little hut and anything in it. ‘Yes, Colonel,’ Dan admitted. He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known almost from the very beginning.’

A burst of machine gun fire raked through the hut sending splinters of mud and grass flying everywhere. Another long burst hit the radio, blasting it into smithereens. Toki dropped to his knees but he was unhurt. He pulled his samurai from its scabbard.

‘You are a brave man,’ Toki whispered. ‘But are the Americans really worth your life, after all they’ve done to your Navajo people?’

‘Yes, they are.’

Dan closed his eyes and awaited the blade. Instead he heard a gush of air and a hoarse, gasp when Toki impaled himself on his sword. Dan opened his eyes just as another long burst of machine gun fire began. He watched the hut disintegrating in as the hail of bullets descending lower and lower down the sides of the hut as the soldiers outside tried to ensure nothing inside was left alive. The last projectiles passed no more than a foot above the floor of the hut and an inch above Dan’s face. Then he was horrified to see a hand grenade rolling towards him.