Fear Drive My Feet (32 page)

About half past two light rain began to fall, and our carriers at once put down their
loads.

‘What's going on?' Les asked. ‘I hope we're not going to have an argument about wet
and dry pay at a time like this!'

We called to Pato to catch up with us: an argument, if there was to be one, would
have to be conducted through him. We pointed out what had happened, and he crossly
asked the old man to explain the delay.

The headman answered in about three words, and Pato turned to us with a smile.

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘They are just going to put their raincoats on!'

The Amyen men were rapidly undoing bundles which had been slung across their shoulders.
We were amused to see them donning curious tent-like coverings of laced pandanus-leaves,
which went over their heads and the upper parts of their bodies. As they moved off
again, they looked like a row of houses on legs, with high-pitched thatched roofs.

Half an hour later, about mid-afternoon, we reached a spot on the side of the ridge
where the carriers said we were to camp for the night. We guessed the altitude at
something like nine and a half thousand feet. There was a small cave here, which
was partly natural and had been partly hollowed out by the natives on their periodic
trading trips across the range. Apart from possum-hunts, these were the only occasions
when they went on the mountain. There was of course no permanent habitation higher
than Amyen, and we knew we would not find any villages until we got down to about
seven or eight thousand feet on the north side.

The carriers were to sleep in the cave, and since there was not enough flat ground
outside for even one man to stretch out, the police built one rough platform of boughs
for themselves on the slope above, and another for Les and me.

We badly wanted a drink, but though we could hear water rushing far underground,
beneath the rocks and
moss, all our attempts to discover a spring were in vain. The
carriers said there was no water, but several of them were subsequently seen drinking
from a bamboo receptacle, and after a good deal of persuasion they led us to a small
trickle which they had carefully covered with stones.

Enough firewood was found for the police and the carriers to have some sort of fire
all night, and to make a hot drink. We issued a pint of hot Marmite to all our own
boys, but when we offered it to the carriers only one or two accepted. Les and I,
wet through, crouched in our ground-sheets while we ate cold bully beef out of tins,
and spread with Marmite the ‘pancakes' Dinkila had made in Amyen. Then came a drink
of tea which Tauhu had contrived to brew. We cupped our hands round the mugs, holding
them close to our bodies to keep the rain out of the tea, and warming our frozen
fingers at the same time.

Darkness would soon be approaching, and Les and I erected our only shelter – half
a one-man tent – over the platform of boughs, and prepared our beds.

Before turning in we paid a visit to the cave where the carriers were housed. It
was almost underneath us, and Les referred to it as the basement.

The sight that met our eyes as we peered into the cavern mouth might have been a
scene from the Inferno. In the smoke-laden, stifling interior grotesque black figures
squatted round a fire, gobbling food. Occasionally, when the flames leapt up, unearthly
shadows danced on the walls, and eyes and teeth flashed through the dimness. The
carriers were all quite naked, having taken off their bark coverings to dry them.
When they noticed us looking in upon them the talking ceased, and with an air of
acute embarrassment they cupped their hands over their private parts to hide them
from us.

‘Shall we go in?' I asked.

‘We can try,' said Les. ‘It'll be a squeeze.'

They made way for us, and rather diffidently offered us pieces of charred sweet potato
to eat. As we had issued them with a packet of biscuits each, we did not feel it
would be putting them on short rations to accept, so we took the potato and nibbled
away as we squatted round the fire with them. The shyness soon wore off, and we carried
on a lively and friendly, though unintelligible, conversation which lasted some
twenty minutes. Then, feeling in danger of asphyxiation, we left them with expressions
of mutual esteem – also unintelligible – and stepped into the freezing air outside.

It was almost dark. We saw the police huddled together round their little fire –
this they somehow always managed to keep going throughout the night. There were no
complaints from them, and I could see by their determined faces that they had made
up their minds to stick it out until morning. As Kari squatted there with the others
I bent over his shoulder and murmured that he ought to place a guard over the carriers,
for if they should run away in the night we would have no hope of getting over the
range. He replied that he had thought of this, and that Constable Yaru had already
taken up his position in the bush near the mouth of the cave.

Les and I crawled into our own bed. We were wet, cold, not particularly well fed,
and yet it would be wrong to suppose we were miserable. Long ago we had developed
the stoicism in regard to little things that acted as a sort of filter for unpleasant
experiences. Putting wet and dirty clothes on again when one has become warm and
dry, for instance, is probably one of the most disagreeable of sensations, trivial
though it may seem. But we had developed a state of mind where the physical sensation
of such things did not register upon the consciousness, and so we were spared much
misery.

We put on all our spare clothes and wrapped our blankets round the two of us, but
we were so cold that we hardly slept at all, except in fitful dozes. Whenever one
of us moved, the freezing air rushed in under our coverings. Steady rain fell all
night, pattering onto the rough shelter and gradually finding its way in upon us.
About midnight there were two terrific hailstorms, and we hardly dared think how
the police and other boys must be suffering. Occasionally we heard them swear or
mutter as a hailstone registered a direct hit.

At the very first sign of light we were happy enough to get out of our cramped, uncomfortable
bed and prepared to resume the climb. I noticed ice on a billy of water, and hurried
over to see how the police had fared. Apart from being cold, and passing a few uncomplimentary
remarks about mountains, which really had no business to be as high as this, they
seemed well enough. Strangely, it was the carriers who reported casualties, comparatively
well protected though they had been. Five of them, through Pato, protested that they
were too ill to continue. To make sure they were not shamming illness I decided to
take their temperatures. It was only after much persuasion and explanation from Pato
that they would consent to this indignity, and, even then, one of them showed a distinct
desire to bite the end off the thermometer. To prevent this I kept a finger between
his teeth while the mercury registered, which caused Pato great anxiety. He stood
nervously by, afraid that the kanaka would bite my finger too. The temperatures of
all five men were high, and there was no doubt that they were ill. We would just
have to leave them behind in the cave and hope that they would recover sufficiently
to be able to make their way back to Amyen.

With five carriers ill we were forced to abandon nearly one-third of our gear. We
were already carrying
heavy packs ourselves, a thing which white men find difficult
in New Guinea even under the best conditions. Up on these mountains they were almost
the end of us. They chafed and cut, made our backs ache, and several times nearly
caused us to overbalance down a precipice. We put on our best boots and threw the
others away, and abandoned most of our food. The wireless and the trade goods were
the most important things to keep – the trade goods to buy native foods (and native
co-operation) and the wireless to send messages to Port Moresby.

We were on the track again shortly after six o'clock. No more depressing sight can
be imagined than this moss forest in the half-light. Damp, green, dim, unreal, it
made the journey like a combination of a bad nightmare and a scene from one of Grimm's
fairy-tales.

I shall never understand why the natives, with their unprotected feet, did not suffer
more. It is true that Watute stumbled on a broken branch hidden in the moss, and
a sharp sliver of wood passed right through his foot, but though the injury proved
troublesome later, the foot was so cold at the time that he felt hardly any pain,
and there was very little bleeding.

As we pushed onwards the track became increasingly vague and faint, but there was
no fear of losing the way, for travel in any direction except along the top of the
ridge was impossible.

At ten o'clock, at an estimated height of ten and a half thousand feet, the moss
forest ceased abruptly, giving place to a growth of short prickly grass, and small
shrubs about two feet high. We felt freer and less oppressed. There was a little pale,
weak sunlight, which seemed to warm us and lift our spirits. Far below, spread out
like a map, was the Wain and the Naba country and, beyond, the flat country of the
Markham. Lae and Salamaua were both
visible, and a huge stretch of coastline which
we imagined must extend as far as Buna. Smoke was rising from the gardens of the
Naba, where men were clearing the bush. Down below us, infinitely remote, natives
were working, white men and yellow men were fighting, people were being born and
people were dying. But these mountains seemed to put the momentous battles and affairs
of mortals into another perspective: it seemed as if they did not matter at all,
and as the clouds blocked out our view we felt that other people and other lives
were little more than an unsubstantial memory.

We still had several thousand feet to climb, and we set ourselves to do so before
midday. We soon saw why the natives had brought their vine ropes. Bare rock-faces,
smooth and polished by the water that had trickled over them for countless ages,
blocked our way every half-mile or so. To walk round them was like walking round
the side of a brick wall. To enable us to negotiate them, not once but many times
a native crawled round to the other side, and the others tossed lengths of vine over
to him, to be made fast to rocks, or, when convenient rocks could not be found, to
himself. Then, hardly daring to breathe, we crept over, feet on one rope and hands
gripping the other. When we got there we always found ourselves sweating profusely,
with a pain in the chest from tensed muscles and constricted breathing.

The top of the range was a semi-plateau some six or eight miles wide, a scene of
utter desolation. A howling wind, with nothing to break its force, lashed us pitilessly
as we struggled forward. The great limestone outcrops seemed like bones poking through
the crust of the earth. When not struggling across the treacherous face of the range
we were plodding painfully through a black, sodden bog of spongy earth that sucked
at our feet as though it
would pull us down for ever. Walking, instead of being a
natural rhythmic movement, became a matter of individual footsteps. Every time we
lifted our feet we wondered if we had the strength, or the desire, to put them forward
once more. Once – but only once – we made the near-fatal error of sitting down for
a rest. Intense lassitude caused by lack of oxygen in the atmosphere overcame us,
and we wanted to sleep. As soon as we realized what was happening we forced our protesting
legs to resume our weight, and stood up for the remainder of our brief spell.

Headaches, faintness, giddiness, and attacks of nose-bleeding plagued us all. Then
the carriers started to give trouble, and we caught some of them trying to throw
their loads down and run away. The vigilant eye of Kari spotted the move, and he at
once halted the line, made them walk closer together, and ordered the police to keep
them hemmed in so that escape was impossible. But he was no slave-driver, and understood
that the carriers were really distressed with their heavy loads in this frightful
country. In spite of his own heavy pack, rifle, and ammunition, he moved in among
the cargo and, one by one, gave each carrier a spell for half a mile or so, shouldering
their loads himself.

I pointed this out to Les. He had no words to express his feelings, but we both looked
at Kari and marvelled as he ran from one end of the line to the other, bullying here,
coaxing there, and sparing no one less than himself.

‘If we ever arrive wherever it is we're going,' I said, ‘the credit will be due to
Kari more than to us.'

Les nodded. ‘Whenever I look at that man, I feel that though we give the orders, in
his strange stolid way Kari is the real guts of this outfit.'

Another thought was constantly in my mind as the afternoon advanced: it struck me
how little we knew of
what lay on the other side of the range. We knew neither where
we would come out nor the name of the first village we would find. For all we knew,
the Japanese might be waiting in force for us, and all we would earn, at the price
of the endeavour of this nightmare journey, would be a miserable and lonely death,
which we might have found more easily by staying in the Wain. To me the irony of
making such an effort only to meet the fate one was trying to escape from was overwhelming.
I tried to tell Les what was in my mind.

‘It's been gnawing at me a bit too,' he confessed. ‘I know it's no use fooling ourselves
about what we may find here; but, all the same, I think we ought to try and put those
ideas aside until the worst does happen.'

‘You're right, of course, Les. We might take a leaf from Kari's book again. He's
so intelligent that he must have thought of that horrible possibility, but he's coping
with the minute-to-minute problems and not worrying about what can't be altered.'