Fear Drive My Feet (38 page)

One of my new police-boys told me the story of how Harry was supposed to have died.
He was in a village called Ofofragen, near Kaiapit, and the natives had assured him
that there were no Japanese about. Then they betrayed him to the very same band of
Japs who had so nearly caught Watute and Pato near Boana a few days earlier. He was
shaving, and in the mirror caught a glimpse of the enemy advancing on the house.
According to this boy they shot Harry down as he made a grab for his Owen gun. He
had always said that the Japanese would never take him alive.

At Tsilitsili (pronounced, by the way, ‘silly-silly') I found a mushroom metropolis.
Where a week ago had been a sleepy native village, a tent town straggled through
the fringes of the jungle, inhabited by American troops and airmen, both white and
negro, Australian soldiers and airmen, Papuan infantrymen, native policemen, carriers,
and labourers. On the rough earth airstrip, hastily cleared, DC-3 transports roared
in and out, unloading troops, stores, and construction equipment. A major operational
base had sprung from the earth just at the back door of Lae, the enemy's main stronghold.

By lamplight in their tent that night I met the local Australian and American commanders
and discussed the details of my assignment. They were acutely conscious of the danger
from that exposed twenty-mile stretch of the Markham, but were sceptical about its
chances of being effectively patrolled by one white man and a few natives.

I told them it was my intention, if at all possible, to use the inhabitants of the
villages as additional scouts, and by that means develop a fairly efficient watching
system, to
warn them of any attack. It was agreed that I should set out next day,
and I was immediately supplied with an abundance of stores and enough carriers to
transport them.

An American officer of engineers spoke for the first time just as I was about to
leave the tent.

‘I was wondering,' he began diffidently, in a soft, drawling voice, ‘if you'd have
me along on this trip? Must be kinda lonesome on your own.'

He was about thirty, with red hair, and a face brick-red from sunburn. Blue eyes
smiled a little nervously from behind gold rimless glasses.

‘My name's Tex Frazier, and I come from Texas,' he went on. ‘I'm kinda interested
in maybe putting some airstrips up that Markham River. I guess I'll see I don't get
in your hair too much.'

I usually preferred to patrol alone, but I had been sick a great deal from fever,
and weak from the hook-worms which had invaded my system during the barefoot patrolling
of earlier months. It would be an advantage to have someone along, and he had such
a frank, engaging presence that I agreed at once, and we arranged to leave before
first light next morning.

X

I HAD PICKED
the village of Amamai for our headquarters. It took us four days to
get there, of which two were spent on the banks of the Wafa River waiting for its
floodwaters to subside so that we could cross.

Pato distinguished himself during those two days. He made a fishhook out of the brass
clip that held the Rising Sun badge in my hat, a fishing-line from odd bits of twine,
split a log open for grubs for bait, and in less than half an hour had landed a monster
cod from the muddy waters of the Wafa.

A large part of the walk to Amamai was through dense sago-swamp. We squelched through
it as cautiously as we could, scouts out ahead, for no one knew whether the Japanese
were there or not. In the early stages I had great trouble with Tex. When silently
reconnoitring a stretch of track he would suddenly think himself back in the Lone
Star State and burst loudly into a spirited version of a Moody and Sankey hymn. He
found it so hard to stop this that I detailed a policeman to walk nearby and silence
any outburst before it gave us away.

By the end of the second day Tex had mastered the need for silence. That night, over
our meal, he said sheepishly, ‘By golly, it sure must have given you the shivers
when I lifted up my voice a mite too high! But I'm all well controlled now.'

The people at Amamai were friendly. Most of the able-bodied men had been taken away
by Harry Lumb to work as carriers on our supply lines. But the older men, and the
women and children, built me a house on a knoll from which, with binoculars, I could
sweep a vast extent of the Markham Valley, on both sides of the river.

Tex and I quickly patrolled every village for several days' walk around, distributing
trade goods to establish ourselves in favour. The people were all fairly friendly,
but wary. They knew the Japanese were just across the river; sometimes they saw parties
of them on the opposite bank; sometimes the enemy sent natives across, seeking information.

I sent a police-boy back to Tsilitsili with a report on the situation, and Tex and
I continued our patrolling.

During one of our walks Tex was unusually silent for a long period. When we sat down
in a little village to drink coconut milk he told me what he had been pondering.

‘This is the way I figure it, Peter,' he began. ‘If we have to keep sending messages
back by police-boy, it'll take him two or three days to get there, and another two
or three days to get back – maybe six days he's missing. Now, if we have to send
a lot of messages, we're mighty quick going to run clean out of police-boys. Yes,
sir! What we need is an airplane.'

‘Sure, we need one. But where will we get it?'

‘People find it mighty hard to refuse a Texan when he's real set on something,' Tex
drawled with deadly seriousness.

Next morning, with the aid of every man, woman, and child in Amamai, he set to work
on an airstrip.

‘Just a little one for a start,' he said. ‘Enough to put a Piper Cub down on. If
we want heavy aircraft later, we'll extend our strip.'

I could hardly believe he was serious, but he assured me that he was.

The following day, patrolling by the Markham, we pounced on a native who was doing
his best to slip away from us into the river. He did not belong to any local village,
and the police frog-marched him up to the house for interrogation. It was here that
I missed Watute. In half the time, and with twice the accuracy, he would have uncovered
the information for which I now had to work all day and night.

I got out of the man that he was a native of Orori village, across the Markham, and
had been sent to spy by the Japs. He told me that a strong force of the enemy was
starting to move forward from Madang, through Marawasa, to Kaiapit, and perhaps
on to Lae. Some of the enemy patrols Les Howlett and I had encountered were partly
engaged in surveying a route for this movement.

This was information of first-rate importance, for, as it turned out, the Japanese
formation the native referred to was a strong group commanded by General Nakai, with
which the Australians were to fight heavy battles in the months to come.

I wrote down what the man told me, and sent a report back to Tsilitsili with a police-boy. Tex
went with him.

‘This is the last time either you or I walk through that terrible messy swamp,' he
said. ‘When I come back, I'll be flying. You keep that airstrip clear!'

I was still doubtful, but I had grown so fond of Tex that I begged him to return,
by whatever means he could.

Two days after he had gone we saw an American fighter aircraft limping back from
an attack on Madang or Wewak. It was on fire, and crashed some miles away across
the Markham. We saw the pilot jump and float down on his parachute, but we could
not find him. Then, when we had almost given him up, two natives helped him into
the camp, dirty, cut about, ragged, and exhausted.

We fed him and cleaned him up, and he told us about his struggles through the rivers
and swamps.

‘I never knew there was bears in this country,' he remarked.

When I told him that the bear tracks he described were in fact crocodile marks, he
nearly passed out.

‘Oh goddam!' he muttered. ‘And to think I swam that river in three places!'

He stayed with me for a few days in the hope that Tex would come in with a plane.
One morning at breakfast he held up his hand excitedly. ‘Listen! That's a Piper Cub!'

The noise sounded more like a motorbike than an aeroplane but I rushed down to the
little strip and set fire to a pile of dry grass. The smoke would give the pilot the
wind direction, if it should turn out to be Tex.

Just at treetop height the little plane soared over and circled the camp. Tex's red
face beamed down on us as he waved. Then – a perfect landing on the strip.

Tex grinned as he and the pilot stepped out.

‘Plane's at our disposal,' he said proudly. ‘I had quite a struggle to get it – had
to go over to Port Moresby in the end. It'll be kept at Tsilitsili, and come out
here every day or so.'

The Cub pilot and the fighter pilot were discussing the length of the strip. They
didn't fancy their chances of a safe takeoff. They wanted it made longer for future
flights, but told us what to do to help them off the ground on this occasion.

With the help of all the Amamai people we fastened strong vine ropes to the tail
of the Cub, and then the two Americans climbed in. The pilot revved his engine as
hard
as he could, and while the tail of the plane lifted and bucked we held it back
grimly with the ropes. Then, at a signal from the pilot, we let go, and the little
craft shot forward and into the air, almost as if it had been catapulted.

‘Well, I guess that's one way of getting that machine off the ground,' said Tex. ‘But
we better lengthen that strip and cut down that line of trees at the end.'

The days passed pleasantly enough. Tex moved to and fro, and extended the drome so
that we even had visits from DC-3 planes. Troops moved up – native infantry, and then
Australians. They were followed by an American radar unit. All this relieved me of
the necessity for patrolling, and I concentrated on collecting native intelligence
among the villages, which sometimes yielded information of value from across the
river.

Most of the walking was over flat country, but my health was getting worse, with
bouts of fever every few days. I could cover only short distances at a time, and
had to rely more and more on the police.

One day, after a few days' absence, Tex flew in and casually handed me a parcel.

‘Many happy returns of the other day,' he drawled. ‘Just seen your folks in Melbourne,
and they said it was your birthday.'

My twentieth birthday had passed the same way as my nineteenth – in the bush and
forgotten. But Tex, in the nonchalant way I was now accustomed to, had drifted the
several thousand miles down to Melbourne, just for the day, and had called on my
family. I had not seen them for nearly two years.

When we heard the news of the fall of Salamaua we issued double rations all round
and turned on a party for the local kanakas.

Then the assault on Lae began. Downriver we could hear the bombardment.

A few days later a R.A.A.F. Moth plane landed on the strip. We ran down and the pilot
handed me a letter.

‘Hurry,' he said. ‘You're wanted pronto down near Lae.'

He would not even turn his engine off, and I had only time to get personal gear,
climb into the passenger's cockpit, and we were in the air.

We landed at Nadzab, a few miles up the river from Lae. I had known the place in
the early days of the war when, with Bill Chaffey and others of the 5th Independent
Company, I had slunk furtively round its hot grass plain looking for Japanese. Now,
from a parachute landing a few days earlier, it had grown to a mighty base, bigger
than Tsilitsili. From it the assault on Lae was even now approaching success.

I was rushed at once to headquarters for consultations on the various tracks through
the Wain and Naba, paths to Boana and Bungalamba, over the Saruwageds, and also up
the Leron.

Lae was found nearly empty when our forces stormed the place. Many Japanese had been
drawn off to reinforce Salamaua, and the others had made good use of their prepared
escape-routes through the mountains. This was final proof that Watute and Pato had
correctly interpreted enemy activity in the Wain. Yet, in spite of the information
Les and I had sent from Orin, on 9th June 1943, New Guinea Force had said:

In spite of recent native rumours, there seems to be no good reason, tactical or
otherwise, why the Japanese should try to open up a track across the Saruwaged or
Finisterre ranges, which are over 11,000 feet high!
*

It was not until 15th September that Lieutenant-General Herring said in a signal
to Major-Generals Wootten and Vasey:

Indications support your view that enemy may be aiming
to withdraw northward from
Lae to Sio by routes leading through Musom and Boana.
*

Now, if only Jock and I had been equipped with radio and allowed to remain without
interruption in the mountains, we could have been of some use, pinpointing for our
forces every move the enemy made. As it was, our troops, unfamiliar with the fantastic
terrain, had to chase and harry the retreating enemy as best they could manage.

The next day I wandered round among our troops as Lae finally fell to us after nearly
two years in enemy hands.

Australians were doing a brisk trade in counterfeit Japanese flags, made by painting
a bright red disc on a piece of parachute silk. Some copied characters from Chinese
Epsom-salt bottles, and we frequently saw an American proudly displaying his ‘Japanese'
flag, which bore the words, had he known it, ‘Two teaspoonfuls in warm water, followed
by a cup of warm tea.'

The next step was at hand in our rapidly developing campaign to push the Japs right
out of New Guinea. Kaiapit was our objective. It was to be taken and held, as one
move forward on the important coastal town of Madang, which for long had been in
Japanese hands. It was also intended to deny Kaiapit to General Nakai, in case he
sought to use it as a base for a counter-attack on Lae.