‘McDougal gave up all pretext of being
mystified. ‘So what? She’s a stenographer and we needed one
badly.’
‘
You should have put in your request to the
labor exchange like anyone else. I don’t think I have to remind you
that the exemption from civilian and military conscription the
Waterside Workers’ Federation members enjoy does not extend to the
union’s office employees.’ Little stood up to leave. ‘You will
dismiss the Brodie girl immediately, McDougal, and send her down to
the labor exchange.’
‘Oh, come on you blokes,’ McDougal’s tone
became conciliatory. ‘We really do need an extra stenographer here.
We’ve had so much work on the wharves and we’ve never had so many
members.’
‘We’re well aware of that,’ Little snapped as
he made for the door. ‘About twice as many as you need for the
tonnage you unload, according to our calculations. But it still
seems there’s always a chronic shortage of wharfies when there’s a
big horserace going on at the Doomben track, or it’s raining cats
and dogs on the docks.’
McDougal let the dig slide. ‘There must be
something that can be done to resolve this matter.’
‘
Yes there is. If that woman isn’t down at
the labor exchange within one hour, we’ll be charging her under the
Act. And I’ll personally go to the newspapers and give them all the
details of this chronic case of nepotism. I can imagine the field
day the
Courier Mail
will have. The public have had it up to the teeth with the
wharfies thinking they are a law unto themselves, you
know.’
*
There were few comforts at the Nackeroo
headquarters. It was just a cluster of huts and tents stuck out in
the bush on a large tract of land near Ingleburn. Joe slept on a
straw-filled mattress in a tent he shared with five other soldiers
and hundreds of flies. There were showers, but no hot water. Khaki
colored thunderboxes served as toilets. But it seemed there was no
shortage of volunteers willing to join the Nackeroos and put up
with a few hardships to do their bit for Australia. Men arrived
daily from every state and territory in the Commonwealth. When the
entire unit of around five hundred men were assembled, training
which was to last over two months began in earnest.
The recruits were instructed in the use of
weapons and equipment which many had never used before. Besides the
standard .303 service rifles and hand grenades, the Nackeroos were
instructed in the use of small, hand-held, Thompson machine guns
for guerrilla warfare, 12 gauge shotguns, .22 caliber rifles and
even fishing lines and hooks, to assist them to live off the
land.
Every second day they endured long route
marches and were often left out in the middle of nowhere to find
their own way back to camp in exercises designed to test their
sense of direction and map-reading skills. Those with practical
survival experience in remote areas were asked to share their
knowledge, and academics gave lectures on how the flora and fauna
in the Top End could be used to keep soldiers alive for long
periods of time should their supply lines be broken. The Nackeroos
were told that when they arrived in the Top End, Aborigines would
be attached to every patrol to act as guides and trackers.
Every man was given some training in radio
communications and many, including Joe, who showed special aptitude
as signalers, were sent on an intensive course at the Marconi
School of Wireless in Sydney to fine tune their potential as radio
operators. Particular attention was paid to Morse code wireless
telegraphy, as coded signals could be sent over much greater
distances than radio voice telephony.
The ability to ride and handle horses
expertly was not deemed to be absolutely critical. But when it was
discovered that many of the volunteers didn’t know one end of a
horse from another, everyone had to acquire at least the basic
rudiments of horsemanship. The farrier in charge of horsemanship
training said that by the time they left Ingleburn, even the likes
of Joe Brodie and Weasel Watkins would be able to saddle and ride a
horse.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
During the weeks after the Battle of the
Coral Sea, the American and Australian chiefs of staff tried to
guess the next move of the Emperor’s war machine. After the enemy’s
stunning success at Pearl
Harbor, in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific, the Allies
knew he would not be deterred by a temporary setback at Coral Sea.
It was certain another major offensive would be launched at any
moment. But no-one knew where.
One view was that the Japanese would
consolidate their positions in the territories they had already won
by digging in and preparing to defend them. Another was that with
the American surrender in the Philippines, it was now even more
vital that Australia be held to provide the base for an eventual
Allied offensive against Japan. And with the return of much of the
AIF, and the ever-increasing build-up of US troops strengthening
Australia’s position, many thought a full-scale Japanese invasion
was imminent.
The last enemy option the Allies considered
was that the Japanese, buoyed by their string of victories and the
seemingly invincibility of their forces, might decide to press even
further across the Pacific, sending its combined fleet and ground
forces to attack and occupy territories in the Central and North
Pacific, totally isolating Australia and containing the Americans
closer to home while preparing to invade the US mainland
itself.
The huge resources of US Naval
Intelligence and the small but highly effective Australian Coast
Watcher organization worked around the clock intercepting and
trying to decode the steady flow of signals transmitted from the
Japanese combined fleet and from enemy ground forces in the
territories they occupied in the Pacific.
A breakthrough came when an intelligence team
in Hawaii partially decoded Japanese naval signals which indicated
the Japanese were to launch an attack on the US garrison at Midway
Island, seven hundred miles north-west of Honolulu. To camouflage
the massive invasion force, the code-breakers learned the enemy
would stage a diversionary attack on the Aleutians, the string of
volcanic islands extending over a thousands miles into the northern
Pacific from the Alaskan Peninsula.
The Japanese strategy was based on the
assumption that an attack on Midway would bring the real prizes of
the US Pacific fleet, the elusive American heavy aircraft carriers,
which had been absent from Hawaii at the time of the Pearl Harbor
raid. They would rush to the defense of Midway after first being
tricked into steaming north to defend the American naval base at
Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. When they arrived, the aircraft
carriers, battleships and cruisers of the combined fleet would be
waiting to pounce on them and finish off what they had started at
Pearl Harbor.
As it turned out, it was the American
heavy carriers which lay in wait for the combined fleet. With
Midway’s air defenses still intact, land-based and carrier-based
aircraft and submarines exacted a terrible and bloody toll on the
Japanese, sinking four irreplaceable heavy aircraft carriers, four
heavy cruisers and hundreds of aircraft with an enormous loss of
life. For the first time in the war, Imperial Japan suffered a
crushing defeat.
The news from Midway greatly heartened
General MacArthur. Coming only weeks after Coral Sea, it meant he
had gained even more desperately needed time to organize, equip and
train the swelling numbers of Allied forces in Australia. A few
days after Midway he addressed the War Advisory Council, a select
group of government and opposition members of Parliament and
military chiefs including General Blamey. MacArthur said that he
believed the risk of a full-scale invasion of Australia had been
eased and that Allied plans for an offensive against the enemy were
nearing completion. He told the council that capturing the Japanese
fortress and supply base at Rabaul in New Britain was the key to an
Allied advance across the Pacific to Japan and that it had been
decided to take a step-by-step approach to the enemy stronghold
through the Solomons, Papua and New Guinea.
The plan called for the deployment of US
army engineers and thousands of black American soldiers to build
new airfields along the entire Queensland coast, and the expansion
of all existing RAAF airfields, including those at Port Moresby and
Milne Bay in Papua. MacArthur also announced that he and General
Blamey had decided to send additional Australian Militia troops to
Port Moresby and Milne Bay. When asked why raw untried Militia
recruits rather than the battle-hardened AIF, were being sent to
Papua General Blamey said that recently arrived Imperial Force
soldiers needed time to acclimatize in Australia after so long in
North Africa.
Before the meeting adjourned, Prime
Minister John Curtin committed the services of the Civil
Construction Corps, a recently formed organization, made up of
mainly middle-aged conscripted laborers and tradesmen, to assist
with airfield work and any other construction the military deemed
fit.
*
It was late afternoon and Dan was on the
telephone in his office in the aircraft assembly hangar at
Archerfield when an Air Corps major stuck his head in the door.
Dan put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I’ll
just be a moment, sir.’
The major stepped inside the office. It was
so cramped there was barely room for the small chair across the
desk from Dan’s. The major’s face twitched impatiently. Dan put the
telephone down and stood up.
‘I’ll call them back, sir. I’m trying to
track down some shipments. Trouble is, everything has to be in
triplicate around here.’ Dan gestured around the poky little
office. ‘Look at all this. Everything get so bogged down. When I
try and speed things up on the phone everybody always puts me on
hold. Half my time is spent waiting on other people.’
‘Not any more, Captain—at least not around
here. You’ve been reassigned.’
‘Where to, sir?’
‘It seems MacArthur and his paper-shufflers
down in Melbourne want more officers with engineering backgrounds
to head north. You’re one of them.’
‘To set up another crated aircraft assembly
unit?’
‘Crated aircraft are en route direct to RAAF
station at Garbutt in Townsville and an assembly facility is under
construction there, but you’ve been earmarked for construction work
on airfields in remote locations. Your orders are to report to
Garbutt in Townsville for briefings. Your flight leaves at six
hundred hours tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow, sir?’ Dan glanced around the tiny
room. ‘What about this lot?’
‘Just leave it, Captain. Your replacement
will look after it. You’d best spend what time you’ve got getting
your gear together and checking out of your quarters.’
*
Dan drove away from Archerfield in a jeep
heading for the Chardons Corner Hotel in the nearby suburb of
Rocklea where he was billeted. It was just beginning to get dark
and he was leaving the assembly hangar earlier than usual. Normally
he preferred to work late, rather than just spend the time hanging
around the hotel.
As he drove through an industrial area of
Rocklea, workers were changing shifts at small factories lining the
side of the road. At the end of the street he pulled up at a stop
sign and sat strumming his fingers on the wheel, idly appraising a
group of female factory workers clustered around a tram stop. All
were wearing drab dungarees and skull caps. When Dan realized one
of the girls looked somehow familiar, he leaned forward to get a
better look. In the half-light he couldn’t see her face clearly but
there was something he recognized about her long fair hair and the
way she stood. When a tram drew up behind the jeep the crowd of
workers surged forward. Suddenly the girl was just an arm’s length
away. As she passed she turned her head and looked directly at him.
He recognized Faith at once.
‘Faith Brodie.’
She was startled for a moment and stopped in
her tracks. Then her face broke into a wide natural smile. ‘Captain
Rivers. What on earth are you doing in Brisbane?’
‘I got posted here. How about you?’
‘It’s a long story. I…’
Faith’s answer was drowned out by a long loud
clanging from the tram’s bell. The intersection was now clear and
the jeep was blocking the way.
‘Hop in,’ Dan said quickly. ‘I’ll drive
you.’
Faith hurried around the front of the jeep
and jumped in.
‘Where are you headed?’ Dan asked as he
pulled away.
‘To New Farm. Its on the other side of
town.’
‘I know where it is. It’s towards the docks.’
Dan briefly glanced at Faith. She perfectly fitted the image that
had crossed his mind so often in recent weeks. ‘How’s Joe?’
‘That’s another long story, Captain Rivers.
He’s…’
‘I asked you in Darwin to call me Dan’
Faith smiled. ‘Joe and I got separated in the
Top End, Dan. We know he’s in the Army but we don’t know exactly
where.’
‘Who’s we? Dan asked. ‘Joe said you were the
only family he had.’
‘I’m staying with an aunt and uncle. I work
at that factory back there. What are you doing now?’
‘I’ve been running an aircraft assembly
unit.’
‘Aren’t you flying anymore?’
Dan shook his head. ‘I’ve been flying a desk
since Darwin. There’s no shortage of pilots these days, just a
shortage of aircraft and airfields. I got assigned to construction
work today. I leave for Townsville tomorrow morning.’
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know. From what they told me today,
I’ll be working all over the north.’