Just before midnight, all huts reported that
fires had been set beneath them and that the men were ready and
waiting for Yakimoto’s signal to breakout, a single long bugle
blast. Yakimoto sent word back that it would be sounded at exactly
2 a. m. when nearly all the enemy, including a good number of those
on duty, would be sleeping. His messengers also reminded everyone,
particularly the younger, more gung-ho prisoners who could hardly
wait for the bugle call, that they must not risk spoiling
everything by jumping the gun.
The bravado of the prisoners became more
subdued as the minutes ticked away toward two o’clock. During the
last minutes, most sat absolutely still in the darkness of their
huts. They sat on their beds clutching folded blankets and their
burgundy colored greatcoats which they were to drape over the
barbed wire fences to save their flesh from being torn open as they
scrambled to freedom. Some prayed. Some spoke to each other in low
tones about their parents, wives, or sweethearts at home in Japan.
Most sat silent, grim-faced and alone with their thoughts. Everyone
was afraid.
A few minutes before two o’clock, the
stillness of the clear winter night was shattered. One of the
prisoners had lost his nerve. He ran screaming at the top of his
voice across the compound toward a guard post trying to warn of the
impending escape. Two dozing guards at the post woke up quickly but
not understanding a word of Japanese and fearing for their lives
they shot the prisoner dead before he reached them. Immediately
searchlights came on around the perimeter fence.
Yakimoto gave the order to sound the bugle
and the compound came alive. The doors to the huts flew open, the
fires beneath them were lit and in seconds flames were shooting up
into the night sky. Inside the tinder dry wooden structures the
bodies of dozens of Japanese who had chosen to commit hara-kiri
before the bugle sounded were incinerated.
Koko was one of the first to race for
the fence. With his haversack strapped to his back, he ran full
pelt through the flames and choking smoke. He had never run so fast
in his life. As he hurtled along, the sea of burgundy-clad
prisoners surrounding him was suddenly transformed into a fierce
horde of samurai warriors screaming ‘
Banzai, Banzai
’ at the tops of their
voices.
At first, all Koko heard above the yelling
was the bark of a few sporadic rounds of rifle fire. Then the
gunfire became more intense as sirens sounded and the entire
garrison scrambled to contain the escapees with everything they
had. But even Bren gun fire ripping into the prisoners at point
blank range couldn’t halt the waves of Japanese going over the top
of the fence. So far the Vickers machine guns had remained
silent.
Suddenly Koko was at the fence. The high,
jagged barbed wire was already rendered almost harmless by layers
of blankets and greatcoats. With his heart pounding and his head
swimming, he flung himself at the wire and scrambled upward.
Three-quarters of the way up the twelve-foot high wire he was
knocked back to the ground by a stone-dead prisoner who crashed
down on him from above. Somehow, Koko struggled up the fence again
and this time reached the top. But then he froze, as eyes bulging
in horror, he took in the surreal scene below him.
Dead and wounded Japanese were lying
everywhere. Near the bottom of the fence, they were lying two and
three deep. He could see them clearly in the crimson glow of the
burning huts. The dead were silent and motionless. The wounded,
their progress reduced to a pathetic crawl, were screaming in agony
as they still tried desperately to claw their way through the dust
to the wire. As Koko watched, too terrified to move, more bloody
bullet-ridden bodies were dropping off the fence as the soldiers
shot them like ducks in a fairground shooting gallery. But as fast
as they fell, their places on the wire were taken by fresh waves of
advancing prisoners.
It was mass suicide. The warning screamed out
by the sole Japanese who had lost his nerve at the last moment had
robbed the prisoners of the vital element of surprise. Yakimoto’s
plans to seize weapons from the sleeping guards in the billets
outside the perimeter fence had been ruined. So too, was the plan
to use the weapons to mount an assault on the nearby Infantry
Training Centre. Now, armed with only the crudest of weapons,
sharpened garden tools, kitchen utensils and home made,
nail-studded baseball bats, it was every man for himself.
Koko heard the loud chatter of a machine gun.
The one under the guard tower had begun firing. Now the slaughter
became wholesale as entire waves of prisoners racing across the
compound were mown down. He looked out over the paddock to the
second machine gun. A group of pajama clad soldiers were
frantically racing towards it from the billets. Hard on their heels
and desperately trying to beat them to the gun were about twenty
Japanese. But the soldiers reached the gun first and trained the
barrel on their pursuers and opened fire. In little more than the
blinking of an eye all the Japanese lay dead on the ground.
Someone kicked Koko hard in the small of the
back and he fell from the fence and landed heavily on the ground
outside. Uninjured from the fall, he jumped up quickly and took off
across the paddock as fast as he could run, all the while expecting
to be shot down at any moment. He had travelled almost two hundred
yards and almost outrun the light from the blazing huts when he was
hit in the back with such force that he was thrown head over heels
onto the ground.
Certain he had been shot Koko, lay
where he fell for several moments before he even tried to move.
When at last he did he was surprised he felt no pain. He realized
at once what had happened. He had been hit, probably by a wayward
bullet. But the haversack on his back had deadened the force of the
projectile.
He got up and ran off again across the
fields until he was enveloped by darkness.
From time to time Koko saw the shadows of
more runners and heard others stumbling about in the darkness and
he realized that in spite of the terrible carnage at the camp, a
lot of prisoners must have made it over the fence. Some seemed to
be alone like himself. Some were in groups of a dozen or more. All
were heading for the open countryside, desperately trying to make
good their escape while the guards at the camp were too busy trying
to contain the breakout to pursue them. But Koko wasn’t heading for
the bush. He was running directly towards the twinkling lights of
Cowra. Now he was free it was time to implement his own carefully
laid plans.
Koko reached the edge of the little town in
less than twenty minutes from when the bugle had sounded. The
moonlit streets were deserted. He stopped and pulled a map from his
pocket which he had drawn up from his own observations and those of
other prisoners when they had passed through the town on their way
to the camp. The crude map showed the location of all main features
of the town. Koko struck a match and shielded the light with his
hands as he got his bearings and worked out the location of the
railway station, then put the map away and headed off at a cautious
trot.
Koko noticed more and more lights were coming
on behind the closed curtains of nearby houses. The gunfire from
the camp and the glow of the burning huts in the night sky was
gradually waking the townspeople. Koko was thankful no-one seemed
to be opening their doors. They obviously preferred to remain
securely locked inside their homes while the military looked after
the situation.
Outside the railway station, Koko read a
typewritten timetable pinned to the door of the station house. It
was Saturday, the fourth of August. A through train was leaving for
Sydney at 9.14 a.m. Koko ducked into the stockyard beside the
station and checked his map again. It showed that a darkened
building on the other side of the road was the local community
hall. He looked up and down the street. The coast was still clear.
He darted across the road and around to the back of the building.
He tried the back door. It was locked. A few yards away, about
seven feet off the ground, was a small opaque window beside a
drainpipe. The window was open a couple of inches. Koko swarmed up
the drainpipe and in less than a minute he had lowered himself down
into a toilet inside the hall.
*
The streets of Cowra which had been deserted
in the small hours of the morning, came alive with the dawn.
Suddenly there were anxious civilians, vigilant soldiers and
military vehicles going in all directions. From all the commotion,
it was plain there were still a lot of Japanese at large following
the overnight breakout. But when an immaculately dressed man
slipped out of the front door of the community hall and calmly
walked across the street to the railway station nobody paid any
attention to him at all.
Koko wore a well-tailored, dark pin-striped
suit in the style favored by businessmen in larger cities like
Sydney or Melbourne. Only one or two barely discernible creases
remained in the high quality material of the jacket and trousers
after being packed so tightly in the haversack. The suit was
complimented by a white shirt, a conservative grey necktie,
expensive black leather shoes and a felt hat. There was a deep
hollow in the heel of one of the shoes where earlier Koko had
removed a .303 rifle bullet while he was waiting for the dawn. When
being worn, the damage to the shoe was unnoticeable. What was
conspicuous though, was the thick white bandage wrapped around
Koko’s head which protruded below his felt hat and all but
completely covered up his telltale oriental eyes.
‘One way, first class to Sydney, please,’
Koko said when he stepped up to the ticket window.
The clerk looked up and smiled. The smile was
soon replaced by a frown. ‘Good Lord, sir. You haven’t been injured
in all the goings on with the bloody Japs this morning, have
you?’
A group of armed soldiers standing within
earshot turned around quickly to face the ticket wicket. Koko’s
heart pounded when through the small opening in the bandage over
his eyes he saw Sergeant Major Brownlee was among them. He drew a
deep breath. Now it was even more important he deliver his well
rehearsed lines believably and unfalteringly. Afraid the Sergeant
Major may recognize his natural voice, Koko decided to try and
sound just a little more articulate, more in keeping with the
banker’s clothing he was wearing.
‘Good heavens, no. I was driving into Cowra
yesterday from Bathhurst when a stone smashed my windscreen. I
caught a few glass splinters in the face, that’s all.’
The clerk shook his head sympathetically.
‘That will be one pound, sixteen shillings, sir.’ He tore off a
ticket from a roll on the counter and smiled. ‘Train’s on time this
morning, sir. It should be here in just a few minutes.’
Koko opened a leather wallet. It contained
more than fifty pounds. He drew out two one pound notes and handed
them to the clerk.
‘So you’re leaving your car here in Cowra,
are you sir?’ the clerk enquired as Koko picked up his ticket and
change.
‘Yes, my employer’s sending a man out from
Sydney to replace me. He’ll pick the car up after it’s repaired.’
Koko spoke loud enough for the soldiers to hear. ‘I’m afraid, I
can’t even see well enough to read, so I’m off home. I’m a bank
inspector with the Commercial Bank Of Sydney, you see.’
Koko’s performance must have been convincing
because as he walked from the ticket counter onto the platform,
Brownlee and the group of soldiers turned their attention away from
him to two truckloads of troops which pulled up outside the
station. Koko sat down on a platform bench and looked on as
Brownlee directed the soldiers to take up positions around the
station and ordering them to be on the lookout for anyone trying to
slip onto the train when it arrived.
Brownlee was pacing the platform when the
train pulled in. Koko stood up and moved to the edge of the
platform. When the train shuddered to a halt, he reached out
quickly to open a carriage door. His heart sank when Brownlee’s
hand closed on the door handle first. But the Sergeant Major just
nodded politely, swung the carriage door open wide and said:
‘There you go, sir. Have a good trip to
Sydney.’
*
‘Where to then, sir?’ the driver asked when
Koko climbed into a taxi outside Sydney’s Central Station. It was
already dark and there was a nip in the evening air.
‘I’ve never been to Sydney before,’ Koko said
truthfully. ‘I’ve just come for a few days to see an eye
specialist. Perhaps you could recommend a good hotel. Somewhere on
the harbor where I can breath the salt air and see the boats on the
water.’
The driver appraised his obviously
well-heeled fare through the rear vision mirror. ‘The best hotels
are only a few minutes from here, sir. But you won’t see much of
the harbor or any boats from Castlereagh Street.’
‘I don’t need a flash hotel,’ Koko said. ‘But
I’d like it to be close to the harbor and boats.’
‘There’s a pub over at Double Bay, sir. It’s
further out but it’s very respectable and it’s right on the water.
And they’ve just opened a fancy new boat mooring and clubhouse
there. They call it the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.’
‘That sounds like a good place. Take me
there.’
The Royal George Hotel in Double Bay was an
old but well maintained public house which catered to the middle
class in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. A sign outside said it offered
unobstructed harbor views and excellent cuisine at a reasonable
tariff. The receptionist looked at Koko dubiously when he said his
luggage had somehow vanished from the train on the way from
Melbourne. But she was more than happy to give him a good room with
a view when he opened his wallet and lodged ten pounds deposit
against his use of the hotel’s facilities.