Fear Drive My Feet

                                   PETER RYAN

                                    Foreword

   THIS epic story deals with the exertions and suffering of a young soldier
   undertaking patrol missions on the Huon Peninsula of northern New Guinea
   during the Second World War.

   Hunted by an implacable army, scattered patrol groups reconnoitred for
   Kanga Force - which was made up of members of the New Guinea Volunteer
   Rifles and a small number of Australian soldiers. They ranged across the
   harsh jungle, soaring mountains and torrential rivers around
   Japanese-occupied Lae, their main task intelligence-gathering and the
   maintenance of morale and co-operation among the inhabitants of the remote
   villages. Other than the use of human couriers, which invariably meant
   days of foot-slogging, communications were mostly limited to wireless sets
   that were prone to damage or breakdown.

   In this lonely task the eighteen-year-old sergeant-major was utterly
   dependent upon the native New Guineans, who acted as guides, interpreters
   and personal servants. Understandably, their reliability and loyalty were
   variable, but the hard core of Peter Ryan's party - Karl, Watute, Pato and
   Dinkila - were men of outstanding devotion and fortitude. In conditions
   ranging from oppressive heat to freezing cold, frequently attended by the
   grey desolation of rain, shelter for these men at best consisted of crude
   huts with a primitive hammock-style bed. There was the torment of
   mosquitoes, leeches, lice and fleas. Hookworm, enteric disease, skin
   wounds and eruptions, and malarial fever were inescapable.

   Following his evacuation to Port Moresby in a wretched physical state,
   Ryan found the attitudes of authorities at the base smug and intolerable,
   and he embraced an early return to lonely outpost work. Ordered to
   evacuate the Country owing to greatly increased Japanese harassment, his
   party was forced into a desperate crossing of the Saruwaged Range at an
   altitude of some 13,000 feet, under conditions of terrible suffering.

   Bootless and in rags they marched into ever-increasing danger with
   ever-diminishing resources. Ryan eventually reached bast in appalling
   physical condition, his body imbedded with thorns and retaining little
   skin on his legs above his swollen feet. He was greeted with indignant
   admonishment for having lost his paybook!

   Fear Drive My Feet is a moving account of a young man's lonely heroism in
   the face of great adversity. It also pays tribute to those gallant,
   ill-rewarded men of New Guinea, without whose devotion such missions were
   impossible. Those who experienced the wear and tear of service in remote
   jungle regions with the inevitable toll of chronic exhaustion, disease and
   injury will appreciate the special contribution of these men. This story
   recalls that memorable phrase of Rudyard Kipling:

   The lone hand and the rifle that win where armies fail.

   E. E. Dunlop



   "And in the Military Service, there is a busy kind of Time-Wasting."

                                            ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM (1466-1536),
                                         The Education of a Christian Prince.




                                  Introduction

   THIS book is completely factual. The events it describes happened, and the
   people mentioned in it lived-or still five. It treats its subject-war-on
   the smallest possible scale. It does not aspire to chronicle the clash of
   armies; it does not attempt to describe the engagements of so much as a
   platoon. It tells what happened to one manwhat he did, and how he felt
   about it.

   However, it will be helpful to the reader to have some knowledge of the
   background against which the story takes place; to supply that necessary
   glimpse of the wider picture is the purpose of this short introduction.

   New Guinea represented the most southerly extent of Japan's all-conquering
   Pacific offensive of 1941-2. And it was in New Guinea-at Milne Bay-that
   the Australians inflicted the first land defeat on Japan. The campaign in
   the world's largest island therefore embraced both the nadir of our
   fortunes and the turning of the tide in our favour. New Guinea was also
   the stern schoolroom in which we learnt the tactics and techniques-for
   example, jungle warfare-which led us finally to victory in 1945.

   The events described in the following chapters deal chiefly with the
   period of our unrelieved defeats, when the character of the war in New
   Guinea was most curious and interesting.

   The Japanese took Rabaul in January 1942 after heroic, but hopeless
   resistance, from the Australian garrison. In March they occupied the
   important north Coast towns of Lae and Salamaua. There was no resistance.
   What could a few dozen men of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles do against
   the Japanese who swarmed in thousands from their landing-craft? In much
   the same way the Japs helped themselves at their leisure to the greater
   part of the north coast. They made. an assault on Port Moresby itself
   which came very near to success. There is real fascination in this early
   period of hopeless inferiority in numbers and equipment.

   When the Japanese landed at Lae and Salamaua the few New Guinea Volunteer
   Rifles men retreated to hideouts in the bush or fell back on the township
   of Wau in the mountainous goldfields inland. The N.G.V.R. had been
   civilian residents of New Guinea-gold-miners, planters, government
   officials. They were joined by a single Australian commando unit, the 5th
   Independent Company, and the two units were grouped under the name Kanga
   Force, with its headquarters in Wau. In parties of a few men they
   conducted a fantastic campaign of patrolling and harassing the enemy from
   behind both Lae and Salamaua. Everywhere they were outnumbered hundreds to
   one, and their communications spread out over a hundred miles of tracks.

   In the Lae sector they had to face all the text-book conditions of jungle
   fighting-dense growth, swamps, malaria, steamy heat, crocodile-infested
   rivers, and so on. In the Salamaua area the main problems were mountainous
   terrain - probably as rough as any in the world - dense rain-forests, cold
   and damp.

   The enemy was strong enough to have taken Wau, with its important
   airfield, any time he chose, but the aggressive activity of our patrols
   bluffed him for a whole year and kept Wau in our hands. All this time
   Kanga Force was short of supplies. There were no transport aircraft to fly
   in material from Port Moresby or Australia. Stores therefore had to be
   carried round the south coast from Port Moresby to the mouth of the
   Lakekamu River by steamer. There they were transhipped to pinnaces and
   moved up the Lakekamu to Terapo, where they were transferred into
   whaleboats and canoes for a two-day journey upriver to Bulldog. At Bulldog
   all stores were made up into fifty-pound "boy-loads" and sent off to Wau
   on the backs of carriers, nearly seven days' walk over mountains
   heart-breaking in their height and steepness. To reach our troops in the
   Lae forward area another four days' carry was needed.

   In sober truth this was probably one of the most extraordinary lines of
   communication in military history. Somehow Kanga Force held on,
   patrolling, harassing, watching enemy movements. Elsewhere on the north
   side of the island, behind Finschhafen, Madang, and Wewak, the position
   was even worse. There was no regular military force in the rear of the
   enemy. Our only contact was from small special parties, often one white
   man and a few trusted natives. They lived - often in conditions of
   frightful privation and danger - in the jungles and mountains behind the
   enemy's coastal bases. At last, in January 1943, the Japanese decided to
   make an assault on Wau. Reinforced by a fleet which had landed troops
   early in the same month, they set out from Salamaua and very nearly
   achieved their objective.

   Our air transport position was now good, but the 17th Australian Brigade,
   ready to rush to Wau to stem the advance, was held up in Port Moresby by
   bad weather. When they arrived in Wau their planes landed among Japanese
   fire on the aerodrome. But they saved Wau and pushed the Japanese back to
   Salamaua. Within the next seven months, combined land and sea operations
   with the Americans gave us back Lae and Salamaua. There was much hard
   fighting still ahead in New Guinea - two more years of it - but after Wau
   the issue was never really in doubt.

   The whole character of the war had now changed. Superbly trained,
   supplied, and equipped, our troops attacked an enemy who, though fanatical
   and tough, was increasingly embarrassed by ever-weakening communications
   as our offensive by land, air, and sea mounted all over the Pacific. Gone
   was the day of the lonely white man maintaining single-handed contact with
   the enemy. By the end of 1943 we went where we pleased, and we went in
   force.

   This book describes some of the adventures which befell one man in the
   struggles of 1942 and 1943 in the savage country of the Lae-Salamaua area.

                                   Chapter I

   I sat down on a shaded boulder, head bent, sweat running in a chain of
   drops off my nose and chin; they fell with a slight pat-pat-pat onto the
   sodden legs of dirty green short trousers. The rushing water lapped my
   feet and filled my boots. I wriggled my toes round inside them,
   luxuriating in the cool sensation. When I stamped my feet little geysers
   of water shot out of the boots and up my shins; that was cool and pleasant
   too.

   Near at hand, the thin wail of mosquitoes. All over my back, through the
   sweat-soaked shirt that clung to the skin, I felt the jabbing of their
   red-hot needles. It was no use slapping - it only made you hotter, and
   made no difference to the mosquitoes.

   In the distance, the deeper, though faint, hum of aircraft engines. Where?
   Madang? Lae? "What's it matter, anyhow? They're too far away to do me any
   harm," was my vague thought.

   Wail of mosquitoes, hum of aircraft engines, roar of swirling water, and
   the constant pat-pat-pat of dripping sweat. " 'There's the whole
   orchestra," I thought. "There goes the non-stop background music for God
   knows how many months to come. Let's see just what sort of a mess I'm in,
   anyway."

   I ticked the facts off on my fingers as I called them out aloud. It isn't
   necessarily the length of time you've been alone that sets you thinking
   out loud - if the aloneness is sufficiently intense you start doing it in
   half a day. The facts came out in a sort of verbal column, like an
   inventory or shopping-list:

     * I'm eighteen years' old, and I've been in New Guinea a couple of
       months.
     * A day's walk to the east is Lae, and some thousands of Japanese
       troops.
     * North, a few hours ahead of me, is the Markham River, and somewhere
       near by in the jungle is Bob's, the camp from which a few hopelessly
       outnumbered Australian commandos are carrying on the war against the
       Japs.
     * Across the Markham, just visible through the trees from where I sit,
       are the Saruwaged mountains, so high that you can't see the tops for
       clouds; among those incredible blue ranges, somewhere or other in an
       area of roughly three thousand square miles, is another lone
       Australian, Jock McLeod.
     * Object of my journey: to find Jock and place myself under his orders
       in his dual job of `governing' some tens of thousands of natives and
       watching the activities of our Japanese enemy.



   By this time I felt a lot happier. It was reassuring to hear a voice, even
   one's own. Secondly, I seemed able to marshal my facts pretty well. That
   indicated that I was sane as well as alive. Napoleon himself, I thought
   complacently, would have made his appreciation of the situation in much
   the same way.

   His purpose clearly stated, obviously Napoleon's next step would have been
   a consideration of resources and ways and means. Again the verbal list:

     * Resources: Reputedly a fortnight's rations, but really only enough to
       last a hungry man about a week.
     * No compass.
     * No maps.
     * One old rifle with a damaged foresight.
     * A thirty-year-old revolver with ten rounds of ammunition.
     * Bottomless, unbounded ignorance of the country.
     * Only the slightest acquaintance with pidgin English, the language
       needed to converse with the natives.
     * For assistance, one keen but emotionally unstable native police-boy,
       whose home is hundreds of miles away and whose ignorance of this part
       of the country is paralleled only by my own.



   I realized that my verbal listing had turned almost imperceptibly into a
   sort of double-entry book-keeping, and that every item so far had fallen
   on the debit side.

   "All right," I thought, "let's fill in the credit side of the ledger."

   There was a pretty long silence.

   "Well, I'm damned if I'm going to walk all the way back to Wau just to
   admit I couldn't find Jock," I said at last a little louder than before,
   and hastily ruled off the ledger. Even at that stage it seemed as if a lot
   of entries in those accounts might be written in red.

   It never occurred to me that I'd been given a pretty-dim chance of
   survival by my superior, the district officer who had sent me on this
   errand. Nobody thought it very strange then, least of all myself, to send
   someone into that country without such basic necessities as food, maps,
   and compass. When you are eighteen the fact that quite stupid people can
   play chuck-ha'penny with your life doesn't seem too unjust. This is partly
   because the thrill of the adventure is more dangerously intoxicating than
   liquor, and you aren't too closely in touch with reality. You stride down
   the jungle trail full of confidence, a pioneer, a new David Livingstone;
   you feel exactly like your favourite hero from the Boy's Own Paper.

   The hang-over from this kind of binge is unpleasant. It arrives not when
   you understand clearly the danger you have been in but when you see how
   useless your whole mission was, how futile and purposeless your death
   would have been, and, above all, when your sober but aching eye discerns
   that nobody whose business it might have been took the least trouble to
   see that you got even a reasonable chance of living.

   But these are afterthoughts, and no such shadows clouded my purpose that
   hot afternoon in 1942 as I rested in the shade.

   Five natives squatted in another patch of shadow, a few yards downstream.
   They were armed with leafy twigs, which they flicked across their
   shoulders at the clouds of mosquitoes that hummed round their shiny brown
   backs. I Four were carriers whom I had borrowed in Wau to carry my
   bed-roll, my rations, and my few odds and ends of personal possessions.
   They wore only lap-laps - strips of ragged and faded red cloth tied in a
   knot about their middles. As they sat on their heels patiently suffering
   the mosquitoes' assaults, they talked quietly in pidgin English and passed
   from hand to hand a fat twelve-inch-long cigarette which one of them had
   rolled out of black twist tobacco and a sheet of newspaper.

   The fifth native was Achenmeri, my so-called policeboy. In peacetime,
   patrol officers working in the bush had found the assistance of several
   well-trained members of the native constabulary invaluable; now, in time
   of war, they were indispensable. Yet here was I sent wandering through the
   jungles of the largest island on earth with one partly trained police
   recruit!

   I studied him carefully as he sat there smoking. His dark-brown face was
   thin and parrot-like, almost as if his head had been squashed flat between
   two boards. His body was as skinny as a skeleton. No matter how much he
   ate, he looked half-starved. His upper arms were adorned by keloid scars
   in the shape of grotesque formalized faces with gaping mouths. They were
   the result of wounds inflicted as part of a ritual that was a common
   practice in the Sepik River country, where his home village was. The fact
   that he had become a constable of police tickled Achenmeri's vanity
   enormously. He was particularly proud of his uniform - khaki shorts,
   shining brassbuckled belt, and khaki peaked cap with a gleaming badge. The
   cap, which perched precariously on top of his woolly hair, he was in the
   habit of removing, to turn self-consciously round and round in his hands,
   lost in silent admiration of a piece of property so magnificent and
   carrying with it such prestige. As his fingers were never too clean, the
   new cap was little more than a greasy rag before we had been on the track
   many days. The rifle, too, added to his already vast conceit. All day long
   he fondled and patted it, and he spent every spare second rubbing off
   imaginary specks of rust. I discovered that he had never fired a shot out
   of it, and was really rather scared by the weapon. He knew which end the
   bullet might he expected to emerge from - wasn't there a hole there for
   the purpose? - but little else. His anxiety to display his devotion to
   duty was pathetic. My slightest order was the signal for shuffling and
   stamping, for bellowing and slapping of the rifle-butt, and his dark eyes
   would roll wildly as he hissed, "Yessir! Yessir! Yessir!" He might have
   been a good musical-comedy figure, but was hardly a source of comfort and
   inspiration to a young greenhorn on his first patrol into territory that
   was wild and largely unexplored as well as being controlled in all
   approaches by the Japanese.

   A faint breeze just stirred the green foliage that grew like a wall on
   either side of the river. From the sun I guessed that it was about three
   o'clock. The meagre information I had been given suggested that we should
   reach Bob's camp shortly before dark on this the third day. It was time we
   moved on.

   "Achenmeri!" I called.

   Instantly there was a scuttering of pebbles and a fumbling as he sprang to
   attention and saluted.

   "Yessir!"

   " 'Talkim four-fella you-me walkabout now."

   'Me other four grinned to each other at my halting order in pidgin
   English. Natives, and white men who had mustered the language, spoke so
   rapidly that the words seemed to pour forth in an almost incomprehensible
   torrent. I was trying desperately to acquire fluency, and listened keenly
   to every word the boys said, though understanding but a small part of it.
   One of the few useful tips I had been given by the district officer was
   that pidgin was a real language with rules and grammar of its own, and
   must be learnt as such. He was one of the best pidgin speakers in the
   Territory himself, and emphasized that it was not merely a matter of
   bastardizing English by throwing in a few "fellas" and "belongs". He
   pointed out that many Europeans who had lived for years in New Guinea had
   never realized this fact, and their ability to converse with natives
   easily and accurately was limited accordingly.

   The carriers were standing up now, stretching their back muscles before
   lifting their loads. The proprietor of the long cigarette put the six-inch
   remnant behind his ear, and in a few moments we set off single file along
   the narrow muddy track, my iron patrol-box swinging from side to side,
   lashed to a pole which two boys carried on their shoulders between them.

   For most of its length the track followed a stream called the Wampit,
   which was a tributary of the Markham River. Bob's, I had been told, was
   almost on the banks of the Wampit, and not far from the junction of that
   stream with the Markham. It was hidden in thick jungle, but one of the
   carriers said he had been there before and could guide us to it.

   As we walked, the country became lower and flatter, and the track
   increasingly muddy. The heat, too, grew more and more oppressive. It was
   the sort of heat one sometimes finds in big laundries or in other places
   where there are large quantities of boiling water. Though we were now
   almost down to sea-level, and the heat and humidity could not have got
   much worse, I nevertheless had the strange feeling of going ever downward
   into an inferno.

   At last, a little after five o'clock, with the Wampit on our right hand,
   the carriers stopped at a dried-up, rocky little watercourse that crossed
   the path; they pointed up it to the left.

   "Master, lookim," they said. "Road belong place belong all master."

   I could see no "road". The boulder-strewn gully showed no footprints. The
   only track seemed to he straight ahead. But they assured me that the path
   led to the Markham River, and they struck off confidently up the
   watercourse. After a few minutes' scrambling over the stones, I saw Bob's
   there in front of us.

   I shall describe this jungle camp carefully, since for me its atmosphere,
   its people, and its life sum up one important phase of the infinitely
   varied, infinitely monotonous activity called war.

   The place was named after its founder, Bob Griffiths, who had built it at
   the time of the Japanese invasion. He was a member of the New Guinea
   Volunteer Rifles, a tiny local militia of a few hundred, the only force to
   meet the assault of many thousands of Japanese. In fact, so few men had we
   that all the Australian posts at that time were called only by some
   familiar name-Bob's, Mac's, Kirkland's, and so on. Nobody asked who Bob or
   Mac might be - they were known to all.

   From where our little party halted, at the foot of an enormous ficus-tree,
   I could see that the camp consisted of a dozen or so rough huts thatched
   with sago-palm fronds and left without walls for the sake of coolness.
   They were not in a clearing, but sprawled about in the thickest forest. So
   intent had their builders been on concealment from the air that the huts
   themselves had taken on the impress of the builders' desires, and had a
   furtive look about them, almost as if they knew they were supposed to be
   hiding.

   The tall trees, with their tangled superstructure of creepers quite
   blotted out the sun, and I knew that even ml midday the place would have
   the appearance of being in a green-tinted twilight. Now, towards dusk, it
   seemed Infinitely sombre and forbidding. The ground was damp and spongy,
   and a vague smell of decay pervaded everything. The jungle tolerated this
   man-made excrescence, it seemed, confident that in a little while it would
   be swallowed up without a trace.

   Everything in this little settlement was damp. Clothes and blankets soon
   acquired a clammy feeling that was Impossible to remove, for one dared not
   sun them in a patch of grassland not far away, lest they be spotted by the
   Japanese reconnaissance planes that often flew low overhead. Blowflies
   buzzed lazily everywhere, and every couple of days the blankets were
   fly-blown.

   No breeze stirred the air. The smoke from the cooking-fires hung
   motionless in a blue haze among the trees, and over the whole area hung a
   fearful silence, too vast to be broken noticeably by the voices of the
   forty or fifty men who comprised the garrison. Even the rattle of gunfire
   was subdued by this uneasy quiet. Gaunt, pallid men in ragged green
   uniforms were moving about the camp doing various chores - cleaning
   weapons, sewing up torn clothes - while one directed the work of a party
   of natives who were repairing the roof of a hut. Quite close to me, a
   smart squad of native police were lined up on parade beneath the trees. A
   tall serious-faced man with a close-clipped moustache was quietly calling
   the roll, sucking hard on a chipped and blackened pipe between names.
   This, I knew, must be John Clarke, an old New Guinea hand who was in
   charge of the police and the native carriers at Bob's. When he had
   finished his roll-call I walked across to him and told him who I was.

   He gave me a friendly smile and shook my hand warmly. "I heard you were
   coming. I'm very pleased to see you. Now, I'll get you fixed up with a
   place to sleep, and you can have a clean-up, and we'll have a yarn after
   that."

   "Thanks, John. It'll be good to get these clothes off and into some clean
   ones. I think I'll have a swim in the Wampit to cool off. Is it safe to go
   in here?"

   "Pretty safe. But don't go too far out into the current. There don't seem
   to be many crocodiles around."

   As we talked, John had been leading the way to a long hut containing only
   one or two beds.

   "You'll be pretty private here," he said. "I'll get a couple of boys to
   put your bed-sail up at this end, where the roof doesn't leak."

   After his mosquito-net, the bed-sail is probably the New Guinea
   traveller's most useful item of furniture. It consists of a double sleeve
   of canvas about seven feet long and three feet wide. Two stout poles are
   inserted along either side to make a rough stretcher, and the poles are
   supported at the ends by a couple of stout sticks lashed together at the
   top like shear-legs. The result is a tightly stretched canvas bed, cool
   and springy, raised two or three feet off the ground. It can be erected in
   a few minutes, and the canvas is practically no weight to carry. Moreover,
   in the day-time, on the track, it forms a useful waterproof wrapper for
   blankets.

   The boys summoned by John unwrapped the roll of bedding and ran to fetch
   suitable poles, while Achenmeri thrust himself importantly forward to
   supervise this weighty operation. John raised his eyebrows at the antics
   of this bumptious and comical constable, but he said nothing, while I
   groped in my haversack for some mail I had brought.

   He glanced at the handwriting on the envelopes and smiled, before tucking
   the three or four letters into the breast pocket of his shirt, to be read
   and enjoyed later, alone. It was the first mail he had received for weeks.
   There was a paper for him, too, and he slit its wrapper at once.

   "It's the Bulletin!" he exclaimed with a grin of pleasure as he unrolled
   it. "I like to read that - it's my Bible, the Bulletin."

   "Isn't that a pretty old copy?"

   "No, not very," he said in a surprised voice, looking at the date-line.
   "Only a couple of months. I've had it a lot older than that."

   I began to understand life at Bob's when I saw how excited John became
   over a two-month-old copy of a newspaper. Cut off by rivers and
   mountainous jungles, these men were isolated not only in a physical sense,
   but had their own time-scale as well.

   I had found towel and soap in my patrol-box. "How do I get to the Wampir,
   John?"

   "Follow that gully straight on past the main track, where you came in, and
   keep going. It's about a hundred yards."

   "O.K.... I'll be back soon." By the time I had gone ten yards Bob's had
   vanished so completely from sight and hearing that I stopped and had to
   resist deliberately the desire to run back and reassure myself that the
   place was really there and that I had not been dreaming.

   By the time I reached the Wampit bank the sun was already below the
   tree-tops, and the palms and wild breadfruit-trees were outlined black
   against the brassy shine of the sky. The foliage rustled lightly in the
   breeze that blew upstream. I sat down on a log at the water's edge and
   slowly unlaced my boots, then pulled off my green shirt and shorts and let
   them fall in a sweat-soaked heap on the little beach of black sand.

   The river here, in its lower reaches, was swift and muddy, but the water
   was cool. I waded gratefully in to thigh-depth and washed myself. New life
   seemed to return with cleanliness. At this somewhat open point the breeze
   was too strong for the mosquitoes to be a pest, so, having dried myself, I
   squatted naked on the log and looked downstream.

   Not far away the Wampit almost lost itself in a vast flat area of swamp
   and sago-palms before emptying into the mighty Markham. Over the trees and
   across the Markham (which of course I could not see), I glimpsed again the
   Saruwageds. Filtered through an almost invisible haze of dust, the evening
   light cast a delicate softness upon them. They were blue, every
   conceivable shade from ice-blue to deepest purple. I knew that even the
   foothills were at least twenty miles away, but the mountains showed with
   startling clarity, mounting up and up, fold upon fold, until the tops
   disappeared into a level bank of cloud. I studied them intently, knowing
   that the next few weeks would find me somewhere in their remote blue
   fastnesses.

   "Somewhere over there is Jock," I thought. "And somehow I have to find
   him."

   It was nearly dark. I pulled the towel about my waist and hobbled barefoot
   up the stony creek-bed, back to the camp. When I got there the others were
   putting on long trousers and gaiters, rolling down their sleeves, and
   rubbing their hands and faces with mosquito-repellent lotion; in short,
   making all the preparations for evening which characterize the
   mosquito-infested camp.

   John Clarke appeared out of the gloom as I was getting dressed. He looked
   slightly embarrassed, I thought. "You aren't an - er - officer, are you?"
   he asked. My shirt carried no badges of rank, and his bore none either,
   though I knew he was a lieutenant. In fact, hardly anyone wore his rank in
   those days, partly because the store never had any badges and also because
   the Japanese made a feature of trying to pick officers and N.C.O.'s off
   first, if they could identify them.

   "No - I'm only a warrant-officer. Why?"

   "Well, you see, we have an officers' mess here. I'd like you to eat with
   me, but of course - "

   I cut him short. "For God's sake don't worry about that! Just show me
   where the other mess is, and I'll be O.K."

   "It's not quite so simple. There's a headquarters mess, where the sigs and
   orderly-room staff and so on eat, and a sergeants' mess, and of course
   there's the men's mess. I suppose you'd better eat at the sergeants'
   mess."

   I stared at him. Here were forty or fifty men at the edge of the world,
   and pretty well on the edge of eternity too; bound together, one would
   have thought, by every important tie both of interest and sentiment. And
   yet, to take their meals, they split up into four groups. I could see that
   John's sense of personal hospitality was somewhat offended at having to
   send me to eat elsewhere, but that the system itself was crazy didn't seem
   to occur to him. And, to be quite honest, within a day or two I had so
   slipped into the way of things myself that I found nothing ludicrous in
   the spectacle of the same atrocious food from one central cook-house being
   carried through the bush among the flies to four different mess-huts. Very
   few of the absurdities and injustices of army life worry you much at the
   time. You can't buck the system, so you put up with it, and pretty soon
   you don't notice. I don't think this means that most people are
   militaristic at heart. Real militarists are those who seek to justify the
   system, and find it good. The vast majority tolerate it because they have
   no choice.

   As I finished buttoning up my sleeves John pointed out the sergeants' mess
   on the far side of the camp. The loud clatter of a beaten kerosene-tin
   announced that tea was ready.

   "You'll be right, then, will you? I'll see you later," John said, and made
   off into the darkness.

   I strolled across to the sergeants' mess - a rough hut like all the
   others. A man was setting fire to little piles of green leaves all round
   it, making a smoke-screen to keep the mosquitoes away. A smoky
   hurricane-lamp spread a shadowy red glow over the interior. Four stout
   poles driven into the dirt floor supported the rough table-top provided by
   light sticks laid side by side. The five men round the table were perched
   in various attitudes of discomfort on old bully-beef cases. They were
   meditating quietly, saying nothing at all to each other.

   As I introduced myself and asked whether I could share their meal, they
   hastily found another case for me, assuring me I was welcome. They wanted
   to hear the latest news from Wau, and would have welcomed the devil
   himself to supper, I believe, provided he had brought some diverting
   gossip with him.

   I looked round the table at my companions as they told me their names.
   They were all young men - not one of them out of his twenties - but
   without exception they were heavily bearded. For all one could see of
   their faces they might have been middle-aged.

   Among them was Bill Chaffey, a farmer and Member of Parliament from New
   South Wales, with an enormous red bushy beard that made him look like the
   prophet Isaiah. And there was Bob Sherman, an Englishman, whose glossy
   black whiskers reminded me of a melodrama villain. If he had suddenly
   exclaimed, "Ha, my proud beauty! Out into the snow!" it would have seemed
   quite in keeping with his appearance.

   The meal consisted of bully beef, sweet potatoes, and papaw, and no great
   plenty at that. When it was finished, tobacco was produced, pipes filled
   and cigarettes rolled. For weeks not one of them had smoked a shred of
   proper tobacco, and ancient pieces of newspaper had taken the place of
   cigarette-papers. Some smoked the trade twist that was issued to the
   natives - foul black stuff made, I should say, from the sweepings from
   cigar factories and bound together with molasses in plaited sticks. Others
   rolled their own cigars from brus, the native-grown leaf tobacco,
   purchased from the kanakas in nearby villages. This too, was terribly
   strong. After a couple of brus cigars a Capstan seemed tasteless.

   The hurricane-lamp cast its smoky glow on the bearded faces of Bill and
   Bob as they played their evening game of chess. I saw that a number of
   chessmen were missing and had been replaced by buttons and bottle-tops.
   Faces grave, eyes deep-sunken, and foreheads lined, the two men made each
   move deliberately, shading their eyes from the lantern and occasionally
   brushing off with patient hand a more than usually vicious mosquito:

   Another bearded patriarch of twenty-two, not so long-suffering, cursed and
   swore as he slapped at the mosquitoes swarming round his head. He was
   doing his best to write a letter home on a rather grubby piece of canteen
   paper.

   A fourth man, who might also have stepped out of the Old Testament, was
   attending to his beard with all the care that a botanist would have
   lavished upon a rare specimen. With comb and mirror and folding
   nail-scissors he preened and pruned with loving care, until he achieved
   precisely that degree of elegance on which he had set his heart. Several
   reasons were given for this cult of the beard: one was that razor-blades
   were almost unobtainable; another, that beards were protection against
   mosquitoes, and useful camouflage in jungle fighting. While true to some
   extent, these were rationalizations. The real reason was that it helped to
   pass the time. It was a trifling diversion that helped bored men to endure
   a weary time of isolation, privation, and danger.

   From time to time one of them would wind up the wheezy old gramophone and
   play a record. There were about twenty discs, which they told me had been
   taken, with the gramophone, from an abandoned house in Wau. When one group
   of men grew sick of the records the outfit was passed to another hut, with
   strict instructions to look after the only gramophone needle. It was
   carefully sharpened and resharpened till it was ground down to the merest
   stub.

   The songs were a rubbishy lot - worn-out popular tunes and sentimental
   tangoes. The tinny sound of the banal words was fiat and false as it
   disappeared into the surrounding darkness of the jungle. In that
   wilderness, a fruity tenor voice crying plaintively to men who had not
   seen a white woman for six months, "The night was made for love", was
   about as appropriate as a juke-box on Judgment Day. But somehow the phoney
   sentiment struck home. We were all so starved for love and tenderness and
   all the deeply cherished private things that had made our individual lives
   worth while, that we seized upon even this fly-blown imitation to keep
   memory alive. And even today those tunes have a queerly evocative power.
   When I hear one of them memories crowd in upon me. I see bearded figures
   playing chess, surrounded by the brooding blackness of a fever-ridden
   camp; I hear the dull murmur of the Wampit rushing past, and see the
   wasted yet smiling faces of comrades who, side by side, faced jungle,
   hunger, and a savage enemy. Where they are today I do not know, but they
   were a good crowd, and it seems strange that a stupid, nearly forgotten
   tune should have the power to call up their images so vividly.

   By eight o'clock we were all driven to bed by the mosquitoes. The only
   refuge was under a mosquito-net, but there was another reason for turning
   in early. Like all other supplies, kerosene for the lamps was short. If
   more did not come soon, they would have to fall back upon the very
   unsatisfactory flicker given by lighted strips of cloth floating in tins
   of grease. To avoid this further privation early lights-out was essential.

   Bill Chaffey and I walked together to the sleeping-huts. The camp was
   already almost in darkness. On the other side of the dry creek-bed, where
   the native carriers and the police-boys had their huts, small fires were
   still burning. As the boys shifted in front of their fires, one could see
   their dark figures momentarily, and hear them talking in low tones.
   Occasionally the night was split with a gusty gale of laughter as someone
   scored with a good story. Otherwise the soft murmur of the Wampit was the
   only sound. Bill and I said good night and sprang hurriedly beneath our
   nets. Undressing was a matter to be performed in shelter. He would have
   been hardy who could have undressed calmly in the open, exposed to the
   attentions of the ravenous Markham mosquitoes.

   I lay awake for some time in the clammy darkness. Gradually the talking of
   the natives ceased, and their fires burnt out. Then the rain started,
   hissing quietly through the trees and pattering almost inaudibly upon the
   sago-palm-leaf roof of the hut. To this monotonous whisper I fell asleep.

                                   Chapter II

   DAWN broke dull and humid. The rain had stopped, but drops of water were
   still falling from the trees and from the ragged edges of the roofs. Even
   at seven in the morning it was a steaming, sweltering day. I was sweating
   before I was fairly up.

   As soon as breakfast was over - bananas and more bully beef - I settled
   down with John Clarke in his hut to find out all I could about the country
   I was going to. John spread a tattered map on the rough table before us.

   "When you cross the Markham tomorrow, you'll be on the Huon Peninsula," he
   said, indicating a huge bulge of land with his pipe-stem. "I suppose it's
   about three thousand square miles, all told. The Saruwaged Range runs down
   the centre like a backbone, and it rises way up to fourteen thousand feet
   in places. The country falls away to the coast in the north; and, as you
   can see, the southern boundary of the peninsula is the Markham Valley."

   "How much of the peninsula is inhabited?"

   "I think there are native villages pretty well everywhere - except very
   high in the mountains, of course. Most of the area is fertile, but there
   are barren areas in the Markham Valley, and they are pretty sparsely
   populated. Actually you can't say too much about this country, because a
   lot of it is unexplored. There are wild kanakas too, higher up."

   "What about the Japs?"

   "Generally speaking, we reckon they own the other side of the Markham and
   we own this. We make an occasional visit over the other side, but Jock is
   the only one of our blokes who's over there permanently. All the same, the
   Nips stick pretty much to Lae and round the coast, though they've been
   patrolling up the Markham Valley road a lot more lately."

   I stared at this huge area on the map. Clearly, I might wander there for
   the rest of my life without finding Jock McLeod.

   "How do you think I should start looking for Jock?" I asked John.

   He grinned, understanding what a hopeless job it must have seemed to me.

   "Jock's got a hide-out somewhere in this area," he said, circling a
   stretch of country behind Lae. "It's known as the Wain country. The
   Lutherans had a mission station at Boana, a couple of days' walk from Lae,
   but of course that was in peacetime. Jock has naturally kept very quiet
   about his camp, but I think it's near the village of Gain. If you start
   there you'll probably pick up his trail. You might have to chase him a
   hell of a way, though. He hardly ever sleeps twice in the same place, in
   case the Nips get wise to him."

   I found Gain on the map. "How far would that be?" I asked.

   "Depends which way you go. The long way is the safe way, and it'll take
   you about five days. You go up the Markham on this side for about a day,"
   he said, pointing to a spot on the map, "and then cross over by canoe to
   this big village here called Chivasing. You can work north to the
   mountains pretty safely then - we've never heard of the Nips patrolling
   farther up from Lae than the Erap River."

   "The trouble is I've got so little food. How long would it take the other
   way?"

   "Three days. You go straight down to the Markham to Kirkland's Dump, about
   two hours from here, cross the Markham, and dash straight up the Erap.
   It'll take you about five hours to get off the flat country, where the
   danger from the Nips is, and into the hills through the Erap Gorge. You
   can camp the night at Bivoro village, just inside the gorge. You should
   get to Gain easily in three days then."

   "I'm inclined to fancy the shorter route," I said. "What do you reckon the
   chances are of brushing the Japs?"

   "If you're careful, and don't waste any time on the flat,

   I'd advise you to go up the Erap," he replied. "I'll tell you what I'll
   do: IT lend you Kari, my police corporal, to go with you as far as Gain."

   He cut short my thanks. "Forget it. I'm glad to help you out. Kari has
   been up there once, too, and knows the route. You'll find him a very
   reliable man."

   John called out to his native orderly, who was standing near-by, to tell
   Kari that he was wanted.

   "You might as well meet him now," he said. "And I'll tell him he's to be
   ready to go with you in the morning." While we waited for Kari to come
   from the "house-police" I told John how much his offer meant to me and how
   grateful I was. Now the party would have at least one experienced member.

   A deep voice saying "Yessir!" from the entrance of the hut made us look
   up. His arm raised in a smart salute, Lance-Corporal Kari was standing at
   attention outside. He was as black as coal, six feet tall, and so broad
   that he filled the whole entrance. He wore only a pair of spotless khaki
   shorts, immaculately starched and pressed. On his bare right arm was
   buckled a cloth band, with the single stripe indicating his rank. His skin
   was smooth, glossy, and hairless, and you could see the magnificent
   muscles that rippled underneath it. His expression was rather stern, and
   his face was strikingly handsome, whether judged by European or by native
   standards. He was about twenty years old, and it was hard to imagine a
   more superb specimen of young manhood.

   John told him to stand at ease, and, in a few terse words of pidgin,
   explained that I was crossing the Markham in the morning to join Jock, and
   that Kari was to accompany me up the Erap River, and as far as Gain.

   Kari turned his handsome, serious face to me, and regarded me rather
   disapprovingly, I thought. Probably he felt the disgust of an old
   campaigner at having to put up with the inexperience of a tenderfoot. But
   he said not a word, and at the conclusion of John's orders he stepped back
   smartly, saluted, and was gone.

   My hopes for a successful expedition rose a hundredfold as I watched
   Kari's erect, manly form striding back to the house-police. With such a
   companion anyone might have felt confident.

   "What about trade goods?" John asked.

   "What? Oh - sorry, John. I was thinking about Kari. I wasn't issued with
   any trade at all. I hoped you would be able to help me there as well

   "I haven't got much. The only damned thing we have got plenty of here is
   malaria Still, there must be a few things I can let you have. Let's have a
   look." He led the way to the back of the hut and began hunting through
   boxes and drums. "Here's a few dozen sticks of tobacco. What's this? Ah -
   a ten-pound bag of coarse salt! I can spare you that. And here's a pile of
   old newspapers - take as many of them as you want. Let's bring everything
   down to my table and see what we've got. I put this odd assortment on
   John's table, and he bent over it, shaking his head ruefully

   "There's not much is there? I'll tell you what: just write me out a
   receipt for two quid, and I'll give you forty shilling-pieces from my
   official funds. That should help. If you're pretty stingy with all that
   stuff you can spin it out - for a few weeks, anyhow."

   Trade tobacco, sheets of newspaper, coarse salt, and New Guinea
   shilling-pieces! Strange currency, I thought, for paying the carriers who
   would move my gear from one village to the next, and also for food for
   myself and the police. But the purchasing power of these goods was high,
   for most Europeans had left the country when war broke out, and the
   natives were missing such amenities badly.

   Newspaper, for instance, for rolling their foot-long cigarettes, was
   highly esteemed, and a couple of sheets was a considerable present. There
   is a story told of a village headman who, in peacetime, used to subscribe
   to the Sydney Morning Herald, not because he could read a word of it but
   because he required an assured supply of "smoke-paper".

   Salt, too, was valuable, especially in the mountains, where it could not
   be obtained from sea-water. The people developed a craving for it, and a
   tablespoonful would buy anything up to thirty pounds of sweet potatoes or
   a large bunch of bananas.

   New Guinea shillings, with a hole through the centre so that they could be
   threaded on a string, were also acceptable. Strangely, these shillings
   were called "marks", a hang-over from twenty-five years before, when the
   Germans ruled the Territory. The name of the German coin was still applied
   to the Australian government's minting.

   The clatter through the trees of a beaten kerosene-tin made us realize
   with surprise that we had talked till midday. I thanked John again, and we
   went our separate ways to dinner - more bully beef, more hard biscuits,
   more soggy sweet potatoes.

   In the hot afternoon I sat with Bill Chaffey in his thatched
   "orderly-room" while he helped me draw a rough map of the nearer section
   of the country across the Markham. To keep the paper clean we had to stop
   every few minutes and wipe the sweat off our hands. Survey maps of the
   area were unknown, and even the best were little more than sketch maps.
   Bill, with careful accuracy, was gradually compiling a large-scale map
   from parts of earlier maps, sketches he had made himself on patrols across
   the river, and information obtained from the carefully sifted reports of
   others. He gave me a good idea of the main features of the flat Markham
   country and the nearer foothills, together with the names and positions of
   the more important native villages.

   "Did John Clarke fix you up with trade goods?" Bill asked when we had
   finished the map.

   "Yes. And he's lending me Kari, to go as far as Gain. I feel a lot happier
   about my chances now."

   "Is there anything I can scrounge for you? What weapons have you got?"

   Bill was incredulous when he learnt I had nothing but a pistol.

   "Good God, you should have a tommy-gun at least!" he exclaimed. "I can't
   get you one, worse luck, because we're as short as hell ourselves. But
   I'll see if there's anything else I can do"

   The result of his scrounging was that I got half a dozen hand-grenades, a
   pair of powerful but old-fashioned field-glasses, and several boxes of
   ammunition for my .45 revolver.

   At about half past five we walked down to the Wampit for a swim, and as
   soon as I had eaten my tea-the same old food - I turned in to sleep.

   Next morning, as the trees were shedding their last drops of water from
   the night rains, and the steam was rising from the wet ground, Corporal
   Kari, Constable Achenmeri, and I set out from Bob's. John Clarke had
   helped again by securing six young men from nearby Mari village to carry
   my gear, for my other carriers had to return to Wau. As the line of eight
   natives swung into the jungle, heading north for the Markham, I waved
   good-bye to John, Bill, and my other new friends, and strode after the
   carriers. In a few seconds the camp was out of sight and the only hint of
   its presence was the put-put-put of the little motor that charged the
   radio batteries. Within a minute even this could not be heard. All round
   there was nothing but green, steaming stillness.

   It was about eight o'clock when I set out, and my immediate destination
   was Kirkland's Dump, our farthest outpost on the hank of the Markham,
   nearly two hours' walk away. I pad by now adopted the habit of reckoning
   distances in hours rather than miles, for distance as the crow flies is a
   meaningless term in New Guinea. In bad country a whole day's hard struggle
   might find one only three or four piles advanced, while twenty miles might
   be covered on the flat without great difficulty. For this reason one
   always thought in terms of how long it took to reach a place, and not how
   far away it was.

   Most of my two hours' walk lay through swampy country, and the track wound
   its way hidden in the jungle which fringed the foot of a grassy ridge. In
   places the track was so boggy that poles had been laid along it to prevent
   its being turned entirely into a bottomless pool of mud. Covered with ooze
   and slime, and none too well anchored, the poles were a difficult obstacle
   unless one's boots were plentifully studded with sharp sprigs. The
   natives, with their bare feet, negotiated the poles with much less
   difficulty.

   At about nine-thirty we reached a place where the track climbed up a
   kunai-covered hill. From the summit the view was not obscured by the
   jungle, and one could survey almost the entire Markham Valley. While the
   carriers had a spell I sat down on my patrol-box and studied the country.

   The "valley" was an immense plain, almost perfectly flat, and covered
   partly by large stretches of kunai and other grasses and partly by patches
   of scrub and jungle. Ten or fifteen miles away, across this level expanse,
   were the mountains in which Jock was living. They rose up sheer and blue
   from the valley floor, though the tops still could not be seen for the
   line of clouds that seemed to sit eternally upon them. In this line of
   mountains, like gates in a wall, were the dark gashes of the valleys of
   the three main tributary streams on the north side of the Markham - the
   Leron, the Irumu, and the Erap. Muddy and swollen from the rains in the
   enormous mountains they drained, these rivers hurled themselves out of the
   hills and rushed across the plain to join the Markham.

   Almost beneath me, near the southern edge of the valley, was the Markham
   itself - a vast yellow-brown river consisting of three or four main
   streams which constantly joined and redivided and were interconnected by
   dozens of smaller channels. Between the main streams were grass-covered
   islands of considerable size, whose shape and position changed with every
   flood. Fifty miles to westward this incredible stream could still be
   discerned snaking its tortuous way through the malarious
   crocodile-infested valley. It was difficult to cross even at the best of
   times, but in the wet season, when it was full of floating trees and
   smaller rubbish, it was an impassable barrier.

   The sun was now blazing from the metallic, cloudless sky. The oppressive
   blanket of stillness seemed more unearthly, intensified because we could
   see the vastness of the area it covered. The silence is bearable when you
   are walled in by the jungle, because you are conscious of only a small
   slice of it - the quietness of your immediate surrounding. But this vast
   landscape in which nothing moved or spoke was eerie and rather
   frightening. It was not the peaceful quiet of a friendly countryside, but
   brooding, malevolent full of watchful eyes.

   Kari pointed to a tiny smudge of smoke from the trees that fringed die
   river. It came from the camp at Kirkland's, he sad.

   We followed the track down the grass-covered spur towards the Markham, and
   an easy twenty minutes brought us to the edge of the timber, where a big
   fairhaired young , man was squatting in the shade. He stepped forward to
   meet me with a friendly grin, and we shook hands and introduced ourselves.
   As he pushed back his shabby and shapeless slouch hat I noticed that it
   was decorated with a magnificent flame-coloured plume from a bird of
   paradise, the unofficial emblem adopted by many members of the New Guinea
   Volunteer Rifles. His name was Tom Lega, he told me, and in peacetime he
   had worked on the Bulolo goldfields. At present he was the corporal in
   charge of the little detachment that manned Kirkland's.

   "I was expecting you," said Tom. "They told us on the phone from Bob's
   that you'd left, so we put the billy on, and the brew is just ready."

   He led the way through the trees, and in a few moments we were in the
   centre of the camp - four wretched shelters of ragged sago-frond
   thatching.

   "Come into the cage," he said. "We spend most of the day in here."

   He held aside for me the blanket which covered the entrance to u tiny room
   made entirely of fly-wire screening sent down from Wau. It was only the
   refuge of this room, I believe, which made it possible for anyone to live
   at Kirkland's, so bad were the mosquitoes. Even in the daytime they made
   life torture. As at Bob's, the men had developed a special technique for
   springing rapidly under the mosquito-net at night, otherwise a whole cloud
   of the pests would have swarmed under it too. Even so, it was impossible
   to get into bed unaccompanied by an odd mosquito or two. These were found
   in the light of a torch and dispatched by a momentary touch with a burning
   match. They disappeared with a fizz in a tiny puff of smoke.

   It would be hard to imagine a more unhealthy site for a camp. Standing
   outside the cage, one could have tossed a stone to right or left and it
   would have fallen with a plop into stinking swamp. The sort of water they
   got from the well is better left undescribed. Yet these men had been here
   for months, and some of them would be here for months more, guarding the
   crossing of the river.

   Four other men were leaning their elbows on the table that ran the length
   of the room. They wore only boots and shorts, and their greetings were
   terse, casually Australian.

   "Hi-ya!"

   "How y' goin'?"

   "How y' makin' out?"

   But on their pallid faces were grins which made the welcome warm enough.
   They passed the tea, for which there was the luxury of a little sugar to
   each cup, but no milk. Tom explained that the sixth member of the patrol
   was doing his turn of sentry duty on the landing-place a few hundred yards
   downstream.

   While we drank the tea they explained to me the role of Kirkland's in the
   scheme of things, both at the present moment and as it had been in the
   past. It was now our most forward post in the "Markham End", and was
   maintained from Bob's as a sort of watching-post. They were to warn Bob's
   by telephone if the enemy tried to cross the river, and to deal with them
   with their Vickers machine-gun if it was a small party. Against a force of
   any size, of course, they would have no hope. The telephone line was the
   constant burden of their lives, for the phone was faint at the best of
   times, and every few days a tree would fall and smash the wire.

   Another of their jobs was to maintain the "ferry service." Earlier in the
   year, before the Japanese had begun effective patrolling of the Markham
   Valley, our most forward elements had been kept on the north side of the
   stream, principally in the vicinity of Nadzab. On the maps of the period
   appear names such as Mac's camp, Shep's camp, Zoffman's, and others. All
   these posts were cunningly hidden off the main tracks, and from them our
   scouts used to patrol to the very outskirts of Lae, and, on one or two
   occasions, right among the Japanese to the Lae aerodrome. The ferry
   service, consisting of a few canoes, with crews drawn from the native
   village of Chivasing, had been the link which maintained contact across
   the river and kept up supplies. An old New Guinea hand, Tommy Zoffman, had
   been in charge of this section of the operations, with the unofficial
   title of Admiral of the Markham Fleet.

   Nowadays, however, in the face of much more intensive Jap patrolling, only
   quick reconnaissance visits were made to Nadzab. A few stores were left
   hidden in Mac's. As far as we knew, the Japs had never discovered the
   exact location of these camps, though they must have been aware of their
   existence. Our patrols seldom remained more than a night or two, and the
   ferry service was kept for these periodic visits, and was of course used
   by Jock McLeod.

   As we sat round the table drinking tea and nibbling hard army biscuits, we
   talked about the possibility of my living over the other side of the
   river. The others did not seem to fancy my chances, and one of them summed
   up the general opinion:

   "You're nuts! The Nips are a moral to get on to you sooner or later. Jock
   McLeod went over weeks ago, and we haven't heard from him since."

   "That doesn't say he isn't perfectly safe in the bush somewhere," I
   argued.

   "Ah, well, you're going to give it a try, so that's that!" Tom said as he
   swilled down the dregs of tea in his cup. "The canoes and boats' crews
   should be ready now, so IT walk down to the landing with you."

   I said good-bye to the others, and we left the wire room, hastily
   replacing the blanket over the door. Calling to Kari, Achenmeri, and the
   six carriers from Mari to follow, Tom and I strode along in silence
   through the bush and the kunai-grass at the edge of the Markham.

   Five minutes brought us to the landing-place, a small shingly beach with
   overhanging trees that concealed the canoes perfectly, since only the very
   tips of their masts showed through. They were of a type well known in New
   Guinea, consisting of a single hollowed log for the main hull and an
   outrigger to give stability. A sail, made of old sugar-bags, was sometimes
   hoisted on the mast for sailing up the Markham before the strong breeze
   which blew upstream in the latter part of each afternoon.

   For the present crossing we would require only two canoes, and the crews,
   powerful black-skinned natives from Chivasing, were bailing them out at
   the water's edge with half coconut-shells.

   The northern bank was just discernible, low, muddy, and grass-covered. The
   six Mari carriers scanned it uneasily, and muttered among themselves.
   Achenmeri, too, looked nervous. He said nothing, but rolled his eyes round
   and round. It was plain that they did not relish the prospect of this trip
   up the Erap; but Kari, moving among them, and talking in quiet, confident
   tones, seemed to reassure them.

   On a slightly rising piece of ground behind the landing was the sentry. He
   had been there since dawn, half hidden among the bushes, searching through
   his binoculars the opposite bank of the Markham and the mouth of the Erap.
   Tom called to him. "Anything doing over there?"

   "Not a thing moved all morning," he replied with a wave.

   This, of course, was good news, but its significance was not very great,
   for the real danger lay higher up, where the main track which ran the
   whole length of the Markham Valley crossed the Erap. If the Japanese had
   decided on more extensive patrolling they would almost certainly begin by
   using this track, which I should have to cross in a few hours' time.

   My patrol-box, blankets, and food had been loaded onto the two canoes, and
   with three carriers on each, Achenmeri and I squatted down on the deck of
   one, with Kari in charge of the other. We exchanged a quick handshake and
   good-bye with Tom, and then our near-naked crews pushed off into the
   swift, muddy water.

   The current was so strong that it was impossible to cross directly from
   one bank to the other, so, sweeping rapidly downstream, we made diagonally
   for the first island. There was very little freeboard on the canoe, and
   from time to time water splashed into it. The crew did not seem very
   concerned at this, and it was one-third full before they began bailing
   with their coconut-shells. Meanwhile, with all three paddles on the
   right-hand side, with much panting and sweating, they were slowly urging
   our little craft nearer to the island. As soon as we reached the shallows
   they jumped overboard and began pushing, until we finally grounded at the
   lower end of the island. Then, by means of a rope made from vines, they
   hauled the canoe through slack water to the upstream end of the island,
   and we were off into the second main stream and over to the second island.
   Another repetition of the manoeuvre, and we had crossed the Markham and
   were on more or less dry land at the mouth of the Erap. The crossing had
   taken about half an hour.

   It was a long way from this bank to the south one. Through the
   field-glasses I could see Tom and his sentry on the other side. They were
   waving, having seen my safe landing, and I waved back. Their figures, so
   small and distant, and the vastness of the stream between us, gave me a
   sudden feeling of inexpressible loneliness, which was cut short by the
   boss-boy in charge of the boats' crews.

   As he squeezed the water out of his tattered loincloth he said, "Suppose
   behind you like come back, all right, you shoot three-fella time long
   musket. All right, me-fella hearim musket 'e fire up, me-fella come
   quick."

   In other words, when I wanted to return, three rifle-shots would bring
   them over.

   Without another word they scrambled onto their canoes and pushed off on
   the return journey.

   I looked about me. It was a dreary stretch of country, all ooze and mud,
   and covered by a dense growth of canegrass, or pit-pit, through which it
   was difficult to push a way. Even here, at its mouth, the Erap River was
   very swift, and carried such a burden of silt that its consistency was
   that of thin porridge rather than water. The Mari boys regarded it with
   misgivings, pointing upstream and chattering to each other in their own
   local language. It was so swift here, they said finally in pidgin, that it
   had certainly been raining in the mountains, and the higher we went the
   more difficult it would be to cross. However, after a little persuasion
   they picked up the loads and, with our eyes firmly fixed on the opening of
   the Erap Gorge in the distant line of blue hills, we set off across the
   fiat.

   We spent the first half-hour scrambling in and out of water, and it seemed
   that at any moment the squelching mud would pluck the boots from my feet
   as we shoved our way through the pit-pit grass. We were heading almost due
   north straight through the tangled mass of distributary streams that
   formed the delta of the Erap.

   Soon, however, the stream entered a more defined course, and the growth of
   pit-pit gave way to kunai. Although it was so swift, the river had
   virtually no banks, and one had the impression of a stream flowing over
   the plain rather than through it. The nature of the ground changed, too.
   In place of the mud there was an endless stretch of stones - water-rounded
   pebbles of varying size, but mostly about as big as a cricket-ball. They
   were extraordinarily difficult to walk on, rolling from underfoot and
   making one stumble every few paces.

   In the course of a couple of hours we made about half a dozen crossings of
   the Erap, which snaked round and coiled itself across our path.

   As we scrambled out of the water onto the right-hand bank after one of
   these crossings, Kari, who was at the head of the line, called out,
   "Master, you come! Me lookim leg belong man."

   Tracks! I could scarcely see a sign of a footprint, but Kari and the other
   boys assured me that they were there, and led in the direction of a patch
   of jungle about half a mile from the stream.

   "Who do you think it could be?" I asked Kari.

   "It might be Japanese," he replied. "But I think it is more likely that
   they are kanakas from Bivoro, the village we are making for."

   "That's right," the others chimed in. "Whoever made those tracks was not
   wearing shoes."

   "The Erap kanakas often come down to these flats to hunt and fish," added
   one.

   A faint wisp of smoke curled up from the patch of jungle. Whoever they
   might be, they were now in the bush. We put the cargo in a pile and moved
   quietly in the direction of the smoke. A hundred yards or so from the edge
   of the timber we found a faint path, and in the soft earth were several
   clear footprints. These convinced Kari and Achenmeri that the people we
   were seeking were natives.

   "Leg belong kanaka," everyone agreed confidently. We crept along the path
   and into the timber. Five minutes brought us to the edge of a small
   clearing, in which stood half a dozen tiny rough shelters of sago-fronds,
   the sort of huts which natives make for an expedition of a few days'
   duration. Eight or ten men were moving about, clad in, the usual garb of
   tattered loincloth. There were a couple of women, wearing the typical
   grass skirt, short in front and knee-length at the back. There were also
   one or two small children. It was clear that they did not suspect the
   presence of any stranger.

   While the rest of us remained quiet, Kari stepped forward. At the sound of
   his approach the women snatched up the children and fled into the bush.
   They had vanished almost before one realised that they had moved. The men
   seized the long spears which lay handy, but they were reassured almost at
   once by the sight of Kari's police uniform. He told them of our presence
   and then motioned to us to come out. An elderly native with greying hair
   stepped up to me and saluted. He explained that he was the headman, or
   luluai, of Bivoro, arid apologized for not having his official cap on.

   "We have seen so few white men since the time of trouble with the Japanese
   came," he explained in pidgin, "that we expected nobody. Least of all did
   we expect anyone to come upon us here. In fact, when your police-boy
   stepped out of the trees we were afraid it was Japanese. They have sent
   native messengers up here to say that they are going to take over all this
   country and send some of their people up from Lae."

   With a loud yodelling call he summoned the women back, apparently telling
   them there was nothing to fear. I asked him if there would be any Japanese
   in Bivoro, which was still some hours' walk away.

   "No," he replied, "though it is nearly a week since I have been there
   myself. We have been down here hunting wild pig. But they would have sent
   for me at once from my village if anything of that sort had happened."

   This was good news. Bivoro was important, for it was the last village on
   our line of communications from the mountains back to Bob's. If the
   Japanese had not visited these people and spread the usual propaganda
   about all the Australians having run away, there was a good chance of our
   getting some help from the villagers.

   The reluctance of the Mari carriers to make the journey up the Erap had
   increased visibly with every mile we put between ourselves and the
   Markham. I was afraid they might slip off into the bush and return home,
   so I asked the luluai of Bivoro if his men would take over the job and
   carry my six boy-loads of cargo to his village. He agreed at once, and
   shouted orders to the women to pack all their belongings - grass mats,
   blackened clay cooking-pots, and so forth. These went into the inevitable
   string bags. The men he instructed to collect the cargo, which still lay
   in the kunai outside the patch of jungle.

   This arrangement pleased the Mari boys immensely. Now they would be able
   to sleep the night at home, and not in a foreign village. Kari lined them
   up to receive their pay, and I dropped a shilling and a stick of tobacco
   into each outstretched hand. By accepted New Guinea standards this was
   substantial overpayment for half a day's work, but it was important for
   them to be satisfied and in good temper. On their homeward journey down
   the Erap, it was quite possible that they would meet a party of Japanese
   and if they felt I had cheated them they might revenge themselves by
   setting the enemy on our trail. As soon as the last man had been paid, the
   six of them disappeared silently through the trees, stowing their
   shillings safely in their ears as they went.

   "How are you off for tobacco?" I asked the luluai as I squatted on the
   ground beside him, waiting for the men to return with the cargo. (I spoke
   in pidgin, of course.)

   "Not very well," he replied. "We do not grow very good brus at Bivoro. It
   is a long while since I had a piece of newspaper to roll my smoke in,
   too," he added hopefully.

   I gave him a stick of trade tobacco and several sheets of newspaper.

   "Divide the paper up for the men, and I will give them a little tobacco
   when they bring the cargo up," I told him. He spread the paper on the
   ground before us and carefully tore it into strips.

   "Look," he said finally, "there is one piece bigger than the others. I had
   better keep it myself, so as to avoid any dispute." And the old rogue
   tucked into his string bag almost a whole sheet of paper.

   In less than five minutes the women had packed all their belongings into
   the bilums, as the string bags were called, and the men had returned with
   my cargo. We were on our way once more.

   The luluai walked beside me, carrying my haversack, and I asked him about
   the route we were to follow. He said that it would be necessary to cross
   and recross the Erap at least half a dozen times before we got to Bivoro.

   "The river turns about and about so much," he explained, "that if we were
   to follow the one bank it would take us till tomorrow to get there. The
   water gets very swift as we go up, too, but we will help you to cross."

   We emerged from the patch of jungle and regained the kunai. It was
   terribly hot, and the sun was reflected straight back into our faces from
   the stony ground. I kept hoping that no enemy reconnaissance planes would
   fly over, because there was not a scrap of cover for several miles ahead.
   When we next came to the bank of the Erap I realized that even if there
   had been a Jap plane about we would not have heard it for the roar of the
   water and a dull rumbling sound which, Kari explained, was caused by rocks
   and boulders that were being swept along the bed of the stream.

   "This stream is not deep," he told me. "The danger lies in those rocks,
   which could easily break a man's leg, and in the force of the water. I
   hope you are strong in the water, because if you fall over in crossing you
   will be lucky to get out much this side of the Markham, though the water
   is seldom deeper than your waist."

   The truth of this was demonstrated at our first crossing. The luluai had
   wished to hold my hand and assist me over, but foolishly I would not hear
   of it. "If an old man like that can do it, so can I," was my thought, and
   I plunged into the stream ahead of the carriers. The water caught me, and
   immediately I was struggling to keep my balance on the uneven stony
   bottom, though I was not even in the fastest part of the stream. The
   luluai, seeing I had learnt my lesson, thrust out his stick and hauled me
   to the bank.

   He looked at me reproachfully, and explained that it was impossible to
   stand still and keep one's balance, because the stones rolled away from
   underfoot. It was necessary to keep running as fast as one could, never
   leaving the feet on the bottom more than an instant. In this way it was
   possible to cross the stream without falling. Having delivered his little
   lecture-he grasped me firmly by the hand and led the way.

   As soon as we entered the water we broke into a run, bobbing up and down
   in the current, with the water sweeping us downstream almost irresistibly.
   Without the assistance of the old man several times I would have fallen.
   By the time we had covered the twenty yards' width of the river we were at
   least fifty yards downstream from the point where we had entered the water
   on the opposite bank.

   I took off my shirt to wring the water out, and watched the carriers, who
   were preparing for the crossing by rolling their loincloths up round their
   waists to leave their legs unhampered. Holding his load high in the air,
   each man plunged in and started running, jumping up and down as he went.
   My patrol-box, the only double load of the cargo, was carried by two men.
   Lashed to a pole, it swayed wildly to and fro between them as they held it
   clear of the water. I watched them anxiously, for the box contained my
   essential possessions, including the precious map I had obtained from Bill
   Chaffey. In the course of several journeys up and down the Erap I never
   ceased to wonder how the carriers managed the distance without falling,
   with that awkward load jolting about between them. When I expressed my
   admiration for their agility they mcrcly grinned, and twisted the water
   from their loincloths "Something - nothing, master," they said. "This
   river doesn't often become too flooded for us to cross." And they went on
   to explain a phenomenon of the Erap - that as soon as it was seen to be
   raining in the mountains they knew they could safely cross the river, for
   the flood would not reach the flat for some time.

   "When the flood does come, though, it is like a wave, and there was no
   hope if you are caught in midstream," said the luluai as the men picked up
   the loads and set off again.

   We walked fast, and without stopping to rest, across the stony ground with
   the heat growing fiercer all the way. When we crossed the Markham "road" -
   a faint dusty track that led down to Lae - Kari and the other boys could
   find no sign of its having been used recently. Certainly their were no
   footprints of Japanese to be seen.

   Fast as we walked, however, the hills seemed to recede with every step.
   Even by two o'clock they seemed no nearer for our hours of marching across
   the plain. Then, about half past three the Erap's banks suddenly became
   higher, and the stream took a more defined course. The hills all at once
   looked less blue, and quite close. Within half an hour we were well inside
   the Erap Gorge, its steep walls rising ever higher as we went. Kari said
   that another half-hour'% walk and one more crossing of the river would
   bring us to Bivoro. A few stunted banana-plants were clustered here and
   there, and we passed one small garden of taro where people had recently
   been working.

   Confined in this ever-narrowing bed, the Erap became even mow swift and
   turbulent. The luluai called to us to hurry. There were signs, he said,
   that the flood was coming, and if we did not reach the crossing swiftly we
   would be forced to camp in the open for the night. He rushed to the
   water's edge and called to me to follow.

   "We can cross here," he said. "You come with me now." And for what seemed
   the hundredth time that day we were struggling through the water.
   Actually, I think we had crossed the river fifteen times in all since
   leaving Kirkland's.

   Once across, the luluai started to shout and wave his arms madly to the
   carriers, who had arrived at the water's edge; and they, in turn,
   gesticulated and pointed upstream. I could see that they too were
   shouting, but their voices were drowned by the roar of the river. Then,
   suddenly making up their minds, carriers, women with children, and the two
   police dashed into the water and struggled across to us.

   They were just in time, for they had barely reached the bank when the
   level of the water started to rise. Within two minutes we were deafened by
   the roar of the stream and the rumble of the boulders. Nothing could have
   survived the boiling yellow swirl of water that rushed away to join the
   Markham.

   We were close to Bivoro village now. It came into sight on a small area of
   flat ground near the junction of the Erap and one of its tributaries. I
   halted the carriers and squatted in the kunai, searching the houses with
   my binoculars. The village had all the appearances of a normal native
   settlement - a few men sitting smoking under the raised grass-thatched
   houses, women attending to cooking-fires and the preparation of food, and
   children running about playing among the banana-plants that encircled the
   houses.

   I asked whether Bivoro boasted a house-kiap, or rest-house. (The pidgin
   name for the government patrol officer was kiap, and in peacetime it had
   been the custom for most villages under government control to build a
   rest-house of native materials, where the officer could spend the night.)
   The luluai indicated a large grass house a little apart from the village,
   and Kari drew my attention to a fire burning in front of it. I examined
   the house carefully through the binoculars. It consisted of two rooms with
   an open veranda between them. Hanging on the veranda, in full vicw, was a
   strange-looking sub-machine gun of a type I had never seen before.

   This seemed conclusive evidence that the Japanese were in the place, so I
   called to the carriers to remain hidden, and asked Kari and the luluai
   their opinion of the situation.

   The luluai was positive that there were no Japanese there. "We have heard
   of the Japanese, and are afraid of them. Long ago, we all agreed that if
   they came to our village we would r tin away, but you can see for yourself
   that even the women and small children are there. Would they be sitting
   round like that if the Japanese were in the village?"

   While I admitted the force of his remarks, the machine-gun could not be
   explained. Kari examined it with the glasses and agreed that it was very
   different from any used by the Australians.

   We moved back into the kunai a little, to consider the best thing to do.
   The luluai offered to go in and investigate the situation himself, and
   bring us word. Although he seemed a reliable old fellow, I decided against
   this. If he were, by some chance, playing a smooth double game with us and
   the Japs it would be better for us to surprise them ourselves, rather than
   have them tipped off and prepared by the luluai.

   Then again, there was no imperative reason for us to go in to Bivoro at
   all. We could sleep in the bush and push on next morning, having skirted
   the place altogether. I did not want to do this, however, because it would
   leave a grave uncertainty hanging over us the whole time we were in the
   Wain. We would constantly be wondering whether or not the Japanese were
   sitting near the end of our trail, waiting for us to come out.

   The only thing to do was to investigate for ourselves at once, and we
   hastily planned our move.

   Kari and I were to approach the house, while Achenmeri, concealed in the
   kunai, was to cover us with his rifle. The backward glances Kari kept
   throwing over his shoulder indicated that he felt the same misgivings as I
   did about Achenmeri's covering fire. I hoped it would not result in an
   accidental bullet in the back for either of us. We moved quietly down upon
   the rest-house, feeling confident that the owner of the gun was unaware of
   our presence, and anyhow would be dead before he reached it if he did
   realize we were coming. How we would deal with any other occupants of the
   rest-house was not so certain, but in the absence of a sub-machine gun I
   relied on the hand-grenades, and both Kari and I had one ready.

   We had almost reached the house when we heard a movement in one of the
   rooms. I raised my revolver, and out of the corner of my eye saw Kari's
   rifle fly to his shoulder. Then a fair curly head appeared in the doorway,
   and a voice shouted to a cook-boy to prepare some hot water for a wash. To
   our intense relief the voice was unmistakably Australian, and with a loud
   "Hullo!" we hurried across the open space to meet the stranger.

   He was so surprised that he almost fell off the veranda, and his relief
   when he recognized us as friends was almost as great as ours had been.

   "Well, I'll be buggered!" was all either of us couId say at first as we
   shook hands warmly and went inside the house to make introductions and
   explanations. Kari meanwhile shouted to Achenmeri that all was well, and
   told him to bring the others into the village.

   The stranger sat down at once on the edge of his bed-sail, and I noticed
   that he looked pale and sick. "Fever," he explained briefly. "I got here
   yesterday and I've felt pretty crook since. It'll pass, though," he added.
   He had the philosophical attitude towards his sickness that characterized
   most of the men who had had many attacks of malaria.

   He told me his name was Les Williams, and that he was a member of a
   special party sent up from Australia on a secret mission into the Huon
   Peninsula,

   "Do you know about Jock McLeod being in there?" I asked.

   "Sure. I've met up with him already, and I'm just on my way to rejoin him.
   My chief is in there with Jock now."

   "Who's in charge of your show?"

   "A bloke called Ian Downs. He's a lieutenant in the Navy now, but he was a
   New Guinea patrol officer in peacetime."

   Stacked at one end of the rickety bamboo floor was Les's patrol gear. A
   couple of the boxes looked as though they might contain a radio
   transmitter and receiver.

   "Can you tell me some more about your set-up?" I asked. "Or is there too
   much of the cloak-and-dagger hush-hush?"

   "Seeing you're here, you might as well know. You'd pretty soon find out,"
   he added with a grin. "Anyhow, I expect we'll all work in together; Jock
   and Ian have been co-operating."

   He shivered, and lay back on the bed, pulling a blanket over him.

   "Before you go on," I said, "tell me about that submachine gun. It had me
   tricked."

   "That's easy - it's only a Sten gun. They aren't on issue generally to
   Australian troops yet, but some special parties like ours are being
   equipped with them."

   Outside there was laughter and chattering as Kari and Achenmeri got
   acquainted with the natives of Les's party, and the luluai and his men
   told the rest of the inhabitants how astonished I'd been at finding
   another white man here. We stopped to listen for a moment, and then Les
   went on to give me more details of his plans.

   It appeared that Ian Downs had established a base camp south of the
   Markham, at the native village of Tungu, on the Watut River. There he had
   a powerful radio set manned by signallers. The boxes on the floor with
   Les's patrol gear contained, as I suspected, a radio met, a small one
   intended for sending messages to Tungu, whence they could be relayed to
   Port Moresby or to Australia, but unfortunately it was out of action. Les
   had brought it to Tungu to see whether it could be repaired, but it needed
   some new parts, and he had arranged to have these sent after him. Our only
   means of communication, at present, therefore, was by runner, either to
   Bob's or to the Tungu base camp.

   Ian Downs's party was collecting as much information about Japanese
   activities in this area as possible, as a prelude to a projected
   full-scale attack on Lae later in the year. Apparently Land Headquarters
   in Melbourne had had no idea of Jock McLeod's movements, and Ian had been
   astonished to find him on the peninsula.

   Les was now on his way to rejoin Jock and Ian, after bringing the radio to
   Tungu. He had made his crossing of the Markham higher up than Kirkland's,
   moving across country to Bivoro.

   Since he had been to Jock's camp near Gain, and expected to find him still
   there, we decided to make our way to Gain together.

   Although next day Les felt better, he was still not well enough to travel,
   and we spent the day reading, yarning, and smoking, and drinking
   innumerable pots of tea. I took some pidgin-English lessons from him, and
   though I was at last beginning to make some headway, I still found it hard
   to understand more than a fraction of what the natives were saying,
   because they spoke pidgin so rapidly.

   At nightfall Les announced that he felt quite fit again, so we summoned
   the luluai and told him to have enough carriers ready in the morning to
   take our combined equipment - about a dozen boy-loads in all.

   Before eight next morning we had packed our gear and were on the road. It
   was necessary to cross the Erap for the last time just opposite the
   village. The water was not running as swiftly as it had been two days
   before, and we got over easily enough. Once across, we found that the
   river swung away to the north-west, while our path lay in a north-easterly
   direction. We caught only one glimpse of the Erap after that.

   The track was good, though it climbed steadily and the kunai slopes gave
   way more and more to areas of forest. The creeks were crystal clear and
   cold as they tumbled through their rocky courses.

   A couple of hours' steady walking brought us to Munkip, a tiny village on
   the way to Gain. The "doctor-boy" greeted us and we sat down for a few
   minutes in the shade of the house-kiap to catch our breath and glance at
   the remarks in the village book.

   In peacetime, local government of the natives had been organized along the
   following lines: Three natives in each community were appointed by the
   government officer to be village officials. The luluai, or headman, was
   the senior, and would probably have been a leader of his people in their
   primitive state. Being an older man, he frequently had not learnt to speak
   pidgin English, the lingua franca of the Territory, and so a somewhat
   younger assistant and interpreter was appointed, called a tultul. The
   tultul had usually been away for a period of employment on a mine or
   plantation, and so had some slight acquaintance with the ways of the white
   man. The third village official was the doctor-boy, who had received
   elementary training in hygiene at one of the native hospitals and who also
   knew some of the principles of first aid. The official insignia of these
   three dignitaries was a peaked cap, sometimes of incredible dilapidation.
   It bore one broad red band, like a staff officer's cap, for the luluai;
   two narrow red bands for the tultul; and a white band with a red cross for
   the doctor-boy. Wearing their caps, and a loincloth round their middles,
   it was the custom for them to greet the kiap at the entrance to the
   village, each usually giving his own fantastic version of the military
   salute.

   The village book contained the names of all people of the village,
   arranged in families. Births, deaths, marriages, and migrations were
   recorded by each officer who made the yearly census of the village, and at
   the back of the book were entered his comments and general remarks, and
   hints for the next visiting officer. It was to these remarks that we now
   turned, in search of any chance information about the country through
   which we were passing.

   One interesting fact came to light: a company had sought the right to
   obtain kunai-grass in the area for the purpose of manufacturing paper. It
   was news to Les and me that the wretched stuff could be used for anything
   except thatching, but apparently it can yield paper of a very good
   quality. However, no active steps had been taken to put the project into
   operation.

   We were thirsty after the long climb up from the bottom of the Erap
   Valley, and asked the doctor-boy for a drink of water. He shouted to one
   of the women, who presently hurried along with a length of green bamboo
   full of clean, cool water from a nearby creek.

   The use of these bamboos was another instance of the extraordinarily
   clever way in which these so-called primitive people had adapted
   themselves to their surroundings. The bamboos were cut in lengths up to
   five feet, and three or four inches in diameter. The interstices, or
   "joints", were then knocked out with a long pointed stick, and the result
   was a clean, strong receptacle holding two or three gallons. It was a
   common thing every morning to see the women come up from the creek bearing
   two or three of them across their shoulders, the tops neatly stoppered
   with a wad of green banana-leaf. Smaller lengths were used for cooking
   purposes. Food was packed tightly into them, and they were placed on the
   fire for the contents to bake. When the food was cooked, the charred
   bamboo was broken away from the outside. An even more ingenious use of
   bamboo was in the irrigation conduits that were sometimes seen bringing
   water round parched hill-sides from a spring to a flourishing patch of
   taro, often over distances of many hundreds of yards.

   We drank and moved on, through the little rushing creek and out of the
   bush, to a steep kunai spur. Native fashion, the track followed the crest
   of the ridge - the shortest way, perhaps, but certainly the steepest-and
   led us to a forest-covered mountain. It was hard going, and the sweat
   soaked our clothes and dripped off our faces as we struggled uphill. But
   we did not mind, for the higher we went, the cooler the air would become,
   and the fewer the mosquitoes.

   By midday we had reached a small hamlet called Badibo, where we halted to
   boil the billy. The local natives gave us a pineapple, which, with the
   tea, comprised our lunch. We bought some fine bananas, too, and the
   natives assured us that they had plenty of food.

   "We are getting near the promised land now," said Les. "Just over this
   hill is Gain, the first village of the Wain country. The people there can
   grow almost any fruit or vegetable."

   It took an hour and a half to reach the top of the next "hill". The track,
   wide enough only for single file, climbed through thick forest all the
   way. The trees had been cleared slightly at the summit, and it was
   possible to look across the plain we had left behind, to the Markham. At
   the distant edge of the plain the great stream gleamed dully in the
   afternoon sun. On the south bank, where the hills came close to the
   water's edge, was the kunai spur of Kirkland's outlined against the dark
   background of the jungle. Through the binoculars we thought we could see a
   faint plume of smoke above the place where we knew the camp to be.

   "Well," I said, "we're a long way from home now, if anything happens."

   We began the short descent of the other side of the hill to Gain, thinking
   enviously of Torn Lega and his five men at Kirkland's, mosquito-ridden and
   unhealthy as the place was.

   Apparently the news of our coming had been sent ahead from Bivoro or
   Munkip, for the luluai, tultul, and doctor-boy of Gain stepped forward to
   salute us as we stopped in front of the house-kiap, and the village had a
   scrupulously neat look, which was usually lacking when a surprise call was
   paid.

   The Wain country was to be my home for many months, and I grew to love it
   all. It contains many beautiful sights, but I have always had a specially
   soft spot in my heart for Gain village, possibly because of the contrast
   with the hot, flat, mosquito-ridden Markham. The house-kiap, a little
   apart from the village, was set in a grassy clearing on the hill-side,
   whence one looked across the deep valley of the Upper Busu River towards
   tiers of blue mountains rising ever higher as they receded into the
   distance. The Busu, a considerable stream even here, flowed into the Huon
   Gulf not many miles from Lae as a large muddy river. The hills, dotted
   here and there with gardens, were every conceivable shade of blue.
   Drifting smoke from some of the gardens indicated that the owners were
   clearing new ground. As Les had said, the natives grew abundant and varied
   crops in the rich red-brown soil - we were to see that this country was as
   productive as it was beautiful. The luluai shouted to the women that we
   wished to buy food for the police and some fruit and vegetables for
   ourselves. The food had obviously been gathered in anticipation of our
   visit, for within a few minutes half a dozen chattering grass-skirted
   women carrying large bilums, or string bags, walked across the clearing
   towards the house-kiap. They carried their bilums by putting them over
   their backs and suspending them by a string that passed across their
   foreheads. If the strain became too great the women would walk with hands
   clasped behind their heads to relieve the backward drag. In this fashion,
   loads that would almost have broken a mule's heart were carried. Often you
   could hardly see the woman who carried the load, which consisted of
   perhaps forty pounds of sweet potatoes, the next day's stack of firewood,
   a cooking-pot or two, and sometimes a child to top the pile. But no doubt
   they were used to it, and they seemed remarkably cheerful as they spread
   their wares on the grass, each standing by her pile waiting for me to buy.

   The tultul translated my question into "talk-place", or the local dialect,
   for the women did not speak pidgin. "Do you want salt, money, newspaper,
   or tobacco?" I asked.

   Without exception each chose a handful or so of coarse salt, and parcelled
   it carefully up in a leaf tied with vine. They were obviously delighted
   with their bargain, which astonished me when I looked at what I had
   received in exchange. There were piles of cabbages, sweet potatoes,
   English potatoes, tomatoes, papaws, bananas, sweet corn, and pineapples.
   The German Lutheran Mission, which had been established in the area for
   many years, was mainly responsible for the presence of these imported
   plants, and one could buy fine-quality English potatoes almost anywhere in
   the mountains of the Huon Peninsula, though they did not thrive in the
   low-lying coastal areas.

   With a confidential wink, the luluai sidled up and handed me a small
   bundle tied up in a filthy rag. I opened it gingerly, to find six eggs.
   The old man's grin spread from one black ear to the other as I called out
   delightedly to Les, "Hey, look at this! Eggs for breakfast!"

   "Good-oh - they'll go well! Buy 'em and don't break 'em!" Les said
   enthusiastically.

   I was about to give the old boy a shilling and a smoke when Kari stepped
   quickly between us. "Master, you no can buyim! Me tryim first time suppose
   'em 'e stink!"

   Kari had been told to look after me, and he was taking it seriously. He
   called for a dish of water, but since none of the eggs floated we reckoned
   they were good, and handed over the payment. We also asked the luluai and
   tultul to come up to the house later in the evening, so that we could have
   a chat.

   "Wash-wash" was the next item of camp routine. Two buckets of water were
   heated over the fire in the "house-cook" - a small shelter attached to the
   house-kiap - and a couple of banana-leaves were spread on the ground for a
   bath-mat. With a mug we poured hot water from the bucket over ourselves,
   lathered up, and rinsed the soap off with more hot water from the mug. All
   this was watched by an interested throng of natives of both sexes and all
   sizes. It was the only way in which I took a bath in the next year or so,
   for to bathe in the icy streams of these mountains was to invite an attack
   of malaria.

   Though Les had a couple of natives as servants and camp usefuls, we had no
   cook, so I prepared dinner myself. The menu comprised fried tinned
   sausages, cabbage, potato-chips, and fried tomatoes, and fruit salad,
   followed by several pints of very strong and excellent coffee made from
   coffee-beans grown in Wau - I had taken care to scrounge a big tin before
   setting out for the Markham.

   Les sighed with delicious anticipation as I put his meal in front of him.
   "By God, that looks good!" Settling the plate firmly on his knee, he ate
   ravenously.

   Except for the sausages our meal was all of local produce. In this country
   the only rations we had to carry were the typically European foods - tea
   and sugar, tinned milk and meat, jam, biscuits, and flour. Fresh meat
   could sometimes be bought from the natives - they only had to kill a fowl
   or a pig. And if you had a shotgun you could sometimes bag a pigeon, which
   made succulent eating.

   Dusk was approaching when we drained the coffee-pot and lit our pipes and
   sat on the edge of the house, which, like all native dwellings in this
   district, was built on piles a few feet above the ground. As we smoked, we
   watched the shadows darken in the valleys and the mountains change from
   blue to deep purple.

   Through the glasses we picked out two iron-roofed houses on a distant
   hill-side. These were the buildings of Boana Mission, the Lutheran
   headquarters for this area, and former residence of several German
   missionaries. Boana had long since been abandoned, for the missionaries
   had been either interned or removed to Australia. The buildings were also
   damaged, for Japanese strafing planes, under the impression that our
   forces were in occupation, had attacked the mission one morning and
   partially wrecked it. The question now was whether the Japanese would come
   and take charge. Boana was a sort of focal centre for the Wain, and was
   only a couple of days' journey from the enemy base at Lae. It seemed
   certain that soon the Japanese would venture into the mountains and
   establish a post there.

   Though we had not received an unfriendly welcome, we were a little worried
   about the attitude of the natives towards us. Would they refuse to
   co-operate when we made the reasons for our presence known? More than
   twenty years before the Australian administration was established in New
   Guinea, German missionaries were exploring the Huon Peninsula and making
   contact with its people. Some of these missionaries were unfriendly to the
   administration, and they had not encouraged the natives to co-operate with
   any white men except themselves. Because of their greater numbers and more
   or less permanent residence in one district, they naturally had a greater
   hold on the natives than the transient government officer had. Although
   all these European missionaries had gone we feared that their influence
   would persist, for we knew that some of the native mission helpers (or
   "black missions") also bore the government no great love. We felt a
   greater sense of confidence, however, when we were told that most of the
   "black missions" had left their posts and returned to their home villages.
   Now, perhaps, we would have a chance to influence the natives to our way
   of thinking.



   It had become quite dark. The evening was very cool, and we pulled on
   sweaters and long trousers. I felt contented as I sat and watched the
   little disc of Les's pipe glow and fade. A good dinner, clean clothes, a
   pipe, and a cool, pleasant climate - what more could one ask at the end of
   a hard day's walk, I thought, as I compared this with evenings at Bob's,
   where one sweated all night and slapped continually at mosquitoes. Below
   us in the valley the Busu River thundered as it rushed down towards Lae.
   Across the little clearing came the murmur of conversation and an
   occasional roar of laughter from the police-boys. We saw the flicker of
   their fire and the red points of their cigarettes. I,es and I sighed as we
   knocked out our pipes to refill them. In the midst of war, it seemed, one
   could find peace.

   A quiet "Me fella come up now" announced the presence of the luluai and
   tultul. They had approached so silently on their bare feet out of the
   darkness that we had not heard them. They squatted down close by, and we
   passed them a couple of sticks of tobacco and some newspaper. While they
   rolled their long cigarettes we talked, the tultul translating our remarks
   from pidgin English to "talk-place" for the luluai, and rendering the old
   man's comments into pidgin for us.

   We chatted generally about the war. They knew the Japs had driven us out
   of Lae, and they wanted to know what the situation was in other parts of
   New Guinea. We told them of our growing strength - of the planes which
   would bomb Lae and Salamaua in ever-increasing numbers, and of the great
   base being built at Port Moresby. Yes, they knew Lae was already being
   bombed more heavily - the explosions could be heard clearly in Gain as the
   sound travelled up the valley of the Busu.

   "But what about men?" they said. "The talk comes up to us from Lae that
   there are more Japanese there than there used to be white men in the whole
   of New Guinea in peacetime. There are now only four white men that we know
   of for certain: you two here and the two over there" - they waved their
   hands vaguely over the hills where they supposed Jock and Ian to be.

   We told them of our successes at Milne Bay and Kokoda, and that before
   very long we would be in a position to regain Lae. We also impressed on
   them the necessity for avoiding any contact with the Japanese, and for
   hiding in the bush if any Japs came into the area. They agreed to do this
   readily enough, for stories had come up from the coast about the harsh
   treatment of the Lae natives by the Japanese.

   The conversation drifted to other topics-food and gardens. and the
   scarcity of pigs. As they left to return to the village, we told them that
   we wished to leave early next day, and asked them to make sure that
   sufficient carriers were available by daybreak.

   We lit the hurricane-lamp and undressed, filling a last pipe to be smoked
   in bed before going to sleep. It was three-blanket country here, and the
   world seemed a pleasant place as we stretched out on our bed-sails. The
   risky journey up the Erap had been accomplished safely, the local natives
   seemed well disposed, and we were happy.

   We took a last look across at the house-police, which was now silent.
   Squatting by the dying embers of the fire was the sentry posted by
   Corporal Kari. His black skin shone in the faint light; when he drew on
   his cigarette the whites of his eyes gleamed, and the shape of a fixed
   bayonet could just be discerned.

   "Well, shut-eye now," said Les. "We must be on the track before
   sparrow-fart tomorrow." I was too nearly asleep to reply.

                                  Chapter III

   IN the morning we drank a cup of tea by the first grey light and were on
   the road again. A dozen men would have been enough to carry our gear, but
   we were surrounded by a throng of people, all anxious to help. Chattering
   loudly in their own tongue, tiny brown-skinned lads seized lamps and
   buckets and other light articles and fell into line with the men carrying
   the heavier loads. Of course, this was not done purely out of a desire to
   work: they knew very well that they would share in the distribution of
   salt and tobacco at the end of the carry. But there was a good-humoured
   spirit about the whole line of carriers which made us confident that even
   if the enemy's propaganda had penetrated as far as this, it had failed to
   stir up feeling against us.

   We descended the track, which wound steep and snakelike, through grass and
   forest, to the Busu River. We crossed the river by a rickety bridge of
   bamboos and began the climb up the other side. These steep climbs up and
   down the valleys were the most difficult feature of travel in these
   mountains, where all the streams were so deeply entrenched. Indeed, in
   some settlements one could shout to another village and be heard, though
   the walk to it involved the best part of half a day's solid climbing.

   On the top of the ridge forming the east side of the Busu Valley was
   another small settlement, whose people were already assembled, waiting to
   take over the carrying. We sat on our patrol-boxes to rest for a few
   minutes, and paid the men from Gain with a stick of tobacco and a piece of
   newspaper each. The lads who had joined in the line, carrying the lamps
   and other odds and ends, asked for salt, so we gave them a tablespoonful
   each. One by one they stepped gravely forward and presented a leaf for the
   salt to be placed on. Then they squatted down and made neat little
   bundles, folding the leaves and binding them tightly with pieces of vine.
   I often noticed the serious expressions on the faces of some of these
   ten-year-old brats. When they had a job to do they tackled it much more
   purposefully than the majority of European children of the same age,
   displaying a sense of responsibility far beyond their years.

   We walked for a further hour and a half along the main track, a
   well-defined and more or less graded bridle-path, with Les at the head of
   the line and myself at the rear. The police-boys were interspersed among
   the carriers. The carriers from Gain had gone home, after handing over to
   these new carriers, but the luluai and tultul of Gain were honouring us
   with their company as far as the camp. The tultul walked with me at the
   rear, pointing out features of interest and telling me the names of all
   the mountains. The men in front, he told me, were watching carefully for a
   certain mark on a tree - indicating the turn-off to the camp. Before long
   the line stopped. They had come to the marked tree. Loads were put down
   and everyone took a breather before continuing on the last lap of the
   journey. Moving off again, we plunged straight into thick bush, grasping
   saplings and vines to haul ourselves up a steep, slippery slope. It took
   only about twenty-five minutes to reach the camp on the summit of the
   hill, but we were exhausted. Only a couple of days off the Markham plain,
   we were not yet in training for mountain walking.

   The camp consisted of two small grass huts concealed in a patch of thick
   bamboos. It was an excellent spot for a hide-out, for there was a back way
   out for escape into another valley; anyhow, a Japanese who had just
   climbed that hill would be in no condition to put up a fight. He would
   doubtless feel just as we did now - about ready to drop.

   We looked inside the huts, but they were empty; then round the encircling
   green walls of bamboo. All was silent. The place seemed deserted. Then a
   native holding a rifle stepped out of the foliage, and approached Les,
   whom he obviously knew, with a broad grin.

   "Goo' mornin', master," he said.

   " 'Morning, Buka. Master Jock 'e stop?"

   "No-got. 'Im 'e no stop," the boy replied. " 'Im 'e go where?"

   "Master, me no savvy 'im 'e go where."

   That was that. Jock had left. The boy added that he had moved on two days
   earlier, and had taken the tultul of the nearby native village of
   Wampangan with him. When this man returned we would be able to find out
   where Jock had gone.

   I had been studying Buka during this conversation. He was the blackest man
   I have ever seen, as black as polished ebony, and his glossy skin shone in
   the sun. His real name was Ure, but he was called Buka after his home
   island in the Solomon Islands group. These people probably have the
   blackest skins of any New Guinea natives. Buka was a police-boy, though at
   this moment he was not wearing his uniform. Instead, he sported a long
   silk loincloth of brightest canary yellow.

   As Les and I moved into one of the huts we told Buka to get a fire going.

   "I suppose we might as well wait here until we hear something from Jock or
   Ian," I said.

   "Might as well. It's no good chasing round the country until we find out
   where they've gone or what's happening." We paid off our carriers and gave
   the luluai and tultul of Gain a small present each. Not far from the spot
   where we had turned off the track at the foot of the hill there was
   another little hamlet of six or seven houses, and we told the departing
   carriers to call in there and ask the people to bring us up some food.
   Then we sat down and started on our lunch, polishing off the six eggs we
   had bought the day before from the luluai of Gain.

   "The camp looks a bit damp," I remarked as we lay reading on our bed-sails
   after our meal. "Why did Jock have it built directly on the ground?"

   "Mainly a question of time," Les replied. "The whole joint was run up in
   about half a day, and you can't have hot and cold water in that time - or
   a raised floor, either."

   "Fair enough, I suppose. Anyhow, they tell me Jocks pretty tough, so I
   don't suppose he'd notice the difference!"

   "Tough? Boy! Wait till you've been round the bush with him for a while -
   you'll find out just what toughness is! Jock's one of the toughest things
   on this island."

   There was some tinned meat and some biscuits in the house, and we set
   about making an inventory of our combined stock of food. My own rations
   were few, but Les had quite a lot, all specially prepared for his
   expedition. Oatmeal, dried meat, sugar, tea, chocolate, were made up in
   separate cellophane packets, each containing sufficient for one man for
   one meal. With the local vegetables and fruit we reckoned we would have
   enough food to last four people for about ten days. But our supply of
   trade goods was running low, and when the salt and tobacco were exhausted
   we wouldn't be able to buy any more native foods. The greatest drain on
   our trade goods was the food that we had to buy for the police and our
   other boys, who lived almost entirely on local produce. However, we
   calculated that we could make the trade goods last at least three weeks.
   Also, it was possible that Jock had some with him.

   Next day a small group of men and women from the hamlet below came up to
   sell us some of their produce. While we purchased bananas and sweet
   potatoes they chattered freely among themselves in their own language. We
   couldn't understand what they were saying, of course, but two words of
   pidgin kept recurring - sheep-sheep and bulmacow, meaning sheep and
   cattle. We pricked up our ears.

   "Wonem this-fella sheep-sheep now bulmacow?" asked Les.

   "Master, some-fella sheep-sheep now bulmacow 'e stop long place belong
   mission," replied one of the men. "Fresh meat!" Les and I exclaimed at
   once.

   Taking Kari with me, I set off almost at once for Boana Mission, which lay
   on the far side of the valley of the Bunzok River, a couple of hours' walk
   away. If we could find a beast to kill for meat we would not only have the
   rare pleasure of eating some fresh grilled chops or steak but would be
   able to spin out our rather meagre tinned rations.

   Through the hot sunshine we followed the winding track down into the
   valley of the Bunzok to Dzendzen village. As we passed between the grass
   houses and halted in the clear space in the centre of the village, I felt
   that the people received us with anything but enthusiasm. They stood
   glowering sullenly on the outskirts, making no effort to approach us.
   However, we managed to persuade three or four of them to come to Boana and
   help us bring back the meat we hoped to get.

   A few minutes' walk from Dzendzen we had to cross the Bunzok, which, like
   all rivers in these mountains, was a foaming torrent that thundered
   through a course strewn with enormous boulders. The bridge consisted of a
   huge tree felled across the stream, the top roughly flattened with an
   adze. The natives told us that the missionary used to ride his horse over
   this log without dismounting.

   The climb up the far side of the valley was steep, and we paused half-way,
   in a small garden, while the boys cut lengths of sugar-cane for us all. It
   was wonderfully refreshing stuff, and we eagerly sucked the cool, sugary
   juice, spitting out the coarse, tough pith.

   Before the war Boana Mission had been a little community on its own. There
   were about a score of small kunai native dwellings, several very large and
   lofty thatched buildings made of native materials - these were the school
   and church buildings - and the European dwellings, the two iron-roofed
   houses that Les and I had glimpsed from Gain. One consisted of only a
   couple of rooms, while the other was a typical mission building -
   rectangular and very spacious, surrounded entirely by a wide veranda. The
   country immediately about the settlement was open and undulating, and all
   around dark-forested mountains rose up. There were some citrus-trees, an
   orchard, a little coffee, and the overgrown remains of several large
   gardens. The most level piece of ground had been made into a small
   air-strip for the planes which brought stores up from Lae on the coast.

   Kari and I sat on the veranda of the larger house. We were hot, and I
   spread my shirt on the ground to dry out the sweat. We looked about
   curiously at this abandoned, half-ruined settlement which lay so silent in
   the baking sunlight. Suddenly a serious-looking middle-aged native stood
   before us. Neither Kari nor I had seen his approach; a ghost could not
   have materialized more silently. But he smiled gently, and the cool, ripe
   papaw he handed us was real enough. Kari halved it with one stroke of his
   bayonet, and we ate greedily, talking between mouthfuls to the man who had
   brought it.

   He explained that he had been a mission employee and had run away to his
   distant home village when the war started. After a few months he had
   returned, and had been dismayed at the ruinous state of everything. He had
   decided to settle down alone and do his best to look after the place.

   As the native pointed out the damage we could see he was near tears.
   Japanese planes had bombed the house, believing it to be occupied by
   Australian troops, and water had leaked into almost every room. The scene
   was one of utter chaos. A large ornately carved organ seemed to be the
   only thing that had escaped. A loose shutter squeaking and banging in the
   wind was unnerving me, and everywhere was the smell of decay. I shivered.
   From the encircling mountains a thousand pairs of Japanese eyes might be
   watching us. Even the mission boy, friendly and helpful though he was,
   seemed a little unreal and sinister.

   Kari did not like the atmosphere either. "Place no good, master. Me no
   like!" he rumbled in his deep voice.

   I could see several sheep grazing near the edge of the clearing. "Come
   on," I said. "Let's get one of these animals and get out of here."

   The four men from Dzendzen were resting in the shade a short distance
   away, and we called to them to follow us. Kari shot the nearest sheep
   neatly through the head, and after we had skinned it we gave the entrails
   to the carriers. They wrapped the carcass in leaves to keep the flies off,
   and fastened it to a stout pole for carrying.

   The mission boy had been wringing his hands and muttering as he watched
   all this, but we did our best to soothe his feelings with a handful of
   salt. Then, having instructed him to tell nobody of our presence and to
   warn us immediately upon the first sign of Japanese patrolling, we made
   our way back across the Bunzok and up the hill to the camp.

   In high hopes of fresh meat, Les had delayed lunch, but had the kettle
   boiling and the pan ready for the sheep's liver. We cut off some chops for
   ourselves and handed the rest of the carcass over to the police, who
   divided it. They dispatched most of it that night at one sitting.

   Shortly after dawn next morning, just as Les and I were getting dressed,
   Kari stepped into the house.

   "Master," he said, "me like go back long Markham." I looked over at Les,
   who pulled a wry face.

   "Pity, isn't it?" I said. "I promised John Clarke I'd send Kari back as
   soon as I got the hang of things here."

   "Nothing for it, I suppose. We could do with an experienced policeman,
   though."

   I nodded to Kari and told him it was all right to leave. He went out to
   the house-police, thrust his few belongings into his pack, rolled up some
   scraps of meat left from the night before, and was ready for the road. I
   gave him a couple of sticks of tobacco, and a hastily scribbled note for
   John, telling of our safe arrival. Kari stowed them carefully in his
   haversack, and took a backward pace.

   "All right, master - me go now."

   He smacked the butt of his rifle smartly in salute, turned about, and his
   big black figure was almost instantly swallowed up by the bamboos.
   Travelling alone and unencumbered, he would be back at Bob's soon after
   nightfall.

   "He's a real man," I thought, as I looked at the bamboos into which he had
   vanished. "I hope I see him again."



   Midday next day brought a visitor in the person of Singin, tultul of
   nearby Wampangan village. A smooth-tongued, plausible, and intelligent
   man, Singin had a thin, keen face with yellow-brown skin - he looked as
   though he had Malay or Chinese blood in his veins. He had been away with
   Jock, and from his little string bag he fished out a crumpled scrap of
   paper bearing a message. In it Jock ordered Buka to follow Singin and
   bring the trade goods and the box of food. Clearly Jock had no idea that
   Les and I were at the camp, for the message was written in pidgin - to be
   read to Buka by Singin, one of the few natives in the area who could read
   and write.

   Singin told us that he had left Jock in the village of Samandzing, about
   four days' walk away. Singin was not sure where Ian Downs was, but said
   that he was somewhere "farther on".

   I pulled out the map I had drawn with Bill Chaffey. There was no sign of a
   village called Samandzing. "What about your map, Les?" I asked.

   "Soon see. It's in my pocket," he replied, pulling out something that
   looked like a handkerchief. It was a map Ian had drawn on a piece of silk.
   It could be screwed up in the pocket, put under water, rolled in the mud
   and washed out, emerging from all this as good as the day it was made.

   It covered a much greater area than my map, and we found Samandzing high
   in the mountains, a considerable distance to the east. It seemed to be on
   a river called the Sankwep, the most easterly tributary of the Busu. So as
   to plot the track, we asked Singin to name one by one the villages passed
   through on the way to Samandzing, and as he did so we sketched in the
   route from village to village. It was a roundabout way, and seemed to lead
   across several very high mountains.

   "What are you going to do?" Les asked.

   "My orders were to join Jock, so I suppose I'd better shift on. What about
   you?"

   "I'm expecting the missing parts for this radio set to be sent on by
   runner. If I go too far away he might never find me. It'd be better for me
   to wait, and follow in a few days when I've got the set working."

   Although it was now half past twelve I decided to set out at once, hoping
   to reach Gumbum village, on the far side of Boana, by nightfall. I told
   Achenmeri to pack my gear, and Buka to make ready the stores that Jock
   needed. Les sent Singin to the hamlet at the foot of the hill to tell the
   natives to come up and carry my cargo.

   It was well after one o'clock when Singin returned with nine puffing men,
   each armed with either a coil of vines or a pole. I had spent the interval
   roughly tracing part of the silk map on a piece of paper. The result was a
   crude piece of cartography with which to guide a person across some of the
   roughest country in the world, but I was only thankful that my chance
   meeting with Les had enabled me to have a map at all, however rough. I had
   already walked to the edge of the map Bill Chaffey had given me, and by
   the next day would have had only the cloudiest notion of where I was, or
   where I was heading. It seemed strange that such a vital thing should have
   come to me only by chance. If I had crossed the Markham higher up, if I
   had wasted another day at Bob's, if Les had not gone down with fever....
   No doubt coincidence enters into everyone's life: during my time in New
   Guinea it certainly played an important part in mine, both for good and
   ill.

   With Singin and Buka at their head the carriers passed through the thick
   bamboos and started, slipping and swearing, down the hill. Les and I shook
   hands. "See you in a few days," we both said. But in fact our next
   meeting, an accident just like our first, took place several years later,
   in a luxury hotel in Melbourne.

   I followed the same course to Boana as on the previous day. The mission
   boy materialized just as mysteriously as before, this time to sell me a
   few eggs from his hens. I paid for them with salt, and repeated my
   instructions - to keep silent about our movements and to warn Les
   instantly if there should be any sign of Japanese patrols.

   Singin left me here, to return to his home village of Wampangan, whose
   grass roofs could just be discerned through the trees on a mountain-side,
   about half an hour's walk away. We struck off east, across the little
   air-strip and into the bush. An hour's walk found us at Karau, a village
   of some twelve or fourteen neat and well-made grass houses grouped round
   an open space. We sat down here while the men came in from their gardens
   to take over the carrying. Wild yodelling from the surrounding bush told
   us that they were passing the word along. In the meantime I paid the
   others with salt and let them go. They set off homeward at a trot, hoping
   to beat the afternoon rain.

   As soon as sufficient Karau men had come in, Buku lined them up and
   assigned them their loads, and we moved off down the wide, well-graded
   track to Gumbum.

   This village was a singularly pleasant spot. The house-kiap and the
   house-police were set in a greensward surrounded by breadfruit-trees, and
   the paths were lined with gay red, green, and yellow croton plants. There
   we spent the night, first telling the old luluai to have sufficient
   carriers on the spot in the morning. The police put up my bed, but I was
   still doing my own cooking, not yet having secured a satisfactory
   cook-boy. The natives preferred to stay at home because of the unknown
   dangers and the difficulty of the work we required them to do. I wanted a
   boy who would accompany me readily, rather than one who required
   persuading and who would probably desert and go home as soon as we struck
   hard going.



   Next morning we were on the road shortly after dawn. Our route for the day
   lay through Monakasat and Banzain to a village called Karangandoang. We
   were climbing high into the mountains now, and the scenery was wildly
   magnificent in the early part of the day, but by three in the afternoon
   the hills were often blanketed in cloud, which rose slowly from the depths
   of the valleys until it covered the whole countryside. The walk between
   villages meant a precipitous descent into a valley and a back-breaking
   climb up the other side. In the mornings the grandeur of the country was
   some compensation for the effort. Later in the day, with the mist
   shrouding everything, it was unnerving to walk into the valley as the
   unseen stream roared below, or to make what seemed to be an endless ascent
   into space, for the tops of the mountains were invisible and one could not
   see where the track was leading.

   By the time we reached Karangandoang a misty rain was falling and the red
   earth of the track was very greasy and slippery. It was cold, and the boys
   spread a layer of earth over part of the bamboo floor of the house-kiap,
   so that, native fashion, I could have a fire in the house to cook on, and
   to dry my clothes. There was no house-police, but the boys arranged
   accommodation for themselves in the village, a couple of hundred yards
   away. The natives greeted us with no great affection - for which, I
   suppose, they could hardly be blamed, because our presence meant only the
   nuisance of a carry next day. However, they brought us food, asking for
   salt in return.

   A strong wind was blowing through the house, and I had put on dry clothes
   and an extra sweater and was about to eat my meal when Buka, his eyes and
   teeth flashing white against the blackness of his face, burst into the
   hut.

   "One of Master Jock's police-boys is coming! He says there has been
   trouble!" he exclaimed.

   A few seconds later a weary, muddy, but grinning policeman, his cap and
   loincloth dripping wet and his bare torso steaming, appeared out of the
   night in the weak yellow shaft of lantern-light. He said that his name was
   Buso, and that he had a message for Les.

   "Give it to me," I said. "I'll read it before it goes on to him."

   Buso fished in the depths of his haversack and produced a large sealed
   envelope. I was glad to see that it had not yet been penetrated by the
   water, though it was damp. I told Buso to go down to the village to eat
   and get dry, and to come back in an hour.

   The letter was from Ian Downs, describing how he had gone down from the
   mountains to the coast near Hopoi to reconnoitre a beach on which our
   assault troops would land to begin an attack on Lae. Unfriendly natives
   had betrayed him, and he had been chased by a party of Japanese and nearly
   caught. "Managed to climb a ficus-tree, and watched the Nips walking round
   underneath. Fortunately they didn't look up," ran one passage. At another
   stage the enemy caught sight of him and opened fire, but he managed to
   shake them off in the bush. He had trouble in fording the swift Bulu
   River, and apparently injured himself as he crossed from side to side in
   an effort to cover his tracks from the enemy. Studded through the letter,
   like a new kind of punctuation-mark, was the sentence, "Had another swig
   at the whisky-flask - felt a bit better." The whisky kept him going until,
   on the second day, he reached a remote mountain village, where he was now
   resting.

   I didn't think the Japs would let Ian get away with this. Although up to
   this time they had never gone far inland, they must now realize the danger
   of allowing people like Jock and Ian to continue to live freely in the
   mountains. A concerted drive by the enemy to hunt such people out of
   hiding seemed quite a possibility.

   I decided that in case there was trouble ahead it would be better to have
   with us reliable police, and so, when Buso returned, his belly swollen
   from an enormous meal of sweet potatoes, I told him that the letter would
   be taken back to Les by Achenmeri, the recruit, and that he, Buso, would
   guide me to the village where Jock was staying.



   The following morning, as Achenmeri turned back towards Boana, the rest of
   us set out for Kasenobe. It seemed to lie well off the direct line to
   Samandzing, and I asked the natives whether there was a shorter route. No,
   they told me, this track was the only one. An hour later we came to a
   small village, where the Karangandoang carriers handed over to a new line.

   Although the sun was fairly high, we were now at such an altitude that the
   air was quite cool. The country became increasingly rugged and beautiful
   with every mile. On distant slopes plumes of blue smoke curled slowly up
   from native gardens - gardens which in this fertile soil produced an
   abundance of almost all temperate-climate crops. Here and there, like a
   white ribbon draped over the hillside, a mountain stream plunged hundreds
   of feet into the valley, and at intervals the brilliant green of the
   valley sides was broken by the red scars of landslides.

   About midday we obtained our first clear view of the enormous central
   spine of the Saruwaged mountain range, which runs down the middle of the
   Huon Peninsula. Though about ten miles away, it was almost frightening, it
   seemed so high and remote. I knew it had been crossed in one or two
   places, but as I looked at the jagged line its peaks cut across the sky,
   it was hard to imagine anything as tiny as a human being attempting to
   overcome such an obstacle. Between the soft blue of the peaks and the
   sparkling blue of the sky we saw gleaming patches of white. One had the
   impression that some of the mountains were snow-covered; indeed, the
   Gerinan explorer Detzner, who spent four years of the first world war
   hiding in the interior from the Australians, described them as
   snow-bearing. This curious misapprehension is explained by the fact that
   on these mountains there are large areas of bare, windswept limestone
   which glistens in the sun and could easily look like snow to a distant
   observer.

   At about two o'clock, when the surrounding country had already vanished
   into the fog, Kasenobe, perched on top of a cliff, appeared suddenly out
   of the swirling greyness. As we clambered over the slab stockade which
   surrounded the settlement, we saw that it was quite a large village for
   this area, consisting of over thirty houses. There was a big church, its
   thick, well-thatched roof in sharp contrast to the wretched, poky
   dwellings.

   The feeling of remoteness became complete here. In the other villages,
   though I had been conscious that many things were new or strange, somehow
   they seemed different only in degree from life as I had known it in
   Australia. But even another planet could have been no more unfamiliar and
   eerie than this savage village. If I had to convey my main impression of
   it - and of the many others like it - in one word, that word would be
   greyness. The fog, the stinking village pigs, the weatherbeaten roofs, the
   dirty, scaly-skinned, near-naked kanakas - all these were dismal, grey,
   and dispiriting, beneath a sombre, leaden sky.

   Only one man spoke pidgin, and none of them had ever been away from the
   village to work. There was not a shred of calico to be seen. All the men
   wore the traditional dress known as mal, which is a strip of rough "cloth"
   made by beating a section of bark from the wild mulberry until it becomes
   pliable. It is wound tightly round the waist several times, and then
   passed between the legs to enclose the genitals. The women wore only a
   flimsy petticoat, less than a foot long, made of reeds. They were decrepit
   hags, in keeping with their village; their pendulous breasts reminded me
   of razor-strops hanging on a barber's chair. The missionaries, in their
   efforts to preserve their charges unspotted from the world, had seen to it
   that no minor amenity of civilization - such as a piece of soap -
   penetrated to this fastness. Their church, with its rough wooden cross,
   seemed a pious incongruity among stone-age savagery. I thought of the
   Indian villages of early North American history, where mission churches
   had been no barrier to acts of fiendish barbarity.

   The men stood glowering as we piled the cargo in the middle of the
   village. Occasionally, with angry gestures, one would jabber
   unintelligibly in the local dialect. I noticed that several of the kanakas
   were armed with bows and arrows.

   "They are wild men here," Buso remarked - a trifle superfluously, I
   felt-as he and Buka unslung their rifles. "Master Jock taught them a
   lesson, though, when we passed through, so I don't think they will attack
   us."

   Buka grinned in agreement. "Master Jock 'e strong-fella man too much!
   Kanaka all 'e no can humbug long Master Jock," he said happily.

   They pointed out the man who spoke pidgin, and I called him over. He came
   slowly, sulkily, and stood in front of us with his head bowed. I told him
   quietly that I wanted sufficient food for the police and myself, but he
   continued to stare at the ground, and would not answer. I suppressed my
   anger with some effort, and explained to him patiently that we were hungry
   and must eat. They had plenty of food, and if they brought it to me they
   would be paid for it. If we had to help ourselves we would take it for
   nothing. They could please themselves.

   He translated this into "talk-place", and the other men discussed the
   ultimatum. In the end they shouted to their women, and a few minutes later
   we were supplied with potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbages, and beans. The
   women were as timid as the men were aggressive, advancing just near enough
   to seize the proffered salt at arm's length, and then dashing back
   hastily, as though afraid I would bite them. A crowd of ten-year-old brats
   had gathered behind me, but they rushed away to hide whenever I turned,
   however quietly, in their direction.

   As there was no house-kiap I decided to sleep in the church. It was at the
   edge of the clearing, so we would have some hope of escaping into the bush
   if we were attacked. Buso and Buka put up my bed-sail on the dais at one
   end of the building, and, feeling rather like a sacrificial lamb on the
   altar, I lay down there to write up my patrol diary. It was still very
   early, so I spent the rest of the afternoon writing letters home to
   Australia. It seemed an odd thing to do in this place: I felt that I might
   as well have been writing to people on the moon. How any letter would be
   sent I did not know, but I wanted it to be ready in case a runner should
   be sent back to Bob's.

   Late in the afternoon the whole church building suddenly began to creak
   and rock, and I could see the beams of the roof heaving and straining
   against the ridge-pole. I sprang off the bed in fear, not realizing for a
   moment that it was only an earth-tremor - almost a daily occurrence,
   though this was an unusually violent one. When it had stopped, after about
   two minutes, and I had calmed down, I wished it had been the volcanoes at
   Rabaul erupting - we'd have been saved the trouble of clearing out the
   Japanese.

   As darkness drew on I ate my solitary meal. The cold and damp crept into
   the church, and the whole world seemed to shrink to the dim sphere
   illumined by my small hurricane-lamp. There was no sound from the kanakas,
   no sign of cooking-fires. I shivered, checked over my pistol, and crawled
   miserably into bed.



   Kasenobe looked more cheerful in the morning. Bright sunlight warmed the
   sparkling air, and not a cloud spoilt the clear sky. But the houses were
   the same grey ram-shackles, and the kanakas as sullen as ever. Naturally,
   in such a place, latrines were unheard of, so I retired to the edge of the
   bush. While still squatting, I was knocked flying by half a dozen ravenous
   village pigs, squealing and fighting for the excrement that forms a large
   part of their diet.

   Nine surly Kasenobe boys shouldered our cargo, but they were so unwilling
   to come that I decided Buso, Buka, and I should watch three of them each,
   in case they tried the favourite trick of throwing down the cargo in some
   difficult spot and vanishing into the thick forest. We hoped to be in
   Samandzing - the village where Buso had left Jock a couple of days before
   - by nightfall, but I began to doubt our chances when I saw the track. It
   was both rough and steep, and so badly eroded by rushing water that on the
   hill-side immediately above Kasenobe we found ourselves walking in a ditch
   three or four feet deep. The map showed that we had to cross two high
   mountains, and Buso confirmed this. Though they were very steep and
   difficult, he said, we ought to make Samandzing before dark.

   Eleven o'clock found us regaining our breath on top of the first mountain.
   The carriers seemed to have settled down, and happily accepted tobacco and
   newspaper to roll smokes. Many aeroplanes passed overhead as we rested,
   but we could not identify them because of the thick trees that stretched
   above us. However, within a few minutes the boom of anti-aircraft fire and
   the heavy rolling thunder of exploding bombs told us that our planes were
   making a strike on Lae. The noise of the explosions was a healthy reminder
   that, however isolated it might seem, this country could easily be reached
   by the Japs from their base at Lae in about three days' walk.

   An hour or so from the top of the mountain brought us to a stream which
   the natives called Dimini. On the far side of the valley was a ruined
   village of the same name, whose inhabitants had moved to Kasenobe. We sat
   down for another rest on a cliff above the stream, where a cleared space
   enabled me to get a good view of the surrounding country. Looking
   downstream through the field-glasses I could see in the distance a
   thatched building which seemed somehow familiar. The more I looked, the
   more it puzzled me, but I could not identify it. I passed the glasses to
   Buso, who instantly recognized it as the house-kiap at Karangandoang in
   which I had slept the night before last. The Karangandoang people had
   indeed been fooling us when they said that to reach Samandzing it was
   necessary to pass through Kasenobe. Down this valley Karangandoang was not
   more than five miles away, and I felt sure that there would be a track,
   even if only a rough one. I made a mental black mark against the people
   who had caused us to lose a whole day through unnecessary travelling. We
   started off again to climb the second mountain. It was not as high as the
   first one, which I had estimated as being about nine thousand feet, but
   the track was much rougher. In one place a landslide had carried away a
   section of it, and we had to scramble round the bare rocky hill-side
   holding on to roots and trees as we went. Every now and then we had to
   stop to scrape leeches off our legs.

   By two o'clock we were trotting down a steep slope into Bungalamba
   village, where we boiled the billy. Native fashion, I laid a couple of
   ears of corn in their leaves on the fire for lunch. As I ate I studied the
   map, finding out where Bungalamba fitted into the general picture. This
   village was of considerable strategic importance to us, I felt, for it was
   on a river along whose valley a path led direct to Lae. From where I sat I
   could see down the river to Mililuga village, which was only two days'
   walk from Lae. If the Japanese decided to come looking for people like
   Jock McLeod, this seemed a likely route for them to take.

   Bungalainba was important for another reason: it was the last inhabited
   point on the southern end of one of the few known crossings over the
   Saruwaged mountains to the north coast. Jock was well aware of its dual
   importance, and in a tiny dependent hamlet of the main Bungalamba village,
   perched high on the far side of the valley, a police-boy was stationed.
   His job was to watch for any signs of a Japanese move up from Mililuga
   which would cut us off, and to listen to the gossip of the local natives,
   reporting to Jock any news he picked up.

   As we passed the hamlet, which consisted of three or four miserable grass
   houses, this police-boy was waiting by the track. He saluted gravely. I
   saw that he was a small middle-aged man, with the hair receding from his
   wrinkled brown forehead and turning grey on his temples. His name was
   Watute, he said, and he came from Pema, at the mouth of the Waria River.
   He had been in the police force nearly twenty years, and it was not long
   before I saw why Jock had picked him for this job: he heard everything
   that was said, shrewdly separated wheat from chaff, the idle chatter from
   real news, and built-up a complete and accurate picture of the situation,
   often from the flimsiest of clues, in a manner which would have done
   credit to Sherlock Holmes.

   Leaving this elderly native detective at his post, we hurried along the
   track through the thickening fog. Luxuriant green vegetation crowded upon
   us from either side, cold and dripping with moisture. The tops of the
   trees faded to invisibility behind swirling grey wisps of cloud.
   Sometimes, on downhill stretches, we broke into a jog-trot, and I think
   something of my own excitement at the prospect of meeting Jock spread to
   Buka and Buso, for I heard them urging the carriers to go faster and
   faster.

   When we reached Samandzing the fog was so thick that twilight seemed to be
   approaching, though it was only about half past four. I could not see the
   more distant houses, but the village seemed a large one, with well-built
   grass houses laid out in neat rows. There were a few men strolling about,
   and I called the nearest one over and asked him which house Jock was
   using. He stared at me for a few seconds, blank and dumb, then shook his
   head and slunk away. The other people, too, seemed to be avoiding us, and
   I was glad when Buso, who had been walking at the tail of the line, came
   up. He would know where Jock had set up house.

   "Master Jock 'e sleep long house-lotu," he answered promptly to my
   question, and together we made our way quickly to the big church house
   which dominated the village. Inside it was gloomy, but there was enough
   light to see that the building was deserted. There was no sign of lock's
   patrol gear. I sent Buso to find the luluai, while liuka and I kept a
   sharp watch about us, rather disturbed by Jock's unexpected absence.

   Buso returned in a few minutes with a reluctant luluai in tow. As soon as
   the luluai appeared outside the church I knew from his surly face that he
   would be small help to us.

   "Master 'e go where?" I asked.

   " 'Em 'e go long Bilimang, lik-lik place close to."

   He was telling me that Jock had moved to the small nearby village of
   Bilimang. Further inquiries established that it was in the next valley, a
   couple of hours' walk away. The luluai obviously wanted us to go, for he
   kept assuring us that we could reach Bilimang shortly after nightfall if
   we hurried. Come what may, he was determined that we should not sleep in
   his village of Samandzing.

   But I felt too tired to go any farther that night, though I wanted badly
   to see Jock. I knew he never spent many days in the one place, so it
   seemed reasonable to suppose that the luluai was telling the truth. To
   make sure Jock did not leave Bilimang before I arrived, I scribbled a note
   to say I was following, and asked the luluai to send a lad at once to Jock
   with the message.

   I was a bit dejected, for I had come from Kasenobe at great speed, buoyed
   up by the prospect of Jock's company that night; now I felt rather let
   down at the thought of spending another night alone, not knowing what had
   happened to Ian Downs and wondering whether the Japanese were even then
   hunting us.

   I could see that Samandzing was under strong mission influence, for the
   churches and schoolhouses were almost as numerous as the dwellings. The
   people were unfriendly, and when I asked the luluai to sell us sufficient
   food for a meal he replied with a smirk that it was Sunday and that his
   people could not possibly break the Sabbath by digging food. His response
   had me floored for a moment - until, through the mist, I caught sight of a
   number of women toiling up the hill from the gardens, laden with bilums of
   food and bundles of firewood. Apparently the Sabbath Day's rest from
   labour did not apply to women! I hinted gently that if he could not supply
   me with a few vegetables in return for payment it might become necessary,
   however undesirable, for the police to shoot and eat one of his pigs -
   without payment. The threat was sufficient: after taking one uneasy glance
   at the gusto with which Buso and Buka unslung their rifles and looked
   about for a pig, the old scoundrel shouted to the people in "talk-place".
   Within minutes plenty of food was laid out at our feet. There was no
   house-kiap, so I had a cooking-fire lit on the earth floor of the church,
   and slept as I had at Kasenobe, perched up on the dais.



   By ten o'clock next morning I had put most of the zig-zag track from
   Samandzing behind me and was clambering down the last hill to Bilimang
   village - a hill so steep that we should have had parachutes and jumped.

   Jock was lounging against the side of a hut waiting for me. He was a big
   tough-looking man. Above his ruddy face his dark hair was close-cropped,
   almost shaven. His deep chest and broad shoulders were scarcely covered by
   his too-small shirt, and his massive legs, bare below the shorts, were
   disfigured by ugly running sores. These were tropical ulcers, which start
   from the smallest scratch and need months of persistent treatment if they
   are ever to be cured. On his feet was a pair of dirty old sand-shoes. He
   sauntered forward to meet me, hand extended.

   "I got your note," he said with a grin. "I don't know how the hell you
   made it. 'They must have gone completely nuts to send you out here alone!
   Anyhow, I'm glad to see you. Come inside and have a cup of tea."

   We bent double and squeezed through the doorway of the tiny native hut. It
   was almost dark inside, and we could barely stand upright without banging
   our heads against the smoke-blackened roof. Still, it was the only spare
   house, and much warmer than camping out.

   Over the tea Jock continued to grumble about the stupidity of
   headquarters.

   "I don't think the silly bastards have woken up about the war!" he fumed.
   "It was bloody well criminal to send you through that country by yourself!
   In this letter you brought I'm ordered to instruct you in routine patrol
   work. Christ Almighty! Do they think I'm just sitting happily here on my
   arse, seeing the kanakas keep their villages tidy? Hasn't anybody told
   them about the Japanese yet?"

   He gulped the scalding tea, and tossed the dregs out the door.

   "Did they give you a radio set?" he asked at length.

   I shook my head. "I mentioned it, but they just laughed. I thought you
   must have one."

   "Hell! Here we are, just behind the Nips' main base, and they won't give
   us a radio! If we find out some red hot news we have to send it by runner,
   five days to the nearest radio at Bob's. The intelligence is stale when it
   arrives! And what about the risk the poor bloody policeboy runs, going up
   and down the Erap! But a radio? Hell, no! Those bludgers in Wau and Port
   Moresby might find it too hard to get the Randwick starting-prices if they
   gave away too many radios!"

   "There's certainly not much point in staying here without one. Let's hope
   Les Williams can get his set going." Jock grunted. "It'll help, but we
   should all have one. We might get scattered from one end of the Huon
   Peninsula to the other. One set wouldn't be much use then."

   He sat looking moodily out the door. Rain was falling now, and cold gusts
   of wind rushed into the dark little hut.

   "How about food?" he asked more hopefully. "Surely to God they realized I
   was just about out of kai-kai?"

   I shook my head. "No. I've only got about a week's food for one man."

   Jock's anger flared high again. "The bastards! No comforts. That's all
   right - you can't expect comforts on a job like this. No food. That's not
   too bad either - you can always get hold of a bit of sweet potato or
   pumpkin or something, even if you have to pinch it out of a native garden.
   But no radio! We'd do more good drinking ourselves happily to death in a
   nice pub in Australia!"

   He made one last effort. "How about trade goods? Die, you manage to get a
   decent supply?"

   "Not much. I've got a few pounds of salt and a few dozen sticks of
   tobacco. There's an odd newspaper or two, and that's the lot."

   Jock laughed, instead of raging as I had expected. "Well, we know the
   worst now," he said. "No use worrying at this stage. It's only when you've
   felt hopeful that you get wild like that. Let's talk about something
   else."

   "Tell me about Ian Downs," I said. "Where is he now?"

   "I don't know exactly. He's somewhere in the mountains of the Momalili
   country, having a rest. I reckon we can expect him back in a day or two.
   At least, I hope so. There's one thing that's got me a bit worried,
   though."

   "What's that?"

   "Well, there's a track that leads up from the coast between here and the
   Momalili country. If the Nips get wise to it they might cut him off before
   he gets here."

   "Do you reckon they will?"

   "I'm not really frightened about it. Up till now the bastards have stayed
   pretty close to the coast and the main tracks. They aren't keen on the
   bush and the mountains."

   "I don't know that I blame them," I cut in. We both laughed.

   "No. They show more sense there than we do," Jock said.

   Until we saw Ian we could make no definite plans for the future, but Jock
   mentioned several possible patrols that might yield valuable information.
   Jock himself was keen to cross the Saruwaged Range over to the north
   coast, to see what was happening there. As far as we knew, no white men
   had been there since the war started. Another suggestion he made very much
   intrigued me: he said that the Japanese were holding prisoner in a
   compound near Lae the whole peacetime Chinese population of the town. They
   had been captured when Lae fell, and put behind barbed wire. From time to
   time some of these Chinese - the tradesmen - were taken into Lae to do
   work for the Japanese. It was certain therefore that they would have vital
   information about enemy installations, the strength of the garrison, and
   the effects of our increasing air raids. However, Jock thought that the
   sensation caused by Ian's appearance on the beach at Hopoi would make the
   Japs very careful for a while, and it would be much too dangerous to
   attempt to visit the Chinese compound just now - for a few weeks, he
   thought.

   At lunch, it did not surprise me when Jock's cook-boy produced porridge
   made from crushed army biscuits. It was a common dish in those days when
   rations were short. But at tea-time, when he brought more porridge and
   said that Master Jock always had a dish of it, I was puzzled and asked
   Jock the reason. Surely no one could like the gluey stuff that much!

   Jock laughed. "It's the only way I can eat those bloody slabs of concrete.
   I haven't got any teeth of my own, and I lost my false ones over the side
   of a ship in Townsville. You'd better tell the cook you don't want a side
   dish of porridge every meal yourself. He probably thinks I have it so
   often because I like it."

   Jock had a few books with him, among them a cheap and battered edition of
   Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, which we dissected and discussed late
   into the night. When we came to the passage which described religion as a
   force that commonly softens the head and hardens the heart, Jock told me
   of some of his own peacetime experiences with some of the missionaries. On
   one occasion he remonstrated with a missionary who was making some sick
   natives work in a garden.

   "Mr McLeod, you do not understand!" retorted the indignant missionary. "We
   are not interested in the miserable bodies of these people, but in saving
   their immortal souls."

   All next day it rained. We sat on the floor, wrapped in blankets, our
   backs to the little doorway so that the faint light would fall on our
   books. From another hut a few yards away came the monotonous drone of a
   mouth-organ as one of Jock's police-boys played "Auld Lang Syne" over and
   over again.

   Late in the afternoon a native lad ran into the village through the
   gathering gloom and rain and handed a wet, crumpled scrap of paper through
   the doorway to Jock. It was a note from Ian, saying simply that he had
   arrived at another hamlet about half an hour's walk away, higher up the
   mountain, and was camping the night there in an empty house. Jock at once
   rolled up his blanket and bed-sail and went to join him, leaving me to
   arrange for the packing and carrying of all our gear next day.

   Ian was squatting on the veranda of a little native house when I arrived.
   He seemed fairly fit, though his legs were badly cut about. He was a
   stocky, fair-haired young man. The old sea-boots into which his feet were
   thrust were one obvious relic of his past years in the Navy.

   We all crowded into the house to escape the cold wind. There was hardly
   room to move, but we sat shoulder to shoulder, and plunged at once into a
   discussion of what we should do. The many things to be considered, such as
   our lack of food, tenuous communications, danger from Japanese patrols
   following Ian's betrayal at Hopoi, and so on, took some time to discuss,
   and evening was approaching before we had worked out definite plans. What
   we decided was this: Jock was to cross the Saruwaged Range and find out
   what was happening on the north coast; Ian was to return to the Wain
   country, somewhere near Boana Mission, and rest for a while; I was to
   return to Bob's with all speed, obtain as much food and trade goods as
   possible, and rejoin Ian and Les Williams in the Wain. For his journey
   over the range, Jock would take all the stores we now possessed, and Ian
   would arrange by radio message to Australia for further supplies and a
   wireless set to be dropped by plane on the north side for Jock. This meant
   that he would be able to travel light on the difficult crossing, and take
   very few native carriers.

   Accompanied by Buka I set out at first light next morning on the return
   journey to the Markham. As Jock had taken over my stores I needed only a
   couple of men from the hamlet to carry my bed-roll and patrol-box. I
   intended to sleep at Bungalamba that night, or, if we made particularly
   good time, to camp under one of the abandoned houses at Dimini. Jock and
   Ian were still in camp. Because Ian could still travel only slowly, they
   were going to make a leisurely day's walk of it to Samandzing. Next day
   Jock would go to Bungalamba, there to start his journey across the
   mountains. When I said good-bye they merely grunted, half asleep under the
   blankets, and turned over to snore again.



   As we wound our way up the tortuous track nearing Samandzing, Buka
   suddenly stopped and pointed to a tiny figure far above, coming down the
   track towards us. Even with the naked eye we could see that he wore the
   police-boy's peaked cap and was carrying a rifle, and I whipped my
   binoculars from their case and focused them on the track above.

   "Well, I think I know who it is," I said. "See what you think." I passed
   the glasses to Buka.

   At once a grin covered his broad black face. "Master, me savvy this-fella
   man! Achenmeri!"

   We sat down at the side of the track to wait, wondering what news
   Achenmeri would bring from Les.

   When he came round the bend in the track about twenty minutes later,
   puffing and blowing, Achenmeri told us that he had seen us from a
   distance, and that he had put on a spurt to reach us quickly. He handed me
   a letter and flopped on the ground near by to recover his breath.

   Les's letter said that the runner with the spare radio parts had not
   arrived, and that he himself was making a flying visit to the Tungu camp
   across the Markham, to try to get the set working.

   We had counted on Les's radio to send the message requesting the
   supply-dropping for Jock, so I decided to wait for Jock and Ian to see how
   Les's going to Tungu would change our plans. We walked steadily on to
   Samandzing, where I set up house again in the church, obtained food from
   the kanakas for the whole party, and had the billy boiling for a mug of
   tea when Jock and Ian arrived about midday.

   I stayed the night with them at Samandzing, and we slept side by side in
   the church. The natives treated this larger party with more respect than
   they had shown me, but they were still far from friendly. We posted a
   sentry to watch the village, and Jock advised me always to do so in
   future.

   "You never can be too sure of these kanakas," he said. "If they reckon the
   Japs have won the war, they'll all be on their side, just as they
   abandoned the Germans to come over to us thirty years ago."

   "Would they change as quickly as all that?"

   "Why not? What chance would they have of resisting the Japs with bows and
   arrows? Anyhow, all these years, some of the Lutheran missionaries haven't
   done anything to make them loyal to the Australian government. The Germans
   used to boast openly that the Australians would be chucked out of New
   Guinea. One of them actually told me that Hitler would soon sweep through
   here like a fire. He didn't seem to care a bit that I was a government
   officer."

   "Why weren't the missionaries interned, or deported?"

   "God knows! Everyone here knew what was going on! Look, you'll hardly
   believe this: right at the end, when the government just had to evacuate
   them, and the steamer was pulling out of Lae, some fat-arsed fraus lined
   up at the ship's rail and heiled Hitler!"

   While Jock grumbled, Ian said nothing. He leant back in the shadows on his
   bed, eyes nearly closed, with cigarette-smoke dribbling slowly from lips
   that turned slightly in a half-sceptical smile. I looked at Jock's
   indignant face and back to Ian's expression of doubt. Was this story about
   some of the missionaries true? I was to learn the answer to this later.



   The fact that Les had gone back across the Markham to Tungu caused only
   one slight change in our plans. I was now to send Watute after Les to
   Tungu, carrying the radio message arranging the dropping of supplies for
   Jock.

   "It'd be kinder not to take Watute across the range," said Jock. "He's
   probably old enough to be our father. He remembers when the Germans ran
   this joint. He can attach himself to you when he's delivered the message,
   and then you'll have three police: Buka, Watute, and Achenmeri - if you
   can call Achenmeri a policeman." We set out at dawn next day, stopping for
   a few moments while Watute rolled his blanket and got ready. He grinned
   with pleasure at the idea of being on the move - life in this miserable
   hamlet, perched up in the fog and cold winds, was uncongenial to his old
   bones. The thought of warmer sun and lower altitudes brought a happy smile
   to his wrinkled face as he trotted beside me down the steep track.

   From the ruined village of Dimini we took the short cut down the river to
   Karangandoang. We would be saved a day's walk, and would also avoid
   another meeting with the Kasenobe kanakas, with their ostentatiously
   unfriendly bows and arrows. But the walk down the Dimini stream was harder
   than we had expected, and for a long way we struggled round steep cliffs
   or splashed knee-deep through the rushing, icy water.

   For the rest of the journey I merely retraced my steps of a couple of
   weeks before through Boana and Gain to Bivoro and across the Markham
   plain. From Bivoro, Watute struck off across country to the south-west, to
   cross the Markham higher up and make his way along the Watut River to Ian
   and Les's base camp. He would then return to the Wain country and join me,
   wherever I might be camping.

   I slept the night in the house-kiap at Bivoro, and before dawn next day
   hid all my gear except bed-roll and mosquito-net in the roof of the
   luluai's house. A bright, mischievous-looking young man called Dinkila
   offered to carry the bed-roll to Bob's, and I took him on, so the party
   which set out on the final stage numbered four, including Buka and
   Achenmeri.

   The most dangerous section of the journey lay in this final day from
   Bivoro to the Markham. Gossip travels from one New Guinea village to the
   next as fast as it moves across any suburban back fence, and native
   informers had probably told the Japanese commander in Lae of our earlier
   trip up the Erap. This, coupled with Ian's sudden appearance on the beach
   at Hopoi, might persuade him of the necessity to patrol all the country
   surrounding his base; we might find a Japanese patrol sitting astride the
   Erap, waiting to intercept any Australian party entering or leaving the
   mountains by that route. The country was so flat and open that a vigilant
   enemy sentry would certainly have no trouble spotting a large party.
   However, we hoped that our small group would be able to slip through.

   Buka led the way. He had left his uniform at Bivoro, and instead of a
   rifle was carrying a hand-grenade in a little string dilly-bag at his
   side. We walked very fast, breaking into a trot occasionally, just keeping
   Buka in view ahead of us. If he spotted danger he was to put his hand on
   his head: we would then find what cover we could in the grass.

   The river was less swollen and did not hinder us as it had on the journey
   up, but a tense moment came when we reached the Markham road. While we
   others hid, breathless and watchful, in the grass, Buka made a quick
   search up and down the track, looking for enemy footprints. The grin that
   flashed across his shiny face told us that he saw none. He beckoned us to
   follow, and we hurried on, hopeful now of reaching Bob's safely. About
   two-thirty, tired, sweat-soaked, hungry, and thirsty, we pushed our way
   out of the ooze and pit-pit grass of the Erap delta to the edge of the
   Markham. I searched the low bank opposite through the glasses. Across the
   rushing, muddy water we saw no smoke from the camp, nor any movement at
   the canoe landing. I fired the prearranged three shots to summon the
   canoes, and looked again. There was still no movement. I was going to fire
   once more, when the tiny figure of the sentry stepped to the water's edge
   and waved. He had been studying us carefully before emerging from the
   bushes. After some minutes the black specks of the crew could be seen
   launching a canoe. They disappeared from time to time behind the islands,
   coming towards us so slowly that I kept glancing over my shoulder, kicking
   at the ground in nervous impatience, afraid that the Japs too might have
   heard the shots and would hurry to attack us from behind, here at the end
   of our journey.

   We did not wait for the canoe to touch, but splashed out through the
   shallows to meet it. As we sprang on board with an enthusiasm that almost
   sank the little craft, I ordered the boss-boy to push off at once for the
   south bank, and we manoeuvred from island to island in the same zig-zag
   fashion as we had crossed in the other direction a fortnight earlier.

   Tom Lega was waiting as the canoe scraped ashore. He grinned in casual
   greeting as I dashed the sweat from my eyes and shook his hand. "Come up
   to the hut," he said. "The others'll want to hear all the good guts from
   the other side."

   We crowded into the little wire cage, and I told them first of Ian's
   betrayal and escape at Hopoi. They had never seen Ian, but Jock was an old
   friend, and they bent closer, silent, to hear of his decision to cross the
   range to the north coast.

   They whistled quietly, looking sideways from one to another.

   "Over those mountains! Jesus!" one exclaimed.

   "Hell, I didn't think they could be crossed!" another muttered.

   Tom laughed. "In peacetime they used to say Jock was a tough guy, even
   among all the tough guys on this island. If he wants to get there he will,
   even if he has to crawl every bloody inch of the way on his hands and
   knees."

   The others shook their heads doubtfully. Once or twice, for a few fleeting
   minutes at dawn or dusk, these men had seen the clouds roll clear from the
   Saruwageds. A couple of bets were made, and the odds all favoured the
   mountains.

   While a billy of tea was prepared, Tom rang through to the orderly-room at
   Bob's. I heard him shouting with all his lung-power to Bill Chaffey
   through the faint and feeble field telephone. "That's right - he's here
   now! What? What? Yes, he's O.K., What? What the hell was that? Jock? He's
   gone over the range! Range! R-A-N-G-E! Listen, Bill, ask him yourself when
   he gets up there. So long!"

   Tom came back from the phone groaning in mock despair. "What a phone! I'd
   rather use smoke-signals or native drums, I reckon. Bill wants all the
   news, but you can tell him yourself. You'll be up there in a couple of
   hours."

   I laughed, downed the remaining black tea in my pannikin, and called to my
   boys to follow as I struck off up the grassy hill towards Bob's.

                                   Chapter IV

   IN Mari village, half-way to Bob's, I paused to drink the cool
   effervescent milk of a green coconut and swap a little gossip with the
   people. Mari was almost a model village: it was well laid out, and the
   houses were large and solidly built, many of them with carefully carved
   wooden ornaments in the shapes of lizards, fish, and turtles. The bare
   ground between the houses was swept clean, and a rough fence of bamboos
   kept the pigs away. However, there was a curious tension in the
   atmosphere, as if many strange things were happening beneath the surface,
   unsuspected by the casual observer.

   The village was under the domination of a native of strong personality and
   character called Kwila. Some of the men at Bob's suspected him of giving
   the Japs in Lae information about our movements in the Markham Valley.
   This was never proved, and in fact he was eventually awarded the Loyal
   Service Medal. But even if he had been playing ball with the Japanese, who
   could blame him? The war was not of his making. If, for some reason
   unknown to him, white men and yellow men wanted to fight like animals in
   his country, what was more natural than for him to work for the safety of
   his own people? Until it became clear who was going to win the war, a
   sensible politician would speak softly to both sides. At that time,
   however, with our lives at stake, it was hard for us to take this detached
   and reasonable view, and we treated as traitors all natives who associated
   with the enemy, no matter what the circumstances.

   I talked to Kwila as I squatted to drink the coconut milk. He was tall,
   broad-shouldered, and impassive of face. His dark eyes fiickered - now
   narrowed to slits, now wide open. The answers to my questions came
   volubly, and seemed phrased to please rather than simply to tell the
   truth. He could speak English well, but was careful to use only pidgin,
   for painful experience among the whites in Lae had taught him that a
   "coon" who spoke English was "cheeky", and liable to be put "in his
   place". I finished the coconut milk, and he walked with me to the edge of
   the village, where we parted with mutual assurances of esteem; but I had
   learnt nothing, absolutely nothing, from our twenty minutes' conversation.

   The fading light was already shutting us in in an ever-narrowing circle
   when we reached Bob's. With its haze of blue smoke hanging in the trees,
   the camp appeared before us out of the jungle just as mysteriously as it
   had a couple of weeks earlier. Clammy sweat glued the green shirt to my
   back, and the mosquitoes hummed and bit. I thought rather wistfully of the
   Wain country, cool and high, across the river. And yet it was pleasant to
   be back, to taste the illusion of security produced by the presence of
   numbers of other white men. Here, too, was a sense of contact with a world
   outside the swamps, mountains, and jungles of New Guinea, for the wireless
   picked up the Australian news bulletins, and sometimes letters were
   delivered. Compared with grey Kasenobe on its fog-smothered mountain-side,
   the rough camp at Bob's was civilization.

   In. the sergeants' mess they were waiting for tea. The same bearded men
   sat rolling their own cigars while they cursed the mosquitoes. The
   gramophone was still playing, in spite of the fact that the only needle
   had been lost. In its place they were using thorns from a lemon-tree which
   grew in a native village a few miles away.

   The first person to see me as I approached was Bill Chaffey, who was in
   the act of pruning his red beard. He sprang to his feet. "Ha! How was my
   map? It couldn't have been too bad, seeing you got back here O.K."

   "It was all right as far as it stretched," I told him, "but that wasn't
   far enough. I walked right off the edge of it. I've just come back for a
   day or two, to get more stores. What's the set-up now? Is there plenty of
   food?"

   Bill fixed me with that firm, half-humorous look which must have been such
   an asset to him in Parliament. Before he could speak, the shattering
   racket of the beaten ticrosene-tin announced tea.

   "That saves me the trouble of answering your question," lie said. "You
   just come and see for yourself."

   We sat down at the rickety table. Bully beef, pumpkin, papaw, black tea
   without sugar.

   "There you are, my boy!" Bill said. "More eloquently than words could
   express, you have before you the whole stores position of Bob's!"

   "When are you expecting more?"

   "They're overdue already, but I hear there's a big carrier-line from Wau
   likely to reach here today or tomorrow. I hope they do. We're out of
   tobacco, and we've bought so much brus from the local kanakas that even
   that's getting scarce."

   Two days later the new rations arrived on the sweating shoulders of a long
   line of carriers. I persuaded Major John Taylor, the officer commanding
   Bob's, to give me a month's stores for one man. It was a generous gift,
   for his own men had long been on short rations, and it was not his
   responsibility to provide for those across the river. The people who
   should have supplied us apparently thought we could live on grass or air,
   for they never once sent us so much as a single tin of bully beef. Even
   the special Christmas parcels provided for each soldier were not sent on
   to Jock or me, or kept for our return. Somehow they just vanished
   mysteriously.

   Bill Chaffey and John Clarke helped me again with trade goods and other
   valuable stores. There were two large drums of salt and a good supply of
   stick tobacco and newspapers, all of which would buy more local produce
   and thus help to spin out the rations. Bill supplied me with a couple of
   gallons of kerosene, a case of hand-grenades, and some gelignite with fuse
   and detonators. The gelignite would be useful for setting booby-traps, to
   protect us against enemy patrols which might try to surprise us in camp.

   As soon as all this gear was put together and made up into fifty-pound
   boy-loads I sent Achenmeri to Mari village to ask Kwila to send up twenty
   men to carry it as far as Kirkland's. From Kirkland's, Buka crossed the
   Markham alone, to bring boys from Bivoro to continue the carry for me,
   because the Mari natives were too afraid and suspicious to go farther, and
   I, in turn, was suspicious of them.

   Tom Lega gave me a spot for the night in one of the crowded little
   sleeping-huts. I expected Buka back next morning with the carriers, but it
   was not until after midday two days later that the sentry on the canoe
   landing reported a group of natives across the river, and we heard the
   three shots from Buka's rifle. They had been two anxious days, for we were
   afraid Buka had been captured, and perhaps forced to reveal the movements
   of Jock and Ian. However, the delay had been caused by difficulty in
   locating the natives' houses, which were scattered among the gardens on
   the hill-sides.

   Only two canoes were serviceable, one having been dismantled for repairs.
   Two trips were needed to ferry over our gear, and it was nearly
   four-o'clock before it was all piled among the cane-grass on the north
   bank.

   Making so late a start, we could not reach Bivoro that night, so we camped
   in the hunting shelters half-way up the Erap, where I had met the luluai
   on my first trip. They were dirty, ramshackle affairs, but we were glad to
   be out of the light rain which fell during the night. So far there had
   been no sign of enemy activity, and we left before dawn next morning, to
   get away from the flat country. In the mountains one felt reasonably safe,
   but here the line of heavily laden carriers would be visible for miles as
   it snaked slowly across the grassy plain.

   We stayed in Bivoro only long enough to pick up the gear I had hidden on
   the way down. Dinkila, the boy who had carried the bed-roll, said good-bye
   here, because he wished to remain in his village.

   By nightfall we were in Gain, where we slept, and the following day moved
   to Boana, where I took up my quarters in the smaller of the two
   iron-roofed houses. I did not know where Ian was camping, for when we
   parted he had not decided on a place. It was arranged merely that I should
   meet him "somewhere in the Wain". I had thought Boana, in the heart of the
   Wain country, would be the best place to pick up news of him.

   My night at the mission was restless. Full of wreckage and smelling of
   decay, the house creaked and groaned rheumatically. The unaccustomed
   softness of a proper bed drove sleep away from me rather than induced it.
   There was a cuckoo clock in the room, which I had wound up for fun and
   then forgotten. When its sudden sharp note struck in the darkness I jumped
   to the floor and grabbed my revolver, ready to blaze away at the first
   thing that moved.

   Next day was cold and dreary, and when the chill wind blew aside the veil
   of mist I saw the silent, watchful mountains staring balefully at us all
   around. I went into the big house and gathered up a bundle of papers from
   the piles which littered the floor. There was also a copy of the
   German-language edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf, which I took with the
   papers over to my "bedroom" in the other house. I intended to pass the
   time reading as much of them as I could with my scanty knowledge of
   German. My room had two windows: one was shattered and the other one was
   jammed open, and I was soon shivering. As I already had my warmest clothes
   on, I could only pull my blankets round me as I settled down to read.

   Almost all the magazines were filled, from cover to cover, with Nazi
   propaganda articles, and elaborate gravure pictures of Nazi rallies
   featuring Hitler, Goering and Goebbels. None of the publications seemed to
   deal with missionary activities. I mumbled aloud as I read, skipping the
   most difficult passages, but I got the gist of things. Some of the papers
   and circulars were easier to read than others, for they had been typed on
   a machine with ordinary roman letters, unlike the difficult German
   black-letter of the printed books.

   There were several letters referring to the establishment of a branch of
   the Nazi Party in New Guinea, and in one of them the writer warned that
   the activities of the party should be carried on with discretion, "lest we
   should lose the great freedom of action which the Australian government
   has so far permitted us". In case I had misunderstood these letters, I
   took some of them back to Bob's or my next visit, where Jim Hamilton, who
   worked in the cipher office, and who spoke German well, confirmed and
   amplified my rough and incomplete translation. I was glad that I had shown
   them to him, for I then sent them, with a report, to the district office
   in Wau, but a year or so later, when I tried to follow the matter up,
   nobody seemed to have seen either the documents or the report, and I could
   never find out what had happened to them.

   The wind dropped, and the mist, which had been rushing past in little
   clouds, turned to a slow, steady rain. I huddled gloomily in the blankets,
   looking across over my drawn-up knees at the larger house. On its veranda,
   Buka and Achenmeri were staring just as despondently back. It was plain
   that the queer atmosphere of the mission was getting on their nerves too,
   so I decided that we would move to Wampangan or Karau, or some handy
   village, to spend the night. Why one should have felt more comfortable in
   a smelly native village than in a proper European-style house I did not
   stop to think. One thing was certain - we would not sleep again at Boana.

   Just as the boys started to get their gear ready a Wampangan kanaka came
   panting up the hill carrying a crumpled piece of paper. It was from Ian,
   who had heard of my arrival at Boana. He said that he had established
   himself at Bawan, about four hours' walk away, and would we join him in
   the morning.

   "Morning nothing!" I grunted aloud. "We're going right now!"

   I sent the Wampangan boy hurrying back to his village, with instructions
   to send twenty men for carriers as fast as they could run. Then Buka,
   Achenmeri, and I got all the cargo lined out and ready for the road. It
   would almost certainly be dark before we reached Bawan, but anything was
   better than another night here.



   The walk to Bawan was steep, largely through thick rainforest country, but
   once we reached the top of the first mountain the rain stopped and the sky
   became clear. The track was thickly overgrown, and though this meant extra
   effort for us it would make patrolling much more difficult for the
   Japanese, who did not know the area. From a clear spot in the track the
   boys pointed out the "ficus belong Lae"--a huge ficus-tree on the hill
   behind Lae township, and a famous landmark. It stood out clear against the
   sky like a big mushroom. When I looked through the fieldglasses I was
   startled at the clarity of the detail-I could practically distinguish the
   branches. Once again I was reminded of the nearness of the Japanese base,
   a fact easily forgotten in the sensation of isolation produced by the
   rugged mountain country.

   Bawan, the village which was to be my headquarters for some time, is worth
   describing in detail. Being about four thousand feet above sea-level it
   was cool and pretty well free from mosquitoes. I first saw it just before
   dusk, from the far side of the valley, in that brief half-hour - there is
   no long twilight in New Guinea - when the valleys darken and the hills
   soften from green to palest blue, and when the chill that comes into the
   air causes a little shiver, for one's clothes are still wet through either
   from sweat or from rain. I could see the main village far below me, on a
   level space near the foot of a deep gorge. Smoke was rising from the many
   little cooking-fires in front of the houses, and men were standing round a
   larger fire which blazed on the red earth of the open space in the centre
   of the village. Above the roar of the water we heard laughter - tiny,
   feeble sounds almost lost in the distance. A crazy bamboo bridge spanned
   the river, and opposite us, on the other side of the gorge, several
   hundred feet up, was a group of about fifteen houses. Their occupants
   stood in a little cluster at the edge of the cliff, pointing across the
   valley in our direction. We waved to them and they waved back, and when I
   studied them at close range I saw that they were all kanakas. There was no
   sign of Ian or his police.

   About half a mile farther round the side of the valley a faint wisp of
   smoke curled up, barely discernible against the blue of the hill-side. A
   careful search through the binoculars showed the roofs of three more
   houses. This was where the doctor-boy of Bawan lived with his relatives.
   Since I had not been able to see Ian in either of the other two hamlets, I
   concluded he must be living chez doctor-boy.

   We hurried down the steep track, anxious to reach a, least the outskirts
   of Bawan before dark. The carriers shouted encouragingly to each other,
   and their loads of cargo swung and bounced about as they scrambled eagerly
   downward.

   Darkness had fallen when we reached the houses, and as we strode into the
   circle of firelight there were surprised shouts from the natives. Unlike
   their fellow villagers an the cliff above, they had not seen us coming.
   They were most friendly, running to help the carriers with their loads.
   and offering us sugar-cane to suck.

   Ian was not to be seen.

   "Master 'e stop where?" I inquired of one of the men. "Master 'e stop on
   top. 'Im 'e workim two-fella house." Apparently Ian had built two houses
   for himself and was not living in either of the hamlets, or with the
   doctor-boy. I hoped he would not be far away. We had made the journey from
   Boana at such a cracking pace that I was very tired, and so were the
   carriers.

   "House belong master, 'e long way, nau close to?" I asked.

   " 'Em 'e long way lik-lik," was the reply. "Long way lik-lik" literally
   interpreted means "A little long way!" Further inquiries about the exact
   distance would have been profitless, so I asked whether someone would
   guide us to Ian. Willingly, three men picked up blazing sticks from the
   fire for torches and, shouting to their women-folk - presumably that they
   would be late for their meal - led the way across the river.

   The dark water that roared beneath the rickety bridge reflected the flames
   of the torches, and I looked down, fascinated, till I almost lost my
   balance. I would have fallen in but for the grip on my hand of one of the
   Bawan guides, who pulled me firmly off the bridge, saying in a kind but
   determined voice, "Master come now", as though remonstrating with a
   wayward child. In a few moments we were clambering up the black wet rocks
   on the side of (he valley.

   Twenty minutes' climb brought us to the second hamlet, where the people,
   outlined in the doorways of their houses, called out greetings, both to us
   and to the Wampangan carriers. I heard Buka's voice in querulous inquiry
   above the din, "House belong master close to?"

   " 'Em 'e close to finish," I heard the reply.

   "Ha! Suppose 'em 'e long way, me buggerup finish," sighed poor Buka, who
   was not at his best in the mountains.

   Five minutes later we came to a clear level space, where the torchlight
   dimly showed two large houses. More torches appeared, and there was
   excited chattering and laughter as Buka and Achenmeri were greeted by
   Ian's boys. Ian, lantern in hand, advanced to meet me from the farther
   house, and as we shook hands I saw that he was dressed warmly in sweater
   and long trousers. His tousled fair hair shone in the flickering light.

   "Hi! Didn't expect you till tomorrow. But there's hot water all ready for
   a wash-wash - we put it on the fire as soon as we spotted you across the
   valley. By the time you've cleaned up, the cook-boy will have some kai-kai
   ready."

   "Thanks, Ian, but I think I'll just have a mug of beef tea and then turn
   in. I reckon we made record time for the Boana to Bawan Stakes. I've just
   about had it."

   "You must have gone like blazes to get here tonight - I didn't send that
   messenger till nearly midday. Why didn't you wait till tomorrow?"

   "To be quite honest, I wasn't game to spend another night in that mission.
   It was giving me the horrors, and the boys too. They all reckon it's
   `place no good'. If your messenger hadn't come I was going to move into
   one of the native villages. They may be dirty, but at least they don't
   give you the creeps."

   Ian nodded sympathetically. "I know what you mean. You feel you're being
   watched all the time - and not just by the Holy Ghost, either. Well, you
   go and wash up, and I'll see all the stores are put away. I made the
   ground floor of the house a store-room in expectation of plenty. but it
   doesn't look as if you got too much." He strained his eyes, peering at the
   cargo the carriers were lining out at the edge of the clearing.

   "There's a full month's ration for one European - that's a fortnight for
   the two of us - and a fair amount of trade goods. There's a few odds and
   ends, like gelignite, hand-grenades, and some kerosene."

   "I suppose we ought to count ourselves lucky to have that much, really,"
   said Ian, though the disappointment in his voice was obvious. "Were they
   hard up at Bob's?"

   "They certainly were! They were even running out of brus to smoke." I went
   into the house as soon as I had washed. Ian handed me a steaming mug of
   beef tea; one of his boys was still putting up my bed, so I sat down on
   the end of Ian's, taking in the details of the hut as I drank.

   For the camp, Ian had selected a grassy clearing, the only fiat piece of
   ground for miles around. The ground floor of our house was a store-room,
   while the upper storey comprised a kitchen at one end, a large
   living-and-sleeping-room in the centre, and at the other end a spacious
   veranda. The building had been done with great care. The eaves hung low
   over the walls, which were double thicknesses of bark sheets lined with
   parts of an old tarpaulin of Jock's. The doorway could be covered with a
   strip of canvas also. All this was necessary to keep out the cold and the
   heavy nightly fog.

   As soon as I had drained the cup I rolled into the blankets and was
   asleep. My last recollection was of Ian arranging the hurricane-lamp above
   his head as he lay on the bed to read an old newspaper I had brought from
   Bob's.



   Breakfast-time was cold. We ate dressed in long trousers and sweaters.
   Outside, fog limited visibility to about fifty yards, and everything
   looked grey and dismal. Drops of moisture off the ends of the grass
   thatching dripped softly onto the ground. However, even while we ate, the
   fog was becoming thinner and the sun could be seen trying to break
   through. By the time we had eaten breakfast and shaved, the fog was
   completely dissipated, and we had a beautiful day of warm sunshine. Almost
   always it was the same - cold night with fog or rain, and warm, sunny day
   till about three or four in the afternoon, when the mists rose up from the
   valley floor. Sometimes there were several clear hours in the evening,
   when, if the moon was shining, it was bright enough to read and write
   outside.

   Stripped of all our clothes, we lay on our ground-sheets and basked in the
   sun while we formulated our plan of campaign.

   Bawan was an extremely good choice for a camp. It was near the border
   between two native districts, the Wain and the Naba country. It was
   centrally situated, close to several main tracks, and was not too remote
   from Lae, while being within easy reach of the wild mountains to the north
   if it became necessary to hide from enemy visitors. Moreover, in this spot
   it would be very difficult for the Japs to surprise us. Anyone coming from
   Boana would have to wind his way down the steep track on the far side of
   the gorge and then climb an equally steep path on this side. He would be
   in full view at least half an hour before he reached us. There were only
   two other approaches - one from Gewak village and the other from Monakasat
   - and a sentry posted on a rise five minutes' walk behind the house could
   command both these paths, which were mere goat tracks, exposed and narrow.
   A machine-gun could dispose of a party of Japs here without a hope of
   their escaping. Another most important point in Bawan's favour was that
   the surrounding country was exceedingly fertile and carried a fairly dense
   population. This meant that native foods would be in good supply - as an
   enormous pile of sweet potatoes, taro, pumpkins, and other vegetables
   under the house-police testified.

   I congratulated Ian on his choice, and we went on to discuss the work we
   could do. He contemplated moving to Bawan all his stores from the base
   camp south of the Markham, together with his radio set, remaining quiet
   till the Japanese had more or less forgotten the encounter near Hopoi,
   then making quick patrols down to the back of Lae to find out what was
   happening there. The interim period of lying low we could devote to
   securing our position with the natives, so as to be assured of their
   support, and perhaps training a number of them to shoot, forming a small
   local guerrilla band. This seemed to me a good scheme. Having the radio on
   the spot would enable us to cut out the long and dangerous walk back to
   Bob's every time we wished to send a message. As soon as Constable Watute
   returned with news from Ian's base camp, we would know whether Ian's
   cloak-and-dagger organization would allow him to go ahead.

   Two days passed, and one afternoon we heard the sentry call out that
   someone was coming down the track from Boana. With the binoculars we saw
   that it was Watute, and in about half an hour he stepped up to us, puffing
   and panting. He saluted, and handed Ian a letter.

   The message dashed our hopes completely. Ian was instructed by his
   headquarters in Australia to leave the area immediately. That night he
   packed his gear by lantern-light, and early next morning, leaving me most
   of the food, he set out on the long road back - to Australia, ultimately.
   I watched him through the glasses as he climbed slowly up the far side of
   the valley. He turned momentarily, waved, and then plunged into the forest
   and out of sight. Again I had that feeling of loneliness which had first
   come over me when I crossed the Markham on my original journey into the
   Wain - and a terrible certainty that now there was no one to turn to for
   help, no matter what happened. I had just spent my nineteenth birthday
   alone in the bush, I remembered, and now it seemed that Christmas, a
   couple of weeks off, would be celebrated alone too.

   Before he left, Ian had suggested that I should send a message to Jock
   telling him what had happened and pointing out that now he would probably
   be employed better here than on the north coast. As I had left Achenmeri
   at Bob's to receive further training, Watute and Buka were my only police.
   Though both were experienced men, I did not want to send either of them on
   the difficult journey across the Saruwageds. Watute had just come back
   from his long walk to Tungu, and Buka was not at his best in the
   mountains. The last we had heard of Jock was a message he had sent to Ian
   with his returning Bunga-Lamba carriers, saying that he had made the
   crossing but that it had been very difficult and bitterly cold. I did not
   know exactly where he was, but I decided to send Buka to Bungalamba with a
   letter for him. Buka was to find a native willing to take it to the first
   village on the north side and ask the kanakas there to pass it on to the
   next village, and so on until it caught up with Jock. I gave Buka a big
   parcel of salt and some coloured calico: the man who made the trip across
   the range was to get this as payment, and Buka was to tell him that I
   would reward him further when Jock either came back or sent me a message.
   Buka went off, and four days later he returned to say that he had found a
   young man to do the job and had actually seen him set out on his arduous
   trip.



   The terrible loneliness I had felt when I waved good-bye to Ian, a
   vanishing speck of khaki against the green mountain-side, was not to
   assail me again; for one thing, life became too busy for loneliness to
   have a chance. And again, Lethe River itself has no greater power to bring
   forgetfulness of all past things than New Guinea's mountains. This green,
   strange, wild country had become home. My everyday companions were
   half-naked black people; pidgin came more readily to my lips than English;
   the seething movement of a big city had faded to the faintest memory, and
   even a piece of ordinary bread would have seemed unfamiliar. The crude
   thatching that sheltered me at night had become as homely and comfortable
   as the roof I was born under.

   To make friends with the natives from the surrounding villages was my
   first aim. If these natives were hostile, the Japanese could capture me as
   soon as they chose, but if they supported me whole-heartedly it should be
   possible to escape even from intensive enemy patrolling. Therefore I set
   about learning the local dialect, and before long was able to talk
   reasonably well about everyday things.

   Each morning, as I ate breakfast in the sun, a couple of bright-faced
   youngsters would squat at the edge of the veranda, to teach me new words.
   When I made a slip they would rock with shrill peals of laughter, and then
   they would put their faces close to mine, repeating the words patiently
   over and over until I mastered them. They were good teachers, and I used
   to reward them with some trifle like a packet of biscuits or a box of
   matches. Strange sounds not used in the English language were much easier
   to distinguish when made by the children's clear voices than in the
   adults' deeper tones. Conversation practice was at night, when some of the
   older men would sit in the house yarning and smoking in the dark. When I
   stumbled badly they would chuckle and nudge each other, and help me out of
   difficulties with a word of pidgin. They seemed pleased that someone was
   taking the trouble to learn their tongue, and for my part I felt flattered
   every time I used a new phrase successfully and they complimented me on my
   progress.

   Each morning that I remained in camp we sat on the rising ground above the
   house and waited for our bombers to make their daily raids on Lae and
   Salamaua. The buildings of Lae itself were hidden by the low hills just
   behind the town, but the famous ficus-tree stood out clear against the
   skyline. Salamaua, across the waters of the Huon Gulf, was in full view,
   though of course much farther away. Often, through the binoculars, we saw
   fierce fires raging, and pillars of black smoke creeping higher and higher
   into the sky.

   Our planes used to make their runs quite low over the house, and we could
   count them and see all their markings clearly. It was strange, after they
   had passed, to see the first puffs of smoke from Lae's anti-aircraft guns
   bursting silently round the planes like little balls of cotton wool.
   Forgetting the slow speed at which sound travels, one wondered at the
   silence. Then, when the air was full of puff-balls, the. first sound of
   the explosions would thud echoing up the valley.

   I found the bombers were great company and encouragement, and used to wish
   that I had some way of telling their crews that every strike they made was
   excitedly cheered by a little band of natives and a white man standing on
   the hills behind their target. "Olaman! Make 'im savvy you!" the police
   used to cry every time there was a particularly heavy explosion. "Hey!
   Japan 'e sorry too much now!" the Bawan kanakas would shout as the smoke
   climbed skyward.

   Sometimes the raids were less successful. The American planes had
   particularly bad luck, and several times all their bombs fell into the
   sea. Such a detail had small effect on the exuberance of the communiqués
   from General MacArthur's headquarters, for I checked back on them every
   time I visited Bob's. If one believed these announcements, never a bomb
   was dropped in New Guinea that failed to find its own special little
   target. A native from a coastal village near Lae told us with a grin that
   more often than not the raids made from a high altitude were ineffective -
   except that they saved the Japanese the trouble of fishing, for the
   explosions stunned or killed thousands of fish, and small boats were
   always held ready to pick them up when the raid was over.

   Any raid, however, was good propaganda material for me. The Japanese were
   spreading stories among the natives that there was scarcely a white man
   left in New Guinea. These tales were beginning to filter in to the Wain
   country, and might easily have been believed - for, after all, there was
   only one white man they could actually see. The raids, in ever-increasing
   strength, were a more effective answer to this Japanese propaganda than I
   could have hoped to provide.

   My days at Bawan were a constant round of calls, some social, some
   business, and some which could not quite be fitted into either category,
   though one had a shrewd suspicion that business of some sort was at the
   bottom of them. About ten o'clock the grassy clearing in front of the
   house would become filled with chattering women from the surrounding
   villages bearing food. Each woman made a pile of her own food and stood by
   it while I went down the line asking each one what she wanted. Almost
   always salt was the answer, and Watute would follow me and deal out an
   appropriate quantity to each. Sometimes they asked for newspaper, of which
   I had plenty, or razor-blades, of which there were still a few among the
   trade stores. At. their loin cloths were wearing out, so occasionally, for
   a very large pile of sweet potatoes, I gave a strip of calico In this way
   I bought, in addition to sweet potatoes, taro bananas, and lavish supplies
   of introduced European vegetables. I was never once short of tomatoes,
   ordinary potatoes, sweet corn, cabbages, or beans, while several dozen
   eggs a week was nothing unusual. Every now and then someone would come
   along with a fowl, for which I gave two or three shillings, or perhaps a
   couple of razor-blades.

   We bought far more food than we really needed, but it helped the people to
   get some of the trade goods which they had lacked for so long. Besides, I
   did not want the women to have to carry bundles of food home again. Their
   visits kept me in touch with the villages, too, and helped me to preserve
   friendly relations and to hear the local gossip. The police and other
   native boys were also able to have plenty of food: the more contented and
   comfortable they were in camp the better, for they had to face such great
   danger and discomforts on the track.

   Buka often went out in the afternoon, with a shotgun Ian had left me, in
   search of pigeons, which made very fine eating. As we had only a couple of
   dozen shotgun cartridges, he was rationed to one shot each day, but he
   often managed to bring back two birds, having walked round for hours until
   he found two sitting close enough to knock both with one shot. To complete
   the diet Ian had somehow, somewhere, found a few goats, which gave a pint
   or two of milk a day. Food therefore presented no problem, so long as one
   had salt or other trade goods to exchange for it. As I look back on this
   part of my life in New Guinea, I don't wonder that the boys at Bob's
   jokingly accused me of taking the risk of living in the Wain for my
   stomach's sake!

   Another market I conducted daily was for brus, the native-grown leaf
   tobacco that was planted round almost every house. The leaves were picked
   and hung to dry underneath the house. When partly dried they were attached
   to a long length of thin vine at intervals of an inch or so. This was
   wound up tightly, and the whole bundle was bound with other pieces of
   vine. The result was a tight sausage-shaped bundle of tobacco-leaves, very
   aromatic, from which one could get really good smoking tobacco. The
   quality varied from leaf to leaf, and after a while one developed the
   knack of selecting a good leaf. For more than six months I smoked nothing
   else but brus in my pipe, and I grew to like it as well as any store
   tobacco. In a few weeks I had bought over two hundred-weight of the stuff,
   which we hung on the veranda of the house. I intended to take it all back
   to Bob's, where the tobacco famine for both whites and natives was acute.
   This trade pleased the natives very much, for before the war the mission
   had bought quantities of it. Now the villages were able to dispose of part
   of the surplus that had accumulated.

   Many people came for medical treatment, frequently offering food in
   payment for quinine or for a dressing on a sore. But we took no payment,
   for we had enough food, and Ian had left plenty of ordinary drugs and
   medical supplies. Unfortunately there was no hypodermic, so I could not
   treat the many cases of framboesia, or yaws. This is one of the commonest
   and worst diseases in New Guinea, and produces huge revolting ulcers,
   rather like some syphilitic sores. It clears up almost magically after two
   or three injections with an arsenical drug, and the hope of getting
   treatment made people drag themselves to Bawan from places three or four
   days' walk away. Mothers who had carried infected children from distant
   villages would ask hopefully if their piccaninnies could have a "shoot",
   as they called the injection. When told no, they would turn away sad-eyed
   and patient. Life was always hard for them, and they met calamities like
   disease and hunger with a philosophical resignation that civilized races
   have forgotten.

   Jock told me that the pidgin word "shoot", for injection, was once
   amusingly misinterpreted in peacetime. A group of kanakas were waiting at
   a hospital to receive treatment for yaws. Lunch-time came and the three
   white men attending to the patients went to eat. Two of them were old
   hands, and the third was a young man, a new arrival from Australia. "We'll
   shoot those boys after lunch," one old hand remarked. "Yes, might as well
   finish them all off in one go," the other agreed. Neither noticed the look
   of horror on the younger man's face, and while they ate heartily he sat
   there and left his plate untouched. After hearing a couple more casual
   references to "shooting the kanakas" he pushed his plate away and stamped
   from the table. "You people get hardened to anything up here!" he stormed.
   "As far as I'm concerned, they may be black but it's still plain bloody
   murder to shoot them!"

   More ceremonious calls were made by the village officials from all the
   surrounding communities. It was common for ten or a dozen luluais,
   tultuls, and doctor-boys to arrive to have a talk and smoke some of my
   tobacco. They often gave me useful information or passed on village
   gossip, all of which helped to build up a complete picture of what was
   happening in the country. Watute used to talk to them for hours in the
   house-police. and often they would stay overnight with him, helping to eat
   the enormous pile of food which was always on hand. Watute was a shrewd
   fellow, and his long service as a detective in the police force had made
   him something of a psychologist. A tultul who called upon Watute with a
   secret in his mind usually went away having said more than he intended,
   and perhaps without realizing how much he had said, so skilful was the
   questioning.

   We gathered that the Japanese, though still inclined to confine their
   activities to the coast, were now warily extending patrols up the valleys,
   and all the villages near Lae were now completely under their control. The
   villages of the Wain and Naba, which had never been visited by the enemy,
   and had had no contact with them, would almost certainly assist me if
   there were any trouble.

   However, there were villages whose allegiance wavered and which I classed
   half-way between the ones completely enemy controlled and those which
   supported me, for some of them had been trading with the enemy as well as
   visiting me. It was chiefly villages of this sort I had to fear. A native
   of, say, Wagun village close to Lae, could safely be treated as an enemy.
   The luluai of one village who came to see me had obviously had dealings
   with the enemy, and vet I did not wish to antagonize him and prejudice my
   chance of winning him over to our side. So I was obliged to let him wander
   about our camp, though I took the risk that tomorrow would find him in Lae
   telling the Japanese where we were. Circumstances had made shrewd
   politicians of these natives, for they were caught between two opposing
   forces and were determined to side with the ultimate winners. They
   sometimes argued with me that the Japanese were so numerous that they must
   win. "Look," they would say, "you know for yourself there are now more
   Japanese in Lae alone than there were white men in the whole of New Guinea
   before. The Japanese must be stronger."

   I would point to our air raids. "If the Japanese are so strong, why don't
   they stop those aeroplanes from bombing them?" I asked. "Every day more
   and more of our planes come over; we are getting stronger and stronger,
   and will soon finish the Japanese off."

   They would rub their woolly heads and look worried. "Yes, perhaps," they
   would say with a shrug, and go off puzzled, trying to decide whether to
   back the side that had many men or the side that had many aeroplanes - a
   small-scale edition of the problem that arm-chair strategists were arguing
   about all over the world.

   Some days I would spend walking from village to village, learning all the
   streams and paths and short cuts, and stopping to talk to the people as
   they worked in their gardens. By arriving unannounced, and doing away with
   all the ceremony that usually attends the visit of a patrol officer, I
   managed to get the people to accept me as someone who really lived among
   them - not one of themselves, perhaps, but at any rate a sympathetic
   fellow human, instead of an irritating visitor who made them waste time by
   lining up to be counted, and who told them that their village was not
   clean enough. As time passed I felt more and more confident that these
   people trusted me and would help me if they could.

   One morning, as I was handing out the usual remedies for malaria and for
   constipation, there was a howl from

   Buka, who was filling my lamp in the store-room beneath the house. "Hey,
   master, come quick! Some-fella man 'e stealim kerosene!"

   I hurried to the store and found him excitedly waving an empty tin in the
   air.

   "Kerosene 'e go finish! Kerosene 'e go finish!" he chanted.

   I grabbed the tin - our only one. It was empty right enough, but theft was
   not the reason. The kerosene had all leaked away through a small hole in
   the bottom. The tin must have got knocked in the carry up from the
   Markham.

   The gloomy prospect of spending every night in darkness set me hard at
   work to make an emergency lamp, and Watute helped me to rig a strip of
   cloth for a wick in a shallow tin of dripping. The light it gave was dim
   and flickering, and the smoke and smell were unpleasant. It was useful for
   an emergency, and nothing more, but it would have to do until I could get
   more kerosene from Bob's.

   Darkness came suddenly at six o'clock each night. Almost always there was
   a violent thunderstorm and heavy rain, then the wind rushed up the valley,
   shaking the house, blowing down huge trees with rending crashes, and
   whistling through chinks in the bark walls. I used to sit at the door of
   the house and watch the brilliant lightning flashing over the storm-swept
   mountain-sides and flickering on the roofs of Bawan village, just down the
   hillside. After half an hour the weather would become calm and the
   drifting mist would shut the little clearing tightly away from the rest of
   the world, and I would shiver in the cold. Unless men from the village
   came up to gossip I would go straight to bed.

   A fire seemed the best way of cheering up the dark and silent house, so I
   sent Watute to Boana Mission to collect three old sheets of roofing-iron
   we had seen lying about. When he returned, with two Bawan men carrying the
   iron fastened to a pole, we tried our hands at making a fireplace. A pile
   of rocks and earth protected the bamboo floor, and we fastened one sheet
   of iron as a protection for the wall and made a hood over the fireplace
   with another. A chimney was out of the question, but we cut a slot in the
   wall behind the fireplace, rather like a letter-box, and lit an
   experimental fire to see what happened. The draughts went the right way,
   and most of the smoke went through the slot and out the side of the house.
   Always afterwards the police lit a fire there just before nightfall, and
   from a gloomy cavern of darkness the house became a friendly, cheerful
   dwelling.



   So that Buka and Watute could celebrate Christmas suitably, I bought them
   a pig, which cost £3. Its owner wanted to put it on the fire alive, and
   apparently regarded me as rather eccentric when I insisted on its throat
   being cut first. "Why bother?" was his attitude. "The fire would pretty
   soon have killed it, anyhow." But he happily counted his sixty shining
   perforated New Guinea shillings, and strung them on a thong for safe
   keeping, content with his bargain even if the pig was dispatched in a
   somewhat messy way.

   The two policemen invited friends from the village to eat with them, and
   they all gorged themselves. The following morning there was still a
   quarter of the pig left, so they made a basket of bamboo slivers and hung
   the remnant in the smoke to cure. The ham surprised me by its tender
   juiciness, though the smell was rather uninviting.

   So Christmas passed, and then New Year. There was still no word of Jock.
   Every day some new speculation filled my mind. Had he perished crossing
   the mountains? Had the natives on the north side failed to send my message
   after him? Had the Japanese caught him? Had he been attacked by wild
   natives? My mind fastened on these questions one by one, and spun round
   and round upon them till they became obsessions. I used to say angrily to
   myself, aloud, "For God's sake stop wondering about it! Thinking won't
   help him, and it'll only drive you nuts!" But, just the same, when the
   storms came at night I would still find myself wondering whether, at that
   moment, Jock was exposed somewhere on the bare peaks to the cutting rain
   and freezing wind.

   Medical stores were now running out, and I had only a bare personal supply
   of quinine and sulpha drugs and other vital necessities. I decided to make
   another quick visit to Bob's to get more, if they could spare them, and
   also to send in a report about our activities in the Wain. Buka was left
   in charge of the camp, with a supply of food and trade goods for Jock in
   case he returned, and a note saying that I would be back from Bob's within
   a week. Watute and I set out for Bob's, taking our bedrolls and arms and
   also the hundredweight or so of brus we had collected to give the boys
   back at Bob's a smoke. When we reached Bivoro, Dinkila, the lively young
   man who had carried my bed to Bob's on the previous trip, squatted down to
   talk to us. Life in the village was too quiet, he said discontentedly. The
   old men kept nagging at you, and work in the gardens was drudgery. Could
   he join the police force, and have a uniform, and come with us?

   "What did you do in peacetime?" Watute asked quickly.

   Dinkila looked at him. "I was a cook-boy in Lae, first of all for some
   white women and then for Master Jacobsen."

   Watute grinned. "There you are, master - he'll be a good cook if he worked
   for Master Carl Jacobsen! Master Carl knew all about food. Why don't you
   take this man on as a cook?"

   I put the idea to Dinkila. The wages were ten shillings a month and all
   found, and he would have to accompany us wherever we went. If he wanted a
   change from village life, what about it?

   He had set his heart on a uniform, but after a few moments' consideration
   he took the job of cook, and from that moment on became the tyrant who
   ruled the details of my personal life: what I should wear, what I should
   eat, how my bed should be made, how strong my tea should be. It was no use
   arguing with Dinkila. What he thought I should have, I got, but he was a
   devoted servant and worked tirelessly to secure my personal comfort. How
   often he nursed me through attacks of fever and sickness I have forgotten,
   but whenever I awoke he seemed to be there with a cool drink, a mug of
   soup, or a cup of coffee with aspirins and quinine.

   We hurried down the Erap again, stopped for the usual welcome cup of tea
   and gossip with Tom Lega at Kirkland's, and rushed straight through to
   Bob's. The men fell upon the parcel of brus, tearing leaves out to roll
   themselves cigars, upon which they drew fiercely, exhaling with luxurious
   contentment. We had arrived in the middle of their worst tobacco famine,
   and none of them had had a smoke for days.

   Next morning I was surprised when Bill Chaffey called me to the
   orderly-room. There was a phone-call for me from Kirkland's. Tom Lega's
   voice, faint and blurred, came out of the ear-piece. "One of Jock's
   police-boys has just swum across the river!" he said excitedly. "He's got
   a letter for you, and he's coming on at once to Bob's. He says Jock got
   back across the range O.K."

   I was so excited that I hardly thanked Tom for calling, but slammed the
   field-telephone down and strode off along the track to meet the policeman.
   About half-way to Kirkland's I saw him come round the bend; and I
   recognized him as Nabura, an intelligent man who could read and write a
   little. He was weary, and though he grinned when he saw me he was too
   tired to quicken his pace. When we drew near to one another he fumbled in
   his haversack and handed me a thick bundle of papers tied together with a
   piece of vine. This was Jock's official report to the district officer,
   with a short note to me asking me to type out a copy of the report for
   him, and to forward the original to headquarters. The note said Jock would
   wait in Bawan for my return.

   The official report told of the crossing of the range; of the cold that
   had almost killed Jock and his native companions; of the dreadful storms;
   of the rocky cave in which they had sheltered one night; of the wild bush
   kanakas who had attacked them. He had reached the north coast and come
   upon a lonely Australian there watching the activities of the Japanese as
   they moved supplies in barges round the coast from Madang to Lae. At a
   coastal village he secured a canoe and travelled with his boys to the
   island of Sio. It was not occupied by the Japs, but they visited it
   periodically. A Japanese reconnaissance plane flew low over Jock's canoe
   on his return journey to the mainland. He dropped into the water and
   remained hidden under the decking while the plane circled above. His boys
   kept paddling doggedly, expecting at any moment to-be sunk by a burst of
   machine-gun fire, and eventually the Jap pilot decided it was only a
   harmless native fishing-party, and flew away. Jock scrambled back on to
   the canoe, thankful that the sharks had left him alone, only to find a few
   days later that his immersion had resulted in a case of "coral ear", an
   intensely painful infection that lies in wait for anyone unlucky enough to
   get tropical sea-water in his ears. In his note to me Jock said he was in
   such pain that he was practically living on aspirins at the camp in Bawan,
   and he asked me to get something from the doctor to fix the ear up.

   I hurried back to Bob's, where Bill helped me type the report. Then we got
   medical supplies from the doctor, and the few items of food that could be
   spared. I was going to return to the Wain next morning.

   At dawn we woke to the deafening roar of aeroplanes. The thunder from the
   bombing raids on Lae was terrific, and went on ceaselessly. Through the
   trees we saw flight after flight of our heavy bombers droning over, and
   soon a phone-call from Kirkland's told us that enormous columns of smoke
   could be seen down-river, and that all Lae seemed to be ablaze. I decided
   to defer my return until we knew what was happening. There was another
   ring from Kirkland's, a personal one for me, and I almost fell out through
   the grass wall of the orderly-room when I heard the voice. It was Jock!

   "Ear's too bloody crook!" he bawled into the phone. "Can't sleep at all,
   so I've come in to see the doc. Be seeing you in an hour or two."

   I hurried down the track to meet him. He was much thinner than when we had
   parted, and it was plain that the journey had affected him. "Bastard of a
   trip," was all he would mutter, however, concerning the crossing of the
   range itself.

   Bill Chaffey was waiting for us back at Bob's. He took us aside to talk
   quietly, and though his tone was humorous his expression was troubled.

   "I'll tell you what all that racket down at Lae's about," he began. "We've
   had a signal to say that the Japs have a big convoy of ships there, and
   they're unloading reinforcements and a hell of a lot of stores. Our planes
   have been belting hell out of them since dawn, but naturally there's a lot
   of gear and troops got ashore in spite of it."

   Jock and I were silent.

   "You know what it means, don't you?" pursued Bill. "Yeah," said Jock,
   rubbing his bristly head thoughtfully. "It means the Nips are going to
   hang on in Lae and Salamaua and drive all us poor bastards out of the bush
   and out of Wau and right off this side of the island."

   "What about you blokes staying here?" Bill asked. "We can get away through
   the bush all right from here, if they come up in force. If you're across
   the Markham you'll be trapped."

   Jock squatted on his heels. I noticed that his sand-shoes were worn out
   and that the tropical ulcers on his legs were eating bigger and bigger
   patches out of the flesh. "Point is this, Bill," he said after a pause.
   "If the Nips are going to take over in Wau, there'll be more need than
   ever for us to keep in touch with the natives and see what's going on. I
   think we could manage to live in the bush there." He turned to me. "What
   do you reckon?"

   "I'll give it a go if you think so," I said. "I wouldn't care to try it on
   my own."

   From then on, things moved so quickly that the rest of the day was a
   confused jumble of events. By evening I found myself, with Watute and
   Dinkila, asking Tom Lega at Kirkland's for a bed for the night. Jock had
   to remain for a few days to have his ear treated, but would join me at
   Bawan as soon as he could. And all the time, in the background, there was
   the roar of our planes and the rumble of the bombs on Lae.

   Next day, just after dawn, Tom had the canoe ready for me to cross the
   river. He had become used to saying good-bye on the banks of the Markham,
   but he made it pretty plain on this occasion that he didn't expect to see
   me again. His handshake was firmer and longer as he followed the canoe out
   into the shallows.

   In midstream we looked suddenly up-river. Almost at water-level three
   Beaufighters were bearing down on us. We reckoned it was the finish, for
   our planes had had orders to regard all movement along the Markham as
   hostile. They saw us, banked off, and came at us in another run. The
   boat's crew.sprang overboard and struck out for the shore, leaving Watute,
   Dinkila, and me rushing downstream wildly. I snatched my slouch hat off
   and waved it frantically above my head, almost overbalancing the canoe.
   Watute did the same with his khaki cap. In spite of the panic we were in I
   felt a momentary pang of annoyance as my pipe slipped and fell into the
   water with a dull little plop. Then, with a screaming whistle, the three
   planes passed over us. They had recognized us in time, and with wings
   dipping in salute they hurtled off towards Lae. At the rate the current
   was racing us seaward we would soon be in Lae ourselves if we didn't do
   something about it, so we paddled madly with our hands and managed to land
   the canoe on one of the islands. Through the field-glasses I saw the
   boat's crew get new paddles from the landing and start swimming over to
   us, to finish the journey so ignominiously interrupted. While we waited
   for them I became conscious of something like a pebble in my mouth. It was
   the end of my pipe-stem. Apparently I had bitten it clean through in the
   excitement.



   When we reached Bawan two days later the tultul was waiting for us at the
   outskirts of the village. With an apprehensive glance up the track that
   led to my house he drew me nervously aside.

   "Master, this-fella police-boy, name belong 'im Buka, 'em 'e long-long
   finish. Me-fella fright too much long 'en." He was telling me that Buka
   had gone mad, and went on to explain that he was rampaging round the
   countryside, stark naked, brandishing rifle and bayonet, threatening to
   rape all the women and shoot all the men. The tultul said that Buka had
   not actually molested anyone yet, but the people were all too scared to
   leave their houses, and no gardening had been done for days.

   Watute stepped forward as the tultul finished speaking. "It's the full
   moon, master," he said. "It's happened before, but he's never harmed
   anyone yet."

   The tultul was watching me anxiously, and I was vaguely conscious of other
   scared faces peering round the corners of the houses, so I said in a firm
   and confident voice that Buka would be kept under control, and we moved on
   to the house. I had not the faintest idea of how we would deal with the
   situation, and when I caught sight of Buka I was really frightened. He was
   squatting naked by the fire at the end of the house-police, crooning a
   senseless, monotonous tune. His usually fat and jovial face seemed wasted
   and sullen, and his eyes were dull and empty. He took no notice whatever
   when we spoke, so Watute climbed up beside him and quietly grabbed his
   rifle and bayonet and handed them down to me. Then we went in to my house
   to consider what to do.

   Watute reckoned that Buka would soon be himself again, for in the past the
   attacks had seldom lasted longer than a couple of days. Disarmed, Buka was
   now much less dangerous, so I accepted Watute's suggestion that he and
   Dinkila should take it in turns to watch him, and I told them to call me
   instantly if he attempted to leave the house or wander down to the
   village. We hid the rifle in the thatching of the roof, and Watute
   returned to the house-police while Dinkila prepared my tea.

   I was filling an after-dinner pipe by the fire when soft footsteps padded
   across the veranda. A quiet voice at the doorway said, "Master!" The
   tultul had pushed aside the canvas cover of the door and stepped inside.

   "What is it, tultul?" I asked.

   "Master, one-fella piccaninny, 'em 'e sick too much. Papa belong 'en like
   you come lookim."

   This was the first time they had asked me to see a sick person outside the
   usual morning "visiting-hours". I picked up the medical kit and followed
   the tultul out into the cold night and down the track to the village. He
   led me to a small house near the edge of the cliff, and helped me through
   the tiny doorway. The hut, its timbers and grass roof smoke-blackened and
   glazed, was so hot that I could hardly breathe. The smouldering fire in
   the middle of the floor gave off a little light and a lot of smoke, and I
   could see the sick child's mother and father squatting in the shadows by
   the back wall. When the fire blazed up a little I saw the hopeless look on
   their faces.

   The child, a boy about eight years old, lay stretched out naked on the
   rough floor near the fire. His head was resting on the lap of a hideous
   old woman - probably the grandmother, I thought, shuddering at the sight
   of her. She too was almost naked, and her whole body was covered with a
   grey, scaly skin disease. One breast had shrivelled almost to nothing,
   while the other hung, skinny and strap-like, to her navel. Her head was
   shaved. From time to time, through shrunken toothless lips, she mumbled,
   dribbling and idiotic. As I stooped to look at the child I glanced up and
   saw her glinting old eyes flash hatred. Then she stared straight ahead and
   ignored me.

   The child's pathetic, skinny body was rigid, the stick-like limbs
   immovable. The eyes were turned up so that only the whites showed-and they
   were not really white, but a muddy bluish colour. When I touched the
   eyeballs there was no more reaction than if I had pressed my finger on a
   marble. His pulse was so feeble that for a while I could not detect it,
   and thought he was dead already. The tultul leant forward and picked up a
   piece of wood from the fire. He blew gently on it till it flamed, and then
   held it close to the child's head so that I could see better. Death was
   already in the little black face, I thought, and put the glowing stick
   back on the fire.

   I could not treat a disease I was unable to diagnose, and anyhow I felt
   certain that the child was beyond help. No one spoke. As I squeezed out
   the doorway the mother and father looked bewildered, and the old woman
   followed me with her eyes, detesting my interference. I felt angry at my
   own helplessness.

   The cool air outside was like a cleansing bath after the murky stink of
   the little hut where death was waiting just a few minutes longer. In his
   quiet, calm voice the tultul thanked me for coming. The child's father
   would be grateful too, he said, though unwilling to say so in front of
   that terrible old woman.

   I walked slowly back to my house and raked the fire together. Life is
   bloody tough for these people, I thought, as I stared into the coals. They
   were naked both bodily and morally, victims of every cruel and senseless
   whim of fate and nature. But not quite naked, perhaps, when one recalled
   their gentle, stoic patience. The cloak of their philosophy was probably
   no more threadbare than the scientific cloak in which civilized people
   have tried to shroud themselves for the last half-century.

   A piercing, terrible wail shivered through the air from the village. It
   was like a dog howling, but infinitely tragic. The child was dead. I went
   to the door and looked out. Little points of light moved in the blackness
   where the village was, as people came out of their houses holding torches.
   The wailing became general, taken up, swelling and fading, by every voice
   in the community. Sometimes low and moaning, sometimes shrill and harsh,
   it went on all night.



   Tossing wakeful on my bed-sail, I remembered Jock's idea of trying to
   visit the Chinese prisoners in the compound behind Lae. These people would
   have on-the-spot news of the Japs' recent landing of reinforcements, and
   perhaps some knowledge of how they intended to employ them.

   The more I thought about it, the more exciting the idea became. I decided
   not to wait for Jock's return, but to go alone next morning. To the sound
   of the weird wailing down the hill, and with one ear cocked for any sound
   of trouble from Buka, I sat all night over my maps and notes of the
   country between Bawan and Lae, trying to work out the safest approach and
   to devise escape-routes in case we were discovered.

   I was still making notes and sketches when dawn showed the grey outline of
   the doorway. As I went outside to call Dinkila, a loud, hollow banging
   echoed from the village. The men were knocking together a coffin from
   rough hand-hewn planks, to bury the little boy.

   Buka seemed sane again - but exhausted, like a mar. who has just been on a
   hectic drinking-jag. He had no recollection of what he had, done or said,
   and seemed mildly surprised to see us all. l decided to leave him in camp
   and to take only Watute and Dinkila down to the Chinese camp.

   The three of us set out about eight o'clock, carrying blankets, a little
   food, trade goods, and a tiny hurricane-lamp. We had our usual arms, and
   our pockets were stuffed with hand-grenades. I told the tultul of Bawan
   that we were merely doing a routine tour of the villages and would be away
   two or three days. To make sure that gossip could not precede us, I did
   not tell even Watute and Dinkila our real destination until we were well
   clear of Bawan. Dinkila's eyes lit up at the prospect of excitement, but
   Watute merely gave his queer tight little half-grin and said nothing.

   "Did you know where we were going?" I asked.

   "I guessed," he said. "After all, we've got all these hand-grenades, and
   you've got those maps and papers. I realized it wasn't going to be just
   routine stuff."

   We walked fast all day, over ridges and valleys, drenched alternately by
   sweat and icy river water. We did not stop to eat, for safety depended on
   speed - to get in and out again before unfriendly natives could warn the
   Japs. Evening found us in a little village called Lambaip, near the edge
   of the foothills behind Lae. The few people in the village greeted us
   quietly, showing neither hostility nor enthusiasm. They gave us some
   vegetables to eat, and pointed out an empty house where we could sleep.

   We were to be on the track by four o'clock next day, so I divided the
   night into three-hour watches - mine from seven o'clock to ten, Watute's
   till one o'clock, and Dinkila's till four.

   Among the Lambaip kanakas Dinkila found an old friend with whom he had
   worked in Lae. The two of them talked and laughed so loudly at bawdy
   peacetime recollections that in the end I yelled at them to shut up, so
   that I could go to sleep. Dinkila came sheepishly to the door, leading his
   friend.

   "Master, this friend of mine will come with us tomorrow, if you like," he
   said. "He knows the language of all the villages on our way."

   I held the little hurricane-lamp up. The boy was young and merry-faced
   like Dinkila, and was nodding his head in energetic agreement with the
   proposal.

   "All right - it's a good idea," I said. "Now, for God's sake let me get
   some sleep, and go to sleep yourselves!" Next morning before starting we
   gathered every scrap of wrapping paper from the army biscuits and burnt
   it, and carefully buried the bully-beef tins. If any of the natives told
   the Japs we had been here, we were determined that there would be no scrap
   of evidence. I even packed my boots into the bed-roll and walked barefoot,
   for the print of an Australian army boot, with its distinctive horseshoe
   heel-plate, would have been certain proof that we had passed along the
   track.

   The ground was rough, and my feet were soon covered in cuts. As I watched
   Watute's leathery feet padding along in front of me I wondered how long it
   would take for my soles to become as tough as his.

   We walked rapidly, continually downhill, roughly following the course of
   the Busu River towards Lae. It became very hot after the sun rose, for we
   had left the high country behind and were approaching the coast. About
   midday we passed a huge bomb-crater in the jungle on a nearby hill-side.
   Probably the bomb had been jettisoned by a lost or damaged aircraft.

   A few moments later we reached the large village of Musom, about fourteen
   miles from Lae. Natives who had been lounging about sprang to their feet
   in angry astonishment as we strode into the centre of the village. An
   uproar broke out as men rushed from the houses waving pig-spears and bows
   and arrows, and shouting. I slipped the safety catch off my rifle, and saw
   Watute do the same, and we backed up against a large house so that nobody
   could sneak in behind us, while we waited for the row to subside.
   Dinkila's friend from Lambaip stood close by translating freely as the
   kanakas yelled and gesticulated we gathered that some of the people were
   for killing us off at once, while others were trying to restrain them. The
   noise died down to a threatening rumble, and an elderly man stepped
   sullenly forward.

   "Me luluai," he announced in a defiant tone, making no attempt to salute.

   "Where's your cap, luluai? And the village book?" I demanded sharply.

   "Hat now book 'e something belong gov'ment belong Australia," he said
   bluntly, and went on to explain that cap and book had both been destroyed,
   and any Australian who wanted to go on living had better keep clear of his
   village.

   His speech received an ugly growl of approval from the crowd. They had the
   numbers to shoot us down quite easily, even if it cost them a few
   casualties. Probably, however, we would be picked off by bowmen hidden in
   the bush that fringed the village.

   Bluff seemed our only hope.

   "You've seen that hole the bomb made on the hill-side up there, haven't
   you, luluai?" I asked.

   He grunted a surly assent.

   "That was caused by just a single bomb," I went on evenly, trying to
   infuse a note of menace into my voice, to cover up very genuine fear.
   "Just one bomb cut down all those trees and made that enormous hole."

   The crowd was quiet now, listening intently.

   Jumping suddenly forward I stuck my face up close to the luluai's face,
   shouting at the top of my voice, "You'd better look out, luluai! My
   friends with all those aeroplanes know where we are now! If anything
   happens to us they'll come over and drop hundreds of bombs, all over the
   place!"

   As the luluai fell back a step, I took a step forward, still shouting at
   him. "Bombs everywhere! No gardens, no houses, no women, no children, no
   luluai either!" I went on, piling horror on horror.

   The luluai melted back into the crowd, but I called him out by himself
   again, and painted in the full ghastly details of the imaginary air raid.
   As the crowd began looking upwards apprehensively, as though fearing
   vengeance from the skies at any moment, I thought of the parson who used
   sometimes to add a marginal note to the draft of his sermon: Shout like
   hell here - argument very weak. That parson apparently understood an
   audience.

   Before long most of the kanakas had put their weapons down and moved to
   the other end of the village, where they stood murmuring uneasily. The
   luluai was reduced to a state of unwilling civility.

   We asked him about the movements of the Japs.

   "I suppose an ignorant old man like you thinks the Japanese are the
   government now?" I said.

   "Master, me no lookim Japan. Me-fella no savvy long Japan."

   " 'Em 'e gammon, master," Watute said quickly at my elbow. "Look at these
   things I found in the houses."

   He held out several Japanese newspapers, and a bottle with a Japanese
   label, half full of kerosene.

   "Where did you get those, luluai, if you haven't been dealing with the
   Japanese?"

   The old rascal squirmed and wriggled, but stuck to his story that he and
   his people had had nothing to do with the Japs. It was obviously untrue,
   but he was unshakable, so I fell back on more idle threats, to prevent him
   rushing straight to Lae to tell the Japs what had happened.

   "We'll be round here for a day or two, luluai, so don't tell the Japanese.
   Remember - no matter whose fault it is, if any harm comes to us in your
   country the aeroplanes will come and bomb you."

   He gave me an ugly glare - he was quite shrewd enough to guess that the
   whole business might be a bluff, but was too terrified of the bombs to
   gamble on his luck.

   Watute drove the point home: "You see, luluai? If you want to save your
   own skin, you'd better look after us, and do everything you can to make
   sure we leave here safe and sound."

   We munched a few bits of biscuit and had a drink of water. Then, with a
   final warning to the luluai not to try any funny business, we hurried
   along the track towards Gawan, a large village one stage nearer the
   Chinese camp. We reached Gawan by mid-afternoon, and though the people
   were anything but pleased to see us they concealed their feelings and
   showed at least formal politeness. The local luluai and tultul wore their
   hats and made some gestures of cordiality, giving us a house and a supply
   of food.

   "Have you been dealing with the Japanese?" I asked the tultul.

   "Certainly not - we wouldn't dream of such a thing."

   "What about the people of Musom?"

   "Yes, they have been down to Lae. But not the Gawan people."

   Watute and I grinned at each other. They didn't mind telling tales on
   other villages, while protesting their own innocence.

   "Tultul, do you know the camp down the river where the Chinese are
   living?" I asked.

   He was silent, licking his lips and swallowing, and curling his toes in
   the dust.

   "Do you hear the master asking you a question? Speak up!" snapped Watute.

   "Yes, me savvy," he whispered.

   "We want to go there tomorrow, and we would like you to guide us."

   He looked piteously from Watute to me, and back again, hoping that we
   might be joking. Oh no! his expression seemed to say. No - anything but
   that!

   "Come on - you heard," Watute prodded him. "No - it's not safe!" he
   blurted out. "What if the Japanese shoot you?. Then I'll be in trouble
   with the Australians."

   "You'll be in trouble with the Japanese if they find out we got even this
   far, and you'll be in trouble with me if you don't do what you're told.
   You're in plenty of trouble, tultul."

   "Please don't go!" he implored, groaning and almost weeping. "It's not
   that I won't take you, but it's too dangerous."

   After pleading unsuccessfully for half an hour, he finally gave in, and
   with a terrified expression muttered "Yessir" to Watute's order to be
   ready at three o'clock in the morning. Then he went off, shaking his head
   and trembling, to his own house across the village.

   The sun set brassily behind the timbered line of black hills as Dinkila
   prepared my tea. It was dark when I finished eating, and I lit the little
   lamp while Watute and Dinkila squatted on the floor to eat their meal of
   boiled sweet potatoes. We sat there, talking and smoking for some time,
   and then, leaving the lamp burning low where it stood, we took our rifles
   and dropped quietly out the back of the house and into the edge of the
   bush. If the tultul should fetch a Japanese patrol to surround the house,
   we could now easily escape to the river and make our way upstream to
   safety in the Wain country.

   All night we sat huddled together in the bushes. Time stretched out
   unmercifully, and I remember trying not to look at my watch, and being
   disappointed, whenever I did steal a glance, to find how slowly the night
   was passing.

   The village was fairly quiet. Sometimes a glowing cigar-end betrayed a
   figure moving, and in a nearby house an old man coughed and spat. Shortly
   before midnight, as the moon rose, we were surprised to see the women and
   children, with large bundles on their backs, slip out of the houses and
   glide like shadows along the track that led north to the hills.

   "What does it mean?" I whispered to Watute. "Do you think they're
   expecting a Japanese raid'?"

   The moonlight showed his old face creased with thought. "It could mean
   that," he said at last. "But probably they're just playing safe. If they
   were sure a raid was coming, the men would have gone too."

   We sat on in silence, letting the mosquitoes bite us as they would. The
   minutes ticked painfully by, gradually adding themselves together to make
   slow, reluctant hours.

   "I'm hungry," I complained. "And all the food's up in the house."

   Watute chuckled softly, and fumbled in his haversack, bringing out a
   strange black object with little bits of dust and tobacco adhering to it.

   "What's this?"

   "Pig. Master kai-kai," he replied, offering it to me.

   It was a knuckle of camp-cured ham from the boys' Christmas pig. I hacked
   off a piece with my sheath-knife and nibbled it gingerly, more with the
   idea of not offending Watute than of enjoying it. It tasted surprisingly
   good, and I soon asked for another bit.

   Three o'clock came at last, and while I covered him with my rifle Watute
   went across the village to wake the tultul. He emerged yawning and
   stretching from his house, accompanied by a friend, and as soon as he saw
   me he began to make excuses and fresh protestations against going with us.

   "It's no good, tultul," I said. "We're going, so that's the end of it."

   He looked as if he might burst into tears, so we gave him and his friend a
   packet of biscuits and tried to cheer them up. The tultul wasn't a bad
   sort really, but circumstances had put him into the damnable position of
   having to placate the implacable and somehow help each side in turn
   without being caught by the other.

   Watute took off his uniform and borrowed an old black loincloth from
   Dinkila. Then he ruffled up his hair and rubbed his face and body with
   ashes from the fire, till he looked like any grubby kanaka from the bush.
   I told him to leave his rifle behind, and gave him two hand-grenades,
   which he put in a little string dilly-bag with his tobacco and matches.

   We followed the tultul and his friend down the winding track. For the
   first couple of hours the bright moonlight enabled us to walk swiftly, but
   by five o'clock we were so deep into the valley, and in such thick jungle,
   that we had to sit down and wait for dawn. The soles of my feet were
   stinging, for though I had patched the cuts up with sticking-plaster it
   had been washed off by the wet grass and the many small streams we had
   crossed. Leeches worried us too, swarming up our legs and fastening onto
   the skin till they dropped off, gorged to bursting.

   At first grey light we hurried on, and sunrise found us halted on a cliff
   above the river outside a village called Gwabandik. Watute went ahead to
   reconnoitre alone in his guise of kanaka, while the rest of us waited in
   the jungle just off the track. He was back in five minutes with the news
   that there were no Japanese about, and that the Gwabandik people, while
   surprised at our visit, were quite friendly.

   The tultul and his friend and Watute and I perched on the edge of a house
   and ate a couple of tins of bully beef, while the Gwabandik people
   gathered round curiously to hear what was going on in other parts of the
   island. They were so near to Lae that they had a good idea of the
   devastation our bombing had caused.

   I asked them about the Chinese camp. Yes, they knew it well. It was quite
   close - in fact some of them were going there that morning with a supply
   of vegetables. Yes, they would take me down with them, provided I was
   careful and first let them make sure there were no Japanese about. I told
   them I was in a hurry, and they obligingly rushed about, getting their
   loads ready.

   In the middle of these preparations Watute suddenly leapt to the ground
   and raced to the end of the village, where he intercepted an aged native
   he had caught slipping into the bush. In true police-boy style Watute
   grabbed his arm and propelled him up to me.

   "Master, this-fella man, 'em 'e tultul belong Tali!" he said excitedly.

   Tali was a village near Lae known to be under Jap control.

   "Is that true? Are you the tultul of Tali?" I asked. He was a tall, thin
   grey-haired man, and he drew himself erect and said in a dignified voice
   that Watute had made a mistake.

   Watute was scornful. "I don't make mistakes like that," he said. "This man
   gave the kiap trouble in peacetime, and I've seen him both in Tali and in
   Lae."

   The old man denied it, saying that he belonged to another village near by.
   Though he remained calm, I could see that Watute's certainty worried him.

   I asked the Gwabandik natives about him, but they were evasive. "Just an
   old man," was the gist of their replies.

   I felt that Watute was probably right. Even if he had made a mistake,
   there was something suspicious about the old man - the evasions of the
   Gwabandik boys seemed to point to that. At all events, it would be
   dangerous to let the old native go, so I told him he would be kept under
   guard until we left the area, and motioned him to get in the line in front
   of me. He began to protest, but thought better of it, shrugged, and moved
   into line. We started off downstream, led by about a dozen Gwabandik
   natives carrying bundles of vegetables and fruit.

   Most of the time Watute walked at the head of the line. He appeared
   indistinguishable from the kanakas, and no one would have guessed that he
   was usually a trim, clean, uniformed police-boy. Neither would anyone have
   suspected that his innocent-looking little dilly-bag held two deadly
   "hand-bombs", as he called the grenades, with which his aim was unerring.

   Once he dropped back beside me to mutter about a theory he had worked out
   regarding the tultul of Tali, if such were really the identity of our
   prisoner. For some weeks we had been hearing stories which suggested that
   white missionaries were still living near the coast and carrying on under
   Japanese auspices. The reports, which came from natives in widely
   separated villages, agreed in substance, and seemed authentic. Watute had
   a theory that one of these missionaries had sent the tultul, a strong
   mission supporter, to see whether it was safe to resume missionary
   activity in this area.

   I put this to the old native, but he only mumbled unintelligibly in reply.
   However, I noticed that he no longer denied that he was the tultul of
   Tali, nor that some Europeans were working near Lae with Japanese
   approval.

   On its far side the river was joined by a large tributary and became a
   huge torrent, its tawny surface broken and foam-flecked.

   "Which side of the river is the Chinese camp on?" I asked the tultul of
   Gawan.

   "Place belong Kong-Kong 'e stop long other fella half."

   "Well, how do we get there? Look at that river!"

   "Bridge 'e buggerup finish, me-fella savvy brokim water."

   "Yes, you can get across, I dare say. But what about me?"

   "Master, more better you stop. Now me-fella bringim number one belong
   Kong-Kong, name belong 'en Peter, now you-fella talk-talk along this-fella
   half."

   In other words, I should stop on this side of the stream, and they would
   fetch the unofficial leader and spokesman for the Chinese - a man named
   Peter Ah Tun, whose name I had heard from Jock.

   Watute and I weighed this suggestion and decided in favour of it. It had
   the advantage of keeping the river between us and the Japanese and also of
   cutting out the dangerous crossing.

   We were soon led on to a flat, open stony beach, and the Gwabandik natives
   announced that they would make the crossing here. They would ask Peter Ah
   Tun to come back with them at once. Three of them were needed to get over
   safely, they said. If I watched them I would see what method was used to
   pass these flooded streams. They grabbed a dry log of driftwood from the
   beach - a sizeable tree about fifteen feet long - and tucked it under
   their left arms, with one man at each end and one in the middle. Then they
   plunged straight in. The current caught them, and they would have been
   swept rapidly downstream, but, as they bobbed about, they struck out
   strongly with their right arms, and each time their feet touched bottom
   they kicked powerfully forward. In this way the three natives reached the
   other side in a few minutes. They pulled their log up clear of the water,
   took off their loincloths and wrung them dry, and set off at a run down
   the far bank.

   I followed their movements through the glasses, and as soon as they had
   disappeared round a small bluff Watute and I withdrew the rest of the
   natives about a hundred yards upstream, where we crouched in the
   cane-grass out of sight.

   Watnte and I kent looking at each other. he with his funny little
   half-grin flickering about his face. Unspoken the same question was
   buzzing in both our heads: Would the Gwabandik natives return with Peter
   alone, or would they bring a Japanese patrol? We had our answer in less
   than five minutes, for the three natives, still running hard. reappeared
   round the bluff, followed by a single flying figure in white athletic
   singlet and white shorts.

   While I kept the binoculars fastened on the bluff, straining my eyes to
   detect any sign of Japanese coming round the corner, Watute gave me a
   ball-to-ball description of the movements of Peter and the three natives:
   "Four-fella 'e go down long water. All 'e brokim water now. Altogether man
   'e come up long this-fella half. All 'e look-look nabout, now all 'e no
   lookim you-me," ran his commentary.

   Transferring my gaze from the farther bank to the flat below us, I saw
   that they were indeed searching for us, in a puzzled way, in the spot
   where we had been squatting when they crossed the river. I handed the
   binoculars to Watute with orders to shout a warring if there were any
   suspicious movements. Then I advanced to meet Peter.

   We introduced ourselves, shaking hands warmly. He was of medium height,
   with gold-brown skin, and a face that looked as much European as Chinese.
   Through the wet singlet that stuck to his skin his ribs showed up like a
   washboard, and he was panting and heaving as I led him to a patch of long
   grass where we could hide while we talked.

   "Are you all right?" I asked. "They won't be looking for you?"

   "I've been down in Lae, in jail," he said bitterly. "They only let me go a
   few days ago. Look!"

   He held out his wrists and indicated his ankles for my inspection. All
   were encircled with black bruises, and on the inner surfaces the skin had
   been worn away, leaving raw, open sores which were starting to fester.

   "Handcuffs?"

   "Yes. And leg-irons! They keep you chained hand and foot. You can't move.
   You can't eat. You just lie there. You shit yourself, you piss yourself,
   for days! And they beat you!"

   His voice became shrill and loud - almost a scream, for a moment - as he
   recalled his ordeal. Then he calmed down.

   "Some natives told the Japs I was spying for the Australians," he said.
   "So they had me in there for questioning.

   "Do they leave you alone in your camp? Isn't it always guarded?"

   "They don't bother to watch us all the time - they know we haven't much
   chance of escaping. Every few days a patrol comes to look at us, but
   that's all.... But we'd better not waste time - today's a likely day for
   them to come, and there'll be trouble if I'm missing."

   A rapid-fire burst of question and answer began concerning the number of
   ships, the strength of the force landed from the convoy a few days ago,
   the amount and type of equipment brought ashore. To all my questions, and
   many others, Peter gave answers either from his own observation or from
   the reports of his fellow Chinese.

   "What effects are our bombing raids having on the enemy?" I asked.

   "They aren't killing many - the Japs have got tremendous deep shelters
   everywhere. But the raids do a lot of damage, and they've affected the
   troops' rations. Only yesterday one of your planes burnt up a huge dump of
   bagged rice. And the enemy lose a lot of petrol the same way."

   "Do you think the supply position is really acute yet?"

   "It must be fairly bad because they bring stores in by submarine now. The
   subs don't surface till night-time, and the stores are unloaded off shore,
   in the dark."

   "Do you think the Japs know there are any white men in the mountains?" I
   asked. I was scribbling furiously with a stub of pencil on a grubby sheaf
   of papers.

   "Yes, they know several white men are there, and that one recently crossed
   over the Saruwaged mountains. Only last Wednesday a party came up to look
   for you. They got as far as the old broken vine bridge over the Busu -
   they tried to swim the river but after a couple of them were nearly
   drowned they gave up."

   This intelligence was important, for it meant that our movements were
   certainly being reported to the enemy by natives, and that the Japanese
   believed them. On the other hand, the fact that the enemy had abandoned
   their expedition at the first serious obstacle seemed to indicate that
   they still had no stomach for inland patrolling into the wild and, to
   them, unknown mountain country. On the whole, in view of our tremendous
   initial advantage, I felt we could still consider ourselves fairly safe in
   the high country.

   "How do they treat the rest of your people?"

   Peter Ah Tun answered that the Japanese gave them only enough food for
   their subsistence, made them work in Lae, but generally treated them with
   reasonable humanity. They had not molested their women, and had provided
   food for their old people. "Our rations have got worse, though," he added.
   "Once we used to get oil and dripping and tinned fish, but now it's only
   rice and a little salt. We get a bit of stuff from the natives, as you see
   today."

   "Things are going to get worse still," I said. "Before we actually make an
   assault on Lae the bombing will be terrific. Would you like to come out
   with me? I think we can still get out O.K."

   His eyes lit up for a moment, but he shook his head slowly. "No, I
   couldn't do that. I must stick to my people. The Japanese would ill-treat
   them all if I disappeared. I must stay. We'll manage somehow. We'll go
   bush with the natives when the time comes."

   "You're sure you won't come?"

   Peter shook his head again, without speaking. I gave him the cake of
   American ration chocolate I carried for an emergency, and having arranged
   that any further meetings should be at this spot we shook hands again. He
   and the Gwabandik boys went down to the water with the food, while Watute
   and I, with the tultul of Gawan and his friend, set off rapidly into the
   bush, to return to Dinkila at Gawan. We still had with us the supposed
   tultul of Tali, now under Watute's watchful eye.

   This man, and many other people like him, was one of my worst headaches.
   If I made him a prisoner he would be a constant millstone round my neck,
   for I had no proper jail at Bawan, nor did I have enough police to guard
   it if I built one. On the other hand, if we let him go he might make
   straight for the Japanese. We decided he was to come part of the way back
   with us, and that we'd let him go along the road. At least we'd have time
   to get clear before he could raise the alarm.

   The tultul of Gawan was like a man who has just been reprieved. He grinned
   and laughed now that his distasteful job was over. He was looking forward
   to our departure from his country with unconcealed pleasure, and he made
   the pace of our journey back to Gawan a cracker, breaking into an
   enthusiastic jog-trot from time to time. I found it hard to keep up with
   him, for there was almost no skin left on my feet and I was suffering a
   good deal from recurrent malaria that somehow could not be shaken off. My
   legs were weak, and I was short of breath.

   All the way I was swearing, in a manner which would scarcely have
   disgraced Jock himself, at the idiocy of the headquarters crowd in
   insisting still that we needed no radio set. All the precious information
   from Peter Ah Tun, instead of being in the hands of New Guinea Force
   Headquarters within a few hours, would have to be written out and sent to
   Bob's by runner - a delay of at least three days. Not only was the delay
   infuriating, but the messenger would be risking his life and jeopardizing
   the safety of our whole set-up - if he were captured the Japs might easily
   torture him into telling where our camp was. As Jock had said the day I
   met him in the mountains, without a radio we would be better employed
   drinking ourselves quietly to death in a nice pub in Australia.

   Dinkila met us at the entrance to Gawan village. The billy was boiling, he
   assured me, and a mug of tea would be prepared in an instant.

   As I ate some biscuits and drank a couple of pints of the hot black tea I
   was busy with paper and pencil, roughly drafting the report. I told
   Dinkila to pack the few bits of gear we had, and to be ready to leave in
   ten minutes. Watute, his mouth crammed with sweet potato grinned at me and
   pointed to the overjoyed expression on the face of the tultul of Gawan as
   he heard me give Dinkila the order to prepare to move. He was probably the
   happiest man in New Guinea at that moment.

   Evening was near when we left. There was no hope of reaching Lambaip to
   spend the night, so when it became dark we slept in the bush a few miles
   up the side of the mountain above Musom.

   I must have been more tired than I realized, for it was dawn before I
   woke, drenched from the heavy rain that had fallen in the night, and
   burning with fever. Watute, too, had slept through the rain. Dinkila and
   his friend from Lambaip had taken it in turns to guard our prisoner.

   We stretched our stiff and creaking limbs, and I struggled painfully into
   my boots again. When we reached Lambaip we released the captive and said
   good-bye to Dinkila's friend. I had nothing to reward him with for his
   services, but I wrote a note explaining what he had done for us, telling
   him to give it to the first government officer to visit the village,
   unless of course I returned there myself. Then we struck into the hills
   towards Bawan, arriving about four o'clock.

   As I stepped over the low fence which kept the village pigs away from the
   house, a strange police-boy in full uniform stepped forward and saluted
   smartly, handing me a folded paper, and murmuring that he had arrived at
   Bawan just a few moments earlier. I dismissed him and the others and went
   into the house to read the note. It was from Bob's, and contained a radio
   message from the district officer who had just taken charge in Wau. The
   message said, "Return south of Markham at once. Bring all gear from Wain
   country."

   I sat down to consider what might lie behind this unexpected order. The
   instruction to bring all gear was clearly an indication that the Wain
   country was to be abandoned. It almost seemed that in Wau they expected
   the Japanese attack to be successful, and were withdrawing me while it was
   still possible to make contact. Again I cursed the lack of a wireless. If
   we should lose Wau, it was enormously important that someone should remain
   to watch Lae. If the new D.O. were taking this action for my safety (as he
   was in fact doing, I found later), a radio message would have told him
   that we could safely remain for a year or more in the mountains. As long
   as we kept contact with the kanakas they would protect us from the
   Japanese. Once lose touch, however, and one would hardly be able to blame
   them if they concluded that the Japanese had won the war.

   Without a wireless I realized I could not argue. That slip of paper in my
   hand told me clearly what must be done. So I called all the boys into the
   house and translated the message into pidgin for them.

   "The district officer thinks our work is ended," I continued, "and we must
   do what he says. Now go and call the luluai, the tultul, the doctor-boy,
   and some of the old men. I want to talk to them."

   They filed silently outside, except Watute, who lingered a moment near the
   door.

   "Well?" I asked. "What are you thinking about?"

   "Master, we are not afraid, you and I?" he questioned, as though to clear
   up a doubt.

   "No, of course not," I assured him.

   "That is all that matters, then," he said. "Now, if the Number One says we
   must go, we must do as he says. But it is a pity. 'this is a good country,
   the Wain." And as he went down the steps he looked wistfully round at the
   blue hills and at the lengthening shadows in the valleys.



   By the time the luluai and other natives of Bawan arrived it was dark, and
   Dinkila had lit the fire. My blankets, still damp from the drenching the
   night before, were steaming beside it. Dinkila, his glossy black skin
   gleaming in the firelight, moved quietly about the room, packing things
   for our journey next day, and occasionally turning his attention to the
   pots on the fire, in which he was preparing tea.

   I told the Bawan men that I was leaving, but hoped to return one day. In
   the meantime they must bear in mind all the things I had told them. They
   must avoid the Japanese, and help any white man who came to them, just a
   they had helped me. Then, when the government returned, they would have a
   good name, they would be well rewarded. But if they did not heed my words
   it would be no use their appealing to me to intercede for them against the
   wrath of the government.

   "Oh, sorry, master," they replied. "Me-fella hearim finish talk belong
   you. Me-fella no can loosim talk belong you."

   Warning them that all the men must be ready to carry my cargo in the
   morning, I gave each one a calico loincloth and a couple of pounds of
   salt, and they lifted the canvas curtain across the doorway and vanished
   into the misty blackness of the night. I heard them ask Watute, at the
   door of the house-police, for a lighted brand from the fire to show them
   the path home, and I could hear their voices receding as they went down
   the track to the village.

   "Do you think they will remember what I have told them?" I asked Dinkila.

   That cynic shrugged his shoulders. "How do I know? Men forget everything
   sooner or later. I suppose they will remember for a while." And he busied
   himself again at the pots on the fire.

   There was a case or two of meat left, which I did not feel disposed to
   carry back to Bob's, so I opened one and distributed it and a good deal of
   other extra food to the police. I saw by the pile of native food they were
   cooking that their last night in the Wain was to be a memorable one, and
   upon returning to my house for tea I found that Dinkila seemed to have the
   same idea for me. The first course came on three plates, one piled high
   with potato chips and rissoles, and the other two with cabbage, sweet
   corn, taro, sweet potatoes, spinach, and fried bananas. I could see him
   completing the preparation of an enormous dish of fruit salad to follow.

   "Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "How many men do you think I am?"

   "You can eat it," he said. "You haven't had a proper meal for days."

   He was right. I was terribly hungry, and finished the meal without any
   trouble.

   Dinkila watched with approval.

   "Master 'e like sleep now," he said mischievously as he cleared away the
   last dish and replaced it with some black coffee. Then he ran quietly down
   the steps and up to the house-police, to get his own meal.

   More than anything in the world I wanted to go to sleep, but the report
   had to be written. Dinkila had left a whole kettleful of black coffee, and
   this helped me stay awake until eleven o'clock, by which time the report
   was complete in draft form, and it remained only to make a decent legible
   copy. I called out to the sentry to see that everyone was out of bed by
   four o'clock next morning, and fell asleep without waiting to undress.

                                   Chapter V

   IT was morning. By lantern-light Dinkila prepared a cup of tea, while
   Watute supervised the lining out of the cargo by the other police, ready
   for the carriers. The air was cold, and a light breeze was drifting the
   mist up the valley. The fuzzy hair of the boys was silvered by countless
   tiny droplets of moisture. The police were reasonably warm in their
   sweaters, but the carriers, wearing for the most part only a loincloth,
   shivered as they adjusted ropes and carrying-poles. Those who were not
   working stood silently by, shoulders hunched and arms clasped across
   chests to conserve as much bodily warmth as possible. Jock, expecting to
   return to the Wain shortly, had left all his patrol gear in the camp, and
   that, together with my own equipment, made a total of twenty-five
   carrier-loads. The news of our departure would spread quickly, and I hoped
   the Japanese would not send a patrol to sit astride the Erap, or perhaps
   wait for us at the canoe landing. To forestall any such move, we would
   travel rapidly, sleeping the first night at Gain, and the following day
   pass straight through Bivoro to Kirkland's. This would require a
   tremendous spurt, and we took ten extra carriers to relieve the men with
   the heavier loads from time to time.

   We reached Boana Mission not long after sunrise. The buildings had the
   same ill-omened atmosphere about them as ever: even the usually
   irrepressible Dinkila was subdued. We stayed only long enough to receive
   the respects of Singin, tultul of Wampangan, and to give him charge of a
   case of meat to be handed to the next European who entered the area. Then
   we moved on through Dzendzen, Kasin, and Wasinim to Gain, and at all these
   villages relays of people were waiting to take over the carrying, while
   the village officials, complete with hats, were there to salute me at the
   roadside as I arrived, and then to bid me farewell.

   There was an hour or two of daylight left when we reached Gain, and I was
   uncertain whether to camp or to push on to Badibo. I decided to camp, but
   sent Watute ahead to warn the people to be ready to carry next day. The
   old chap was pretty tired, and said his "skin was paining". However, he
   rubbed nettles all over his arms, back, and chest, and announced that he
   felt much better. It was not uncommon to see a native doing this. Once or
   twice I had inadvertently brushed against a clump of nettles, and the pain
   was considerable, so I do not know how the boys could have borne to rub
   them all over themselves, bringing up great weals. No doubt it had some
   beneficial effect, or else they supposed it did.

   The track from Gain was a good one, and before daylight next day we had
   passed through Badibo, and shortly after dawn arrived at Munkip. Watute
   had done his job well, as usual, and the people were standing by in
   readiness. He had also sent a lad ahead to Bivoro to warn them of our
   coming. We reached that village, the last one of our journey, about eight
   o'clock.

   I was feeling sick and weak when the carriers put down the cargo outside
   the house-kiap, but news travels so quickly that we dared not remain. I
   told Dinkila to make some beef tea, which I tried to get down, but it was
   difficult. Then the line moved ahead, out of the last few miles of the
   Erap Valley and into the bare, stony plain.

   Walking in my usual place at the rear of the line to keep the stragglers
   from falling too far behind, I suddenly felt a wave of great nausea and
   weakness, and the next thing I remembered was Dinkila and Buka bending
   anxiously over me as I vomited violently. While Dinkila lifted me into a
   little patch of shade behind some bushes, Buka rushed ahead to stop the
   line of carriers.

   "Get my bed," I called after him.

   "All right, master. Me-fella savvy," Dinkila said, in a tone which implied
   that all could safely be left in his hands.

   Buka was a long time returning. Apparently I had been lying on the ground
   unable to move for about half an hour before I had been missed, so the
   carriers were a good way ahead. Buka brought four Bivoro natives with him,
   the biggest and strongest in the line. They were carrying my bed-sail,
   blankets, stout poles, and lengths of vine. They set to work at once to
   make a rough stretcher.

   Despite the intense heat of the sun I was shivering, and Dinkila wrapped
   me in blankets and lifted me onto the stretcher. At a word from Buka the
   Bivoro natives, one at each corner of the stretcher, picked up their
   additional burden and hurried down the track after the rest of the line.
   Every time they stumbled, which was often, I felt as if my frame would
   jolt apart.

   We reached the Erap River and to judge by Dinkila's shouted instructions
   they found the crossing hard going, but I was too sick to worry. To have
   been dropped beneath the cool water would have been a blessing, for the
   shivering stage had passed and I was now burning with fierce dry heat.

   About midday we overtook the main line of carriers. Watute had halted
   them, out of sight, at the edge of a patch of scrub.

   "The kanakas wanted to stop in some hunting shelters for the night, and
   continue the journey in the morning," he said. "But I kept them on the
   move. The sooner we get out of this the better. We can still reach the
   Markham by sundown, if we hurry. I'm going ahead to scout," Watute added,
   as he handed cap, rifle, and bayonet to Buka. "We are getting near the
   Markham road now." And he vanished silently into the cane-grass.

   I called Dinkila and told him to take my maps and papers, which lay beside
   me wrapped in oilskin.

   "If the Japs attack us," I told him, "your job is to escape across the
   Markham with these papers. Never mind about anyone else. You get this
   packet to the Number One at Bob's."

   With a muttered "Yessir" he tucked the parcel under his arm and dropped
   back, while at Buka's command the line picked up the cargo, which now
   included me, and resumed the long southward march.

   Two hours later, so the watch said, I was conscious of Watute's voice
   beside me.

   "We have passed the Markham road, master," he said. "The Japanese could
   not have known we were coming, or they would have lain in wait. Unless
   they see us from behind now, and give chase, we should be safe." And he
   moved away, to exhort the carriers to an even greater turn of speed.'

   I must have fallen asleep then, for the next thing I remembered was
   throwing aside the leafy branches with which Dinkila had covered me from
   the sun, and raising myself on my elbow to look around. The sun was nearly
   down, and I could see by the slack water surrounding us, and the density
   of the cane-grass, that our journey was almost ended. The dark
   forest-covered hills of the south side of the Markham and the kunai spur
   of Kirkland's could be seen close at hand. I sank back on the stretcher
   with a sigh of relief. Almost safe at last! Three shots rang out from
   Watute's rifle. He had hurried ahead to give the signal summoning the
   canoes, and a few moments later the carriers laid the stretcher down at
   the edge of the muddy, swirling Markham.

   Buka was studying the opposite bank with my binoculars. There was smoke
   from the camp, he said, but no sign of the canoes.

   "Fire again," I ordered Watute, and he let fly another volley of three
   shots into the air. This time there was an answering shot, and the canoes,
   Buka told me, could be seen pushing off from the distant shore.

   It seemed ages before they grounded, and I heard the excited questions of
   the boats' crews asking why I was being carried. While the canoes were
   coming across, Watute had paid off the Bivoro carriers. They had been
   wonderful, sharing between them the four extra loads caused by my having
   to be carried, in spite of which they had made the journey in record time.
   I told Watute to give them each two shillings and some tobacco, and enough
   meat and biscuits for a meal, since it was nearly dark and they would not
   be able to return home until next day.

   As I lay on the canoe I felt I did not care how long it took to cross. The
   Japanese had no hope of catching us now. Dinkila gave me back my papers,
   and I managed to sit upright to respond to the greeting of the white man
   on the shore. He splashed into the shallows to help me to the bank.

   "Where are you wounded?" he asked.

   "Not wounded - just a bad go of gastric fever."

   "But the blood?" he questioned.

   "What blood?"

   "On the rag you had round your head."

   For a moment I was puzzled. Then, simultaneously, we caught sight of a red
   and white towel Dinkila had put under my head for a pillow. Through the
   low-powered binoculars it had seemed that my head was covered with a
   blood-soaked bandage.

   "Thank God for that, anyhow!" he said, laughing. "You look as if just
   about everything else had happened to you, though." He pulled my arm round
   his neck, to help me as we made our way up the track to the camp.

   Tom Lega was away at Bob's for the day, but I said a feeble hullo to the
   others, and within ten minutes had swallowed a cup of tea and half a papaw
   and was asleep beneath a mosquito-net.

   I woke at midday next day, and we pushed straight on to Bob's. I could
   walk only very slowly, and often sat down to rest. We arrived just before
   dark, and the doctor sent me straight to bed. He told me I must go to Wau
   as soon as I could travel, for a large weeping sore had broken out on my
   face, caused by exposure to the sun while I had been lying on the
   stretcher, and he insisted on my seeing a skin specialist.

   During the couple of days I was in bed Jim Hamilton and his brother Rob
   typed out a copy of my report on the visit to the Chinese compound and sat
   and talked to me. Bill Chaffey thrust his huge red beard under the
   mosquito-net from time to time to tell me the latest news. Jock had been
   sent up to Wau, he said, for the ear was getting worse and causing him
   severe pain.

   The typed copy of the report was sent on to Wau by police-boy runner, and
   on the third day, accompanied by Buka, Watute, and Dinkila, I set out
   after him.

   While I was sick at Bob's, and during the three-day walk to Wau, one of
   the closest battles of the New Guinea campaign was being fought. Japanese
   troops who had just landed at Lae were brought across the bay to Salamaua,
   and advanced through the bush to attack Wau.

   Our reinforcements had only just begun to trickle in there from Port
   Moresby, and the attacking Japanese took them utterly by surprise,
   outnumbering the defenders many times over. The enemy came unnoticed along
   an old mining track, and were in Wau before their arrival was even
   suspected. The curious thing is that the existence of this trail was known
   to many of us who had been around the bush, but was nevertheless left
   unguarded.

   The Japanese entered the streets of Wau and reached the foot of the
   steeply sloping aerodrome. Overcast weather had delayed the landing of
   planes from Moresby carrying reinforcements, and it seemed that the
   Japanese would capture Wau. Then, through slightly cleared skies, Douglas
   transport planes roared in to land right among enemy machine-gun fire.
   "Right! Where are the bastards? Let's at 'em!" shouted one massive
   infantryman as he jumped down from the plane waving his sub-machine gun.
   Crack! went a Jap sniper's rifle from the end of the drome. They picked up
   the soldier and took him back to Port Moresby in the same plane, a
   casualty in thirty seconds.

   The new troops were the 17th Infantry Brigade, among the most famous
   fighters in the whole A.I.F. They had fought in the desert, in Greece,
   Crete, and Syria, and now they were about to add New Guinea to their
   honours. They were the wildest and the finest group of men I have ever
   known, a unit one is proud to have been associated with.

   Wau showed me a new aspect of war. Instead of the quiet of the jungle, and
   outnumbered men spying on the Japs but not daring to attack them, all was
   hurry, noise, and determination. Gone was the placid quiet of the lovely
   Wau Valley. Now white men outnumbered black, and the streets were crowded
   with men and vehicles, field telephone-lines were everywhere, improvised
   signs and direction posts had been put up at every corner. Mechanics had
   repaired some of the cars and trucks partly destroyed the year before
   when, following an unconfirmed and (as it turned out) untrue report of a
   Japanese attack, orders were given to burn Wau township down to prevent it
   from falling into the enemy's hands. I was in Wau at the time and remember
   the panic that accompanied its abandonment when it was fired.

   The most picturesque of the mechanics' repair jobs was the Stonkered Taxi
   Service - consisting of a nearly wrecked sedan car which had somehow been
   put back on the road and which now served as an ambulance.

   By the time I arrived the Japs had been driven off from Wau itself, but
   twenty-five-pounder guns right in the heart of the town were pouring
   shells onto nearby Wandumi Ridge, along which the enemy was retreating.
   The enemy suffered frightful privations on the march back to Salamaua, and
   in some cases ate their own dead. I saw one corpse with pieces hacked off
   the thighs to feed the survivors.

   At the casualty clearing station set up in one of tile few houses which
   the torch had spared, the doctors took one look at the sore on my face.

   "Over to Moresby, and then to Australia for you," they said.

   I went back to my headquarters, the district office, to wait for a plane
   back to Moresby. Jock, whose patrol gear and maps I had brought from the
   Wain, was out with the troops near Skindiwai, on the road to Salamaua. He
   was in charge of their native carriers and was also acting as guide. These
   troops had been cut off from Wau by the Japanese, but the latest
   information was that they were fighting on, and it was hoped that they
   would soon be relieved.

   I tied up Jock's boxes, marked them, and put them in the store for him.

   "I hope he needs them again," I said to Watute, who was helping me.

   He grinned happily. "Japan 'e no can killim Master lock 'e die," he said
   confidently. " 'Em 'e strong-fella man too much."

   Next morning, in bright sunshine, Dinkila and I boarded an empty transport
   plane returning to Port Moresby. Watute and Buka were waiting to see us
   off.

   "Oh, sorry, master!" they said. "Behind you come back lookim me-fella."

   As they saluted I promised to return as soon as I could. Then the plane's
   doors slammed shut, and we lost sight of them.

   It was Dinkila's first ride in an aeroplane. He was not at all afraid, but
   rather excited, and he watched Wau disappear and the mountains slip
   beneath us, his nose flattened against the Perspex window. I watched with
   interest too, for this was the very country over which I had walked from
   Port Moresby in the early days of the war, before we had any aeroplanes.
   As I saw the incredible succession of precipitous ridges and valleys pass
   beneath us I marvelled that every round of ammunition, every tin of
   biscuits, every case of meat, had been carried on human shoulders across
   those heart-breaking obstacles to the weary, outnumbered troops who had
   held the Bulolo Valley all these lonely months. Now we were making the
   return trip in a comfortable couple of hours. I remarked on the contrast
   to Dinkila, but he was not interested. He had turned that queer green
   colour peculiar to a sick native, and I could see that he was retaining
   his breakfast with difficulty. He stumbled down the steps of the plane
   into the dusty, blinding glare of the aerodrome at Port Moresby, but his
   spirits were at their usual high level ten minutes later.

   A jeep took Dinkila and me from the aerodrome to the headquarters of Angau
   (the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit), a vast collection of
   buildings that stretched right round the beach from Hanuabada native
   village to the old civil government house.

   From here I spent some days visiting various intelligence agencies,
   answering their questions as best I could about affairs across the
   Markham. There was now nobody in the country behind Lae, and the
   intelligence officers felt it was important for someone to be there so
   that we should not remain ignorant of enemy activity in this important
   area. For instance, it was rumoured that the Japanese were opening
   overland communications between Madang and Lae, following a track up the
   Ramu River, over into the Markham headwaters, and down that river to Lae.

   I was keen to return to the Wain country. With adequate supplies and a
   radio set it would be possible to hole up there for the rest of the war,
   provided I got back quickly, before friendships with the natives had
   cooled or been forgotten. Various officers in these intelligence groups
   said they would support me if I applied to go back, and offered assistance
   in supplies, equipment, and information.

   The sore on my face was gradually healing, and on one pretext or another I
   put off visiting the hospital for a fortnight - until I was nearly better
   - hoping to avoid being sent to Australia. When I finally reported at the
   hospital I found that it was all under canvas. There were about forty beds
   to each ward, and they were stretched out in a great double row on bare
   dirt floors. Most of the time the sides of the tents were kept brailed up
   to let the breeze in. Many of the patients had been wounded in the Wau
   battle and in the subsequent pursuit of the Japanese across the ridges to
   Salamaua.

   While I was sitting in the registrar's office waiting to be admitted a
   sister walked into the tent. A white woman! And a girl fresh from
   Australia at that, a girl whose cheeks had not yet been stained yellow by
   constant doses of atebrin tablets. She must have noticed the astonished
   look on my face, for she asked what was the matter, and laughed when I
   explained that she was the first white woman I had seen for more than a
   year.

   "There are plenty of us here," she said. "You'll probably want to go back
   to the bush before you've been a patient very long."

   After a week under observation, which I spent resting in bed, I was told
   by the skin specialist that I could remain in New Guinea, and was
   discharged from hospital with a warning to keep my face always well shaded
   with a hat.

   I went back to Angau headquarters to seek permission to return to the
   Wain. There was a delay of a couple of weeks while my plan was debated by
   my senior officers, and eventually approval was given.

   In the period of waiting I learnt about another phase of warfare-base
   areas and headquarters. I was learning that war had no redeeming features;
   that in its every aspect it was futility compounded with varying degrees
   of degradation. I had already seen something of the physical suffering it
   entailed. But the dangers and hardship of active service seemed tolerable
   when I compared them with the shabby atmosphere of service base areas.

   In a fighting unit in action there was the comradeship of proved friends,
   the tradition of things endured together, which evoked a very definite
   generosity and loyalty. In such a unit, however dreadful material
   conditions might have become, the moral climate at least was fairly
   healthy. By contrast, base areas, where living conditions were usually
   reasonably good, seemed to smoulder with stupid and petty personal
   jealousies. There were all sorts of rackets. For instance, in some places,
   sick natives, or even ones who should have been at work, were employed by
   the officer in charge of them to make crude and shoddy "curios", which the
   officer then sold at fabulous prices to souvenir-crazy Americans. The
   black market in liquor, smuggled to New Guinea by service aircraft, made
   the civilian black market appear a gentlemanly affair. More often than not
   soldiers who were actually doing the fighting and taking the risks seemed
   to be regarded with aversion, or at best tolerated as inescapable burdens
   who disordered the even routine of life. The worst of the food seemed to
   come our way, and we were not welcomed in the mess. To prevent
   contamination by rude interlopers such as myself a notice was erected at
   one of the top tables saying: NO OUTSIDERS AT THIS TABLE. At this base
   camp there were several other "outsiders", whom I had known in Wau early
   in the war and who were, like me, waiting to return to active service. We
   retired together to a lower table, which we protected - a little
   childishly, it must be confessed - with a notice of our own: NO BASE
   BLUDGERS ALLOWED.

   At the quartermaster's store anybody seeking equipment or supplies was
   greeted with a mixture of rudeness and obstructionism. The quartermaster,
   who was enormously fat, glared when I asked for a tin of baking-powder,
   screwing up his lard-ball face and squinting through his glasses.

   "What do you want that for?" he squealed. "To make scones and damper
   with."

   "Humph! I don't know what's the matter with you people in the bush. Why
   can't you be satisfied with biscuits?"

   The question came from a man who ate bread every day of his life to one
   who had not tasted it over a period of eight months. I stood still and
   waited without replying. Slowly, grudgingly, as though parting with the
   elixir of life, the pudgy fingers moved across the counter, pushing a tin
   of baking-powder. Item by item I squeezed six months' rations out of him,
   and every time he handed something over he did so as though it meant he
   would have to take his enormous belt in another notch. But when Dinkila
   and I went back to Wau two days later we had nearly half a plane-load of
   food, arms, trade goods, and medical stores. Dinkila had enjoyed his stay
   in Port Moresby, but I felt that it would be preferable to live at Bob's,
   or even Kirkland's, than to get caught up permanently in Port Moresby.

                                   Chapter VI

   I was to wait in Wau for final orders for the expedition, and as I walked
   into the district office the first person in sight was Jock McLeod. I had
   last heard of him cut off by the Japanese near Salamaua, and it was good
   to see him safe. He was non-committal about his adventures. "We got out of
   it O.K." was all he would say.

   About the proposed return north of the Markham he was more vocal. He
   thought things would be more difficult now.

   "If I were the Nip commander I'd have occupied Boana," he said. "I bet you
   find Japs all through the Wain."

   "Well, then, why didn't they occupy it before? They had just as much
   reason to do it a year ago," I argued. Jock shrugged. "It will have sunk
   through their commander's skull now, I reckon. Anyhow, you'll find out,"
   he added with a grin, and he introduced me to Major Donald Vertigan, who
   had just taken over as district officer.

   Vertigan, a government officer in peacetime, was not one of the most
   popular men in Angau, and at my first interview with him I certainly
   didn't like him. He was a thin man with a thin face and a close-clipped
   moustache. He had a strange way of peering at you unblinkingly as he sat,
   for quite long periods, silent and unmoving. He told me that I was to have
   a companion on this trip - a Captain Les Howlett, an old New Guinea patrol
   officer, who was coming up from Australia for the purpose. He was working
   for the Far Eastern Liaison Office, and his interest would be largely
   propaganda among the natives.

   Vertigan sat cold and staring as I explained that I would rather go alone.
   Divided responsibility was bad, I urged, and the larger the party the
   harder it was for the natives to conceal it, the more supplies were
   needed, and so on. Finally, I pointed out that two Europeans together in
   the bush nearly always quarrelled, no matter how tolerant and sensible
   they might be under ordinary circumstances.

   He was unmoved. "Howlett will be going, anyhow," he said in a flat voice.
   "He's bringing the radio set for your party, by the way."

   That was all. I got up and went out, feeling that the new district officer
   was unfathomable. I had not the faintest idea whether he liked or disliked
   me; whether he approved of my scheme for a patrol into the Huon Peninsula
   or thought it a hare-brained venture; whether he would support me if I got
   into trouble, or would let me stew in the mess I had made for myself.

   As the weeks went by, however, and I saw more of him, I realized what an
   immensely valuable job Vertigan was doing and how helpful he was. Every
   instruction he gave me, or suggestion he made, was sound or constructive;
   he saw that I was given every reasonable thing that I asked for, going out
   of his way to get me the proper stores for the expedition. Vertigan worked
   prodigiously hard at his own job, and seemed to have small interest in or
   energy for the Army's personal jealousies and feuds. When he was finally
   awarded his M.B.E. I felt that no man had merited recognition more, for an
   important job well done in the face of great difficulty and
   discouragement. It is the greatest thing in the world for the morale of
   men engaged in lonely bush work to know that their superior officer at
   headquarters is someone who understands their problems, and will help them
   if he can. Later in the war, working for a man who did not bother even to
   acknowledge urgent radio messages, I realized just how lucky I had been to
   have Vertigan for a boss.

   I had to thank him for my superb detachment of police. Corporal Kari, who
   had taken me up the Erap on my first patrol the previous year, was to
   command them. Old Watute, and two of Jock McLeod's former police, Nabura
   and Witolo, were the others. These were all men of experience and proved
   integrity. Because of his slowness in the mountains, Buka had to be left
   behind, to my sorrow. Dinkila, gay as ever, was still my cook, and for my
   other servant I had Pato, an elderly man from Gumbum village, in the Wain.
   He was a steady, intelligent man, speaking both Wain and Naba dialects.
   Moreover, he enjoyed considerable prestige in the country we were going to
   - there was scarcely a village where he did not have at least one
   relative. Before the war, he told us, he had had a responsible job as a
   boss-boy for Ray Parer, the famous aviator.

   Being older men than the others, Watute and Pato became very friendly, and
   with their combined experience and local knowledge were a particularly
   valuable team.



   I had to wait several weeks for Les Howlett, and I filled in the time
   doing odd jobs: helping to build a native hospital, guiding parties of
   troops through the bush, sometimes taking native carrier-lines with
   supplies to our troops in the forward areas. It was during this period
   that the Japanese made their last big air raid in that part of the island.
   About thirty planes came over, shining silver specks, very high and in
   perfect formation. We took cover in slit trenches near by, and could hear
   the bombs whistling overhead as half the raiding force made their run. As
   the second group of bombers approached, there was a scuttering of earth
   outside the trench in which I was crouching with another man, and a
   panting figure tumbled in on top of us. It was Dinkila, and he stank
   horribly.

   "My God, man, what have you done! Shit yourself?" I demanded holding my
   nose.

   He gave a quick, nervous grin. "Master, me hearim bomb 'e come, now we
   fall down long house pek-pek." He had jumped into the pit of the primitive
   latrine in his hurry to escape the first of the bombs! We hardly waited
   for the second lot, which fell harmlessly on a nearby hill-side, before we
   sent him packing to the river to wash. Dinkila never lived the incident
   down, and was the butt of the natives in our party for months afterwards.
   In the second week of April I moved the police and all stores to Wampit,
   there to await the arrival of Les Howlett. I thought it better to move
   down in advance of him, since the two of us together would have placed too
   much strain at the one time on the limited carrier-lines serving the
   Markham end. After I had been there for a few days a message came through
   from Major Vertigan saying that Les had left Wau. On the afternoon of 20th
   April, when I thought he ought to arrive, I went a short way along the
   track to Timne to meet him. It was a steaming Markham day, and I walked
   for only half an hour or so, then sat down on a log to wait.

   The first hint of Les's approach was the passing of a line of about forty
   laden carriers, in charge of four young police-boys wearing their
   brand-new navy serge uniforms with red sashes. At the end of the line
   marched a medium-built man of about thirty. When I approached he pushed
   his battered felt hat off his perspiring brow and ordered the police to
   halt the carriers for a spell.

   "Are you Les Howlett?" I asked.

   He regarded me with dark humorous eyes. "Yes. I suppose you're Peter
   Ryan?"

   "That's right."

   We shook hands, and I said, "Wampit Camp is just about half an hour away.
   What about pushing on?"

   "Let's," he replied briefly. "I'm a bit keen on a wash-wash and a feed.
   All right, walkabout!" he called to the boys, who lifted the cargo and
   moved off again down the track.

   It was dark by the time Les had had a wash and we had eaten our tea. Heavy
   rain poured onto the low-pitched grass roof of the hut, and for the first
   of many nights to come we faced each other across the lantern and planned.

   "What are those police of yours like, Les?" I asked. "Not bad. They're
   smart lads, but they haven't had very much experience yet."

   "I'll turn them over to Kari and old Watute, two of mine. They'll make
   policemen of them."

   "Good idea. Now about those stores. . . ."

   And so on, planning, scheming, making a hundred suggestions and discarding
   most of them, and laughing often

   Les chain-smoked cigarettes; my pipe was never cold. By midnight we felt
   we had straightened out a lot of problems, and had got to know each other.
   I had discovered Les's quick, quiet sense of humour, and had come already
   to look for the gleam in his smiling dark eyes across the hurricane-lamp.
   It was something that buoyed me up often in the months ahead.

   Next morning, in front of the hut, Corporal Kari paraded our little squad
   of police - eight in all. There was a striking contrast between my boys
   and those Les had brought fresh from the depot at Port Moresby. Mine,
   wearing patched and faded khaki loincloths and battered peaked caps,
   lacked the parade-ground smartness of the recruits. But they were tough,
   steady, and reliable, old soldiers tempered in the fire of many campaigns.
   The difference in the faces was interesting, too. My boys looked like a
   bunch of thugs compared with the fresh-faced youthful recruits. However,
   the newcomers seemed keen and eager, and I felt that with experience, and
   after a spell under the stern hand of Kari, they would be as good as any.
   I watched them drill for a quarter of an hour or so, till Kari dismissed
   them.

   Les had brought six other boys over with him - they all came from various
   parts of the Huon Peninsula. With them to help us there was a good chance
   that wherever we might go we would be able to make ourselves understood.
   And they would be most useful for propaganda purposes, for they had seen
   the tremendous progress made since the early days of the war, and the huge
   aerodromes and enormous troop concentrations at Port Moresby, and would be
   much better able than we were to convince the people of their own villages
   that the Allies were now possessed of real military strength. It was easy
   to understand the scepticism of the natives in the villages when I, a
   single white man, talked about our enormous resources. They used to retort
   that they had only my word for it that we had large numbers of troops,
   while they could actually see, not far away, thousands upon thousands of
   Japanese. Now, they would listen with much more attention to our story,
   for it would come from the lips of one of their own people.

   Although we firmly rejected all equipment that was not absolutely
   essential, our combined stores amounted to nearly seventy carrier-loads.
   Most of it was either food or trade goods. We were gambling on being able
   to sneak this very substantial quantity of material into the Wain, for we
   wanted to be independent of cargo-dropping from aircraft - as well as
   being unreliable, it was likely to betray our position to the enemy.

   The large supply of trade goods comprised knives, axes, beads, mirrors,
   calico, matches, tobacco, newspaper, salt, and a thousand razor-blades.
   This last item was a rare prize, for razor-blades were highly valued by
   the natives, and were very easy for us to carry round in our pockets. A
   couple of packets represented payment for food for our whole party for
   days. At that time they were very hard to get, even for the troops, and
   the Army was reluctant to part with such a large number "just to issue to
   natives". It had taken a good deal of persuasion on Major Vertigan's part
   to get them.

   I looked at the pile of trade goods with satisfaction. For the first time
   I could go into the Wain without being a beggar and depending for charity
   on the good nature of the natives. Now, I thought, I would be able to give
   things away with a lavish hand, mindful of the anthropologists' warnings
   that natives despise nothing so much as meanness.

   Our wireless set, an Air Force job, was a masterpiece. It was light and
   compact and could be unpacked and set up quickly. Moreover, it operated on
   dry batteries, which was an advantage; an accumulator set would have
   needed a charging unit for the batteries and petrol to run the unit on,
   both of which would have added to our problems. The noise of a recharger's
   engine would have echoed for miles round those hills, too. When packed
   into the special padded box Les had made for it, and complete with spare
   valves, batteries, head-phones, tools, aerial, and other spare parts, our
   wireless set could easily be carried by two men, and though it was often
   severely battered during carries through rough country it never once let
   us down. Les and I thought of it with the affection one bestows on a
   faithful friend.

   Because of rumours circulating among the natives that the Japanese were
   making regular patrols from Lae to the Erap River, we decided not to go by
   my usual route up the Erap Valley, but to cross the Markham higher up,
   opposite Chivasing, on the north bank. Chivasing was one of the bigger
   villages, and we hoped to get enough carriers there to take us across the
   uninhabited stretch of the Markham plain to the villages of the more
   densely populated Middle and Upper Erap, through which we would pass to
   the Wain. This route would take several extra days, but it was safer, and
   would enable us to visit many villages that had seen no European since the
   last peacetime patrol, in 1941.

   We sent a message to Mari village telling all the able-bodied men to
   present themselves for carrying next day, but only twenty-five of them
   turned up, and it was clear that we would have to make two trips to get
   all our stores to the Markham.

   We decided to make two short carries the first day, moving all the gear as
   far as Kirkland's. By three o'clock the carriers, under the leadership of
   a native called Sela, had returned from the first trip. Picking up the
   remaining cargo, they set off at once on the second trip. I walked at the
   tail of the line, intending to spend the night at Kirkland's. Les was to
   follow in the morning.

   Half-way between Wampit and Kirkland's I called in at Bob's. Although I
   knew the camp had been more or less abandoned, it was a shock to see it
   manned by only four men. The long huts were empty, the door of the store
   lay open and broken, and the sergeant's mess where I had eaten so many
   happy, if frugal, meals was falling down. Without any laughing, chattering
   natives, the silence was more unearthly than ever; and the smoke from the
   single cooking-fire still hung motionless among the trees. I asked the
   four men, all of whom I knew from those earlier days, whether they felt
   the same sense of awful desolation as I did at this moment.

   "Feel it!" they exclaimed. "You notice it just by walking in here. You can
   imagine how it's affecting us after all these weeks."

   I felt sorry for them as I looked at their strained and pallid faces.

   "Remember how we used to play the old gramophone at night, and gather
   round the signal hut to listen to the news?" they asked, and we talked a
   while of the old days, when Bob's was, in a sense, "home" to us all, and
   its fires and bustling activity made it a place of comfort and refuge in
   the hostile jungles that surrounded us.

   Kirkland's was unchanged, except that Tom Lega had obtained leave to go to
   Australia, and the place was in charge of another corporal, Curly Lee. I
   had met Curly the previous year, on a brief visit to the Salamaua front.
   He had been camped at Skindiwai, a wet, cold little group of bark shanties
   almost buried in the dark, mountainous rain-forest.

   "Fair dinkum, it's enough to give you the horrors!" exclaimed Curly. "We
   used to huddle round the fires at Skindiwai and say we'd give anything to
   get warm. Down here in the flamin' Markham we'd give anything to get
   bloody well cold again!"

   "And the mossies!"

   "I don't mind mosquitoes biting at night," chipped in one of the other
   men. "I've been on this ruddy island now for so long that the mossies are
   just part of life - we'd miss them if there weren't any. But when the
   bastards go all day and all night, like they do down here, it's a bit over
   the odds."

   We sat and yarned in the mosquito-proof room for the rest of the
   afternoon, but the conversation continually carne round to guesses at how
   much longer the war would last, and how much longer it would be necessary
   to go on living in this dreadful spot.

   "When I stop to think about it," said Curly, "it beats me why this rotten,
   lousy hole hasn't sent us all off our heads!"

   About five o'clock, when the last of the Mari boys had gone and I had
   checked over all the cargo, Curly and I walked up to the kunai-covered
   hill at the back of the camp to watch the cook-boy and his mate catch
   flying-foxes, or black bokis as they were called in pidgin. These passed
   over in a cloud every night, and the method of snaring the creatures
   showed once again how intelligent these "savages" were. They took the
   long, light, spear-like midribs of coconut-fronds and covered one end of
   them with an entanglement of thorny vines. These missiles would be hurled
   among the flying-foxes as they made their way overhead, the thorns would
   catch in their wings, and the weight of the midribs would bring the
   creatures tumbling to earth. Their smell was repulsive, and they were
   infested with vermin, but when skinned and cooked they were tasty enough.

   Kari put my bed-sail up alongside Curly's, and we talked till quite late
   that night. Curly told me there were no canoes or boats' crews at
   Kirkland's now, because no patrols went over to the north bank of the
   Markham. The Chivasing natives had dismantled all their canoes because
   they were frightened to be on the river in case they were shot at by
   aircraft.

   Early next morning the Mari carriers returned to bring our gear up to
   Naraguma, an hour or so farther up the Markham. Naraguma was really a
   dependent hamlet of Mari itself, but had been abandoned by order of the
   district officer. He did not want natives moving about near the Markham,
   for they might be spyifig for the Japanese. For this reason, it was felt
   that the whole south bank of the Markham between the Watut and the Wampit
   rivers should be kept uninhabited.

   The Mari boys would leave us at Naraguma, and carriers would be brought
   down from Chivasing for the remainder of the trip. Curly walked up to
   Naraguma to keep me company, and we made our way together through the
   thick jungle that fringed the river. When we reached the little village
   the carriers dumped their loads and at once set off back to Kirkland's for
   their second lot. Curly helped me stow the loads beneath the houses. We
   noticed that though the buildings were in good repair the jungle was
   already starting to creep in upon the settlement. A few months more, I
   thought, and it will be a hard job to find Naraguma.

   Curly waited while I sat on my patrol-box to scrawl a brief note home -
   the last I would have an opportunity to send for several months. He
   wrapped it in the oilskin folder we all carried to prevent our papers
   becoming soaked with sweat, and buttoned it into his shirt pocket. We
   shook hands.

   "So long - see you in Sydney or Melbourne," was all he said. With a quick
   glance at his tommy-gun to make sure it could be brought instantly into
   action, he disappeared into the surrounding jungle.

   By three in the afternoon the boys were coming in by ones and twos with
   their second loads. As each man stacked his cargo beneath the houses I
   paid him off - a shilling and a stick of tobacco for his day's work.

   Les arrived at four, behind the last load of cargo. He had made sure that
   nothing was left behind. As soon as he came into sight I called out to
   Dinkila:

   "Cookim hot water long wash-wash belong master!"

   "All right, master, me lookim," he replied as he ran down to the river to
   fill a bucket.

   As soon as Les had bathed and changed his clothes we set Dinkila and Les's
   cook to prepare a meal while we sat down to learn our list of code words.

   "This is the list," Les said, pulling a paper from his pocket. "These are
   the keys to the code we will use, and we must memorize them in that order.
   We don't want to carry any papers of that sort on us, in case we are
   captured."

   The words - there were about a dozen - were ordinary enough. "Attractive"
   and "evidently" were two I can recall, but it took us a little time to
   learn them in the right order. Then we dropped the paper in the
   cooking-fire and watched it blacken, curl up, and slowly burn. Somehow it
   seemed symbolic. I felt a link had been severed, and Les must have thought
   the same.

   "It's almost like burning our bridges, isn't it?" he asked with a smile.

   As we lay beneath our mosquito-nets that night we speculated on how we
   should fare when we had really crossed our Rubicon, and how the natives of
   the north side would receive us.



   Early next morning we sent Kari to Chivasing, several miles upstream on
   the other side of the river. He had often been there when he was in charge
   of the police at Bob's, under John Clarke, and he knew some of the
   villagers. We expected him back the next day, but he did not turn up. The
   morning of the following day advanced and there was still no sign of him.
   We became more and more anxious.

   We discussed possible reasons for Kari's non-appearance. Like all the
   Manus people he was a powerful swimmer, so there seemed little likelihood
   of his having been drowned when crossing the river.

   "There's only two things could have gone wrong, Les," I said as we
   squatted at the water's edge. "He may have been taken by a crocodile, or
   the Nips may have grabbed him."

   "Pretty crook alternatives for Kari," Les replied grimly. "We'd better
   watch out, in case he has been captured - the bastards might have forced
   him to give us away. You know their form with prisoners."

   I called for Watute, who was second in command of the police.

   "Tell the boys not to move away from the camp without their arms, and post
   two sentries on the track and on the river-bank instead of one," I told
   him.

   "Yes, sir - me talkim all boy look-out good long Japan," he replied with
   impassive face, and a few moments later his voice came across the clearing
   as he called his orders to the others.

   About midday there was a loud shout from the riverbank, and we hurried
   down to the spot where Watute had posted a man in a tree so as to command
   a better view of the surrounding country.

   "What is it? What's happening?" we asked.

   "You hearim master 'e talk!" Watute snapped to the boy above. "You lookim
   wonem something?"

   "Master, plenty man 'e come. All 'e come long water." Les scrambled up the
   tree beside him and pulled out his binoculars.

   "There's a hell of a lot of people drifting down the river hanging onto
   logs," he announced after a few moments. "As far as I can see they are all
   natives."

   We ordered the boys to stand to. Not only the police, but the cooks and
   every other native member of the party were armed, so we had in all quite
   a respectable little force. Nevertheless, five minutes later we breathed a
   sigh of relief when Kari stepped ashore, wringing the water from his
   loincloth, to tell us that seventy natives from Chivasing and the nearby
   village of Teraran were accompanying him, and that the luluai of Chivasing
   had come to "boss" the men. Though the danger from crocodiles was great,
   they had made the journey downstream in the usual Markham way - gripping a
   log or plank and floating with the current.

   Kari tossed his rifle to one of the police to clean the muddy Markham
   water out of it. He then explained the reason for the delay. It had taken
   him some time to assemble the men, he told us, for in these troubled times
   most of them were living in houses widely scattered among the gardens. He
   had found that there were not enough natives to cope with all our gear,
   and there were further delays while he sent a message to Teraran asking
   for extra assistance.

   We interrupted the luluai to give him a couple of dozen sticks of tobacco
   and some newspaper to distribute, so that each man received a smoke for
   the road. Then he told us how he proposed to transfer our party and gear
   across the river. We were to move that afternoon to a Iittle group of
   rough shelters a few miles upstream, and spend the night there. In the
   morning he would arrange for the construction of rafts to take us over the
   river. We felt that to have to spend another night on the south bank of
   the river was not only irritating but dangerous: we were most anxious to
   get out of the flat country, where we might at any time encounter a
   Japanese patrol from Madang or Lae. But there was nothing we could do but
   accept the luluai's suggestion.

   We asked Kari what he thought of the general attitude of the people. Could
   they be trusted? He replied that they had probably been telling the truth
   when they said there were no enemy patrols in the vicinity, but he thought
   we should take no risks.

   The walk to the shelters took till almost sunset. There was no track, and
   we had to crash through kunai and jungle, from time to time splashing
   through the shallow water at the edge of the stream. We passed many
   gardens and many clumps of bananas. Several rough houses belonged to the
   Chivasing people, we were told. They spent a good deal of their time on
   the south bank of the river, we were surprised to hear. This would be
   unwelcome news for the district officer, who had planned to keep the area
   between the Watut and Wampit rivers an uninhabited no-man's land.

   The huts where we were to spend the night were just rough thatch-covered
   platforms, dirty and rather smelly, standing a couple of hundred yards
   from one arm of the Markham on a low-lying piece of ground which looked as
   though it would be inundated during the wet season. Upon our arrival the
   luluai announced that he and his people would go back across the river to
   Chivasing for the night and return in the morning. Les and I discussed
   this with Kari and Watute, and finally agreed to let them go provided a
   couple of his men remained with us. The word "hostage" was not actually
   mentioned, but the old man knew well enough what we were getting at, and
   selected two men to stay. They were so ready to remain in our camp that we
   felt sure the natives were not contemplating any treachery. They seemed
   pleased at their luck - looking forward, no doubt, to a good feed of
   tinned meat and plenty of smokes at our expense. When the luluai started
   off home with the rest of his people Kari and Constable Witolo were sent
   with them, to sleep in the village and keep an eye on things generally,
   and to make sure that they really did return.

   The only water came from the Markham, and when dipped from the river in a
   billy it was so charged with silt that it resembled porridge. The natives
   drank it unconcernedly, though they admitted that it sometimes made their
   throats sore. In spite of our raging thirst Les and I waited for about an
   hour while half an inch of mud settled on the bottom of the billy, and
   then we carefully transferred the somewhat clearer water to another billy,
   to be boiled for tea.

   There was a steady breeze, and the night was cool and almost free from
   mosquitoes. We sat for a couple of hours round the fire, smoking our pipes
   and yarning to the police, who kept us in gales of laughter with
   Rabelaisian tales of their experiences. These were mostly lies, no doubt,
   but it was all good fun, and each strained his imagination to outdo the
   others. By eleven o'clock a faint silvery light reflected from the few
   scattered clouds indicated that the moon would soon rise, and Les and I
   turned in. But the story-telling went on, in a lower tone- - and probably
   continued most of the night, but we were not awake to hear it.

   It was midday before the luluai returned, accompanied by about thirty men
   carrying great lengths of vine which they had cut in the bush earlier that
   day. Under the luluai's supervision, they started making four rafts, which
   he said would carry all our gear. They cut down banana-plants for the job.
   No doubt the cellular inside of the banana-palm makes it very buoyant, but
   to us it seemed a waste, for the hard cooking banana is one of the staple
   foods of these people.

   Eight or ten banana-plants, laid side by side and lashed with vine, formed
   the main body of the raft. Several short, very thick logs were then laid
   crosswise over it, and a rough platform of smaller poles was built on top
   of them The solid lower part, made of banana-palms, would be under water,
   while the platform of poles would keep our gear high and dry. Such at
   least was the theory of it, but when the cargo was piled aboard, all the
   lowest things were awash. It was just as well they were all more or less
   impervious to water - our iron patrol-boxes and cases of meat, not the
   radio set or our blankets.

   Four of our boys could not swim at all, so we ordered one to board each
   raft. This extra load settled the rafts even deeper into the water, and we
   asked the luluai anxiously whether they were safe. He dismissed our
   foolish fears with an airy wave of the hand. Hadn't he been arranging this
   sort of thing for years and years? That was true, but we felt far from
   happy about those four extraordinary craft moored to the bank by vines and
   stakes. This was only a minor channel of the mighty Markham, yet even here
   the current was plucking at them as though eager to hurl them away to
   destruction.

   By the time loading was complete the sun was getting low and the luluai
   wished to start. However, there had recently been great activity by a
   slow, old-fashioned Japanese observation-plane known to the troops as
   Photo Joe, and so we waited till almost dusk, when there would be less
   chance of being spotted if Photo Joe happened to be on the prowl.

   Finally, about five o'clock, we pushed off. The four boys on the rafts had
   Owen sub-machine guns across their knees, for they would be the only ones
   able to shoot if there were trouble. The strong swimmers of the party
   plunged gaily in, each pushing a log in front of him for support. Those of
   us whose swimming was nothing to boast of - this included Les and myself -
   clung to the sides of the rafts, to be carried along as the Chivasing boys
   pushed and hauled and strained. All the hazards of a sea voyage were to be
   had in a trip across this incredible stream - reefs, islands, currents,
   waves, and sand-banks - any one of which might have wrecked us. Our method
   of progress was much the same as that used by the canoe-boys at Kirkland's
   - across to the first island, haul the raft upstream to the top of the
   island, then off into the current of the second channel. After three such
   operations we were into the last and largest stream, and the real north
   bank of the Markham came into view.

   "Master, me lookim Kari now Witolo!" called one of the boys from his raft.

   "True! Two-fella 'e wait long you me!" another cried from his
   vantage-point on top of the cargo. They waved and called to Kari and
   Witolo, who were waiting at the water's edge about three hundred yards
   downstream. The bank seemed to be flying past at a terrific rate, and the
   boys grunted and panted as, pushing with one arm and swimming with the
   other, they strove to force their reluctant craft across into slacker
   water. Les and I, no longer merely passengers, threw our weight into the
   struggle. Inch by inch we drew nearer to the shore, until the men who were
   standing with Kari and Witolo were able to throw out long vine ropes and
   haul us to dry land. Stepping ashore, we found our pockets, socks, and
   boots full of silt and gravel drifted in by the river, and our tempers
   were not improved by the sight of several tall canoe masts showing above
   the kunai. It seemed that these people had canoes after all! We called
   upon the luluai to explain.

   "Ah, they are very old canoes!" he said glibly. "They could not possibly
   be used to make a crossing of the river."

   But Watute, sent to investigate, reported that the canoes were in perfect
   condition, some of them new. They were partly concealed in a small
   backwater, and this had caused the illusion that their masts were rising
   out of the kunai.

   Confronted with this, the luluai was silent, and with downcast gaze curled
   his toes up in the dust with embarrassment.

   We were furious that all our gear should have been entrusted to those
   crazy rafts, and we had had such an uncomfortable crossing, when it all
   might have been accomplished with speed, safety, and comfort. However, we
   restrained our anger, for we dared not antagonize the people, or they
   would refuse to carry for us next day. With a few general remarks
   expressing our low opinion of liars, we moved off up the path to the
   village, followed by the people carrying our cargo. The motive in
   concealing the canoes was plain enough of course: they had grown tired of
   maintaining the "ferry service" at Kirkland's, and now that it had been
   discontinued they sought to prevent its re-establishment by hiding the
   canoes.

   Chivasing, with a population of about five hundred, was built on a strip
   of slightly rising ground about a mile from the river. Round about the
   village the people had planted thriving coconut-groves, which supplied
   them with much of their food, fuel, and building material. The houses
   stood in lines, radiating, like the spokes of a wheel, from a large open
   space worn bare and smooth by the passage of many feet. They were well
   built, designed for this hot region with the rooms well above ground and
   largely open at the sides. These neat dwellings were another example of
   the mastery over their environment achieved by these "backward" people. I
   remembered the reflection of Joseph Conrad, looking for the first time
   upon the Bangkok of his day, that in all the habitations he saw in that
   city "there was probably not half a dozen pounds of nails".

   As soon as we had found a house to sleep in, and seen the gear safely
   stacked beneath it, I had a look round the village, though it was now
   nearly dark. I always studied the surroundings of a new camp - a
   precaution that saved my life, a couple of months later, in this very
   village. A broad, clear creek, from which the villagers drew their water,
   flowed across the north end of the clearing. The farther bank was covered
   with dense jungle and vines.

   As there would be a moon shining in the early hours of the morning we
   decided not to wait for sunrise but to ' leave at about four-thirty. The
   luluai was told, and we arranged for the sentry to call him in the
   morning.

   "Do you reckon it's worth unpacking the cooking gear for a meal?" Les
   asked.

   "I don't think so. What about just having a tin of bully beef and some
   biscuits?"

   "Suits me all right. We'll have the milk of a green coconut to drink, too.
   I don't fancy that. water unless it's boiled."

   We squatted in the dark on the edge of the veranda and ate the rough meal
   in our fingers. Then, stripping off our wet clothes, we rolled beneath
   mosquito-nets and slept.

                                  Chapter VII

   I seemed hardly to have fallen asleep when I felt a hand on my shoulder
   and heard the soft, husky voice of Constable Nabura:

   "Master! Four o'clock! You-me go now."

   A grey light filled the village, and I thought for a moment that we had
   overslept and that it was already morning. The watch, however, showed
   exactly four o'clock, and we saw that the overcast sky and a slight misty
   rain had diffused the moonlight, giving it the appearance of the dim light
   of early dawn.

   We tossed the mosquito-nets aside, shivering slightly as we pulled on our
   damp boots and clothes. The stillness was being broken by the grunts and
   yawns of sleepy men as the police went from house to house rousing the
   carriers. Here and there flickering lights appeared as almost-cold embers
   were blown into a blaze, and one by one the men wandered over, yawning,
   rubbing their eyes, and hitching their loincloths about their waists.

   By the light of torches of flaming coconut-fronds the cargo was lined
   along the track and a man told off for each load. Half a dozen women were
   coming with the party, not only to carry food for their men but to help
   them with the carrying. Accompanied by Kari and the luluai Les went along
   the line, checking each load and making sure that it was securely
   fastened. Then, at the command "All right, walkabout!" the long line of
   natives picked up their loads and headed north along the narrow track
   through the kunai, towards the mountains.

   We passed the last house of Chivasing and made our way between the tall
   rows of coconuts. Two towering palms at the end of the row looked like
   gateposts against the grey-silver sky. They were, in another sense, like a
   gate, for each time I crossed the Markham on my way to the mountains I
   felt I had passed through a door into another life. The door closed behind
   me, and the life on the far side of it was forgotten. The whole universe
   seemed to be contracted to a few score native villages and their black
   inhabitants.

   We hoped to reach Sintagora village, in the Middle Erap, that night. There
   we would be well into the hills, off the flat country, among a dense
   population where carriers would be readily available, and whose foods were
   plentiful and easily purchased. This first day's journey was the most
   hazardous, for in a few hours' time we would cross the important
   foot-track which ran the whole length of the Markham Valley, and which the
   Japanese were now using for increasingly frequent trips from Madang to
   Lae. We would have to pass right through a place where they usually camped
   - namely, the old Wawin rest-house, in peacetime a sort of half-way house
   for the patrol officer making his way from Lae to the Upper Markham. The
   surrounding country was so flat and devoid of cover that an enemy
   reconnaissance plane, or a sentry on one of the low foothills, could
   scarcely fail to see us. Nabura and a couple of the local men hurried
   ahead to the Wawin rest-house - if there were any signs of the enemy they
   would return and warn us, otherwise they would wait at the junction till
   we arrived.

   An hour or so out from Chivasing, in a hamlet comprising about a dozen
   houses, we paused for a few moments to allow the stragglers to catch up.
   It would soon be daylight. Already the darkness seemed to be less intense,
   and the drizzle of rain had ceased.

   We had made a further mile or two on our northward journey when the sun
   rose, an indistinct yellow blot in the grey sky, and the oppressive,
   steamy heat of the Markham day began in earnest. At a quarter to seven
   Constable Nabura suddenly materialized out of the bushes beside me.

   "Master, road belong Markham close to now!"

   "Japan 'e stop? You lookim leg belong 'en?" I asked. There were quite a
   number of enemy footprints; he said, made by the well-known rubber shoe
   with the heavy tread on the sole. None of the prints seemed to be very
   recent. The two local men who had gone ahead with Nabura were immediately
   posted as sentries on the road, one on either side of the junction.

   By the time Nabura had finished his report Les had moved up, and I
   repeated swiftly to him what the native had told me.

   "That's good. But I don't think we ought to stop here, do you?"

   "No. We ought to push on and cross the road, and keep going for at least
   an hour before we have a spell." We called all the police together and
   told them they were to keep the line tight and compact and allow no
   straggling. We wanted to cross the danger spot as quickly and
   inconspicuously as possible.

   In close order, the line moved forward. From this point onwards there was
   no track to Sintagora, and we either had to break our way across country
   through the kunai, or follow the bed of the Wawin River. Deciding to go by
   the river, we plunged in and began plodding upstream against the current.
   In the lower reaches we often sank to our waists in the soft ooze, and had
   to be extricated by the boys. Higher up, where the bed was more solid,
   fine gravel worked its way into our boots and socks, chafing every inch of
   skin from our feet, which were softened-almost as if they had been
   parboiled - by long immersion. In spite of these disadvantages it was an
   excellent route for us under the circumstances, for we were walking in the
   bed of the river some ten feet below the level of the plain, and were thus
   hidden from observers on the ground, while the trees which lined the banks
   and overhung the water gave perfect concealment from patrolling aircraft.
   Moreover, we left no tracks behind.

   Shortly after midday Les came splashing up to me. "Do you notice how the
   banks are increasing in height?"

   "Yes - it's almost a gorge we're getting into."

   "You might say we're into the foothills, in fact. There are small
   tributary streams coming in from the sides now."

   With every mile we advanced, the stream became more and more a mountain
   river, and the valley walls grew higher and steeper, while the water
   became cooler on our legs.

   About four o'clock the luluai and a couple of the older men held a brief
   conference, and it was decided to leave the Wawin and follow one of the
   small tributaries which joined it from the east. This stream rose up
   steeply, its bed rough and boulder-strewn. Half an hour's climbing brought
   us out on an open kunai spur, which we ascended to the top of the ridge,
   and Sintagora came into view, a further half hour's walk round the ridge.

   We had seen no Erap natives: unless they had spotted us earlier in the day
   our coming would be a complete surprise to them. When we entered the
   village at sunset surprise was hardly the word to express the looks on the
   faces of the people as they saw white men and a long line of carriers
   approaching from that unexpected direction.

   When they had recovered their composure, however, they proved to be
   friendly, and showed us the way to the house-kiap and then helped the
   exhausted Chivasings with their burdens.

   Sintagora was a lovely place. It was, we estimated, a couple of thousand
   feet above sea-level, and commanded a splendid view of the Markham Valley.
   We could just see Salamaua across the blue waters of the Huon Gulf.

   Scarcely had we asked for food when the open grassy space in front of the
   house-kiap was filled with women carrying bilums of excellent sweet
   potatoes, bananas, and papaws. Several natives ran up with English
   potatoes from the gardens.

   It was too late for the Chivasings to return home - they were too tired to
   make the journey, anyhow - so we bought a lot of food for them and asked
   the tultul of Sintagora to see that they all found a place to sleep. We
   were tired too, after thirteen hours on the track, and after a quick meal
   we turned in, rolling ourselves in three blankets, so cool was the night,
   and not bothering about mosquito-nets, for there was no sign of the pests.

   Early next morning the Chivasing people assembled in front of the
   house-kiap and were paid for their day's work. Each man received a
   shilling and a razor-blade, and the women who had accompanied the line
   were each given a strip of calico for a loincloth. These were substantial
   presents in those days of scarcity, and the natives were delighted. The
   luluai, too, came in for a little extra present, and with a smart salute
   he led his people quickly away, to get as far as possible along the track
   before the sun became hot.

   We decided not to move farther that day, but to remain among the people,
   making friends with them and learning all we could of enemy movements and
   propaganda. As far as we could discover there had been no visits by the
   Japanese to the area, and the people seemed to know very little about
   them. Of course, they knew that Lae and Salamaua were in enemy hands, but
   that was the extent of their knowledge. We were uneasy when they told us
   that a native mission teacher who was living in the vicinity had run away
   into the bush and would not come to see us.

   A lot more food was brought in during the morning, and we paid for it in
   salt, which the people craved for. It was well that we had brought three
   big drums of it. The slightest amount spilt on the ground was at once
   carefully scraped onto a leaf by some thrifty mother and carried away as
   though it were a rare gem.

   Les looked at the pile of native food with satisfaction. "It's good to see
   the food situation's O.K. I think we only brought one bag of rice for our
   boys, didn't we?" he asked, drawing reflectively on his after-breakfast
   cigarette. "That's right - only one," I replied. "It'll do for a while if
   we have to hole up and remain hidden. We can all feed from it without
   having to approach the villages for food."

   "Not only that, of course - we may easily be forced into an uninhabited
   area where we can't buy food anyhow."

   I spent the morning giving medical treatment to the natives of Sintagora
   and surrounding villages. There were many bad cases of yaws. I treated the
   huge, sickening ulcers by injecting an arsenical preparation. In a few
   days this would dry up the open, running sores as if by magic.

   The natives, no doubt, imagined that it was magic, and elderly men who
   hadn't a sign of a sore presented themselves for a "shoot" - not with the
   idea of having any disease cured, but to keep themselves strong and
   virile. I suppose I gave a hundred injections that day, besides doing
   dozens of dressings for tropical ulcers and minor wounds.

   Towards evening Les set up the radio to test it for the first time. We
   were quite tense with excitement as he called Port Moresby and then
   switched over to see if we had been heard. The usefulness of the patrol
   depended entirely on effective radio communications. If they failed we had
   taken the risk of coming to live in the mountains for nothing.

   The voice of the operator in Moresby was clear and loud: "You're coming
   through well, old chap. Go ahead and pass your message."

   Les shot a quick, smiling glance of triumph at me, and then bent intently
   over his Morse key. Although we could receive the powerful Port Moresby
   station clearly, the transmitting power of our little set was so small
   that we had to send our messages in Morse. Les tapped out a brief message,
   merely telling Moresby where we were, and that all was quiet.

   "All O.K., AVL, all O.K. See you again," replied the Moresby operator -
   thereby breaking all formal rules of radio procedure.

   The air was fresh and very cool when, with a sigh of contentment, we
   rolled into bed. We were into the mountains; the natives seemed friendly;
   food was abundant; our communications were in good order. What more could
   one ask? With a shout to Corporal Kari to make sure a sentry was posted,
   we pulled the blankets about us and were asleep.



   The next stage of our journey was to Fi, a village eight or ten miles
   north. We started at dawn, with Sintagora people and men from all the
   surrounding settlements bearing the cargo. The Erap, swinging round to the
   west, lay across our path, as formidable a stream in the mountains as it
   was on the flat country. Assisted by the local men, who knew almost every
   stone in its bed, we made the crossing without accident, clutching a stout
   vine that was stretched from bank to bank. There could have been no more
   dangerous enterprise than trying to cross this stream without the
   assistance of the people who lived on its banks.

   We were established in the house-kiap at Fi by two o'clock, before the
   afternoon rain began. Our meal was prepared by Tauhu, the substitute cook,
   for we had sent Dinkila on a visit to his home village of Bivoro, to pick
   up any gossip about the Japanese. The alacrity with which he seized the
   opportunity to call at his home town suggested to the other boys that he
   had a girl-friend there. and they made countless ribald jests about it.
   Dinkila only gave a rather smug smile, which seemed to say: You're jealous
   - you wish you were coming with me.

   About four o'clock we set up the radio to hear the weekly talk in pidgin
   English. This was designed as a propaganda service to natives, who could
   not, of course, speak English. This day the talk was given by John Murphy,
   a leading expert in pidgin and the author of the first pidgin dictionary
   with any claim to completeness.

   Murphy's talk was listened to intently by our police and other boys, but
   the natives of Fi gave it only a perfunctory hearing, and sat there
   without the slightest glimmer of enthusiasm, or even understanding. No
   doubt these broadcasts had a certain value in some areas, but as far as we
   were concerned they were a failure.

   When the talk was over I wondered whether the natives were having a sly
   joke at our expense when they asked us to see their tame cockatoos. The
   birds seemed to have a large vocabulary of their own, but when I tried
   some pidgin on them I caused much amusement. "Cocky savvy talk-place,
   master! No savvy talk pidgin!" the kanakas said, laughing heartily.

   Another pet in this village was a tame hornbill. He sat calmly in the
   branches of a breadfruit-tree, catching with unfailing accuracy in his
   enormous beak the bits of banana we threw up to him. He seemed to
   understand the local tongue, and would fly down to be petted whenever they
   called him.

   Fi showed no sign of enemy influence, and in the morning we walked
   eastward to Sugu, across the steep valley of the Nambuk River. The Sugu
   people showed us to the rest-house, and we stopped, astonished, when we
   saw it. "Hey, look at that!" exclaimed Les.

   "Brand new! Look - the grass thatching hasn't even dried out yet!"

   "I'd say it's only been finished a few days," said Les, who had moved over
   closer. "Yes. Look here - there's still sap oozing from the ends of some
   of the logs."

   "Now, why would they bother building a rest-house when there's nobody to
   use it?"

   "You'd think they'd be only too glad to get out of it. Let's talk to the
   tultul and see what he's got to say." We summoned the tultul and asked him
   why the house had been built. He replied that when he had heard of our
   arrival at Sintagora he expected us to pass through Sugu, and had at once
   made arrangements for us to be properly accommodated.

   "Look," he said to support his point, "the house is quite new."

   "Why did you build it so big?" asked Les. "There's room enough for twenty
   men to sleep in it!"

   For just a second the tultul was stumped, but his recovery was
   magnificent. His eyes fell upon our huge pile of stores and equipment.

   "I heard from the talk that you had a lot of cargo," he said calmly, "and
   so I thought I ought to see there was plenty of room for it."

   We looked at each other, and Les shrugged his shoulders in response to my
   raised eyebrows.

   "All right, tultul, you can go. Tell some people to bring us food."

   He vanished at once, and we heard him shouting to the women to bring food.

   "What do you think?" I asked as soon as we were alone.

   "I think it stinks!" Les exclaimed. "But why has he built it? There isn't
   a single sign of Japanese patrolling. I feel certain that if the Nips have
   been through here we'd have heard at least a whisper of it. It's got me
   beat."

   Till late at night we puzzled over the building that sheltered us, and got
   nowhere. We dropped off to sleep at last, still wondering.

   Next morning we set out for Gain, which I had last visited on the way out
   of the Wain country early in the year. If the large new rest-house at Sugu
   had been a mystery, the condition of the track to Gain was an even greater
   enigma. Grass had been cut, fallen trees removed, land-slips cleared, and
   a serviceable bridge constructed over each stream. Such diligence on the
   part of the kanakas and zeal on the part of the village officials had been
   uncommon even in peacetime, when there had been regular routine patrols to
   inspect such things. At a time when patrolling had ceased, it was nothing
   short of extraordinary to see a bridle-path so well tended, and we asked
   the village officials to explain their new-found conscientiousness. But
   they would say nothing. Apart from an occasional mumbled "Work belong me"
   from the tultul, they maintained a stubborn, though embarrassed, silence.

   This was only our first taste of an attitude which prevailed over almost
   the whole of the Huon Peninsula. We were to encounter many such strange
   activities, and nowhere would the people explain the motive for their
   unwonted energy. Model villages, well-tended cemeteries, a high standard
   of cleanliness, especially in regard to latrines - in fact, all the things
   that a hard-working administration had been trying for so long to
   introduce to village life - seemed to have become a fait accompli
   overnight. All our inquiries failed to breach the blank wall of silence
   that the natives had erected. But it could not conceal the profound
   uneasiness which lay behind it. In the end, our nerves began to be
   affected, for the continuous sense of being alone in the midst of some
   vast but intangible force imposes a strain even on the most unimaginative
   temperament. Not till the following year, and then only by piecing
   together many shreds of evidence, was it possible to construct even a
   partial picture of the sinister and, to a white man, almost
   incomprehensible forces then at work in the area.

   At Gain everything seemed to be the same as when I had passed the previous
   January. Dinkila, who was waiting for us at the entrance to the village,
   said there had been no news of the enemy at his home village of Bivoro,
   and apparently no Japanese had been near Gain either. Nevertheless, he
   said, something seemed to be happening here at Gain which he could not
   quite fathom. The natives would tell him nothing.

   The buildings of Boana Mission could be seen from Gain, and we studied
   them carefully through binoculars. There was no sign of smoke from
   cooking-fires, and it was too far away to see whether there were any
   people about. The luluai and the tultul of Gain declared that to their
   knowledge the enemy had never been in Boana. We felt that if the Japs had
   visited there, the news would certainly have reached Gain. And so we
   decided that we could safely go on to Boana the next day, by my usual
   route through Kasin, Wasinim, and Dzendzen.

   I ate tea in a cheerful mood that night.

   "I'm thinking of Jock McLeod," I said to Les, who had looked up
   inquiringly at my chuckle. "Wait till I tell him his pessimistic
   prophecies were all wrong! I felt all along that the Nips wouldn't have
   found their way in here yet."

   Next morning we had our gear lined along the track and were about to order
   the carriers to move off along the road to Boana when I noticed the tultul
   of Kasin, which was the next village on the road, hovering at the edge of
   the clearing. He caught my eye, blinked, and looked away. Then he cast
   another quick glance at me. He seemed in two minds whether to approach me
   or run away. This was very strange behaviour, for he had always been most
   friendly and helpful. I called him over.

   "Why didn't you come and talk to me?" I asked in an injured tone. "I
   thought we were friends."

   "Master, me like talk lik-lik long you," he mumbled. "Me got talk."

   "Well, what is the news?" I asked, as he stood there silent for some
   moments.

   He stared at the ground and shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. Then,
   trembling and swallowing, he told us in barely audible monosyllables that
   a Japanese patrol had visited Boana. By painfully minute cross-examination
   we placed the date of the visit as 17th April. It was now 1st May. He
   either could not or would not tell where they had come from, nor where
   they had gone. He knew only that they had been there on the 17th and were
   now gone

   I retracted mentally the things I was going to say to Jock. An enemy
   patrol - almost certainly much stronger than ours, if the Nips were
   following their usual practice--had appeared out of the blue and then
   vanished just as mysteriously. Not the least disquieting feature was that
   the natives were concealing what they knew: either lying to us or keeping
   silent. For all we knew, the enemy might be making a systematic tour of
   all the villages - might swoop down on Gain itself at any moment. As the
   realization burst upon us we almost unconsciously cast a glance over our
   shoulders at the high mountains behind. I called Kari, told him briefly
   what had happened, and ordered him to post a policeman a few hundred yards
   along each track leading into the village, so that we could not be
   surprised.

   Using the map, and information supplied by kanakas, we found another route
   to my old camp at Bawan, skirting Boana itself. It involved penetrating
   deeper into the mountains, to a village called Sedau, and a long walk over
   what appeared to be rough and difficult country. It would have been most
   foolish, however, to have risked contact with the enemy at that stage.

   "If we get into a scrap now," said Les, "the only thing that'll happen is
   that we'll lose a good part of our supplies. I'm all in favour of keeping
   well clear of trouble until we've got all this junk planted somewhere."

   "Me, too. The longer we can keep out of strife the better."

   It was no part of our duty to seek combat. Our role was to see and not be
   seen: once we clashed with the enemy they would become so wary that our
   chances of obtaining worth-while information would be much reduced.

   We set out at once for Sedau, some four hours' climb into the mountains
   behind Gain, where we felt it would be safe to spend the night. By the
   time we had been going a couple of hours we were enveloped in dense fog
   which, though it had the advantage of concealing us, prevented us from
   observing the surrounding country.

   Through occasional breaches in the fog we watched Sedau from a hill-side a
   few hundred yards above it. Natives were moving about, and there seemed to
   be no sign of anything unusual happening, so we marched into the village.
   The people received us without enthusiasm or any other emotion, showed us
   to a house to sleep in, brought us a reasonable quantity of food, and left
   us alone. They said they had never seen, and practically never heard of,
   the Japanese.

   Towards evening Kari and Watute, who had been poking about the village,
   asked us to look at a large house in course of construction a little
   distance from the village, and an enormous latrine near by.

   "What do you suppose they are for?" Watute asked, after he and Kari had
   drawn our attention to the unusual design of the house.

   Les and I could not guess their purpose, and asked Kari and Watute what
   they thought.

   "I think these people have heard the Japanese are coming, and want to have
   houses ready for them," Kari said. "The natives here are much more
   frightened of the Japanese than they are of us, you know. They have heard
   all these stories of the Japanese cutting people's heads off."

   "It is only a guess, master, but it is the only thing I can think of,"
   Watute put in. "As if the Japanese would know what a latrine was for!" he
   added with a chuckle, for he was familiar with the filthy habits of many
   of the enemy soldiers.

   Les sent for some of the villagers again, and we questioned them closely,
   trying to detect any inconsistency in their stories. They were unshakable:
   they knew nothing whatever of the Japanese, and were building the house
   and the latrine for their own use.

   "Do you use that latrine yourselves?" Watute shot in suddenly.

   "Yes," said the tultul.

   "How long has it been finished?"

   "About two weeks."

   "See, master!" Watute said triumphantly. "They are lying about something,
   for that latrine has not been used at all."

   But even this could not shake the tultul's composure. He had his story,
   and he was sticking to it.

   In the morning we called for men to carry our gear to Sokulen, a small
   village in the hills directly behind Boana. There was no dearth of men:
   willing carriers appeared from all the houses, each man eager to be on the
   road. This anxiety to be rid of us confirmed our suspicions that something
   was amiss.

   Watute watched their hurried preparations with a sardonic grin.

   "Master lookim?" he asked. "Altogether man 'e hurry up too much long
   rausim you-me." And indeed their indecent haste to see us beyond their
   borders could not have escaped even the most unpractised eye.

   The track to Sokulen led up a tributary creek of the Kusip River, over a
   low divide, and into a tributary of the Bunzok. Most of the way we walked
   knee-deep in icy water, slithering and stumbling on the stony beds of the
   streams. The wear and tear on our boots was very great, for at least half
   of each day's walking was along a watercourse, and the boots were never
   dry from one day's end to another. They were soon reduced to a sodden
   pulp, which fell to pieces. Already, only a week out from the Markham, our
   first pair were showing signs of disintegration, and it seemed that our
   five spare pairs each would be none too many.

   Where the track to Sokulen lay across the divide it seemed as though it
   had been subjected to recent heavy traffic. The ground was muddy and
   churned up, and the track was much wider than the usual native pad.
   Bamboos, which grew in thick clumps on either side, had been slashed and
   cut - a thing no native, appreciating their value, would ever do. It
   looked as though a Japanese patrol had passed that way, but heavy rain had
   obscured all definite footprints, and we could not tell whether the
   travellers had worn boots, or in what direction they had gone. The police,
   however, were of the opinion that those who had passed before us were not
   natives, and that they had travelled in the opposite direction to ours.
   They indicated the angle at which the slashes had been made in the
   bamboos, and pointed out that if we, for instance, wished to make such a
   cut we would have to stop and turn round, whereas a man travelling the
   other way could do it as he walked.

   "I wonder if we would have thought that one out?" said Les.

   He called the tultul of Sedau over and questioned him on the state of the
   track. The tultul still insisted that he had never seen a Jap, but he was
   so ill at ease that we did not believe him.

   While we were talking to the tultul one of the police noticed two natives
   running down the track from the direction of Sokulen. They made straight
   for Les and me and, without waiting to get their breaths, told us
   excitedly that a large party of Japanese had arrived at Bungalamba on
   their way to Lae, and that all the village officials of the surrounding
   settlements had gone to meet them. The two boys did not know what had
   happened then, because they had hurried to tell us about the arrival of
   the Japs. We pointed to the track, and asked what had caused it to get
   into such a condition.

   The boys looked at us in astonishment, saying, "Japanese, of course!
   Didn't the tultul of Sedau tell you about them? They slept one night in
   his village, and told him to build a house for them, because lots of
   Japanese parties would be coming through here."

   Les and I noticed the venomous look the tultul shot at them, and we could
   not help laughing, in spite of the grave news.

   "Where did they go after they left Sedau?" I asked. "Through the Kisengan,
   in the Erap River. They slept at Sugu on the way."

   My scalp prickled, and I heard Les's sharply drawn breath. So that was it:
   the new rest-house at Sugu, whew we had slept, had, only a few nights
   before, housed Japanese, and the track, which we had remarked as being
   uncommonly well tended, had been cleared in honour of the enemy! Twice
   already we had crossed the trail of that party, and now there was news of
   another one ahead of us

   The game played by the natives was understandable and, from their own
   point of view, justified. They wanted neither Japanese nor Australians
   wandering round their country. Both were merely nuisances to them -
   useless people who ate their food, had to be carried for and shown their
   way round the bush. The natives were frightened, too, that there would be
   a battle between us in which they would inevitably suffer, and they were
   bending all their energies to keeping us apart, each in ignorance of the
   other's presence.

   From our point of view things were as bad as could be, and we could not
   continue wandering round the mountains blindly crossing and recrossing the
   paths of enemy patrols. It was a shock to find that the Japanese had
   departed from their habit of the previous year and were now patrolling
   extensively in the wild mountain country into which they had been once so
   reluctant to venture. But it was a worse shock to find that the natives
   were giving them as much assistance as they gave us: this attitude I
   blamed largely on the fact that for two and a halt months the area had
   been abandoned by us. If I had never left the country, but had stayed on
   in the villages, I felt sure that things would never have come to this
   pass.

   There was only one thing to do now: we must get all our cargo safely into
   some remote spot and then find the, enemy patrols for ourselves. We told
   the tultul and the two messengers from Sokulen of our intention, and the
   three of them joined in tearful entreaties to us to leave immediately.

   "Go back to the Markham at once," they pleaded. "If you go now you will be
   able to reach your own people safely. If you stay here you will certainly
   be killed. There are so many Japanese, and if they find we are hiding you
   from them they will cut our heads off. Some of them are coming to sit down
   at Boana Mission," they added. Jock's words came back to me: "If I were
   the Jap commander I'd have a standing patrol at Boana." It seemed as if
   his gloomy forecast was being fulfilled in earnest.

   In spite of the pleas of the local natives we resumed the journey to
   Sokulen quickly, after having told the police what the situation was and
   sending Watute and Pato ahead to scout. At a point on the track which
   offered a particularly good view of Boana we paused for ten minutes to let
   the carriers catch their breath, while we watched the mission. Through
   binoculars we could see right into the houses, and since there was still
   no movement we concluded that the mission was, at any rate up to this
   moment, unoccupied.

   At Sokulen we set up the radio and informed headquarters in Port Moresby
   that the Japanese seemed to have taken up inland patrolling in a big way.
   Then, still keeping the unwilling Sedau people as carriers, as punishment
   for having lied to us, we pushed up the Bunzok Valley to an out-of-the-way
   village called Bandong. It was dark when we arrived, and raining hard. The
   Bandong people received us with indifference and showed us to the only
   spare house in the village. Wet through, and too tired to eat, Les and I
   and all the boys lay on the floor and went to sleep.



   In the morning I awoke to a depressing sight: a packed mass of black,
   brown, and white humanity lying steaming in their wet, dirty clothes, and
   a house looking even filthier than it had appeared by torchlight the night
   before. I sat up and shivered. Bandong, one of the highest villages in the
   Wain, was about six thousand feet above sea-level. No wonder it was cold.
   I roused Dinkila and Tauhu and told them to light a fire and prepare some
   tea. Les woke, and we went outside with maps and compass to plan our next
   move.

   "This is a pretty remote spot, all right," said Les. "But if the Nips are
   visiting all the villages it won't do to stick round the houses. We must
   get out among the gardens, disperse our stores, and lie low till that mob
   at Bungalamba has gone on."

   "These people grow yams," I remarked. "They probably have little
   store-houses scattered about the gardens."

   "They're sure to," Les agreed. "Let's go and sink this tea, and then we'll
   have a look round."

   The sweet black tea, scalding hot, gave us new life. As we drank it, we
   called some of the Bandong people to us, to explain what we intended to do
   and to seek their help. They were shy, for they had had very little
   contact with white men. Only one of them spoke pidgin, and he had to
   translate for the benefit of the others. They soon caught the idea, and
   brought us to a spot about an hour's walk farther upstream, leading into a
   tributary valley. There was a garden here - it had been abandoned the year
   before, the Bandong men said. Dotted here and there about it, but hardly
   visible till they were pointed out, were five tiny shacks used for storing
   yams and firewood. The valley was so steep that it was possible to
   approach the houses only by the narrow path we were following. Even if we
   were discovered there, it would be no easy matter for the enemy to take us
   while our ammunition lasted. This was an ideal hiding-place.

   Les and I decided to sleep in one of the shelters with Kari and Watute,
   and the other boys, with part of the stores, were to use the other four
   shacks. They were minute houses: one could not stand upright, even in the
   middle of the floor, while at the edges it was necessary to crawl. The one
   we were in, the largest, was not quite seven feet long. Les said that if
   you even wanted to change your mind you had to go outside the house to do
   it!

   As soon as we had posted a sentry we ordered Dinkila to cook a large meal
   for us, and told the boys to prepare one for themselves. Then we changed
   into dry, warm clothes and squatted by the fire to read.

   "We're safe for the present," Les said. "And, anyhow, it's no use trying
   to think about these things on an empty stomach."

   Dinkila excelled himself, and even made a batch of pancakes. When we had
   demolished his good work we lay on our blankets, maps spread before us, to
   make an appreciation of the local situation, and work out what we should
   do to meet it.

   At present we considered ourselves pretty safe from attack, and probably
   would be safe as long as we remained here. On the other hand, it was too
   remote a spot for us to hear what was happening. It would be necessary, we
   decided, to move nearer to some of the more important tracks which
   traversed the Wain and Naba, but we could leave most of our food here as a
   reserve.

   We were worried about the attitude of the native inhabitants of these
   parts. It was decidedly disturbing. In 1942 the kanakas would have
   informed me instantly if even a whisper of enemy patrols had reached them.
   Now they were at pains to conceal every enemy movement from us. The reason
   was that they feared the Japanese patrols - which moved in greater numbers
   than ours - more than they feared us. Stories of beheadings carried out by
   the Japanese seemed to have had a great effect upon the natives. We would
   have to try very hard to regain some of our influence with them, partly by
   propaganda through the local men Les had brought over from Moresby, and
   partly by judicious distribution of presents to influential natives.

   We decided to remain two more days in our present hide-out, then venture
   out cautiously, ascertain the whereabouts of the Japanese, and if possible
   reach my old camp at Bawan, where I was better known and had more close
   friends among the local natives. It was no use, at the moment, formulating
   a detailed plan, since there were too many unknown factors.

   We folded up the maps, opened a cake of ration chocolate, and addressed
   ourselves to reading again.

   "Ha, what do you know! A crossword puzzle!" Les exclaimed as he turned
   over the last page of his magazine. "Let's help do it," I begged.

   "No fear - I'll do it on my own first! But I'll only write very faintly in
   pencil, so that I can rub the letters out before I hand it over and give
   you a turn."

   "O.K., do that. I'll have my go tomorrow."

   Trade goods and other supplies had made so many carrier-loads that we had
   been forced to leave nearly all our books behind at Wampit. We had
   squeezed in a few paper-backs and a magazine or two, but it would not be
   long before we had read everything.

   Next day brought a surprise visitor - Singin, tultul of Wampangan village.
   He had been among those village officials who had gone to meet the
   Japanese party at Bungalamba, and when we heard this we hoped to get some
   detailed first-hand information, for he was a shrewd, observant man. But
   we were disappointed, for Singin said that when he and his companions
   reached Bungalamba the Japanese had left, proceeding down the river
   through Mililuga and Gawan to Lae. There were about thirty of them, and
   they had come from Sio, on the north coast. Apparently the trip had been
   hard, for two of them were sick and were being carried.

   We heard all this with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was good to
   know the Japs were out of the way for the moment. On the other hand, if
   they had really come from Sio, and had crossed over the Saruwaged Range to
   do it, the mountains had clearly lost all terrors for them, and they would
   probably be prepared to chase us wherever we went. There was no certainty
   that the Japs had made the crossing, of course, and we could not
   understand why they should bother to do so when they could easily have
   walked round the beach or come by barge. Still, they had gone, and this
   was our chance to get to Bawan. We gave Singin a very handsome present - a
   tomahawk - and told him to return to his village and remain there until he
   heard from us, meanwhile having nothing to do with Japanese patrols. He
   agreed to do this, saying that he would send all his people into the bush
   if the enemy approached Wampangan.

   We watched his long, lean figure disappear up the hillside.

   "Too smooth by half," Les said, shaking his head. "Yes. He saw the Japs
   all right, I bet. All the same, I don't think we have anything to fear
   from him. He's shrewd enough to realize that we might win the war. He
   knows that if he tipped us off to the Nips and we were the victors he'd be
   in bad. I think he'll play a politician's game, but will see nobody gets
   hurt - as far as he can." That night Les went down with a sharp attack of
   fever, and we had to wait two days, until he was well enough to travel.
   The little houses were so cold that it is remarkable we were not all laid
   low with fever or pneumonia.

   On 7th May we set out for Wampangan, travelling round the head of the
   Bunzok River and passing through the villages of Kawalan, Ganzegan, and
   Kwamboleng. Although the country was wild and steep, we moved much more
   quickly than before, because we had left more than half our cargo hidden
   in the garden at Bandong.

   The road showed signs of recent maintenance work. But it was the villages
   that astonished me. In each case, including Wampangan, the old site had
   been abandoned and a new village of model houses had been built. There was
   also a great increase in the area of cultivation.

   Singin greeted us effusively and announced his intention of co-operating
   whole-heartedly. His was not a very convincing performance, and one could
   quite easily have imagined him saying the same thing to the Japanese.
   However, we thanked him and gave him a small present, telling him to have
   carriers ready in the morning.

   As we sat down to eat our tea by lantern-light Dinkila asked whether we
   would consider going to the mission, seeing we were so close, to shoot a
   bullock. He hinted that, though he was equal to the task if need be, it
   placed a strain on even the best cook's ingenuity if the meat always came
   out of a tin. A piece of nice grilled steak, now, he said....

   He had struck the right note. Les and I looked at one another, our mouths
   watering.

   "I'll go down there in the morning if you like," I said. "You can go
   straight to Bawan with the cargo. If all is well I should be there almost
   as soon as you are."

   "Do you think it's worth the risk?"

   "I'm pinning my faith on Singin. I don't think he would let me go if the
   coast weren't clear. It's pretty safe, I reckon."

   In the morning Kari, Watute, and I set off for Boana, having received
   Singin's assurance that the mission was deserted. On a hill overlooking
   the mission station we hid for half an hour or so in a clump of bamboos,
   watching. One or two natives moved about the grass houses, but the usual
   brooding quietness lay over the iron-roofed ones. Of the enemy there was
   no sign, but we approached warily, Owen guns cocked. The mission
   schoolhouse seemed still to be in use, though we got the impression that
   it had been hurriedly vacated as we approached. As before, the feeling
   that hostile eyes were watching our every movement assailed us. Kari, who
   had been with me the first time I visited the mission, said he still
   thought it was "place no good". I agreed with him.

   In the mission house various signs of the enemy visit remained. The organ
   had been broken open, and there was a pile of cigarette-butts on the
   veranda, as though a sentry had been posted there. All small pieces of
   cloth had been removed - presumably to patch clothes with, for native
   reports all agreed that the clothing worn by the Japanese was in an
   extremely tattered state. In their usual filthy way they had covered the
   veranda with excreta not six feet from where they had slept.

   There was nothing of real interest to be seen, so we hurried across the
   now much overgrown and boggy aerodrome in search of the cattle, which we
   found grazing at the edge of the bush. It seemed as though the Japanese
   had tried to round them up: they had been very tame and quiet before, but
   now they fled as soon as they heard us approaching. Kari dropped to his
   knee and shot a big black bullock clean through the head as it ran. I
   looked at him approvingly. "A good man to have around when the Nips turn
   up" was my unspoken comment on his marksmanship.

   We skinned and quartered the bullock and hung the meat up under the trees.
   It would be brought on to us at Bawan by some of Singin's men. Then with a
   quick backward glance at the mission we hurried off to catch up with Les.

   As we strode along the track I saw that it too had been cleared and
   levelled and that my last orders to the people - to let the roads revert
   to bush had been ignored. When I reached Bawan village Les had already
   arrived and told the people that I was following. They were standing about
   waiting for me, and though some of the older men greeted me with some show
   of affection, the tultul and the younger men made no attempt to conceal
   the fact that our presence would be a serious embarrassment to them. The
   camp itself was unchanged. Les had quickly installed himself, and out in
   the kitchen I could see a fire blazing, and Dinkila and Tauhu at work with
   billies and frying-pans.

   "Rather cosy set-up," Les said approvingly as he looked at the double roof
   and the canvas-lined walls. "It'll keep pretty snug even on the coldest
   nights."

   "Yes, it's warm and comfortable, all right. When we get a fire going it'll
   look fine."

   Les examined the unorthodox architecture of the fireplace.

   "Does it really work?" he asked.

   "Most of the smoke goes out. After all, you aren't staying at the Ritz!"

   Les grinned. "No. I suppose I shouldn't complain. Ought to be glad to have
   a camp like this all ready made." For a few days it seemed that our
   routine at Bawan would be very much the same as it had been in December.
   Food was good and plentiful, and the people came every day to sell it. By
   ten each morning the grassy space in front of the house was filled as
   usual with chattering women bearing string bags of potatoes, bananas,
   beans, tomatoes, and every conceivable kind of vegetable. On one occasion,
   while buying food, I made one faux pas which might have spoilt our
   relations with the people. One woman stood a little apart, holding her
   string bag on her back, while the others had spread their bags open on the
   ground to display their wares. I bought all the food on the ground and
   then approached this woman.

   "What have you got there?" I asked, peering at the indistinct shape in the
   bottom of the bag. "Potatoes?"

   "Potatoes!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Piccaninny belong me!" And she
   produced from the bag her first child, a fine little boy about three
   months old. She was as proud as could be of him, and I hastily gave her a
   little present of salt to soothe her outraged feelings.

   "Potatoes!" I heard her snort as she walked off down the hill with the
   others.

   While I did medical work Les talked to the natives of the surrounding
   villages about the war, telling them of the ever-increasing air raids on
   Lae. As he spoke, planes were passing over the camp making their runs on
   thetownship, and the sound of bombing and anti-aircraft shelling could be
   heard clearly.

   There was a series of earth-tremors while we were at Bawan, and a lot of
   heavy rain, resulting in numerous landslides. Often as we lay in bed at
   night we heard :t loud crash followed by a thunderous roar, lasting some
   times for a couple of minutes, while the whole house trembled and creaked.
   And then in the morning there would be a huge piece of the mountain-side
   lying in the valley below, often with trees still growing on it much the
   same as when it had been a few hundred feet higher up and part of the
   mountain.

   At night, after Dinkila had placed the little kettle (if black coffee on
   the table and fastened the canvas cover across the door, Les and I drew
   closer to the fire and to pass the time away, played the old children's
   guessing game of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral. We attained a high degree
   of proficiency in detecting such improbable objects as "the left boot of
   the Japanese commander in Lae."

   Another little game after lights-out was to make up limericks about young
   girls from Bawan, Wampangan, anti other villages in the district. Many of
   them were rather ingenious and amusing, but I cannot recall any which
   could properly be printed here.

   Unfortunately this pleasant existence was not to last On 12th May, just at
   dusk, two exhausted natives staggered into the camp, having run almost all
   the way from Samandzing. We helped them up into the house while, between
   great sobbing breaths, they told us that a Japanese party had arrived in
   Samandzing from Lae and had announced their intention of proceeding to
   Boana via Bawan. In 1942 this would not have been very serious news. The
   camp was some little distance from the main track, and I would merely have
   kept a very good watch and let the Japanese go past, secure in the
   knowledge that the local natives would not betray me. Now the situation
   was different. The attitude of the natives, though becoming friendly
   again, was far from certain. Worse still, they had been so busy with their
   road-building that a newly made track from Samandzing, twelve feet wide
   and as smooth as Collins Street, lay right in front of our door.

   As Les set up the radio to tell Port Moresby of this latest development we
   wondered what to do next.

   "We have to get out of here, that's certain," Les said. "You've been all
   round here before - where do you reckon is the best spot?"

   "I think we ought to keep as close to the centre of things as we possibly
   can. There's plenty of villages where they would never find us in ten
   years, but which would be no good to us because we wouldn't hear a word of
   what's happening. I think if we go to Orin, a couple of hours away, we'll
   be safe enough for the present."

   "I'll take your word for it," Les said as he plugged in the ear-phones.
   "Get us a lamp, will you? I can't see what I'm doing."

   I told Dinkila to get Les a light, and ordered the rest of the men to
   prepare everything for the road so that we could get out of Bawan first
   thing in the morning. Kari doubled the sentries and sent one man to watch
   the track from Samandzing about half a mile out of Bawan. I was not
   seriously worried about an immediate attack, for if the Japanese had only
   just arrived in Samandzing it would be a good two days before they reached
   Bawan. But we would take no chances.



   At first light next day all the men of Bawan came to carry our gear to
   Orin. I looked sadly at the vegetable garden I had planted in January. It
   was showing great promise, and we had already eaten in imagination the
   succulent peas and beans it would soon produce. I cast several regretful
   glances backwards as we moved up the hill to Gewak village, an hour away,
   and then round the hill-side to Orin, a further hour.

   The tultul of Orin, an old friend, greeted us warmly, and the people of
   the village seemed much better disposed than those of Bawan. There was no
   house-kiap, but they offered to clear out a couple of their own dwellings
   for us.

   "I'm against sleeping in the villages now," I said to Les. "It's too
   risky. Even if the kanakas don't give us away deliberately, the Nips might
   wander in any time."

   "Yes - it's better in every way to keep out in the bush. We won't
   compromise the kanakas with the Nips then, and to keep themselves in the
   clear they won't say anything about us hiding in the bush."

   "It's just a question of where to go. Look up there." I pointed to the
   towering mountain which overshadowed Orin.

   Les gave a low whistle. "Do you reckon we can climb it?"

   "I don't know, but let's ask the tultul. I'd like to have a go."

   The tultul was dubious. There was a way up, of course, he said, but it was
   not easy, and with all our cargo.... "Come on, tultul," we said
   encouragingly. "You show the way, and let us try."

   I have seldom seen a wilder place. We climbed almost eight hundred feet,
   straight up from the village, mostly over well-nigh vertical sheer
   rock-faces. In two places we had to pass beneath a torrent of water which
   drenched us and almost sent us flying into space. When we reached a small
   level clearing which looked as if it would do for a camp, we flopped to
   the ground.

   "Fair enough! Ibis will do me for the rest of the war!" I panted.

   "Me too," Les agreed. "If the Nips get us here, they've earned the
   scalps."

   The Orin people helped us build two rough shelters out of the large shiny
   leaves of the wild breadfruit-tree, and we sat down to take careful stock
   of our situation. Though safe, it was a miserable spot, for even when the
   sun came out, which was seldom, it did not penetrate the thick foliage.
   All next day it poured with rain, and our crude huts leaked badly. Only
   with difficulty could Dinkila and Tauhu keep a fire alight long enough to
   make a billy of tea. The rest of our food we ate cold from the tins.

   I spent the day wrapped up in blankets, pretending I wasn't cold, while I
   read Noel Coward's autobiography, Present Indicative. Dusk was approaching
   when I put the book aside. I looked round in the green twilight and
   marvelled that for a short time I had forgotten my surroundings and been
   so lost in the picture Coward had painted of the bright footlights and the
   brilliant uniforms of Cavalcade. Uniforms! What grubby rags Les and I were
   wearing! What sodden felt hats, without chin-strap, badge, or pugaree!
   There had been a time when we had both appeared smart and shining on
   parade, but it was so long ago, and so much had happened in the meantime,
   that we could hardly remember it. In fact, everything seemed far away and
   long ago - dry clothes, cleanliness, safety, music, love - everything
   except green foliage, endless rain that hissed down through the trees, and
   natives squelching the mud between their bare toes and swearing
   continually at one another.

   The momentary spell of Coward's stage had gone. I was aware of Watute and
   Pato standing beside me, legs caked in mud and wet sweaters steaming.

   "Well, what is it?" I snapped.

   They understood that I had not meant to be rude, for they just grinned and
   said they wanted to talk to me about an idea which had occurred to them. I
   passed them tobacco, and while they rolled themselves cigarettes Pato
   spoke for the two of them.

   He was a local man, and knew both the Wain and Naba dialects. From remarks
   overheard in Gewak and Orin villages, he had learnt that the Japanese had
   put in a supply of food at Samandzing. He had discussed the matter with
   Watute, and between them they had evolved the theory that the food must be
   intended for Japanese troops being evacuated from Lae. Pato and Watute
   thought the party which was supposed to have crossed the range might have
   been looking for an escape-route.

   "Evacuated? Escape-route? What do you mean?" I asked. "Do you think the
   Japanese are going to give up Lae?"

   They shrugged their shoulders. The air raids were getting heavier. No
   ships could get in with supplies. The submarines could not feed them. It
   was not for them to say whether the Japs were going to abandon Lae, but it
   was possible.

   (As we discovered later, it was indeed the purpose of some of these
   Japanese patrols to discover tracks by which troops might be evacuated
   from Lae, and when the attack by the two Australian divisions came in
   September, the commanders were surprised at the enemy's extensive
   knowledge of the mountain trails, over which a great many of the Jap Lae
   garrison had made their way to safety. Our generals need not have been so
   surprised however, for, having thought over what Watute and Pato had said,
   it seemed to us more and more likely that they were right, and we
   therefore passed on the idea, for what it was worth, to headquarters.
   Apparently they did not think it was worth much, for they did nothing
   about it. And so the brilliant deductive work of two "simple" natives was
   wasted.)

   The present purpose of Pato and Watute was to visit Samandzing and see
   whether the information about the dump of food was correct. They would
   also do what they could to prove the other part of their hypothesis, and
   generally listen to the gossip around the villages. Pato said that his
   kinsmen would conceal their presence from the enemy if any Japanese were
   encountered, and he was sure they would be quite safe.

   "It sounds a good idea to me," said Les, who had been listening to the
   whole discussion intently. "What do you think?"

   "I agree. I think they ought to take plenty of trade goods, to buy food
   and information. I don't see how it could possibly do any harm, especially
   since Pato has all the local contacts."

   "All right, master. Tomorrow long too-light, me-fella go." And having
   announced their intention of leaving at dawn next day, the two elderly
   warriors moved out through the rain to their own shelter among the trees a
   few yards away.

   During the night I heard several of the boys coughing. "Les, are you
   awake?" I asked softly, not wishing to arouse him if he should be asleep.

   "Yes. I suppose you're thinking what I'm thinking? Those coughs. . . ."

   "Yes - they aren't too good. Several of the men come from warm coastal
   villages, and aren't used to this sort of climate at all."

   "It's serious for them too. Colds turn to pleurisy or pneumonia so damned
   quickly."

   "It's no wonder, of course - this spot is so dark and damp. We'll be sick
   ourselves if we stay too long."

   "Tell you what. The tultuls of Orin and two other villages are coming up
   tomorrow. Suppose we go for a walk round this mountain with them and look
   for a better camp? They ought to know of a decent spot."

   I agreed that we should do this, and to the sound of constant coughing we
   fell asleep, rain still falling about us and plopping in big drops from
   time to time upon our beds.

   Next morning the tultuls came as expected. We set off at once with them on
   our quest for a drier and warmer camp. While we were winding our way round
   a steep, grassy section of the hill overlooking Orin, two of the tultuls
   gave sudden startled cries and vanished into the bush. We looked at our
   one remaining tultul, the one from Orin, in astonishment, but he was just
   as amazed as we were. The mystery was soon solved. From the road below
   came a rapid succession of rifle-shots, and buzzing bullets seemed to fill
   the air round us, clipping through the grass and ricocheting. The three of
   us hurled ourselves into a narrow watercourse out of sight, and the firing
   ceased. We sorted ourselves out, and helped the tultul out of the mud. He
   had been first in, and Les and I had landed on top of him.

   "That was a surprise!"

   "To us, but not to those other two black swine!" Les snarled. "They've
   been as nervous as a couple of cats all morning. They were waiting for it
   to happen."

   We crept to the edge of the gully and carefully parted the fringe of long
   kunai-grass which grew on its lip. Down on the track we counted seventeen
   Japanese, most of them with rifles held ready to let us have it again if
   we showed ourselves.

   "Oh for a Bren gun!" Les wailed. "We'd get the lot - we couldn't miss
   them!"

   "That one with the white topee on must be the officer," I said. "You
   couldn't miss him."

   But our only weapons were Owen guns, and for them the range was so great
   as to make a hit the merest fluke. We remained there for some minutes,
   noting with satisfaction that none of the Japanese made any attempt to
   come up the hill after us. The tultul drew our attention to a great crowd
   of native carriers, and a pile of boxes which had been left farther down
   the road. Apparently this was no shoe-string expedition, but was
   travelling well equipped. It was clear, too, that the Japanese were having
   no trouble in getting native carriers.

   After perhaps ten minutes the leader put his pistol back in its holster,
   and we heard him shouting to the natives to pick up their loads. A few
   moments later the whole procession moved off towards Gewak.

   "Well, they seem to have given us away."

   "Let's hope they aren't going to try and sneak up again tonight. We'd
   better get back to the camp and see what's going on there."

   We set off as fast as we could, through the bush and round the steep
   hill-sides, still accompanied by the loyal tultul of Orin.

   At the camp we found that Watute and Pato had heard of the enemy's arrival
   and had hurried back to warn us. By the time they reached the camp,
   however, we had gone.

   Kari had taken charge of the situation in our absence. The radio had been
   dismantled and packed into its box, and all our stores hidden in scattered
   spots in the bush. Each boy was standi:ig to with a rifle or sub-machine
   gun, and hand-grenades had been issued all round. We complimented Kari on
   his efficiency, and then called a council of war with him, Watute, and
   Pato.

   "Do you think we ought to shift?" I asked Les.

   "It depends what the Nips are likely to do. We don't want to credit them
   with over-confidence. They're new to these mountains and they won't feel
   sure that there are only two of us. The natives will tell them, but
   they'll still be pretty suspicious."

   "They seemed to lose interest in us as soon as we ran away. Do you think
   you could find out anything about them, Pato, if you went down to the
   villages? Do you think it would be safe?"

   Pato grinned. It would be safe enough for him, he said. He thought if he
   went down about evening he might even be able to find the Japs himself.

   We decided to let Pato go, and that for the present we would stay where we
   were.

   Towards evening we said good-bye to him and wished him luck. After we had
   radioed our headquarters to tell them what had happened we sat down, with
   what patience we could, to wait for his return. We dared not light a fire,
   so we boiled up some coffee on a little tin of solid fuel, and huddled
   round in blankets, trying to keep warm. We could hear the roar of the
   waterfall below us, and soon the rain started again. Every hour we changed
   the sentries, one near the camp at the edge of the cliff, and another
   about ten minutes' climb down the hill. As time went on we became more and
   more nervous. Perhaps Pato had been captured and the Japanese would try to
   surprise us? I saw Les peering at the luminous dial of his watch.

   "Two o'clock," he muttered. "Time drags, doesn't it?"

   "I can't stand much more of this," I murmured. "I almost wish the Nips
   would show up, to put an end to the waiting."

   I had hardly finished speaking when a grunted challenge from the sentry
   nearby caught our ear:

   "Who's 'at 'e walkabout?"

   "Me Pato! You no can shoot!" came the hurried response. Pato, realizing
   that the suspense would make us all a bit trigger-happy, was taking no
   risk of getting a bullet by mistake.

   We hurried him into the house, wet through, covered with mud, and panting
   from his rapid climb up the hill, and Dinkila at once prepared a mug of
   steaming beef-tea for him.

   Meanwhile, the whole party of natives crowded into the little hut to hear
   Pato's story, muttering excitedly beneath their breaths. It was so dark
   that as we looked around we could not distinguish any of the boys: only
   their whispers or movements told us of their presence. We made notes by
   the faint light of a lantern while Pato talked, and all we could see of
   him was the flashing whites of his eyes behind a cloud of vapour rising
   from his mug.

   Pato had gone right up to the Japanese patrol, he told us. They were
   camped in my old house at Bawan, and had a wireless set, a lot of rice,
   tinned meat, and fish. They also had about ten wooden cases whose contents
   he could not ascertain or guess at; but when he showed interest in them he
   thought the officer in charge of the patrol looked at him suspiciously, so
   he wandered off.

   Les and I glanced at each other as Pato calmly related all this. If only
   that Jap officer had known!

   "Did you find out where they were going?" I asked. "Yes. My cousin in
   Bawan says they are going to Boana tomorrow, and the next day they will go
   on the way to Lae."

   "Do they know anything else about us?"

   "They know it's your house they are camping in, but they keep asking
   whether there are only two of you. They don't seem to believe it."

   "Thank God for that! I hope they think there's a hundred of us!" Les said
   fervently.

   We thanked Pato warmly for his good work, and lay down to sleep for the
   remaining two or three hours of darkness.

   Early next morning we radioed Moresby, asking whether planes could be sent
   to strafe Boana next day, and suggesting dawn as the best time, in order
   to catch the enemy party before they set out on the next stage of their
   journey to Lae. We were told that this would be considered. The following
   day we would have to move on, in case a special party of Japs should be
   sent out to hunt us down.

   About ten o'clock Watute and I walked back to Bawan, approaching
   cautiously through the bush for fear the enemy were still about. They had
   gone, but so had our camp. The house had been burnt, the vegetables dug
   up, and the whole area fouled.

   "Look at it!" Watute said disgustedly. "The dirtiest kanaka out of the
   bush-isn't as filthy as that!"

   We retraced our steps to Orin and found that Les had already decided upon
   a place to move to - a village called Kiakum, higher in the mountains of
   the Naba country.

   We went there next day, not following the tolerable track that wound round
   the edge of the valley, but moving along obscure hunting-trails which ran
   across the mountains, used by the natives when they hunted possums in the
   forest. The path was rough and steep, and not a little dangerous in some
   places.

   Nearing Kiakum we passed several independent homesteads standing alone in
   little clearings among the tall cane-grass. It was a sign that the people
   had not acquired the village habit encouraged by the government, but still
   preferred their own way of life. Obviously these families had never been
   seen by the patrol officer in peacetime. It was a reflection on the
   superficial patrolling of the peacetime administration, but not really to
   be blamed on the officers themselves, who had to work so hard, and cover
   such enormous distances, that they could not possibly do more than pay
   fleeting visits to each village. Quite often one would see entered in the
   village book a remark by a patrol officer to the effect that the people
   lived in their village only at census-time, and spent the rest of the year
   in their real homes among the gardens. There was something to be said in
   favour of the more scattered dwellings: during epidemics infection was not
   likely to spread so rapidly as when the people lived all crowded together.

   The inhabitants of the homesteads that we passed near Kiakum must have
   thought we would be angry with them for living in this way, for upon our
   approach they fled into the bush with startled cries. This, again, seemed
   to be a sign that the administration had not really enjoyed the confidence
   of the population. How could the natives have much affection for people
   who came to see them only to inspect things, and probably to complain, or
   to make investigations when there had been trouble? To them the patrol
   officer was at best a nuisance who, once or twice a year, stirred up a lot
   of trouble, had to be carried for, and then disappeared. The system made
   it humanly impossible for most of the officers to establish any solidly
   based relationships of real understanding and affection with the remoter
   settlements. Perhaps the blame, in the final analysis, should be placed on
   the Australian governments, of whatever political colour, which, before
   the war, had consistently starved the Territory of funds and forced
   district administrators to manage on shoe-string budgets. It was the
   legacy of that sort of patrolling which was now making it difficult for us
   to have any influence, in any real sense, on the people, though my stay at
   Bawan had convinced me how ready they were to be friends once an interest
   was taken in them as individuals and not just as entries in the village
   book, to be censused and, probably, censured.

   At Kiakum we found that the natives knew very little about the war. They
   had never even seen a Japanese, and had met so few white men that Les and
   I were regarded as curiosities. It was a relief to find that the mission
   had no hold up here - we would certainly find the people much easier to
   get on with. Only one man spoke pidgin, and though he offered to clear out
   his house for as to sleep in, we declined the offer and slept beneath the
   house. On the following day we asked the natives to build two thatched
   houses in a secluded spot about half a mile up the hill from the village
   proper.

   For the next ten days we remained at Kiakum, receiving many visitors from
   the remote mountain villages, all eager for definite news of the war, of
   which, up to that time, they had heard only the wildest rumours. We would
   go down from our house each morning at about ten o'clock and remain in the
   village till the afternoon, receiving all our visitors there: only Kiakum
   people were allowed to approach the house. We got on famously with the
   natives, relations being as cordial as they had been with the Bawan people
   in 1942. Each day I took the medical kit with me to the village and gave
   injections, dressed wounds and ulcers, and dosed colds and malaria. Once
   we had to cut the tips off two toes of a boy who had kicked a stone and
   developed such a bad infection that the toes were just rotting away. The
   job was done neatly and successfully with a pair of sterilized wire
   clippers and a local anaesthetic, and the patient was walking round again
   the following week.

   While I did medical work Les talked to the people, losing no chance for
   pushing our cause, and noting every scrap of information they brought.
   Pato unearthed one story which, whether true or not, amused us. He was
   told that when the Japanese heard of my visit to the Chinese camp they
   were so enraged that they put a price on my head - two cases of meat and
   £5 (in Australian money) to any native who brought me in, dead or alive.

   Les laughed. "Two cases of meat and a fiver! I didn't realize anyone
   valued you as highly as all that!"

   One constant visitor to the camp was the village idiot, a powerful man
   clad only in a strip of bark. Unlike most natives - whose skins are
   usually very clean - he had a heavy beard, and a moderate growth of curly
   hair all over his body. He was extremely dirty, and one could smell him
   from a distance. Our introduction to this man was startling. We were
   bending over the wireless one night, deciphering a message, when there was
   a loud thump behind us, and there he was. He had leapt from the doorway
   right to the centre of the floor. In his hand we could see an enormous
   savage-looking bush-knife glittering in the lamplight. Les and I looked at
   each other nervously, uncertain whether to dive out the side of the house
   or to tackle him and risk having a limb severed by the knife. Our dilemma
   was solved when we saw the agitated countenance of the pidgin speaker from
   the village appear round the doorway.

   "Long-long man, master," he said. "Master sit down, now 'e all right."

   We sat down rather reluctantly. "Long-long" is the pidgin word for "mad",
   and it was well applied to our visitor. With a weird gleam in his eye he
   stuck his knife quivering into a beam of the house and came to inspect us
   more closely. He felt our boots, hands, and faces, rubbing his paws all
   over our clothes and making queer chuckling noises in his throat. Scared
   as I was, I could not help laughing at Les's expression of girlish coyness
   when our grimy friend put a hand down the back of his shirt. Then,
   apparently satisfied that we were human, he moved about the house
   inspecting all our belongings.

   The Kiakum pidgin speaker crept inside and explained to us that all the
   people were frightened of the long-long man, though he was never violent
   unless violence was offered him. We gathered that the poor man enjoyed a
   kind of prestige among the people, though they also feared him. We thought
   they would probably resent it if we did not treat him well, and for that
   reason we allowed him to come and go at will, giving him little presents
   of meat and biscuits from time to time, and even establishing a kind of
   friendship with him. We could not help wishing, however, that he would
   confine his social activities to the daytime. Several times at night we
   woke with a start to hear an extraordinary chattering in the hut, and the
   torch revealed this naked, gibbering madman dancing round the bed,
   bush-knife in hand. When, later on, we finally left Kiakum, he broke down
   and cried like a child.

   Our radio could not pick up ordinary broadcast programmes, but we found
   that at two o'clock in the morning we could receive a news broadcast and
   some music from an American station - I think it was in San Francisco. We
   had not realized how much we missed music, nor how ignorant we had become
   of what was happening in the world outside. We had developed a state of
   mind which suggested that the Markham River was the boundary of creation.
   As soon as we discovered that we could tune in to this programme we
   ordered the sentry to call us at two every morning, and spent half an hour
   or so listening first to music and then to the news bulletin, "just in
   case the war has ended, and they haven't told us", as Les put it.

   On 29th May we made an inventory of our stores. We were running low in
   certain items, especially sugar, biscuits, and salt. The last-named of
   these shortages was the most serious, for it represented our currency and
   was our means of buying vegetables, fowls, pigs and labour.

   I decided to visit the dump we had left in the little huts near Bandong,
   and replenish our supplies. I would also try to go to Boana and find out
   whether the Japs had moved in yet. If they had not, there was a good
   chance of shooting another beast and so being able to issue another couple
   of meals of fresh meat all round. I would take Pato, Watute, and Dinkila
   with me, and a couple of the Kiakum men as guides. As it was unsafe to use
   the main tracks, because of the number of Japanese who seemed to be moving
   about, we would go over a little-known and little-used pad straight across
   the mountains, which came out near Kawalan, in the Wain country.



   We set out on 30th May over what was assuredly one of the worst tracks in
   New Guinea. It was incredibly steep and rough, through moss forest all the
   way. We all, even the Kiakum men, suffered violent headaches which seemed
   to split our skulls in half. Probably they were caused by the very great
   altitude. To cap our miseries, leeches were swarming everywhere. The whole
   surface of the ground seemed to be covered with their tiny waving shapes,
   smelling blood and stretching out for it. We dared not sit down, but we
   halted every twenty minutes or so while I scraped them from under my
   gaiters and the boys picked them from between their toes. Despite our
   exertions in climbing, we shivered all the way. When almost in sight of
   Kawalan, the first Wain village, we met with an obstacle that was almost
   enough to make us turn back. A landslide had carried away a large section
   of the hill-side, where the track had once been, leaving a rock-face
   without a foothold of any description, a sheer drop of fifty feet or more.
   After half an hour's search in the bush the boys found enough vines to
   fashion a rough rope ladder. We tied it to a tree, and hoped for the best
   as we lowered ourselves into space, bumping hard against the rock from
   time to time as the rope swung round, and scraping the skin off our knees
   and elbows. We left it hanging there, hoping that no one would come along
   and move it. If they did, the only way of getting back to Kiakum would be
   to make a two- or three-day journey through Wampangan and Bawan.

   There were only two men in Kawalan village when I arrived, and not a sign
   of the women and children. I questioned the two men about this, but they
   declined to say where the others were, and both affirmed that there were
   no Japanese in Boana. I was not at all happy about this "ghost town" of
   several dozen empty, silent houses. After a while one becomes very
   sensitive to the "atmosphere" of native villages - there is an air about
   them which tells you whether everything is as it should be. In this case I
   had the strongest possible premonition of something being wrong, and so as
   soon as it became dark we crept quietly out of the house we were
   occupying, and spent the night at the edge of the surrounding bush.

   In the morning the tultul of Kawalan appeared mysteriously out of the
   blue, and he too assured us that there were no Japanese at Boana, nor
   would he give us any hint of where the rest of the Kawalan people were.

   I still did not believe what these people had said about Boana, and
   decided to investigate. Telling Watute and Pato to approach it down the
   left side of the Bunzok Valley, I went off with Dinkila down the other
   side. We were to call at Bandong en route to prepare the cargo I wished to
   take back to Kiakum. If one of us were blocked the chances were that the
   others might get through and see what was happening.

   Bandong I found almost as empty as Kawalan. In spite of the assurances of
   the few old natives who were there, the people were not merely away at
   work in their gardens, for every cultivated patch we passed was deserted.
   Something mysterious was happening. But what? In the hope of solving the
   mystery Dinkila and I set off for Sokulen after only a short pause to
   regain our wind.

   We had covered about half the distance when a native lad about twelve
   years old came panting up behind us. He brought a message from Watute,
   saying that he and Pato had discovered that Boana was inhabited by a
   strong force of Japanese, and that almost every native in the Wain had
   gathered there at the summons of the enemy commander, who intended to
   announce the new Japanese government of the area. Watute and Pato were
   still investigating, and they suggested that I should wait for them in
   Kawalan, and not take the risk of proceeding to Sokulen.

   Dinkila and I turned back towards Kawalan, but did not go into the
   village. Instead, we camped in the bush on the side of a small hill near
   by, commanding a good view of the track along which Watute would come.

   Late the following afternoon we saw him limping up the hill, and it was
   Dinkila who first spotted the fact that he seemed to have lost all his
   belongings except his rifle, bayonet, and ammunition. When he reached us,
   mudcaked, scratched, and weary, he had a grim story to tell.

   Pato and he had decided to spend the previous night in a house at
   Wampangan, intending to go to Boana the next day disguised as bush
   kanakas, he told us in a bitter voice. Two natives who had come up from
   Lae with the Japs, heard of their presence and betrayed them to the enemy.
   A party of twenty Nips attempted to trap them in the house, but they heard
   them coming just in time, and managed to escape by tearing up part of the
   light bamboo floor and dropping down beneath the house. In the darkness,
   and with all the shooting and confusion, Watute became separated from
   Pato. He did not know where Pato was now - but feared he might have been
   killed or captured. The Japanese got onto Watute's track and chased him up
   the valley. They had heard about my presence there, and were out for my
   scalp too. He thought they were still a few hours behind him, but whatever
   happened we should get out of the way quickly.

   As there was not a kanaka to be seen anywhere we had to abandon all
   thought of taking extra stores back to Kiakum. Before darkness fell we had
   made a few miles along the road back, and when we could see to walk no
   farther lay down to sleep in the bush at the side of the track. It poured
   with rain all night, soaking us as we huddled together for warmth.

   At dawn next day we moved on. We had no means of knowing whether the Japs
   would continue the pursuit past Kawalan when they found us gone, but after
   we had struggled up our vine-made Jacob's ladder we cut it away behind us
   and felt reasonably safe. It was about three o'clock when the house at
   Kiakum came into view, and we hurried down the hill for the last few
   hundred yards, with only bad news for Les, and a bitter blow to give the
   rest of the boys, who had been very fond of Pato.

   We drafted a radio message to headquarters, to give them our latest
   information on Japanese movements, According to Watute, the patrol now at
   Boana was surveying the overland route the enemy proposed to set up
   between Madang and Lae. They would shortly leave for Kaiapit, in the Upper
   Markham, travelling through Sedau, Sugu, and the Erap, by the same route
   as that taken by the party we had so narrowly missed last month. Their
   destination, Kaiapit Mission, was being watched by an old New Guinea
   resident, a gold-miner called Harry Lumb. He moved about the district in
   much the same way as Jock and I had patrolled the Wain, and knew the area
   and its natives intimately. I had last met him in Wau some weeks earlier,
   when he had just discovered a case of canned beer in somebody's abandoned
   cache. We drank a few tins, and then buried the remainder at the foot of a
   tall dead pine-tree. "There it is now - a nice little drop for our next
   meeting," Harry had said with a grin of satisfaction as we piled earth on
   top of it. Then we parted, he bound for his post at Kaiapit, I on my way
   across the Markham.

   I had thought of Harry as soon as Watute said the Japanese were bound for
   Kaiapit, and now mentioned it to Les.

   "Do you think Port Moresby will warn Harry Lumb?" I asked. "He's quite
   likely to be poking round that Kaiapit country now."

   "Sure to, I should think, when they get our news that the Nips are bound
   that way. Why? Do you think we ought to suggest it?"

   "No. I suppose they would do it as a matter of course, and we have to keep
   our radio messages as short as possible."

   And so the message went without any suggested warning to Lumb. I wished
   later we had put it in.

   While I removed my wet and stinking clothes, Tauhu cooked a meal and Les
   sat down at the radio and tapped out the message. I was so tired that I
   ate more or less mechanically, half asleep. I thought in an idle sort of
   way how pleasant it would be to return to the old humdrum life of the Wain
   of last December. It had seemed so dull then, but what a welcome change it
   would be now.

   We spent most of the night trying to decide what to do. The position, as
   we saw it, was briefly this: The native situation was very bad. The
   kanakas had thrown in their lot with the Japanese, having apparently
   decided to regard them as the new rulers of the island. We could remain
   alive only by hiding in some quiet spot like Kiakum. But that would
   achieve nothing. The alternatives were to attempt to escape back across
   the Markham and admit failure, or to try to cross the Saruwaged Range and
   see what was happening on the north side. We had heard that two men,
   Lincoln Bell and Fairfax-Ross, were somewhere on the Rai coast, and we
   hoped we might be able to find them, and perhaps help them.

   "Anyhow, if you ask me," said Les, "getting back across the Markham just
   now is not only inglorious - it's impossible!"

   "All right. That leaves the Saruwageds. What about it?"

   "Yes - let's have a go at it."

   So it was decided that next day we should try to cross the range, and if
   we failed we would consider trying to get back to Wau. Following our usual
   plan of keeping the native members of the party well in the picture, we
   sent for Kari and asked what he thought of the idea. He said he was quite
   prepared for the crossing, and he was certain all the others would feel
   the same way.

   "All right," I said. "Tell all the men to pack their gear at dawn
   tomorrow."

   We talked of our chances of making the crossing. I remembered how Jock had
   described the mountains, though the track he had used was a different one
   and lay ten miles or so to the east. If anything, the range was a trifle
   higher where we were going to try. All day long the mountains were covered
   with clouds, but at dawn and sunset the summits were frequently clear.
   Often we had risen early at Kiakum to study the bare windswept rock-faces,
   the sheer precipices, and the yawning cavern-like valleys that scarred the
   sides of the range. Here and there, like white threads, streams coursed
   down. We knew our task would not be easy, but the valley of the Sanem
   River seemed to offer the best approach, and the Kiakum people said the
   range could be crossed from there, though none of them would admit to
   having made the crossing. Probably they feared we would ask them to come
   as guides.

   In the morning, to the great grief of our friend the village idiot, the
   Kiakum people lifted our gear to take it to the village of Mogom, the most
   northerly habitation in the Sanem Valley shown on our map. North of that
   was unexplored, and we had no idea whether people lived there, or whether
   it was just a barren waste. Even if it were inhabited, it was likely that
   the people would be so wild and shy that we would be unable to establish
   contact with them, much less induce them to undertake the long and arduous
   carry across the range.

   We left Kiakum with some regret. Our quarters had been comfortable and the
   people friendly, and it had been a place of wild, magnificent beauty. We
   would probably never see it again in our lives, and we felt sad to think
   it as we looked ruefully at the plot of ground we had already turned up to
   make ourselves a garden. The plot seemed a symbol of man's incurable
   optimism, even in the face of every possible reason for being pessimistic.

   We could find no track to Mogom. We struggled round grass-covered
   hill-sides, through patches of bush and old long-abandoned gardens. Once
   we descended into a gully, were unable to climb the other side, and had to
   retrace our steps several miles and try a new approach. At four o'clock we
   reached the spot where the Kiakum boys said they had found Mogom three
   years before. None of them had been into this part of the country since
   then. Now there was only one house. It showed every sign of being in use,
   but its owner had apparently fled at our approach. We checked the place on
   the map and found that we were certainly standing on the spot where some
   years earlier a patrol officer had put a dot for Mogom village. The
   kanakas had moved, that was all: in this wild tangle of country it would
   be useless to search for them, who knew every inch of it and could elude
   us without effort.

   We studied the country farther north for signs of habitation, and for a
   long while we could see none. Blue mountains, fold upon fold of them, cold
   and distant, were all that met our gaze. Then we found a clear patch of
   country with just the faintest wisp of smoke going straight up to the sky,
   and, almost simultaneously, we picked out two large gardens. We knew then
   that there were people living higher up the valley, and our hopes of
   reaching the north side rose.

   With some difficulty we persuaded our Kiakum people to stay the night with
   us, so that they might carry our gear as far as those gardens. Even the
   prospect of substantial rewards did not arouse their enthusiasm, so we
   warned Kari to keep a careful, though unobtrusive, guard upon them in case
   they attempted to leave us silently as we slept.

   Although we walked all the next day we advanced only another four or five
   miles. The country, already rugged and difficult, became increasingly so
   as we moved up, but once the higher part of one of these valleys was
   entered, there was no alternative but to follow it to its head. To cross
   the ridges which composed the sides was not feasible.

   Notwithstanding the steepness of the ridges there were many gardens,
   showing how fertile the soil was and how extensive and uniformly good the
   native agriculture. The neatly fenced plots of corn, sugar-cane, and sweet
   potatoes, terrace-like round the valley sides, were a remarkable sight.
   The natives, it seemed, understood the problem of soil erosion in this
   country of steep slopes and heavy rainfall, for all large trees that had
   been felled were carefully laid across the line of drainage, to reduce the
   amount of soil carried off by surface water.

   About midday we were astonished to hear someone calling out to us in
   pidgin from the valley below. To our joy and amazement we were overtaken
   about ten minutes later by Pato, whom we had imagined dead or captured at
   Wampangan. With a grin all over his lined old face he told us that after
   he lost contact with Watute he had tried to creep away, but had been
   detected and chased, with shots whistling all round him. It had taken him
   a long while to shake off his pursuers, but he had finally made hill. way
   to his home village of Gumbum, arriving there pretty well exhausted. He
   had had to rest there for a couple of days.

   Pato's return had a wonderful effect on the morale of the party. Dinkila
   the irrepressible jumped wildly up and down on the track, giving piercing
   whoops like a Red Indian. Pato would be invaluable in negotiations with
   the natives we hoped to find, for they would speak the Naba dialect, we
   supposed, and he would be able to interpret for us.

   In the late afternoon we came upon Amyen village - so far unmarked on any
   map - at the end of a track we had been hopefully following for the last
   couple of hours. It was built in much the same way as the more "civilized"
   villages - with the houses grouped about a small clearing. This was better
   luck than we had dared to hope for: people who lived in a compact group
   like this would be easier to find and deal with than those who lived miles
   apart in scattered homesteads.

   About a dozen men were waiting in the village to receive us. There was no
   doubt that they had observed our approach afar off, for all the women and
   children had been sent away and the houses had been cleared of all goods
   and chattels. Since the place had never been visited before by government
   officers, there had naturally been no village officials appointed, but it
   was not hard to distinguish the leading man. He was old, and of fine,
   upstanding carriage, and he advanced to meet us with dignity and grace.
   His was the type of personality that commands respect from anyone, black
   or white.

   He said something that was unintelligible to us. "He wants to know why we
   are here," Pato said.

   "Tell him we wish to stay in his village for a while, but that we will not
   harm his people or touch his pigs or gardens," I said.

   The old man inclined his head gravely to me, and then turned to Les, who
   had walked forward with a large handful of salt. He took it, tasted it,
   smiled his approval, and then, not to be outdone in generosity, called to
   his companions, who hurried forward with great bundles of sugarcane cut in
   two-foot lengths. It was thick, and dripping with juice, and we tore the
   skin off it with our teeth and sucked the sweet sap to quench our thirst.

   Formalities were over. Police and natives joined in the eating of cane,
   exchanged tobacco, and, though not understanding a word of each other's
   remarks, chattered amiably. The old headman took Les and me by the hand
   and showed us a house for ourselves. When we pointed to the police and
   other boys, he indicated a large house for them near by.

   The buildings had been made with great care and cunning. This village we
   estimated to be nearly eight thousand feet above sea-level, and a freezing
   wind blew down at night from the Saruwaged mountains. To cope with this
   the natives had built their houses some four feet off the ground and
   roofed them with pit-pit grass from eight inches to a foot thick. The
   walls were made with strongly laced strips of bark, in which was a small
   doorway. Then, round the whole house, another bark wall with a small
   doorway in it was built, stretching from the edge of the roof to the
   ground. The two openings were carefully placed so that they were not
   opposite one another, and one had to crawl on one's stomach to get in. Not
   only the cold wind but almost all air of any sort was excluded, and the
   huts were quite dark inside. What the atmosphere was like in there after a
   fire had been burning is better left to the imagination.

   The women and children started to drift back into the village in twos and
   threes, and we were pleased to see them, for it showed they trusted us.
   Despite the cold, they looked healthy - fat and well fed, and with clean,
   glossy skins. Very few sores were to be seen, and I did not notice a
   single case of yaws. These natives had a physical peculiarity we had
   noticed before among people in the highest mountains - namely, extreme
   muscular development of the buttocks and thighs, which gave them a
   slightly deformed appearance. There was not a single piece of cloth to be
   seen, but the men wore a strip of beaten bark cloth round their waists and
   enclosing the genitals, while the women wore a very short petticoat of
   rushes. Both sexes had capes of beaten bark. I tried one on, and found it
   as soft as a blanket, and very warm. The only disadvantage I could see
   about it was the vermin that infested it.

   The old man was very reluctant to help us in our trip across the range. It
   was the wrong season, he protested, and if a big storm came up while we
   were on top we would all assuredly perish. However, after more than an
   hour's session with him, Pato translating, we persuaded him to let us have
   a try, and lined up his men to pick out the fittest for use as carriers.
   We selected fifteen fully developed men who seemed to be in perfect
   condition. Anyone with signs of a physical defect we rejected, lest he
   should prove a liability on the mountain.

   Since we would have only fifteen carriers, it was clear that we would have
   to abandon a large part of our gear, so we rewarded our Kiakum carriers
   with tinned meat, cloth, knives, and other things useful to them, with
   such liberality that they were staggered. They were really sorry to see
   the last of us when we sent them off home.

   All the next day was spent preparing for the journey.

   The natives cooked large quantities of sweet potatoes for themselves, and
   parcelled them up in leaves, explaining that it was often impossible to
   light fires up above, so they always took the precaution of cooking their
   meals in advance. I felt sorry for them having to depend on food like
   sweet potatoes for a journey such as the one that lay before us, for the
   water content was so high that one had to eat a prodigious quantity to get
   an adequate meal, and after an hour or two on the track one felt empty.
   One might be distended at twelve o'clock, and starving again at one.

   We took stock of our own rations and found that the only things we had
   plenty of were tinned meat and powdered milk. There were practically no
   biscuits, jam, or flour left, and the tea and sugar were almost exhausted
   too. Dinkila made a couple of dozen pancake-like objects out of the
   remaining flour and some powdered milk, and these, with the tinned meat,
   were to be our rations for the crossing, with a few tins of Marmite from
   the medical kit.

   We sent a radio message to Moresby saying that we were going to make our
   big effort in the morning, and then packed the wireless very carefully
   into its box. If anything happened to it we were finished. We knew, of
   course, that it would get a certain amount of rough treatment on the
   mountains.

   At about four o'clock, the clearest hour of the day, Les and I walked up
   to a gentle rise behind the village, to search the Saruwageds for any
   secret we could wring from them. Remote, cold, incredibly high and
   distant-seeming, they frightened us. Their icy stillness possessed a
   secret no human heart could share. No wonder the natives held
   superstitious beliefs about these mountains. It would have been better if
   they had remained always mist-shrouded - never showed themselves morning
   and evening in this fashion, naked in all their inaccessibility. We
   realized with fearful hearts that our lives, and the lives of our natives,
   depended on whether we could master the range.

   As we stared into the distance the faintest vapour of cloud appeared in
   front of the highest peak, became thicker, and was joined by others.
   Before we realized it the whole range was covered in a swirling mist,
   thickening every second into black clouds. We turned to walk back to the
   village, and saw the lightning flash, while thunder rolled and echoed down
   the valley. Outside the house the police were watching the storm too,
   their black faces expressionless. But I could not bring myself to ask what
   they were thinking.

                                  Chapter VIII

   WE left Amyen early next morning. The first couple of hours led through
   gardens, some planted with sweet potatoes and sugar-cane, others
   abandoned. The system of shifting agriculture employed by these people
   necessitated clearing a new patch of ground every few years and letting
   the old gardens revert to forest to recover their fertility. We also
   passed many tiny lakes, like fishponds in a landscape garden. They had
   been formed when water collected in depressions dissolved in the
   limestone.

   Then began our approach to the range itself. We were off the foothills and
   advancing upon the Saruwageds, using as our route a long steep
   razor-backed ridge which climbed ever up and up. In less than an hour we
   had left the open country behind and entered the moss forest. It was like
   going out of the sunlight into a dark cavern. The trees were encased in
   green spongy moss that oozed moisture. The moss festooned the branches and
   encrusted the trunks - in some places it was up to eight or ten inches
   thick. There was no soil at all in the accepted sense of the word - just a
   spongy moss-covered mass of rotting vegetable material into which we often
   sank to the thighs. Even at its firmest the ground felt like spongerubber
   under our feet. How deep this mass went we could not tell, but we pushed a
   sharpened eight-foot pole full length into the ground without encountering
   any resistance. The silence was unearthly. There were no birds or insects
   - the only living things we saw were possums and little kangaroo-rats. The
   footfalls of the party made no sound; and even a shout sounded flat and
   dull. A curious effect of this atmosphere on both the natives and
   ourselves was a tendency to speak only in whispers.

   In places the ridge, maintaining its north-north-easterly course, became
   so narrow that we were forced to straddle it and work ourselves forward on
   our hands. How the carriers managed remains something of a mystery to me
   to this day. In some parts we took half an hour to move forward a hundred
   yards. And it seemed that worse was to follow - for each Amyen man had a
   length of vine rope over his shoulder, for use "when the road became
   hard".

   As we advanced, the timber, still moss-festooned, became more stunted and
   twisted. All the time we were crawling either over or under it, or
   squeezing between branches. This was exhausting enough for Les and me, who
   were carrying only our packs and Owen guns, but it must have been almost
   unendurable for the carriers, with their awkward loads slung on poles
   between them. We saw with apprehension that the wireless, in spite of the
   greatest care, was knocking against tree-trunks and branches.

   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, stiffing 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 l 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 coast-line 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."

   Watute, limping from his pierced foot, his old face screwed up with pain,
   moved towards us.

   "Master, look!" he said grimly, pointing beneath a large overhanging
   limestone boulder.

   We followed the direction he indicated. Huddled together were the bones of
   several people.

   "What happened? Who are they?" I demanded. "Pato 'e talk kanaka - all 'e
   buggerup long cold (Pato says they were kanakas - they all perished from
   the cold)," Watute replied briefly.

   It was a salutary, if grisly, warning. It was no use worrying about what
   might happen after we got down off the range. The thing to do first was to
   get down. With an apprehensive backward look at the pathetic pile beneath
   the rock, we hurried on.

   About half past four we began the descent of the north side. At first it
   consisted of a perfectly vertical cliff, down which we had to lower
   ourselves on the inevitable vine. This continued for the first
   three-quarters of an hour or so, and thereafter it was still almost
   vertical until we left the grass behind and came to the forest level.
   About six o'clock darkness and heavy rain descended on us almost
   simultaneously. The old Amyen man who was leading the carriers kept saying
   "Meka! Meka!" and pointing ahead. "Meka" meant "house", but when this had
   been going on for over an hour of darkness and no house had materialized,
   we lost patience. We felt sick from the combined effects of cold, hunger,
   altitude, and weariness, and had decided to roll up in our ground-sheets
   and sleep where we were in the bush when Watute hurried up to us.

   "Master, place close to! Master, smell!"

   We sniffed, sniffed again. Very faintly, in spite of the rain, and the
   sweaty reek of ourselves and the boys, there came the tang of wood-smoke,
   a smell which hungry men can detect miles away. Though our shoulders
   seemed likely to crack with the effort, we lifted our packs up once more
   and staggered down the track in the wake of the carriers, to whom the
   thought of houses, warmth, and food had given a new lease of life.

   After twenty minutes' hurrying through the rain and darkness we heard
   excited cries from the boys ahead and caught sight of flickering lights
   through the bush. In a few moments we had pushed our way, stumbling and
   breathless, through a clump of thick cane-grass and were in the middle of
   what appeared to be a fairly large village.

   An old man wearing the red-banded cap of a luluai stepped forward into a
   circle of torchlight and saluted. We had no idea that patrols from the
   north side had penetrated so far in peacetime, but there was our luluai,
   as large as life, giving orders for houses to be cleaned out to
   accommodate us. We threw ourselves exhausted on the ground beneath one of
   them, too worn out to speak or move for nearly half an hour. Then we
   hauled ourselves inside the tiny dwelling, where two of the police, who
   had recovered sooner than we had, were already engaged in putting up our
   bed-sails.

   Our first action was to take off our boots, which were sodden, heavy,
   agony to wear, and nearly ruined. Then we went over to the other house to
   see how the boys fared, whether they all had a dry place to sleep, and if
   food had been brought to them. While we crouched round the little fire in
   the centre of the floor, talking about the day's walk, some of the village
   people brought in two huge blackened cooking-pots full of steaming boiled
   sweet potatoes, English potatoes, pumpkin, and other vegetables. The boys
   squatted round the pots and thrust their hands into the boiling mass. The
   smell of food was too much for us: we joined the circle and dived in with
   the others, two white hands among a dozen or more black ones, and gorged
   till we felt we would burst. Then we staggered off to bed. We slept right
   round the clock, not waking till ten next morning.

   All day it poured with rain, and the cold seemed to creep in on us through
   every chink of the house. The ground, the houses, the men - everything
   looked grey, sodden, and dispirited. We crouched by the little fire that
   was burning on a pile of earth in the middle of the floor, but our aching
   limbs gave us no rest. When we got up to stretch our legs we found them
   almost too weak to support us.

   " `Damp rusts men as it rusts rifles; more slowly, but deeper' " quoted
   Les. "I can't remember who said that - can you?"

   "No. But he must have been a soldier."

   "Too right he must have been!" Les said fervently as he drew his knees up
   to his chin and then creakingly straightened his legs again.

   The village we had come to was called Gombawato, and it was at the head of
   the Yalumet River. It had taken us a walk of nearly fourteen hours to
   reach it, and we had crossed the range at an altitude of somewhere between
   twelve and thirteen thousand feet. We put this information in a brief
   radio message to Port Moresby, and settled down to rest again.



   We hardly moved from the house all day, for neither of us could stand
   steadily, but I was able to dress the bruises, scratches, and cuts of the
   rest of the party during the morning. Hardly anyone seemed to have escaped
   without an injury of some kind, and Watute's foot was now very painful.

   About midday I walked over to the house-police. Through the smoke I could
   see the younger ones lying on their blankets on the floor, talking of
   their adventures of the day before in the awe-inspiring mountains we had
   left behind. Dinkila was telling a story of an argument he had had with an
   Amyen man. The point of it escaped me, but it set the others laughing.

   Watute and Pato sat together, blankets draped over their heads and
   shoulders, and looking like a couple of amiable old chimpanzees as they
   conversed gravely in low tones about our best course of action for the
   future.

   Kari sat by himself near the door, sewing up a rip in his loincloth,
   looking seriously out into the rain from time to time. I tried, somewhat
   clumsily, to tell him how grateful I was for his magnificent work the day
   before.

   He flashed me one of his rare, quick smiles. "Something-nothing, master.
   Me police-boy - work belong me." I realized that Kari, in his way, was a
   truly great person. The dangers, the difficulties, and the petty
   annoyances of our precarious existence never troubled him: he thought only
   of his duty and the responsibility which command had put on his broad
   black shoulders. I had come to understand why the other boys never
   resented the stern discipline he imposed on them. It was not merely his
   enormous physical power that maintained his authority: it was an authority
   which sprang from a realization by the others that in Kari they had a man
   who, merely by being what he was, deserved respect.

   No one in Gombawato spoke pidgin, so our only way of talking to the people
   that day was to get Pato to put our questions into the Naba dialect, and
   have the Amyen carriers put them into the language of Gombawato. The
   answers, of course, came back through the same channels. However, the
   problem was solved by the arrival during the evening of a young man from
   another village some hours' walk farther down the valley. He spoke pidgin
   English and had been summoned by the Gombawato people as an interpreter.

   Our Amyen carriers also spent the day in the village, resting instead of
   hurrying back, as we had expected them to. During the afternoon we paid
   them, in salt, razor-blades, and lengths of cloth, for their two days'
   hard work, and told them that they should have, of course, all the stuff
   we had been forced to abandon on the range. All in all, they had no cause
   to complain of their bargain, but I wondered what they really thought of
   these two curious white men who insisted on crossing the Saruwageds in the
   wrong season and who had only the vaguest idea of where they were heading.
   I suppose that is a question which will never be answered.

   I remember these Amyen carriers with affection. They were manly,
   dignified, and utterly unaffected. They treated us from the first as
   equals, unaware of the white man's traditional arrogance with native
   peoples. The greatest boon I could wish for them is that they be left
   alone for ever in their wild, fantastically beautiful mountains.

   Towards evening we set up the radio to see if there was any reply to our
   message of that morning. There was, and we decoded it breathlessly, for it
   would tell us what our future was to be. To our disappointment it
   instructed us to withdraw altogether from the Huon Peninsula, since
   headquarters considered the risks of remaining there not commensurate with
   the value of any information we might be able to secure. It seemed that
   things had become just as grim for parties like ours on the north side of
   the range as we had found them in the Wain, for of the two men we had
   hoped to meet they could tell us only that one had disappeared and the
   other was at that very moment withdrawing. The message ended by telling us
   to use our discretion about the route we chose to escape by, and
   suggesting that we should either try to get back across the Markham where
   we had crossed it, or make our way to Bena Bena in the Central Highlands.
   There was a landing-strip there, and an aircraft would be sent to fly us
   out.

   To go to Bena Bena we would have had to pass through the country of the
   Markham headwaters - country neither of us knew - so we resolved to try to
   cross the Middle Markham and return to Wampit, whence we had set out. If
   we failed in this, we would try to walk up the Watut Valley to Harry
   Lumb's camp, and thence to Wau.

   The following morning there was another wireless message, which disturbed
   us a good deal. It read: REPEAT INSTRUCTIONS TO WITHDRAW OF MY PREVIOUS
   MESSAGE STOP HARRY LUMB KILLED BY ENEMY NEAR KAIAPIT STOP MOVE QUICKLY
   STOP GOOD LUCK.

   As we decoded it, letter by letter, our hearts sank. We looked at each
   other grimly.

   "Well," Les said at last, "they don't put `good luck' in radio messages
   unless they think you're pretty much in need of it!"

   We sent for Watute and Kari and told them the bad news. They clicked their
   tongues with vexation, and looked glum.

   "If Master Lumb was killed in the Upper Markham we had better keep clear
   of that country," Watute said. "For Master Lumb knew that country better
   than anyone else."

   Kari started to speak, and then hesitated.

   "Go on. What were you going to say?" I prompted him. "I know," Watute said
   abruptly. "He was wondering if it was the same party of Japanese who
   surprised Pato and me at Wampangan. They said they were going to Kaiapit."

   Les and I looked at each other. "It could have been," Les said.

   "I wish we had put a warning to him in our message."

   "Well, we have no way of knowing that he wasn't warned, if it comes to
   that. You know what Harry was like. He never seemed to be afraid of
   anything. He was quite capable of staying over there regardless of
   warnings." I thought of the last time I had seen Harry, when we parted
   cheerfully on leaving Wau a month or so earlier. It was a pathetic memory
   now. We would never keep our assignment to drink the remainder of the case
   of beer. We made it clear to Kari and Watute that our work was now ended,
   and that our orders were to save ourselves if we could. They, as the
   senior men, would have to see that there was no deterioration in the
   morale or discipline of the others. They replied gravely that they
   understood their responsibilities, then saluted and withdrew.

   Despite the injunction to move quickly, we made no attempt to travel that
   day. We still could not stand steadily, and would only have collapsed on
   the track.

   The following day we made our first move, to Imom village. It was only
   five hours' walk away, but the country was rough and we seemed permanently
   short of breath. Walking downhill was more difficult than climbing, our
   knees frequently giving way and bringing us to the ground. Watute was
   still suffering a good deal from his injured foot, which had been made
   worse by the roughness of the track.

   We found that Imom was under strong mission influence -which is tantamount
   to saying that we found a non-co-operative attitude among the people, if
   not open hostility. When the war with Germany broke out, a number of
   German Lutheran missionaries had been interned; apparently the idea had
   been conveyed to their congregations that this was a blow at the missions
   as such, rather than a legitimate rounding up of enemy aliens. Then, at
   the outbreak of war with Japan, when all missionaries were evacuated, the
   native mission teachers - or "black missions", as they were called - fled
   from their stations to their home villages. During this period the native
   situation from our point of view was satisfactory, and the black people
   were friendly and helpful. After a time the black missions began returning
   to their work, and the attitude of the natives changed. When we found them
   aloof and disagreeable, it was a pound to a penny that a black mission
   teacher was resident in the village. The contrast, for instance, between
   the helpful courtesy of remote, heathen Gombawato and the churlish
   behaviour of Christian Imom is only one illustration which could be
   multiplied many times.

   Mission interests in Australia have vehemently denied that the German
   Lutheran mission played an unhelpful role in New Guinea. The evidence, I
   feel, does not support them. After all, the Germans, with their mission,
   were established long before Australia took charge of the Territory.
   Again, as rivals with the civil authorities for ascendancy over the
   natives, they had no particular reason for supporting an alien government
   which, at best, merely tolerated them. Something of this attitude
   communicated itself to the natives, and some of them talked openly, though
   not very intelligently, about a return to German rule.

   At Imom we made a tolerable meal from locally bought food, but Dinkila
   brought our tea to us with a long face. "Master, no got some-fella tea
   more. Sugar 'e got lik-lik."

   "It had to come," Les said philosophically. "But, all the same, I'm not
   looking forward to the next few weeks - or months, as the case may be -
   without any tea."

   "It's not only tea we'll be without," I replied. "All we have is a few
   tins of bully beef and a huge tin of powdered milk. That's going to get
   pretty monotonous."

   "Never mind. The trade goods are holding out, so we'll be able to buy
   plenty of native food."

   "That's where the razor-blades are going to be handy. We've got enough
   trade goods in them alone to survive a six months' siege."

   When we had eaten, we spread our maps before us for what seemed to be the
   thousandth time since we had set out from the Markham. Our object was to
   find a place where the mountains could be recrossed, and so get back to
   the Markham. We had a vague notion that there was a dip in the country
   between the end of the Saruwageds and the beginning of the equally
   formidable Finisterres. We intended to move westward looking for this, and
   traced out a tentative course from village to village, as they were shown
   on the map.

   "One thing I'm bloody sure of," Les said as he folded the maps and pushed
   them back into his haversack. "Even if we go kanaka and spend the rest of
   the war with a bit of bark round our middles, eating sweet potatoes in
   Gombawato, we aren't going over the top again at thirteen thousand feet."

   The next night we spent in Kosuan, a pleasantly situated village. Three
   tame hornbills fluttered round the houses, swooping to catch any morsel of
   food that might be thrown to them. The people sold us enough to eat, but
   were not disposed to enter into closer relations.

   In the morning we lined the few remaining loads of cargo in front of the
   house, and I called for men to come forward and carry it. As I spoke,
   silence fell, and one by one the men started to drift away into the bush
   that fringed the village.

   "Quick!" I called to Les. "Grab some of them, or we'll be stuck in this
   joint for the rest of our lives!"

   Les sprang down from the house, pistol in hand, and we were about to rush
   after the vanishing natives. We need not have bothered. Suddenly, from
   behind trees and bushes, the police appeared, together with old Pato,
   rifles held ready. They closed in on the village in a circle, forcing the
   kanakas into a group in the centre. The villagers saw the trick had
   failed, and made no further attempt to escape, though they carried with
   surly faces and unconcealed ill-temper.

   There was now no doubting the un-co-operative attitude of the natives of
   this part of the country, and as we walked along the track to Hamdingan,
   our destination for the night, Les and I discussed how best to handle
   them. We felt that at any moment the people might refuse to carry for us,
   and go bush at our approach. We decided to make a surprise entry into
   Hamdingan. Leaving the carriers under the guard of a couple of the police
   outside the village, the rest of us swooped down on the houses and had the
   populace locked inside their large new church before they realized what
   had happened. We selected enough young men for carriers and kept them
   under guard all night. Once the women saw that we had their men in custody
   they brought us plenty of food, for which we paid in razor-blades.

   The road over which we had walked from Kosuan to Hamdingan was, for New
   Guinea, a great highway. It was at least twelve feet wide most of the way,
   and in some places up to twenty feet. Drains and culverts were neatly dug,
   and bridges had been built across all the streams. It was but another
   example of the way in which the "black missions" had exercised their
   new-found supremacy. As natives told us afterwards, they had made the
   people of each village devote a certain amount of time each week to work
   on churches, schoolhouses, and roads. The work on churches and other
   mission buildings was harmless enough, but the road construction was in
   direct defiance of the orders of the government and of the few white men
   who had been through the area. It also showed that the pamphlets in pidgin
   English dropped from our aircraft, instructing the natives to allow any
   tracks to revert to bush, had been ignored. The purpose of these
   instructions was of course to make it as hard as possible for the enemy to
   find his way into the back country. It was plain that if he had chosen to
   come this way he could have marched twelve abreast with the greatest of
   ease.

   In Hamdingan there was one man who spoke pidgin, but unfortunately he
   seemed half stupid, and it was with great difficulty that we secured any
   information at all from him. He gave us a very garbled account of another
   white man having left the Huon Peninsula by the same route, and from his
   vivid description of the red hair of this man we recognized "Blue"
   Pursehouse, who had been doing work similar to ours behind Finschhafen.
   The fact that he had pulled out indicated that things had got tough in his
   area too, and we tried to find out how long ago he had left, and whether
   we had any hope of overtaking him. Our half-witted informant was no help.
   One minute he would raise our hopes by saying the man had gone two days
   ago, and then infuriate us by saying two years ago.

   We were able to pick up a certain amount of useful information, however.
   He told us Hamdingan was only about a day's walk to the coast, and that
   news of Japanese activities often came up to them. Sometimes, he said, the
   Japs walked round the beach, and sometimes parties in charge of barges
   pulled in to hide from our planes during the daytime, to resume their
   journey to or from Lae at night. This news was disturbing, for we had not
   realized how close to the sea we had come. At nightfall, however, when all
   was quiet in the village, we heard the surf breaking on the beach, and we
   posted double sentries on the track in case the Japanese should hear of us
   and hurry inland to cut us off.

   We told our pidgin-speaking native that next day we intended to go to
   Boksawin village, the place which seemed to lie nearest to the route we
   had in mind. He replied that it was at least two days' walk and that we
   would have to spend a night in some bark shelters on the way.

   We had become so irritated by his silly and self-contradictory statements
   in other things that we told him flatly we did not believe him, and that
   we intended to walk without resting until we came to Boksawin, however far
   away it might be. Then Kari locked him in the church to keep him safely
   out of the way till morning.

   Next day, at 4 a.m., we started our walk to Boksawin. There was no moon,
   and daylight was about two hours off, but the first part of the track was
   well defined and even. Shortly after sunrise the limit of the good road
   was reached, and we began to climb a steep mountain. Half an hour later
   our pidgin-speaking native paused beside a small stream, which, he said,
   was the last water we would see for another day. It seemed that he spoke
   the truth, for the carriers - about half a dozen of them - filled small
   bamboo receptacles with water and, having stoppered the tops with wads of
   green leaves, tied them to their loads. Les and I had no water-bottles
   with us - they were among the gear we had abandoned in crossing the range.
   In New Guinea mountain country one usually crosses a stream of some sort
   every mile or so, and we had not expected to need them. We took a good
   long swig, and then resumed the climb, hoping to make the distance to the
   next drink.

   Before long the track, climbing steeply, became more difficult. Hundreds
   of huge trees had been felled across it and were lying in all directions.
   We progressed by walking along the trunks and springing from the end of
   one onto another, but they were very wet and slippery, and we often fell
   off. It was only through good luck that none of us was badly hurt.

   Our boots had worn to paper thinness, and the nails, sticking through,
   were gouging holes in our feet. As the boots were more hindrance than help
   I threw mine away and walked mostly in bare feet, putting on an old pair
   of sand-shoes occasionally, when the track was specially rough. In spite
   of my assurance that one soon became used to bare feet Les stuck to his
   boots until they dropped apart.

   At midday we were still climbing steadily, and before entering a dense
   moss forest caught a glimpse of the sea across to Rooke Island, off the
   coast. We thought we could also distinguish the outline of New Britain on
   the horizon, but were not certain. Shortly afterwards we found the hunting
   shelters, where our guide urged us to spend the night. However, the
   cryptic "Move quickly!" of the radio message rang in our ears, and we
   decided to push on.

   The track became very bad as it led us along the crest of a narrow, level
   ridge which seemed to stretch on into eternity. It was clothed in dense
   forest, which prevented us seeing more than a few yards ahead or catching
   any glimpse of the surrounding country. The carriers were making very
   heavy weather of it, so we sent Kari and Constable Witolo, both strong
   walkers, to move ahead as scouts.

   About half past four Les had a sudden violent spasm of vomiting, which
   left him so weak that it seemed he would have to be carried. However, with
   a great effort he managed to continue, from time to time holding on to me
   or one of the police. By nightfall he had recovered completely.

   Shortly before dark we found a small stagnant pool of green, slimy water.
   The smell was revolting, but we plunged our hands and wrists into it and
   swilled it about our mouths and throats. Foul as it was it revived us and
   gave us heart to continue.

   We plodded painfully on, wet through from a short, sharp downpour that had
   come about seven o'clock. It began to seem as though we would spend the
   rest of our lives struggling along this ridge as it stretched on and on
   endlessly into the blackness. We were worried about our hearts, which were
   pounding in a most alarming fashion - even worse than they had behaved
   crossing the Saruwaged Range.

   Then, at ten o'clock, the track took a slight downward turn, and by half
   past ten the moon had risen and we came out of the forest into more open
   country with alternate patches of jungle and grassland. The condition of
   the track also improved, and it was now a well-graded zig-zag carved out
   of the steep mountain-side.

   Just before midnight, with the moon shining brightly, we came out upon the
   flat, open country near the Uruwa River. We were all barefooted now, and
   on the stony ground our footfalls made no sound. It was as if we were
   already dead, shades without weight or substance drifting through space.
   We had not the energy to look about, but plodded drearily, half
   consciously, forward. Suddenly two ghostly figures rose from a patch of
   shadow, saluted, and one said in a clear voice, "Master, place belong
   me-fella close to now!"

   Les and I were too tired to be startled by their sudden appearance. When
   one of the two men told us he was the tultul of Worin, and that Worin was
   the village we were approaching, we were too weary even to protest that we
   had been heading for Boksawin. Kari and Witolo had arrived a couple of
   hours earlier, the tultul told us, and were waiting in the village. We
   seemed hardly to have heard his encouraging news, and staggered silently,
   drunkenly, along the track behind him.

   Worin looked unearthly in the moonlight. The mists from the valleys which
   surrounded it had blotted out from sight all the rest of the country, and
   the village seemed built on an island floating in space. Bananas grew
   among the houses, and the leaves of the plants, like tattered
   elephant's-ears, threw weird shadows on the ground. As we entered the
   village we eased our Owen guns forward and called to Kari and Witolo.
   There was no answer. We slipped off the safety catches and looked about
   uneasily.

   "I left them here," the tultul said anxiously, running to a dwelling and
   peering inside. "Master, come lookim!" he said after a moment.

   We went forward and Les flashed his torch inside the dark hut. Kari and
   Witolo, exhausted by their dash through the forest, lay asleep on the
   floor. Witolo had slumped forward, his forearm and head leaning in a mess
   of boiled bananas. Kari, sleeping no less soundly, lay near the door,
   rifle beneath his hand. We did not attempt to waken them, but moved across
   to another house. They had ordered the tultul to cook bananas and sweet
   potatoes for the boys, and two fowls for us. This had been done, and Les
   and I raised the dirty blackened clay cooking pots to our lips and drank
   the soup first. Then we seized a fowl each and, ripping them apart in our
   hands, wolfed every scrap. We had not had a meal for thirty hours, and had
   been walking for about twenty hours without a pause. In the morning we
   woke to find ourselves lying amid the picked bones of our supper, pistols
   and sheath-knives still on belts round our waists, Owen guns still slung
   round our shoulders.

   We watched the boys as they lay in front of the houses warming their
   aching limbs in the morning sun. Our bodies had been chilled for days and
   now seemed to soak up the cheering rays as blotting-paper absorbs water.
   We did not feel well ourselves, but the condition of our natives caused us
   more concern. They seemed utterly exhausted both in body and spirit, and
   by some queer illusion seemed to have shrunk in their misery. Later, Les
   and I observed the same change in each other. When Les shaved off the
   beard that had grown in the last three or four days I was shocked to see
   how thin and bony his face was. I realized later, of course, that I looked
   just as bad. Fever had been troubling us a lot, and we were very tired
   from the combination of great physical strain and the worry of the
   expedition. The safety of the native members of the party disturbed us,
   for they had all volunteered to come, had served us faithfully, and had
   stuck to us when they might easily have run away. Now we felt that we had
   to do something to get them out of the mess into which they had trustingly
   accompanied us.

   We decided it was no use trying to move farther, when nobody could do
   better than drag himself painfully round the village. The best thing was
   to stay a while and recruit both our strength and our morale. There was
   plenty of food about, so we bought a very large pig and decided to have a
   barbecue that night. This helped a lot, and there was a perceptible lift
   in spirits as soon as the pig's expiring squeals were heard.

   The tultul of Worin - whose name, to my sorrow, I have forgotten - was a
   most remarkable man, and we spent the day sitting under one of the houses
   talking to him. He had for some years been a cook for Leigh Vial, the
   first patrol officer to penetrate this area, and upon his return home he
   had been made tultul. He was a person of great strength of character. He
   told us that mission teachers had been pestering him to get rid of the
   village book and his official hat, but he had steadfastly refused to do
   so. Indeed, his was the only village on the north side of the Saruwageds
   where the book and hat could be produced at our request. In spite of all
   discouragements he had endeavoured to acquaint his people with the ways of
   the government, and had taught several of his relatives to speak pidgin,
   though none of them had ever left the village. He would have liked to come
   with us to meet Leigh Vial again, whom he obviously admired almost to the
   point of hero-worship, but the tultul was now a married man with a family,
   and could not leave. However, he asked if we would take his younger
   brother with us, for the boy was very anxious to see something of the
   world beyond his own valley. Les and I discussed this but decided against
   taking the young fellow, for there was a good chance that before we
   reached Wampit again we should come in contact with enemy patrols, and we
   did not think it fair to take him into danger.

   Vial was our "contact man" in Port Moresby, and we could scarcely have had
   anyone more co-operative. Having worked in the bush himself in
   circumstances of fantastic danger, as the famous "Golden Voice" behind Jap
   occupied Salamaua, he knew how much it meant to us to have our signals
   answered promptly, and to feel that there was someone who would give us
   help and support wherever possible. It was he, for instance, who had
   arranged the strafing of Boana Mission. (When finally, some months later,
   I reached the comparative civilization of Port Moresby, I learnt of a
   curiously ironic and tragic coincidence: almost at the very moment when we
   were talking to the tultul of Worin, Vial himself was out on a leaflet
   dropping flight not far away. His plane crashed into a nearby valley and
   everyone aboard was killed. We wondered why we no longer heard from him by
   radio. Quiet, capable, unobtrusive, he was one of the greatest heroes of
   New Guinea.)

   Late in the afternoon, while the pig was being prepared for the fire, we
   tried to send a message to Port Moresby informing them of our position and
   asking for any information that might be available about enemy movements
   in the surrounding country. At first we had some difficulty in passing the
   message and receiving the signals from

   Moresby but the trouble was only a flat battery, which was easily changed.
   Afterwards we heard some of the police discussing this failure to hear the
   "talk", and were very amused at their theories:

   "I suppose it's because we are too deep in the valley for the talk to get
   down to us," one said.

   "That isn't the reason," another replied. "It's because those high trees
   up on the mountain won't let the talk past."

   A third boy staggered them all with his superior knowledge. "If you knew
   anything about wireless, you would have noticed that the wind was blowing
   the wrong way. How can the talk get all this way from Port Moresby if the
   wind is against it?"

   Afterwards, whenever I built a new post, I put the house-police close to
   the house-kiap, for it was lots of fun at night-time to listen to the
   conversation, which was usually dominated by the "old soldiers" telling
   extravagant lies about their deeds in the peacetime police force before
   the war spoilt things.

   Feeling much refreshed by our day's rest, we left Worin about seven
   o'clock next morning, and at about eleven reached the village of Moren.
   There was a fine church here, but all the natives had run away, so after a
   short spell we followed the track down into the deep gorge of the Uruwa
   River, where our tultul said there was a bridge. He confirmed our belief
   that there was a place where the range could be crossed easily into the
   head of the Leron River, which flowed into the Markham, and agreed to come
   with us as our guide as far as Ewok, the first Leron village. He had made
   the same journey some years before with Leigh Vial.

   The bridge over the raging torrent of the Uruwa was nearly broken, and we
   had to wait over an hour while the boys cut vines in the bush to repair
   it. While we sat in the shade waiting, we took note of the unusual rock
   formations exposed by the river. They were all manner of brilliant
   colours, varying from a rich ochre, through red to pale pink. They were
   very soft and chalky, which no doubt accounted for the fantastic shapes
   into which the water had carved them.

   The country we were now in (and through which we were to pass for several
   days) was rather different from any I had seen hitherto. It was
   undulating, and the greater part of the ground was covered by kunai-grass,
   forest being confined to the hill-tops and water-courses with the
   exception of a few patches here and there. For the first time since
   leaving the Markham it was possible to command a fairly extensive view of
   the surrounding country as a whole. Even in the most open parts of the
   Wain and Naba one was restricted to a view of one valley at a time. This
   Uruwa region was rather hot and dusty, but we welcomed the free feeling of
   open spaces, a contrast from the shut-in sensation we had had in the
   jungle.

   We climbed up the steep western bank of the Uruwa, passed through a small
   hamlet set in a banana-grove, which the tultul said was called Sugan, and
   reached the village of Sindamon late in the afternoon.

   This village, we were told, had never been visited before by either
   missionary or patrol officer, and of course it was not shown on our map.
   There was a legend that the people had fired such a number of arrows at
   the only missionary who had dared to approach that they were left in peace
   thereafter. Whether any of the arrows found their mark I was never able to
   find out.

   Although they spoke no word of each other's language, our tultul and the
   Sindamon men soon established friendly relations. They were big,
   upstanding, dignified men, their bodies painted red with clay and their
   hair tied up tightly in dome-shaped hats of bark. Keeping a tight hold on
   their bows and arrows, they willingly exchanged food for razor-blades,
   which they had never seen before but for which they developed an instant
   liking. All our bargaining was done by signs, and we soon became very
   friendly.

   When we indicated (again by signs) that we wished to sleep in one of the
   houses they nodded politely, removed a rotting corpse from the veranda,
   and motioned us to enter. It was apparently the custom here for a dead man
   to be left in his house until he had decomposed, when his bones were
   interred in a shallow grave beneath the veranda. Naturally the stink still
   clung to the place, but heavy rain fell and we were glad enough to be dry,
   though a large number of fleas did nothing to improve our night's rest.

   We left Sindamon early next morning, really sorry to part from these
   friendly savages, and struck straight across the grassy hills to Kundam.
   There was a track we could have used, but it would have taken us through
   Gorgiok: with our binoculars we had seen a wide road leading into that
   village from the south, so we decided to avoid it. Though it was more
   difficult walking, the line we were taking across country was at least
   more direct. The Som River, swollen from the heavy rain the night before,
   was difficult to cross, but we joined hands and plunged through, a human
   chain.

   At Kundam village, one of the most primitive I had ever seen, there were
   extensive gardens. We were unable to establish any contact with the
   people, who stood silhouetted against the brassy evening sky, black forms
   lining the crests of the nearby ridges, hurling their choicest terms of
   abuse at us. Now and again one more impetuous than the rest fired an arrow
   at random, though the range was much too great. Since nothing would
   persuade them to come down and talk to us, we had no choice but to help
   ourselves to the produce of their gardens. When they saw their bananas and
   taro being plundered their fury knew no bounds. "Hopping mad" is the only
   expression that describes it. They screamed and danced with rage, and with
   loud yodelling cries discharged a whole cloud of arrows in our direction,
   though they must have known that their chances of hitting anyone were
   remote. In case they made a night attack, we doubled the sentries before
   rolling in our blankets on the ground at the edge of the village. Here
   again the fleas were too plentiful for a really restful night.

   Before leaving Kundam in the morning we tied several pieces of cloth and a
   dozen razor-blades to a tree in the middle of the village, by way of
   payment for the food we had taken. There was now no sign of the
   inhabitants, and we hoped this did not mean they were lying in ambush for
   us somewhere along the track.

   We could see the village of Ganma, the next on our route, about four miles
   away across the valley, but though we spent two hours searching for a
   path, there was none to be found, and we had to march on a
   compass-bearing, cutting our way through the bush and secondary growth.
   When we arrived at the village shortly after midday we found that it
   consisted of two or three very poor houses. At first none of the natives
   was to be seen, but about three o'clock a party appeared on a hill near by
   and made a hostile demonstration. We could not understand a word of what
   they said, but their gestures, obscene and defiant in turn, left nothing
   to the imagination. We called to Nabura, the best shot in the party, to
   climb quickly onto the roof of the tallest house, from where he would be
   able to detect anyone crawling through the grass. He was told to keep the
   people just out of arrow-shot, and not to fire to kill or wound unless the
   situation seemed dangerous. We asked the tultul what our chances were of
   making friends with them, but he did not seem to think it worth while
   trying, saying that they were notoriously bad hats and that it would take
   us at least several days even to open a conversation.

   The next day we were to cross the mountains once again, onto the Markham
   fall of the Huon Peninsula. We expected to reach Ewok village in the
   afternoon, for according to the tultul the crossing was nowhere near so
   high as the one we had made over the Saruwaged Range proper.

   The tultul asked to be allowed to return home from here, though the other
   Worin boys would stay with us until we reached Ewok. We let him go. He had
   done us good service: none of the other natives would have directed us to
   this easier crossing, and we would merely have blundered along, hoping to
   find it by good luck. The only other person who might have been able to
   advise us was Vial, and he, though we did not know it then, was dead.

   We abandoned most of our gear at Ganma - keeping just the wireless, our
   personal packs, and a small parcel of trade goods. We gave our shotgun to
   the tultul, together with a packet of cartridges. He was doing a fine job,
   preserving government authority all on his own, and the fillip to his
   prestige from the possession of a shotgun would greatly ease his
   unenviable burden. He asked whether he could also have two empty
   cartridge-boxes in which we had kept tobacco. We gave them to him and
   asked why he wanted them.

   "It's like this," he explained in pidgin. "If I go back home with a carton
   of a dozen cartridges they will spy on me when I am hunting, and every
   time they hear a bang they will say `Another one gone', until they know I
   have used them all up and the gun is useless. However, when they see these
   three boxes they will think I still have plenty left." With a sly grin he
   filled the empty cartons with pebbles, and then closed them securely.

   We also gave him a bottle of oil and told Kari to show him how to care for
   the gun. I never saw a man so proud of a present. He would allow nobody to
   take it from him, and as he lay down to sleep that night the gun lay
   beside him.

   This place was the worst for fleas that I had ever been in. The whole
   surface of the dusty ground seemed to be crawling with them. During the
   afternoon Les and 1 amused ourselves by seeing how many of the pests could
   be caught in one blanket, killing upward of seventy before tiring of the
   game. The sort of night we spent, lying on the ground, is better left to
   the imagination. In the morning it would have been literally impossible to
   put a pin-head between the bites anywhere on our bodies; we had the
   appearance of suffering from some skin disease. Even the police, not
   unduly fussy over a flea or two, said they had spent a sleepless night.

   Shortly after sunrise we shook hands with our tultul and turned our faces
   towards the mountains. The crossing was not really difficult, and was
   lower than we had dared to hope - scarcely above seven thousand feet
   according to our estimate. The worst part came when the mountain had been
   crossed and we had to follow a rough, stony river bed down to Ewok. My
   bare feet were pretty much cut about, and Les, who put on again the
   tattered remnants of his last pair of boots, did not fare much better.

   The country as we approached Ewok was more like the Wain - country of
   luxuriant growth and heavy rainfall. It was a change from the arid
   grasslands we had left behind, and, moreover, we would probably secure
   much better food. We were sick of the taro and hard cooking-bananas which
   seemed to be all the Uruwa country had to offer. Boiled bananas are the
   most unpalatable and uninteresting food one could have - looking and
   tasting like a piece of grey stodgy clay. The only result of eating them,
   as far as I was concerned, was an unsatisfied hunger and a bellyful of
   wind.

   Ewok, to all appearances, was a model village, set on a lofty, narrow
   ridge. It was clean, well laid out, and abounded with neatly arranged
   trees and shrubs, some decorative and some useful. The mission seemed well
   entrenched, to judge by the excellent state of the church and school.
   Although the mission teachers hurriedly vacated their houses and
   disappeared, the other natives greeted us in tolerably friendly fashion,
   answered our questions, and brought us food - including a dozen eggs which
   we ate at a sitting.

   Being well into wild mountain country we were surprised and disappointed
   to hear that the Japanese had twice visited this village. While there,
   they had been informed of the easy route to the north coast over which we
   had just come, and their leader had announced that another patrol would
   soon come to investigate it.

   "I don't like the sound of that," said Les. "It seems we might be chased
   all round the Leron country now."

   "I don't think I could take much of that," I replied. "If there's going to
   be any rough stuff, I think I'll look for a quiet, out-of-the-way spot,
   and hole up there till the bloody war is over - for years, if need be. The
   war can't go on for ever - or can it?"

   Les smiled wearily. I could see he felt much the same as I did. All sense
   of adventure and excitement had long since vanished from this patrol,
   leaving behind an empty flatness that was only one degree removed from
   despair. We were just plodding on, in spite of frightful weariness, in an
   attempt to save our skins. More and more frequently we were coming to
   doubt whether those skins were worth the agony of sweat and sobbing breath
   and aching bodies and bleeding feet.

   It was more to preserve the illusion that we still functioned as an
   intelligence patrol than in the hope of getting useful information that we
   sent for the few Ewok men who spoke pidgin and began to question them.
   Strangely, they had no aversion to talking freely, and we discovered a
   number of useful facts about enemy patrols in the area. They were much
   more extensive than we would ever have suspected, and everything seemed to
   point to the establishment of a strong overland line of communication
   between Madang and Lae. The Japanese had told the natives to be ready at
   any time to carry machine-guns, food, ammunition, and other stores, and to
   feed and guide other enemy parties.

   Their propaganda, moreover, was cunning. In addition to the obvious line
   about all the white men having run away, they pitched the natives a story
   that won them a lot of service. Briefly, it ran somewhat along these
   lines: "When you native people die your spirits go to live in Japan, our
   homeland. The spirits of your ancestral dead are living in Japan now.
   Unless you look after us Japanese well we will see to it that the spirits
   of your dead get a bad time."

   One could ridicule this, of course, but it was very difficult to counter
   effectively, and many natives believed it implicitly.

   After we had sent off a long message to Port Moresby, incorporating all
   the information we had gathered about enemy patrols in this area, we felt
   that perhaps, after all, we were still of some use, and not merely a
   ragged crowd of fugitives.

   Late that night a boy from a nearby village brought us news of another
   European at Wantoat, not far away. This, we surmised, was Fairfax-Ross,
   the man being withdrawn from the north coast. He had been expecting cargo
   to be dropped by plane to him at Wantoat about 17th June, but the cargo
   had not arrived. As it was now 18th June, and Wantoat was a good two days'
   walk away, we felt we had small hope of overtaking him. In any case, his
   chances of escape were probably better while he was alone. The natives
   said - though afterwards I was not able to confirm the point - that he was
   even worse off than ourselves, for he had neither boots nor clothes. We
   still had rags of some sort. It was strange to sit in Ewok and know that
   just a few days' walk, a few valleys away there was another white man
   struggling on to safety. He did not know it, but our thoughts followed him
   on his long, lonely walk to the Central Highlands, where he was eventually
   picked up by aeroplane.



   It was nearly twelve o'clock that night before we finished laying our
   plans for the next few crucial days. The Japanese seemed to be everywhere,
   so our only hope was to move with all possible speed. Three rivers flow
   into the Markham from the north side - the Leron, the Irumu, and the Erap.
   To have followed the Leron down would have taken us within range of enemy
   patrols near Kaiapit, the district where Harry Lumb had been killed. The
   Erap would have led us down close to Lae, and, after my frequent trips on
   the river the previous year, the enemy would be almost certain to be
   watching it. Between the two lay the Irumu, flowing into the Markham not
   far from Chivasing, where we had begun our patrol a couple of months
   earlier. We decided to move as quickly as possible down this river,
   travelling mainly at night and avoiding, if possible, all contact with the
   natives.

   We left Ewok at three in the morning, our immediate object being to get
   over the divide between the Leron and the Irumu rivers to Bogeba village.
   We arrived in Bogeba almost exactly twenty-eight hours later, having
   neither eaten nor slept in that time. When I came to write the official
   report of the patrol I found that I had no real recollection of this part
   of the journey, but only a succession of impressions, unrelated in time or
   space: impressions of villages where we sneaked around in the dark, not
   waking the inhabitants, of rivers which almost swept us away, of legs
   which stumbled on, unknowing and uncaring, all feeling gone. I am sure
   that half the time we walked with our eyes shut from exhaustion.

   At Bogeba we rested for a day and a night and made several good meals on
   native foods. The kanakas seemed friendly, and said that though the
   Japanese had never been to the village they knew there were many of them
   moving about the country. They introduced us to a native of Siang village,
   farther down the river, who said he could guide us along the Irumu to the
   Markham, avoiding all the tracks. This seemed a good plan, and we moved to
   a hamlet a few miles downstream to wait for nightfall. We set up the radio
   here for what was to prove the last time, asking Port Moresby to inform
   our forward posts along the Markham that we could be expected either next
   day or the day after. After a journey such as this had been, we wanted to
   run no risk of being shot by our own men, which could easily have
   happened, particularly if we crossed at night.

   Just at sunset we moved off, leaving behind everything but light packs and
   our arms. We followed the Irumu, walking in the water for the most part,
   for though very swift it was not deep. The valley was a very shallow one
   in the Markham plain, about a thousand yards wide, and the stream wandered
   haphazardly from one side to the other, in several channels. As there was
   a bright moon, we had no difficulty in seeing our way. The country was as
   flat as a table, and covered with kunai- and cane-grass. Dotted here and
   there were weird black sentinel-like stumps, the remains of dead palms.

   We were so tense and keyed up with the strain of this final stage that the
   slightest movement or noise in the shadows made us start, but we felt no
   weariness, though we walked without rest all night.

   About three o'clock in the morning, as we splashed through the muddy
   water, we heard a rooster crowing, and then the howl of a dog. The sounds
   came from the bush on the right-hand side of the river, and we knew we
   must have passed Teraran village. So far, everything was going smoothly,
   and another eight or nine miles should find us at the Markham. However,
   the Irumu started to subdivide into numberless tiny streams, and finally
   petered out altogether in a tangled swamp of cane-grass, sago-palms, and
   cruel thorned vines. Our native from Siang announced himself baffled too.
   It had not been like this years before, he said nervously, and then,
   afraid we would vent our ill-concealed wrath on his person, he took to his
   heels and vanished into the night.

   For a while we tried to cut our way through, moving on a rough
   compass-bearing. It was a scene I shall never forget: a dozen or so
   natives and two white men hacking like fury in the moonlight at the wall
   of jungle ahead of them, knee-deep in the slime, swearing, grunting,
   whimpering occasionally as bare feet encountered the savage thorns of the
   sago-palms.

   When dawn broke we found that our progress had been disappointingly slow.
   Given time, we could have cut a pathway to the Markham, but we had no food
   and were near exhaustion. We felt our strength would never be enough to
   carry us through. After consultation with Kari and Watute we retraced our
   steps to the main Markham road, which we had crossed a couple of hours
   earlier. There were a number of prints of the enemy's well-known black
   rubber boots, but none seemed to be of recent origin. We followed the
   road, scouts well out ahead, as far as the old Wawin rest-house, and then
   turned south down the track up which we had come on our way out - two
   months ago to the day.

   The track showed no footprints, and to judge by the way the grass was
   growing on it had not been used for some time. All the way to Chivasing we
   saw no people, and the hamlet half-way was deserted. We were weary,
   sore-footed, and aching all over, but we kept kidding ourselves along with
   the thought of the cup of tea we would soon be drinking at Kirkland's, and
   of the European foods we would eat there. "Not far now," we would murmur
   each time we crossed a creek.

   The hot Markham sun blazed down on us and the sweat squirted from our
   bodies. The dust from the dry track rose slowly round our feet, sticking
   to our wet skins. We did not care. The end was in sight.

   By about three o'clock we had reached the large coconut-grove at the edge
   of the village, and looked up longingly at the cool green nuts. A crowd of
   Chivasing natives, with the tultul and doctor-boy, appeared suddenly at
   the other end of the grove and advanced to meet us. Some of them climbed
   the palms to get green coconuts for us to drink. We sat in the shade and
   let the cool fluid trickle down our dust-filled throats.

   "Are there any Japanese about?" we asked at length, our inevitable
   question, which we hoped would be for the last time.

   There was a silence. The steaming quietness of the Markham afternoon
   descended.

   "Are there any Japanese about?" we repeated sharply. "No-got, master!
   Me-fella no lookim some-fella Japan!" The answer came readily enough this
   time.

   "Better make sure," Les said. "We'll send Arong into the village to have a
   look round."

   We called to Arong, who had had a drink, to move into the village. He was
   wearing no uniform, and there was nothing to mark him out from the
   Chivasing kanakas, so he would be safe enough even if there were Japanese
   there.

   While he was away we tried to make conversation with the natives. They
   seemed strangely uneasy, but they said they had expected us and had the
   canoes all ready to take us down to Kirkland's. We wondered whether we
   imagined the tension in the atmosphere - whether the long strain now
   ending had made us over-suspicious. We were cheered when Arong came back a
   few minutes later with a smile on his face, to say that he had taken a
   look round the village and that all was as it should be. Then, Arong
   leading the way, and Les behind him, a few paces ahead of me, we walked
   into the village. Most of our boys stayed in the grove, still drinking
   coconut milk.

   As we neared the clear space at the centre of the village there was a
   sudden burst of machine-gun fire and a volley of rifle-shots from one of
   the houses. Bullets kicked up the dirt all round us. We both made a dash
   for the creek that runs through the village, and as I jumped down into it
   there was another burst of fire from the house. Les gave a cry, fell, and
   lay still. Japanese - there seemed to be dozens of them - then jumped down
   from the houses and rushed over towards me. I lost my footing and fell
   into the water, got my clothes and Owen gun tangled in a submerged branch,
   and finally struggled across the creek and into the bush minus Owen gun
   and most of my shirt. Bullets were clipping the leaves all round me. I did
   not go far, but buried myself deep in the mud of a place where the pigs
   used to wallow, with only my nose showing, and stayed put.

   For a few minutes all was quiet, but soon I heard the Japanese calling out
   to each other, and their feet sucking and squelching in the mud as they
   searched. I could not see, so I did not know exactly how close they were,
   but I could feel in my ears the pressure of their feet as they squeezed
   through the mud. It occurred to me that this was probably an occasion on
   which one might pray, and indeed was about to start a prayer. Then
   something stopped me. I said to myself so fiercely that I seemed to be
   shouting under the mud, "To hell with God! If I get out of this bloody
   mess, I'll do it by myself!" It was no doubt a childish sort of pride, but
   I experienced a rather weary exhilaration that, terrified and abject,
   lying literally like a pig in the mud, I had not sufficiently abandoned
   personal integrity to pray for my skin to a God I didn't really believe
   in.

   I lay there motionless, buried alive in mud and pig-filth, feeling, or
   imagining, creatures of unspeakable loathsomeness crawling over me in the
   slime. The voices became fainter and the squelching footsteps died away. I
   eased my face out, blinked the mud away from my eyes, and carefully pulled
   some leaves over my head in case the searchers returned.

   For half an hour or so there was no sound. Then several natives walked
   round the outskirts of the village calling out to me. I heard their voices
   clearly, just a few yards away through the bushes:

   "Master, you come! Japan all 'e go finish!"

   I did not move. They continued to call out encouragingly for a quarter of
   an hour. Then one of them said, apparently to someone near by, " 'Em 'e no
   hearim talk belong me-fella. I think 'em 'e go finish long bush."

   The Japanese started talking to each other again after that, having given
   up hope of capturing me, it seemed, now that the trick had failed.

   I stayed in the same place until it was nearly dark. The mosquitoes were
   swarming on my head so thickly, and buzzing so loudly, that I thought they
   would give away my position. Then I crept out of the mud, wiped the mud
   off pistol and compass, and began to break bush, moving on a line south
   and west, which, as I remembered the map, should at last bring me to the
   bank of the Markham, some distance upstream from Chivasing, more or less
   opposite the mouth of the Watut River.

   In a couple of years packed with bad journeys, that night's travel is the
   worst I can remember. Near the village it was essential to move with
   absolute quietness, no easy matter when the rows of hooked thorns on the
   vines caught at me continually and one hand was always occupied holding
   the compass. It was no use trying to free myself from the vines - as fast
   as one row of barbs was detached another took hold. It was easier, if more
   painful, to let them tear straight through the flesh. After the bush came
   the pit-pit - cane-grass eight or nine feet high, growing so thickly as to
   make a solid wall. It was impossible to part it and walk through it, and I
   was forced to push it over by leaning on it, and crawl over the top on all
   fours. It had leaves like razor-blades, which hurt terribly on bare legs;
   mine were soon dripping with blood from the cuts. Worse, the flattened
   grass left a trail a blind man could have followed. Though I had my
   compass handy the grass blocked all view of any object to sight on, and
   there were no stars, for it was a cloudy night. The two luminous points on
   the instrument danced and swung before my eyes. Sometimes I had to pause,
   close my eyes, and force my nerves to calmness before I could see
   properly. Every time I tried to march by sense alone, I found myself going
   wrong.

   Hours later, during one of these pauses, I heard the dull swish of swiftly
   flowing water. The Markham! I had got there sooner than I expected. It
   would take every scrap of my energy to swim it, and I removed my clothes,
   such as they were, and buckled on again the belt which carried revolver,
   compass, and sheath-knife. Then I stumbled forward, heading for the sound
   of the water. When I reached it I found it was nothing but a small creek
   flowing down to the river. I nearly cried with rage and disappointment,
   and decided to go no farther that night, but lay down naked where I was.
   The mosquitoes were terrible, settling all over my body in swarms, and
   their bites nearly closed both my eyes. Finally, to escape !hem, I dragged
   myself into a shallow puddle of mud at the edge of the stream, and slept
   there.



   Shortly before daylight I moved on, weak and stumbling, my heart jumping
   in the frightening way I had noticed in the mountains. The last few miles
   were easier, for the pit-pit gave place to kunai, through which one could
   at least walk upright. At any moment I expected a volley of shots, for the
   country was flat, and if, after sunrise, the Japs had taken the trouble to
   post a few men in trees, they could not have failed to see me. I crossed
   one new track through the grass, which showed many enemy footprints, and
   reached the Markham about mid-morning. As I looked across its swift brown
   streams I knew that I was too tired to swim it before I had had a rest, so
   I crawled into a patch of bush and dozed until about midday. Then I swam
   as silently as possible from one island to the next, resting for a short
   while on each one. Every time I touched a log or floating piece of rubbish
   I was terrified it was a crocodile, and struck out with renewed vigour. I
   really believe it was this fear, coupled with the expectation of a burst
   of machine-gun fire from the north bank, that enabled me to make the
   distance.

   On the south bank at last, I lay breathless in a patch of grass. Voices
   came from not far away. I eased my pistol out of its holster and peered
   through the grass. Two Chivasing natives, with their women, were walking
   straight towards me, chattering happily, quite unaware of any alien
   presence. As soon as they drew level I jumped from cover, shoving the
   pistol into the ribs of the nearest one. The men trembled, but made no
   sound, and the women moaned faintly. They were too terrified to shout -
   apparently they thought I was going to shoot them out of hand.

   "You-fella got canoe? 'Em 'e stop where?"

   They nodded, and pointed to a spot on the bank near by. I made them lead
   me to it and ordered them to take me to Kirkland's. They were so terrified
   that I was afraid they would faint, but I jabbed them in the ribs with the
   pistol and forced them to get aboard.

   Although I felt certain in my mind that Les was dead, I did not have
   positive evidence. I did not want to ask the Chivasing people directly, so
   I phrased the question in a way which did not reveal my ignorance.

   "What are you going to do with the other white man?" Their reply snuffed
   out the lingering spark of hope that Les might be alive.

   "We will bury him in the cemetery at Chivasing," one said in pidgin.

   "We will see that he gets a proper funeral," added the other man
   ingratiatingly, as if that would atone in some way for his people's
   treacherous share in Les's death.

   The rapid muddy stream was sweeping us down towards Kirkland's, and I made
   the natives hug the south bank closely, to keep out of the range of
   Japanese who might be on the north side. When Kirkland's came in sight I
   stood up, waving my arms above my head and cooeeing, and I was shortly
   answered by a hail from the low kunai hill behind the camp. As the canoe
   nosed in under the foliage to touch at the landing-place, several
   Australian soldiers stepped out of the bushes and helped me ashore. Half
   carried, half supported, I made my way with them to the wretched little
   huts, and sat down in the mosquito-proof room while they brought me tea
   and some army biscuits.

   Nobody said anything much, and I sat there dully, staring at the swamp. I
   had no sensation of joy or relief, though I knew in a remote and abstract
   way that I was now safe. I had no thoughts, no feelings whatsoever. I felt
   neither grief on account of Les nor anger at the Japanese or Chivasings.
   Nor did I feel any sense of warmth or companionship towards the soldiers
   who were now preparing water for me to wash, and giving me articles from
   their own scanty clothing to cover my nakedness. I was too spent,
   emotionally, to feel or think or care, and I know now that such a state is
   the nearest one can come to death -an emptiness of spirit much more deadly
   than a grievous wound.

   After I had been sitting there for a little while, Kari, Watute, Dinkila,
   Pato, and all the other boys limped up to see me. They managed a salute,
   but I could see they felt as dispirited and weary as I did. They were cut
   about and tattered, and caked with grey Markham mud that cracked and
   dropped off in little flakes as the skin stretched beneath it. I shook
   hands with each one, and they shuffled back to the little but, where they
   were crowded together. Kari and Watute remained for a few moments to talk.
   They had stayed across the river looking for me, they said, and when they
   found my tracks leading to the river, concluded I would be all right, and
   floated themselves down to Kirkland's on logs. Arong, the boy who had
   entered the village with Les and me, had been captured by the Japs and
   taken to Lae, Watute added.

   Next day a horse was sent down for me, and I rode to Wampit. Here I had a
   proper hot shower, and willing helpers gathered round with needles and dug
   dozens of thorns out of my limbs and body. There was no skin at all on my
   legs, and my feet were so enormously swollen that I thought boots would
   never fit on them again. Months later, I was still digging out odd thorns
   that had been overlooked at Wampit.

   The following morning I set out on horseback for Bulolo township, which
   had replaced Wau as the military headquarters of the area. The police and
   other natives followed on foot, and during the several days which for me
   were occupied in writing the long report of the patrol they straggled in
   by twos and threes, still very weary.

   After a few days I went to the store to get new clothes. I was wearing a
   woollen shirt, a pair of ragged green shorts, and some old sand-shoes, but
   no hat or socks. All of these had been given me either at Kirkland's or
   Wampit.

   "Where's your pay-book and your other papers?" demanded the quartermaster.

   I explained the fate of my clothes and papers and other possessions.

   "Good God, man, that's no excuse!" he snapped. "Don't you realize it's a
   crime in the Army to lose your pay-book? You can't be issued with any
   equipment here without a pay-book."

   I didn't argue, but let the district officer arrange a new issue of
   clothing for me. But I started to wonder all over again if wars were
   really worth the trouble.

                                   Chapter IX

   EXCEPT for sitting up to write the patrol report, I spent most of the time
   for the next week lying on my bed-sail smoking, reading, and dozing. The
   police and other boys were doing much the same, and I hardly saw them.

   At the end of that time, however, my feet had shrunk to their normal size
   and I could get them into boots again. I wandered about, gossiping to
   anyone who had time to talk, and performing various duties in the district
   office.

   Jock McLeod came in one day. He was in charge of the lines of native
   carriers supplying our troops as they advanced on Salamaua, through the
   Buang mountains, and was as usual engaged in a bitter feud with the Army.

   "The rotten bludgers!" he exploded with characteristic vigour. "I can't
   even be bothered talking to them any longer! I've got these coons slaving
   their guts out; they aren't properly housed, and they're on about half
   rations, and I've been telling the Army so for weeks. Now the boys are all
   going down sick and the Army is demanding explanations. When I tried to
   tell them the boys are only human, some bloody jumped-up snotty-nosed
   staff officer told me I had the wrong slant on the job. `You must regard
   the natives merely as so many units of energy, Mr McLeod,' he said, 'like
   motor-cars.'"

   Jock's fulminations and Vertigan's more temperate representations had some
   effect, and arrangements were made for better rations for the carrier
   lines.

   He was interested to hear of the situation north of the Markham, and had
   the last laugh when he remarked with a quiet grin, "I said you'd find the
   Nips all round Boana by the time you got back there."

   After a couple of weeks, as soon as their raw feet and aching limbs were
   better, the boys wanted to return to the bush. Kari and Watute approached
   me as a delegation:

   "Master, me-fella man belong work bush. Me-fella no like sit down long
   arse long station."

   I confessed to them that I was finding station life pretty tedious too - a
   dull routine of sending signals, inspecting labourers, and writing letters
   and lists. I promised I would do my best to get us back to more congenial
   work in the bush.

   In July luck changed for me: I was posted back to the bush. But I learnt
   with bitter astonishment that I was to have a new squad of police. They
   were smart recruits from the depot, faultless on parade, but utterly
   inexperienced in bush work. Mighty Kari, shrewd Watute, crack-shot Nabura,
   and all the other policemen were posted elsewhere. We gathered in my hut
   for the last time, while Dinkila packed my gear. I gave Kari an old pipe,
   Watute a sheath-knife, and the others any odds and ends I could scrounge.

   It was a sad parting when we shook hands. I never saw any of them again,
   though I heard that Kari was made a sergeant-major, the highest rank to
   which he could rise. But they are never far from my memory, and I hope
   that, back in their grass-thatched villages, they sometimes think of me.

   I still had Dinkila and Pato, and all the other non-police natives who had
   been with me on the Huon Peninsula patrol, and we set out in July for the
   Lower Watut River - to Tsilitsili. Our errand was as follows:

   The Allies were now firmly on the offensive, and the Americans wished to
   establish a forward fighter aerodrome in the Lower Watut area. This would
   enable our fighters to range as far as Wewak, which was not possible from
   the existing dromes in Port Moresby. It would also serve as a partial
   jumping-off place for our impending assault on Lae. A few Americans and
   Australians had already moved to Tsilitsili and begun work on a
   landing-strip.

   Although our patrols, some of them native troops of the Papuan Infantry
   Battalion, were watching the Markham from the mouth of the Watut down to
   Kirkland's, there was a twenty-mile stretch of the Markham upstream from
   the Watut mouth which was quite unguarded. In this sector the enemy could
   easily cross the river and attack the aerodrome construction at
   Tsilitsili. Kaiapit lay just across the river from this stretch, and it
   was known that the Japanese were there in force, but since Harry Lumb's
   death information from the area had been irregular and uncertain.

   Our job was to watch this twenty-mile stretch of river, find out all we
   could of enemy activity on the other side, and warn Tsilitsili if the Japs
   made any attempt to cross and attack the drome.

   The four-day journey down the Watut was uneventful. One night we slept in
   a big comfortable house of native material overlooking the lovely valley.
   Fully equipped, the house looked as if it were awaiting the return of its
   owner, which would never happen, for the house was Harry Lumb's. It was
   from here that he had worked his gold mine in peacetime.

   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
   air-strip, 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 1 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 air-strips 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 hookworms 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.

                                   Chapter 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 fish-hook 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 near by 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 air-strip.

   "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. lie 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 air-strip 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 motor-bike 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 tree-top 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 take-off. 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. Down-river 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, pin-pointing 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.

   The 6th Independent Company, one of our crack commando units, was to
   perform this task. I was to go in with them, organize a native labour
   force from the local inhabitants for carrying supplies and for aerodrome
   construction, and assist with reconnaissance and native intelligence.

   An American flew me up the Markham in a Piper Cub. A high wind was tearing
   down the valley, and we made such slow progress that at times we seemed to
   be hanging motionless above the jungle. When we reached the rendezvous
   beside the Leron River a crashed DC-3, flat on the kunai, showed where the
   6th Company had already landed.

   The pilot found it difficult to put the light craft down in the gusty
   wind, and a driving rain made visibility bad. When at last we touched
   down, after many attempts, there was less than an hour to dark.

   "Good luck, buddy!" bawled the pilot, and he took off again, back to
   Nadzab, whisked out of sight in a moment by the powerful wind behind him.

   The 6th Company men were huddled under ground-sheets and one-man tents
   dotted all over the kunai. Their stores and ammunition were also scattered
   in heaps among the grass. Portion of the unit had already moved forward a
   few miles to Sangan, on the road to Kaiapit. I ran after them, across the
   flat country, and managed to collect enough Sangan kanakas to bring to the
   Leron to carry the ammunition and stores forward. We made several furtive
   trips by torchlight, and had all the cargo in Sangan before dawn.

   I collapsed with fever in Sangan, and remember nothing until the following
   night. I had made my bed under a native house, and one of the 6th Company
   men shone a torch under the mosquito-net.

   "Sorry to wake you up, mate," he whispered, "but there's a Yank called Tex
   blown in. Says he wants to see you. Do you know him?"

   There behind him was Tex, a grin all over his red face. "Looks like
   they're going to need us," he said. "Going to be a powerful lot of
   air-strips needed between here and Madang. I'll find the drome sites, you
   work the natives."



   * I am indebted to Mr Gavin Long, General Editor of the Official War
   History, for making known to me the existence of the two extracts quoted
   above, and for allowing me to see the text of a forthcoming volume of the
   Official War History - David Dexter's The New Guinea Offensives.



   I shook hands with him, but it was hard to find anything to say. Dinkila,
   who had accompanied him, told me severely to get back to bed. His
   expression said clearly enough: See what a mess you get yourself in when
   I'm not there to look after you!

   Kaiapit was taken in the next two days, after a fierce and bitter battle
   by the 6th Independent Company assisted by some troops of the Papuan
   Infantry. For the loss of ten men they killed about two hundred of the
   enemy. In the end they sent him reeling back with a bayonet-charge when
   their ammunition was almost spent. Tex went into action with them.

   I lay under the house while the battle raged, too weak to move, whether
   forward with our troops, or backwards to escape the Japs had they won the
   day. While I shivered, the sweat ran out the end of the bed-sail, drip,
   drip, drip upon the ground.

   It took me nearly two days more to hobble yard by yard to Kaiapit, leaning
   on a stick like an old man, and sometimes holding on to Dinkila. We had to
   pick our way between the Japanese dead, who still littered the ground.
   Bloated by the tropical sun, some of the corpses had burst right out of
   their uniforms. Near Kaiapit some of them had been hastily buried. From
   one of the shallow graves, at the side of the track, a stiffened hand and
   forearm reached over the path.

   I watched, propped with my stick against the trunk of a palm-tree, as a
   number of soldiers passed. With macabre, unsmiling humour, which some say
   is typical of the A.I.F., they bent down one by one and shook the hand of
   death. "Good on you, sport," each one said gravely to the hand as he moved
   on towards ... perhaps just as rough a grave of his own.

   Kaiapit Mission House, on an eminence above the kunai plain, looked to me
   just like Boana Mission. Tex helped me onto its wide veranda, and got some
   food, but any attempt to swallow even a mouthful made me vomit.

   Later in the day a doctor came, who said that I must be evacuated to
   Nadzab in the morning.

   "Nadzab nothing, doc!" Tex drawled. "I'll have a special plane take him
   straight to Port Moresby."

   I dropped off to sleep on the floor of the veranda, Dinkila squatting on
   his heels near by, watching.

   Next day, with Tex's help, I walked down to the strip. On the way we
   passed a Japanese soldier lying mortally wounded beside the track on a
   stretcher. He had been revived by one of our medical people, and was now
   being badgered for information by an interpreter and some intelligence
   men. As far as I could see he was saying nothing.

   As I looked at his face, wasted with fever and suffering, I suddenly felt
   more akin to him than to the Australians who would not let him die in
   peace. His eyes, wonderfully large and soft, met mine. In that brief
   second I hoped he could read the message in my face.

   I realized then that I did not really hate the Japanese - that I did not
   hate anyone. I realized that war accomplishes nothing but the degradation
   of all engaged in it. I knew that Les Howlett's death had been in vain,
   that the loneliness of spirit and suffering of body I had forced myself to
   endure had been to no end, and that the selfless devotion of my native
   companions had been, in the final analysis, purposeless.

   I said good-bye to Tex and Dinkila. The doors slammed shut between us, and
   the plane took off.

   We turned up the valley of the Wampit River, flying very low. At
   Kirkland's the kunai was already silently covering the place. At Bob's the
   jungle creepers would, in a few months, drag the houses down and smother
   them with their weight.

   In a year there would be nothing - no mark or vestige to show where they
   had been.

   As we flew across the land which had soaked up the sweat of two years, I
   could drag one mouldy crust of comfort and of hope from the events of 1942
   and 1943:

   Man is very brave. His patience and endurance are truly wonderful. Perhaps
   he will learn, one day, that wars and calamities of nature are not the
   only occasions when such qualities are needed.