And Fire Falls (18 page)

A medic lit a cigarette and passed it to Tom, and when the truck finally arrived in Port Moresby he was taken to a hospital with clean sheets and no mud.

On the fourth day of his hospitalisation Tom had recovered enough to sit up and enjoy the relative peace of his surroundings. He was sipping an orange juice when he looked down the rows of beds to see a man around his own age wearing what resembled an army uniform. The man was talking to a soldier in one of the beds and Tom stared at him for some time, wondering. It was when the other man glanced across at Tom that mutual recognition came to them both. The man strode down the ward to Tom.

‘Tom Duffy, you old bastard,’ Jack Kelly said with the widest of smiles on his face. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’

‘Same as you, Jack, killing Japs,’ Tom responded with a grin.

‘Cobber, you’re too old to be doing this,’ Jack said, seizing Tom’s hand.

‘I could say the same for you,’ Tom said, reluctant to let go of his friend’s hand.

‘The big difference is that I live here, and strongly object to the little yellow bastards wanting to take the place away from me,’ Jack said, pulling up a chair besides Tom’s bed. ‘I had the pleasure of meeting your beautiful daughter some months ago under rather unusual conditions. How’s she going?’

‘Jessie wrote to me about how you saved her life off New Britain,’ Tom said. ‘I can’t thank you enough, mate. Jessie quit being a nun, and last I heard had finished her training with the women’s air force. We haven’t had any mail for a while, but at least I have the consolation of knowing that she’s safe at home. I can hardly believe you were there to save her, Jack.’

‘I had a strange feeling that I was meant to be where our boat was when we picked up Jessie,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t ask me how, but it was like I was being guided to that patch of water by some unseen hand.’

‘Wallarie,’ Tom said softly.

The two old soldiers fighting their second world war settled down to reminiscence about times two decades earlier when they had served side by side on the Western Front. They sat lost in memories until the stern nursing matron came to remind Jack that visiting time was over. Jack returned for the next three days to visit his old friend until Tom was discharged, deemed recovered enough to return to his unit. The two men shook hands.

‘Looks like I might be getting a transfer to the Papua Infantry Battalion,’ Jack said. ‘My young fella, Lukas, is somewhere up the track, listed as missing in action.’

‘I am sure, by the fact he is a Kelly, he will turn up,’ Tom said, reassuring his life-long friend. ‘You Kellys are a bloody hard mob to kill.’

When they parted, Tom walked back into town to report to army HQ. The news filtering down from the Kokoda Track indicated that the fighting was desperate; somehow Tom knew that the army would turn a blind eye to his age and send him back up. Nothing was fair in life, but having the young die so that old men could live went against all the laws of nature. If he, an old man, could prevent young men from dying, then he would gladly go back into the fray. Then Tom realised something. It was his fiftieth birthday.

*

It had been a long day at the office. Business was growing busier and busier with the need to supply the American troops arriving on Australian shores in their thousands.

Sarah stepped from her chauffeur-driven car at the entrance to the Macintosh residence and walked up the steps, looking up in surprise at the appearance of Albert Ulverstone exiting the house. He greeted her as they passed and Sarah noticed a military staff car pull up behind the Macintosh limousine.

Inside, Sarah was met by her father, whose expression was grim.

‘I can see that you had a visitor today,’ Sarah said.

‘I think you and I should have a serious talk in my library,’ Sir George said.

Intrigued, Sarah followed her father up the stairs and took a seat by the library window. Sir George went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a neat Scotch before taking a seat across from his daughter. The tension in the air was apparent and Sarah realised she was holding her breath.

‘I have been meaning to raise this matter with you for a very long time,’ Sir George said, sipping the Scotch and staring into the gloom of the library adorned with paintings and Aboriginal weapons. ‘What I am about to tell you does not leave this room. In many ways I am placing my fate in your hands.’

Sarah was alarmed, but she said, ‘I can promise you that whatever you are about to tell me will go with me to the grave.’

For a moment Sir George sat in silence. ‘How impor
tant is the future of our enterprises to you?’ he asked
eventually.

‘It is everything to me, Father.’

‘Do you appreciate that making money transcends
national interests?’ he asked, leaning towards her.

‘I know that we would be nothing without our wealth. It defines who we are. We are part of a superior class in this country.’

‘Would you betray your country if you had to choose between the future of the family companies and the national interest?’ Sir George said, watching his daughter like a hawk.

‘The family business always comes first,’ Sarah replied without hesitation.

‘What if I told you that we have bank accounts in Switzerland and Sweden that are filled with German money made from their war industries?’

This time Sarah gasped. Her father was talking about
treason. ‘I have wondered at their existence,’ she said.
‘I found them in my examination of the company’s audit.’

‘A lot of money, and the way things are going for this country they are our insurance against defeat at the hands of the Germans and Japanese. In fact, should the Japanese invade, I will have special standing with them – as will you and Donald, although he is not aware of that, nor do I intend him to be.’

Sarah knew that she should be shocked by her father’s revelation, but she was actually pleased her astute father had provided security against the worst-case scenario.

‘I think you have done an excellent job of looking
after the family interests, Father,’ she replied, rising from the chair and kneeling in front of him. ‘There is a good
possibility Australia will be occupied by the Japanese, but we will survive – thanks to your wise planning.’

Sir George smiled. His daughter was truly of his seed, and he knew that no matter what happened to him she could take his place as the head of the family. She had the same pragmatic and ruthless blood as his own.

‘Lord Ulverstone was just here,’ Sarah said. ‘Does he have anything to do with what you have told me?’ Sarah asked.

‘There are links,’ Sir George said. ‘But that is all I am prepared to tell you for now.’

Sarah frowned but accepted her father’s decision. Already she was attempting to rationalise what she had learned and found that was not a hard thing to do. After all, wars came and went, but the family must survive. Some might say her father was a traitor, but that was not a judgement she was prepared to accept.

17

A
s far as Captain James Duffy was concerned, his transfer from the USS
Enterprise
to Henderson airfield on the island of Guadalcanal was not good news. He was now part of what had become known as the Cactus Air Force, but at least he could console himself that he was supporting fellow marines as they fought to dislodge the Japanese from this strategically vital stretch of land. In the hands of the enemy it could be used to cut the sea route between Australia and the USA, and whoever dominated the southern parts of the Solomon Islands controlled the South Pacific sea routes.

James shared a tent reinforced with sand bags, not far from where his Wildcat fighter stood under a blazing tropical sun. In the distance across the dirt-packed airstrip he could see densely rainforested hills. A variety of aircraft had now been sent to the isolated base and the situation was grim as supplies had been cut to the besieged men defending the airfield. Japanese warships shelled them by night from out at sea, and by day the enemy filled the skies, bombing and strafing them.

Stripped to his flying trousers, James sat on an empty ammunition box inside his tent, reading a letter from his sister. Olivia wrote that she and Donald Macintosh spent all their spare time together, and that the two of them were in agreement that Sarah was determined to gain total control of the Macintosh companies. It was obvious to James that his sister was plotting against Sarah. Olivia was as ruthless as their grandfather, and he wondered how things had come to pass so that women were scheming to advance themselves in what was a man’s world. There was no mention of David’s future role in the family business. James smiled grimly. Maybe they did not expect him to live through the war. He had an affinity with a fellow warrior and had come to despise those living safely and making huge profits from the misery of the conflict raging around the globe.

‘Japs!’

James threw aside the letter and snatched his shirt and flying jacket from the hook inside his tent. In seconds he had his clothing on, had fitted the yellow buoyancy vest, strapped on a .45 Browning semiautomatic pistol and was running towards his plane, which was already fuelled and armed. He could see his fellow pilots doing the same as ground crew assisted them to scramble into cockpits. Engines spluttered and roared into life, and already the first aircraft were bouncing down the airstrip to become airborne.

James was third off the ground and the crackle in his headset was already giving direction and estimating the size of incoming enemy aircraft. James pulled on the stick to get badly needed altitude and craned his neck to find his wingman. He was pleased to see that the aircraft was already falling into position to protect his rear, and the squadron was forming up into a fighting force to meet the threat. Some of the heat from the ground was dissipating and the conditions in the cockpit were a little more bearable as they left the airstrip behind them. James had not even had the chance to test fire his machine guns when he spotted glints in the sky to his twelve o’clock high.

‘Tally ho, chaps,’ James said into his mouthpiece, using the stock English fighter pilot’s slang that he thought his father might have used in the last war. He had forgotten that his father did not have the luxury in that war as there had been no radio fitted in the biplanes he flew. ‘Bogies at twelve o’clock high.’

James knew that this was not a good situation, as the enemy pilots had height in their favour, allowing them to dive rather than climb. It was obvious that the enemy had spotted them, and individual Japanese fighter aircraft peeled away to engage, leaving a stream of their bombers to continue bombing the airfield. It would be up to the ground anti-aircraft gunners at Henderson Field to bring down the Japanese bombers.

James could see one Zero fighter flying out wide and anticipated that he would turn to take up a position behind him and his wingman. Already his headset was filled with pilots yelling warnings and directions to others in the flight formation. But for James his war had come down to the enemy fighter flying across his front. All else was forgotten, including the fear as he pushed his nose up to gain more altitude so that he could use the weight of the aircraft to roll over and come down on his enemy’s tail. In a dogfight the Wildcat was no match for the faster and more nimble Japanese fighter plane. James’s tactic was to use the Wildcat’s superior armour and better diving speed to balance out the enemy’s technical superiority.

James could feel the g forces on his body when he pulled on the stick to make the tightest turn he could for the fall back to earth. From the corner of his shrinking vision he could barely see his enemy but was able to straighten up and temporarily level off.

‘Goddamn!’ he said triumphantly when he realised that he had actually brought himself into a tactical position. The Zero was below him at his six o’clock, having been distracted by the sight of a seemingly vulnerable Wildcat on the horizon. James pushed down on the stick, flipping the safety off his guns, and commenced diving. It appeared that the Japanese pilot was suddenly aware of him and had made the fatal decision to break right. James altered his dive and put the gun sights ahead of the desperately turning fighter below him. He led the enemy’s aircraft and squeezed the pickle. A stream of heavy .50 calibre rounds left the Wildcat and he could see the tracer hosing past the nose of the Zero until it ran into the stream of bullets and immediately erupted in flame. The Japanese pilot did not even have a chance to bail out of his flaming aircraft as it plunged into the sea.

‘You got him!’ the voice of his wingman came over the intercom. ‘We still have a few to go.’

That afternoon James brought down another two enemy aircraft.

The order was given to return to the airstrip to refuel and rearm. James became aware that his whole body was covered in sweat, and he felt as weak as a child in his mother’s arms. The adrenaline was draining away, and the constant stress of the g forces on his body had taken its toll.

Over the airfield he could see that the army engineers had courageously manned their heavy earth-moving equipment to fill in bomb craters, and after they’d circled for a short while, word came to the pilots that it was safe to land.

James allowed the damaged Wildcats to land first, and when he finally touched down to taxi his aircraft to a parking area he could see black oily smoke rising from the wreckage of aircraft caught on the ground. Men were being treated for wounds, and the dead lay staring with sightless eyes at the sky that had brought them their deaths.

Before he had even cut his engine the ground crew were already swarming over him to inspect the plane. James was helped from his cockpit by a sergeant mechanic.

‘Good to see you back in one piece, sir,’ he said, helping James off the wing to drop to the ground where his legs almost buckled. ‘Did you get any of the little yellow bastards?’

‘Three, I think,’ James said. ‘But they have to be confirmed.’

‘That’s good news. And we have the all-clear. Apparently the Japs have had enough for today,’ the sergeant said. ‘But there is some scuttlebutt that the
Enterprise
has taken direct hits from Jap dive-bombers and a lot of good men have been killed. She’s still afloat, but that’s all we know. I gather she was your ship before you transferred, so I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Thanks, sarge,’ James said and wondered at the strange twists of fate that had him assigned to land when the carrier he’d left behind was probably now a floating wreck in a vast sea. ‘Better get over to the ops tent for the debrief,’ he said, wishing he could get his trembling hands on a big mug of steaming coffee like they served at the drugstore back home in New Hampshire. It was then that it struck James he might not be so lucky in the days ahead, and any bravado he’d had about the invincibility of youth was lost forever.

*

Leading Aircrafts Woman Jessica Duffy stood to attention before her superior officer, an attractive woman in her late thirties who had once managed a fashion house.

‘LAC Duffy,’ she said. ‘Stand at ease.’

Jessica relaxed and wondered why she had been called from her duties deciphering tactical codes. She worked in barracks that had been isolated from the rest of the women who served in the WAAAF at Point Cook in Victoria. The RAAF did not think it wise that the women who handled the sensitive codes should mix with the others.

After graduation from basic training Jessica had completed a series of tests and found herself mustered into the top-secret world of cipher duties. She loved the work and knew it was important to the war effort, and she had found herself with a very mixed group of women whose backgrounds were as colourful as her own.

‘I have called you here to say that you will be transferred to Brisbane to work at Allied Supreme Headquarters. General MacArthur has set up his HQ there and they require a representative from the WAAAF in their codes section. You have demonstrated a very high level of skill in your current role and when I was asked to nominate one of my girls I thought of you. The posting is in a very sensitive area. But I also realise that to post you to Brisbane is a big step, and will ask you if you want the posting. It also comes with the rank of sergeant.’

Jessica thought about the offer for just a moment. To be posted to the highest HQ in Australia would mean working at the top of her field.

She took a deep breath. ‘I would be honoured, ma’am,’ Jessica said.

Her superior officer smiled. ‘Good. Report back to your supervisor and inform him that you are now officially released from your duties. You are to prepare for immediate transfer from here. However, you are unable to tell anyone where you are being posted, and I expect you understand why.’

‘Yes, ma’am, I understand,’ Jessica replied. ‘Thank you for your faith in me.’

Jessica’s last comment brought an expression of pleasure from the female officer. ‘You might not thank me in the long run,’ she said. ‘You will be in a world of everyone higher than you. You are dismissed and good luck.’

Jessica stepped back and snapped a respectable salute before turning on her heel and marching out of the office.

*

It was Charles Huntley who informed Sarah of the tragedy that had befallen her best friend. As Sarah was little interested in reading the lists of those killed, wounded and missing in action, she had not read of Paul Jenkins’s fate flying the skies of Milne Bay. Charles also informed Sarah that Allison was in hospital, although he did not know why.

Armed with a bouquet of garden flowers, Sarah found her friend lying ashen-faced in a bed in the women’s ward.

Allison turned her head to see Sarah standing by the bed with the flowers.

‘I’m so sorry about Paul,’ Sarah said gently. ‘What has happened? Why are you here?’

Allison reached out to grasp Sarah’s hand. ‘I had a miscarriage,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘It happened just after I was informed that Paul was listed missing in action. One of his friends wrote from Milne Bay, it seems his burning plane was seen crashing into the ocean, and his body was not recovered.’

‘I cannot find the words to tell you how sorry I am,’ Sarah said, bending over and kissing Allison on the cheek. She turned and placed the flowers in a vase on a stand by the bed.

‘If I could have kept my baby I would at least have had something left of Paul,’ Allison said when Sarah sat down in a chair. ‘This bloody war can reach out and take from us, no matter where we are.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Sarah asked.

‘Do you know, I was not even sure that Paul and I should marry so soon, but the pregnancy changed everything,’ Allison said. ‘I think I fell in love with Paul after we were married, and now he is gone forever. It was as if we had never really met. There should be a law passed preventing any couple getting married until the war is over. You’re fortunate – you’re single. But at least you have Charles in your life, and there is little chance that he will be killed, not with his protected status.’

Sarah could see that her friend was bitter, and this made her uncomfortable. She wanted to blurt out that she also loved a man in uniform, but she held back. What had happened with David at the Manly cottage was like a dream now, although the memory of his strong arms holding her naked body lingered like the scent of perfume.

‘How long will you have to remain here?’ Sarah asked, changing the subject.

‘I am to be released tomorrow,’ Allison answered. ‘I have been offered a job as a legal secretary. I think Paul would have been pleased to know I was able to earn a living by myself.’

Sarah stood, leaving with a promise that she would
contact Allison when she was released from hospital.

As Sarah walked away she thought about David. Could she face news that he was killed or missing in action? What if he was badly maimed? Sarah reflected on these very real possibilities and had to admit to herself that she did not want this kind of uncertainty in her life. David had never said he loved her, and what had happened to Allison brought her back to reality. Charles had a safe job, a long way from the fighting, and he had a bright career ahead of him. He was going somewhere, and that was the kind of man Sarah needed in her life. It was time to put aside the physical desire she felt for her cousin and concentrate on managing her life and the Macintosh enterprises. She had promised her father she would do anything to ensure the family fortune prospered under her leadership. All she needed to do was manoeuvre her brother out of the line of succession. She need not concern herself with David – he was no more suited to running the Macintosh companies than he was to being her husband.

*

The smell of an early spring was in the Sydney air. Captain David Macintosh stood on the platform at Central Station and watched as loved ones farewelled their men who were boarding the troop train deploying north to Queensland. That, at least, was the official story; every man in the battalion was sure their final destination was, in fact, New Guinea. David had been promoted to captain, and was the company’s second-in-command.