SOMEDAY SOON (8 page)

Following a secret session of Parliament he
had authorized the sending of a cable to Winston Churchill in
London, demanding the return of the fifty thousand men of the
Australian Imperial Force serving with the British forces overseas.
He had stated emphatically that the Imperial Force, already
weakened by severe losses in Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East
Indies, were the only seasoned soldiers Australia had and they were
now desperately needed to defend their homeland against an imminent
Japanese invasion.

The cable was the most recent of several
forceful exchanges over the past week between Curtin to Churchill.
It left no room for maneuvering by the British Prime Minister whose
intransigence on the matter prior to the bombing of Darwin had been
absolute, insisting the bulk of the Imperial Force be deployed in
the defense of Burma, to where a convoy was already taking
them.

Curtin continued to pace the floor. He
hoped the decision to recall the 6
^th
and 7
^th
Divisions of the
Imperial Force hadn’t been taken too late. It would still be some
time before the convoy carrying the troops could return to
Australia. In the meantime, with much of the Royal Australian Navy
serving abroad with the Royal Navy, and the cream of the Royal
Australian Air Force engaged in Europe and the Middle East,
Australia would have to rely on around eighty thousand untrained
and poorly equipped conscripted militia soldiers, many of whom had
never held a rifle let alone fired one.

But Curtin was heartened by the fact that not
every setback of the past few months had been a total disaster for
Australia. The successful attack on the United States Pacific Fleet
at Pearl Harbor, and the United States Army Air Force in the
Philippines, had made Australia a natural staging area from where
the Americans could halt Japan’s advance across the Pacific.

The few American aircraft that had
escaped destruction in the Philippines, mainly P-40 fighters and
B.17 bombers, had already been sent to Australia and more men and
equipment were beginning to arrive from the United States. The
first Americans had come aboard an eight-ship convoy of men and
equipment escorted by the cruiser
USS
Pensacola,
which had been diverted to Brisbane while
en route from San Francisco to Manila at the time of the Japanese
attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

Three days after the
Pensacola
convoy reached Brisbane,
Curtin had made an emotional public appeal to the United States to
help Australia in her hour of need. The appeal fortunately
coincided with an American plan to wage war on Japan from
Australia. Although the arrival of the Americans was unheralded,
because of strict government censorship of troop movements, the
sight of American servicemen on the streets of Australia’s capital
cities had become commonplace in recent weeks.

Curtin knew the presence of the Americans
gave heart to an increasingly alarmed Australian public which,
until the entry of Japan into the war, had generally treated the
far-off European conflict with casual indifference. But now, with
the bombing of Darwin, Australians were afraid as they had never
been before, even though the official government censor, newspaper
magnate Keith Murdoch, had complied with Curtin’s personal
direction to withhold the true extent of the death and destruction
from the public.

The Prime Minister walked over to his office
window and drew back the curtain. The dawn was just breaking on a
new day. Curtin was wondering what it might hold when there was a
knock at the door and Frank Forde, the Deputy Prime Minister and
Army Minister entered the room.

‘John, wonderful news,’ Forde said with a
wide smile on his face. ‘We’ve just had a signal from Washington.
President Roosevelt has ordered General Douglas MacArthur to leave
the Philippines for Australia to assume command of a new South-west
Pacific Theatre.’

*

When
Faraway
passed through Dundas Strait separating
Melville Island and the Coburg Peninsular and nosed into the
Arafura Sea, she found a favorable wind. For the first time since
leaving Darwin Joe shut down the engine and the ketch entered the
almost silent world of sail. The only sound was the chuckle of the
ketch’s bow as she gently pushed her way north-easterly through a
calm sea.

There had been no sightings of Japanese
warplanes or even reconnaissance aircraft all day. The only visual
reminder of the horror of Darwin, which now lay a hundred miles
astern, was Koko’s small figure sitting alone with his sadness near
the bow of the vessel. That night they dropped anchor in Trepang
Bay and ate fresh fish which Faith had frying in the pan just
minutes after Sunday and Monday had caught them.

The next morning they set a course for
Croker Island. It was almost dark when
Faraway
arrived in Mission Bay. The vessel was
well-known at the island and was greeted warmly. That evening, Joe,
Faith and Koko dined with the missionaries. They learned of the
fearful reaction of the Methodist and Anglican missions across the
Top End to the Japanese attack on Darwin. None of the many missions
had been evacuated by the Navy as promised. Now, fearing a
full-scale Japanese invasion, the missions were using their radio
network to try and organize the evacuation of white female staff
and mixed-race children themselves, using the church owned
lugger
Larrpan
to transfer
evacuees from the islands to the mainland.

The missionaries at Croker Island had
decided it was too dangerous for the
Larrpan
to sail to Darwin because of sightings of
Japanese submarines in Van Diemen Gulf being reported over the
airwaves. Instead, a plan was being formulated to take all evacuees
over seven hundred nautical miles to the south-east, to the mouth
of the Roper River in the Gulf of Carpentaria. From there they
would travel inland, on the river and overland, over a hundred and
fifty miles to Mataranka, a small settlement three hundred miles
south of Darwin on the road to Alice Springs.

When one of the priests asked Joe for
his opinion of the plan, he expressed reservations. ‘It’s a long,
difficult voyage during the cyclone season in the best of
circumstances, Father. I know Kolino Saukuru, the master of
the
Larrpan
. He’s a fine
sailor and a good missionary, but it is an awesome responsibility
he is taking on, having to contend with the Japanese as well as the
weather. It’s not one I would want myself.’

The priest glanced apprehensively at
the other missionaries seated around the table, then turned back to
Joe. ‘When we saw
Faraway
approaching this afternoon, my son, we knew that your coming
was God’s own work, his answer to all our prayers. Because we are
the most westerly mission, our evacuees will be the last to be
picked up by the
Larrpan
and
that could be weeks away. We know
Faraway
can’t carry a lot of passengers but since
you are sailing eastward we would be more than grateful if you
would take some of the younger girls with you.’

Joe didn’t answer right away.

‘You would only lose a couple of days in the
Gulf by sailing south to the Roper River,’ the priest urged. ‘You
see, it’s the younger mixed-race girls who would be abused the
worst by the Japanese.’

Joe was conscious of everyone’s eyes on him,
including those of Faith and Koko.

‘
We can, of course, provide rations for
everyone for the entire voyage, Joe’ the priest persisted. ‘And
we’ll arrange for people to be waiting for them when you reach the
Roper River.’

‘There must be some other way, Father,’ Joe
said, reluctant to commit himself to such a long voyage with
evacuees. ‘Are there no other boats?’

‘The only vessel we’ve seen since you were
here last, Joe, was a small ketch with two rough looking sea-tramps
aboard. They anchored here overnight on their way eastward to the
Gulf of Carpentaria. They said they were croc-shooters and
volunteered to take some of the girls with them. But we were afraid
their fate might be worse on board that vessel than at the hands of
the Japanese.’

‘What was the boat’s name?’

‘The
Groote
Eyelandt Lady’

‘I saw her leaving Darwin. She didn’t look
very seaworthy.’

‘I’m afraid we were more concerned about the
morals of the men than the condition of their boat, Joe.’

Faith reached out and laid her hand over her
bother’s. ‘It’s a huge responsibility for you, Joe. But surely it’s
the least we can do. I’ll see to it that the girls don’t get in the
way.’

Joe sighed resignedly. ‘All right. We’ll take
as many as we can, twelve, perhaps fourteen. But with only basic
facilities and accommodation on board we will have to anchor each
night and sail only in good weather. You would know well, Father,
that the Top End coast is strewn with uncharted reefs and I won’t
take any unnecessary risks.’

The priest smiled happily. ‘Your kindness
will be repaid a hundred times in this life, Joseph. We will have
the girls ready to leave in a few days, just as soon as we can make
arrangements for them with the missions along the Roper River. And
don’t you worry about your charges, Joe. The Lord has sent you to
us and he will see they come to no harm.’

*

An American B-17 Flying Fortress, en route
from Mindanao to Batchelor Field in the Northern Territory began
its descent over the Coburg Peninsular. As the roar of the huge
bomber’s four engines eased, General Douglas MacArthur, tall and
handsome, but underweight and sallow from weeks of short rations in
the Philippines, peered down at the flat almost featureless face of
northern Australia.

It had been almost a month since he had been
ordered by the President of the United States to leave his
embattled army in the Philippines and take command of US forces in
Australia. In July, 1941, MacArthur, a former Chief of Staff of the
United States Army, had been serving as military advisor to the
newly formed Philippine Commonwealth when he was recalled to active
service and given command of all US Army Forces in the Far East. At
the same time, by executive order, the entire Philippine army had
been inducted into the United States Army to provide the strongest
possible deterrent against Japanese aggression in the region.

But less than two months after the start of
the Japanese offensive in the Philippines, MacArthur’s combined
army of over one hundred thousand men was in tatters and
desperately in need of reinforcements and provisions. With the
Philippines blockaded by the enemy and with food and munitions
rapidly depleting, it was clear the American and Filipino forces
were doomed and it was only a matter of time before they were
forced to surrender or be wiped out to the last man. Unwilling to
leave his command with his troops facing certain defeat, MacArthur
only acceded to the President’s order to go to Australia on the
condition that he could leave at a time and place of his own
choosing.

When he had finally left several weeks later,
MacArthur was forced to break his vow to die with his besieged
troops on the island fortress of Corregidor in the mouth of Manila
Bay and had to flee in a small boat to the island of Mindanao where
the B.17 was waiting to take him to Australia. But before he left
he made a solemn promise to return to the Philippines, the place
where he had first seen military service as a young lieutenant in
1903.

The Flying Fortress skimmed over the scrub at
the edge of Batchelor Field and touched down on a dirt runway, only
recently extended to accommodate such a large aircraft. While the
B.17 was being refueled, MacArthur, his Filipino wife and young son
stepped from the plane to stretch their legs, as did several
high-ranking officers the general had brought with him from
Corregidor. In less than half an hour the plane took off again for
Alice Springs.

There, MacArthur was met by a military
contingent of American officers including Lieutenant-General
Richard Sutherland. Sutherland had been MacArthur’s Chief of Staff
in the Philippines and had preceded him to Melbourne to confer with
Australian officials. MacArthur had decided to make the long
journey southward to Adelaide and Melbourne by train, in order to
have time to get a full appreciation of the situation in Australia
before meeting with Prime Minister Curtin and his war cabinet. As
the train rattled southward through the South Australian desert,
MacArthur was stunned by what he heard.

‘There are somewhere in the region of twenty
thousand Allied combat-ready troops in Australia, sir,’ Sutherland
told him. ‘The rest are all untrained and poorly equipped
conscripts. The Australian Air Force has about eighty assorted
aircraft; most are obsolete, some of them very old biplanes and we
only have about a hundred and sixty operational airplanes. More
crated P-40 fighters have already arrived from the United States
and are presently being assembled and put into service. More
aircraft have been promised from the States and the British say
they are sending Spitfires. The Australian Naval forces in home
waters are small but by all accounts, very well trained.’

MacArthur’s eyes widened in amazement and
disbelief. Then his jaw tightened and for a long time he stared out
of the carriage window in shocked disappointment without uttering a
word. Eventually he said: ‘If thirty thousand American soldiers and
a hundred thousand Filipinos, backed up by a hundred and fifty
P-40’s, thirty-five B-17’s, thirty Catalinas and sixty warships
couldn’t save the Philippines, what chance does this country have
if the Japs invade?’ MacArthur turned his eyes back to his Chief of
Staff. ‘Do the Australians have any kind of plan at all?’