The Persimmon Tree (22 page)

I opened the wallet, fearful that my precious Magpie Crow might have been damaged by a recent clumsy inspection. But when I withdrew the triangular envelope and carefully opened it I discovered my specimen was in perfect condition. I sighed, grateful to someone unknown.

‘Another butterfly, eh?’ he said suspiciously. ‘Would you like to explain, Mr Duncan?’

‘It’s a Magpie Crow, sir. Only found in Java, Sumatra, Malaya and Singapore,’ I explained, then added, ‘I collect butterflies, sir.’

‘Write that down, girlie, Java, Sumatra, Malaya and Singapore, all under Japanese occupation, oh, and add that the subject asked about New Britain,
also
now under the Japanese occupation! Ha! Butterfly collector, pull the other one!’ he added gratuitously.

Marg Hamilton glanced up quickly, her eyes grown large. ‘Shall I write that too?’ she asked.

‘No, of course not, use your head, girlie,’ Henry said impatiently. Then, shaking his head and clicking his tongue, ‘Butterfly collector, what next?’

I had always been taught to be polite to people older than myself and to those I should respect, and Pumpkin Paunch was obviously my superior in this situation. But I’d had enough of this buffoon with the three strands of greying hair glued across the top of his small, bald pink head. ‘My father is a personal friend of the Archbishop of Perth, Henry Le Fanu, who is my godfather, perhaps someone might call him?’ I said, my voice sufficiently loud for Henry to peer over the top of his steel-rimmed glasses, a look of surprise on his face. Marg Hamilton giggled, then quickly brought her shorthand pad up to her mouth to cover her grin.

Henry rose from his chair. ‘You will remain here, please, Mr Duncan.’ He turned to Marg Hamilton. ‘You too, girlie.’ Then leaving my things on the desk he crossed and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Marg waited a few moments. ‘He’s getting worse!’ she giggled. ‘Thank God he retires next month, when Australia will be a safer place for all.’

I grinned. ‘He’s certainly different,’ I said cautiously. ‘How long have you been his secretary?’

‘Oh, I’m not his secretary, he thinks I’m from the typing pool.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘No, I cover him when he comes down from Perth,’ she said, and then without explaining any further she reached for the phone and dialled a number, then waited for the other end to respond. ‘Sir, it’s Marg, it’s probably time for you to come in.’ She listened while the other end said something. ‘No, he’s left the room to call the Anglican Archbishop,’ she said, smiling into the phone. ‘Have someone bring in a chair for you.’ She replaced the receiver. ‘Do you really know the Archbishop?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, fair dinkum, he’s my godfather.’

‘Good, that should be sufficient to send Customs and Immigration scuttling back to Perth. Horrid little man!’ She moved over to look at Anna’s embroidered handkerchief and then at the Magpie Crow specimen. ‘They’re very pretty, you must tell me about them sometime. Do you really collect butterflies?’

I nodded, grinning. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘That’s nice, I like that — an intrepid ocean-going sailor who collects butterflies,’ she said, smiling.

‘No, it’s stupid.’ I pointed to the Magpie Crow. ‘That little black-and-white specimen damn nearly cost me my life.’

She gave me a serious look. ‘You don’t strike me as stupid, Nick,’ she said.

‘That’s nice, dear, but you
must
appreciate there is a war on. Please don’t ask me again, we ration everyone to one shower a day.’

She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘You may choose morning or night, but not both.’

Mrs Beswick

Boarding-house keeper

SEVERAL MINUTES PASSED BEFORE
the door opened and Lieutenant Commander Rigby stepped into the room alone, not carrying a chair. ‘We meet again, Nick,’ he said pleasantly, then turning to Marg Hamilton, ‘I take it you’ve met Chief Petty Officer Hamilton, Naval Intelligence?’

‘Well yes, sort of,’ I ventured, smiling at Marg. ‘I’ve met the amanuensis version anyway,’ I said, using a word my father preferred to ‘secretary’, a rogue word that he was fond of pointing out had a number of other meanings in the English language.

‘Sorry about Bert Henry, we’re obliged to give Customs and Immigration first crack at anyone coming ashore; they need to check your passport, papers, that sort of thing, which is fair enough. But Bert’s a conspiracy theorist who sees the enemy everywhere, that’s why Marg here acts as a stenographer. Thankfully up to this moment he hasn’t caught on that she’s Intelligence.’ He laughed. ‘A week ago we had a group of escaping English soldiers, who, like you, sailed from the East Indies but in a
prahu
, a sixty-foot Malayan outrigger canoe. Like your own escape, it was a remarkable effort and, in addition, at one stage they’d endured a machine-gun attack by a Japanese Zero. We should rightfully have treated them like the heroes they undoubtedly were. But Bert Henry became convinced they were fifth columnists and wanted to clap them into jail on the strength that he didn’t believe anyone could sail an outrigger that far, least of all a bunch of Pommie soldiers. The men were all from the north of England with broad Sheffield and Liverpool accents, and our Bert couldn’t understand most of what they were saying. This he took to be further evidence that they were deeply suspect and he declared them to be Germans masquerading as English. Marg’s notes, if they had been submitted to Bert Henry’s superiors, would have said more about Bert Henry’s mental condition than that of the half-starved English soldiers.’

‘What do you do with the… er… notes?’ I said, pointing to the shorthand notepad.

‘Type them up, delouse them when necessary, then post them on with a copy to Bert’s immediate superior. Like us, they’re anxiously waiting for his retirement next month.’

‘Mr Henry, will he be coming back?’ I asked.

‘No, having called the Archbishop’s palace and received confirmation of your relationship leaves him with nowhere to go. He’s a stickler for God, king and country and with God confirmed as being on your side I guess he decided his temporal duties were over. He’s agreed your passport is authentic and your papers in order. That’s about it for his department, anyway. We thanked him for his help and ordered a navy car to take him back to Perth. He usually comes by train, so he’ll enjoy the prestige associated with the ride and see it as confirmation of his importance in the scheme of things. Besides, he’s done his bit; he won a military cross at Passchendaele in the last war and we should respect his contribution.’

Lieutenant Commander Rigby took the seat behind the desk and Marg Hamilton sat down again with her notepad. Rigby pointed to my passport, papers, Anna’s handkerchief and the Magpie Crow envelope that was still open. ‘I regret we had to go through your things, Nick, although I can’t apologise, it’s standard procedure. You may have them back, but I confess I’m curious to know about the butterflies.’

His manner as a contrast to Pumpkin Paunch was so easy and relaxed that I found myself totally disarmed as I told him why I’d ridiculously gone to Java in the first place, my meeting with Piet Van Heerden and his desire that I take his yacht to Australia, and the butterfly-catching excursion with his daughter Anna, who had embroidered the butterfly she’d caught onto the hanky as a keepsake. I didn’t dwell on Anna and made it sound as if our relationship had been casual; good friends only. This was partly because I lacked the vocabulary to deal with how I felt about her and also the fear that, as an older man, he would simply see it as puppy love, the first real-person sexual arousal in a young bloke, the transition between randy images conjured up in the toilet and under early-morning sheets and the shock and delight of the real thing, even if it was the unconsummated real thing. It never seems to occur to adults that one of the greatest love affairs in literature took place between a fourteen-year-old Juliet and a sixteen-year-old Romeo.

I went on to talk about my escape and of being awakened at around midnight a night out from Batavia by the noise of big guns coming from the direction of the Sunda Strait. I told of the tragedy witnessed on the beach the following morning. But now I decided to come clean. I confessed to Lieutenant Commander Rigby that I hadn’t had the courage to bury the dead men, afraid the natives would return and find me. I explained the indecent compromise I’d reached by laying them out in line and placing a small, hastily made wooden cross above the head of each one and then, from memory, conducting a funeral service. ‘I’m ashamed to say I was afraid, sir,’ I confessed, Kevin’s immortal words ‘
I ain’t no fuckin’ hero
’
jumping into my head.

I guess I’d become pretty overwrought by this stage because Lieutenant Commander Rigby raised a hand. ‘That’s enough for the time being, Nick. Although allow me to say that few men would have had the courage to do what you did and the navy thanks you. It was a ghastly business, one of the small and darker moments for mankind, but with your actions, civilised man prevails.’ He sounded a bit like my father.

Marg stood up. ‘May I be excused, sir? You will recall we have a luncheon meeting with the Americans and I ought to get changed. Where will I meet you?’

‘Come back here, Marg. Nick and I will be a while yet, but you have no further need to take notes,’ Rigby said, then added, ‘Oh, when you return, bring in 14 P. We’ll both witness it.’

Marg left and Lieutenant Commander Rigby asked, ‘Nick, who else knows about the massacre on the beach? Have you told anyone else here in Fremantle?’

‘Only Sergeant Hamill, sir. I neglected to give you the boots belonging to one of the
Perth
sailors and when we got to the police station I handed them to him. You’d mentioned the
Perth
on the docks and he questioned me further; it seems he had a cousin serving on it.’

‘Was there anyone with him, with you, at the time?’

‘No, I don’t believe so. The two plain-clothes men were there, but they’d left the room at the time.’

‘Did he write it down?’

‘No. He made me sign for the boots. It wasn’t, if you know what I mean, an interrogation.’

Lieutenant Commander Rigby snatched up the phone. ‘Switch, get me Sergeant Hamill at Harbourside Police Station.’ He replaced the receiver and turned to me. ‘Nick, we’re going to have to inform Canberra of the massacre in Java. My gut feeling is that the information will be classified. You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘Better let the Americans know, sir. Kevin Judge knows the whole story,’ I replied, anxious to cooperate.

‘It could mean it’s given top-secret status, in fact that’s almost certain. I’m afraid you’re going to have to sign a form forbidding you to talk about what you witnessed to anyone. As far as you’re concerned, it never happened.’ He gave me a deadly serious look. ‘I must ask you to cooperate in this, Nick.’

‘What about their next of kin, sir?’

‘We’re at war, son. We don’t know the casualty figures for the
Perth
, how many dead, how many captured by the Japanese. We may never know and certainly not before the end of the war. The Japanese are not signatories to the Geneva Convention. As far as Seaman Judge goes, awaiting Canberra’s instructions, we’ve alerted the Americans to take his evidence in camera and I’m meeting my American counterpart at lunch today.’

He hadn’t answered my question. But then again, the known and awful end of the nine men on the
Perth
and the unknown outcome for the huge number of other personnel on board wasn’t exactly heartening news. I could understand why a wartime government would want to conceal the facts from the public and, in particular, the next of kin of the nine dead men. What I wasn’t to know at the time was that Rigby had anticipated Canberra’s reaction correctly and the beach massacre in Java would remain buried within the secret files of the government in Canberra for the next fifty years.

The phone rang and Lieutenant Commander Rigby picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then said, ‘Put him on.’ Then, ‘Afternoon, Sergeant, Rigby here, have you got a moment? Are you alone? Good. I have young Duncan with me and he’s just told me about the…’ — he paused, not wanting to spell the details out on the telephone — ‘the Java beach incident.’ He listened for a moment. ‘Yes, that’s right, we’ve classified the information awaiting a reply from Canberra.’ Pause. ‘No, of course, but you’ll have to sign a 14 P, a formality,’ he laughed, ‘they’ll have my guts for garters otherwise.’ Pause. ‘Thank you, I appreciate you cooperation; Chief Petty Officer Hamilton will bring it over this afternoon, she can witness it initially. Cheerio and thanks.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘Nice bloke, salt of the earth,’ he said. Lieutenant Commander Rigby was, I decided, a man accustomed to getting his own way. He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands and resting them on his lap. ‘What are your plans, Nick?’ he asked.

‘Well, sir, I guess to join up. I turned eighteen last month.’

‘Have you considered the navy?’

‘No, sir, I just automatically thought it would be the army.’

‘Would you consider the navy?’

I thought for a minute. ‘Right at this moment I’ve had my fill of the sea — a bit of square bashing on solid land seems like a good idea. But first I hope to contact my father. Sergeant Hamill says that some people may have got out of Rabaul and be on their way to Cairns. I’m hoping he’s amongst them.’

‘You mentioned that on the wharf. Marg is already onto it; leave it with us and we’ll get back to you.’

‘Thank you, sir. He’s a stubborn old bugger and speaks Japanese fluently; my fear is that he’ll think it’s his duty to remain with his flock and negotiate on their behalf with the enemy.’ I clicked my tongue and shook my head. ‘He’s just silly enough to think that as a man of God he’ll be respected. The Japanese my father knew in Japan were a highly sophisticated and civilised people, but he hasn’t yet met up with Tojo’s murderous mob.’

‘Nick, you left Japan at the age of eleven; that was seven years ago. How is your Japanese? A bit rusty?’

I smiled. ‘I shouldn’t think so, sir. My father is a classical Japanese scholar and insists we speak Japanese whenever I’m home. He’s a stickler for grammar and correct usage. Japanese is very much a language of intonation — the ear is as important as the mouth. It’s not only what you say, but also how you say it.’

‘Oh, so would you say you’ve advanced from, say, the grammar and vocabulary of an eleven-year-old?’

‘I would think so, my father is a perfectionist. I know he expects me by now to speak and write at a pretty sophisticated level.’

‘Good. That’s good, so you write, read Japanese… excellent.’

‘It’s a bit more than that,’ I explained. ‘Your status is decided by the way you use language, a bit like the English upper class and cockney. I guess if they didn’t despise Caucasians as they do, we, certainly my father, would be considered well-educated upper middleclass.’

‘Butterflies!’ Rigby said suddenly, changing the subject. ‘Tell me about collecting butterflies.’

I thought for a moment, not sure how to answer him. ‘There isn’t a lot to tell, sir. People collect things, I collect butterflies. There are about eighteen thousand different species in the world, many of them in New Guinea.’ I shrugged. ‘For a lepidopterist the Pacific is paradise.’

Lieutenant Commander Rigby smiled. ‘And you’d venture into a war zone to capture just one of them?’

I looked down at my knees and shook my head, glanced sideways at him and said, ‘Yeah, I know, it must sound pretty bloody naïve.’

‘Intrepid,’ he replied. ‘Determined. I guess butterflies aren’t all found around the backyard daisy patch. Do you ever need to venture into really difficult terrain?’

I smiled, happy not to dwell on the Java incident. ‘That’s a big part of the fascination, going into the unknown, disappearing for a week at a time, sometimes more, determined to find a particular specimen.’

‘On your own in the jungle?’

I laughed. ‘Not too many people care to be rained on twice a day and bitten by every insect known to man and some species not yet identified. But fortunately I don’t mind my own company and have come over the years to feel pretty at home in the jungle. It looks formidable, but really if you know what you’re doing you can avoid dysentery, and citronella keeps the mossies away…’ I trailed off, thinking I was becoming too garrulous and perhaps big-noting myself.

‘So you could survive for a week at a time, perhaps more, and live off the land, so to speak?’

‘Well, no, not exactly, a billy, a pound or two of rice, tea, a tin of condensed milk, citronella and salt tablets, that’s about it, the rest is hunter–gatherer stuff. Fruit bats, for instance, are excellent eating, easy to catch in a net and good protein on a spit.’