The Persimmon Tree (23 page)

He thought for a moment, tapping the edge of the desk with a forefinger. ‘Good!’ He hesitated momentarily. ‘And you’d consider joining the navy, Nick?’

I grinned, reminding myself that Lieutenant Commander Rigby was a man who liked to get his own way. ‘I didn’t say that, sir. There aren’t a whole heap of butterflies on the ocean, nor for that matter is it covered in jungle.’

He laughed. ‘You’re a very surprising eighteen-year-old, Nick Duncan.’ I think it was meant as a compliment, because he went on to say, ‘The navy isn’t all about battleships and keeping things shipshape. That’s about enough for today, though. I want you to meet one or two people over the next day or two; maybe we can convince you?’

Moments later there was a knock on the door and without waiting for a reply Chief Petty Officer Marg Hamilton entered. I must say I was surprised. She wore a Wrans uniform that emphasised her slim figure and long legs. Her rich chestnut hair, formerly in a severe bun, was now loosely tied up. She wore eye make-up that emphasised her green eyes, and a brilliant scarlet lipstick. When I’d first seen her I thought she must be in her thirties, but now I revised her age to somewhere in her twenties. How do women do that? Transform, as if by magic, brush, smear, pat, dab, and a different woman, just like that? Lieutenant Commander Rigby’s assistant was the whole delicious eyeful as well as obviously being nobody’s fool.

I signed the 14 P form that bound me to the Official Secrets Act and both the Lieutenant Commander and Marg witnessed it. Marg then said, ‘His Grace the Archbishop phoned, and he’d like Nick to come for lunch tomorrow.’ She smiled, looking at Rigby. ‘We’re both included.’ She paused. ‘Rupert Basil Michael Long will be there as well.’ The way she stressed all the names suggested that whoever he was, he was not the kind of man you’d happily invite home for dinner.

Lieutenant Commander Rigby gave a low whistle, then glanced at me. ‘You command powerful friends, Nick.’

I blushed, embarrassed by the invitation. Henry Le Fanu was a nice enough old codger and though he was my godfather, I’d met him on only two occasions (except of course at the christening) when he’d visited my father in New Britain. As I recall, he was an expert on Chaucer, as was my dad, and on the two visits they’d spent most of the time in the library arguing and drinking tea in the afternoon and what my father referred to as sharing one or two bottles of excellent libation during and after dinner. These were a self-consumed though generously shared gift from the Archbishop. An Anglican missionary’s salary doesn’t extend to wine or brandy of such excellence and my godfather wasn’t prepared to settle for the excruciating Tolley’s brandy or cheap Portuguese sherry my father served to his more sophisticated guests. Afterwards my father would claim he always won the afternoon debate but, lacking the Archbishop’s tolerance for alcohol, invariably lost the evening one. As for the other bloke with the three Christian names, I’d never heard of him, nor did it seem my place to ask who he might be.

Marg now turned to Lieutenant Commander Rigby. ‘We really ought to be going, sir. The car will be waiting downstairs.’ She turned to me. ‘Nick, I’ve arranged for you to have lunch at the canteen on the ground floor. It’s not the greatest but the corned beef and the shepherd’s pie are usually excellent.’ She handed me a ticket. ‘Just hand this in to the staff, then tuck in for all you’re worth, there’s no limit on seconds. The bread and butter pudding’s not bad either.’ Then she held out a folded sheet of paper. ‘It’s a map showing you how to get back to your boarding house in case you get lost.’ She reached out and tucked it into the top pocket of my khaki shirt. It seemed the kind of thing a mother might do to her small boy charged with delivering a note to his teacher, although, I must say, I liked the sense of familiarity.

I collected my passport and papers, Anna’s handkerchief and refolded the Magpie Crow back into its triangular envelope and then the oilskin wallet. Again Marg Hamilton anticipated me and promptly produced a large brown manila envelope. On the way out they directed me to the canteen. Lieutenant Commander Rigby shook my hand and thanked me for my cooperation. ‘It’s been a pleasure, Nick,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

Marg smiled. ‘Nick, we’ll pick you up outside your boarding house at eleven tomorrow for the ride to Perth. Oh, and Peter Keeble from our signals department will call around about nine, he’s roughly your size and fancies himself as a bit of a natty dresser. He’s volunteered to lend you the clothes you’ll need for the lunch. I don’t suppose you’d wear a bow tie? Peter is particularly fond of bow ties.’ I grimaced and she laughed. ‘I’ll tell him a normal tie. What size shoe do you take?’

‘Eleven, broad fitting,’ I replied.

‘You’ll have to settle for navy officer issue. I’ll see a pair is sent around. Cheerio, Nick.’

Gosh she was pretty.

‘Thank you,’ I said. She’d solved a problem that was already secretly concerning me, but one I hadn’t the courage to bring up. Lunch with the Archbishop in khaki shirt and shorts wearing cacky brown sandshoes without socks seemed a tad underdressed. There was also something else I wanted to say so I took the plunge. ‘Miss Hamilton, Lieutenant Commander Rigby, sir,’ I said, addressing them both, ‘concerning your lunch with… er, the Americans? You said it was with your intelligence counterparts. If you get the chance, will you ask them to take good care of Seaman Judge? Kevin has been through a fair bit; I’m fairly sure he was concussed for the first week or so we were at sea and has a nasty head wound that’s not entirely healed. If you get the opportunity, can you tell them he conducted himself with exceptional courage and I couldn’t have completed the voyage without him.’ I smiled, inwardly hearing the little bloke’s voice clearly in my head: ‘
Lissen,
I want ya ter unnerstan, I ain’t no fuckin’ hero!
’

Commander Long, the fourth guest at lunch, which was a cold collation served in a gazebo in the Archbishop’s glorious garden, turned out to be the head of Australian Naval Intelligence who was on a visit to the west from Melbourne. He didn’t say much, and on the way Lieutenant Commander Rigby described him as having a steel-trap mind. The two Intelligence officers were clearly a bit nervous and I’m not sure they were all that keen about attending the lunch. As an eighteen-year-old surrounded by these bigwigs, I felt decidedly out of place and wasn’t about to add my twopence-worth to the general conversation.

I was nervous and afraid I’d be out of my depth. Lunch with Henry Le Fanu alone would have been a difficult and awkward process without having to cope with other influential guests. I consoled myself with the thought that I’d keep my mouth tightly shut, mind my manners, speak only when spoken to and that at least I looked okay. Peter Keeble had proved to be almost exactly my size and his clobber — light-grey flannels and a brown sports coat, grey socks, white shirt and scarlet woollen tie — and from Marg a pair of navy officer’s dress uniform shoes that pinched a bit but would wear in nicely, gave me a sense of being presentable and at the same time commonplace enough to be almost invisible. That is, if a six feet three inch, fourteen stone, clumsy-looking eighteen-year-old can ever look like he isn’t present. Size among small and powerful men is always a problem and the more you hunch your shoulders the bigger you seem.

Oh, I forgot to say that the folded note Marg Hamilton had tucked into my shirt pocket intended supposedly to give me directions back to the boarding house contained a ten-shilling note and the words:
Dinner money and perhaps a haircut?
I wondered if the incomparable Marg ever missed anything. So there I was in the Archbishop’s garden politely sipping a beer, with short back and sides, tie knot correct, neat as can be. The barber, a Greek or Italian, had run his fingers through my hair. ‘Where you been, mister? You gonna be shipwreck maybe?’ he’d asked. Afterwards I’d felt obliged to give him a sixpenny tip for the extra work involved.

There was some small talk about the speed of the Japanese Pacific invasion and the somewhat hasty capitulation of the Netherlands East Indies on the 8th of March. Apparently rather more had been expected from the Dutch forces in the Pacific. Though I wouldn’t have dreamed of venturing an opinion in such company, I had seen nothing in Batavia that suggested they would offer any real resistance to the Japanese. The white Dutch officers who had come into
De Kost Kamer
had all been pretty pessimistic and, as I’ve mentioned previously, the native troops were at best ambivalent and most were secretly happy to welcome the Japs as liberators who were more or less of the same colour and, like them, Asians. Dying for the Dutch wasn’t an option. Three hundred years of Dutch colonial rule had failed to impress the locals.

What came as a surprise was the antipathy during the pre-lunch conversation towards Winston Churchill, who, it appeared, had attempted to dismiss us as a bunch of redneck colonials and to ride roughshod over Australia’s desire to bring our troops home from the Middle East, insisting we send them to Burma. It seems our new prime minister, Mr Curtin, had told him to go to buggery, or used the diplomatic words to that effect. This, taken along with the inept and disgraceful capitulation by the English in Singapore, where a further sixteen thousand well-drilled and combat-hardened Australian troops had been taken out of play, left Australia totally disenchanted, unprotected and somewhat gobsmacked at Churchill’s blatant disregard for our welfare. With Churchill deciding Australia, along with the remainder of the western Pacific, was expendable, we were now looking to General MacArthur and the Americans as our logical partners in the war that was taking place in our own backyard.

While I don’t suppose all this was exactly top secret, being privy, a fly on the wall, to the conversation of three men and one woman who were fairly important in the scheme of things was exhilarating for someone just turned eighteen and about to become the lowest form of life in the Australian army. It became clear that Archbishop Henry Le Fanu wasn’t simply high up in the Anglican synod, but that God’s man in Western Australia was also extremely knowledgeable on matters of the war. Later I was to learn that he was a personal friend of Mr Curtin and, until recently, Vicar-General for all the armed forces and so would be as well informed as anyone in the country outside the war cabinet.

We hadn’t yet entered the gazebo for lunch and were standing in the garden with our drinks, an elderly butler hovering half hidden and out of earshot behind a stand of bright-red canna lilies with a tray, anxious to immediately replenish any empty glass, when Lieutenant Commander Rigby pulled me aside. ‘Nick, the Commander wants you to tell the story of your escape all over again. He’s read Marg’s notes but says he wants it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. He also wants to know more about the American, how he survived and the others didn’t. He’s pretty sharp, so don’t leave anything out — the smallest detail may be important. He’ll be reporting to Canberra and he’ll want to know
everything
. You said yesterday the American knew the story. We must know as much, if not more than the Yanks about the incident on the beach. After all, you are the prime witness. Marg will be taking notes. I’m afraid this isn’t a casual lunch with your godfather, you’re centre stage, son. The only consolation is that it will probably be the last time you need to tell anyone what you witnessed on that dreadful morning.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’ll certainly do my best,’ I said, filled with sudden trepidation.

‘Oh, by the way, Nick,’ Rigby then said, ‘at lunch yesterday I brought up the matter of Mr Judge with my American colleague. He said it was just the sort of example of courage in the face of the enemy they were looking for. They may need a statement from you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t in for the full box and dice in commendations.’

I grinned, imagining the little bloke, sun shining scarlet through his Mickey Mouse ears, being medal-pinned by an admiral or maybe even MacArthur. Sometimes you’ve got to believe there is a God in heaven. But then a thought struck me. ‘But, sir, if the Americans talk about it and it’s classified top secret here, isn’t there a chance it will all come out?’

Lieutenant Commander Rigby smiled. ‘Good point, Nick. Marg and I had to do a fair bit of tap-dancing at lunch yesterday, anticipating Canberra’s response while at the same time accommodating the needs of the Yanks. You’ve heard the old adage, “Truth is the first casualty of war”? Right now the Americans need a hero, but on the other hand we don’t want the full-blown incident on the beach to come out. That’s the problem in a nutshell. So, there’s the inevitable compromise. The story changes just a little, not in truthfulness, but by omission. Mr Judge is wounded during the sinking of the
Houston
and, clinging to a life raft, is washed up onto a lonely beach in Java where he lies unconscious. That’s when you find him, rescue him and effect a remarkable escape avoiding the Japanese and crossing the Indian Ocean in a small sailing boat. It’s not untrue. It’s merely a simplified version of the truth in order to accommodate our needs as well as those of the Americans. They have a hero and we have one who deserves a commendation but won’t, I’m afraid, be getting one.’

‘I see,’ I said, not at all sure that I did, but vastly relieved that I wasn’t going to be classified as a hero. My abject terror that the villagers would return, which left me too afraid to give the nine men a decent burial was not only affecting my dreams but also often enough penetrating my waking thoughts. To be named a hero would simply add further to my secret shame.

We were all called to lunch, a serve-yourself affair of cold meats — pork, lamb and beef — potato salad, various other salads, canned pineapple, cold beetroot, raw onion, sliced white bread and butter and a large jug of orange juice. During the voyage on
Madam Butterfly
I had lacked the imagination to dream about such a variety of food. There were no staff on hand to help serve lunch and it was obvious that this was deliberate. I was there for four sets of ears only, with poor Marg having no time to eat as she took down my every word in shorthand.