The Turning Tide (9 page)

The job was made harder by the terrain. We’d trained on cold, wet mountains; here it was endless heat and hilly plains. Instead of mosquitoes and march flies we had mosquitoes and crocodiles for company, as well as unknown insects: one poor fellow died in a day from a bite.

Small wounds that healed easily in the south turned into bone-deep tropical ulcers here. We picked up ear infections from the rivers, dengue fever and malaria from the mosquitoes, and weeping skin lesions in armpits and toes and crotches.

But despite the discomforts we still had fun. We mapped unmapped areas, planned for contingencies, set up equipment dumps. We hiked and patrolled and happily pushed our training as far as possible. But sometimes we’d complain all we did was dig holes and carry heavy weights long distances. Let us at them, we’d say bitterly at night. Let us at them. We’re not defenders. We’re hunters.

Day after day we watched for aircraft, reported unusual events, worked on evacuation plans. Once we rescued a downed pilot, one of ours. We patrolled, we surveyed, we pulled guns apart, we reassembled them, we played poker, we drank beer, we hunted wildlife, we wanked, we slept, we exercised, we fought, we read, we got sick, we recovered, and over and over we wondered – when?

Groups of signalmen would rotate between the sections and headquarters, so I got to see a lot of the Territory.
I especially liked a stay with C Platoon on the Roper River, going out on a launch into the Gulf of Carpentaria and patrolling the river. Johnny was in C, too, so we had a couple of great evenings catching up. As we drank and joked, it felt like our old easy friendship had returned: the rivalry over Helen no longer mattered. I still felt pain when I thought of her married and forever out of my reach, but I didn’t envy Johnny’s predicament either.

While I was at Roper River, Alan came in on rotation for a few weeks. Johnny and I never spoke of their bond: for his sake I kept up the pretence. The two of them were always discreet but they were able to have a few days out of camp together on patrol.

I could see how content they were when they returned. Was Johnny a poof, a hypocrite, an unfaithful husband? Was Alan a queer, a pervert, someone not sure if he was Arthur or Martha? I didn’t know and, really, I didn’t care. They were simply my good friends, then and always.

Late one night in April, back at Katherine, I was thinking about turning in. The mosquitoes were awful, I was dripping sweat and I’d had enough. Alan was there in the corner, working on something with a soldering-iron. I gently turned the dial and through the static came the dit-dah of Morse. I grabbed the pen and jotted down the letters.

Alan lifted his head and said, ‘What was that?’

‘Give us the book and I’ll see.’

I decrypted it carefully, then sat staring at the paper.

‘Come on,’ said Alan.

‘It’s from Signals at Darwin. They’ve finally got a message from the 2nd Independents in Timor:
FORCE INTACT STILL
FIGHTING STOP BADLY NEED BOOTS QUININE MONEY TOMMY GUN AMMUNITION STOP.’

We looked at each other. A chill ran up my sweaty spine.

‘Still fighting by themselves, poor bastards,’ said Alan. ‘And we’re stuck here counting crocodiles.’

At last a new regiment moved in to relieve us, and in late August the 4th Independent Company reassembled at Adelaide River, sixty miles south of Darwin. I met Johnny at the mess for the first time in months. Hardly before we’d sat down he proudly handed me a photograph. My breath caught in my throat. It was Helen, tired, happy, holding a bundle with a small crinkled face.

‘Congratulations, mate, well done!’ I said.

‘She did all the work, poor cow. A bit early but she said it was pretty easy. Jesus, look at that beautiful little fella.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a lucky bastard, aren’t I? More than a bloke deserves.’

You are a lucky bastard, Johnny, I thought. You have no idea.

Bullock leant over. ‘What are you going to call him, Snow?’

‘Ian. Ian John Eriksson.’

My half-closed eyes open wide in surprise. I did know, after all! I’m sitting here at my desk, lost in memory, and I realise I’ve known the name of Johnny’s son all these years. I didn’t need Lena to tell me.

Oh, hell. Lena.

Chapter 9

The academic year of 1983 has begun and the golden lads and girls are streaming back to their studies. I’m pretty busy but I keep an eye out for Lena. She’s in another department so we won’t necessarily run into each other, but the union’s always a good bet.

And there she is, at a corner table, reading. I go up with my tray and say – awful joke – ‘May I join you, Miss Erikssen? Or would that be Ms nowadays?’

She gives me a look of disgust.

‘All right, I’m sorry, Lena. Yes, I said I’d visit but it wasn’t possible.’

‘Yeah?’ she says. ‘I’m sure you had more important things to do. Wash your hair. Go to the dentist. Fun things.’

I sit down. ‘A friend died, Lena. I had to go to Sydney for a few weeks to support his partner.’

‘Oh … That’s awful. It was nice of you to help her.’

‘Him, Alan. My oldest friend. And the father of my stepchildren.’

She’s surprised. ‘His partner was a man, a homosexual? And the father of your kids too?’

‘Bisexual. He was married to my wife Marion for seven years. Then he fell in love with Jan, the man who just died. They were together for, oh, twenty-six years after that.’

‘Like normal people?’

‘Exactly like normal people,’ I say wryly, putting sugar in my coffee.

‘Did he die of that new thing, the “gay plague”?’

‘No. It was just good old cancer.’ I gaze at her. ‘Jan was a doctor, Lena. Balding, ordinary. He probably saved hundreds of people’s lives. He loved reading, jazz, good food. Totally ordinary, totally special.’ My throat closes for a moment.

‘I’m sorry, Mike. You must miss him.’

‘Yes.’

There’s a pause.

She leans her head on one hand, considering me, and says gently, ‘Are you gay too, Mike? Is that why you don’t want to see Nana – she’ll find out your terrible secret?’

I half-choke on my coffee. ‘No. Your nana already knows most of my terrible secrets and that’s not one of them.’

‘Then why don’t you want to meet her again after all these years? Do you think she’ll be shocked you’re older now?’

‘Sadly, that’s a given, young lady. I say “dignified” but the mirror says something else.’

She smiles. ‘You’re not that bad for a hundred years old, Mike.’

‘Hey, I’m only ninety-nine and don’t you forget it.’ I gather my thoughts and take a breath.

‘Look, Lena. After the war your nana and I had a terrible argument and it ended our friendship. I was hurt more than I can explain. I’m certain she doesn’t want to see me and I honestly don’t think I could bear seeing her. Not even now. That’s all there is to it.’

She gazes at me. ‘Is it because you argued about my grandfather?’

I say carefully, ‘Your grandfather?’

‘Nana told me, when you didn’t visit. We’re very close. I lived with her when my parents were breaking up. She’d tell me almost anything I asked.’

‘And what did you ask?’

‘What you two argued about.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That you’d tried to explain something about my grandfather that upset her.’

I close my eyes for a moment.

‘What was it, Mike?’

I rub my face. ‘That’s enough revelations for one day. It didn’t matter in the long run.’

I catch sight of the time on her wristwatch. ‘I’ve got to give a lecture at one-thirty. Look, Lena, I’ll talk to you later.’

‘Yeah. Sure, Mike,’ she says, rolling her eyes just like Helen.

At dawn on 22nd September 1942 we climbed into trucks with all our gear and were driven to Darwin. Some brass told us we were going somewhere special to do something
important, then we were marched up the gangway onto HMAS
Voyager
, an old destroyer. The crowded ship sailed that evening.

I leant on the bulwark beside Johnny and Alan and watched Darwin Harbour recede in the sunset. I knew they were wondering, like me, if we’d ever see it again. Later that night we all bedded down on the deck in moonlight. The sea was calm, the air warm. We had to zigzag to avoid a submarine, but otherwise the night was quiet. Next morning was beautiful blue-sky weather and by midafternoon we could see land on the horizon.

Gradually the mountains of Timor emerged through the haze: range after distant blue range receding high into the clouds. The closer we got, the taller they were: Wilsons Prom was a bunch of hillocks in comparison.

Johnny and I looked at each other in awe. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

Voyager
anchored off Betano Beach, on the southern side of long narrow Timor. We scrambled down nets into canvas boats and got ashore easily. Gaunt, sunburnt, bearded soldiers surrounded us and, with hundreds of native Timorese helping, we loaded supplies onto strings of small ponies.

At the same time the ship started drifting. They couldn’t use the engines: too many boats were near the propellers. We watched in amazement as
Voyager
grounded, quivering. The sailors did everything they could but the tide was dropping. Soon she was completely stranded and the word was she’d have to be destroyed.

After midnight we were assembled and moved away from the beach. From a distance we heard demolition charges exploding. It was unnerving to think of our recent
safe refuge – and what might have been our future transport out of here – being transformed into scrap metal.

Two days later we heard that corvettes had come to take the stranded sailors back to Darwin. In the meantime we were finding out what lay ahead in Timor.

Unable to sleep at 4 a.m., my eyes tracing the familiar curves of plasterwork on the ceiling, I think, I can’t reconcile it, I can’t, I’ve tried over and over, for years. But maybe, somehow, this time I’ll understand.

There was the glamour of our beautiful young selves united in common cause, the ecstasy of action after such long anticipation, the sense that our own sweet lives – whatever might happen to others – would continue inviolate, invulnerable.

There was the callousness of the top brass who dumped us on a thousand-mile chessboard without enough food or medicine or boots or armaments, and all the while were busy as red ants building their own little empires at home.

And there was the swarming enemy of our nightmares, kicking away the scaffolding of a century of white man’s certainty, and raping and murdering and pillaging its way across a hemisphere.

Were we brave, pathetic cannon fodder? Yes. Were our commanders self-serving armchair warriors? Yes. Were we facing an appalling, implacable enemy? Yes.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. My mind reels in familiar grief and disbelief. I turn over and try to sleep again.

I was surprised to find Timor was rather like the outback. Red and ochre soils, familiar gum trees and low scrub, nothing at all like the jungle I’d expected. The few days since we’d landed had been hell – climbing, carrying, moving. Legs that had coped easily with Prom peaks now had to climb mountains five times higher. Timor might have been in the tropics but it was freezing once you got into the hills. At night, under the stars, we’d sit around small hidden fires.

We’d thought ourselves hard men, but we looked like spoilt, plump children next to the 2nd Company men. Gazing at faces in the smoky firelight, I thought about the nicknames we all seemed to pick up. I was Broome, fair Johnny was Snow, handsome Alan was Flynn (as in Errol). Animal names were popular too: we had Bullock, Kanga, Whippet and Brumby.

But the boys of the 2nd? All I could think was: Wolf. A pack of human wolves – sharp-faced, filthy, cruel-eyed, savage. I’d see them curl up on the dirt and fall instantly asleep, then at a sound come wide awake, snarling, rifles ready. Most were ill too, tropical ulcers the least of it. Malaria was common, but they’d keep going, shivering, sweating, collapsing for a few days. Many had dysentery, and we were already coming down with that. The pain was shocking, and afterwards you could hardly walk for trembling. But the veterans just kept moving, and in time we did too.

When we arrived there were only four hundred Australians on Timor – the 2nd Company and some other soldiers who hadn’t surrendered. But even after we joined them we were still less than seven hundred all up. At least the brass had changed our name: Sparrow Force had become Lancer Force. They must have thought it’d be good for morale.

Each of our sections was sent on patrol with the equivalent unit in the 2nd, to learn what we could as fast as possible. But I soon realised they wanted to keep their distance: our inexperience meant higher odds of them getting killed because some drongo got heroic.

Independent companies had no room for heroics. They were supposed to harass, sabotage, terrify and disappear. Hit and run, shoot and shoot through, knacker ’em and nick off. To be fair, we in the 4th weren’t very good to begin with. Ambushes are moments of screaming noisy confusion, and out of sheer necessity we did a bit more nicking off than knackering.

Still, we quickly improved. We had superb allies among the East Timorese. Cheerful boys and men lined up to carry gear, load ponies, gather intelligence and find desperately needed food. We gave them silver coins when Darwin sent us money, but many remained unpaid despite what we owed them.

And, by God, we owed them everything. Without the Timorese, quite simply, we would have died. They called themselves
criados
, a beautiful word to my ears. To the Portuguese it meant ‘servants’. To us it meant ‘saviours’.

Food was the biggest problem. There were occasional drops in storpedoes – parachuted containers – and supplies ferried from Darwin in small ships, but getting it to the outposts, on strings of ponies along narrow mountain tracks, was an endless struggle. Many of us depended on whatever the
criados
could scrounge.

Things had been simpler for the 2nd: at first only a few thousand Japanese had invaded, so it was easier then to practise the art of knackering. By the time we arrived there
were perhaps ten thousand of the enemy, and the stranding of
Voyager
had stirred them up like wasps.