Kokoda (54 page)

Around and about this tragic scene, the native porters hovered, distressed. Now that the ‘WAITMAN SOLDIA EM E DI PINIS’, ‘the white soldier was die finished’,
dead
, they knew that his spirit, had just been released. ‘SPIRIT BILONG EM I NUW STUP LONG DISPELA PLUS’. His spirit would likely stop for a long time in this place. At least so long as his spirit was properly respected from the beginning. Had Captain Jacob been one of their own, this respect would have manifested itself in quite elaborate rituals to ensure that it not turn into a ‘MASALAI’, ‘evil spirit’, but as it was, they let Father Earl do his own ritual in the white man way. For themselves, they simply kept very still, very quiet, only making a slight kind of whistling, whispering sound, as a way of showing their own quiet respect.

Finally, after five days of pushing through the jungle, Stan and his men made it out on to the track. There was only one question to be answered. Were they ahead of or behind the Japanese? Carefully, oh so carefully, they pushed south, looking for signs in the mud. The Japanese bootprint, they had learnt over previous weeks, had two distinct indentations rather like that of a giant stork, and they were searching for it. The problem was that the rain was so strong that no print lasted long and…

And it is strange how many emotions can be packed into a single second. In all of one instant, Stan Bisset—in the lead—had turned a corner and become instantly alert at the sight of a man ahead. Then came alarm, that it might be a Japanese soldier; then relief that it was a white man in tattered khaki; then pure joy that it was a man he recognised—his great friend, Alan Haddy from the 2/16th.

Haddy had gone through a similar wave of emotions to realise that there was someone close behind, only to realise that it was his old mate, Stan, and he immediately broke into an enormous grin, and lowered his rifle which had instinctively swung up.

‘
Jesus
, Stan! I bloody near shot your head off! Where on earth have you blokes come from? We’re the last ones to break contact with the Japs and they can’t be too far behind us… ’

Apprised of the situation, the big Western Australian quickly got his men to share some of their remaining tins of bully beef and biscuits with Stan’s blokes, and they set off again, arriving at Templeton’s Crossing just as night fell. It was here that Stan was able to meet up with the bulk of the 2/14th and learn, with great sadness, that Colonel Key and some of his senior officers were still missing and presumed dead. Command of the 2/14th had been taken over by Stan’s great friend, Captain Phil Rhoden. There was precious little time for any real catching up, though, for within half an hour of their arrival, the Japs were on the attack. So weakened were most of Stan’s men that they were immediately evacuated to Moresby, but Stan himself assured Phil Rhoden he was strong enough to resume his duties. He stayed with the 2/14th then as they carefully withdrew, leapfrogging ambushes all the way, and being leapfrogged in turn, back towards Myola.

After arriving in dribs and drabs, by the morning of 4 September nearly all of the 2/14th had arrived back at Myola and set up some preliminary defences, as they looked at the possibility of making a stand there.

The idea of General MacArthur—as communicated in his usual imperious orders—was that, with a massive supply dump at their backs, the Australians would for the first time in the whole battle not have to worry about having enough ammunition or food or medical supplies to hold on. It was here this American supreme commander, some 1250 miles from the front, and with no understanding of the position, insisted the Australians should make their stand. And, after all, if they lost Myola, the already acute pressure to keep up supplies to the frontline troops in the New Guinea highlands would become unbearable as air supply would be cut off. Myola
had
to be held.

It was fine in theory, but difficult in practice. There were two problems. One was that the Myola dump was essentially at the bottom of a topographical saucer, with all approaches around it on higher ground. A soldier of MacArthur’s ilk might have put his defensive barricades at the bottom of the hill, but most competent commanders would not contemplate it.

And the second problem was that, if they wanted to, the Japanese could simply use the old track and bypass Myola altogether, coming out at Efogi and totally isolating all of the Australian forces so carefully dug in around their supply dump. This went directly counter to the brigadier’s primary instinct, which was to always keep his forces between the Japs and Moresby.

After examining it from every angle, Potts ruled it out as absurd. As to the option of placing the forces on the high ground above Myola, that too was looked at but rejected on the simple grounds that the jungle in that area was thinner and it would be completely impossible to put a block wide enough that any competent attacking force could not simply go round. Potts looked at his options and decided there was only one that had any merit. Whatever they might think of it back in Moresby and Brisbane, the fact was that the same thing that had made Myola perfect for biscuit bombing, also made it near impossible to defend, least of all with the mere four hundred men he had at his disposal. (Yes, Potts had been informed that Brigadier Ken Eather’s 25th Brigade of the 7th Division was now on its way and would be arriving in Moresby shortly to be able to reinforce them, but they were still too far away to have any bearing on this situation.)

So it was that at 6.00 p.m. on 4 September, Brigadier Potts signalled General Tubby Allen in Moresby: ‘Strong enemy attack driven 2/16th Battalion, one and a half hours Myola. Am supporting defence with 2/14th Battalion, but country entirely unsuitable for defended localities. Regret necessity abandon Myola… Men full of fight but utterly weary. Plan withdrawal Efogi—take position high ground south of village… ’
²²¹

Of course it went against the grain to abandon such a plentiful supply dump to head off once again into the wilderness—rather like leaving an oasis of water to head back into the desert wastelands— but it had to be done. The first instinct of Potts and his senior officers was to blow up all food that they could not carry so as to deny it to the Japanese; but then they had a better idea, an idea which showed that it is not only in the realms of the arts and sciences that genius strikes. It had been noticed during previous weeks that the men who suffered the worst dysentery had often eaten food that had gone off, so…

So, after the troops had filled their own packs with everything they could carry, and their stomachs with all the food they could possibly cram in, why not put small punctures in the bottom of all the cans, so as to hasten their ruination? The hope was that the Japanese would be so hungry and desperate that they would eat it anyway and then suffer the dreadful consequences. And so it was done. By the time the last of the troops pulled out on the afternoon of 5 September, all of the cans left behind had been punctured and left in the sun, the rice scattered and pissed on, while everything else had indeed been blown up.
That
would give the hungry Japs something to munch on, all right…

The only way he could keep going was to jam a tube into his anus. This, he connected to a small container in his sock, to collect his own waste. It might be all right for other guys to just take the seat out of their trousers and let the shit run down their leg, but it wasn’t good enough for Damien Parer. Somehow or other he knew his mother wouldn’t want him to do that, however grim the situation got. It wasn’t just the mess that was the bother though, it was the agony. Now he knew why the Diggers said that having dysentery was like ‘shitting axes’. It really felt like that, like it was tearing your insides apart as it went through.

The main thing though was that, despite everything, Parer was continuing to make his way back along the track, and carrying just enough film and cameras to continue shooting footage. Sometimes he thought he was going to go over in a dead faint; somehow he kept slowly moving back,
willing
himself on each occasion to make the next staging post…

Further down the track towards Moresby, Osmar White and Chester Wilmot were at last nearing the southern edge of the jungle that pushed to the low foothills leading down to Moresby. Though they, too, were exhausted beyond all redemption, they were soon presented with evidence that their fatigue was as nothing compared to what others were feeling. For just near Uberi—and right after passing the first troops of the 2/27th Battalion who had at last been thrown into the fray—he saw them. At least a hundred Australian soldiers, with the help of many hundreds of native labourers, were straining on ropes slung around strong trees to bring some 25-pounder guns into position. Slithering, sliding and straining on the ropes with every ounce of their being, they winched the guns into position up the slopes. It was another classic Sisyphean task, where the load was clearly getting heavier the closer they got to the top, but no one doubted that it was necessary. With every successive group of soldiers coming down the track giving ever more depressing reports as to how far south the Japs had moved, these guns were to be the key to the last line of defence. If the Japs got as far south as Ioribaiwa Ridge, these guns—if they could get them into place in time—would be waiting for them. And then we would see how
they
liked being outgunned in the mountains. So heave-ho me hearties, and let’s haul.

The correspondents left them to it, now more eager than ever to get back to Moresby and file their reports on the many things they had seen in this extraordinary month.

Different day. Same problem. As ever, Brigadier Potts was looking for a place to make a stand that would give the Australians a fair chance of damaging the Japanese, without the certainty of trapping his own men where they could be massacred. And yet, while the village of Efogi itself was not readily defensible, just over the stream there was a steep hill covered with thick woods, kunai grass and jungle which was much more promising. At the bottom of the hill stood an old and abandoned Seventh Day Adventist Mission hut, thus giving the terrain the name by which the troops would subsequently refer to it: ‘Mission Ridge’. (And, in reality, the derelict Mission somehow seemed to fit perfectly with the whole Godforsaken feel of the place. Maybe one time God had done his best in these parts, but had clearly given it up and
gorn
.)

Just behind Mission Ridge, towering over it, was an even more enormous hill. The most important thing from the point of view of Potts was that the western approaches to these convulsions of Mother Earth were viciously steep, giving them a great natural defence à la Isurava, while on the eastern approaches the jungle was extremely dense, which was also similar to Isurava. This meant that for the Japanese to properly advance they would be obliged to take the track, and their usual flanking movements would prove difficult, though of course not impossible. With the Japs, as they had learnt, it never was.

It was Ralph Honner who initially reconnoitred the positions, and had his worthy 39th survivors dig in as the fall-back position for the 2/14th and 2/16th who had yet to arrive. But their blessed relief came from entirely the opposite direction when, at around two o’clock on the afternoon of 5 September, the bulk of the long-hoped-for 2/27th Battalion—some six hundred strong—arrived at Mission Ridge after a brutal four-day march from Moresby.

The new men, too, were goggle-eyed at the vision of the sorry scarecrows whose places they now took over; but the main thing was that, after some six weeks of continuous action, the 39th could now pull back from the frontline of the action.

Scarcely believing it possible, that same afternoon—after leaving behind everything that could be of use to their replacements, including food, ammunition, guns, grenades and blankets—they marched out in the direction of Menari, the next village along the track.

On the following morning, the weary survivors of the 2/14th and 2/16th—some four hundred men—straggled in. For the first time in the whole campaign Potts had all of the survivors of the 21st Brigade in the one place at the one time and was now able to give his orders with his usual decisiveness.

Potts positioned the fresh troops of the 2/27th on Mission Ridge to bear the brunt of the likely Japanese thrust. Further back, as Mission Ridge gradually scaled the ground to the enormous hill behind, he placed the 2/14th and then the 2/16th to back them up.

Potts put his own Brigade Headquarters still higher above Mission Ridge—on a spot which became known as Brigade Hill—in a native hut where he was best placed to survey and direct the battlefield proceedings. Together with Captain Brett ‘Lefty’ Langridge’s D Company, it would be the job of his own staff to guard the whole brigade’s rear and ensure that the track to Menari remained clear, come what may.

One who was not happy with the whole set-up was Tom Grahamslaw, and he was the sort of fellow—quietly outspoken, in an odd sort of way—who didn’t mind saying so. He told both Potts and his senior officers that their position was way too exposed and that it could too easily be infiltrated. Potts replied that if young Grahamslaw could show him a more suitable place to shelter he would move, otherwise he would remain where he was.

A man of action, in no time at all Grahamslaw and his young police boys began to construct a lean-to in a position nearby, which was marginally less exposed to enemy attack, and Potts and his senior staff moved into it—leaving the hut to some of the more senior officers of the Brigade Headquarters Company, who referred to themselves as the ‘Old and the Bold’.

Some good news came through late in the afternoon when the word was sent back to Brigade Headquarters that the 2/16th had discovered another track in the jungle, leading back to Menari by an alternative rough route. If the worst came to the absolute worst, and the Japs did cut off the main route falling back to Menari, then this rough parallel alternative would provide another means of escape.