Fear Drive My Feet (34 page)

‘Master, no got some-fella tea more. Sugar 'e got lik-lik.'

‘It had to come,' Les said philosophically. ‘But, all the same, I'm not looking forward
to the next few weeks – or months, as the case may be – without any tea.'

‘It's not only tea we'll be without,' I replied. ‘All we have is a few tins of bully
beef and a huge tin of powdered milk. That's going to get pretty monotonous.'

‘Never mind. The trade goods are holding out, so we'll be able to buy plenty of native
food.'

‘That's where the razor-blades are going to be handy. We've got enough trade goods
in them alone to survive a six months' siege.'

When we had eaten, we spread our maps before us for what seemed to be the thousandth
time since we had set out from the Markham. Our object was to find a place where
the mountains could be re-crossed, and so get back to the Markham. We had a vague
notion that there was a dip in the country between the end of the Saruwageds and
the beginning of the equally formidable Finisterres. We intended to move westward
looking for this, and traced out a tentative course from village to village, as they
were shown on the map.

‘One thing I'm bloody sure of,' Les said as he folded the maps and pushed them back
into his haversack. ‘Even if we go kanaka and spend the rest of the war with a bit
of bark round our middles, eating sweet potatoes in Gombawato, we aren't going over
the top again at thirteen thousand feet.'

The next night we spent in Kosuan, a pleasantly situated village. Three tame hornbills
fluttered round the houses, swooping to catch any morsel of food that might be thrown
to them. The people sold us enough to eat, but were not disposed to enter into closer
relations.

In the morning we lined the few remaining loads of cargo in front of the house, and
I called for men to come forward and carry it. As I spoke, silence fell, and one
by one the men started to drift away into the bush that fringed the village.

‘Quick!' I called to Les. ‘Grab some of them, or we'll be stuck in this joint for
the rest of our lives!'

Les sprang down from the house, pistol in hand, and we were about to rush after the
vanishing natives. We need not have bothered. Suddenly, from behind trees and bushes,
the police appeared, together with old Pato, rifles held ready. They closed in on
the village in a circle, forcing the kanakas into a group in the centre. The villagers
saw the trick had failed, and made no further attempt to escape, though they carried
with surly faces and unconcealed ill-temper.

There was now no doubting the un-co-operative attitude of the natives of this part
of the country, and as we walked along the track to Hamdingan, our destination for
the night, Les and I discussed how best to handle them. We felt that at any moment
the people might refuse to carry for us, and go bush at our approach. We decided
to make a surprise entry into Hamdingan. Leaving the carriers under the guard of
a couple of the police outside the
village, the rest of us swooped down on the houses
and had the populace locked inside their large new church before they realized what
had happened. We selected enough young men for carriers and kept them under guard
all night. Once the women saw that we had their men in custody they brought us plenty
of food, for which we paid in razor-blades.

The road over which we had walked from Kosuan to Hamdingan was, for New Guinea, a
great highway. It was at least twelve feet wide most of the way, and in some places
up to twenty feet. Drains and culverts were neatly dug, and bridges had been built
across all the streams. It was but another example of the way in which the ‘black
missions' had exercised their new-found supremacy. As natives told us afterwards,
they had made the people of each village devote a certain amount of time each week
to work on churches, schoolhouses, and roads. The work on churches and other mission
buildings was harmless enough, but the road construction was in direct defiance of
the orders of the government and of the few white men who had been through the area.
It also showed that the pamphlets in pidgin English dropped from our aircraft, instructing
the natives to allow any tracks to revert to bush, had been ignored. The purpose of
these instructions was of course to make it as hard as possible for the enemy to
find his way into the back country. It was plain that if he had chosen to come this
way he could have marched twelve abreast with the greatest of ease.

In Hamdingan there was one man who spoke pidgin, but unfortunately he seemed half
stupid, and it was with great difficulty that we secured any information at all from
him. He gave us a very garbled account of another white man having left the Huon
Peninsula by the same route, and from his vivid description of the red hair of this
man we recognized ‘Blue' Pursehouse, who had been
doing work similar to ours behind
Finschhafen. The fact that he had pulled out indicated that things had got tough
in his area too, and we tried to find out how long ago he had left, and whether we
had any hope of overtaking him. Our half-witted informant was no help. One minute
he would raise our hopes by saying the man had gone two days ago, and then infuriate
us by saying two years ago.

We were able to pick up a certain amount of useful information, however. He told
us Hamdingan was only about a day's walk to the coast, and that news of Japanese
activities often came up to them. Sometimes, he said, the Japs walked round the beach,
and sometimes parties in charge of barges pulled in to hide from our planes during
the daytime, to resume their journey to or from Lae at night. This news was disturbing,
for we had not realized how close to the sea we had come. At nightfall, however,
when all was quiet in the village, we heard the surf breaking on the beach, and
we posted double sentries on the track in case the Japanese should hear of us and
hurry inland to cut us off.

We told our pidgin-speaking native that next day we intended to go to Boksawin village,
the place which seemed to lie nearest to the route we had in mind. He replied that
it was at least two days' walk and that we would have to spend a night in some bark
shelters on the way.

We had become so irritated by his silly and self-contradictory statements in other
things that we told him flatly we did not believe him, and that we intended to walk
without resting until we came to Boksawin, however far away it might be. Then Kari
locked him in the church to keep him safely out of the way till morning.

Next day, at 4 a.m., we started our walk to Boksawin. There was no moon, and daylight
was about two hours off, but the first part of the track was well defined and even.
Shortly after sunrise the limit of the good road was
reached, and we began to climb
a steep mountain. Half an hour later our pidgin-speaking native paused beside a small
stream, which, he said, was the last water we would see for another day. It seemed
that he spoke the truth, for the carriers – about half a dozen of them – filled small
bamboo receptacles with water and, having stoppered the tops with wads of green leaves,
tied them to their loads. Les and I had no waterbottles with us – they were among
the gear we had abandoned in crossing the range. In New Guinea mountain country one
usually crosses a stream of some sort every mile or so, and we had not expected to
need them. We took a good long swig, and then resumed the climb, hoping to make the
distance to the next drink.

Before long the track, climbing steeply, became more difficult. Hundreds of huge
trees had been felled across it and were lying in all directions. We progressed by
walking along the trunks and springing from the end of one onto another, but they
were very wet and slippery, and we often fell off. It was only through good luck
that none of us was badly hurt.

Our boots had worn to paper thinness, and the nails, sticking through, were gouging
holes in our feet. As the boots were more hindrance than help I threw mine away and
walked mostly in bare feet, putting on an old pair of sandshoes occasionally, when
the track was specially rough. In spite of my assurance that one soon became used
to bare feet Les stuck to his boots until they dropped apart.

At midday we were still climbing steadily, and before entering a dense moss forest
caught a glimpse of the sea across to Rooke Island, off the coast. We thought we could
also distinguish the outline of New Britain on the horizon, but were not certain.
Shortly afterwards we found the hunting shelters, where our guide urged us to spend
the night. However, the cryptic ‘Move quickly!' of the radio message rang in our
ears, and we decided to push on.

The track became very bad as it led us along the crest of a narrow, level ridge which
seemed to stretch on into eternity. It was clothed in dense forest, which prevented
us seeing more than a few yards ahead or catching any glimpse of the surrounding
country. The carriers were making very heavy weather of it, so we sent Kari and Constable
Witolo, both strong walkers, to move ahead as scouts.

About half past four Les had a sudden violent spasm of vomiting, which left him so
weak that it seemed he would have to be carried. However, with a great effort he
managed to continue, from time to time holding on to me or one of the police. By
nightfall he had recovered completely.

Shortly before dark we found a small stagnant pool of green, slimy water. The smell
was revolting, but we plunged our hands and wrists into it and swilled it about our
mouths and throats. Foul as it was it revived us and gave us heart to continue.

We plodded painfully on, wet through from a short, sharp downpour that had come about
seven o'clock. It began to seem as though we would spend the rest of our lives struggling
along this ridge as it stretched on and on endlessly into the blackness. We were
worried about our hearts, which were pounding in a most alarming fashion – even worse
than they had behaved crossing the Saruwaged Range.

Then, at ten o'clock, the track took a slight downward turn, and by half past ten
the moon had risen and we came out of the forest into more open country with alternate
patches of jungle and grassland. The condition of the track also improved, and it
was now a well-graded zig-zag carved out of the steep mountainside.

Just before midnight, with the moon shining brightly, we came out upon the flat,
open country near the Uruwa River. We were all barefooted now, and on the
stony ground
our footfalls made no sound. It was as if we were already dead, shades without weight
or substance drifting through space. We had not the energy to look about, but plodded
drearily, half consciously, forward. Suddenly two ghostly figures rose from a patch
of shadow, saluted, and one said in a clear voice, ‘Master, place belong me-fella
close to now!'

Les and I were too tired to be startled by their sudden appearance. When one of the
two men told us he was the tultul of Worin, and that Worin was the village we were
approaching, we were too weary even to protest that we had been heading for Boksawin.
Kari and Witolo had arrived a couple of hours earlier, the tultul told us, and were
waiting in the village. We seemed hardly to have heard his encouraging news, and
staggered silently, drunkenly, along the track behind him.

Worin looked unearthly in the moonlight. The mists from the valleys which surrounded
it had blotted out from sight all the rest of the country, and the village seemed
built on an island floating in space. Bananas grew among the houses, and the leaves
of the plants, like tattered elephant's-ears, threw weird shadows on the ground.
As we entered the village we eased our Owen guns forward and called to Kari and Witolo.
There was no answer. We slipped off the safety catches and looked about uneasily.

‘I left them here,' the tultul said anxiously, running to a dwelling and peering
inside. ‘Master, come lookim!' he said after a moment.

We went forward and Les flashed his torch inside the dark hut. Kari and Witolo, exhausted
by their dash through the forest, lay asleep on the floor. Witolo had slumped forward,
his forearm and head leaning in a mess of boiled bananas. Kari, sleeping no less
soundly, lay near the door, rifle beneath his hand. We did not attempt to waken them,
but moved across to another house. They had ordered the
tultul to cook bananas and
sweet potatoes for the boys, and two fowls for us. This had been done, and Les and
I raised the dirty blackened clay cooking-pots to our lips and drank the soup first.
Then we seized a fowl each and, ripping them apart in our hands, wolfed every scrap.
We had not had a meal for thirty hours, and had been walking for about twenty hours
without a pause. In the morning we woke to find ourselves lying amid the picked bones
of our supper, pistols and sheath-knives still on belts round our waists, Owen guns
still slung round our shoulders.

We watched the boys as they lay in front of the houses warming their aching limbs
in the morning sun. Our bodies had been chilled for days and now seemed to soak up
the cheering rays as blotting-paper absorbs water. We did not feel well ourselves,
but the condition of our natives caused us more concern. They seemed utterly exhausted
both in body and spirit, and by some queer illusion seemed to have shrunk in their
misery. Later, Les and I observed the same change in each other. When Les shaved
off the beard that had grown in the last three or four days I was shocked to see
how thin and bony his face was. I realized later, of course, that I looked just as
bad. Fever had been troubling us a lot, and we were very tired from the combination
of great physical strain and the worry of the expedition. The safety of the native
members of the party disturbed us, for they had all volunteered to come, had served
us faithfully, and had stuck to us when they might easily have run away. Now we felt
that we had to do something to get them out of the mess into which they had trustingly
accompanied us.