And Fire Falls (19 page)

He glanced up and down the platform hoping to see Sarah, but there was no sign of her. He had left a message at her office to say when he was leaving today, and her secretary had said she would pass it on. The engine was already puffing up a head of steam and David knew it was time to board and join his company. He waited until the last moment when the porter signalled they were about to depart, then he clambered aboard and made his way to the carriage designated for commissioned officers. He found a compartment and slid the door open to join his comrades, lieutenants Peter Herbert and John Dulley.

‘You almost missed the boat, old chap,’ Peter said as David slid his kitbag on a rack above his head. ‘Expecting to see someone?’

David sat down on the seat facing Peter. ‘Not really,’ he said and turned to stare out the glass window at the tear–streaked faces rolling past as the train slowly pulled out of the station. Maybe Sarah was late, he thought, and he might just catch a glimpse of her, but soon the faces disappeared as the carriage cleared the platform and the train made its way through the red-roofed houses of the inner city.

‘This will be our fourth campaign,’ Peter said, reaching for a packet of cigarettes. ‘At least it won’t be as cold as it was in Syria.’

‘It gets bloody cold in the mountains at night in New Guinea,’ David said.

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Peter said. ‘I forgot that you grew up there before the war.’

David did not feel like entering into conversation. Sarah had not taken any of his phone calls and he knew he had to face the reality that she had avoided seeing him again. He did not think he loved her, but the night they’d spent together was incredible and he’d never forget it. His two companions left him alone with his thoughts as the train travelled north in the darkness, taking them closer to the war being fought in New Guinea for the nation’s survival.

18

S
arah might not be accepted by the Macintosh board of directors but they had to grudgingly admit her strategic decisions were now paying off. Such an example was the panic that hit many wealthy harbourside residents when the Japanese launched a midget submarine attack on the harbour at the end of May. The attack resulted in the loss of twenty-one sailors sleeping on the converted harbour ferry, HMAS
Kuttabul
when a torpedo intended for the anchored American cruiser, USS
Chicago
missed its target. Fearing that the enemy were closing in and on the verge of invading, valuable real estate was quickly sold as the wealthy residents fled for the safety of the Blue Mountains, selling their homes for a song. But as time passed the same residents trickled back into Sydney and were forced to purchase their old premises back at a higher price.

It was obvious to Sarah that her brother and his American girlfriend were conspiring to have her removed and Sarah knew the board would support Donald against her. She needed a strategy. Charles Huntley seemed to have influence over her brother’s business dealings; if she could sway him to her side, he might be a valuable pawn in her strategic game.

Her last contact with Charles had been difficult, thanks to her indiscretion with David, and Sarah sat in her office musing on how to mend the rift between them. She smiled grimly. Everyone except her father had underestimated her. She knew that she was beautiful and desirable and this gave a power over men that she was more than prepared to use.

Sarah reached for the telephone. ‘Please put a call through to Mr Charles Huntley,’ she said to her secretary. ‘I think you will find him at his Sydney hotel.’

The game was on, and Sarah knew there could be only one outcome. The Macintosh ship would tolerate only one captain on the bridge, and she was determined that the captain would be her.

*

Sergeant Tom Duffy had rejoined his militia battalion, and the clean sheets and good food in the hospital seemed like a distant memory. Crouched with his rifle as a prop, he gazed around at the rest of the men. Their uniforms were rotted to rags; they were gaunt with continual bouts of malaria and dysentery. Supplies had not arrived, and they did not even have blankets to ward off the chill of the mountain nights. They had no shelter against the torrential downpours, and their weapons rusted in the extreme humidity of the tropical air. Despite all this, they were still taking a heavy toll on their relentless enemy.

Yesterday Tom had led seven men deep into enemy
territory on a recon mission. They had stumbled on a patrol of Japanese soldiers. The jungle had been so dense that the two patrols had collided, and there had only been time to clash in hand-to-hand combat with rifle butts and bayonets. Tom knew he would never forget the surprised expression on the face of a young Japanese soldier when, parrying his bayonet thrust, he had pushed his own blade deep into the boy’s chest. Tom had jerked his bayonet from the dead soldier and then looked around in desperation as to the status of his patrol. The enemy and his own men had been equal in number, and survivors on both sides had fallen back to recover. It was then that Tom had seen the young soldier who always had a habit of sticking close to Tom in battle spread over of an enemy soldier. Tom had stepped forward and been able to see that both men had died at the same time, thrusting bayonets into each other. What had struck Tom most acutely was the fact that both men were about the same age, and in other circumstances could have been friends.

‘Sarge, what do we do?’ a voice had called behind him.

‘Collect ammo and grenades from the dead,’ Tom had responded. ‘We have to leave the bodies for now. The Japs are probably all around us.’

Tom had reached down and removed a grenade from the canvas pouch of the young soldier, and his spare ammunition. He ripped off his dog tags and left one with the body. As he’d joined the survivors he’d tried to tell himself that the wetness on his cheeks was not tears.

The patrol had lost two men killed and three wounded. The wounded had been able to walk, and the patrol had
fallen back to the battalion’s main position to report how
close the enemy patrols were. Tom had carried out his
mission but at a cost that was the devil’s due.

Now he sat staring vacantly at the jungle all around him. Lieutenant Mike Hall had been evacuated with a bad case of dysentery to a rear medical aid station, leaving Tom in charge. Tom had ensured that his dwindling platoon were dug in and prepared for an attack by the many Japanese he knew were out in the jungle. His duties done, he had time to sit and reflect on the situation. He knew the battalion was spent. The young militiamen had done more than those in Australia would ever appreciate, and Tom prayed that a miracle might happen.

It did.

‘Sarge, some blokes are coming up the track,’ a corporal called.

Tom turned to see a file of healthy and well-equipped men closing in on his forward position. He sensed from the way they moved that they were professional soldiers; they looked like gods coming down from Mt Olympus to his battle-weary men. Suddenly a rain of enemy mortar bombs began to fall in the jungle around them, exploding shrapnel.

‘You beaut!’ a voice yelled from the new arrivals, and Tom grinned. These must be the men of the AIF who had been fighting in the Middle East finally come to reinforce them. They would live to fight another day.

*

Jessica Duffy – with her newly sewn sergeant’s stripes on her uniform – stood at the corner of Queen and Edward streets
in Brisbane, gazing at the multistoreyed, yellow-stoned
building requisitioned as General MacArthur’s general headquarters for the South West Pacific Area.

Australian and American military guards wearing immaculate uniforms stood to attention at the main
entrance, and Jessica marched smartly to them, producing
the identification papers and her posting orders. She was ushered in and led to a clerk manning a desk, where she again went through the procedure of producing identification papers and movement orders. The American army clerk told her where to report, and Jessica nervously made her way upstairs a couple of floors until she found a room marked with the appropriate sign. She knocked and was told to enter.

Jessica stepped through the doorway into a large room occupied by a staff of men and women in the uniforms of Australian and American services. A row of desks was laid out with telex machines tapping away and personnel, their heads down, scribbling on paper. An American officer wearing the rank of an army captain stepped forward to greet her. He was young and handsome, with Brylcreemed dark hair, a smooth face and spectacles. Jessica thought he looked a bit like the Hollywood actor, Cary Grant.

‘You must be Sergeant Duffy,’ he said with a winning smile. ‘Welcome to the swamp. I am Captain Mark Carr.’

Jessica was surprised when he stopped her salute by extending his hand. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said and felt his hand was smooth and his grip firm.

‘We call it the swamp because our illustrious leader, General MacArthur, occupies the eighth floor and we live down here. You’re probably wondering what you will be doing here,’ he continued. ‘I have read your service file and know that you have been cleared to top-secret level. You need that, because our section deciphers intercepted enemy radio codes and turns them into useful intelligence. Your role will be to relay any information we pass on that is deemed important for your RAAF people to use in their operations. It will be up to you to encode that information for transmission. So, I should show you your section of the swamp. You’ll become very familiar with it because you will do twelve-hour shifts.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica said as the American captain led her to a vacant section of a long table marked
RAAF Liaison.
It was next to one marked
RAN Liaison
, where a pretty young WRANS petty officer was perusing a pile of paper slips. The young woman had her blonde hair pulled into a tight bun as per military regulations.

‘This is Sergeant Jessica Duffy,’ the captain said. ‘Petty Officer Marion Bridges.’

The navy senior NCO looked up and smiled at Jessica. ‘I hope you don’t have a love life,’ she said, ‘because Captain Carr doesn’t believe we need one. He thinks that his mere presence is enough to sate our carnal desires.’

Jessica was stunned by the informal and even disrespectful comment by the young naval NCO, but when she glanced at the American he was grinning widely.

‘You may appreciate that we put the emphasis on performance here, and I believe that the war we fight here day in and day out has better outcomes when respect overrules rank,’ Captain Carr said. ‘And Marion is right,’ he continued. ‘You don’t need anyone else in your life when you have me.’

Jessica warmed to his informality and appreciated that her standing would be in her role rather than her rank. She sat down at the table and immediately a pile of papers was placed in front of her by another member of the staff. She got straight down to work.

*

‘It’s all over,’ Sarah said in a flat voice.

She and Charles sat side by side on a bench in Sydney’s Hyde Park, surrounded by office workers taking advantage of the beautiful spring day in the city. American servicemen in their smart uniforms strolled alongside young Aussie girls eager to forget the privations of war. These were men straight from Hollywood, with their good looks, polite manners and generous bestowal of gifts such as silk stockings.

‘Did you sleep with him?’ Charles asked.

‘No,’ Sarah lied. ‘I did not even go to see him depart Sydney.’ At least that was not a lie.

‘So, where do we go from here?’ Charles sighed.

‘I’m sorry if my infatuation with David caused a rift between us, but I have realised how important you are to me,’ Sarah said. ‘I would hope we could put the matter behind us and start seeing each other again.’

‘I would like that,’ Charles admitted.

‘Charles,’ Sarah said, placing her hand on his knee, ‘there’s something I want to talk to you about, something that needs to be resolved if we are to keep seeing each other.’

‘What is that?’ Charles asked suspiciously.

‘It’s a matter of whose side you are on – mine or my brother’s.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Charles frowned. ‘You know my feelings for you.’

‘I’m talking about my brother manoeuvring to have me pushed out of the control of the family companies. I know that you helped Donald seal a major contract when he visited the USA at the beginning of the year. It appears to me that you are working for my brother.’

‘I don’t work for anyone, except the Prime Minister, and the war effort,’ Charles retorted. ‘My contact with Donald was purely professional. I advised him how best to secure contracts with the Americans for our goods and services out here.’

Sarah turned to Charles and looked him directly in the eyes. ‘I have evidence that you are receiving secret payments from Donald.’

The expression of shock on Charles’s face pleased Sarah. She knew she was in a position of power over him and pushed her advantage. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I am not about to divulge what I know, as it could of course hurt your political aspirations in the future. All I need to know is that you swear an oath to support me in any future dealings with my brother.’

Charles looked stunned by the smooth way Sarah had manipulated him.

‘You know that you have my absolute support,’ he said eventually.

Sarah nodded. ‘I think you and I will make a good team. Let’s have dinner together tonight. We can plan ways to increase my standing in the company. I’m sure you know of other contracts Macintosh enterprises are able to fill.’

‘I was going to bring Donald the news that there are a couple of good contracts that the Macintosh companies could fill,’ Charles said. ‘But I will tell you over dinner tonight. I will have to excuse myself as we have a press conference soon.’

‘I understand,’ Sarah said, releasing her hand from his knee.

She stood and gave him a peck on the cheek before striding off down the footpath, her face set in grim satisfaction. How easy it had been to bring him on her side. Now the odds were even. David was out of her life but Sarah felt longing for her cousin that she had never experienced with Charles. She remonstrated with herself for allowing the memory of the night in the Manly cottage to creep into her thoughts, when all was seeming to go so well. As her father had returned from Melbourne weeks earlier, all she had to do now was ensure he sided with her in the management of the Macintosh enterprises.

*

James Duffy could feel his Wildcat shudder as a deadly stream of .50 calibre bullets spitting from his guns raked the crowded Japanese troop barge approaching the coast. His fellow fighter pilots had singled out their own targets, and it was like a turkey shoot as the heavy explosive rounds tore through men’s flesh leaving horrific wounds. He could see the tropical waters around the barges fringed with blood, and he peeled away for a second attack on the enemy attempting to land fresh troops on the coast of Guadalcanal.

Colourful tracer from a nearby Japanese warship crawled deceptively slowly into the blue skies around him, and then whipped past his cockpit at supersonic speed. He tried to ignore the incoming anti-aircraft fire as it was vitally important to stop the reinforcing Japanese troops landing on the shores of Guadalcanal. Over his headset he could hear his fellow pilots yelling out warnings and also whoops of triumph as they saw their targets destroyed below them.

James pulled in a tight turn to finish off the barge he had hit. Suddenly he felt his fighter plane shudder from a series of impacts in its belly. He completed his turn and to his horror realised that his engine had cut out. The great propeller was now rotating with the wind, and his plane was falling towards the sea.

Desperately he pulled on the controls to bring the nose level and steer towards land where over the cowling he could see the jungle covered mountains. To bail out of the aircraft over the sea would put him close to the Japanese navy, and he did not expect they would take him prisoner after what he had just done to their landing barges.