Fishing for Stars (11 page)

If women avoided fellatio, it was absolutely taboo for any decent, self-respecting middle-class male to engage in cunnilingus. This was the preserve of heavily pomaded gigolos with dark sideburns and pencil moustaches who spoke with thick Spanish accents. Putting it into crude male parlance, a cock was clean, a woman’s fanny wasn’t. This was a belief held not only by males but also by many women at the time.

I was fairly sure that Anna, despite her background as a captive of the Japanese and as a comfort woman in the Nest of the Swallows, would not have experienced a male using his mouth to bring her to climax. She may well never have climaxed to a Japanese soldier during penile penetration either.

But, of course, this was all speculation on my part. All I possessed was a smattering of knowledge concerning her captivity; what had actually happened to her I was yet to learn. I had no idea, for instance, that Anna was still a virgin. While she had told me she’d kept herself for me, that I would be the first, I had taken this to mean the first lover she would accept of her own free will.

As a comfort woman, I incorrectly surmised that she had been raped daily, that in her mind she couldn’t yet separate the loving act from the brutal one and hence the involuntary vaginal resistance. I convinced myself that with time, gentle handling, love, patience, tenderness and trust, I would eventually prevail.

I truly loved Anna; moreover, in a much more basic way, I craved a mutual sexual experience and the sense of sharing that comes with two lovers coupling, being as one, generous with the sheer joy of knowing and exploring each other’s bodies.

But I was getting absolutely nowhere. Anna rejected my tongue as she had my finger, sobbing as she tried to accept me, but failing, her tears and her flinching expressing the depth of her distress.
‘Please, a little more time, darling,’
followed as usual.

After the fourth time she had rejected cunnilingus I finally lost patience. ‘Christ, Anna! How long is a little more time? Don’t say that! I’m sick of hearing it! Fucking sick and tired of hearing . . . 
Please, a little more time, darling
,’
I cruelly mimicked.

‘Oh, Nicholas, I am so sorry. Maybe I can go away. I am no
goed
,’ she said tearfully. Anna, so strong in most things, trembled like a child.

Despite my frustration and eagerness for the ultimate satisfaction of possessing her, I felt a right bastard for being so impatient. If I’d known what the Nips had done to her in captivity I’d have gone out and killed a few more of the little yellow bastards.

I also couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving me a second time. ‘Anna, I love you!’ was all I could manage just then and even this was said with a lack of gallantry or graciousness.

Anna continued to care, to leave me physically satisfied, and her tenderness went some way to appeasing my ardent desire to please her sufficiently to at least bring her to a spontaneous orgasm. As the weeks merged into months it became apparent to me that she was damaged, possibly beyond recovery.

I hadn’t ever thought of finding the ultimate pleasure I sought from another woman, even though in moments of stress Anna had begged me to do so. ‘Nicholas, I understand, we can still be together!’ Then one evening sitting on the verandah watching the moon coming up over Beautiful Bay and enjoying a glass of what had now become Anna’s favourite champagne, she turned to me and said, ‘Nicholas, do you remember the first night, when we sailed to the small island in the moonlight?’

‘Anna!’ I exclaimed, jabbing my forefinger to indicate my neck. ‘You mean I’m supposed to forget?’

‘No, not the coffee! What happened next.’

Was there no end to this woman’s lack of remorse?
For a moment I thought to chasten her further. But her gorgeous smile and show of wide blue eyes was all it took to forgive her clumsy question. Despite myself, I was forced to chuckle, recalling Anna across my knee, her wet shorts stretched tight across her dear little bottom. Whack! Whack! Whack! ‘You got what was coming to you, Madam Butterfly, a damn good spanking.’

She pointed across the bay to the glorious, impossibly big moon. If there had been a string attached to it I would have described it as dangling just above the arched rim of the ocean. ‘Tonight it is a full moon, Nicholas. Would you do it again, please, darling,’ she asked softly, eyes demurely downcast. Then she looked up and grinned wickedly. ‘I haven’t had a decent orgasm since that night.’

‘Dat you, Nick? Dat cockamamie nigger, he’s costin’ us all our profits! You gotta pull him into line! We ain’t in the fuckin’ soul-counting business. We in the fuckin’ scrap-metal business. No more tithe fer da Pope; he got plenty already!’

Kevin Judge, Brisbane

THE DECADE FROM
1950 to 1960 may be described as a slow walk down to the village garden for the various islands in the Pacific. Some periods are like this; you think you’re making progress but it’s basically more of the same, each year much like the one preceding it. However, in the early 1960s there seemed to be a new sense of urgency and the people of the Pacific took their first true leap forward into the modern era.

Having employed a lot of islanders in our war-surplus scrap reclamation, we were well accepted by the locals. We were also on good terms with the colonial administration and the churches, for similar reasons. Different churches predominated in different areas – Catholic, Anglican and Seventh Day Adventists, known commonly as the SDAs, who ran the best schools. The Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, arrived on the scene a little later.

From the beginning Joe, who came from Chicago via Alabama and had been brought up in the Southern Baptist tradition, seemed to know exactly how to handle the various denominations promulgating their particular version of Christianity to the local people.

‘Brother Nick, it the same God, only He got Himself a house a different style in many neighbourhoods. They all want souls; they in the soul-countin’ busi-ness. So what we gotta do is bring dem souls, man!’ He’d clap his hands and laugh, ‘Then they gonna cooperate big time!’

It was clear to us that for the indigenous population of any island there were two main European authorities as well as the underlying tribal system, the most powerful of all: one was the colonial administration and the other was whichever church controlled the area where we worked
.
It became my job to deal with the various arms of the colonial administrations and Joe’s to deal with the churches. Both were important, but the denominations competing for souls were often more important to our daily operations than the sporadic visits of a district officer attempting to supervise the remote jungle areas where some of the largest dumps were located. Our profit margins depended on working salvage sites seven days a week and this brought us up against the Catholics, Methodists and Anglicans on Sunday and the Seventh Day Adventists (or SDAs) on Saturday.

Joe used the church or mission as a labour-recruiting centre, and a condition of employment was that the labourer’s children, should he have any, must attend the mission school. Joe would then reward every child with an Uncle Joe Scholarship. This involved the recipient being supplied with slate and stylus, textbooks, writing paper and pens, and if a school uniform of sorts was required, that too.

Joe explained. ‘The church dey know der neighbourhood and dey do the recruitin’. Naturally dey in the soul-countin’ business.’ He spread his arms. ‘But, hey, it don’t cost nuttin’ but peanuts to send dem village kids to mission school. An’ every worker don’t have fifteen children, so who’s countin’, man? The mission dey gonna see-lect only the best workers, ’cos dey don’t want their soul count to go tumblin’ down. If the worker he screw up on the job, then his kids don’t have no Uncle Joe Scholarship no more and the numbers drop at the school. Ever-one o’ dem young souls saved for Jesus gonna stay forever wid dem. So, you see ever-body they gonna win! The souls dey gonna be counted. The kids dey gonna get some itty bitty schoolin.’ And the workers dey gonna bust their sweet ass for yours truly or the Lord Jesus he gonna want to know why dey screw up.’ He’d laugh and show his large palms. ‘The ree-sult, we ain’t got no recruitment problems. We can work on Saturday and Sunday ’cos we got special dispensation. We ain’t got no bad labour relations. The Church, dey gonna take good care of us ’cos we labouring in da jungle for Jesus.’

As the sweetener for the SDAs, Joe Popkin would pay our workers a fixed daily rate then add a tenth as a tithe to the local mission. Joe got me to organise black school caps for the kids – boys and girls alike – with a white cross on the front. ‘Ever-body countin’ souls dey got the same cross for Jesus.’ On every island and every mission station Uncle Joe Scholarship kids could be identified, the cap amongst their proudest possessions. Years later, when some of these kids were grown men and women, you’d see them sitting in the congregation with their Uncle Joe Scholarship caps perched on their heads.

We would soon become responsible for the rudimentary education of two or three thousand island children, some among them no doubt future leaders in the governments they would eventually control.

Kevin Judge was our third partner. Chicago Irish, diminutive and fiery, he was the financial brain behind our war salvage business. He worked out of Brisbane, but would call me from time to time, steam practically hissing from the receiver at my end.

‘Dat you, Nick? Dat cockamamie nigger, he’s costin’ us all our profits! You gotta pull him into line! We ain’t in the fuckin’ soul-counting business. We in the fuckin’ scrap-metal business. No more tithe fer da Pope; he got plenty already! After what I bin through wid da Church I don’t owe dem fuckers nothin’! You tell Joe, you hear? No more numbers for Jesus! The only big numbers I wanna see are in the fuckin’ profit margin. What we got in the Uncle Joe Scholarship column is nuttin’ but a shitload o’ debt!’

‘You tell him, Kevin. You’re sitting on your arse in Brisbane running things. Catch a plane and come and tell Joe Popkin what you think about us educating these island kids.’

‘Nick, wassa matta wit you? You crazy or sumthin’? Joe “Hammer-man” Popkin, he’s my brother. We bin buddies since way back! He took care of me when we was in the kid clink upstate Illinois. The Hammer-man ain’t gonna take no profit-and-loss shit from me! He’s gonna tell me to jam my profit column up my ass. From you, Nick . . . dat’s different . . . he got respect.’

On paper it must have seemed an unlikely partnership and it had certainly come about in an unusual manner. I have already recalled the horrific murder on the beach in Java, when I’d observed the nine sailors from the
Perth
being slaughtered by the Javanese islanders. What I didn’t mention was that the USS
Houston
had been sunk in the same battle and that the nine Australians had rescued an American, hauling him from the sea onto their life raft where he collapsed unconscious. Coming ashore they’d laid him, still unconscious, under some bushes at the top of the beach to keep him out of the sun. Shortly after, the Australian sailors had all been killed while the Yank had gone unnoticed by the murderous mob. The American was, of course, Kevin Judge. We’d sailed together to Fremantle or, perhaps more correctly, as he proved more of a hindrance on board than an asset, I sailed and he recovered from severe concussion and told me his story.

The little street-smart Irish–American brought up in a tough Chicago Catholic orphanage and later reform school had been given an ultimatum by a judge. ‘Da judge says to me, “The US Navy or prison, son. Make up your mind.”’ Kevin explained, ‘So, I’m stupid ain’t I . . .  I chose the fuckin’ navy and next thing
boom-boom
and I’m swimmin’ fer dry land! Nick, I want yer ta know, I ain’t no fuckin’ hero!’

There was very little that was stupid about Kevin. After his basic training, which built on what he’d learned when he’d worked in the library as well as the loading bay at Illinois State Reformatory, he’d put in a request to join the quartermaster’s division. This meant that he was assigned to the ship’s quartermaster every time he was posted to a new ship. ‘Nick, a man gotta be on the influence end o’ the supply line, that way you gonna make a buck an’ earn a little respect.’

When we had arrived in Fremantle after our escape from Java on
Madam Butterfly
, Kevin had been repatriated to the States to recover and several months later had returned to Australia with Purple Heart and Bronze Star ribbons on his chest and a petty officer’s chevrons on his sleeve. Situated in Brisbane he was a part of the vast organisation supplying the US Navy’s requirements in the South Pacific region. His job was to assist US Navy Chief Petty Officer Bud Lewinski to issue contracts to the locals for navy supplies. Kevin, under the guidance of this navy veteran, was in business at the sharp end of just about everything. He thought he must have died and gone to heaven.

Now in a position of enormous influence on the navy supply line, he’d somehow managed to get Joe Popkin transferred from the Negro unit in San Diego to become his personal driver at the Brisbane depot where they’d spent the remainder of the war together, linking up with me again in the process. Kevin ensured that a small percentage, in cash, was added to every supply contract and secretly deposited in my father’s missionary bank account, where I was a signatory, so that by the time the Pacific War ended, Kevin was worth over twenty thousand pounds, in those days a king’s ransom.

It would have been impossible for Kevin to take the money back to the States without risking an investigation from either the navy or what he referred to as the ‘eternal revenoo’. ‘Nick, unnerstand, buddy, if I take dat stash back Stateside dey gonna lock me up in San Quentin twenny years!’

With Joe Popkin, he returned to America without the funds to be demobbed. Before they left, Joe and I had attended several US Army war-surplus auctions in Brisbane and, with a bit of jiggery pokery, had purchased most of the basics needed to start our scrap-metal business in the islands. Before I’d been demobbed I’d also hit the jackpot in Rabaul where a friendly US officer, Captain John Tulius, had allowed me to buy a small landing craft for next to nothing and in a moment of generosity had thrown in a second one. ‘That’s a small thank-you from the US Marines,’ he’d said at the time, then added, ‘Nick, if you’re half smart you’ll drop into Luganville. Our boys are being repatriated States-side to be demobbed so quickly they’re short of labour to dismantle the infrastructure and move the equipment. Should be an item or two you could usefully pick up.’ He’d given me a written introduction to his superior officer, General Lachie Urquhart, and another to a certain Sergeant Bill Moss.
‘
See Moss
first,’ he’d advised, ‘it’s the non-coms in Supply that run the army and navy supply lines.’

I’d also picked up two wooden coastal vessels for a song, probably for half a chorus if the truth be known. With some difficulty I’d managed to get the four vessels to Australia to load up our auction gear.

Now our little convoy had left Brisbane, the two wooden vessels loaded with our purchases. I’d decided to take the advice of Captain Tulius and visit Espiritu Santo, the largest island in the New Hebrides, and go to see the huge US military supply and support base at Luganville. We still had a wish list, in fact we were probably starting our salvage operation on the smell of an oily rag, Kevin as usual being the tight-arse.

‘Buddy, we don’t wanna land in dem islands wid a heap of crap we cain’t use,’ the ever careful Kevin had cautioned when Joe and I had wanted to buy one or two more items at auction.

On arrival I’d gone to the general’s office to make an appointment, handing the grizzled senior sergeant in the front office the letter of introduction from Captain Tulius. ‘You a civilian?’ he snapped, pushing the unopened letter aside and not bothering to introduce himself or to ask me my name. He was clearly unimpressed.

‘Yes, sergeant, now I am,’ I replied. Then hoping to use more influence than I had, I added rather diffidently, ‘Before that I was with the US Marines at Guadalcanal.’

He looked at me sharply. ‘What you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t, it’s Nick Duncan, sergeant.’

‘The Australian lootenant? Navy?’

‘Yes, sergeant,’ I replied, surprised.

He pointed to the letter addressed to the general. ‘Who that come from?’

‘Captain Tulius, salvage officer, Rabaul.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ He opened a file that seemed to include the rest of the day’s mail and telexes and dropped it in. Then his demeanour changed and he grinned, sticking his hand across the desk for me to shake. ‘Bill Moss, Nick. Pleased ta’meetcha. You know a good buddy of mine, Chief Lewinski, in Bris-bane.’

Chief Lewinski was Kevin’s boss at the Navy Supply Depot in Brisbane. ‘Yes, of course, we became good friends. But he’s in the navy. How would you . . . I mean, how did you get to know him?’

‘Lieutenant, how do you think we won this war? Departmental cooperation, it’s the American way. We all know each other, army, navy, air force, we all have the same understandin’ with Uncle Sam, if you know what I mean.’ I nodded. It seemed skimming off the top was standard procedure in supply. ‘Chief Lewinski sent me a signal to say maybe you’d be calling in aroun’ these parts to say howdy.’ He rose. ‘I’ll tell the general you’re here.’

He was back in less than two minutes and ushered me in without the formality of a salute to his superior officer.

To my surprise General Lachie Urquhart
rose from his desk and shook my hand. ‘Lieutenant Duncan, I’m proud to know you, son,’ he said in a booming voice. He appeared to be straight out of a Hollywood movie – a big man, going a little to fat; leathery face, pale blue eyes, snowy white crew-cut hair and a ham-fisted grip on him like a gorilla. A cigar seemed permanently positioned at the corner of his mouth.

‘Nick, please, sir,’ I said hurriedly.