The Persimmon Tree (81 page)

He nodded sympathetically. ‘What will happen now?’ he asked.

‘Well, if we agree as officers and men of honour that you are my prisoner, and you give me your word that you will not attempt to escape, I will take you to safety.’

‘I will not be tortured? I am ashamed to admit I have no courage, no fighting spirit. I am a civilian. That is why I am here, so I cannot fight the Ah-meri-cans.’

I had just met the Japanese version of the little bloke from Chicago and the fat one from Brooklyn, the duo who shared the one mantra: ‘
I want ya ta unnerstan’, I ain’t no fuckin’ hero!
’
Hero or not, it takes a fair amount of character to starve slowly on a diet of insects and weeds as Gojo Mura was doing alone on the mountain.

‘No,
Gojo-san
, you will not be tortured. But you will be interrogated. I will probably be the interpreter. You may have information we need.’

‘Then will I be shot?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I replied once more. ‘You will be sent to Australia or America, where you will be interned as a prisoner of war.’ I wasn’t sure about the destination, though as a prisoner of the Americans it would probably be the States. ‘
Gojo-san
, I will need to go up to your cave. I am sure you have some small personal things you want to take with you?’

‘I would be most grateful,
Nick-san
. There are two sketchbooks and a photograph of my family.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘Where you will take me I do not think I will need the butterfly net.’

I pointed to the sketchbook lying on the ground. ‘May I take a look?’ I asked, knowing I could do so if I wished, but wanting to ask anyway.

He looked at me shyly, stooping to pick up the sketchbook and handing it to me, in the Japanese manner using both hands. ‘It is not worthy,
Nick-san
, I am
shirouto
[amateur],’ he protested again.

I moved away a safe distance from him and slung the Owen. Opening the sketchbook I was astonished to find that he had painted at least twenty varieties of butterflies, and every insect big and small I could ever remember seeing in the jungle. Not only were they expertly done, they were exquisitely detailed and the colours were remarkably accurate. Every page was filled with a dozen or so drawings of creepy-crawlies and butterflies. I wasn’t an expert on watercolours, but I
was
one on butterflies and I had never seen more accurate depictions. Gojo Mura was both an acute observer and a delightful painter.

‘They are wonderful,
Gojo-san
!’ I exclaimed.

He shrugged, dismissing the paintings, but I could see he was secretly pleased. I handed the sketchbook back to him. ‘It is not worthy but I would be honoured if you would accept it,
Nick-san
.’

I thanked him. It was a wonderful gift. By this time, I would have bet London to a brick that
Gojo-san
was harmless and well-meaning, almost grateful to have been taken prisoner. Nonetheless the Japanese see things differently to us. I could hear Wainwright’s voice in my head: ‘
Never take anything for granted, boyo. Never relax your guard and when on bivouac, stay cautious, even in your dreams
.’
There had been several cases during the campaign where a wounded Jap soldier had waited until a marine medic was sufficiently close whereupon he’d pulled the pin on a concealed grenade, killing himself and one more of the enemy.

I followed Gojo Mura up the tree, staying well back so that if he decided to commit suicide his falling body wouldn’t take me with him. I did the same on the narrow cliff path, though I’d decided that if he wanted to take his life by throwing himself over the edge, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.

The smallish cave, neat as a new pin, had a fairly wide entrance that allowed the natural light about halfway in so it created a twilight effect towards the cave’s end. To the left stood the dull grey metal casings of a sophisticated high-frequency receiver and transmitter, with the capacity for long-distance transmission and reception — probably capable of reaching Rabaul as well as the local command. How they managed to get it up to the cave was another example of sheer Japanese tenacity. As a unit it was far more elaborate than the Mark 6 sets I had trained on. Belgiovani would have lusted after it.

I found Gojo’s rifle and he was right — the magazine was rusted in places and I had no doubt the barrel was also blocked with rust.

‘This rifle is a disgrace,
Gojo-san
,’ I laughed.

‘I have not got the courage to use it,
Nick-san
,’ he replied.

I walked from the cave and hurled the useless weapon over the cliff.

‘Any hand grenades?’ I asked.

He shook his head, horrified at the idea. ‘Did you know,
Nick-san
, they have just this one little pin and then, if it falls out, bang!’

There was yet another test for Gojo Mura to pass. ‘
Gojo-san
, if I give you a frequency, will you set the transmitter for me?’ I asked.

The Japanese radio expert nodded and I gave him the frequency belonging to Marine Command. If he already knew it, then he didn’t let on. It took a while for the set to warm up, but then I got through to Henderson immediately and asked them to patch me through to our Intelligence radio unit. To my relief Lee Roy Yamamoto answered, which allowed me to speak in Japanese in case any of the enemy operators had heard me speaking to Marine Command. Keeping my message suitably ambivalent I said, ‘Nick calling Yamamoto. I have got “Goat”. Will be back two days.’ I used the Japanese method of terminating a radio message. Private Yamamoto, I knew, would take the information directly to Colonel Woon.

I smashed the transceiver and remembered Belgiovani’s last words to me, ‘Don’t cha forget da fuckin’ accumulators — da batter-ies, Nick.’

Gojo watched dolefully as I dragged his precious radio unit to the edge of the cliff and pushed it over, followed by the batteries. ‘
Gojo-san
, do you have any code books?’ I asked. It was yet another test. I had seen them neatly stacked on a rock ledge.

The series of code books Gojo Mura handed to me were, in fact, infinitely more valuable to us than ever his own capture might be. No field operator in the normal course of duty would have been trusted with them by the Japanese High Command. Gojo explained to me that it was only because he was in daily touch with Rabaul and several other centres that he had been permitted to possess them. The information concerning the fighters and bombers taking off from Henderson was thought to be critical to Japanese operations in the entire Pacific region. His instructions had been that if it seemed he might be captured he was to destroy the books and then kill himself. As for their importance to us, they allowed our Marine Command to gain access to Japanese encoded signals, enabling us to decipher their communication with Rabaul and possibly other Japanese war zones in the Pacific.

Going down the mountain was as hard as going up, though with the constant slipping and sliding the descent was considerably faster. On the way back to Henderson base we shared four meals together using my C rations. Gojo Mura ate very little — the food was totally unfamiliar to him and besides, his stomach had shrunk — but he loved the sugary tinned pears. On one occasion when I’d foolishly given him a Hershey bar I heard him vomiting up the chocolate violently during the night, although he said nothing to me the next morning.

I guess that if he’d wanted to he could have bolted; apart from my having to sleep, there were several occasions when we became separated and he could have attempted to escape. I wasn’t overly concerned. I knew I’d track him down soon enough. When I slept I took the precaution of removing the Owen magazine and kept it in my pack, on which my head rested. However, I would have been very surprised if Gojo Mura knew how to fire it. Despite having survived in the cave by gleaning some daily nourishment from his environment, he knew very little about the jungle. To any half-decent tracker who was following him it would be bull-in-a-china-shop easy. Whenever we were separated he always appeared soon afterwards, and on one occasion he must have thought he’d lost me because he started yelling out, ‘
Nick-san
!
Nick-san
! Where are you?’ This was a very different Japanese prisoner from the blokes who blew you up.

Coming in to Henderson in the late afternoon we were met by quite a committee. I’d taken the radio man off the mountain where he’d been making a nuisance of himself for several months and the brass, including an army air force colonel, seemed well pleased. Lieutenant Colonel Carlson was present and came over to congratulate me. I was to learn that he’d been back since the morning with half the battalion, and while he’d changed, showered, fed and possibly snatched some sleep, he still looked pretty whacked. The other half of the battalion had returned the previous day. Together the two sections had effectively removed the Japanese from the northern slopes of Mount Austen.

‘I’ve lost one pound to Mather. How much is that in American dollars?’ Carlson asked, grinning.

‘About two, sir.’

‘I want you to know it was worth it, Nick. Well done, glad you came along with us.’

When the provost staff sergeant arrived to collect Gojo Mura, he was more than a little surprised. ‘He’s not constrained, sir?’ he said, bemused.

‘Constrained?’

‘Manacled, sir.’

I explained to the provost staff sergeant that it hadn’t been necessary; that I had captured possibly the least dangerous Japanese in the entire Pacific War.

‘Did you not take manacles?’ he asked, in an obviously disapproving voice.

‘Yes, they’re in my pack. I told you, they were unnecessary, staff sergeant.’

He shook his head, still not understanding. ‘Sorry, sir, I’ll have to do it now.’ He handcuffed poor little Gojo Mura while I explained that he was to be fed only a little rice and tinned fish. ‘Goddamn, sir, I ain’t seen nuttin’ that looks or tastes like a fish since we left San Diego.’

‘Rice and vegetables then,’ I repeated. ‘He’ll die if you put him on our diet.’

‘This would be a tragedy?’ he queried.

‘Staff sergeant, be careful. This prisoner is a major intelligence asset. Colonel Woon will fall on you like a ton of bricks if anything happens to him,’ I warned, using the boss’s name without a prickle of conscience.

The following morning, after a glorious night’s sleep and back in Colonel Woon’s office for a debriefing, he said, ‘I’m not at all sure that J.V. Mather’s advice to go it alone was such a good idea, Nick. Are all Australians determined to get their own way?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Working your way into field work and risking your life?’

‘No, sir, but Mather was correct, it
was
a one-man operation.’

‘Private Yamamoto acted as interpreter when I questioned the prisoner last night. As I understand it, his cave was nearly three hundred feet up a sheer rock face and you got him out?’

The rumours were already beginning. Popgun Pete was back in the marine gossip columns. ‘No, no, sir,’ I hastily corrected him. ‘I waited at the bottom in the jungle until he came down for a shit.’

The boss laughed. ‘What? Caught him with his pants down?’

‘Not quite, sir, but the rest was fairly easy. Lieutenant Gojo is not a very willing soldier; in fact he makes Sergeant Belgiovani seem practically gung-ho.’ I then told the boss the story, including the presence of the rusted rifle. ‘So, anyone could have captured him, sir,’ I concluded — which was perfectly true, although it would have helped if the ‘anyone’ spoke Japanese and liked butterflies.

‘That’s bullshit, son,’ Greg Woon said. ‘The code books alone are a major breakthrough in Intelligence. We’re putting you in for a commendation.’

‘Thank you, sir, but, I promise, it is misplaced and unnecessary. It was, like I said, a very easy operation.’

I didn’t want to diminish the honour but, as with being made a lieutenant, it was another totally undeserved recognition.

‘Could I ask a favour instead, sir?’ I asked clumsily. ‘Could you insist that Lieutenant Gojo gets only rice and tinned fish with a few steamed vegetables? Oh, and tinned pears! He has taken to our tinned pears. It’s the sugar, I think. But all to be given in very small quantities for the next few days. He’s very malnourished, having lived off insects and weeds and a spoonful of rice every day. He could die if he is subjected to a high-protein Western diet.’

‘And you’d care if that happened, Nick?’

‘Oh, yes, sir, very much. Gojo Mura is a remarkable artist.’

‘Artist? What’s he paint?’

‘Butterflies, sir.’

‘Jesus H. Christ!’

‘
I hope you don’t want

your uniform or boots returned because

they went into the incinerator.

A rubber-glove job if ever there was one —

never know what could be lurking in the seams.
’

Dr Ross Hayes

Heidelberg Military Hospital,

December 1942

GOJO MURA WAS HELPFUL
with information, recalling for us what Japanese shipping was operating in the immediate area. He was polite and answered our questions and, quite correctly, volunteered no information he had not been asked for specifically.

Colonel Woon was impressed when I showed him the sketchbook he’d given me. ‘My dad would have loved someone like this as an assistant. He was a lousy photographer, never happy with the specimens he recorded. You’re right, Nick, they’re good.’

‘Sir, I realise the prisoner was captured, so to speak, under the American flag, but do you think you could pull some strings and have him sent to Australia?’ I added, ‘That way I can keep in touch. I’d like to get to know him better after the war.’

The boss gave me a quizzical look. ‘Nick, you’re a bit of an enigma, aren’t you?’

‘Enigma, sir?’ It would have been the last way I would have described myself.

‘Well, son, take your actions on Bloody Ridge. Now you want to be bosom pals with the Japanese?’

‘One individual Japanese, sir — this bloke would apologise if he killed a fly.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, son.’

‘Thank you, sir. That way I can get someone to, you know, keep an eye on him; send him sketchbooks and painting materials.’

‘What, so he can paint all the Australian bugs?’

I laughed. ‘It will have to be a very long war — we’ve got more than our fair share of those, sir.’

Almost from the time I had brought Gojo Mura down from the mountain things had begun to change. The Japanese were now clearly on the back foot and the 1st Division marines were beginning to leave the island. US regular army units had started to arrive by mid-November and there was a general sense of happiness as preparations for the major exodus began to take place. Of course, for security reasons, nobody (that is, nobody outside of headquarters) knew the precise date when the handover would occur.

Three days after I’d arrived back from the mountain Colonel Woon began his usual short, morning briefing session with ‘Nick, while it’s not yet general knowledge, the marines are moving out on the 9th and 10th. As you are aware, we’re all in pretty bad shape and the 1st Marine Division needs a rest. You may not know the full extent of the damage but while we’ve already sent well over three thousand men off for medical attention elsewhere, we’ve got at least another three thousand who need some sort of hospital attention, mostly for malaria, but quite a lot have other tropical diseases that come from being pitched into hell. We’re starting to kick the Japs in the butt here in the Pacific and the balance has shifted, but not without cost. It’s now the job of the US Army to do the search and destroy, the cleaning up here on the island.’

‘Sir, do you know where the marines are going and are we staying here?’ I asked.

‘Affirmative and negative — that’s what I wanted to tell you. The 1st Division marines are going to Australia for rest and retraining, to Mel-bourne. Our orders have not come through, but I anticipate our unit may well be required to stay with the US Army.’ He shrugged. ‘The men coming in are fairly green and know nothing about fighting the Japanese. I guess it’s fair to speculate that our Intelligence unit will be needed more than ever. You will — we all will — be required to conduct training classes for the new field radio operators and eventually our own replacement personnel. These guys are really civilians with a few weeks in boot camp.’ He paused and looked directly at me. ‘Are you disappointed, son?’

‘No, sir; I guess we still have a job to do here,’ I replied, but of course I was secretly disappointed. Although I didn’t want to leave without the colonel, Beljo and Da Nip widda Chip, like everyone else I’d had a gutful of the island. I have neglected to mention that I’d had two bouts of malaria — nothing too bad, three or four days feeling crook, then back on my feet again. On each occasion Colonel Woon had volunteered to send me home to Australia. But I knew how it was with me and malaria, and that I’d soon come good again. Well, to ‘come good’ is the knowledge that you can get through the day but, in the process, still feel pretty crook.

Colonel Woon had come down with a bout, but he’d refused to be evacuated. Lee Roy Yamamoto had a bout as well. The exception was Sergeant Belgiovani who, despite being unequivocally the least fit soldier on Guadalcanal, had, with the exception of an upset stomach for three days (no doubt from overeating), remained unaffected. The theory was that the local mozzies couldn’t penetrate the blubber.

The original Army Air Force Intelligence unit was a team and we liked to think that each of us, in his own way, was indispensable to the others. This was nonsense, of course. With the arrival of the regular army I knew we’d probably lose the closeness of being a small but unique intelligence force. The unit had been expanded and we now had twelve operators, most of them in training, with the sergeant from Brooklyn, the survivor of Bloody Ridge, being the senior non-commissioned officer and strutting about with a sense of happy and harmless self-importance. His war memoirs were being expanded: ‘
Wid duh marines gone, I hadda train duh whole goddamn U-nited States Army who don’t know nuttin’ ’bout radio in duh jungle!
’
In the meantime the idea of letting down your mates because of a touch of malaria, and lying between soft clean sheets in a hospital in Melbourne with pretty nurses in attendance, was unthinkable.
What am I saying?!

On the morning of the 9th of December the boss came into the radio tent. We all jumped up to salute him and he responded with a casual half wave, his fingers not even close to touching the brim of his cap. ‘Come with me please, Lieutenant,’ he instructed.

Together we strolled towards the beach where the revving of trucks, jeeps and landing craft reached us and made it obvious the big move was under way. Then emerging onto the beach we saw the marines lounging around, happy as sandboys, waiting for the signal to board the waiting ships. They looked like kids going on an excursion — and then it struck that, like me, they were in their late teens or early twenties, and in peacetime they’d still be regarded more or less as kids. ‘Lookee here!’ one of them shouted. ‘It’s Popgun Pete! Hiya, Lootenant! Hiya, Colonel!’ they called happily, knowing they would be allowed some slack on this of all mornings.

Several of their officers broke away and came to greet us, exchanging the usual pleasantries. The Americans are invariably polite as a race. General Vandegrift had left by plane but his senior colonel came over and greeted us. I snapped a salute just in case the prevailing
laissez-faire
attitude on the beach didn’t extend to headquarters staff. He looked at me, grinned, and gave a return salute so casual it would have made the colonel’s earlier one in the radio tent seem presidential. ‘Nick, your name came up at dinner several nights ago when we were discussing the capture of the Japanese radio man on the mountain. Well done, by the way.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I answered, having grown weary of explaining how Gojo Mura had practically captured himself.

‘Well, the general asked me to pass on his comment to you via Colonel Woon here, but now I can do so myself. He said, “You tell Nick Duncan as long as there’s a 1st Division marine around, he’ll always have a buddy”.’ He smiled and extended his hand. ‘Thanks, buddy,’ he said quietly. It was one of those moments when you feel a lump in your throat and you know you dare not speak.

As we watched, a long line of marines began to file onto the landing craft and for the first time it struck me how beaten up and tired they looked. While the mob on the beach had seemed cheerful enough, chiacking with us, it was a last attempt at keeping their good humour. These blokes who were embarking were really down. I guess they were loading the sick first. Their uniforms were ragged and they walked with a weary gait, heads hanging, chins almost touching their chests. They were well and truly stuffed. Once a mighty division, seven thousand men had been lost — either killed, wounded or sick; the enemy probably had lost four times that number. These ragged heroes had withstood everything a fanatical and determined Japanese force could throw at them for four months without respite. They’d spent a lot of this time living in stinking, mosquito-infested mud holes and rain-lashed tents, with air raids and bombardment from the Japanese navy almost daily occurrences. They’d repulsed the enemy in several major assaults, and the way they’d fought on Bloody Ridge would be remembered forever in the history of the United States Marines. If, as Napoleon said, a soldier marches on his stomach, then somehow they’d done all this while living on C rations or alternatively, a monotonous diet that (if Belgiovani’s latest complaints were to be taken seriously) even the chef from the Waldorf Astoria failed to improve. I would have willingly killed for a steak with a spot of rich brown gravy, a fresh green salad and new potatoes. I’d dreamed once of bread and butter pudding and woke up just as the spoon was about to enter my mouth.

I turned to Colonel Woon and without thinking commented, ‘These blokes are done like a dinner, Colonel. This mob is totally whacked!’

‘I
think
I get your meaning, Nick. I’m going to miss your colloquialisms. It had never occurred to me that the Australian vernacular only belongs tangentially to the English language. By the way, have you looked at yourself lately? You’re a big guy, but I guess you’ve lost thirty pounds, maybe more.’

I glanced down at my faded and torn jungle greens. The knees, long since out of my trousers, had been mended by whiz needle man Belgiovani, who’d patched them from scraps of an olive-green marine uniform he’d found somewhere. ‘
My grandpa was a tailor in duh Depression, he taught me. He’d say, “Lissen, kid, if you c’n sew neat den you gonna eat sweet
.
”
’
The jungle-green trousers were always a baggy fit — the idea was to keep you cool and make it comfortable and easy to move — but now they hung off me as if they were a couple of sizes too big. The loss of weight was probably due to the two bouts of malaria and what the marine medico who was treating me termed ‘a nasty gut infection’. My spare pair of boots (the first pair had long gone to boot heaven) were in the process of giving up, the canvas uppers beginning to peel away from the rubber sole.

It’s curious how you don’t see these things when they happen gradually. I guess it must be a bit the same as ageing; it happens so slowly that the mind adjusts. Furthermore, I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror for three months at least — wouldn’t have known where to find one. I looked at Colonel Woon, who I knew was thirty-five, and realised that he appeared closer to fifty. His hair had turned salt and pepper (more salt than pepper), there were deep lines etched from the corners of his mouth and the creases around his eyes were permanent and deeper.

‘I guess we’ve all taken a bit of a hiding, sir.’

‘Nick, you’re out of here, son,’ he said suddenly.

With the revving of the landing craft engines I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘You’re going back home.’ He must have seen my surprised look. ‘The order came from higher up. Your commendation’s come through and there’s a bit of something going to happen in Australia. It’s not the marine way to wear down a good man needlessly. You’ve done enough. In fact, more than enough, and it’s time for a rest. Not my orders, but I wouldn’t countermand them even if I could. I’ve also received a medical report; you’ve got a severe intestinal infection.’ He chuckled. ‘You’re whacked — done like a dinner.’

‘When, sir?’ I asked, completely taken aback at the news.

‘Before Christmas. You’ll probably have to spend it in hospital in Mel-bourne.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Sir, would you allow me to send a letter in the priority bag? There is someone in Australia I must notify.’

‘Sure, we’ll send it out first flight tomorrow. Give it to Sergeant Polanski, he handles the bag.’

Marg Hamilton had dropped me a line once a fortnight and I’d replied promptly. My letters were of necessity circumspect — ‘
we did this and then we did that
’
—
purely routine stuff
.
I wrote a fair bit about Belgiovani and Yamamoto, throwing in Sergeant Polanski for a bit of variety, trying to be amusing, but there wasn’t a lot I was permitted to say
.
She’d been sent to Melbourne for a three-month training course that would culminate in her becoming an officer: Naval Lieutenant Marg Hamilton. How about that? Unlike my own elevation I knew she thoroughly deserved it.

Her letters, by contrast, were chatty and personal, though not exactly lovey-dovey. I told myself that she wasn’t the sentimental type and, besides, she’d always insisted our relationship was strictly on her terms. At first she didn’t seem to like Melbourne much, missing Timmy (her dog) and especially Her Royal Highness Princess Cardamon (her Burmese cat). Her Aunt Celia had come all the way from Albany to care for them while Marg was away. Anyway, I felt I couldn’t exactly land on her doorstep in Melbourne, arms spread wide, greeting her with, ‘It’s me, Nick, your lover!’