The Widow & Her Hero (7 page)

What were Leo's true thoughts at this moment, if he knew
them in the first place? He would have told me in the end,
of course, if we had been married long enough, or it would
have emerged in some illness or night scream. Five minutes
passed of the most intense anguish. The minesweeper or
whatever it was kept level pace with the creeping two-knot
Pengulling
. The Japanese vessel possessed two cannons,
one on its foredeck and the other on the apron in front of
the bridge. Leo did not know their calibre, but it was
obvious to him that either could have obliterated them.
So they lived for five minutes with the bitter certainty of
what was to befall them, a certainty which only the young
and irrationally hopeful could sustain.

But for no reason then, the big vessel peeled away westwards,
in the direction of Surabaya. It was surmised, as
the men hugged and clapped each other's backs, that the
Japanese watch officer, who must have had authority over
the helm, had decided that so late at night, and so close to
the end of his watch, he did not wish to initiate the rigmarole
of searching a fishing vessel for little result. He had
been sloppy, he had wanted his bunk, and his discretion
and sloppiness had saved them.

I wish I could have heard that laughter. I wish I could
plug into it at will. Rosary beads and suicide pills hanging
not yet required from their necks. The rest of us are cut out
of its echoes, however. It was one of those moments you
had to be present at to understand how succulent it was.
Another item for the legend, and another chain. The lucky
Boss Doucette. Even Japanese naval officers-of-the-watch
succumbed to the spell inherent in his blessed plans.

On a permissive riptide,
Pengulling
swept through the
Lombok Strait. And after what had happened to them, they
did not mind the tides which then, beyond the strait, ran up
contrary to delay them. For after a further day they pulled
down their Japanese flag and the flag of the Singapore port
administration. They were in range of Australian coastal
bombers. Nav suffered a burst of manic delight, and
ordered the wireless operator to send a message to a friend
of his, an American at Potshot, with the news that Lombok
Strait was lightly patrolled.

The others could hear Doucette chastising Nav in the
wheelhouse and later in the day Doucette made a speech
over the evening meal, eaten under awnings on the tank
amidships, which Leo recorded in his occasionally kept
diary. It would seem, said Doucette, from a rash radio
message recently sent, that some of the party expected to
be welcomed back with parades, and to have our expedition
written up in the weekend newspapers and made a
newsreel of. I'll tell you now, said Doucette, that will not
happen.
Pengulling
will be used again, and then there may
be further raids on Singapore and other places using the
methods we used. If you think your exploits are going to
be spoken of in pubs, and that decorations will come plentiful
and fast, then I suggest you should avoid any further
association with this type of operation. In the meantime,
you have the satisfaction of the secret knowledge of
what you did.

Nav sulked, but so did some of the younger men who
thought their motivations had been questioned. Five days
later, they made it into Exmouth Gulf and its desolate but
well-supplied shore station USS
Potshot
. This was a desert
shore richly endowed with the plenty of American logistics,
but lacking in any extensive population and any atmosphere
of triumphant return. Ulysses might have said, I
resisted Circe and fought the Cyclops, and all the rest –
Scylla and Charybdis, and the rudeness of the sirens – for
this banal docking? Mooring there with sealed lips was not
an exhilarating experience. Mortmain was left in charge,
and Doucette and Leo were flown by bomber over the huge
vacant earth to Melbourne for a debriefing. However
secretly, they would be permitted to speak to select officers.

Leo and the Boss travelled to Melbourne in the belly of
a bomber, the noise atrocious, the vibration worse than
the
Pengulling
's at the point of engine strain, and the cold
far too intense for tropic-weight clothing. When they
landed at Essendon, Leo, waiting for a car to take him and
Doucette into Melbourne, made a trunk call to my office.

Dear, dear Grace, he said plainly. My sweetheart.

I said, You're back! And I began bawling, as was normal.
I did not know where he had been and would not for years
yet, but I knew he had gone into a forest dense with perils
and come back with a voice still fresh, if not refreshed. I
believed till that second I'd been confident he'd come back,
but now my previous naivety on that point seemed ridiculous
and I could see I had been oppressed by the waiting.

Are you still un-booked? he asked. Has some Yank
claimed you?

What a question! But how are you?

You wouldn't believe how well I am. Would early
December be okay?

He had a calendar in front of him.

What about Saturday, December eighth? I know I can
get leave. The Boss has assured me.

Yes, I said. That will be it then. My darling.

I had never before called anyone
darling
in my life.
Endearments sounded rusty yet compulsive in my mouth. I
would just the same need to be accustomed to using them.
I also knew well enough what would accustom me. Sex
without fear.

From Essendon, Doucette and Leo were driven to a big
old house in South Yarra, Radcliffe House, the sort of place
built by someone who made a fortune in the gold rushes,
more lately having been a temperance boarding house and
now the headquarters of IRD. The sentries on the door
saluted them – they wore blanco-ed webbing and gaiters on
the rare occasions I went there myself. Piss-elegant, Leo
said. Leo and the Boss, who had worn sarongs or gone
naked on the deck of
Pengulling
, were rewarded now with
military ritual. And there was more to come.

They entered an office, where the saluting mania continued.
The three officers who had stood up to meet them
were, as I imagine it, like publishers greeting their bestselling
authors. One was Major Doxey, the chief of IRD,
and another Major Enright, Director of Plans/Army, and
the third a strange, merry-looking fellow wearing a sort of
Highland cap with ribbons and tartan pants. This was
Captain Foxhill, an officer at IRD who had escaped with
Doucette from Sumatra, and who would prove a good
friend. After meeting the genial Foxhill later at a party, I
wondered how he managed to walk around the streets of
Melbourne in those pants without attracting catcalls from
Australia's common soldiery. The answer was that he did,
and that he didn't care.

The other two were professional soldiers of administrative
talent and stultified instincts – my opinion, of course,
based not only on Leo's but on ultimate social contact.

These three officers made a huge fuss of the two visitors
and the whole Cornflakes operation. Major Doxey said
what they had done was top hole, it was the ploy IRD had
been waiting for, not that it had been totally lacking in
earlier success, but this had been on a scale which none
could ignore. SOE in India and Britain were beside themselves
with delight.

Foxhill told them he was probably the humblest officer
who would congratulate them, because there would be a
party at Government House that afternoon – the Governor-
General Lord Gowrie was visiting Melbourne, had come
down from Canberra by plane and was installed there, the
regular governor of the state being away on some civic
duties in the bush. General Blamey would be there, and
although no public announcement or fuss would be made,
both gentlemen wanted to meet Doucette and Leo.

Foxhill asked about the mention in Doucette's report
that native junks seemed to come and go in the Singapore
roads without much molestation.

Doucette confirmed it, saying that next time a party
should simply take a ride by sub, pirate a junk and use it to
launch folboats. After the operation, the folboats could
return to the junk which, having finally met with the
submarine one night, could be sunk with explosives.
Everyone already took it for granted there would be a next
time, and Doxey said it was the right moment to bring in
Colonel Creed. He picked up a chunky black phone in
front of him and spoke into it.

Doucette's success, Leo noticed, had not made him
kinder to Creed. When Creed entered there was handshaking
all around, and Creed congratulated them, but
Doucette seemed a little upset that Creed even knew what
had happened. The American laid on the praise, which, as
Leo told me, was not a bad experience.

Creed took a seat at the table. Why am I here? he asked.
Well, for one thing I'm here to tell you we have unimpeachable
and independent information that the enemy was
genuinely shaken by your activities.

He said that his boss General Willoughby was very
impressed, and not just General Willoughby, head of
intelligence, but
the
boss, MacArthur himself. He said
that it might at last be possible for the Americans to help
out in some way in some future, larger scale operation.
The idea of cooperation pleased him. Everyone loves a
winner, said Creed, and this will convince my people you
are winners.

I can see in my mind's eye the way Doucette lifted his
head then, the little half-inch toss of the head, a sparse
gesture full of infinite contempt which I would sometimes
see at parties, particularly if Doxey were about.

We know from the record of this meeting, as conveyed
to me by the indefatigable Mark Lydon, who tracked down
the minutes in the archives, that Doucette said the
offer was most kind but that anyone could see from the
success of Cornflakes that there was a strong source of
brave, competent and adaptive young men amongst the
Australians.

Doxey, Enright and Foxhill seemed alarmed at this rebuff.
The lean Colonel Creed remarked that Major
Doucette saw him as a crass opportunist, but he hoped to
prove otherwise.

And in that spirit, said Creed, in that spirit . . . And he
exposed a great and dazzling plan to Doucette and Leo.
Sounding all lazy and languid and like a cowboy. What if
a permanent raiding party were put ashore at Great
Natuna Island, east of Malaya, south of Indochina, north
of Borneo? With junks built in Melbourne but convincingly
Oriental. From Great Natuna a raiding force could
operate throughout the South China Sea. If Free French
commandoes were involved, there could be attacks even
on Saigon.

Doucette nodded and frowned. He looked towards
Doxey and Foxhill. They both gave confirmatory nods.
Doxey said General Durban from SOE London had been
out to see General MacArthur, and had got a pledge of
cooperation. Creed looked gratified. He seemed to be
convinced that Doucette would soon be looking at him
with new eyes. Basically, old sport, he said, you'll be
raider-in-chief in the South China Sea. We'll have you
raiding airfields and shipping. Everything you tell me you
like!

Even Doucette was impressed and excited, though
warily so. He was still distracted, trying to reconcile his
mistrust of Creed with the golden idea that had been held
out to him. The idea that he could be a pirate chieftain!

When Doxey told Doucette then that first the British
wanted to see him in London at SOE headquarters, they
had a few things they wanted him to look at, Doucette said,
That's good. I can go and visit Mother.

They put Doucette and Leo up at the Windsor, the
flashest of old gold rush hotels. A pressed uniform with
captain's pips on the shoulder sat on Leo's bed, so he went
to Doucette's room to report a mistake had been made. It
appears not, said Doucette. Doucette had just discovered
he was a lieutenant-colonel as well, and Rufus Mortmain
was lieutenant-commander. Doxey said Mountbatten's
headquarters in India were so impressed that they intended
to recommend decorations. Doucette said, Makes my rant
to the men look pretty silly.

At the time, Leo wrote to me a letter which was
an account of that heady afternoon.
I have to say
, Leo
would write,
I feel a bit of the vanity of it all. There's something
intoxicating about getting an extra pip on your
shoulder. Stupid, I know. Gives you ideas of military self-
importance. I wish you were here, to see how seriously
we're being taken
.

In the dusk that afternoon, they were driven by a staff car
up the long botanic garden-like grounds of Government
House to the front door, where a fellow in a frockcoat
opened the car door for them, and another with an umbrella
led them into the portico and told them he hoped they had
not got too wet, sir. They were taken into a great hall lined
with portraits of former governors, whose names adorned
rivers and mountain ranges in the great State of Victoria and
the immensity of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Inside a ballroom, a waiter asked Leo would he like
sherry. He didn't like it, but equally, he didn't fancy his
chances of getting a beer. He saw Foxhill across the room in
his tartan pants and started to cross to him, but was all at
once taken by the elbow by a young English captain in dress
uniform who steered him directly to the centre of the room,
into the open veldt of the place, away from paintings and
ferns and other items of protection. Here in the middle of the
floor, where the more important dancing couples would have
danced had this been a wedding or a state ball, Doucette was
speaking like an equal with three men, two of whom Leo
knew from newspaper pictures. One, dressed in a morning
suit, was the Governor-General Lord Gowrie, a lean man,
popular for having toured the troops in northern Australia
and New Guinea. The other was a very portly fellow, famous
General Blamey, former Commissioner of Victoria Police,
pudgy and yet somehow commanding, and swaying a little,
toe to heel, with a glass of Scotch in his hand.

Some of our boys like the fact he's a bit boozy
, Leo
would write,
and that he looks such a man's man. I think
he could have been a bit less so. He had interesting,
crinkled-up eyes full of roguery, and all up reminded me of
a cross between Santa Claus and a pub-owner
.

Tall Lord Gowrie extended his hand to Leo and spoke,
thus condemning him to further danger. Easy for Lord
Gowrie, in his vice-regal serge. And what he said would
draw hoots of laughter now, if it didn't cause widespread
incomprehension. He said to Leo, Captain, may I express
the admiration of the British Empire.

The admiration of the British Empire!

All the grandiloquence of one age becomes one-liners for
a later generation, before becoming utterly incomprehensible
to the next.

And General Blamey was muttering his version of the
same thing. Bloody fine, said Blamey. Bloody fine.

Lord Gowrie said that his friend, the governor of
Victoria, who had so kindly loaned him these digs,
possessed some excellent maps in his library. He turned to
Doucette and asked him whether he and his young friend
Waterhouse could perhaps show him, after the party, their
operational movements on an atlas.

General Blamey was pleased with the idea and passed his
glass to a waiter for a refill. Leo decided not to judge him
for that. He was, after all, one of the fellows who beat
Rommel. But then Doucette adopted a solemn air which
confused Leo. Doucette said, I was so distressed to hear
about Patrick, Leonard.

That's most kind of you, said Lord Gowrie, and I wish I
was a rarity amongst parents who've lost sons in the Desert
campaigns, but I fear I am not. He knew General Blamey
here, by the way.

Yes, said Blamey solemnly. He was a very fine young
man, Lord Gowrie's boy.

Lord Gowrie found even this much reflection on
Blamey's part painful and changed the subject, asking after
Doucette's wife and son. Any word?

No news, Leonard, said Doucette. Thank you for
asking.

Lord Gowrie said he didn't want to offer false comfort.
But it takes ages for the Red Cross to get news . . .

Doucette declared that a kindly thought. In a half-
embarrassed voice, Lord Gowrie explained to the other
generals that Mrs Doucette and the little boy were missing.
They'd been on the
Tonkin
.

Doucette, perhaps to distract attention, nodded in Leo's
direction. Captain Waterhouse . . . his father is a POW of
the Japanese.

General Blamey looked solemn and said something Leo
quoted to me occasionally, sometimes half joking in boastfulness
after sexual athleticism, for like many he thought
Blamey ludicrous. Well, he said, they've felt the sting of the
family, son. They've felt the sting.

The British general who had till now been silent, whose
red tabs looked so much more vivid than Blamey's desert-
bleached ones, now joined the conversation. He seemed to
address Doucette and Leo. He hoped that his own journey
from London, specifically to visit General MacArthur, had
broken down the American resistance to cooperation and
the use of MacArthur's submarines. MacArthur was very
worried that the British and Australians would use their
occasional special operations as the basis to claim back the
whole region when the war ended. Now according to the
Americans, that couldn't be permitted, because it was
imperialism. But, complained this general, it's not imperialism
when
he
declares he will return to the Philippines.

Lord Gowrie murmured, Well, of course, we'd expect
Malaya back. I mean, after all, it was taken from us
without benefit of international law.

The tall English general turned out to be General
Durban, the head of the Special Operations Executive in
London. He said that with a bit of American cooperation,
he could see the whole of the Southeast Asian zone busy as
a church fete with airfields and ports blown to pieces by
Australians and Free French and wandering Britons like
Charlie Doucette.