I WAS STILL in a quandary about moving out of Aola. There I could live off fresh milk, meat, and fish, and conserve our meager supply of tinned rations. At the same time, I was not very happy about the possibility of George Bogese’s visiting Guadalcanal with the Japanese. He had, I had heard, already taken a party of their officers on a tour of Nggela.
The solution to my problem was provided by a deputation, consisting of Eroni, Andrew, and Daniel. It would be much better, they said, for all concerned if I retired to Paripao. They could easily keep the reporting system going, and I was the only one who could operate the teleradio. These three men were exceptionally loyal, and they had been working very hard under the most trying conditions, so I could not ignore their feelings. Thanking them for their solicitude, I told them that I would probably go bush once everything was packed up and we had got the Americans away.
The Kawanisis had worked out regular patrol routes. We soon found out that they fueled and loaded bombs about 0500 each day, under the glow of powerful searchlights, and took off about 0730. Then came the news that an enemy vessel had been seen at Marau at 0300 one morning. It was clear that our own ship traffic, even along the coast, would have to be reduced to an absolute minimum: the area was no longer predictably safe. Vessels going across to Malaita would have to go at night, and by a roundabout route.
On 16 May, the two American airmen departed in the G. F. Jones for the New Hebrides, via San Cristobal. They would pass a message to Gynia’s crew at Marau to report to me. I gave them the compass off the Catalina, a few charts, and something to eat. (Ewoldt seemed quite confident; like Ekins, it was another plane he wanted, and he did not mind what he had to put up with to get it.) With them went the owner of the Hing-Li, Yip Tim, and his family. Ewoldt was pleased to be on his way back to Pearl Harbor, which I believe they reached only a fortnight after the USS Yorktown. Yip Tim, on the other hand, was thrilled to be increasing the distance between himself and the Japanese.
About midnight the AIF launch returned from Nggela.1 Seven rifles, four bayonets, and twenty-five thousand rounds of ammunition, plus the teleradio, had been rescued, literally from under the nose of the Japanese: an enemy patrol had carried out a house-to-house search only five minutes after the launch had departed. What really pleased me was that teleradio: though I very much doubted whether the set was in working order, it was a matter of prestige not to let any of them fall into enemy hands.
The next day, I was very glad to see the morning Kawanisi heading for Malaita: I was busy charging my batteries, and the charging motor completely drowned out airplane noises. The drone had another unwanted effect: I fell asleep in the radio shack. In fact, I was quite exhausted—I hadn’t had a good sleep for weeks. The problem was the business of keeping the watch at night. Sergeant Andrew and his men were doing extremely well, but they hadn’t really been tested in this sort of emergency, and I did not think it was fair to leave the responsibility entirely to them. I could have slept for a whole day, but I dared not chance it: the morale of the local population was pretty low, and I could see plainly that my presence on the coast was regarded as a liability rather than a morale builder. If the Japs landed, all the islanders could flit silently into the night, leaving me none the wiser. I hoped it would never happen, but nevertheless I just had to make the effort to walk round the station every hour or so.
It is amazing what you can get used to. I discovered that I could doze off in between hourly visits to my posts and sentries, yet wake at the slightest strange noise. After a bit I found that I was getting a little rest, and later that I was comparatively fresh when I got up in the morning.
George Bogese’s collaboration had been confirmed. Every day there was more news from Nggela of his treacherous actions. The latest rumor was that he was going to escort the Japs to Kau Kau.
I finally concluded that I would do much better if I did retire to Paripao. The reporting system worked well, and my scouts and lookouts were doing a great job; I thought I could leave them to do it on their own. To go bush was not so good from the point of view of food, but we would be able to reduce considerably the number of people on static watch, and use them to patrol the island and pick up information from a much wider area.
On 19 May, therefore, I left Aola for good. I had assembled 190 carriers, to take every last useful thing off the station at one lift. All we needed there was the seaward lookout and two prowlers; six policemen could keep this going quite adequately, assisted by the few remaining Balo villagers. Much of the station was now green with the young vines of the yam, or the flapping elephant-ear leaves of the young taro plants, which were our only food reserve. The main office safe was too heavy to take; after emptying it, I left an old sock inside—just to give the Japs something for their labors, if they ever managed to open it! Having paid as many people as possible, I crammed the remaining silver into a “traveling” safe. It still needed four to carry it.
At 1330 a blast on the lookout’s conch shell signaled that we were clear of the station, now deserted except for the rear guard. Eroni had gone the day before to a jungle hideout close by, so there was only Andrew to whom to say goodbye. “You stop goodfella “long Paripao an no fright,” he said. “Me lookout ’long here goodfella.” We shook hands firmly. “Goodbye, then,” I replied, “and best of luck.” It was sad to be leaving. Civilization seemed to be slipping away.
We reached Paripao at 1730, all in good nick. The village was on a spur or saddle of land from which the ground fell away steeply on both sides; the earth there was red clay. The central path, which was really quite narrow, followed the ridge; on either side there was just room for a single row of houses, except on the seaward side, where the ridge widened out considerably.
The prison gang had been building stores for our bulk gear, of the same size and dimensions as the houses in the village. Thus we fondly hoped to escape detection. I also made alterations to the mast for the teleradio aerial, and draped more creeper round it. A good lookout post would be provided by a large canarium almond tree, which was about eighty feet high but was clear of branches for about forty feet. Round the lowest branch we put a lashing, and onto this we secured a pulley; it made a very good place from which to hang the Union Jack and not have it be seen from the air. The last flash of brilliance in our camouflage was added by Deke, who rushed into the village waving the top of a betel nut palm, which he tied triumphantly to the top of the radio mast! It wouldn’t really fool an expert, but I imagined it would not look out of the ordinary from the air.
Apart from the vegetables that had been recently planted, there was a considerable stock of native vegetables in the station garden, and we tried to consume as much as possible in order to save nonrenewable rations such as rice and meat. All the chickens and ducks in the chicken run at Aola were also reinstalled at Paripao. I doubted that there would be much surplus food in the bush villages, and as far as I could see then I was quite right.
The canarium almond tree, which carried the flag, soon had a platform at the top, from which an air and sea lookout was kept twenty-four hours a day. I kept the watch down to two hours, lest someone get tired and miss something; if the lookouts wanted food and drink, they let down a basket on a long string. Accurate reports on Jap shipping were going to be very valuable, so I spent the next few days getting the men accustomed to the new routine. With an intermediary halfway between the tree and my house, the description of a ship leaving the harbor or a plane taking off could be coded up as it happened and radioed in a few minutes.
During a lull in enemy activity I paid a visit to Belaga, a village about six miles west of and much higher than Paripao, which was the home of Vakalea, the district headman of that area. From his house there was a marvelous view of Tulagi—you almost felt as if you were suspended over it. What annoyed me was that even from there I could see no sign of any activity. No Kawanisis had been about for the last four days, and I wondered what had happened to them. While at Belaga I got a message from Rhoades about some evil types whom he had tried to arrest but who had escaped his custody. He’d heard that they had threatened, quite openly, to go to Tulagi and let the Japanese know where he was.
My main occupation at Paripao was sorting and encoding signals for dispatch. What I actually saw did not take long, but the patrol reports coming in from east, west, and south—and, when a canoe could chance it, from Bingiti on Nggela—all had useful information, some of it in great detail, and that took much longer. To improve the quality of the reports, I gradually trained my regulars in the collection of evidence; they grew adept at sifting and combining the reports of the village Home Guard, and their results were then brought to me. This not only saved time but also increased security, by reducing the number of people who came to Paripao. Part of the vegetables dug up from the Aola gardens was stored in caches to the east and west, so that men bringing in reports could be given a feed before returning home.
Nggela had got too hot for Lafe Schroeder, and he had managed to evacuate Nagotana and join Snowy Rhoades. His eyewitness accounts of events in Tulagi would be missed, but the gap was practically filled by Bingiti, whose detailed intelligence was first class. While I was trying to precis about fifteen pages of Bingiti’s reports, the resident commissioner, through ZGJ, asked for news of Nggela. In return I told him which places were occupied, where, what the Japanese defense points and bivouac positions were, and how many men were stationed at each. Following is a precis of a typical signal from Rhoades:
Japs told Savo natives that they would eventually find all whites hiding in the bush by observing their lights by night and smoke by day from planes. Two German officers with Japs at Savo and one Jap sergeant worked at Gavutu who talks pidgin extremely well and who had been recognised with having been familiar with Solomons in peace time. This chap has a scar on his cheek. Japs at Nggela were pulling down churches and giving the vestments to the locals. They had also declared that there is no church law any longer.
The Japanese position at Tulagi during the latter part of May was covered by this signal from Bingiti:
From ZGJ4 to VQJ. Following is reliable report, not rumour. Tulagi residency not occupied. Flag flies from resident commissioner’s office which is main Jap control centre. Superior official lives there together with several clerks. The sentries on government wharf are the only guard on island. Alarm sounded by whistle. Estimated that 500 Japs camped on island. Estimate prepared by actual counting. One ‘usual’ [Kawanisi] anchored near government wharf, other five anchored at Gavutu where Jap garrison of similar number remain under flag erected on top of island. All European establishments round the harbour and within easy reach have been ransacked but are now no longer occupied. Japs have not treated Nggelese well and they will not now work for them. Every time they visit a village Japs haul out the villagers’ trunks and boxes and pinch their clothing. Supplies of food are being obtained by menace of arms. Launch went to Aruligo plantation for meat last Monday, but doubt whether they got any as all cattle were driven into the bush long ago. Nggelese are cooperating to the extent that they have been telling the Japanese that all white men have gone. As regards Savo, Japs told natives that they were short of food and clothing and that they were coming to collect pigs, fowls and produce from their gardens. They also let it be known that they were short of fuel oil and petrol. No further news of Bogese, but Savo natives told that Japs looking for more native medical practitioners to attend their wounded, of which there are large numbers. Japs told Nggelese to clear out and run away to another island as they would require all food that was being produced. Appears from all reports that Japs were greatly impressed by our aerial attacks on 4th May and are in constant fear of raids from our planes.
I continued to speculate about the Japs’ next move. If they were short of food, as from all accounts they appeared to be, and if there were more than a thousand of them, they would soon run through any local stocks on Nggela. It was, therefore, likely that they would visit the plantations on Guadalcanal and kill cattle for meat: there were no cattle on Nggela, and the Japs had already helped themselves to the “episcopal” pigs at Taroaniara, the Melanesian bishop’s headquarters.
On Saturday, 23 May, we heard bombing over Tulagi. It was confirmed a couple of days later by Deke, who returned from Gold Ridge. He reported that he had seen three planes attacking Tulagi on Saturday. Our teleradios were giving a certain amount of trouble, especially Rhoades’s set, probably because it was much more humid inland. There were no official spares, nor any likelihood of any coming, so I sent him the spare valves from the RAAF set; the police messenger who took them called at Macfarlan’s, where he picked up another gadget that Snowy required.
I was having trouble with my charging engine. It had been running almost continuously, and it really required decarbonizing, an exercise with which I was not too familiar. I was lucky in a way, in that I had recently acquired another charging engine; but it was rather an old one, and I had used it only while the other was being repaired.
The Japanese Air Force, it appeared, finally had got fed up looking for our nonexistent Navy and decided to take a closer look at the immediate area, for they now spent a lot of time flying up and down across the grass plains. Sometimes they flew very low, and on 26 May a signal from Macfarlan claimed that a plane had landed near Tetere. I rather doubted that, but the next day we had a good scare, as a report came in that the Japanese had actually landed at Tenaru. I sent Koimate and another one of the goldfields patrol to investigate the doings at Tenaru and Tetere.
After much patient searching, I signed on five Christian men in Tasimboko who appeared intelligent and reliable enough to go over to Nggela and reinforce Bingiti. It looked as if I would need more trustworthy fellows in their own area, too, but Nggela had the higher priority, for Bingiti had written that the Nggelese were very bad at producing accurate reports and that he did not find their intelligence very reliable.
A police messenger arrived from the station. There was still no sign of Japs at Aola. All were OK there, and their morale was much better—they all had plenty to do.