ON 5 JULY we put our evacuation plan into operation. Everything spare or nonessential was bundled into its container, which had been prepared for it some weeks before according to a prearranged plan and stacked in the secret cache up the road. After the morning schedule the teleradio was dismantled, and at 0930 off went my best carriers with it. They had to go very slowly and carefully up the slippery bush track: if the battery carriers lost their footing, they could spill the irreplaceable acid, and then we would be sunk.
By noon we had the mouth of the cache filled in and all foot marks carefully brushed away, and quick-growing creepers were planted at the entrance. After some rain it would, I hoped, look natural. All used tins had been buried, and every trace of our occupation removed. About 1245, after a last nostalgic look round, I started up the trail. It was a sorry procession, compared with the hundred or so who had brought us to Paripao: two scouts with rifles in the lead; Michael, the cook, and Peter, his understrapper, who managed our scanty kitchen; a half dozen carriers with the rest of my equipment; and Suinao and me. I did not know where I was heading. Perhaps it was just as well.
Everything went smoothly, and all hands worked with a will. When there was action, my lads were all right, but they were not used to waiting for the worst to happen—it tried their nerves. As I trudged up the track, mile after weary mile, I had that “end of term” feeling again, as if everything had finished and there was nothing more beyond; but there was no elation, no relief.
The climb up the mountain ridge was fairly steep, and the land fell away sharply on either side. About three miles from the village of Bumbugoro, however, it began to level off into a sort of plateau. This was rather frustrating, as I had hoped to have a peep at Tulagi before nightfall. I climbed a tall tree, but there was no chance of my seeing the coast even from the top, for the land was level for several miles around.
Bumbugoro was our overnight stop, and we were tired out. The rest house, on the far side of the village, was a miserable shack, in bad repair. Depressed, I assembled the teleradio on the uneven floor and strung the aerial between two trees. There had not been much time to charge up the batteries before leaving, but even allowing for that the reception was pretty poor, and I could not contact anyone. I had thought that the village might be our next observation post, but it was quite hopeless. I could have kicked myself for being unable to spare the time to recce possible places to which to retire. Instead, I had had to rely on my scouts, who reported that Vungana, the next village in from Bumbugoro, was ideal for observation. I feared that it might be too far from the coast for quick communication with my sources of information; but I couldn’t have it both ways, with security as well.
At daybreak, as the smoke from the morning fires curled up into the green shadows, I woke from a fitful sleep to find that a scout had arrived from Paripao. He said that there had been no air activity during the night and that nothing had been heard about the Jap party at Taivu. I was uncomfortably stiff from the previous day’s walk, but there was nothing for breakfast, so we picked up our loads and straggled off gloomily up the hill. After the village of Kerembuta, the road became the merest of rough tracks, rambling up and down a lot of hog-backed ridges in a most improbable manner. Sometimes the slope was so steep that the ground was devoid of trees, and one looked down into space. It was worse than anything I had ever seen.
Poor Michael didn’t like this bush scrambling at all. “Me b’long cook,” he protested, “me no b’long walkabout. Lunga ’e fullup ’long Japan soldier, bymbye altogether look’m youme. Whichway youme stop nothing ’long sickerup [scrub] and no got’m kaikai. ’im ’e no blurry good tumas.” I had no answer for him except “Bymbye,” and that was wearing rather thin.
The track still contrived to be slippery earth, and I died a thousand deaths as I watched the battery carriers, who had had to give up pole and sling, holding a heavy battery on their shoulder with one hand while trying to stop themselves from falling with the other. I wondered how far a battery would bounce before it smashed to pieces on the rocks below. The track got steeper and steeper, and we had to break down the loads and pass the teleradio cases from hand to hand up some of the more impossible places. On we went until we seemed to be near the top of the world, and the clouds were only treetop high. Suddenly, through the thinning, lichen-covered trees, I saw a small row of houses quite close at hand. Thank goodness, I thought: I was utterly exhausted.
It took us another mile to get there. A yawning chasm lay between, and we had to walk halfway round before we came to a knife-edged connection only four feet wide, with a sheer drop on both sides. This saddle merely led onto the toothlike pinnacle on which the village rested; the final ascent was nearly vertical solid rock, into which hand- and footholds had been cut. I staggered and crawled my way up to the citadel, keeping my fingers crossed while the teleradio and other equipment were being handed up. Vungana was a miserable place, but as long as no artillery was brought up it could be defended with very few men: you could walk only forty or fifty yards in any direction from edge to edge of the precipice, which continued all round, except where the tiny saddle of rock spanned the chasm. The river that ran at the bottom had worn its way down three or four hundred feet through the ages into an exaggerated oxbow. There were not more than ten houses, and a handful of naked, dirty people living in them.
I took over the headman’s house; actually it was a one-room shack, which had only recently been built and was therefore fairly clean. The very uneven split-palm floor was raised about two feet off the ground, so the wind whistled remorselessly through the slatted floor and walls. It had a small verandah, but there was no furniture, not even a table or a chair. The headman was an angular, bony individual of miserable aspect; although honored by my selecting his great mansion, he could not understand why
I had picked his village as a refuge. Vungana was like a miniature Edinburgh castle, but it was neither pleasant nor impregnable.
Life would not be very comfortable, but I had to admit that the view was simply superb. My field of view extended more than twenty miles in all important directions: to the east I could see the reefs of Rua Sura, while to the west I could see right across to Savo and to Cape Esperance, and clear into Tulagi Harbor as far as Makambo Island. The plantations in the center, especially Lunga, were easy to pick out: the level tops of the coconut palms were a darker green. Most of the grass plains were hidden by the foothills, but the coast was in full view as far as Berande, and I would be able to report Japanese naval movements straightaway.
I set up the teleradio, but there were very few high trees in the village, and I had great difficulty in erecting an aerial. I finally managed by connecting the two ends of the aerial to two very large green bamboos, which were then loosely bound to two betel nut palms that were not really high enough by themselves. When the set was in use, the bamboos were raised and tied firmly to the betel nut palms; at other times, the bamboos were retracted and the aerial hung slackly between the crowns of the two palms.
Shortly after I arrived, I was twiddling with the teleradio, which would not work, when a scout arrived with a gloomy letter from Macfarlan. Mac made more than tentative inquiries about the schooners at Marau Sound; obviously he was thinking about pulling out, a prospect that only added to my insecurity. While I was reading his letter, Daniel Pule came in with a splendid account of what the Japanese had been doing on the coast. Unfortunately, the batteries had run right down, and I couldn’t send out a report.
Then, at 1515, I spotted a convoy of five large warships approaching Lunga from the west; one or two looked like cruisers. The rain started up again, preventing any further observation, but about fifteen minutes later we could hear the sound of bombing at Kukum or Lunga. Naturally, the charging engine picked this time to go temperamental again—it appeared to resent working at high altitudes—and after one or two code groups the batteries gave up.
Fed up, I decided to forward Daniel’s report and the news about the cruisers to Macfarlan, so that he could send them out; as I was writing it out for him, however, my typewriter broke down. It took more than a day to get the charging engine going.
That night I found out that it was much colder at Vungana than at Paripao. My two lightweight blankets were quite ineffective, and I was up very early the next morning pacing up and down, trying to get some warmth into my frigid limbs. Keeping clean was also a problem. It took well over an hour to go down to the river at the bottom of the chasm. That was the only source of water, but it all had to be carried up in lengths of bamboo stems, and the amount brought up was far too small for washing. Standing starkers out in the rain was an effective way to have a bath, but one had to keep a weather eye open for village women.
On 7 July the Japanese Navy was around pretty early. Three large vessels were anchored off Lunga by 0630, and a smaller one, accompanied by a landing craft, was steaming toward Tulagi. I heard, quite distinctly, the Kawanisis warming up in Tulagi Harbor before going off south and southeast, while three or four others patrolled up and down the coast between Kukum and Aola until about 0800. In spite of their efforts, friendly bombers dropped their loads on Kukum both morning and afternoon, and at noon, through the mist, we caught a fleeting glimpse of two of our planes as heavy detonations were heard from Tulagi.
As for me, I spent most of the day tinkering with the charging engine. At last I got it to work, just enough to get sufficient juice into the batteries to make the set transmit a decent signal and pass some of Daniel’s latest dope to ZGJ.
The Japs appeared to have settled in on Guadalcanal. At least seven hundred were reported to be bivouacked in tents between Kukum and Tenaru. They had trained dogs posted along the Tenaru boundary to keep us out. They also had set up three small posts—at Sapuru, near Cape Esperance; at Taivu Point; and at Berande—and a party of five hundred had been reported en route for the weather coast, where Talisi, the one safe anchorage, was our only possible escape route. The Japanese had told the Tasimboko people that they had come to Guadalcanal for the express purpose of looking for government officers and all other whites.
The small outlying posts had between seven and twenty men, some of whom did not wear a uniform all the time, and, worse luck, a radio. I began to wonder who was watching whose coast. The men told the islanders that they were naval auxiliaries and that they had worked before the war near Thursday Island. They took pigs, fowls, and native vegetables from the village gardens.
In spite of the sentry dogs, we managed to find out all the positions of the ack-ack guns at Lunga, the number of trucks working to level an airfield behind the plantation, and many other interesting details. Vast dumps of stores had been landed all the way along the coast from Kukum to Tenaru, a distance of several miles, and the Japs were working night and day to disperse them. Their luggers were busily going up and down the coast and to and fro from Tulagi. The “schooners” that had been reported were probably former pearling luggers; they were very slow.
Our bombing continued fairly regularly, but we were all disappointed that it did not grow in intensity and that there was no news of anyone’s retaking the Solomons. We had long got past the depression stage, but, even so, the general state of gloominess continued to increase. Mac had decided to move back from Gold Ridge and was, in fact, contemplating leaving the island altogether. With the people on the coast bewitched by the Japanese and doing their bidding, however, it would be extremely difficult for us to muster enough carriers to get even Macfarlan and Hay, let alone the gold miners or me, down to the weather coast for evacuation. I knew I couldn’t go until the last, so I offered to assist Mac by collecting carriers for him and covering his evacuation. The whole position looked very black, and to cap it all my miserable charging engine was out of action again.
One of the problems at Vungana was the frequency with which it became enveloped in cloud. Apart from hindering observation, the condensation interfered with the teleradio, which got very damp in the morning. I had to keep a small hurricane lamp burning underneath its table all night. Had the charger been in good shape, I could have kept the sets turned on for longer periods.
With the colder nights everyone began to miss the sustaining cup of tea at nightfall: we had run out of sugar before leaving Paripao, and tea without sugar was not much of a drink. Li-oa, my gardener from San Cristobal, said that he knew how the Polynesians made sugar from the coconut palm; I told him to have a try. What the Polynesians produced was, in fact, molasses, which was made from the sap of the growing terminal shoot of the coconut palm. The nearest coconut palm was not much of a specimen, and it was several miles downhill; but Li-oa went down there, and after a few days of laborious work he turned up with a smile on his normally sad face, brandishing two gin bottles full of his treacle-like brew. It wasn’t as sweet as the store product, but, when well stirred into a cup of tea, it was just what was required.
The Kawanisi flying boats, or “usuals” as we now called them for briefness in coding, quartered the bush most mornings, singly or in pairs. They were frequently overhead, and pretty low. Decent of them, I thought, to give us so much attention.
My charging engine was giving me more trouble. It would run for three minutes and then have to be cranked again. By dint of persevering with the three-minute bursts, however, I managed to get enough kick into the batteries to send out my messages.
After several days of miserable existence a signal came that Macfarlan had planned his move from Gold Ridge. He intended, in the first place, to shift to Bambatana, one of the prospecting camps, which was far up the Sutakama River and did not appear on the map. As I did not think that the miners realized how desperate our position had become, and I did not know what or whether Macfarlan had told them, I wrote and advised them to get going before the rush came. Being private citizens they would, of course, want to take all their worldly goods with them, but for them the carrier problem would be appalling: there were no trucks, no roads or tracks, and, worst of all, no carriers.
The more I looked, the more impossible the situation seemed to be. With my charging engine working only intermittently, it was a struggle just to get out the traffic, let alone consult others as to what should be done. The Japs were all around us, on both land and sea, and their flying boats had the coast so well patrolled that even if we did manage to set sail from Talisi it would be almost impossible to escape them. Things seemed so bad, and so inevitable, that I felt I needed further instructions, so on 8 July I sent the resident commissioner a long signal: “Coastal natives no longer amenable—Japs intend infiltrating weather coast—looks like search for us will be on both coasts—can trust very few natives—administration almost impossible—cannot do very much good for much longer. Stop. Have you any instructions? Position at present merely a matter of time unless relief comes within week or so. Clemens.” It wouldn’t help much, but it might, I hoped, stop me from feeling so alone and deserted.
After all these years, and even though I know what subsequently happened, that gloomy message remains a fairly good, unexaggerated summary of the position. Having sent it, I then put the hard word on Macfarlan, asking him point blank whether he intended to scuttle. His reply, which was confirmed by letter, was brief and in the affirmative; it went something like this:
We are moving Monday morning and hope to see you. I don’t think we will have any trouble for a few days but after that, well, who knows. Anyway if I can get off the island I intend to. There are cruisers, destroyers and floatplanes everywhere. A transport is still at Kookoom.
Your police boy wanted a fry pan [from Ken Hay’s stores], but had no money and said he had no pay coming to him, so I declined to sell!
Regards and all the best. Two letters for Snowy in case you have contacted him.
Yours,
Mac.
Rhoades was in just as bad a pickle as anyone else, and the terrain between him and Macfarlan was mostly steep mountaintops. To get away he would have to sneak round to the weather coast by cutter or canoe. A few days before, Snowy had heard a shot in the bush only fifty yards away from his hideout; he had not discovered what it was, but he had wisely moved his camp forthwith.
The RC’s reply to my signal made me furious: his only advice was to go deep into the bush, transmit as little as possible, and keep in touch with Macfarlan. Some help, I thought—I had already done everything he suggested! If I went much farther into the bush I would be going down nearer to the other side, and a fat lot of good it would do keeping in touch with Macfarlan if he was going to evacuate in the near future. As for keeping off the air, my charging engine was managing to do that for me pretty successfully. I angrily dashed off a most insubordinate reply, and only later tore it up. Ironically, the message from Malaita had the result of putting me on my mettle; I shook off some of the gloom, and felt a little happier about facing the situation.
After I moaned in a letter to Hay about the inefficiency of my charging machine, he replied jokingly that there was an old one at Berande, and that I could have it if the Japanese didn’t want it! They had occupied the plantation house, but I was determined to get it anyway. I sent one of my scouts, the poker-faced Gumu, down to Berande; he worked as batman to a Japanese officer for a few days until he had discovered the charging motor. Then, one night, he decamped with it. After several days of impatient waiting I was really pleased when Gumu arrived, with the motor slung on a pole between two carriers. I soon had both motors in pieces, and after about five hours’ fiddling and tinkering I had finally assembled a combination of parts that almost worked. It was now dark, and it required perseverance.
We all took turns at cranking the engine. There were blistered hands, and horrid language, but I was determined that it was going to work, and work it did: after more than a hundred pulls on the cord, the wretched thing started at last, then ran like a bird. It was midnight, but I didn’t dare stop—it had to run all night. Ken Hay and his jokes. I’d bloody well teach him!