Chapter 28

Excerpts from the diary of Arthur Maddern, Sergeant NZEF

June 1944

Still in my real hotchpotch unit. There are people from all over the place; some Poms, some Kiwis, some Aussies. Hell, we’ve got a Canadian as well. The only saving grace was we didn’t have a tight arse prick of a British captain leading us. I don’t think any of us could have handled all the yes sirs, no sirs, three bags full sirs that some of them would expect to prove their superiority. Few of them were superior by any stretch of the imagination. It’s been a long war and those of us who have been in from the beginning are bloody sick and tired of it. The last thing we wanted was some barely trained person just out of short pants speaking with a high falutin’ voice telling us what to do. Maybe that’s why we are all lumbered together. No-one else will have us.

We get all the shitty jobs because we are expendable. Some of them fancy pants don’t want to get their knickerbockers dirty. Whereas we wear the dirt and sweat as a sign of independence or did until the new captain arrived today. His wasn’t the crispest, cleanest uniform and yes, he looked a bit younger the some of us but he had a presence like he was a real soldier. He walked into the barracks took one look at us and then said abruptly to me, “Sergeant, these men need a bath and their clothes need a clean. I’m not walking into the jungle with them and taking a bullet on their behalf just because the Japanese can smell them a mile off. And when I mean clothes, I mean all of them now, everything in their kit and what they are wearing. They can wander around naked for the next couple of hours and let the air get to parts that may not have seen daylight or a woman in years. Oh, and sergeant, you lead by example. You get your gear off first so that the men can get their laughter over straight away. We’re out of here tomorrow so I’ve organised a decent meal for tonight because after that, it’s beef and tuna and biscuits.”

He didn’t even introduce himself. He just looked tired and as unenthusiastic as all of us. Thank God he didn’t appear to be the death and glory kind. I’d had one of those and he didn’t last long. He had no idea and very quickly no life. Bravery and stupidity shouldn’t be confused. To the ribbing of the rest of the troops I stripped off in front of them. I’d already sussed the captain out. He was not trying to demean me at all. In fact, he was rewarding me. Going first I would get the hot water. He was a clever man. So, I listened to the laughs and then when I was almost finished, I yelled out, “I hope I haven’t used all the hot water.” That caused a quick scattering of clothes and men stripped off and raced for the other outdoor showers. The temperature of the water didn’t matter in New Guinea. It was warm and steamy during the monsoon season, but the other blokes didn’t think of that.

The unit found that the soap that came with their kit also was good for washing clothes. Who would have thought? The sight of bare white arses standing out as they bent over in the flowing river scrubbing their gear, is an image I will find hard to forget. Willies hanging limply, they dutifully hung their clothes under the lean-to roof of our barracks. When I say barracks, they were hastily made bamboo and palm frond shelters that we’d constructed over a week ago to keep off some of the torrential rain that would come in great swathes. We’d landed here and marched inland to gain some higher solid ground. It was a rocky outcrop which meant that it was hard to jam the uprights of our shelters in far, but it meant that we wouldn’t be washed away by a flood. The rocks on the escarpment above us gave us some protection and reduced the possibility of a landslip which was a common occurrence around here. Our former leader, Lieutenant Johnson had chosen well. The malaria carrying mosquitoes chose well too and we had to carry him out on a home-made stretcher to a boat that came to ferry him to hospital.

This new bloke who had replaced him had also come in by boat. Our unit was not the regular army as such, well as it was when I first enlisted in ’39. Things had changed and we’d gotten smart. The lieutenant had called it gorilla warfare and that sounded really strange as I couldn’t imagine a group of King Kong’s sneaking into places, blowing stuff up and then getting the hell out of there. From what I had seen in movies, their fingers were too fat to get past the trigger guard on a Lee Enfield. We’d been together as a group for nearly six months and we were getting good at what we did. I hoped that this new bloke wasn’t going to turn us back into some regular unit.

He returned and none of us saw him coming. One minute we were dressing and the next he was almost silently walking through the middle of us. He looked at the pyramid of rifles leaning up against each other. Carefully he removed one, carefully balanced it on two fingers, before checking that nothing was up the spout. He raised it to his eyes and looked down the sights. Quick as a flash he pulled the magazine out, slid the bolt back and out, deftly flicking levers as he went. He looked down the barrel holding the rifle in just the right position that the light enabled him to see the rifling and any imperfections or dirt that might have been in it. Just as quickly he reassembled it. Before the magazine went back in, he flicked out some bullets and examined them. He must have noticed the crimp marks and as he carefully replaced the rifle back into the pyramid, he turned to us and said, “Stupidly I left my scales back on the boat, I assume that someone wouldn’t mind sharing theirs. Like you, I like to know exactly what I am firing. Officially I am Captain Downs but if you call me that I’ll think that you are talking to my father and probably ignore you. Call me Wilf when we are in action and only call me Captain Downs when some big wigs are around and time is more precious. We’ve got six weeks to get you ready at our new base before we hit the Asian mainland.”

“Ooh a chance for a real bit of Asian fluff,” Jackson said.

“Name?” Wilf demanded.

“Corporal Bob Jackson, sir,” the great lump of man saluted as he said this and then sniggered.

“You stay back here when we leave tomorrow,” Wilf said eyeing off the man who was about his own height but a fair few stone heavier.

“Bollocks to that,” Jackson snarled.

“Where we’re going, we need the support of the natives and if you think it, you’ll probably say it. So, you stay. You are not going to put me or any others in danger because of your own stupidity,” Wilf said evenly, taking steps towards Jackson so that they were no more than a yard apart.

I was tempted to smooth things over; after all Bill Jackson had been with us from the beginning. An Aussie from Kalgoorlie, he wasn’t much liked by any of us, as he was a bully; but few of us had the guts to pull him into line. He was good for muscle when we needed it and not much else. I thought I’d see how the new bloke went.

“Fuck that, you shiny-arse. Who the fuck are you to tell me? ………”

I didn’t see exactly what happened. It was so fast. The next thing I knew Jackson was on the ground holding his guts with one hand and his jaw with the other.

“You stay………… You’ll have to now. Your jaw is broken. Someone get him to his bedding and then Sergeant, radio that one of the men has had an accident and will need to be ferried out of here back to base when we leave,” Wilf said and quietly walked away.

We stood like stunned mullets for a while and then I got four of the men to help drag Jackson into the huts while I got McMaster to fire up the radio. There was no doubt who our leader was and that he meant business. True to his word, grub that night was pretty damn good. Wilf had smuggled in some stuff from the “brass hat mess” and all of us dined like kings. Well, not all of us. Jackson could only sip a watery soup through a straw.