Chapter 37

Wilf was very closed up all the way back in the submarine to Colombo. He was in such a state that I assumed command and I am pretty sure he was grateful for that. I had a quiet word with the captain of the sub and Wilf was able to share an officer’s quarters and spent most of the time locked away in there. None of the men had any qualms or questions about Wilf’s isolation. They assumed that he may have a bout of malaria or that he was just exhausted after carrying Christensen all the way back. That had elevated Wilf to hero status even more so in their eyes.

I was quite surprised that the medical officer on the sub carried Atabrine, but then again, Colombo was still in the tropics, so any of the crew may have come down with it at any time. Christensen was soon dosed up with it and the violent chills, fever, and weakness that he had undergone and had made him lapse into a comatose state when he was with Wilf, eased off. We knew he was on the mend when the smart-arse comments came weakly from his mouth. We had the last say though as his skin had turned bright yellow. It was a common enough side-effect of Atabrine, however we made good use of it at Christensen’s expense. Just before we made Colombo, Christensen explained what had happened.

When they had split up from the rest of Wilf’s team, they had followed the tracks south-east and marvelled at the ingenuity of the engineers. Cuttings just wide enough sliced through the hills, and bridges and raised sections enabled the train to run as level as possible. It was a narrow track and the two of them walked along it wherever it was safe. Every so often they put a foot on the rails to test if a train was coming. There were points along the track where they had to take to the jungle as they came across similar encampments to what the others had discovered. Christensen said that Wilf was pushing hard to see just what was along the line before they had to turn back and then cut across country to the sea. It was a hard slog and although Christensen was quite fit, Wilf was fitter and more determined.

The monsoonal storm hit them near an encampment and they had to seek shelter as best they could, but it was quite marshy where they were. Finally, they reached some higher ground, but by that time Christensen was beginning to feel the affects of mosquito bites. He had lost track of time and then he became quite woozy. All around them the water tumbling down the hillside sluiced through the clay soil that they sat on. It was during that time, the horror of the worst of his nightmares became a reality. The torrents of water eroded the soil so much that what was buried underneath was able to be seen. And it wasn’t a very pleasant sight. Unknowingly, they had sought shelter in a graveyard and all around them the shallow graves were becoming exposed. Skin and clothing as well, still remained attached to the skeletons.

It dawned on them slowly that this wasn’t just a village graveyard. It was far more than that, far worse. The clothes were tattered and torn but recognisable, Christensen said. Although there were no boots, the clothes were those of soldiers. Christensen said that he was feeling quite weak and was struggling to move so it was Wilf who went and examined the remains after the rain stopped. According to Wilf who knew of such things having seen dead animals on his farm, the bodies were probably about a year old. He said that the skin would go first and then perhaps there would be some fatty tissue which would eventually decompose. The skin however was like stretched leather and there wasn’t an ounce of fat. The bones were fragile and many had breaks in them. The marks on the skin on the backs of the men indicated they had either been whipped or beaten with a bamboo cane. Some skulls had been severely bashed in.

Christensen said that Wilf’s tone was very matter of fact and he suggested to Wilf that perhaps the dead meat tickets that most had around their necks should be taken so that relatives could be informed. Wilf apparently stewed on this for a while and thought perhaps he should leave one with the body and take the matching other back, but then decided against it. If the Japanese discovered the bodies and that they had been interfered with, they would know that some of their enemy were around. Carrying the metal discs would also be dangerous. A simple jangle of two of them hitting together in his or Christensen’s pockets or rucksacks could alert any Japanese close by. Wilf decided that they would have to stay. But he did scout around and examine the area a number of times, trying to work out which unit or country these soldiers had come from. In the end he came up with a few conclusions. The bodies were those of men who had been starved. The graves were shallow because those burying them didn’t have much strength to dig them deeper. The third thing, and this astounded Christensen, was that Wilf felt that the Japanese were using prisoners of war as slave labour to build their railway. The last point was because there couldn’t have been so many men from different units in the one place, especially in this section along the Thai and Burmese border.

Christensen said that they rested and he didn’t remember much more than that until he woke up on the sub. I explained to him what Wilf must have done and how close they both had come to being stranded in Burma. There was a long period of silence from him after that and, for that extremely talkative bloke, that was pretty significant.

I had wrongly assumed that Wilf had only been carrying Christensen for a short distance but it had been all the way from the railway. Wilf was tall but spindly. Christensen wasn’t as tall but to have to carry him miles and miles took an enormous amount of strength and fortitude. I couldn’t have done it and I don’t know of anyone who could. Maybe Wilf used the metal disc cutting into his hand as a way of making himself go on, feeling the pain in his hand so that he didn’t feel the pain in his back. I pictured him hour after hour trudging through the undergrowth. He didn’t have a compass or a torch but somehow had an innate sense of direction that drew him closer and closer to McDonald’s outpost. How he found that in the dark was a mystery and then to continue on after finding us gone. Without his walkie talkie he and Christensen would have died that night. I looked at Wilf later on after talking to Christensen and he lay there, gaunt and uncomprehending of what was going on. I’d seen that haunted look in men before. He was a broken man, like so many other soldiers who had seen enough, experienced enough and somehow survived enough but then showed all the signs that something inside them was dying.

The captain of the sub and I had a long talk before we landed in Colombo. I told him of the trip back by Wilf and Christensen to the beach. When we surfaced, he radioed through to the hospital to make sure when we hit port, people were there to help Wilf into an ambulance straight away. It seemed strange that soldiers have a vested interest in their rifles, they have names for them and cosset them like they are precious beauties. I half expected Wilf to ask that he be able to carry it with him to the hospital. The only thing however that he wanted and wasn’t going to let go was that single dead meat ticket.

I was the one who filed the report in person about what we had discovered, most of which had already been radioed through. When those in charge read through what had been written I told them about Wilf and the actions he had taken. The response I got was what I expected and that was he would be given a medal at some stage and after a short time to recuperate, he would be reassigned as would we for other missions. There were four men in the room sitting and listening to me, two British officers, an Aussie and one of my own countrymen. I looked directly at the Kiwi and Aussie and I let rip.

“This man has done enough! He is seriously ill. He has seen and done more than any of you combined. He now lies in a hospital bed and his mind is slowly dying. And you want to send him back in, just because he is so bloody good at what he does. He is incapable of doing it anymore. I am not a doctor, but you get one of your doctors to check him out. You can call it shellshock, battle fatigue or whatever. He will need months, maybe years of recuperation, not a couple of weeks. I have told you what he did, how he discovered bodies of our countrymen in shallow graves and he has had to deal with that. Forget the heroics of his journey back. Think about what he saw. I wonder if you can imagine how it must have felt, probably not. You are here in your cosy office with a ceiling fan overhead. You are not in the rain and the mud, surrounded by skeletons of people who are just like you. Stuff the medals. He wouldn’t accept them anyway. Instead give him what he deserves, a trip back to Australia and the finest medical help he can get. Send him home. He lives in the outback west of Cairns somewhere. He needs support that the army can’t give him. He’s done more than enough so how about you do something for him.”

I didn’t get a reply because I didn’t wait for it. Without the salute that was probably expected. I turned around and stormed outside. There was no door to slam and that annoyed me. Damn the need for air circulation in buildings. I went back to where the men were setting themselves up in some barracks. I never saw Wilf again. He was flown out that night.