HMAS Perth underwent a refit and the paint touch-up continued in late November 1941. Twenty seamen worked hard on many of the ship’s surfaces. The different shades of grey, allegedly for camouflage, were given an additional red hue in places to give it a less sombre appearance. Waller increasingly let his cat roam the decks, and finally let her out at night.
Early in December, he awoke at 6 a.m., dressed, and walked out of the cabin to find a fresh bunch of intelligence, mainly cables, sitting on the doorstep. Lying a yard away was the gruesome sight of a sizeable headless rat.
‘That bloody cat,’ he mumbled, ‘where is she?’
Then he smiled to himself. She was only doing her job and it was one reason he’d accepted her as a shipmate.
The next two mornings, similar rodent corpses were left for his dawn appreciation. On the third day, she appeared and rubbed her chin and body on Waller’s calves. Shemeowed and kept weaving around him. Waller got down on his haunches and stroked her. He pointed at her latest offering on the doorstep.
‘Good work, excellent!’ he said in the highest falsetto he could manage, aware that cats were less threatened by a higher voice register, roughly similar to their own vocal sounds. At that moment, Junior Petty Officer James Cook stepped into view.
‘Have this cleaned up, will you?’ Waller said, resuming his dignified bass voice.
‘Of course, Captain. She seems set on impressing you.’
‘Yes, and long may she do so, Mr Cook. At this rate we will be free of rat infestation and potential disease, not to mention food contamination.’
Waller found another rodent, this one smaller than the earlier ones and with its head intact, at the steps to the captain’s bridge, as if the cat was making certain that he did not miss it.
On her fourth night out, in an attempt to add to the tally of rodent kills, she knocked over a tin of red paint. In the scurry to corner the rat, she left red paw prints all over the deck. The rat was covered in scratches and red marks, which the seaman who found it, again not far from the captain’s cabin and the bridge’s compass platform, thought at first were blood.
Waller emerged from his cabin at the sound of the ship’s bell and moved up to the bridge to do some deep knee bends and press-ups. He noticed the paw prints on the steps up. An officer was busy organising seamen to clean up the paint.
‘Your lovely cat knocked over a paint tin,’ the officer began.
‘I can see that.’
‘Afraid she left her prints right along the deck. Red lead is very hard to remove, Captain.’
‘Red lead,’ Waller mused, ‘Red lead …’
He rubbed his chin and took time to light his pipe.
‘Leave the prints, Lieutenant. They will become a symbol of this grand ship. We need distinctive new signs.’ He paused, puffed his pipe and smiled through the smoke. ‘Along with a new skipper.’
The lieutenant seemed bemused.
The cat, also up early, was strolling along the long barrel of one of the 6-inch guns. Waller pointed.
‘She is a courageous mascot. We’ll call her Red Lead.’
‘Aye, aye, Captain.’
They both laughed as the cat reached the end of the barrel. She looked down and around. Then she disappeared into it.
On 8 December 1941, the ship’s cable operator handed the captain several cables that would change the war and bring Australia right into the centre of the Pacific conflict. Japan had attacked Thailand, with its main targets soon to be revealed as Malaya and Singapore. British diplomats were warning that the Thais would put up only token resistance. This was not quite accurate. Thai troops defended for twelve hours on southern beaches before the Thai government declared a ceasefire and that their country was ‘open’. In common parlance they were capitulating to the invaders and saying, ‘You can do what you like with us. We won’t fight you.’
Rogue elements of the Thai Army kept fighting in the north of the country but had little impact and were reduced to guerilla activity, which was contained by the invaders.
Waller called his commanders to the bridge for an emergency conference. Just as they assembled another cable informed him that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The US fleet there had been mauled when 353 planes from six Japanese battleships hit the unsuspecting American base for two hours. Eighteen ships were sunk, 188 aircraft were destroyed and 2043 American personnel were killed.
Waller was asked what he thought it meant. He filled his pipe and puffed it alight before answering.
‘A few hours ago, I was very worried,’ he said, ‘now I am just worried. Attacking the Americans means they are almost certain to come into the Pacific in real naval force, at least to begin with.’
The cable intelligence informed that Japanese troopships were sailing from Saigon in French Indochina (southern Vietnam) due to France’s capitulation to Germany. A later short cable informed Waller that five Japanese ships had landed on the east coast of Malaya.
‘They are coming our way,’ Waller told his commanders, ‘but they’ll have to take Singapore before they think about this sunburnt country.’
All key naval personnel were aware that there was a British force of 75,000 troops, including Australia’s 8th Division of 25,000 men, in Singapore.
‘Surely we’ll defeat them,’ a lieutenant proffered.
Waller didn’t respond. Instead, he said, ‘Our issue will be their navy and when we are called to action.’ He paused, drew on his pipe and added, ‘That is now a certainty. No more phony war. It’s on now, gentlemen, it’s on.’
Waller and all Allied commanders in the region soon were aware of Japanese intentions. The invaders sent two divisions to scythe through Malaya and head for Singapore. Australia’s Prime Minister John Curtin declared Australia was at war with Japan. Unconcerned, the Imperial Japanese Army attacked the Philippines ten hours after hitting Thailand, Malaya and Hawaii. They smashed most of the planes there, including a B-17 bomber force. The US commander Douglas MacArthur had miscalculated and left the country unprepared. The twelve local divisions he had built up since basing himself in Manila in 1933 were overwhelmed by Japanese ground troops, who invaded from north and south of the city.
The armed forces of the Japanese military were ubiquitous and seemingly unstoppable by the evening of 8 December. Waller put his ship on war alert. All leave was cancelled. His ‘no panic’ attitude was still apparent yet his overall demeanour was more serious. He retired to his cabin where Red Lead greeted him from her small hammock. Waller stroked her neck and back. The cat watched him intently. Waller slipped into bed, still poring over a pile of cables, which made depressing reading. After an hour, he switched off the light. Seconds later, Waller felt Red Lead jump onto the bed. She was purring. She moved onto his chest and began a kneading action on his torso. It was like a light massage. The soothing sound of the purr relaxed the captain for the first time in a day and he was soon snoring.