Bolt let Bright rest under the palms and walked along the beach. He had gone about 150 yards when he heard Bright calling. From his more elevated position the younger man had spotted a small boat in the distance. He hobbled to Bolt and they both peered out over the water.
‘Japs?’ Bright asked.
‘Can’t tell, although the lifeboat’s shape says it’s one of theirs.’
‘Shit!’
‘It may have been picked up by our blokes or the Yanks. It’s a fair way out. They may not even get all the way in. It’s far too heavy to beat the undertow.’ He paused to squint out to sea. ‘There seems to be a full load. They’ll have to attempt to swim in at some point.’
They strolled on. There was a dead animal just under the surface on the water’s edge. Bolt bent down and examined it.
‘It’s a cat!’ Bright said. ‘Red Lead?’
‘It’s been burnt badly. The face …’
‘Red Lead, do you think?’ Bright asked again.
‘No. Notice the paws. Red Lead has an extra claw, like a thumb, on each paw.’
Bright sighed with relief. They strolled on. The boat was soon out of sight.
They came across the dead Japanese sailor, which had drifted along the waterfront and then onto the sand.
Bright leaned over it. He bent down and removed a belt and attached sheath from the body. He nodded at the knife jammed into Bolt’s shorts. ‘You?’
‘He drowned,’ Bolt said. ‘That’s all we need to know.’ He stared at Bright. ‘There are probably thousands of Japs on Java. We don’t want them thinking anything different, if we get captured. They’ll interrogate us …’
Bright nodded his understanding.
‘You think they’ll find us?’ he asked.
At that moment a Japanese spy plane rumbled high overhead. Bolt raised a hand to the sky and said nothing. They walked on.
‘What are we gunna do, sir?’
‘Rest up for the rest of the first of March 1942,’ Bolt said, with the first smile Bright had seen.
‘I’m glad you said that. I’m buggered.’
‘We’ve got food.’
‘We can make plans tomorrow, sir.’
‘Sure, but remember: men make plans; God laughs.’
‘You mean …’
‘Nothing, Al, nothing.’
‘Perhaps one of our ships, or one of the Yanks … ?’
‘Maybe. The oceans around here and Java are ruled by the enemy.’
‘Then we are done, sir?’
‘Look on the bright side, Mr Bright. There is a reason for everything. Everything happens for the good.’
Bright looked quizzical.
‘You really believe that, sir?’
‘We survived, didn’t we? What have we been spared for? Our ship’s company was 681. Sailors love the sea. Most could swim well. I know, I’ve raced plenty of them.’ He paused, picked up a long stick and handed it to Bright, who used it to help himself walk.
A few minutes later, Bolt was alert.
‘There’s someone out there. He’s in trouble.’
Bolt was already in the water.
‘What if it’s a bloody Jap, sir?’
Bolt ignored him and swam 100 yards out. He stopped to tread water. The man was 50 yards away, his face blackened by oil. He was waving one hand. Bolt sprinted to the man. Close up, he could see he was Caucasian, but in no state to speak.
‘Take it easy, sailor,’ Bolt said, ‘stay calm. You’ll be okay. Relax your body, let me take your weight.’
Bolt swam the man in to where Bright was standing in the shallows. He helped Bolt lay the semi-conscious man out on his front, his head turned to one side. Bolt applied pressure to the man’s back. Water flowed from his mouth. Bolt kept applying rhythmic pressure to his back. Water kept coming. The man coughed. He spluttered. Bright helped Bolt roll him onto his back. The man heaved hard. He coughed up blood.
‘Jesus! He’s bleeding!’ Bright exclaimed.
‘He’ll be okay. Drowning victims often cough so much that it causes abrasions inside.’
They carried the man to the shade of the palm trees, and laid him out, his head raised by a rough pillow of palm leaves. After an hour watching over the man, who was snoring peacefully, Bolt and Bright moved into the hinterland.
‘Wonder what he’s dreaming about,’ Bright said.
‘Near-naked girls dancing on a desert island, probably,’ Bolt said.
Bright laughed.
They pushed their way through thick scrub for about 50 yards and stumbled upon a small freshwater stream. Both men moved into it, using palm leaves to wipe away the oil that had hampered them for the best part of fourteen hours. The viscous liquid had given them both eye trouble but careful wiping began to restore their full sight.
They could not clean up satisfactorily, but at least they had scraped away enough not to fry in the heat, which by mid-afternoon would have been more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
They walked back to the third survivor, who was still asleep. They were distracted by more activity in the water. They could make out one man fighting the rip about 200 yards out. Further out, two small craft, one raft and one small boat, were having trouble pushing into shore. They both had makeshift oars, which appeared no more than thin lumps of wood. If anything, they were going backwards.
Bolt turned his attention to the single swimmer, who was making very slow progress. He hurried into the water and swam in the man’s direction. About 30 yards from him, Bolt called, ‘You okay?’
‘Boy!’ the man said in a strong southern American drawl, ‘am I pleased to see you!’
‘Want help?’
‘Just guide me in, fella, thank you.’
Bolt swam close. The man was a tall, powerfully built African American in his mid-twenties. He had a small pack strapped to his back.
‘Hold on to my shoulder,’ Bolt said. The man did as requested.
Bolt breaststroked slowly in with the American holding on just enough to float and without hindrance. They reached the shallows. Bright waded in and helped the American to the water’s edge, where he fell on the sand saying, ‘Thank the Lord! I did a lot of prayin’. Seems it paid off!’
He reached out a hand to Bolt.
‘I’m mighty grateful to you, sir! You English?’
‘We’re both Australian.’
‘Well I’ll be! Saved by a kangaroo!’
‘Were you on Houston?’
The man’s eyes welled with tears.
‘Sure am … was …’
‘I’m sorry. We were on Perth.’
‘God knows both of us put up a terrific fight …’ His voice trailed away.
They helped him up to the palm shade where the third man was resting on his elbows. He was bewildered with what he had woken to and had no memory after swimming and dreaming he was drowning. The man, red-haired Don Farrow, 30, was a Queenslander, who’d joined the RAN a decade earlier and had just been promoted from able seaman to leading seaman. He had a light frame and was of average height at about 5 feet 7 inches. He complained of a stomachache and a sore throat.
‘You brought up a bit of blood, sailor,’ Bolt said. ‘Your guts will be scraped a bit. But nothing to worry about. I’ve seen it all as a lifesaver. You’ll be okay.’
The words were reassuring. Farrow looked less concerned than earlier. Bolt explained crisply what had happened to him.
The American, named Edgar Burroughs, was a chef. He opened his waterproof backpack and took out a bottle of bourbon, a torch, a revolver, a mouth-organ, some matches and American dollars. He passed around the bourbon. They all took a swig. It loosened strangulated tongues, and calmed fears, for the moment. Burroughs was apologetic about his job, explaining that African Americans were sometimes restricted in their military service.
‘But, heck, I love the Houston,’ he said, still thinking in the present tense. ‘I was happy to serve in the kitchen and in a band.’
‘Band?’ Bright said.
‘Yeah, an all-black jazz band.’ He paused and added, ‘I wanted to be a gunner. I got my wish right at the end there. I manned the 5-inch battery when we ran outa gunners. All dead …’
His voice dropped away again. He was emotional.
‘They wouldn’t let me do that on account of my colour,’ Burroughs added as an afterthought without apparent rancour.
‘You mean black, like us?’ Bright said, indicating the oil still clinging to their bodies despite their attempts to wash it off.
Burroughs laughed. ‘Yeah, right. Where are we, anyways?’ he asked.
‘Paradise,’ Bolt said.
‘No, seriously.’
‘The island of Java. Dutch East Indies,’ Bolt said.
‘Correction, sir,’ Bright said, ‘probably the Nippon East Indies by now.’
‘Any idea who was in those boats?’ Bolt asked, pointing out to sea.
‘I think they were like you, Aussies.’
Everyone paused to scan the horizon. The boats were nowhere to be seen.
There was silence. The four men rested, and ate coconut. They voted to venture further in together at first light the next morning. They bathed in the nearby stream but couldn’t remove all the oil, which turned out to be a blessing in one way. It at least kept mosquitoes away after dark.
Just as they were resting, they heard rustling in the bushes. Bolt motioned for them to be quiet. He reached for his knife. He stood just as about six indigenous Javanese emerged from the bushes and stepped close to them brandishing parangs, their machete-like axe weapons.
‘Not Dutch!’ Bolt said, his hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. ‘Not Dutch!’
‘American?’ the leader, a greying, bow-legged man, asked. And before Burroughs could say he was, Bolt said, ‘Australian.’
The natives talked among themselves. They begrudgingly seemed to agree this was just acceptable. But with much gesticulating and pointing, they made it clear they wanted the survivors to move on.
The four made their way down to the water’s edge and trudged on until the natives could not be seen in the moonlight.
‘What’s wrong with the Dutch?’ Burroughs asked.
‘They’ve been the colonial masters here for quite a long time,’ Bolt said. ‘The locals hate them. If we had said we were Dutch, I think they would have chopped us all up.’
‘Those bastards scared the shit out of me,’ Bright said, rubbing the top of his bald head.
‘Me too,’ Farrow confessed.
‘That’s good, then,’ Bolt said, ‘we’ll have no trouble with constipation.’
‘Thought we were dead,’ Burroughs said, shocked. ‘I made it through hell in the water only to be nearly cut to pieces here.’
The four survivors walked on about half a mile before venturing close to the palms again, where they made do with sandy beds and frond coverings. They decided on four watches of two hours each, timed by Burroughs’s waterproof Rolex wristwatch.
The weather was cooling and promised a cold night. They discussed making a fire and whether or not it would attract the hostile natives again. Burroughs produced a packet of matches from his pack and they decided to take a risk and make a small fire. Sticks were set in a pile. The fire was lit and the men settled down for an uneasy night, although sheer fatigue soon took hold.