The body of Able Seaman Warwick Oscar Wallis may never have been found except for Bolt’s fitness fanaticism. He was on a 6 a.m. jog around the perimeter of the POW camp an hour before reveille, when the men had to fall in on parade. The work was back-breaking enough for most, but Bolt had a different mentality. He believed that the fitter and stronger he was, the better he would cope and also ward off the diseases that were felling his fellow POWs daily. Bolt now thought it unwise to swim. Exercise routines were fine, but the aerobic winner for him was a daily 5-mile jog. Most regarded him as the fittest of all the Australian POWs, next to the freak Peter Chitty, who had actually put on weight, perhaps the only prisoner to do so, in the twenty months of captivity.
Bolt didn’t push himself. He did not wish to be exhausted during the railway work. The jog toned him up and prepared him for the heavy lifting, cutting, sawing and carrying.
The slow running pace allowed him to observe his surroundings in the sky, the bush and on the river, where fishermen were discernible as not much more than silhouettes in the early dawn and sunshine. Then he saw what he thought was just a boot. It was big and white. Bolt had a succession of quick thoughts. Wallis had gone out the night before but had not come back to their hut. That didn’t mean he wasn’t back in camp. But he’d been wearing white boots. Bolt clambered down an embankment. As he got closer, he could see a Geelong football club blue and white sock with its circular hoops. Then he discerned a leg with tatts and the word ‘Mum’.
Bolt stood staring down into the river. He was looking at a dead body.
It was that of Warwick Oscar Wallis.
Bolt asked Frank Cahill to do an autopsy on Wallis, and a report was made. In the early afternoon, Wallis was buried in a growing graveyard at the entrance to the camp, which reminded everyone of the carnage everywhere on the railway.
Grout said a few words, keeping his eulogy general and not personal, except for one comment: ‘No one would accuse Wally of being a good bloke, but he was okay, especially when asleep, when he snored a lot after his usual night of whoring and on the piss.’ Grout looked around at the surprised mourners. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but it’s the truth, which any man deserves at this moment.’
‘Good thing the padre didn’t hear that,’ Farrow said, ‘he’s away burying more worthy souls.’
When the service ended Noel said to Grout and Farrow, ‘I’ve never heard a sermon like that, ever.’
‘I’ve heard worse,’ Farrow said. ‘Once I went to the funeral of the mother of a schoolmate. She had three sons. The first two made respectful comments. The third took the microphone and rounded on the casket with his mum in it. Said some awful things about her neglect of him.’
‘Geez,’ Grout said, ‘I was a bit soft on Wally then, wasn’t I?’
In the eyes of Japanese officers, even the murder of a lowly foreign POW had to be investigated. It was a serious business, especially as the Japanese might have been starting to realise that their mighty marauding empire could actually lose this war. With their Axis partners in Germany and Italy struggling, and Japan’s battles in China in stalemate, it was filtering down to officers that they perhaps should be more circumspect in handling certain issues; for instance, the ill-treatment of their prisoners.
There was an investigation into Wallis’s demise, carried out by a diligent, thorough Japanese lieutenant. Bolt and his group took it upon themselves to ask questions in Three Pagodas Pass village. Apart from attempted rape allegations against Wallis, there were witnesses who had seen a large Japanese corporal—Little Hitler—and three other guards give chase, waving their weapons.
This and the fact that Wallis had two bullets in his head was taken, in written submissions only, into the inquiry. After a few days, the Japanese lieutenant informed the Australian commanding officers that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge anyone.
Bolt and the others were incensed. In the few days during the probe, Little Hitler had made certain innuendoes about what would happen if they put forward any facts. He knew about the written evidence they’d presented.
The taciturn Farrow made one remark that turned Little Hitler’s face purple. ‘We know that you murdered the lighthouse keeper’s family!’
The corporal took his sword from its scabbard, slowly, menacingly. He put it back in place and stormed off. Perhaps he realised there could be repercussions while the inquiry was ongoing, even from his superiors, who, after all, had acted against him when Weary Dunlop flattened him.
Little Hitler remained mute also when Grout made a sweeping motion across his own throat in full view of the corporal.
Two nights after the finding, which cleared Little Hitler, he and three guards forced their way into the group’s hut and began swinging their rifles around, bashing everyone. Weapons were trained on the POWs, making it impossible to fight back. The thugs left after twenty minutes of brutality. Bolt received a bruised eye socket. Farrow had a broken rib. Grout had a bruised thigh. Tait had two fingers broken. Noel, ever the innocent party, had a lacerated scalp and a badly bruised back. Bright was effectively ‘knee-capped’, mafia-style, with rifle-butt smashes.
Only Red Lead missed the attack. She was out on the prowl and came in after the vicious invasion. She did her usual solicitous meowing at each man in turn as they called for her sympathy.
The victims attended to their injuries and abrasions as best they could for the next hour and would have to wait until the following morning for more serious attention, if they were lucky, from a medico.
No one was in any mood for discussion but Grout insisted on it, and Bolt acquiesced to help focus minds.
‘That prick will kill a couple more of us,’ Farrow said. ‘The officers won’t do anything. We’ve complained about him often enough.’
Some local whiskey was passed around by torchlight as the discussion lapsed.
‘The lighthouse fellows told me that he was the main individual in murdering that family, along with Hoto,’ Tait said.
‘We’ve looked after Hoto well enough,’ Grout said. ‘Or at least cholera did.’
‘Little Hitler’s men shot those lovely girls,’ Tait added.
‘What do we do?’ Farrow asked in frustration. ‘What can we do?’
There was a further long silence as the throat-challenging alcohol bit hard.
‘Should we draw straws on who does what?’ Noel asked. He was ignored until Bolt said, ‘It must be someone here who really wants to volunteer to … do the dirty deed.’
‘I once read an Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express,’ Noel said. ‘Everyone had a hand in a killing on a train. Everyone had a motive.’
‘That was a nice read,’ Farrow said, ‘but, mate, this is real.’
‘I have an idea,’ Bolt said.
‘Let’s hear it,’ Bright said.
‘No. Just nobody do anything.’
‘What?’ Tait and Grout said in chorus.
‘Leave it to me. If you don’t know anything, you can’t be counted as complicit.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Grout said. ‘We all just heard you say—’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Bolt said, opening his hands to the others.