Now the five men were out of sight of land it was the elements that occupied them, and Len found ample time to contemplate some of the things that his friend Haami had shared with him. Tāwhirimātea – the wind – Haami had told him, is a capricious god, invisible in form and shape, uncontrolled, mocking of lesser gods and ordinary men. He confronts you when you don’t need him and abandons you when you do. He imposes himself wherever he wishes, without consideration. Len knew of winds that shaped people’s lives: winds with such mana they had names given capital letters, like Mistral or Sirocco, and winds that have given names to places, like Sumatra. Indeed, the sumatra is a wind that should be treated with the utmost respect, a monsoonal wind that occurs when clouds swollen with moisture tumble down off the Sumatran highlands. It creates a monstrous squall effect on the water, a front of wind-whipped waves and a treacherous, agitated seascape. Out over the warmer sea the clouds rise, releasing rain in huge volumes. The men had no sooner fled the menace of Laboe than they had to set their teeth and sail into such a storm.
Haami’s advice about the sea was equally present in Len’s thinking. He had said that the sea – Tangaroa – is capricious in its own way, with its own form of expression. This night the waves were almost playful in the beginning, of a height and vigour that, by way of introduction, was just enough to splash the men a little or land inside the prahu. It seemed that Tāwhirimātea and Tangaroa were joined together in playful harmony. For a while the prahu surfed along the front of the swells that overhauled them, the boat neatly cleaving the following sea, which parted and dragged them along in its wake until another faster swell came along. Then the wind pressure increased, and they could see the big waves coming. When they came, driven by real wind this time, they arrived like an express train passing through a station: waves that seemed as big as carriages, one after the other. Johnny steered the prahu around now, into the wind, and the roar of Tāwhiri increased. Len and Jock took an oar each, working together to keep the boat stable. As conditions worsened, it was no longer possible to manage the oars; they shipped them both and laid them on the floorboards. Johnny, on the steering oar, struggled to maintain the prahu’s bow into the wind. Instinctively, Len took up a paddle and, elbowing his way forward, reached out to dig it deep into the water, helping to hold the bow into the wind.
Tāwhiri’s only superior was Tūmatauenga, the god of war. Tū of the red eyes is also the god of man. The connection is simple, perhaps: man being the only animal arrogant or stupid enough to attempt to oppose the gods. Tū used man in order to express himself, to wage war. In Len tonight he had a willing proxy, for Len was driven inexorably to a smouldering anger, fuelled by loss and by fear. He had lost his closest friend as well as his innocence, and if he was afraid of anything now, it was his own loneliness and the guilt. But it was mostly anger that drove Len, ordinary man and common soldier, to bare his teeth to the storm and battle the gods, armed only with a paddle and a duty to survive.
With the sumatra comes rain. It fell so heavily now that they could hardly keep their eyes open. It lashed the sea and hammered the men. It came in such volume that they began to think that the rain alone would be enough to swamp the boat. Johnny crouched wide-eyed at the rear of the tossing prahu, struggling to see where the next wave was coming from while still trying with Len’s help to keep the nose into the wind. The other three bailed, using a coolie hat and tins that Johnno had adapted as bailers. They had to raise planks in the centre of the floor in order to empty the cavity below. Loose coconuts rolled around, impeding and irritating them.
There was no prospect of keeping any kind of course. They would make good progress if they could stay close to the wind. But these conditions required them to react moment by moment to wave peaks that loomed out of the darkness and dwarfed the little boat, lofting it so high out of the water that the men had to drop their paddles or bailers and grab at the sides. Each time, they soared almost to weightlessness before the prahu crested the peak and fell into the fathomless trough on the other side. Then they grabbed their bailers and continued to fling water back out of the boat in a frenzy before another monster arrived, and another, and the night grew even darker.
In fact, the waves were not as large as those Len had seen in other places, but to the five men in the tiny prahu they were gargantuan. Len considered all the big seas he had encountered. There was the character-forming night aboard the Wakakura off Palliser Bay, when everybody on board except him had vomited uncontrollably. There were the really big seas in the Atlantic, on their way to Freetown. Then, the big ships had pounded through monumental swells that made them look just as vulnerable to the sea as he felt now. The South Atlantic, superior in breadth and depth, delivered swell with a long subtle cadence. The Java Sea is not so deep, nor so vast. There are many islands, so the swell is smaller and less rhythmic – but the sea state can be more vigorous and less predictable. Tonight, the waves were so chaotic, and the movement so violent, they gave no thought to changing seats or sharing the steering. They stuck to the tasks on which their lives depended. The wind roared and sometimes wailed as the velocity intensified, then abated. Waves reared up in front of them like coiled snakes and flung their foamy venom at them with great hisses. Every now and again, when a crest looked particularly high or a trough especially black, one and all would roar spontaneously: in defiance of their fear, in defiance of Tangaroa.
All night Johnny hauled on the steering oar, fighting to keep the little craft from being blown side-on to the waves. In the bow Len now knelt to allow himself greater reach with his paddle. When he saw the nose drift off line, he would lean right outside the boat, the only thing holding him in being his knees wedged firmly against the prahu’s sides. Then he would dig his paddle deep into the sea and literally pull the bow of the boat back into the wind, in readiness for the next wave. Nicolaas, sitting in the rear in front of Johnny, was the biggest on board. His weight was crucial to the boat’s balance and trim; when they were surfing down a wave, he was frequently called upon to lean backwards, to prevent the bow from digging into the water and causing the prahu to pitchpole. At these moments Len, too, would lean as far backwards as he could. Jock, sitting behind him, leaned forward and bellowed in his ear, ‘You’re not frightened, are you, laddie?’
The wind tore the words past Len’s ear, but not before he heard them. There was no point in shouting back, but, understanding the Scotsman’s irony, he simply raised his paddle in a gesture of triumph, hunched back down in the wedge of the bow and brought the boat’s nose around again and into another wave.
Behind Jock sat Dawi, rigid with terror. His eyes were firmly shut as he bailed. There was enough water in the bottom of the boat that he really didn’t need to see what he was doing.
★ ★ ★
Night passed, and the storm abated. It left as speedily as it had arrived. By the time the sun rose on the 24th, the conditions were biblically calm. When the first rays found the men, they shipped their paddles and oars and lay back exhausted, marvelling at their survival. The waves disappeared with the wind and, for half an hour, they slumped in their seats only half conscious. There was an extraordinary clarity to the atmosphere and, after the persistent roar of the wind, a deafening silence. And then Johnny was forced to intrude. ‘We can’t stop now. Come on, boys; we can’t stop now.’
‘And after the storm came a still, small voice …’ quoted Jock.
They all groaned. They sat up and took stock. Half the coconuts had been lost; nevertheless, they took Dawi’s parang from its sheath, slashed the top off the nut and treated themselves to fresh coconut milk. The biscuits were totally sodden, and went straight over the side. They ate another boiled egg and drank a little water each. Johnny had rationed them to only one mug daily between the five at this stage of the voyage. They had only a rough idea of how long this part would take, and no idea where the next water might come from. Happily, they found the frequent rains delivered plenty into their open mouths.
Jock belched, breaking the silence. ‘Magic.’
‘I’ll second that,’ Johnny said. ‘If that wasn’t a test of fortitude, I don’t know what is. Well done, boys.’
He leant forward and patted Nicolaas on the back. Nobody else moved.
‘But we have to keep going. There will be several more days of this if we are going to succeed. We need to think of the others.’
He seemed to realise this might not have been the most motivational of speeches. He waved his compass. ‘Look. I think we have made good progress, even in the storm. It’s driven us south, towards Batavia. So it’s not at all bad. If we can keep at it and catch a breeze or two, we could peel off another fifty miles before tomorrow, easily. We could be there in three more days.’
Slowly, not unwillingly, they readied themselves, unwinding their limbs as best they could, one at a time, pulling and stretching and groaning with the stiffness and muscle soreness. Last night they had exercised muscles they didn’t know they possessed. They didn’t bother changing places; the physical challenge was the same wherever they sat. Johnny, burdened with command, stayed tied to the stern. They checked the cords that tied the oars and bailers to the prahu, reaffirming their appreciation for Johnno’s thoroughness.
Nicolaas noticed a loose piece of rope floated in the water which still lay in the bottom of the boat, lapping under the floorboards, and tugged at it. It was in fact caulking that the flexing of the prahu in the storm had worked loose. He hauled up nearly a yard of it before seeing water begin to bubble up from the hole he had created.
Dawi shrieked in terror, thinking they were sinking. Nicolaas tried to stuff the rope back into the seam with his hands, but the rope simply floated back to the surface again. It was Jock who imposed calm, thrusting the two improvised bailers into their respective hands. ‘Bail, you bastards, bail.’
Even Dawi understood his instruction, and proceeded to bail like a man possessed, flinging water from the boat as fast as he could. Nicolaas followed his lead. A shower of water erupted from the boat, and the level inside at least began to stabilise. While Johnny and Len looked on from opposite ends of the prahu, Jock calmly lifted a section of the floorboards and felt below the water for the source of the leak. He then pulled the parang from its sheath and used the handle to push the rope back into its seam. Now the water level began to lower, and soon enough the seam itself was visible at the bottom of the boat. Jock used the blade of the parang to force the rope deeper into the gap, and then stopped. Those that could watched to see what would happen. It only took a few seconds for water to well again through the fissure and begin to accumulate.
‘Bugger,’ Jock said. ‘Better lift the floorboards and see what else is happening, lads.’
The inspection involved moving men and coconuts back and forth to lift each section of flooring and expose the hull beneath. To their consternation, they found water welling up through other seams. The bailing had to continue.
Surreptitiously, each man glanced to starboard at the southern horizon, in search of land, but there was none.
‘OK,’ said Johnny, ‘We’re going to have to re-prioritise. Somebody will have to bail. Get rid of that centre section of flooring so we can empty the hull from its lowest point. We will have somebody bailing at all times, and fifteen minutes longer between rests. Understood?’
When they were ready, Len took up the oars again.
★ ★ ★
Like most February mornings in the tropics, the 24th started relatively clear. They were able to erect the small sail, which helped speed their passage for a while. They eased their rowing back to a slower tempo – one and two and three and rest – and still achieved a better overall speed. Mid-morning they observed an expanse of broken water to their east, and Johnny guessed from the chart that they were somewhere near the Five Fathom Banks.
By midday, when the sun was high in the sky and the breeze had dropped away entirely, they were forced to row again without the benefit of sail. The sea was placid, and blossoming storm clouds were beginning to station themselves threateningly in the sky once more as the temperature and humidity rose. They sweated heavily, unable to rehydrate adequately. They rested their oars frequently, and splashed water over themselves. There was barely any difference in temperatures. Len laughed to himself as he considered the irony – a few hours ago they had been bailing water out for all they were worth. As the afternoon lengthened, they rowed with more ease. They talked sparingly, economical with their energy. One, and two, and three, and four. And rest, two, three, four.
Johnny called a rest for all at intervals. After working through the rations in his head, he decided to allow another coconut to be broached.
‘Call it afternoon tea,’ he said, when they stopped paddling to pass the decapitated nut around.
Jock began to sing, rowing steadily to the rhythm once more. The song was unfamiliar to the others, telling a story of hard life in Scotland. There were several verses, each followed by a chorus about spring in Scotland and the yellow of the broom. It would have surprised Jock to know how familiar Scottish broom was to the Kiwis.
As the heat of the afternoon continued to intensify, thunderheads materialised, massed and melded. Len watched the sun disappear behind them, causing the clouds to glow internally, from the dark bituminous brown at the centre of some clouds to the gold that braided their edges. Even the sea was brown, stained by the tannins leached out of the leaf litter on the vast floor of the Sumatran jungle, and browned further with the silt and vegetation washed down off the mountains and the low-lying rice fields and mangrove swamps. As they rowed towards another night, this great mass of brownness reached around, over and behind them.
By early evening, they were among squalls thick with rain, falling straight down from perfectly shaped anvil-headed clouds. As one squall passed over them, they stopped paddling to turn their faces to the sky. They opened their mouths to let the drops fall straight in. Len swept his hands over his hair, his face, his chest and his arms, in ritual ablution. It wasn’t so much about washing the salt from his body, since these waters were not particularly salty. It was to rinse away the sweat, which stung his eyes and his cracked lips. He had a raw blister in the palm of each hand where the oars fitted, and deep cracks split the skin at the edge of his palms and even the heels of his feet, where they were jammed against the floorboards. His arse was so numb he began to think gangrene would set in. He rinsed his improvised turban with rainwater and wrung out the salt before wrapping it back on his head again. For a few minutes they floated immobile while the cleansing rain poured down, and when it passed they rowed on. It was Len’s turn to bail.
Brown gave way to black. They expected another sumatra, but the conditions were not so violent this time, though just as unpredictable. This encouraged them to put the sail up, but it required constant vigilance against sudden knock-down. Between squalls they found themselves benefitting from peripheral breezes, and sometimes in a hole, with no wind at all. It was enough to keep them all on their toes, and it was the pattern of things throughout the night and into the morning of the 25th.
★ ★ ★
After five days of almost non-stop rowing, all of them were relying heavily on their fitness and stamina. Len, Jock and Johnny were fit – the two ratings particularly – and Dawi had a wiry resilience about him. But Nicolaas, the biggest of the five, although he did not carry extra weight, had nothing of the physical edge that the others had. He was inclined to ship his oars at will, and Johnny indulged him, thinking it better to avoid conflict and allow him to keep his own pace. Overall, it was crucial that they didn’t over-extend themselves. They needed energy in reserve, for the unexpected.
Around midday of 25 February, when the sun was at its height, the weather settled. Johnny called a halt to rowing, and they panted under the shade of their coolie hats, the sail hanging limply from its mast. A coconut was passed around, then the last boiled eggs and a tin of bully beef. They finished with a final draught of coconut milk and lay propped up in the prahu for a while, enjoying a few minutes of well-earned rest.
Johnny took out his binoculars and scanned the southern horizon.
‘A couple more hours and we should be able to see land,’ he announced.
In fact, it took several more hours before he was confident enough to point to the west. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Land.’
‘Hold me up,’ exclaimed Jock. ‘Where? You’re not joking, are you?’ When he saw it, he said, ‘Bugger me. And I was beginning to enjoy this.’
Len couldn’t resist channelling Tim. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
One by one, they all took turns to look through the glasses at the low blue shape along the horizon. Reinvigorated, they addressed the night and began rowing again.
★ ★ ★
By their sixth day at sea, now bailing and rowing continuously, the fatigue was beginning to tell. Len’s eyes streamed as a breeze drove sweat into his eyes. The day was kind, with only a few light clouds to blemish the sky, as their course slowly converged with the Sumatran shore, and land drew closer and closer.
It was Nicolaas’s turn to rest, and Johnny was rowing now, bending his back into each stroke. Long periods passed without a word being spoken. When the wind abated they dropped the sail, rowing mechanically, counting the strokes before pausing, staring constantly at the southern horizon.
‘Aircraft!’ Johnny had his binoculars up to his eyes, looking towards the coast. He adjusted the focus. Everybody stopped what they were doing and turned to follow his gaze. They hadn’t actually seen a plane since departing Tjibia. To the naked eye, these planes were too far away; all Len saw were specks against the distant landscape, moving parallel to the horizon, heading in the same direction they were. They started to row again, but this time with a different focus, as each man now cast his eyes about for any sign of aircraft, friendly or otherwise. It was a measure of their progress. As they drew closer to their destination, there was a need to heighten their vigilance.
‘You know what to do if they get too close,’ Johnny reminded them.
Johnny was thorough. Each man had been briefed on a procedure should they attract the interest of an enemy vessel or aircraft. This was just as well, for only minutes after the first aircraft sighting, they heard the sound of more aircraft, much closer than the first, and getting closer.
‘All right. Quickly, now.’
They shipped the oars – the sail was already down. Johnny and Jock curled up as best they could in the bottom of the prahu, and Dawi piled the sail over them. The other three, each with a coolie hat or a turban, looked much more like native Sumatrans, Len’s whakapapa predisposing him to a deep tan. From a shirt pocket or a pouch, each of the three produced a length of cord with a small engine nut tied on the end, and cast it over the side, so that they gave every appearance of locals fishing offshore.
The noise was behind them. They looked back to see another four aircraft flying at a low altitude only about a mile away, towards the coast. They watched as the sound grew louder and the planes drew abreast of the prahu and began to pass it by. The men were watching intently when the aircraft on the port side of the wing of four suddenly detached sharply from the others in a tight turn and headed directly towards the prahu.
Len watched, transfixed. The silhouette, which increased in size as it sped towards them, revealed none of the cumbersome undercarriage of a floatplane. It was a fighter that began to fill their vision, just as Len imagined they would be filling the gunsights of the pilot, and it hurtled across the wave tops straight at them. He could hear Jock growling from his concealment in fury and frustration.
The Japanese pulled on his joystick and pushed his right foot down, rolling his aircraft up and over the top of the tiny vessel, the roar of the engine pummelling those below. He raised his hand to them in acknowledgement, and flew off to rejoin his group.
‘Magic! Bloody magic!’ said Jock, exploding with the tension. ‘They went for it. Hook, line and sinker!’
He laughed uproariously at his own joke, and waved defiantly at the disappearing aircraft.
★ ★ ★
They paddled into the late afternoon. It had been almost three days since they had left Laboe and the relative security of coastal waters for the open sea, and it was invigorating to again see the landscape in some detail, and to be able to gauge their progress against it once more. In fact, they had made outstanding progress, but at some cost. They had carved out about 300 miles over nearly seven days of almost continuous rowing, across a constant procession of south-easterly fronts, and were in a seriously fatigued state. Kneeling or crouching in the confines of the tiny vessel, they were beginning to reach the limits of their physical endurance.
The closing light of day prompted Johnny to take one last reading with the compass before darkness prevailed.
‘At this rate, we’ll be in Batavia some time tomorrow,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps as early as midday tomorrow, weather permitting. But we have to cross the Sunda Strait.’
Len, who had been watching the gathering sky ahead of them, sensed another test.
‘It looks like a bit of weather ahead.’
‘The current will be a factor. We’ll have to be on our toes.’
They stopped rowing and contemplated the sky. The sun was setting in a blazing orange conflagration behind burgeoning black cloud, and it was clear the generosity of the weather was about to expire. Night began to overhaul them, and rising winds and mounting seas drove them harder towards the southern horizon. A seething blackness waited for them, hovering over the Sunda Strait, which separated them from Java and safety.
The storm was much more powerful than anything they had experienced. When Tāwhiri began to whip the wave caps white, he forced them to drop the sail, and with every blast of wind that followed, began to push them south towards the Strait. If they had kept the prahu sailing with the wind, they could have surfed with the following seas, but to do so would have meant being swept into the Indian Ocean. When Tangaroa began to impose himself, every trough and swell further drove them towards the Straits, towards oblivion. There were moments of absolute blackness, when Len thought he saw the ghastly face of Hine Nui Te Pō, and felt her frozen fingers probe his viscera. They had no choice if they wanted to survive but to turn the prahu into the wind and row as they had never rowed before.
Again, Len and Jock took an oar each while Johnny hung on to the sweep oar. Nicolaas and Dawi bailed. For hours they fought to survive. There were times when Nicolaas had to help Johnny hold the steering oar hard against relentless wind seeking to force the prahu beam-on to the waves, which would have sunk them. It became impossible to use the oars, and Jock lent himself to bailing while Len took up a paddle. He wedged himself into the bow once more, reached as far out as possible, and dug it deep into the water, in order to keep the boat into the wind. At the height of the storm, the rain lashed down and the wind created breaking waves of great size, big enough to fill the boat and swamp it easily.
They did not paddle so much as bail for their lives. At the worst moment, a wave slewed right over the port gunwale and into the boat, passing down its length. They were left wallowing at the bottom of a trough with barely six inches of freeboard inside the prahu and another wave looming out of the black. All of them worked furiously with their hands and bailers to empty the water and recover buoyancy before the next wave hit them. They were not exactly ready when it arrived, but fortunately this one wasn’t as big as the previous one. While it caught them beam on, Len was able to snatch up his paddle and dig it into the water as the wave arrived. His paddle became a pivot, around which the wave-swept prahu rotated, to point safely into the waves once again.
‘Good on you, mate,’ roared Johnny above the wind.
As the prahu slid down into another trough, the men’s spirits lifted, and everybody began to sense that this night would be survivable. Jock, bailing maniacally with a coolie hat, burst into song. Turned towards the wind and letting the rain pelt onto his face, he sang:
You’ll take the high road,
And I’ll take the low road,
And I’ll get to Scotland a’fore ye …
Half drowned, they all laughed at the madness of it all, and Jock milked it for all he was worth. He sang on in a strained falsetto, while Dawi and Nicolaas bailed with him in unison, shouting out the odd word they thought they recognised. Len and Johnny between them steadied the prahu until they were floating higher in the water, when the rowing resumed in earnest. Determined to survive, they threw themselves into the search for another dawn.
★ ★ ★
To their great relief, the glimmer of the sun rising coincided with the passing of the storm. As the light advanced they became more aware of their situation. At sunset, the Sumatran coast had been to starboard, but in the confusion of the storm, the Javanese coast now presented on their port side. They had also travelled a lot further than the direct course would have required. In the still that followed the storm they collapsed, mute and exhausted. Only Johnny continued to work, slowly flinging water overboard.
Len’s back muscles ached so badly he felt as if he had been beaten with batons. His eyes burned with exposure to salt and lack of rest. His hands hurt as he unwound his grip from the paddle, and his blistered palms bled. His knees and his backside ached too. There were tender patches that he couldn’t bear to touch, pressure points that constant immersion in the water had softened, to create sores. The tropics were not kind to open wounds. His lips were cracked and peeling, and his saliva was like glue. His tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. His head pounded, such was his dehydration, and for a while he lay unmoving against the framing. He wasn’t the only one.
Johnny sanctioned the consumption of both remaining coconuts and another round of bully beef, and they finished their silent repast with a little water each.
The waves still jostled and the wind still gusted, but for a while they sat slumped, resting and waiting for the restoration of their energy. The sun began to force its way between rain-swollen clouds scudding low overhead in the wake of the storm. They were in the process of preparing to start off again when they heard the unmistakeable sound of aircraft. Johnny didn’t need his glasses to confirm it this time. ‘Look,’ he called out, and pointed into the Strait, where nine aircraft flew low over the waves about a mile away.
The noise grew louder, and they could see a second group of planes flying a parallel course to the first. Still the noise increased, behind them this time, and they all turned in their seats to see more low-flying planes between them and the shore. They didn’t have time to disguise themselves; nor did they need to. Had the pilots bothered to look, they would have noticed a prahu of weathered fishermen apparently making an early start to the day.
The noise reached a thunderous crescendo when nine more planes, clearly bombers, roared over the prahu and, along with the rest, flew on towards the shore. The red roundels of Japan were clearly visible.
‘Jesus. Some bastard’s going to cop it.’
Jock wasn’t the only one who felt a pang of empathy for the intended victims of the raid. They saw the flecks of other clusters of aircraft pass through the sky, before they and the noise eventually disappeared.
Johnny had unfolded his chart and compass, and was squinting purposefully towards the shore.
‘I can’t see enough yet, but I’m guessing if those planes are heading anywhere important in this part of Java, it is probably Merak.’
‘Where’s Merak?’
‘Merak is where we are headed. It’s a port and, likely as not, our best chance for making contact with the authorities. Batavia is out of reach. We’re heading for Merak.’
There was no equivocation. Nicolaas and Dawi had long since placed their trust in Johnny’s hands, and nodded when they recognised the name of the port, and Len and Jock already had their oars in the water. With the sail up, by now fairly tattered but still functional, and the current behind them but now working in their favour, they set off on the last leg of their voyage, faster now than ever.
Johnny kept their course close to the shore. Everybody felt more relaxed when they could see the landscape and read its detail. It was therapeutic, energising – safe. Staying close to shore was an exercise in caution. Even so, there was a lack of certainty. They all understood the risk, but within themselves each man believed that the Japanese could not possibly have seized the Dutch Indies in the time they had taken to voyage from Singapore. But they could not be sure.
As they drew closer to Merak, they soon saw that Jock had been right; some bastard had definitely copped it. But Len felt his spirits rise as the five men in the tiny prahu paddled the final couple of miles to what they hoped would be safety.
★ ★ ★
It was eleven o’clock on the morning of 27 February when they entered the port. After nearly six hours of constant paddling and bailing, Johnny ordered his men to stop. For the last fourteen days their physical world had been unimaginably distorted. Now they had to take stock.
‘Listen carefully,’ Johnny said. ‘The Japs are hardly bombing their own, so we can safely assume this place is friendly. But it’s still dangerous, and we may have to look after ourselves.’
They had been passing a cup of water around, and he paused to take some.
‘So … let’s sort ourselves out. Get out your caps, boys, and drop that damned sail. Let’s raise something a bit more impressive.’
He stooped down into the bag at his feet and began to haul out a length of sheet. This turned out to be a Navy White Ensign, which they attached to the mast. There was very little wind at this point, but when they rowed it would flare, and they would certainly be identifiable.
They made their way, cautiously, into the harbour.
Merak had some of the atmosphere of Singapore, being a city under assault from the air, and they stopped rowing to absorb the scene. A number of grey-painted warships lay at anchor, from which muted klaxons sounded, and over which sailors moved swiftly, assessing, repairing and re-arming. Thick clouds of smoke and the odour of cordite drifted towards them on the breeze. Fires were burning from go-downs and defence installations along the shore. The ships were of various sizes and types, and apparently unharmed. Len thought one of the smaller ones seemed familiar.
‘Isn’t that one of the Aussie corvettes?’ he said.
‘Yes, I think you’re right,’ answered Johnny.
Jock recognised it. ‘It’s the Maryborough, sir.’
A shout rang out. ‘Keep your distance! Do not approach!’
‘A fine fucking welcome,’ muttered Jock.
‘We will send a boat!’ the same voice called.
Already a squad of sailors was piling into a small motorboat being readied on the water. Johnny reached between his legs once more and this time produced a bottle.
‘I think we have earned this,’ he said.
He unscrewed the top off the whisky and passed it forward.
Nicolaas crossed himself before taking a long draught and handing the bottle on. Dawi took a short draught and then choked, coughed and spluttered when he tried to swallow. Jock rescued the bottle. Gesturing melodramatically, he took a healthy draught of his own and then swallowed, presenting to the hapless Dawi a saturnine look of self-satisfaction, followed by a deep growl. He handed the bottle to Len, who drank as if he was receiving his first communion, tentatively at first and then eventually filling his mouth and raising his face to the sky, letting the burning liquor flow slowly down his throat, set his stomach on fire, stoke the warmth in his tired and aching limbs and reinvigorate his spirit. Then the bottle went back to Johnny.
The five men sat idly in their prahu, rocking to and fro, and waited.
Another shout came, from the approaching launch this time. ‘Johnny Bull! Is that you? Johnny Bull?’
Johnny stood up and stared in the direction of the other boat. ‘Yes, it is. Is that you, Glen?’
‘Yes, it is. Mate. How are you going?’
The question was rhetorical; even at a hundred yards, Johnny’s friend could see the parlous state of the little prahu and its crew. Lieutenant Glen Cant RAN, in command of HMAS Maryborough, had worked closely with Johnny during the coastal raids in Malaya, before Cant and his flotilla had been sent to Java.
‘How the hell do you think I’m going?’
And for a moment it was as if they were all standing on a street corner somewhere, marvelling at some serendipitous encounter.
As the launch approached the men, all five refocussed. There were several armed men on board, who had their weapons pointed straight at them. All five involuntarily raised their hands, not in a full gesture of surrender, but enough to demonstrate they were unarmed, as the launch came around and glided to a halt beside them. Johnny and his Aussie mate shook hands, while the others relaxed. One of the Aussie sailors handed Len a rope. He winked. ‘Gidday, mate. Been rowing long?’
The men on the launch helped the five as best they could to unwind their stiffened legs and stand before transferring to the launch. Each of the five carried his bundle of personal items, and Len had the little case with all the mail. They went to the Maryborough first, where Johnny disappeared to brief Glen Cant. Glen told Johnny, who in turn told the crew, what was known about the fate of their fellow escapees. It was a grim recitation. Virtually all of the boats that had departed Singapore on 13 February and their passengers and crews had been lost. ML311 and HDML1062 had been sunk; most of the crew, and the two commanders, Ernest Christmas RANVR and Colin McMillan RNZNVR, were lost. Another HDML had been destroyed before even leaving Singapore, though HDML1063 was believed to be safe.
The four men from the prahu sluiced themselves under a freshwater hose before accepting mugs of hot tea and sliced bread, smeared with tinned Australian butter. Glen Cant had seen service in the Mediterranean, commanding the destroyer Vendetta, but his corvette’s ratings were largely new recruits.
‘Jeez, you bastards,’ one of them commented, watching them eat. ‘Looks like you were lucky to make it, eh?’
It was Jock’s turn for understatement. ‘Nae, laddie. It was a fucking holiday. A Nippon holiday – haven’t seen one for days.’
‘Come on, you lot,’ Johnny said. ‘Grab your stuff. There’s so much going on, we’re going to the Sirius to sort it out. We need to report to the Dutch.’
Somewhat reluctant to leave their Aussie friends, they put down their half-drunk mugs and made their way in the launch to the Sirius, a Dutch light cruiser, towing the prahu behind them. On the Sirius, Johnny and Glen Cant disappeared again, while the others gladly surrendered themselves to the care and curiosity of the Dutch crew.
They were taken to the ship’s galley and given hot coffee this time, with spoons full of condensed milk, and sandwiches thick with cheese and sausage. Len and Jock hadn’t had it this good in Singapore. Now it was Nicolaas who was able to speak at length; the Dutch sailors asked him questions, and occasionally he repeated them in English for the benefit of the other two. ‘They asked me if we had seen Japanese, and what was Singapore like? I told them I was not there. I told them to ask you.’
‘Tell them to look outside,’ Jock answered. ‘And multiply it by a hundred.’
The noise of activity banged and echoed through the ship, and shortly the four were left to their own devices. They sat, a little dazed. Jock stared unblinking at a bulkhead, thinking of something far, far away. Dawi was already asleep, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back to the same bulkhead. Nicolaas, too, was apparently asleep, in the middle of reading a local newspaper, several weeks old, that a sailor had given him. Len felt his eyelids begin to droop and shade his vision.
The banging was suddenly usurped by the squawk of the ship’s klaxons and an announcement in Dutch. The urgency of both was easy to interpret, and was confirmed when one of the Dutch sailors returned briefly, to speak to them. ‘Hello! We see more enemy aircraft. Take these. Stay here!’
He threw five life jackets onto the floor and disappeared. The noises associated with imminent attack rose: shouting, the whine of winches and turrets and the first, sporadic firing from the Sirius’s anti-aircraft defences. The cacophony increased as the enemy pressed home their attack. At first it was the sound of bombs, then the roar of aircraft engines immediately overhead, when the flurry of anti-aircraft fire concentrated into a storm.
‘Fighter-bombers again. Fuck this,’ said Jock. ‘I’m going up on deck. Maybe I can do something. Are ye coming, Lenny?’
Len didn’t need a second prompt, but Nicolaas and Dawi stayed put. Len and Jock raced towards the ladder, and were about to scale it when Johnny and a young Dutch ensign reappeared, sliding down the ladder from above.
‘You two! Get the others. We have to leave. Now! Meet me here in two minutes.’ Johnny disappeared back up the ladder again. All around them the explosions and firing raged as the enemy planes attacked.
Two minutes later the five met again.
‘Right. Get on with it. Down the ladder and onto the launch. The fleet is leaving. Right now.’
No sooner had Johnny spoken than they heard the sound of the anchor winches. All of them – Johnny, Jock, Len, Dawi and Nicolaas – climbed swiftly down the ladder, to where the launch with Glen Cant and the Australian crew waited. They untied from the ship’s ladder, pulled away and headed for the shore. Johnny turned to his two ratings and explained what was happening, as best he knew. Because they spoke Dutch, Nicolaas and Dawi already understood what was going on.
Jock was quick to react. ‘So what are we to do on Java, sir? Are we off to join the army? Why don’t we stay with the fleet? The Aussies would have us, surely?’
His frustration was palpable. Len was confused too. It seemed like their journey hadn’t yet ended.
‘What are we expected to do on shore?’ he asked.
‘We have to report to the Naval authorities in Batavia,’ Johnny told them. ‘They’ll sort us out. OK?’
Before Johnny could continue, Glen Cant spoke.
‘That’ll be John Collins. He commands a component of the new Allied Combined Fleet; he’s an Aussie. We served together in the Med: he’s a good bloke. We have been ordered to leave for Tjilatjap. The Japs could be anywhere. The way things are going, I think you’ll be safer on land.’
Jock and Len nodded. Len knew, they all knew that they had to keep going. At least they would be on dry land – land that wasn’t occupied by the enemy – although it seemed likely that was about to change.