Fear Drive My Feet Read Free

Then in 1991, Penguin Books chose it for inclusion in their
Australian War Classics series, with a Foreword by ‘Weary’ Dunlop. It has thus been
in and out of print, but usually available ever since 1959.
    It amazes and delights me that so plain and unembroidered a tale of one man’s travels
sixty years ago still finds its readers. But when asked, as sometimes happens, ‘How
do I feel about it all now?’ it is hard to find an answer.
    There is certainly ‘no memory for pain’ in the ordinary sense; the torn feet, the
ribs broken from falls, the intensifying bouts of depressing malaria – all that
vanished years ago. But several curious things still linger with perfect clarity.
    There were for example, two separate days – only two – when I felt that I was on
the very brink of madness from loneliness and strain. A stern self-lecture on the
virtues of the stiff upper lip seemed to do the trick – perhaps just in time.
    There was a day on which, at the end of a week of being hunted by the Japanese (said
now to be assisted by tracker dogs) I sought refuge by climbing a stupendous dry
cascade of huge boulders, as it ascended ever higher up a mountainside. At about
10,000 feet I sat down to rest a while, and from a sudden recollection of a school
geography lesson, realized that this chaotic wasteland of random-strewn rocks was
the moraine left behind in the retreat of an ancient glacier. Altitude and exhaustion
play hallucinatory tricks, but a great voice seemed to boom in my ear: ‘This is the
end of the Earth! This is the end of the Earth! You’ve reached the end of the Earth!’
I remember my answer exactly. I said: ‘If ever I get out of this, I’ll never travel
anywhere again.’ This was not in any sense intended as a vow, yet it was what happened.
Now seventy-seven, I have never been to England, Europe or America, and have never
wanted to go.
    At times, every night for weeks at a stretch, when the Japanese were close, I lay
down to sleep with the lively expectation of being dead by dawn. Certainly this frightened
me, but I had learned by then that tranquility can be preserved even in the midst
of terror: mostly I slept as sweetly as if I had been in bed in my mother's house.
    Well…all these are idle memories of a war long won – or perhaps lost. But most of
all, looking back, my main feeling is of gratitude. Dispatching an eighteen-year-old
on such a job as mine was heartless and irresponsible. And yet it was the best thing
that ever happened to me: I got the chance to discover what I could do, and I am
grateful.
    P.R. October 2000

‘And in the Military Service, there is a busy kind of Time-Wasting.’
    ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM (1466–1536)
    The Education of a Christian Prince
    ‘Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.’
    The Book of Job , 18.11

INTRODUCTION
    THIS BOOK is completely factual. The events it describes happened, and the people
mentioned in it lived – or still live. It treats its subject – war – on the smallest
possible scale. It does not aspire to chronicle the clash of armies; it does not
attempt to describe the engagements of so much as a platoon. It tells what happened
to one man – what he did, and how he felt about it.
    However, it will be helpful to the reader to have some knowledge of the background
against which the story takes place; to supply that necessary glimpse of the wider
picture is the purpose of this short introduction.
    New Guinea represented the most southerly extent of Japan’s all-conquering Pacific
offensive of 1941–2. And it was in New Guinea – at Milne Bay – that the Australians
inflicted the first land defeat on Japan. The campaign in the world’s largest island
therefore embraced both the nadir of our fortunes and the turning of the tide in
our favour. New Guinea was also the stern schoolroom in which we learnt the tactics
and techniques – for example, jungle warfare – which led us finally to victory