Fear Drive My Feet Read Free Page B

much hard fighting still ahead in New Guinea – two more years of it – but after
Wau the issue was never really in doubt.
    The whole character of the war had now changed. Superbly trained, supplied, and equipped,
our troops attacked an enemy who, though fanatical and tough, was increasingly embarrassed
by ever-weakening communications as our offensive by land, air, and sea mounted
all over the Pacific. Gone was the day of the lonely white man maintaining single-handed
contact with the enemy. By the end of 1943 we went where we pleased, and we went
in force.
    This book describes some of the adventures which befell one man in the struggles
of 1942 and 1943 in the savage country of the Lae-Salamaua area.

I
    I SAT DOWN on a shaded boulder, head bent, sweat running in a chain of drops off
my nose and chin; they fell with a slight pat-pat-pat onto the sodden legs of dirty
green short trousers. The rushing water lapped my feet and filled my boots. I wriggled
my toes round inside them, luxuriating in the cool sensation. When I stamped my feet
little geysers of water shot out of the boots and up my shins; that was cool and
pleasant too.
    Near at hand, the thin wail of mosquitoes. All over my back, through the sweat-soaked
shirt that clung to the skin, I felt the jabbing of their red-hot needles. It was
no use slapping – it only made you hotter, and made no difference to the mosquitoes.
    In the distance, the deeper, though faint, hum of aircraft engines. Where? Madang?
Lae? ‘What’s it matter, anyhow? They’re too far away to do me any harm,’ was my vague
thought.
    Wail of mosquitoes, hum of aircraft engines, roar of swirling water, and the constant
pat-pat-pat of dripping sweat. ‘There’s the whole orchestra,’ I thought. ‘There goes
the non-stop background music for God knows how many months to come. Let’s see just
what sort of a mess I’m in, anyway.’
    I ticked the facts off on my fingers as I called them out aloud. It isn’t necessarily
the length of time you’ve been alone that sets you thinking out loud – if the aloneness
is sufficiently intense you start doing it in half a day. The facts came out in a
sort of verbal column, like an inventory or shopping-list:
    ‘I’m eighteen years old, and I’ve been in New Guinea a couple of months.
    ‘A day’s walk to the east is Lae, and some thousands of Japanese troops.
    ‘North, a few hours ahead of me, is the Markham River, and somewhere nearby in the
jungle is Bob’s, the camp from which a few hopelessly outnumbered Australian commandos
are carrying on the war against the Japs.
    ‘Across the Markham, just visible through the trees from where I sit, are the Saruwaged
mountains, so high that you can’t see the tops for clouds; among those incredible
blue ranges, somewhere or other in an area of roughly three thousand square miles,
is another lone Australian, Jock McLeod.
    ‘Object of my journey: to find Jock and place myself under his orders in his dual
job of “governing” some tens of thousands of natives and watching the activities
of our Japanese enemy.’
    By this time I felt a lot happier. It was reassuring to hear a voice, even one’s
own. Secondly, I seemed able to marshal my facts pretty well. That indicated that
I was sane as well as alive. Napoleon himself, I thought complacently, would have
made his appreciation of the situation in much the same way.
    His purpose clearly stated, obviously Napoleon’s next step would have been a consideration
of resources and ways and means. Again the verbal list:
    ‘Resources: Reputedly a fortnight’s rations, but really only enough to last a hungry
man about a week.
    ‘No compass.
    ‘No maps.
    ‘One old rifle with a damaged foresight.
    ‘A thirty-year-old revolver with ten rounds of ammunition.
    ‘Bottomless, unbounded ignorance of the country.
    ‘Only the slightest acquaintance with pidgin English, the language needed to converse
with the natives.
    ‘For assistance, one keen but emotionally