Cup of Sorrow, Spell of the North & photos

THERE must, apparently, somewhere in this changing world, be a small-or possibly a large-nation whose distinguishing lingual characteristic is a rendition of the English spoken word in a manner which would be token, in any normal British subject, the presence of a cold of distressing severity.

Allied to this-though possibly it is mere conjecture since by all accounts individuals, like fingerprints, differ so in their mental construction-the products

of this small, or large, nation are incurably stubborn or, if you prefer it, determined.

To such an extent, in fact, that with them there can be no compromise. Consider the case of B Company's corporal cook. The cup of sorrow of this unfortunate company, according to one of its members, was full to overflowing.

He elaborated this theme over 12 pages in a letter to the Hon. the Minister for the Army which, in a rash moment, he dispatched through the civil post to his ultimate undoing. The Hon. the Minister received it, read it and handed it to his secretary, from whom it found its way to that section of the brain trust organizing our war which deals with breaches of the Security Regulations who, in their turn, passed it down until it returned to B Company's orderly room as an inch thick file. However, this is by the way. The point is that the chief ingredient of B Company's cup of sorrow was B Company's corporal cook.

He had a surname, but it is lost in the depths of his attestation paper, as indeed must be the fate of any man whose Christian names are Herman Hercules. To his limited circle of friends he was known as H.H. and to the many others as simply "Herman" -in the derogatory sense of the word. And, as has been remarked, he was very stubborn. His rations were as guarded as the speech of an Intelligence officer and under the pressure of no amount of persuasion could he be prevailed upon to part up with ,even the smallest item of his larder.

To Herman one morning came Steve Donoghue. Steve was not popular in the cookhouse-the result of an episode in the dim past when fresh meat was part of the for himself. His culinary off-siders had deserted him and gone for their tin hats. They were now half-way up the side of the hill, in the top of which had been hewn a slit trench which commanded a view of the aerodrome, which it seemed was destined to cop another packet. Steve joined them and Herman removed his nearly white apron and waved it at them in disgust.

It may have been the white apron that did it. On the other hand, it may have been simply that an accident occurred inside one of Tojo's bees, but the fact remains. that there was a whistle and a whoooosh and a whoooomp and Herman and Herman's cookhouse vanished from the face of the earth and were never more seen. Then the ack-ack opened up from round the aerodrome and presently there was a sound like a lot of very violent thunder with a few individual whoooomps for good measure. Three of the Tojo bees began to emit trails of smoke and lose height and the remainder swung round out to sea, gradually becoming lost to view.

Steve got no tea and sugar, but his explanation was accepted by the syndicate, who also expressed their appreciation of his description of the passing of Herman. Herman, from that date, became a legendary figure and an oft-quoted example of unswerving devotion to duty along the lines of the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled.

From 16 degrees below zero, the frosts and soft snows of the Lebanon, to the heat and discomfort of the Great Dead Heart.

The sooner this Great Dead Heart business is forgotten the better. Rolling miles of green grass, of low hills, of huge rocks, of small dried creek beds and occasional pools, of kangaroos and scrub turkeys, circling hawks and squawking black cockatoos.

The fertile, pulsating bowl that is Alice Springs. That masterpiece of engineering, the north-south road to Darwin. Gangs of Australians and Americans, with giant levellers and bulldozers, tearing an ordered highway out of the tangled mysterious wilds of the North. The roaring convoys, their tyres beating a rhythm of energy on the dirt roads. Trucks by the hundred, driven by Australians and Americans, making for the North with the stores which are to be the life-blood of the northern defenders.

The familiar names-Newcastle Waters, Daly Waters, Tennant's Creek. To-day their fascination is gone. Ten years ago they stood for adventure, the pioneering spirit, daring flights by intrepid aviators. Now they are just "stages"-dusty settlements by which the roaring convoys mark their progress.

Then Darwin and the Far North . . . strange, sunbitten land of matted, stunted, green, ant-riddled trees; of billabongs and sweeping plains, mangroves and dustbowls. Here it is that we live, thousands of men, living in our homeland, yet far from our homes.

A fascinating land. Forget the distances, forget how long it is till next leave, forget the heat. Sit in the cool of a Darwin night, with the stars pressing down on your forehead, and the moon hanging just out of reach. The soft, startled sounds of the bush, the bursting of a wallaby through the brush, the whirr of a bat. And somewhere someone playing a wheezy accordion or maybe the metallic sound of voices coming from a mobile cinema far up the road.

Travel the back roads-now, in August, for in "the wet" you can never move on them. Plunge mile after mile through the trees, and come out into the wilds. Stand and gape at a herd of buffalo, loping, half-frightened, into the grass.

In peacetime we would pay hundreds of pounds to see this. Now we are getting it free. So, as we wait here in the Silent North for the attack which may or may not come, we are foolish if we complain of boredom or of the horrors of our surroundings.

Here, in the northern outpost, we are living cheek by jowl with the Americans. They are farther from home than we, but they do not complain overmuch. Like the Australians, they make the best they can out of the isolation and the comparative lack of amenities. They come miles in their jeeps and their command cars to the movies, and mingle with the huge audiences of Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen. All through the forward areas, the cinemas show nightly, arranged so that every man sees at least one programme each week. The mobile cinemas are boredom's biggest enemy; combined with the concert parties and recreation huts, they hold him at bay.

As for the Japs ... well, certainly they come over. And as certainly they fail to go back in the same numbers. Silver specks in the sky, they float across from the Timor base and unload their futile bombs in the bush. Then the fighters are into them, the formation breaks, and the raid is over as they turn hurriedly towards the sea and home. For many of them the sea proves to be home.

At the coastal guns, in the A.A. posts, at the searchlights, in the camps, the men of Australia's northern army, the Northern Territory Force, stand ready for anything the jap can turn on. And while they wait-that menacing force, trained to the minute, strong and resolute-they know that they are guarding Australia's Front Door.

It will not be opened.

"NX52009"