Chapter 4 This was a terror; Off to the Sudan; Coolies & POWs; Restless night;.....

OFF TO THE SUDAN

I saw them, as a very small boy, march through Sydney to embark on a couple of transports, bound for the Sudan.

March the 3rd of this year (1948) is the sixty-third anniversary of the departure of that contingent of troops which New South Wales sent to aid Great Britain in her fierce struggle with the Mahdi for dominance in the southern hinterland of Egypt, and that is very nearly two generations ago. Which is
to say, that those who took part in, or saw in childhood, that march through Sydney of the first Australian troops to go to the assistance of the British Empire overseas, may now regard themselves as being , without any escape from it, of "times past". We can preface our reminiscences with the impressive phrase "sixty years ago", and when you can do that you have become something of an "old
fogey" to the youth of the present day. However, it is interesting to look back to those old days when you were merely a little boy looking on at the exciting and interesting adventures of "grown-ups".

It is, too, something to recall an event that marked the beginning of a new era in the history of imperial relations. When Mr. William Bede Dalley made his offer of troops, there happened to have arrived but recently in Sydney a man whose observations and records of the sentiment of the time cannot fail to be of peculiar interest whenever we call them to mind. James Anthony Froude's comments on what was doing, and especially on what was "thinking" in Sydney, in the first months Of 1885, are curiously illuminating and prophetic, in view of the many departures of troops, of which the Sudan Contingent was the accepted precedent, that we have grown accustomed to since soldiers went away, a little later on, to the South African war.

He discusses the subject as he heard it discussed on the morning after his arrival in Sydney, when it was the single and overwhelming topic of the hour. It may be mentioned that all these impressions of the historian are those contained in his book, Oceana -a volume that is as readable today as at the distant time when it was published, and will be as entertaining in the future as when it first saw the light in London all those years ago.

"The club reading-room after breakfast was full of gentlemen," he writes, "in eager and anxious conversation on the auxiliary force. Was it right to have made the offer, and would the offer be accepted? The prevailing tone was of hope and warm approval. New South Wales had been accused of coldness to the Australian federation scheme and of indifference to the German aggression in New Guinea. The true heart of the colony had now an opportunity of showing what it really was. If the proposal was coldly refused, as some thought it would be, then, indeed, it would be a fresh instance of the indifference with which the colonies were regarded. It would be a sign that the Separatist policy was to be persevered in at home and an impulse would be given to the Separatist policy in their own country to which, in that case, they might have reluctantly to yield. But they hoped better things. The people of England would not cast away a hand so freely held out to them. It might draw the nation together instead of dividing it, and prove a turning point in the relations between the colonies and the mother country.

"There was not unanimity, however. There were some, and those not at all fools and not disloyal, who maintained that the answer would certainly be negative, and that they were exposing themselves gratuitously to an affront. If even it were accepted, the offer ought not to have been made so precipitately, when the Colonial Parliament was not sitting, and the constitutional sanction could neither be asked nor obtained.

Mr. Dalley, who had taken upon himself to speak for the colony, was not even Prime Minister. He was the Attorney-General and Acting Premier only, in the absence of his chief, Mr. Stuart.

On the general merits of the question there was no occasion for Australia to thrust herself unasked into England's foreign complications.

If the great Powers combined to injure England there would be a claim on them to which, of course, they would respond; but this Egyptian affair was a war of England's own seeking, and for them to mix themselves up with it would be at once gratuitous and useless, and an unjustifiable burden upon the colonial resources.

"England had withdrawn her troops from the colonies, and had charged them with the cost of their own defence. If they wanted soldiers she had warned them that they must provide soldiers for themselves. An English fleet was still in their waters, but they had been encouraged, and were expected, to fit out ships of their own, and had already formed an imperfect squadron. They had been even forced to accept a difference in their flag. It was absurd, under these circumstances, to strip themselves of the scanty force which they possessed, to leave themselves without sufficient trained men to serve their batteries, and to invite attack from the rest of the world in case the war spread, which it was exceedingly likely to do.

England's conduct in the Egyptian business had left her without a friend in Europe. Already rumours were heard of differences on the Afghan frontier with Russia, and the Russian fleet in the Amoor was a dangerous neighbour. So long as they kept aloof from these complications, foreign nations might respect their neutrality. England had ostentatiously told them that she wanted nothing of them except that they should spare her further trouble. To put themselves forward unasked was to challenge attack, and was quixotic and absurd.

"The answer from Lord Derby had been delayed. Something was said to be wrong with the telegraph on the Persian frontier ... it was not to be denied that there was force in Parkes's arguments. England's own attitude to the colonies, so far as it had been defined by the leading Liberal statesman, had incited and provoked them to dissociate themselves from her. Had the answer from England when it arrived been hesitating, or had it been long in coming, reflection would have given weight to the objections.

The impulse would have died away, and no more would have been heard about the matter. But the wires were replaced quickly, and brought a warm and grateful assent. The Agent-General in London sent word that the offer of the Colony had been welcomed with universal appreciation by the whole English nation, and the corresponding enthusiasm was irresistible.

To be allowed to share in the perils and glories of the battlefield, as part of a British Army, was regarded at once as a distinction of which Australians might be proud, and as a guarantee of their future position as British subjects. The help which they were now giving might be slight, but Australia in a few years would number ten millions of men, and this small body was an earnest of what they might do hereafter. If ever England herself was threatened, or if there was another mutiny in India, they would risk life, fortune - all they had as willingly as they were sending their present contingent. It was a practical demonstration of Imperial unity.

"Volunteers crowded to enroll their names. Patriotic citizens gave contributions of money on a scale which showed that little need be feared for the taxpayer. Archbishop Moran, the Catholic Primate, gave a hundred pounds, as an example and instruction to the Irish; others, the wealthy ones, gave a thousand.

The rush of feeling was curious and interesting to witness.

The only question with me was if it would last.... The opposition was not silenced; I listened for a quarter of an hour to an orator haranguing a crowd in the public park.

He spoke well and I was glad that I had not to answer him."

Froude gives a summary of the speaker's arguments against the despatch of troops to the Sudan, and they are the sort with which we grew familiar during the South African war, and in both world conflicts. The Arabs were our "brothers", and it wasn't our business to assist in dealing out "stoush" to them. There isn't space to quote them here. He continues thus:

"The crowd listened, and here and there, especially when the speaker dwelt upon the right of all people to manage their own affairs, there were murmurs of approval; but the immense majority were indifferent or hostile. The man, in fact, was speaking beside the mark. The New South Wales colonists cared nothing about the Sudan. They were making a demonstration in favour of national identity.

"Other nations would grow. England, if it shut itself within its own limits, could not grow, or would grow only to her own destruction. They would increase and she would decrease, and they despised her accordingly. They had taken the political economists as the exponents of the national sentiment. They had assumed that if war came the colonies would immediately fall off. In this spontaneous act of the Australians the great Powers would see that they would have to reckon not with a small island whose relative consequence was decreasing daily, but with a mighty Empire with a capacity for unbounded expansion, her naval fortunes duly supported in the four quarters of the globe.

A new England growing daily in population and in wealth with incredible speed, and all parts of it combined in a passion of patriotism, with the natural cord of affinity to which the strongest political confederacy was a rope of straw. A contingent of 700 men was nothing in itself, but it was a specimen from an inexhaustible mine, To India, too, a lesson would be read, if any there were dreaming of another mutiny, it would be seen that the British rulers of India had a fresh reservoir of strength within striking distance."

So Froude saw the situation almost a couple of lifetimes ago, and, to those of us who are old enough to remember it all, such is the recollection we have of those first stirrings of a community of interests in all the British Empire. William Bede Dalley taught this country a lesson it has never forgotten-that the British people, to exist, must foster the preservation of their British heritage with a co-operation that must never be questioned. Of what we saw in Sydney those many years ago the remembrance is still vivid.

There was a review in Moore Park of the forces destined for the Sudan, the recollection of which remains to those who saw it one of the most important impressions of early childhood. My father being at that time Minister for Lands in the Government of New South Wales, my brother and sister and I saw the troops march down Gresham Street, to embark on the troopships Iberia and Australasian in Sydney Cove. It was some time before we realized that a hero in the last section of fours was not so much overcome with grief at leaving his mummy as with alcohol of the night before.

All Sydney seemed to be there to see the troops off, and in the old Namoi, then the new crack passenger steamer of the Hunter River New Steam Navigation Company, Limited,

we went down the harbour in the troopships' wakes as far as the Heads of Port Jackson. It was the first time Sydney had seen soldiers off to the wars, and Sydney knew well that it was a "big" day - one of the biggest it had yet encountered.

J. H. M. ABBOTT, 1st AUST. HORSE

"TO COOLIES AND PRISONERS OF WAR"

EVERY war has had its prisoners and, for the captors, the problems that go with them. And in the normal course of events the captured do not expect to get much in the way of fair treatment, rather the reverse. They do not expect that a victorious army eager to crush the foe will bother to enlarge its administration to deal with them and a retreating army has not the time. In short, while sometimes a good thing to bolster up the morale of the home front, prisoners of war are a nuisance. The obvious thing to do is to put them out of the way and they are usually sent to where they can do no harm.

The journey of "F" Force, a party of seven thousand prisoners of war, from Singapore to the cholera-infested jungles of Thailand, a thousand miles away, exceeded by far what even the least reasonable man would be prepared to allow. For one thing, a journey of eight hundred miles through the tropics packed in airless, steel trucks followed by a march of two hundred miles by jungle tracks beyond the limits of civilization, left the prisoners so weak that less than half the unlucky force returned alive.

Blinding, suffocating heat enveloped the crawling trucks like a clinging veil, the panting engine pushed it aside; it reflected viciously from the sand until the sides of the airless trucks were dangerous to touch; the very landscape, capering and dancing in the shimmering waves screamed HEAT!

Within the trucks the only sound was the clacking of the wheels. Twenty-seven sweating prisoners packed together in a steel box with no food, no water, no latrine arrangements, nothing but the consciousness of the continual heat. Each man sat, almost naked, on his gear and the perspiration soaked through packs and kitbags. It ran down their bodies in dirty streams, stung the eyes and filled the truck with a nauseating stench.

It was impossible to think clearly because all thought reverted to the temperature. The two narrow doorways were strictly rostered and each man took his turn for the dubious pleasure of lying or kneeling in the wet mass of bodies, head poked outside trying to catch a mouthful of air which, though hot, was fresh. No breeze penetrated the crush at the doors and those inside sat with heaving chests gasping for breath. It was possible, by sitting quietly, for each man to obtain sufficient air for his needs but any undue movement or exertion would start a choking and straining for an extra breath until bloodshot eyes almost popped from their sockets. Many in this plight fainted and had to be placed near the doorway before they were able to regain consciousness.

The nights were little better than the days. The breeze made by the movement of the train entered the doors and chilled the wet bodies of the prisoners. It was possible, by crushing eighteen men into half the truck, to allow the remaining nine to lie down for a time. Four hours of uneasy sleep were as much as any man could hope to gain during the night and for most of the time men sat or dozed in a half stupor, occasionally lurching forward against the bodies of fellow sufferers only to be rudely awakened and forced upright again. It was too hot for bodies to touch during the day and the weight of one person leaning against another during the night was more than a weary man could support.

Meals were irregular and dreadful. A mug of plain rice and a pint of watery soup, dished from fly-covered buckets, were deemed quite sufficient for troops who were sitting down all day. Cunning excuses were made for the absence of rations; at Ipoh a pint of rice,

In Thailand even the boon of shade was denied the troops. The first meal was eaten in the full blaze of the sun while uniformed natives, barefooted but gleaming with brass badges and peaked caps, lounged in easy chairs on the cool station. Two-thirds of the prisoners were weak with acute diarrhoea and the Thais provided a small latrine about one-fiftieth of the size required. Men crawled under the trucks or simply lay between the lines, too dispirited to move.

When the train stopped thirty-six hours later for the second meal the one ray of hope was that the journey must shortly finish, and at six o'clock the following morning the troops tumbled off the train at Bam Pong.

Events moved so quickly and disastrously at Bam Pong that the whole system of administration used by the prisoners themselves was rendered useless. All records, stores, kitchen equipment and officers' trunks were piled outside the station. The party, carrying their gear, tramped two miles through the dusty streets to the camp. The dust rose in a choking cloud over the moving column and not a sound could be heard except the weary shuffle of feet on the road. Men with heavy packs and kitbags resting on their shoulders were too exhausted to raise eyes from the ground and nothing encouraged more than a passing glance. The town was negative in its attitude to the sufferers and natives watched the marching figures with neither sympathy nor hostility.

A dead tree, standing like a gaunt skeleton with arms pointing to the sky, brought derisive cheers and quick profanity from parched throats, for on every branch, clustered thickly together like bunches of rotten fruit, perched motionless cold-eyed vultures. Bald-headed, cruel-beaked and indescribably foul, they gazed unblinkingly at the staggering men. The omen was too strong for most of the men to ignore.

The camp was a group of atap-roofed shelters, built without walls and sloping to the ground from a centre pole eight feet high. The rubbish of previous trainloads of prisoners littered the area and the shallow drains were choked with rotting food. The stench of the open, crawling pits, passing as latrines, could be smelt fifty yards from the camp. Every leaf, twig, blade of grass or post in close proximity to them was covered with a revolting mantle of great swollen-bellied flies waiting patiently for the sun to dry their wings.

Water for washing was drawn from a sixty-foot well by the native method of raising or depressing a lone bamboo pole, from one end of which was suspended a wooden bucket. The five feet of muddy water lying in the well was totally inadequate for six hundred filthy troops. Many men bathed in a bucket of water in which at least twenty had washed before them. One pint of boiled water for drinking was issued to each man.

Any thought of rest was dispelled as soon as the troops arrived at the camp. Hot and exhausted, within ten minutes they were marching back to the station to work for two hours carrying the cases of stores and officers' trunks to a central dump. It was a heavy task with no rests but after an hour of sweating toll a drum of fresh water was placed by the roadside and, pathetically grateful, the workers were allowed one mug of water. As each man stood, trembling with fatigue, to drink his issue of water, the full horror of the day seemed to centre in two things, the heat and the dirt.

The miserable drop of muddy water with which some had tried to bathe after being unclean for six days and nights merely accentuated the grime rather than cleared it away. The filthy shirts and shorts of the men were wet, clinging rags and the dust and dirt, mingling with the perspiration streaming from their bodies, was so intolerable that some of the party in a mad effort to gain even temporary relief from their torment tore the shirts from their bodies and flung them away.

A surprise search threw the camp into a turmoil as almost every person tried desperately to rid himself of knives, compasses and souvenir weapons and to hide watches or valuables. The shouting, of the N.C.O.s mingled with the harsh commands of the captors; sticks were laid across the shoulders of the unfortunates who were unable to find gear in the press around the baggage heap. Ragged natives, hovering on the outskirts of the boiling mass, darted in and out grasping cast-off clothing, prohibited goods, old boots, even full kits. Hundreds of pounds' worth of precision instruments and what were previously considered to be essential goods were ruthlessly destroyed.

The search was over as quickly as it had begun and the party stood around, a little bewildered and at a loss what to expect next. The comparative quiet was ominous after the previous bedlam, but their fears gradually abated as a meal was served. The simple meal of rice and vegetable soup was just large enough to whet the appetite of the troops and the appearance of native women with huge baskets of eggs, tomatoes and bananas began a stampede.

Food was cheap and eggs, hardboiled, at seven cents, were too good to resist. Streams of panting children replenished the supplies and within fifteen minutes the whole party were sitting in little groups with piles of food before them. Eggs and bananas disappeared in thousands, men eating between six and ten eggs before starting on the small bananas which were consumed by the "hand",

With any number between eight and fifteen pieces of fruit making one "hand". It was a great feast and one man, rolling back on to the ground beside a heap of shells and peelings, expressed the feelings of many when he solemnly stated that it was the first time he had ever been able to try himself out on bananas. Results were more than satisfactory. The troops loosened their belts and relaxed; it was possible even to jeer at the vultures hovering over the camp, while in the hot sun the groups tried to sleep.

At 6 p.m. after a second meal of rice and soup the party assembled to hear the latest orders. They were staggeringly simple. Instead of a night's rest the party would move out that night on the first leg of an eighty mile journey which would be covered in stages of ten to twelve miles. All baggage was to be carried, including medical panniers, stretchers and cooking gear; any person unable to complete a march would be abandoned or carried. The men were advised to travel light.

The troops digested the orders thoroughly. After six sleepless nights the prospect of a seventh was a bitter blow. However, it could and must be borne. Ten miles of night marching did not sound too formidable provided the roads remained good and the rains kept off. Eighty miles was no more than a week's marching. The troops, who had once marched and fought a rearguard action for one hundred
and forty miles, decided that the order to travel light was superfluous. The interpreter airily promised well constructed camps and plenty of food at the end of the road. The party placed no reliance on the information at all and, prepared for the worst, hoped only for luck to fall their way.

Perhaps it was as well that they did not know that the promised eighty miles would stretch to one hundred and eighty; that there was to be not one march less than sixteen miles; that some of them would stagger into the final camps only to lie down and die of exhaustion.

In the black night the leaping flames of bamboo torches outlined the troops squatting in five lines on the road; each man carried besides his own gear at least one small carton of drugs.

In addition there were buckets of rice for a midnight meal and the balance of the cooking gear to be distributed throughout the column.

The men themselves were quiet; many fell asleep, sitting on the road, oblivious of the guttural screams of the captors who railed at the N.C.O.s checking off the columns.

A golf stick cruelly applied hastened the counting of the men and at 10.30 p.m. the troops marched into the night Within ten minutes every man knew exactly what he had to face. The pace set by the leading guard was reasonable but inexorable and with shoulders bent under the weight of heavy packs and kitbags the perspiration streamed from the bodies of the men and quickly saturated clothes and baggage. Where the loss of a yard meant so much extra effort to regain the line there was no time to adjust heavy loads to less painful positions and men even carried kitbags clasped in their arms until the first respite gave them the time to make adjustments.

Soft-padding natives appeared in the lines and when the bugle blew for the first halt the troops were feverishly selling as much gear as the natives would take. All the men realized that excess gear must be traded or thrown away and they accepted with alacrity the low prices offered. The natives, confident of their position, bought at prices that would have brought a blush to Shylock's check and bad money passed in the darkness more often than genuine. The sweating, cursing troops had no option but to lighten their loads and a great deal of baggage was thrown into the ditches beside the road.

Two hours' marching from Barn Pong the column stretched for a mile with men lurching along the road in various stages of exhaustion. Tired bodies almost screaming for rest were forced on and on until, in desperation, men staggering behind shouted blasphemously "For God's sake, HALT IN FRONT!" "Pass it on--- HALT IN FRONT!" But the column halted once per hour and not before. Nothing could stop the march; it moved on, deathless, unceasing, and night after night the pitiful entreaties to stop were passed up from the rear until the very words symbolized all the agony against which the troops had no redress.

At two o'clock the party stopped for a meal and rest. Every man was issued with a quart of boiled water from great earthenware containers and by the light of flaming torches ate his pint of plain rice and lay down to sleep. They slept in groups on the bare, damp ground, lying huddled together like lost children. Only the guards, prowling on the outskirts, an~ the regimental doctor, kneeling beside the stretchers on which lay two helpless malaria cases, remained awake.

Within two hours the march was resumed and by dawn the staggering column was too tired to lift its head. The medical panniers and cooking gear slung between poles passed slowly up and down the column. Those unfortunates who were unable to obtain relief from the heavy loads were beyond caring, they simply bent their backs a little more and trudged on. The road kept company with the railway line for a time. At least this much of the march could have been completed by rail in an hour. Realization of this brought horrible curses from some, but most of the men said nothing and kept their eyes on the road.

The river saved the troops at the first halt. It ran past the open meadow, wide and swift flowing and after four hours' sleep in the indifferent shade of a few trees the sun awoke the men and drove them into the water. Natives, gathered on the bank, were amazed and delighted at the spectacle of six hundred naked men yelling for joy as they scrubbed themselves, their clothes and each other until not a trace of the grime of a week's travel remained. It was a great cleansing and the men sat neck deep in the cool shade of the high tree-bordered banks until the native food vendors arrived.

The quantity of eggs, fruit, man-nee and coffee consumed by the party shocked even the natives. Clean and refreshed, with plenty of time, the troops made a business of it and ate steadily all the afternoon, with no thought of the night's march before them.

When the shuffling, sweating column was counted the following morning most men had to be woken up to answer their names and the harassed young adjutant was almost in tears from fatigue by the time the last straggler was accounted for, two hours later. Not a soul paid the slightest attention to the proclamation read by the interpreter, and the now familiar first words "To coolies and prisoners of war" did not even raise the usual cynical smiles. The party was looking only for sleep. The announcement of a full night's rest brought audible sighs of relief. The interpreter was an understanding British officer; leading the parties to the rest area he quickly walked away.

The troops were shocked into wakefulness. Tolling wearily through the previous night the promise of a thirty-six hour halt had drawn them on as would an enchanting vision. In the worst places during the night men had struggled on just to be sure of sharing in the benefit of the rest. When they saw their resting place they stood speechless.

It was a stony half acre, littered with refuse and in the early morning sun was already reflecting the heat. A few scrubby thorn bushes struggled for a living in ground which was baked to a concrete hardness, but there was no other vegetation. With feelings too deep for words the party dispersed in groups to select the least filthy patches of ground on which to rest. A few crude shelters were erected by stretching blankets over the bushes, but the majority of the men lay down, heads pillowed on kitbags, covered their faces with cloths and slept.

By one o'clock the area was like a frying pan. The thorn-bushes were shimmering in the heat and the stench of the open latrines bung thickly over the camp. There was no shade. A hundred men clustered around a murderous looking native who hauled water from a deep well at ten cents per bucket.

With not even the consolation of a native market it had the aspect of a desert camp and rather than endure the heat most of the men marched two miles to the river to wash their clothes and obtain temporary relief in its waters. They gained a very dubious advantage; the return march started the perspiration rolling once more and a miscount by one of the guards kept the swimmers on the hot parade ground for two hours.

The lack of shelter that night was not noticed by the troops. The stony ground, after eight sleepless nights, was a haven of rest and so dreamlessly did they sleep that native bandits, moving quietly darkness, stole a considerable quantity of gear before arousing one sleeper who awoke to find his blanket being lifted from his body. A lively scuffle took place in the gloom and fists and sticks were used to good advantage.

The troops were not sorry to see the end of the desert camp. Hostile, waterless and filthy it was aptly named and almost with relief they turned their faces to the north. Four miles from the camp the party left the road for good and plunged into the jungle.

The darkness of the rough track was a new and serious problem. Where the tall trees met high overhead, even the stars were obscured and the party travelled sightlessly through a complete absence of light. Heavily loaded, mis-steps resulted in bad falls, often for two or three men together, and cuts and bruises were frequent. The leading guard carrying the rifle walked briskly along by the light of a torch. The column, carrying all its worldly goods, groped blindly behind, unable to keep pace with the front.

The rear of the column, at the end of the first hour, could not hear the bugle from the front and as the march progressed the line lengthened to over two miles.

Men draped white towels over their backs and travelled with one hand on the shoulder of a comrade. Later in the journey the towels and pieces of white cloth were discarded in favour of slabs of phosphorus-covered bark which when rubbed on baggage left a slight glow quite useful as an indicator.

Where the column broke contact, which it did more and more frequently as the night wore on, there was a real danger of men losing the track altogether. Time and time again, a prisoner groping his way among the bushes would find himself twenty yards from the track with fifty men, hands on shoulders, cautiously following his lead. Interruptions of this nature meant a complete break of contact and many sections of the column travelled for miles in a torment of suspense fearing they were completely off the track, yet afraid to stop and risk being left miles behind.

For one two-hour stretch the column waded knee-deep in water. Many boots, already worn out before the march, fell to pieces. Men fell again and again in the water and entreaties to "halt in front" were shouted in vain.

By morning, the line resembled a retreating army. Friends travelled together in twos and threes, helping each other, carrying weaker men's gear and bolstering failing spirits with encouraging words. The strongest men floundered along under the weight of stretchers and medical gear. Unable to obtain relief from their burdens they refused to abandon them and finished the night march unutterably weary, with mud to the thighs from frequent falls, but triumphant. The last man to pass by the gaudy Buddhist temple at the camp was the regimental medical officer who plodded in carrying a sick man pick-aback fashion.

The health of the party was deteriorating rapidly after this, the third march. Many men were suffering from acute dysentery and cut feet from worn and broken boots. The strongest of the party were finding each night the strain of carrying the sick too much. Accordingly an effort was made to leave as
many men as possible at the camp. The troops spent the morning sleeping under a few trees and the afternoon sitting in the river. As usual no shelter was provided and as it was impossible to sleep in the blazing afternoon sun, a few hours' rest in the morning was as much as any man could expect.

The medical officer selected about fifty of the worst cases of dysentery and blistered feet to remain behind at the camp. The prospect looked a little brighter until half an hour before the start of the night's march when a guard, armed with a quick swinging stick, inspected the sick. He was prepared to allow only those men who were unable to remain on their feet to stay.

During the immediate protest a bone in one man's hand was broken and the party were g1ven no alternative but to, march on as best they could.

The marches that followed were fantastic nightmares with only the most revolting sights or the most astounding incidents remaining in men's minds. Boots fell from tired feet, clothes and personal belongings were thrown away to lighten the loads; at the halfway halt each night men slept in the mud like exhausted animals. Everything faded into unimportance except the march. The troops had to keep moving, bodies screaming for rest were forced on night after night towards the consolation of the end of the road. Good camps had been promised and tired eyes lit up at the thought of food and sleep at the journey's end.

The staging camps passed by as in a dream. Temple Camp, with its temple sitting above the river, and the yellow robed priests drifting along with shaven skulls bowed in meditation. Big Bridge Camp, where mounds of steaming, plain rice, heaped on grass mats, were ladled to lines of troops as if they were starving stock. The Dutch Canteen Camp, where the golf stick swung more than usual. Bamboo Creek, a wretched, squalid patch where the men sheltered during the day in the bamboo breaks and washed in a miserable pool no bigger than a bath tub.

To the marchers, as they lurched from camp to camp, there seemed to be no end to the road. The sand-flies came one night to add to their misery and remained ever after a nightlong menace to men's sanity. They bit into every exposed portion of skin without mercy and clustered on damp scalps until in desperation each man carried a smouldering bamboo brand which smoked them away.

At one camp the men were herded into a stockyard fifty yards square on the bare side of a hill and remained there all day. At another halt a Japanese with a passion for military discipline stood on a small mound and formed the troops up in eight lines, facing a corresponding number of meal points. Each time his martial arm descended the first eight men dashed forward to receive their rations and so on until the whole party was fed.

It was all very regimental, but plain rice and a bucket of vegetable water to every fifty men left the troops so hungry that many dived in the river for mussels and boiling them ate the resultant leathery morsels with what was almost enjoyment.

To men who had been used to drinking strong tea four or five times a day the total absence of it was a hardship far greater than the scarcity of food. It had to be borne to be realized. Many men even boiled dried bamboo leaves in a vain effort to find a substitute for the drink which had previously been looked upon as a necessity.

One camp, perched on the top of a hill, departed from the usual routine and fed the prisoners well. Four meals of whale-meat and vegetables were consumed by the hungry troops with delirious joy and they assured each other that they were approaching the district where good food was to be had in abundance. It was a short-lived hope, however; there was a lack of food in the next camp, as usual.

At Konkoidah the troops were beyond all the elementary stages of fatigue and shuffled into the camp with backs aching from the weight of packs, now shrunk to contain the barest necessities, and with eyes dulled from lack of sleep. The camp was even worse than most, with hundreds of Tamil labourers living in overcrowded huts under the most primitive conditions. The natives, having not the sketchiest knowledge of hygiene, and always suspicious of constructed latrines, answered the calls of nature wherever they happened to be. The resultant stench hung foully over the camp and any movement sent clouds of flies whirring into the air.

The medical officer was almost desperate; without cholera serum he felt the responsibility of hundreds of lives hanging heavily on his shoulders. The disease had struck suddenly at the previous camp and the memory of two men vomiting their lives away in a few hours turned the troops cold with fear. They lay in the blazing sun as far from the natives as possible, waiting for the night to fall and the march to be resumed. Nobody attempted to bathe or even wash in the cholera-infested river and the strongest men spent the day working over roaring fires like ash-covered demons to boil sufficient drinking water for their comrades.

Men carried out orders without complaint and on completion of the tasks lay down again to await the night. One party of unfortunates carried bags of rice over a mile, wordlessly, barefooted and almost too weary to lift their heads. Unnecessary words were a luxury only to be used by the stronger men.

Twenty horrible days from Barn Pong, in the hour after dawn, the vanguard of the column splashed across a shallow creek and halted on the side of a hill to obtain the first view of their future home.

It was the end of the road at last, the mecca for which men had marched two hundred miles with little food and rest, leaving sick and dying at every halt. Two tumbledown bamboo huts, roofless and with sagging walls, yawned open to the sky. Weeds and saplings flourished on the earth floors and the jungle, like an inevitable fate, crept hungrily up to the very sides of the rotting structures. There was no sign of any recent habitation and only the splashing of the stragglers, crossing the stream, broke the silence.

A cloud passed over the sun and the first big drops of the rainy season fell among the column. A premonition of horror passed through the troops as they gazed at the roofless huts.

An interpreter appeared and began to read the proclamation: "To coolies and prisoners of war

S. F. ARNEIL, SECOND A.I.F.

LOCATED

I had an itchy nose that morning. It's a funny thing, but I always seem to pitch into a spot of bother -when I've got an itchy nose.

Floating along in easy formation, our arrowhead of A-20's was aimed at Rabaul - and trouble.

It was June 1943.

I looked up from my air plot and stopped scratching my nose in time to see the waggling wing of the squadron-leader. It was a fair way from Milne Bay to Rabaul. Now, we were there.

As we had planned at briefing, we swept down to tree-top level with the hungry viciousness of a bunch of crows. This was the stuff that aircraft like Bostons and Beaufighters seemed to do best. Every one of our 200 knots was enjoyed to the full as the forest flashed beneath us, only a decent spit away. Hedgehopping they called it in Europe. Only here, there were no hedges. Just mountains and jungle and plenty of ocean.

Well, there it was. Rabaul was the biggest town I'd seen up in that part of the world. It lay sizzling under a red-hot sun. The harbour looked crowded. I counted thirteen ships. Maybe that's what spoilt things-the unlucky number, along with my itchy nose.

We ignored the ships and headed for the target pinpointed on our maps. Ammunition, tons of it, was stacked ready for early delivery. We thought we'd open the package on the home ground. We'd flashed over the target once and were all set for our bombing run when the portent of my itchy nose developed.

Six fast-firing Zeros came droning out of the sun.

I saw the squadron-leader go first. The Boston turned over on its back and plummeted into the harbour. There was hardly a splash. No survivors.

You've read that these things happen quickly. They do. We were whittled down from five to two while my hand was still on the bombsight.

The next thing I knew we were streaking out to sea. That is, as fast as an A-20 can streak on one motor. A cannon shell from a Zero had severed the oil fuel lines of the other.

On the skipper's orders I jettisoned the bombs and watched great stalagmites of water shoot up as they exploded. Now the aircraft, "Salvation Sissy", was considerably lighter but we were still losing height and it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before we would have to "ditch".

The funny part about things then was that the Zeros had let us go and my nose had stopped itching. We were all alone and settling slowly towards the sea. On the "intercom" the skipper called me and my maps for an interview. As near as I could, I fixed our position. Without sticking our necks out by heading for New Britain's Gazelle Peninsula, the best bet seemed to be the Trobriands group of islands - if we could fly that far.

We couldn't. The skipper passed the word to the boys that ditching was imminent and we positioned ourselves for the unfamiliar experience of a wet landing.

It was wet all right. As "Salvation Sissy" flicked the waves with her shiny belly, watery wings frothed out on each side.

Then she settled, with a thud that smashed the perspex of the pilot's cabin.

For a moment I thought she was going to turn over, but she held, wallowed and began to sink.

Doug, the gunner, was the only one to suffer in the landing. A box of flares shook loose and crashed on his shin. As we loaded emergency rations and gear into the two automatically inflated rubber boats, Doug, with the fluent profanity of the barman he used to be, was still cursing.

The water had covered most of "Salvation Sissy's" underslung engine nacelles when we paddled away. We'd gone about fifty yards when, with a horrible gurgling sound, she disappeared. Only a small oil slick remained.

It seemed pretty lonely bobbing there-five "bods" not very securely supported on a depressingly large tract of ocean, with nothing else in sight. But according to my calculations a small island in the Trobriands group was only about fifteen miles away.

Although the two boats, with a towline between them, made slow time, a faint smudge of land was sighted just before nightfall. We headed f or it throughout the long, cool night, the five of us paddling in hourly shifts, three in one boat and two in the other.

My third shift, 5 a.m. till 6 a.m., included the rise of the sun and I eagerly waited to discover the result of our evening's paddle-dunking. Then the sun came up, sending darkness sweeping back like heavy theatre curtains as the play begins.

Yes, there was the land, and closer, too. But during the night it or we had side slipped. If we kept on our present course we were going to miss the island.

I pointed this out to our second pilot who was paddling in the other boat. His name, strangely enough for a "second dickie", was George. We altered course and woke the others. Fresh, willing arms gave the boats added impetus.

But it wasn't until that afternoon that the rubber boats rasped on the coral sand of the island. We'd been sitting cramped in the boats so long that the skipper tried to wade ashore like General MacArthur and, instead, disappeared with wildly waving arms when his cramped legs collapsed under him.

In all the time we'd been afloat we hadn't seen an aircraft, friendly or hostile. But my nose wasn't itchy, even with a crust of salt on it, so I landed confidently.

We'd examined the island pretty closely as we neared the beach. Now, as we hauled the boats high up on the sand we could see just how thick and impenetrable the island's jungle really was.

Oh, yes! You could force your way through it. And there were paths made by the natives, as we discovered later. But to step straight into the foliage was like wrestling with an octopus and crawling through a barbed wire fence at the same time. My first brush with the under-growth neatly divided the back of my shirt with a gaping tear. Peter, our radio operator, lost a dangerously large portion of
his pants.

Floundering around in a rock pool off the corner of the beach, George caught a fish. Actually it wasn't as simple as it sounded. He had to hunt it laboriously into one comer of the pool and then attempt to wash it on to the ledge surrounding the pool. After many tries, he got it. It tasted well fried, but it didn't go far with five of us.

I'd like to be able to say we suffered for the next four days. It might make grimmer, more pungent reading. Actually, we had fun. My nose behaved itself and none of us seemed to have any doubts that we'd be spotted by one of our blokes fairly soon.

There was one anxious moment, though. It happened when a group of natives emerged from the jungle soon after we had breakfasted, on bananas and bully, on the second morning. Our first thought was that they might be working with some Nips somewhere on the island and might "put us in". But after the skipper had laboriously communicated with them in the little native lingo he knew, we discovered we were the first men to arrive since the last white trader.

The natives proved to be very handy. In exchange for gear salvaged from the aircraft

they brought us food. Included was a variety of native pig which proved delicious but disgustingly rich. It was too much for Peter's delicate stomach. With a brave but feeble adieu he wobbled into the bushes. He returned with his shirt even more torn but wearing an expression of intense relief.

It was on the fifth day, as I've said, that we got something definite from the boys at base. We heard the drone of the plane as we swam in the clear water near the beach and we ducked into the jungle in case it wasn't one of ours. We didn't stay long. Most of us had heard a Beaufort before. The engine sound was unmistakable. We dashed out and waved our shirts as the aircraft roared almost directly over our heads.

Using a crude bamboo catapult we'd erected or the purpose, I hurled an aluminium sea marker far out into the sparkling water of the bay. Those in the Beaufort saw it. The silvery glitter bought the plane down in a low inquisitive dive. Then they saw us.

We spelt "ALL O.K." on the sand to reassure them and they waved back in acknowledgment. With a waggle of their wingtips they flew off. We knew we were right from then on.

A Catalina came taxi-ing in to pick us up next morning. They told us that the Beaufort from zoo Squadron had accurately pinpointed our position and flown straight to the "Cat" boys

Posted missing six days, we got an extra big welcome from the blokes in the squadron. They'd pretty confidently written off the entire formation after complete radio silence.

When we'd checked with the Intelligence officer, I went to my tent. There were letters from home lying on my stretcher. "There's one there from your girl," my cobber "Pinto" said. "Came yesterday."

I picked up the letter and then, so help me, my nose began to itch!

More trouble.

LEICESTER WARBURTON, R.A.A.F.