Chapter 10 3 Letters; Everyday flight; Air action; A dream comes true; Renegade...

THREE LETTERS

THIS afternoon, as I lay in my bed on the hospital veranda, I tried to write the second letter. The
war seemed far away. A few of the boys were playing cards on the end bed, talking in low tones;
one or two others were lolling about, and there was a sleepy peace, except when one of the sisters or A.A.M.W.S. bustled in.

But I couldn't begin to write that letter. There were too many memories behind it. The event that started my letter writing was too vivid, although it happened one afternoon more than six years ago.

It was hot - a drier heat than this New Guinea heat - the dry heat of the Australian mainland, when rain hasn't fallen for months, and the sun blasts down as if it really hated you.

It took a lot to worry John and me in those days-we were just kids of twenty, and we had never had much to worry about. We had been to college together, and had then returned to the twin farms that fronted the river, to work for our fathers. We didn't work too hard, because labour was plentiful, and both our fathers were wealthy enough to pay well for it.

Of an afternoon, when things were slack, we'd often go down to the river and swim in the muddy coolness, and break the monotony of swimming by a spot of sun baking. There were leeches in the water, and they would cling to us, and draw blood, and we would have a struggle getting them off our limbs. But that didn't worry us, because it was glorious in the water, especially under the
red gums, where it was deep and dark with shadow.

Between swims we would talk of what we had done on our last visit to town and what we would do on our next visit. The town was a fair sized one, and there was plenty of amusement to be had-pictures and dances, and drives in the moonlight, and all that sort of thing.

Girls, of course, were one of our main interests. There were plenty of them in the town, especially in the fruit-picking season But neither of us had ever had a "steady", we seldom went out with any one girl for more than a few weeks. We talked constantly of what our dream girls would be like, but I think neither of us had formulated any very definite idea. In fact, we were wide open for suggestions.

So we would lie there on the banks of the creek, and stare up at the sky, and make the serious platitudinous remarks that pass for wisdom at that age.

But this afternoon we were restless, and John suddenly broke the silence by saying, "I'd like an apple."

"O.K.," I told him. "We've got plenty. We've only got to walk up to the house."

"Too far," he said, lazily. "Look, there are plenty right across the river."

I looked across at the orchard, which I remembered belonged to an old chap called Ross about whom I knew very little.

"All right," I said, "I'll beat you across."

John took my challenge in a flash and was in the water. I followed him a second later. but I was too late, he beat me to the other side. Somehow, John always seemed one step ahead.

I can still remember the feel of the sand, hot and floury on my feet, as we climbed the slight bank to the orchard. There were plenty of good apples lying on the ground, and we picked up one or two.

Then there was the sudden crack of a rifle, and the whine of a bullet. Frightened? I'll say we were. We stood like startled deer until another shot crashed through the trees, and we fell flat.

We lay there, and there were no more shots. Then a voice said, "On your feet, boys."

It was Ross -a smallish man just past middle age. His rather puckish face was wrinkled in a wide grin, and he remarked, "Scared v' a bit, didn't I? Thought it was some of them school kids."

"You might have hit us," John said indignantly.

"Not me," Ross said confidently, "best shot in the district."

Someone came up behind him. In our eyes she was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. She was small and delicately made, and her oval face was framed by gold hair that fell in a shining wave and ended in a little curl.

Old Ross stood aside. "This is my daughter, Ann," he said.

I'm afraid John and I goggled a little. She was entirely different from the girls we had met in town, something entirely new in our experience. The old chap grinned at us, rather pleased with the impression his daughter was making.

I think both John and I fell for her at that moment, but strangely enough, we never discussed Ann together.

There began a brother and sister sort of friendship between the three of us. To the casual observer, Ann showed favour to neither, yet to my jealous mind, she seemed to prefer John. And yet . . . But it's no use wondering, because now I'll probably never know.

Then the war came.

John and I were in the fight early, embarking for the Middle East in September 1940. We did the first desert campaign together, then the trip to Greece. I brought a sound skin (and little else) out of Greece, but John caught a bit of shrap in the arm.

So I came to write the first letter.

If I had been anything but a witless fool, I would have written to her, but I refrained, from some silly idea that I was taking an advantage of John, who couldn't use his hand.

We were squatting in our tent, when John said, "Mate, I want you to write a letter for me."

"Who's the lucky one?" I asked lightly.

He looked out across the bare patch of Palestine that was Deir Suneid camp, and when he spoke his voice was strained. "Ann," he said.

I didn't say anything. I had known his answer before I had asked him, and I knew why he was writing. But he always was a step ahead of me.

John said awkwardly, "I'm going to ask her to marry me."

Luckily he didn't look at me as he spoke, because he could have read the truth written plainly on my face. There was a moment's silence, and then I said, in a voice that surprised me because it sounded so matter of fact, "O.K., old son, let's get at it, and-the best of luck."

Of course she accepted him, and they were married when we came back from the Middle East. I was best man.

Now I'm trying to write the second letter, and again it's because of John. He was killed not a week ago up here in the jungle.

I saw him just before he died, a long way from this hospital, and he said to me just before he died, "Write to her for me, mate."

Naturally, I'll do as he asked, though I don't feel much like it, not yet anyway. But in this game you can't let sorrow for a good comrade stay with you too long, not even when he was your best pal. So many die . . .

One time I thought there might be a third letter, but, somehow, I don't think there ever will be. No, there will never be a third letter.

R. T. DAVIE, Second A.I.F.

A DREAM COMES TRUE

LOCATED on the outskirts of the village of Wolfsberg, in the south-eastern corner of Austria, was Stalag 18A.

Nestling in the valley of the river Lavant and at the foot of the towering, snow-clad Koralpe, Wolfsberg seemed more like a picture from the pages of Grimm's fairy tales than a real-life village. Cobbled streets, quaint gabled houses painted in the most impossible colours, and the romantic old castle with its battlements and towers completed the illusion.

The prisoners of war in the Stalag, however, were mostly unimpressed by the charming scenery. They gazed through the wire at the steep slopes of the Koralpe and saw instead the yachts on Sydney harbour, or the garish interior of a cafe' in Montmartre, or perhaps some humble farmhouse on the banks of the Dnieper.

Imagination was their greatest asset, day-dreaming their most pleasant diversion. Some dreamed of escape. Some attempted it. And a lucky handful -the writer among them- were fortunate enough to succeed.

Our early escapes were haphazard and unplanned, and of course doomed to failure from the outset. However, experience of a practical nature was essential and each attempt something new. Private George Rushton, A.I.F., with whom I finally succeeded in getting out of Europe, probably set a record with no fewer than thirteen attempts to his credit.

One of the first lessons learned by those at Wolfsberg who took escaping seriously, was the futility of breaking away in large parties. I was one of a group of twenty-four British prisoners who escaped from a punishment camp at a place called Gross Veitch, late in 1941. Although the party was divided into separate groups of two or three men immediately we were clear of the camp, all twenty-four of us were recaptured within four or five days, and none had covered more than twenty miles.

Two companies of German troops and a Fieseler-Storch spotting plane were called out to round us up; such a large number of men escaping at once had apparently caused the Germans to panic, as we subsequently discovered that, if only one or two got away at a time, there would be practically no hue and cry raised at all.

Another lesson brought home to us on this occasion was that it was much better to be sure of being able to cover the first five miles to freedom than to be armed with much elaborate and useless information about how to cross the Turkish border -or any other border- fifteen hundred miles away!

Early in the war, escaping from Germany was a pretty hopeless proposition; from Austria even more so. Hungary was looked upon by prisoners as being the one friendly spot in Nazi-dominated Europe. Rushton and I, having heard of ex-prisoners from Germany living like princes in Hungarian internment camps, decided to try to reach Hungary and see for ourselves.

We escaped from a working camp near the Austrian city of Graz, and, after four days of very tough going, succeeded in crossing the border. Our only food on the trip consisted of a rooster which we stole from a lonely barnyard and ate somewhat less than half-cooked. About twenty miles inside Hungary we were arrested by some of the local police, who promptly placed us under lock and key. They paid no attention whatever to our claim that we should be interned; after two days in gaol we were unceremoniously bundled over the border and handed back to our erstwhile hosts, the Germans. This disappointing little interlude cured us completely of our curiosity about the alleged hospitality of the Hungarians.

In the middle of 194z persistent rumours about guerilla bands in Yugoslavia began to circulate.
There was no doubt that the "Banditten", as the Germans called them, were becoming increasingly active.

Trains were being derailed, German outposts attacked. We even heard of pitched battles being fought in Montenegro and Dalmatia.

Rushton suggested going into Yugoslavia on a sort of reconnaissance - not seriously attempting to escape; merely checking up on the story that the Yugoslavs were favourably disposed towards us, and gathering data for a more "fair dinkum" attempt later on. We tried the idea out, but didn't learn very much;, because we were recaptured while still on the wrong side of the Yugoslav border. We were held by the local police for a couple of days; when a military guard eventually came to collect us, we naturally expected to be escorted back to the Stalag. He told us, however, that our destination was a village called Landeck, in the Tyrol, about two hundred miles away.

Landeck was the headquarters of a German Intelligence unit, whose duty it was to question escaped prisoners of war, and collect what information they could. We were told that in future all escapees would be brought there for interrogation. The Germans were obviously perturbed about prisoners trying to contact the Yugoslavs and seemed obsessed with the idea that we had some kind of secret communication with the "Banditten".

The discipline at Landeck was harsh. The treatment was calculated to break a man's morale and dissuade him from further attempts to escape. Each man was placed in solitary confinement in a tiny cell, which was in darkness twenty-four hours a day; the food was just enough to keep body and soul together. Rushton and I were held at Landeck only five days on this first occasion, but were more relieved than either of us cared to admit when we were sent back to Wolfsberg.

There was one aspect of Landeck, however, which was positively fascinating. It was less than twenty miles from the Swiss frontier! The obvious thing to do, said the irrepressible Rushton, was to escape again, get caught before our condition gave out, let the Germans oblige us by taking us to Landeck, then break out and head for Switzerland!

Accordingly, the next time we were escorted to Landeck we made every effort to discover a way of escaping from the place; but, before we could make any attempt, an event occurred which caused us completely to lose interest in Switzerland and the almost impassable Alps which formed the frontier. A Frenchman, who had escaped from Landeck ten days previously, was brought in, he had been found by a German ski patrol. He was taken straight to the camp hospital, where he had both his feet amputated. The effects of frostbite are ghastly and we had no wish to share his fate.

By Christmas 1943 Rushton and I were beginning to realize that our escaping technique was still too haphazard. He had escaped twelve times; my total also had reached double figures; we had each done something more than two hundred days' bread and water by way of punishment; and although we had seen a lot of Europe - including the Danube when we were being sent back to Vienna after a crazy trip to Budapest as stowaways on a Crimea-bound ammunition barge - we were still a long way from freedom.

We decided to profit by our previous experience, and make one last, wholly serious attempt to get away. Months of preparation were necessary. Maps, compass, cigarettes and soap had to be collected; a couple of packets of smokes or a cake of toilet soap could be relied on to perform miracles of bribery in countries where the things that we ordinarily look upon as the bare necessities of life were either fabulous luxuries or altogether nonexistent.

By the beginning of July 1944 everything was ready. We had managed to get ourselves sent to a working camp in the Wetzeldorf area of the city Graz, which is about fifty miles from the border of Yugoslavia. Large scale German Army maps - were readily obtainable for a few packets of coffee, and an American airman gave us a handy little compass no larger than a sixpenny piece.

We decided that civilian clothing would be more of a hindrance otherwise because if one was in uniform the chances of being questioned were much less if one posed as a civilian. Prisoners of war were not expected to carry any identity papers and the Germans, with their native logic, took for granted that if a prisoner were seen wandering about on his own, then he must have been given special permission to do so, because otherwise it was "verboten"!

The great majority of them, if they saw a prisoner openly and brazenly disobeying any of the myriad rules and regulations that had been framed for his special benefit, simply could not believe their own eyes and any old excuse in the world would convince them that what was doing was within the law-provided ..the tale was told confidently and without hesitation. As a general rule the more impudent and risky an escaping plan was, the better chance it had of success. And Rushton and I had wasted three precious years before this bit of elementary psychology dawned on us!

Our plan was to get into Yugoslavia, reach the Dalmatian coast, and then somehow get across the Adriatic to that part of Italy which lay behind the Allied lines.

July is, of course, midsummer in Europe. The weather was perfect, our preparations complete and as soon as another air raid occurred we planned to slip through the wire in the resultant blackout and confusion.

When the air-raid alarm sounded, the Germans used to call out all the available guards, who would patrol inside and outside the wire with Alsatian dogs.

However, we noticed that in the first three or four minutes of an alarm the chaos among the guards was so great that an elephant could have blundered through the fence unnoticed. The barbed wire was extensive, but we had cut it a few days earlier during an air raid and had joined the ends loosely with piano wire. So far it had remained undetected.

At about 8 p.m. on 16 July about eighty four-engined bombers came over, the local flak opened up with an intense and rowdy barrage, the alarm sounded somewhat belatedly, and all lights were blacked out.

Rushton and I headed for the wire like homing pigeons. Five minutes later we were heading for the outskirts of the city, looking just like what we were - two people in the middle of an air raid, and just about scared to death. But we had one consolation; the Germans were much too busy to pay any attention to anyone like us.

Our first objective was Puntigam, a village on the outskirts of Graz. In it was a working camp for French prisoners who were employed in the local brewery helping to make the famous Puntigramer Bier. Close to the camp was a punishment block, where prisoners of all nationalities were sent when they fell foul of the law. Rushton and I were familiar with the place, having completed numerous "stretches" there.

The punishment block was outside the wire of the main camp and was usually guarded by only one sentry, who spent most of the night reading or dozing in the guardroom. The guards were very careful about preventing their charges from breaking out - the cell doors were secured by massive iron bars and locks - but never dreamed of anyone breaking in! Rushton and I had noticed on previous occasions that two bicycles were parked on the front porch of the building. And as it is easier to ride than to walk, we had decided to steal them.

Arriving in Puntigam about 11 p.m. we lost no time in reconnoitering the gaol. No guards were on duty outside. We removed our boots on the river bank, about one hundred yards from the building because their crunching on the gravel would have given us away. Tiptoeing on to the porch, we each picked up a bike and carried it down the steps. When we tried to wheel our booty away, however, we made a most unwelcome discovery. The back wheels were padlocked!

We lost no time in getting the bikes down to the river bank, and smashed both the locks, causing some casualties among the spokes and making enough noise to wake the dead.

As we rode away we saw a torch moving about near the front of the gaol, and from the agitated way it was flashing first one way and then the other, we concluded that the person holding it was rather excited, to say the least.

At dawn we had reached the town of Marburg, on the River Drau. The Yugoslavs would call it Maribor on the Drava, but I give the German version because it was more familiar to us. The Drau formed the border between Yugoslavia and Austria, prior to 1941, and at Marburg is about two hundred yards wide. It was too late to cross the river so we concealed ourselves and our cycles in a pine forest and went to sleep.

We soon discovered that we could not cross the bridge at Marburg. The approaches were heavily guarded and, as we had no identity papers, we could not hope to bluff our way across. Our maps showed numerous ferry crossings in the vicinity. These ferries were flat-bottomed punts, hauled across the river by means of ropes. However, as a measure, these were also guarded.

After a few days of fruitless sneaking about, poking and prying, we realized that the river would prove a very tough proposition. Our supply of food had practically run out, so we decided to ride to a small working camp at a place called Waldenstein and try to contact some friends there. The men at Waldenstein were employed on forestry work, so it was not difficult to make contact during the day. After getting over their surprise at seeing us. they provided us with two packs full of tinned food, chocolate, etc., and we headed once more in the direction of the Drau. We reached the river at the town of Volkermarkt, but once again the bridges proved to be guarded.

Not far from Volkermarkt my bike had a puncture. As we had no repair kit, there was not much we could do about it. So we dumped both machines in the river.

By this time we began to realize that the only way across the river was to swim it. And as the nearest place where a poor swimmer like myself could hope to succeed was about one hundred miles up the river, there was nothing for it but to walk there. All went well until we came to a place called St Jakob. We were walking through the village about 9 p.m., usually the best time because it is too early to arouse suspicion. About a hundred yards ahead of us we noticed an elderly man wearing a white armband, with a rifle over his shoulder. One of the Landwache, the German equivalent of the British Home Guard. Turning back would have been too obvious, so we walked straight on, trying our best to look casual.

As we drew level with him, he eyed us curiously, and asked: "Kriegsgefangener?"

"Yes," I replied, "French prisoners. Going back to camp."

He didn't appear at all suspicious; just a friendly old chap looking for someone to talk to. He asked: "Where do you work?" and I answered confidently: "At the sawmill up the road there", waving my hand in the general direction of nowhere at all. From the look on his face I knew I had made a major blunder. Sawmills are as common as haystacks in Austria; and yet we were in a locality where there wasn't one.

Ten minutes later we were in the local police station, trying to explain to the two village policemen just why two prisoners of war were wandering around the country with packs full of cigarettes and soap and other negotiable securities, not to mention a couple of Army maps.

Less than half an hour after meeting our Landwache captor, we were in a cell, cigarettes, maps and all. The policemen had decided to deal with us in the morning. The cell was a makeshift affair-part of an old disused bam. The walls were concreted and the barred window impassable, but the ancient wooden door held interesting possibilities. It was supposed to be secured from the outside by two heavy iron bars. The top one was securely in place; but as we had noticed on the way in, the bottom one was missing. Experiment showed that the door could be forced open a few inches at the bottom.

Taking a small tin of salmon from one of our packs, we forced the door slightly open with our feet and used the tin as a wedge to keep it from closing. Each time we applied pressure to the door, we forced the tin a little higher between the door and the jamb. After a lot of feverish effort, we had the bottom of the door forced open about nine inches. This operation was not without its excitement, as we had no way of telling if the cell was guarded from the outside and any moment we expected to see either a policeman or one of the Landwache come round on a tour of inspection.

Rushton was the first to attempt to wriggle through the gap, which he did after much grunting and picturesque cursing. I passed our packs out and then attempted to get out myself. I am much taller than Rushton, and had many anxious moments before I was free. We tiptoed out of the building and walked along under the shadow of a wall until we came to a corner. Rushton went round the comer first and just as I came to it I heard a voice start to say something, in German, then the unmistakable sound of a heavy blow - then silence, complete and uncanny. Dashing round the comer, I was relieved to see my friend standing up, gazing at something lying at his feet.

"I've just king-hit that old Landwache ---" he said. "We'll have to get out of the district. Very smartly too!" One look at our erstwhile captor was enough to convince me that Joe Louis couldn't have done a better job of king hitting.

As St Jakob was only a few miles from the Drau, we decided to make for the river and make any sort of hair-brained attempt to cross it, as the police were bound to organize a search for us as soon as we were missed. We reached the river near the village of Pregg. From where we were we could see the bridge -and we could also see a sandbagged defence post at either end of it. There was only one thing to do and that was to swim across. However, as it was nearly dawn and we were not sure of what to expect on the other side, we chose the lesser of two evils and hid in the bushes on the river bank, hoping to remain concealed until nightfall. The police search could not have been too intensive, as no one came near us all day.

About seven o'clock we decided it was late enough to make the attempt. The river was at least a hundred yards wide at this point, so we had to abandon all our food and equipment. We ate a really solid meal before taking to the water, Rushton remarking that we didn't know where the next one was coming from, and that in any case he much preferred to drown on a full stomach!

There was nothing sensational about the crossing. We tied our boots together, suspended from our necks, and entered the water a couple of hundred yards above a sharp bend, so that the current was a great help to us.

Mercifully the river was free from snags. My wrist-watch, however, nearly caused me to suffocate-I had wrapped it in my handkerchief and put it in my mouth to keep it dry. I didn't realize the stupidity of this until I was in midstream.

Safe on the far side of the never, our course was obvious to us. The massive Steiner Alps were about ten miles to the south and only open farmland lay in between them and the Drau. This formidable mountain range was almost solid stone, as its name implies, and with the exception of one or two small valleys was uninhabited.

By sunrise we had climbed to a good height, and stopped to take stock of our surroundings. We made a fire by scraping a razor blade on the flint from a cigarette lighter and igniting shavings from the celluloid handle of a toothbrush; we then set about drying out our spare socks, etc.

After holding a sort of council of war we decided to walk all day and try to find a farmhouse in the evening, where we could beg, borrow, or steal some food. Having crossed the Drau, we were now in Yugoslav territory and hoped to find that people would help us. At the first farmhouse we came to he people eyed us curiously but gave us the food we asked for. They knew sufficient of the German language - no English of course - to understand us.

What struck us most about the Yugoslavs, not only on this trip but on previous occasions, was their complete lack of interest in us. They were quite generous with food, but only, it seemed, because they wanted to see us on our way. In a country which has for centuries seen foreign invaders, civil war, famine, endless bloodshed and strife, both political and religious, this apathy was understandable. If we had told the people that we had come from the moon, I don't think they would have been surprised.

For nearly a month we made slow but steady progress southwards, begging our way from farmhouse to farmhouse, keeping always to the mountains. Occasionally we heard news of the Partisans, but not until we were about thirty miles from the Adriatic port of Fiume did we contact them. And then in the most surprising manner.

We were sitting in the kitchen of a remote farmhouse, eating a meal of watery spaghetti and potatoes and thinking wistfully of the Army food we used to despise. Suddenly the door opened and in walked a girl. She was wearing a British military uniform, a grey Yugoslav forage cap, and a German leather belt with "Gott mitt uns" on the buckle. There were two things about her that we noticed immediately - the red star on her forage cap and the grenades hooked on to her belt. Then we noticed that she was young and very pretty.

"Englander?" she asked. We glanced at each other and then Rushton said: "No, Australians." Apparently she didn't appreciate the difference, for she shrugged her shoulders, waited until we had finished eating, then told us to follow her - which we did, not at all reluctantly.

The girl took us to the headquarters of the band to which she belonged. They seemed to us a most disreputable lot of cut-throats and we were very glad of the fact that they were on the side of the Allies. We stayed with this bunch for a couple of weeks. They were everlastingly on the move, seeming to delight in scaling the most impossible mountains, eating and sleeping where and when the opportunity offered. And all this hardship for no apparent reason as, although they were armed to the teeth, the last thing they seemed to desire was to run into any of the German troops in the vicinity.

We had misjudged the Partisans, however. We were to learn later that they were most courageous, if somewhat unskillful, fighters. By unskillful I mean hot-headed and impatient.

One day we were told that we would be in the mountains near Lubliana, the headquarters of the local formation of Partisans. It took us nearly a month to get there. The town was in more or less liberated territory. Our guides took us to a building which formerly had been a German battalion's headquarters and paraded us before Partisan "General" Janitch.

As a result of our interview with this officer we left the building half an hour later half-full of captured German schnapps, with the rank "Instructors" in the Third Battalion of Third Brigade, in the Fourth Operational ne of the Yugoslav Partisan Army of Liberation! Whom we were supposed to "instruct" and in what, nobody seemed to know, but they all called us "Comrade Instructor" d were quite friendly. General Janitch, incidentally, was the first Partisan we had met who could speak intelligible English.

Of my experience as a soldier of Marshal Tito, I have an impression only of lice, hunger, cold and heart-breaking forced marches. Of course there was some fighting. Not pitched battles, but merciless, cold-blooded and ruthless ambushes. No prisoners were ever taken and every time I saw the butchery of men who had thrown down their arms and surrendered in good faith, I thought of an occasion on Crete when the German parachutists had just captured us gave us cigarettes and our first decent meal for a week. The ought was disturbing, to say the least of it and did nothing to increase my respect for the partisans.

Early in October we heard a rumour that a British Intelligence officer was in the vicinity. He was said to be located in a village called Semic, and we asked permission to go and see him. His name, we were told, was Captain Saggers; he was a member of Major Randolph Churchill's Military Mission. The information as correct, as we discovered when we met him on 13 October.

Captain Saggers told us that he was busy getting together a party of British and American airmen who had been shot down over Yugoslavia and survivors of the Greek campaign of three years before who had somehow evaded capture, as well as assorted Dutch, French, Greek and Russian refugees. They were camped near a temporary airstrip from which they were to be flown to Bari, in Italy. He took us to the farmhouse where the motley collection of adventurers from all over Europe was quartered, and invited us to join them - which we did with alacrity.

That same night two C47's of the newly formed Balkan Air Force landed and, with the most profound feeling of home-sickness I have ever experienced, I saw twenty-four of the party flown to freedom. The next day it rained. The rain lasted a fortnight, the airstrip was flooded and had to be abandoned. Major Churchill arrived and told us that we would have to march to the Adriatic coast. Trucks, he told us, would be provided for some of the distance.

The trip to the coast was uneventful, as we were getting deeper into Partisan-held territory all the time. We reached the port of Zara on 18 November 1944. At the sight of the British anti-aircraft cruiser Colombo anchored in the debris-strewn harbour we did not raise a cheer, as might be imagined. We were too full of emotion and there was not a man in the party who did not say: "Thank God" and mean it. On the cruiser we tasted white bread for the first time since June 194 1. Two days later we were aboard a motor torpedo boat, heading across the Adriatic for the Italian port of Ancona, a hundred miles away.

On 22 November, a dream came true. I went to the military post office in Naples and sent a cable to my father - a cable I had been waiting three and a half years to send. It read: "Safe and well. Escaped from Germany. Letter following." Filling in the form felt like writing myself a cheque for a million pounds.

E. H. GIESEN, Second A.I.F.

RENEGADE

THE silence of 3 a.m. was broken by the squeak of a new pair of boots. Squeak! Squeak! Two figures, one six feet or more and built to proportion, and the other, five feet nothing, were momentarily silhouetted against the distant headlights. Stranded in the wilds of Melbourne's outer suburbs and far from their natural environment were Able Seamen Woods and MacKay of His Majesty's Australian Ship Reverse. They plodded down the road in gloomy silence, except for the steady squeak, squeak of Mac's new boots. Their thoughts were bitter; thoughts best enjoyed alone.

Big Mac broke the silence. "Fair dinkum, Splinter, me dogs are killing me. Let's squat somewhere for a while, huh?"

"Keep on going, mate. We're heading in the right direction; we're bound to find an all-night bus sooner or later."

Squeak, squeak, squeak went the boots. Mac, in his usual stolid and uncomplaining fashion, suffered silently.

The Reverse had come to Port Melbourne on a goodwill visit and the entire Red and White watches of the ship's company had dashed ashore to lay Melbourne Town by the ears. Splinter and Mac had been to all the usual haunts and had done the usual things till they wound up in a city dance-hall.

It was there that Florry and Lil entered their lives. The four of them stayed till the last dance and gallantly the two A.Bs offered to see their newly-acquired girl friends safely home. After several vanilla malteds apiece, they caught the last train and rattled way out to the mulga.

But Florry and Lil were good girls who said prim good nights at the front gate and then vanished through a stout front door and out of this story. When they discovered from a passing milkman that the last train back to the Big Smoke had long since left, the two matelots cursed all women, soundly and roundly, before starting the trek back.

There they were - Splinter thinking bitter thoughts but keeping a weather-eye open for an "all-nighter" and Mac suffering agonies from the new boots. The pale glow from a street-lamp revealed a small park with barbered lawns and neat shrubs. They both stopped.

"Looks all right," announced Splinter. "We'll drop the old pick here awhile."

Mac made for the lawns at a painful run and was already seated and unlacing his boots when Splinter arrived. He tested the clipped grass experimentally.

"Comfortable and very springy. Let's get our heads down here for a spell."

"Uhuh!" With a deep sigh of relief Mac drew off his other boot and passed gently into a state of unconsciousness. Splinter curled up more gracefully and sailed with a following breeze after his mate into the land of sailormen's dreams.

Now, perhaps you don't know that, when sleeping in a public park without adequate covering, round about 4 a.m. it gets suddenly and awfully cold. It does ! Splinter woke, shivering violently. He looked at the huge bulk of his faithful disciple who slumbered blissfully on; he crawled on all fours across the few feet of lawn and knelt over him.

"Mac! Wake up, Mac! Wake up, you spine bashing walrus." Mac groaned happily in his sleep, but didn't move a hair.

"All right sailor, caught you in the act." It was a new voice on the ether, deep and authoritative. Splinter, surprised, looked up to see the village policeman out on his rounds. The newcomer spoke again, slowly and disbelievingly.

"1've seen some rum things in my time, but never one like this. Fancy a little bloke like you knocking your mate down just to pinch his boots."

Splinter stared in utter amazement. He was speechless for a moment and then the words came in a torrent.

"Now look here mate, you've got the bull by the tail--"

"Don't argue, son," said the constable. "Didn't I see you with my own eyes going through your mate's pockets after you had taken his boots off? What a rotten thing! And you an Australian sailor too. I never thought I'd see the day! " The policeman shook his head sorrowfully.

Splinter grew alarmed. "Look, feller, he's my mate, see. We've just seen a couple of girls home and we got tired, see. We sat down here for a spell and my mate took his boots off because they hurt, see. We both went to sleep and I woke up because it was cold, see. I was just about to tell my mate I was shifting camp out of the breeze, see."

The arm of the local law looked thoughtful. "O.K. son. Wake him up and we'll check your story."

Splinter turned again to the sleeping Mac and shook him hard.

"Hey, wake up, you drip. Mac, please wake up. Hey, Mac, there's a John Hop here." Mac moaned softly but didn't move. He was forty fathoms under and determined to stay there.

"Righto son," said the policeman grimly. "Come along with me. I'll send an ambulance back for this fellow."

"Wait a minute," protested Able Seaman Woods. "What charge are you taking me in on? "

The cop ruminated a moment. "Well I guess assault and robbery with violence will do for a start, and maybe resisting arrest, but I don't think you will."

Splinter looked at the muscular proportions of the constable and shook his head bitterly.

"No, I don't think I will."

Turning, he grabbed the slumbering Mac and shook him despairingly.

"Mac, you hideous-headed goon, wake up. I'm going to be arrested, you drip. Please wake up!" But the "victim" slumbered on.

"He's unconscious all right. Come on, son, and don't try anything funny either. You're in the cooler for the rest of the night." The policeman took a firm hold of Splinter's shoulder and they moved off, the little chap looking back beseechingly at Mac.

Half an hour later an ambulance pulled up with a screech of brakes. Two attendants with a stretcher dashed over to the spot in the park, but their quarry was gone. Puzzled, they searched the park thoroughly, but there was no sign of the "injured" sailor.

A quarter of a mile down the road Mac, carrying his new boots, was plodding along slowly. He shook his head sadly as he said over and over again,

"Well, how's that for a mate? I wake up and there's no sign of him. He'd just sneaked away without telling me - just like a thief in the night!"

G. WARWICK WAYE, R.A.N.

CONQUEST AT CANUNGRA

RE-CREATING all the hardships of the Kokoda Trail and Shaggy Ridge and adding a few malicious touches of their own, the A.I.F. at Canungra, Queensland, put some RAAFers through the trial-by-ordeal and prepared to laugh.

On the other hand, we of the R.A.A.F. prepared to shed tears of blood.

Neither happened - but we both came close. Here is the story.

Early in 1945 the R.A.A.F., by arrangement with the Army, began sending all aerodrome defence officers and instructors, and security guards to Canungra to do the notorious jungle warfare course.

Planned to train them in the skilled technique of jungle fighting and to fit them for the discomforts of living where they stopped, the six weeks' course had to be completed by all Army reinforcements going north.

The course lasted about six weeks. How long the man could last was an individual problem.

The rules were tough. It was said you left Canungra one of two ways -in a tender, after completing the course, or on a stretcher. If man dropped out for some reason, he began another course when he was fit again. Some men had four tries before they "made it".

This much we "blue orchids" discovered when we marched to our lines in "N" for "Nuts" Company, 3 Battalion. As we passed watching soldiers I could see their curious and critical expressions. Those blokes'll wish they had wings before they're finished, they seemed to be thinking. If that were so, they were right. But we never admitted it.

Except for three soldiers "Having another crack at it", our platoon was all R.A.A.F., consisting of five A.D.Os and sixteen A.D.Is. Our platoon commander was a brand new "loot", veteran of the Middle East and New Guinea - and keen.

We rose at 6 a.m. in teeth-chattering cold and, clad in a motley assortment of clothing, were taken by the lieutenant on a ten-minute "pipe-opener" up a steep track. Then we washed, shaved, breakfasted on good, plain Army fare, and prepared for the inevitable parade.

First came tent inspection . . . "remove that match . . . the lamp needs cleaning . . . straighten that boot . . . that pack should be more square" and so on.

"Turn out, Two Platoon!" That was the summons; to jog-trot on parade, clipping on equipment and blowing invisible dust off rifles which had just had half an hour of hypercritical coddling.

Personal *inspection for neatness of turnout then took place. With traditional Army exactitude the lieutenant seemed to be counting the fibres in your clothing. A complementary scrutiny from behind felt as though a razor blade was scraping your spine.

"For inspection, port arms!" The agony of it - holding the rifle till your arms creaked and hearing the sharp criticism -"dirty gas escape hole" - even though you had worn out three pipe cleaners on the thing.

These inspections often lasted for an hour.

Drill with a difference followed. We drilled the Army way with the short halt given on the right foot and almost pitching us on our faces and an introduction to such unusual (to us) commands as "By the right, change direction right, right wheel"-all given together for one movement.

Interspersed with lectures on hygiene, compass marching, tropical diseases, tree-climbing, rope-tying, bush cooking, tropical plants (edible and poisonous), Jap and U.S. equipment and other subjects, we eventually began route marches.

The first was a two-hour night march. This was stepped up to a four-hour day stroll followed by eight, twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six hour treks and, finally, an eight-day ordeal. In between, we did ten-mile hikes to keep in form.

We worked six days and five nights each week. On the two free nights you could go to the movies - if you didn't mind walking a couple of miles.

As the course proceeded, the hardship and the weight carried increased. Soon we were carrying a 46-pound pack on our backs, a roll, water-bottle, basic pouches jammed with bully beef, a bayonet on the left side of your body and a machete on the right. If you didn't carry a rifle or an Austen sub-machine gun, you staggered under a 23-pound Bren gun.

For all time the names Tamborine and Darlington are seared into the soles of the feet of many men. The two mountains rear nearly 2,000 feet into the sky. We climbed them via tracks which for sheer steepness would have accelerated the death of any mountain nanny goat.

Sometimes we had to hack our way with machetes through the dense, sub-tropical undergrowth and progress was exasperatingly slow. We forded and boulder-hopped creeks as many as nineteen times In one day!

On a memorable afternoon we were faced with crossing a fairly wide river by traversing tall, dead tree which made a natural bridge. As our boots were heavily studded and the tree was smooth, movement was tricky. We all made it-except one. He teetered, steadied himself, teetered again, steadied, waved his arms wildly and, amidst derisive cheers, disappeared with a mighty splash. He never lived down that impromptu dive. On our overnight hikes we had to make our own bush beds from pliable boughs mattressed with leaves. As our covering was a blanket and two ground sheets we were rarely warm. Fatigue, however, kept us asleep.

As the course neared its end, several of us began to show signs of wear. Somehow, we stuck it out. We began charging over the assault course night and day, making six different types of river crossings with full equipment and jumping eighteen feet into the river immediately afterwards. Under a hail of Bren and mortar fire we stalked over the "Blood'n Guts" course. We shot from tree-tops and fired Owen guns at suddenly appearing Jap faces painted on tin.

Although our beds at camp were wooden slats-no mattresses of course-we slept unbrokenly. How we slept!

Our eight-day route march took us into the Queensland National Park and close to the guest-house operated by Bernard O'Reilly, who found the lost Stinson some years ago. After eating over twenty consecutive meals of bully beef and covering about a hundred miles of rugged country, we tottered back to camp-and surcease from "hoof-pounding".

The Army was there to see us go. Although their approbation was unvoiced, it was obvious.

We'd conquered Canungra - but only just.

LEICESTER WARBURTON, RAAF.